Guizot, Lamartine, and BÉranger — Public opinion at sea with regard to the real Guizot — People fail to see the real man behind the politician — Guizot regrets this false conception — "I have not the courage to be unpopular" — A tilt at Thiers — My first meeting with him — A picture and the story connected with it — M. Guizot "at home" — His apartment — The company — M. Guizot on "the Spanish marriages" — His indictment against Lord Palmerston — An incident in connection with NapolÉon's tomb at the Invalides — Nicolas I. and NapolÉon — My subsequent intimacy with M. Guizot — Guizot as a father — His correspondence with his daughters — A story of Henry MÜrger and Marguerite Thuillier — M. Guizot makes up his mind not to live in Paris any longer — M. Guizot on "natural scenery" — Never saw the sea until he was over fifty — Why M. Guizot did not like the country; why M. Thiers did not like it — Thiers the only man at whom Guizot tilted — M. Guizot died poor — M. de Lamartine's poverty did not inspire the same respect — Lamartine's impecuniosity — My only visit to Lamartine's house — Du Jellaby dorÉ — With a difference — All the stories and anecdotes about M. de Lamartine relate to his improvidence and impecuniosity — Ten times worse in that respect than Balzac — M. Guizot's literary productions and M. de Lamartine's — The national subscription raised for the latter — How he anticipates some of the money — BÉranger — My first acquaintance with him — BÉranger's verdict on the Second Republic — BÉranger's constant flittings — Dislikes popularity — The true story of BÉranger and Mdlle. Judith FrÈre.

That sentence of Louis-Philippe to Lord ——, quoted elsewhere: "Guizot is so terribly respectable; I am afraid there is a mistake either about his nationality or his respectability, for they are badly matched," reflected the opinion of the majority of Frenchmen with regard to the eminent statesman. The historian who was supposed to know Cromwell and Washington as well as if he had lived with them, was credited at last with being a stern rigid Puritan in private life like the first, impatient of contradiction like the second—in short, a kind of walking copy-book moral, who never unbent, whose slightest actions were intended by him to convey a lesson to the rest of mankind. Unable to devote much time to her during the week, Guizot was in the habit of taking his mother for a stroll in the Park of St. Cloud on Sundays. The French, who are never tired of shouting, "Oh, ma mÈre! oh, ma mÈre!" resented such small attentions on the part of the son, because, they maintained, they were meant as exhibitions. Even such a philosopher as Ernest Renan failed to see that there were two dissimilar men in Guizot, the Guizot of public life and the Guizot of home life; that, behind the imperious, haughty, battlesome orator of the Chamber, with his almost marble mask, there was a tender and loving heart, capable of the most deep-seated devotion; that the cares of State once thrown off, the supercilious stare melted like ice beneath the sun of spring into a prepossessing smile, captivating every one with whom he came in contact.

Guizot regretted this erroneous conception the world had formed of his character. "But what can I do?" he asked. "In reality, I haven't the courage to be unpopular any more than other people; but neither have I the courage to prance about in my own drawing-room as if I were on wires"—this was a slight slap at M. Thiers,—"nor can I write on subjects with which I have no sympathy"—that was a second,—"and I should cut but a sorry figure on horseback"—that was a third;—"consequently people who, I am sure, wish me well, but who will not come and see me at home, hold me up as a misanthrope, while I know that I am nothing of the kind."

With this he took from his table an article by M. Renan on the first volume of his "MÉmoires," an article couched in the most flattering terms, but giving the most conventional portrait of the author himself. "Why doesn't he come and see me? He would soon find that I am not the solitary, tragic, buckram figure that has already become legendary, and which, like most legendary figures, is absolutely false."

This conversation—or rather monologue, for I was careful not to interrupt him—took place in the early part of the Second Empire, in the house in the Rue de la Ville-LevÊque he occupied for five and twenty years, and until 1860. The Coup d'État had irretrievably shattered Guizot's political career. It had destroyed whatever hopes may have remained after the flight of Louis-Philippe. Consequently Guizot's proper place is among the men of that reign; the reason why I insert him here is because my acquaintance with him only began after his disappearance from public life.

It occurred in this way. One evening, after dinner at M. de Morny's, we were talking about pictures, and especially about those of the Spanish school, when our host turned to me. "Have you ever seen 'the Virgin' belonging to M. Guizot?" he asked. I told him I had not. "Then go and see it," he said. "It is one of the finest specimens of its kind I ever saw, I might say the finest." Next day I asked permission of M. Guizot to come and see it, and, almost by return of post, I received an invitation for the following Thursday night to one of his "at homes."

Until then I had never met M. Guizot, except at one of his ministerial soirÉes under the preceding dynasty. The apartment offered nothing very striking: the furniture was of the ordinary kind to be found in almost every bourgeois drawing-room, with this difference—that it was considerably shabbier; for Guizot was poor all his life. The man who had said to the nation, "Enrichissez vous, enrichissez vous," had never acted upon the advice himself. I know for a fact that, while he was in power, he was asked to appoint to the post of receiver-general of the Gironde one of the richest financiers in France, who had expressed the intention to share the magnificent benefits of the appointment with him. M. Guizot simply and steadfastly refused to do anything of the kind.

On the evening in question, a lamp with a reflector was placed in front of the picture I had come to see, probably in my honour. M. de Morny had not exaggerated the beauty of it, but it bore no signature, and M. Guizot himself had no idea with regard to the painter. "There is a curious story connected with it," he said, "but I cannot tell it you now; come and see me one morning and I will. As an Englishman it will interest you; especially if you will take the trouble to read between the lines. I will tell you a few more, perhaps, but the one connected with the picture is 'la bonne bouche.'"

The company at M. Guizot's, on that and other occasions, mainly consisted of those who had been vanquished in the recent struggle with Louis-NapolÉon, or thought they had been; for a great many were mere word-spinners, who had been quite as vehement in their denunciations of the man they were now surrounding when he was in power, as they were in their diatribes against the man who, after all, saved France for eighteen years from anarchy, and did not indulge more freely in nepotism, peculation, and kindred amenities than those who came after him. But, at the outset of these notes, I took the resolution to eschew politics, and I will endeavour to keep it as far as possible.

As a matter of course, I soon availed myself of M. Guizot's permission to call upon him in the morning, and it was then that he told me the following story connected with the picture.

"After the Spanish marriages, Queen Isabella wished to convey to me a signal mark of her gratitude—for what, Heaven alone knows, because it is the only political transaction I would willingly efface from my career. So she conferred upon me the dukedom of San Antonio, and sent me the patent with a most affectionate letter. Honestly speaking, I was more than upset by this proof of royal kindness, seeing that I had not the least wish to accept the title. I felt equally reluctant to offend her by declining the high distinction offered, I felt sure, from a most generous feeling. I went to see the King, and explained my awkward position, adding that the name of Guizot was all sufficient for me. 'You are right,' said the King. 'Leave the matter to me; I'll arrange it.' And he did, much to the disgust of M. de Salvandy, who had received a title at the same time, but who could not accept his while the Prime Minister declined.

"Then she sent me this picture. Some witty journalist said, at the time, that it was symbolical of her own married state; for let me tell you that the unfitness of Don Francis d'Assis was 'le secret de polichinelle,' however much your countrymen may have insisted that it only leaked out after the union. Personally I was entirely opposed to it, and, in fact, it was not a ministerial question at all, but one of court intrigue. Lord Palmerston chose to make it the former, and he, and your countrymen through him, are not only morally but virtually responsible for the subsequent errors of Isabella. Do you know what his ultimatum was when the marriage had been contracted, when there was no possibility of going back? You do not. Well, then, I will tell you. 'If Isabella has not a child within a twelvemonth, then there will be war between England and France.' I leave you to ponder the consequences for yourself, though I assure you that I washed my hands of the affair from that moment. But the French as well as the English would never believe me, and history will record that 'the austere M. Guizot,' for that is what they choose to call me, 'lent his aid to proceedings which would make the most debased pander blush with shame.'

"It is not the only time that my intentions have been purposely misconceived and misconstrued; nay, I have been taxed with things of which I was as innocent as a child. In 1846, almost at the same period that the Spanish imbroglio took place, Count de Montalembert got up in the Upper House one day and declared it a disgrace that France should have begged the tomb of NapolÉon I. from Russia. Now, the fact was that France had not begged anything at all. The principal part of the monument at the Invalides is the sarcophagus. The architect Visconti was anxious that it should consist of red porphyry; M. DuchÂtel and myself were of the same opinion. Unfortunately, we had not the remotest notion where such red porphyry was to be found. The Egyptian quarries, whence the Romans took it, were exhausted. Inquiries were made in the Vosges, in the Pyrenees, but without result, and we were going to abandon the porphyry, when news arrived at the Ministry of the Interior that the kind of stone we wanted existed in Russia.

"Just then my colleague, M. de Salvandy, was sending M. LÉouzon le Duc to the north on a special mission, and I instructed him to go as far as St. Petersburg and consult Count de Rayneval, our ambassador, as to the best means of getting the porphyry. A few months later, M. le Duc sent me specimens of a stone from a quarry on the banks of the Onega Lake, which, if not absolutely porphyry, was the nearest to it to be had. M. Visconti having approved of it, I forwarded further instructions for the quantity required, and so forth.

"The quarry, it appears, belonged to the Crown, and had never been worked, could not be worked, without due permission and the payment of a certain tax. After a great many formalities, mainly raised by speculators who had got wind of the affair, and had bribed various officials to oppose, or, at any rate, intercept the petition sent by M. le Duc for the necessary authorization, Prince Wolkonsky, the Minister of State, acquainted the Czar himself with the affair, and Nicholas, without a moment's hesitation, granted the request, remitting the tax which M. le Duc had estimated at about six thousand francs. This took place at a cabinet council, and, unfortunately for me, the Czar thought fit to make a little speech. 'What a strange destiny!' he said, rising from his seat and assuming a solemn tone—'what a strange destiny this man's'—alluding to NapolÉon—'even in death! It is we who struck him the first fatal blow, by the burning of our holy and venerable capital, and it is from us that France asks his tomb. Let the French envoy have everything he requires, and, above all, let no tax be taken.' "That was enough; the German and French papers got hold of the last words with the rest; they confounded the tax with the cost of working, which amounted to more than two hundred thousand francs; and up to this day, notwithstanding the explanations I and my colleagues offered in reply to the interpellation of M. de Montalembert, the story remains that Russia made France a present of the tomb of NapolÉon."

From that day forth I often called upon M. Guizot, especially in the daytime, when I knew that he had finished working; for when he found that his political career was irrevocably at an end, he turned very cheerfully—I might say gladly—to his original avocation, literature. Without the slightest fatigue, without the slightest worry, he produced a volume of philosophical essays or history every year; and if, unlike Alexandre Dumas, he did not roar with laughter while composing, he was often heard to hum a tune. "En effet," said one of his daughters, the Countess Henriette de Witt (both his daughters bore the same name and titles when married), "notre pÈre ne chante presque jamais qu'en travaillant." This did not mean that work, and work only, had the effect of putting M. Guizot in good humour. He was, according to the same authority, uniformly sweet-tempered at home, whether sitting in his armchair, surrounded by his family, or gently strolling up and down his library. "C'est la politique qui le rendait mÉchant," said Madame de Witt, "heureusement il la laissait À la porte. Et trÈs souvent il l'oubliait de parti-pris au milieu du conseil et alors il nous Écrivait des lettres, mais des lettres, comme on n'en Écrit plus. En voilÀ deux qu'il m'a Écrites lorsque j'Étais trÈs jeune fille." Whereupon she showed me what were really two charming gossiping little essays on the art of punctuation. It appears that the little lady was either very indifferent to, or ignorant of the art; and the father wrote, "My dear Henriette, I am afraid I shall still have to take you to task with regard to your punctuation: there is little or none of it in your letters. All punctuation, commas or other signs, mark a period of repose for the mind—a stage more or less long—an idea which is done with or momentarily suspended, and which is being divided by such a sign from the next. You suppress those periods, those intervals; you write as the stream flows, as the arrow flies. That will not do at all, because the ideas one expresses, the things of which we speak, are not all intimately connected with one another like drops of water."

The second letter showed that Mdlle. Guizot must have taken her revenge, either very cleverly, or that she was past all redemption in the matter of punctuation; and as the latter theory is scarcely admissible, knowing what we do of her after-life, we must admit the former. The letter ran as follows:

"My Dear Henriette,

"I dare say you will find me very provoking, but let me beg of you not to fling so many commas at my head. You are absolutely pelting me with them, as the Romans pelted that poor Tarpeia with their bucklers."