  CHAPTER I. PAGE The Quartier-Latin in the late thirties — The difference between then and now — A caricature on the walls of Paris — I am anxious to be introduced to the quarter whence it emanated — I am taken to "La Childebert," and make the acquaintance of the original of the caricature — The story of Bouginier and his nose — Dantan as a caricaturist — He abandons that branch of art after he has made Madame Malibran burst into tears at the sight of her statuette — How Bouginier came to be immortalized on the faÇade of the Passage du Caire — One of the first co-operative societies in France — An artists' hive — The origin of "La Childebert" — Its tenants in my time — The proprietress — Madame Chanfort, the providence of poor painters — Her portraits sold after her death — High jinks at "La Childebert" — The Childebertians and their peacefully inclined neighbours — Gratuitous baths and compulsory douches at "La Childebert" — The proprietress is called upon to repair the roof — The Childebertians bivouac on the Place St. Germain-des-PrÉs — They start a "Society for the Conversion of the Mahometans" — The public subscribe liberally — What becomes of the subscriptions? — My visits to "La Childebert" breed a taste for the other amusements of the Quartier-Latin — Bobino and its entertainments — The audience — The manager — His stereotyped speech — The reply in chorus — Woe to the bourgeois-intruder — Stove-pipe hats a rarity in the Quartier-Latin — The dress of the collegians — Their mode of living — Suppers when money was flush, rolls and milk when it was not — A fortune-teller in the Rue de Tournon — Her prediction as to the future of JosÉphine de Beauharnais — The allowance to students in those days — The OdÉon deserted — Students' habits — The ChaumiÈre — Rural excursions — PÈre Bonvin's 1 CHAPTER II. My introduction to the celebrities of the day — The CafÉ de Paris — The old Prince Demidoff — The old man's mania — His sons — The furniture and attendance at the CafÉ de Paris — Its high prices — A mot of Alfred de Musset — The cuisine — A rebuke of the proprietor to Balzac — A version by one of his predecessors of the cause of Vatel's suicide — Some of the habituÉs — Their intercourse with the attendants — Their courteous behaviour towards one another — Le veau À la casserole — What Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas thought of it — A silhouette of Alfred de Musset — His brother Paul on his election as a member of the AcadÉmie — A silhouette of Balzac, between sunset and sunrise — A curious action against the publishers of an almanack — A CHAPTER III. Alexandre Dumas pÈre — Why he made himself particularly agreeable to Englishmen — His way of silencing people — The pursuit he loved best next to literature — He has the privilege of going down to the kitchens of the CafÉ de Paris — No one questions his literary genius, some question his culinary capacities — Dr. VÉron and his cordon-bleu — Dr. VÉron's reasons for dining out instead of at home — Dr. VÉron's friend, the philanthropist, who does not go to the theatre because he objects to be hurried with his emotions — Dr. VÉron, instigated by his cook, accuses Dumas of having collaborateurs in preparing his dishes as he was known to have collaborateurs in his literary work — Dumas' wrath — He invites us to a dinner which shall be wholly cooked by him in the presence of a delegate to be chosen by the guests — The lot falls upon me — Dr. VÉron and Sophie make the amende honorable — A dinner-party at VÉron's — A curious lawsuit in connection with Weber's "Freyschutz" — Nestor Roqueplan, who became the successor of the defendant in the case, suggests a way out of it — LÉon Pillet virtually adopts it and wins the day — A similar plan adopted years before by a fireman on duty at the opÉra, on being tried by court-martial for having fallen asleep during the performance of "Guido et GÉnevra" — Firemen not bad judges of plays and operas — They were often consulted both by Meyerbeer and Dumas — Dumas at work — How he idled his time away — Dumas causes the traffic receipts of the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest to swell during his three years' residence at Saint-Germain — M. de Montalivet advises Louis-Philippe to invite Dumas to Versailles, to see what his presence will do for the royal city — Louis-Philippe does not act upon the advice — The relations between Dumas and the d'OrlÉans family — After the Revolution of '48, Dumas becomes a candidate for parliament — The story of his canvass and his address to the electors at Joigny — Dumas' utter indifference to money matters — He casts his burdens upon others — Dumas and his creditors — Writs and distraints — How they are dealt with — Dumas' indiscriminate generosity — A dozen houses full of new furniture in half as many years — Dumas' frugality at table — Literary remuneration — Dumas and his son — "Leave me a hundred francs" 43 CHAPTER IV. Dr. Louis VÉron — The real man as distinguished from that of his own "Memoirs" — He takes the management of the Paris OpÉra — How it was governed before his advent — Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" underlined — Meyerbeer and his doubts upon the merits of his work — Meyerbeer's generosity — Meyerbeer and the beggars of the Rue Le Peletier — Dr. VÉron, the inventor of the modern newspaper puff — Some specimens of advertisements in their infancy — Dr. VÉron takes CHAPTER V. The Boulevards in the forties — The Chinese Baths — A favourite tobacconist of Alfred de Musset — The price of cigars — The diligence still the usual mode of travelling — Provincials in Paris — Parliamentary see-saw between M. Thiers and M. Guizot — Amenities of editors — An advocate of universal suffrage — Distribution of gratuitous sausages to the working man on the king's birthday — The rendezvous of actors in search of an engagement — FrÉdÉrick LemaÎtre on the eve of appearing in a new part — The Legitimists begin to leave their seclusion and to mingle with the bourgeoisie — Alexandre Dumas and Scribe — The latter's fertility as a playwright — The National Guards go shooting, in uniform and in companies, on the Plaine Saint-Denis — Vidocq's private inquiry office in the Rue Vivienne — No river-side resorts — The plaster elephant on the Place de la Bastille — The sentimental romances of LoÏsa Puget — The songs of the working classes — Cheap bread and wine — How they enjoyed themselves on Sundays and holidays — ThÉophile Gautier's pony-carriage — The hatred of the bourgeoisie — Nestor Roqueplan's expression of it — Gavarni's — M. Thiers' sister keeps a restaurant at the corner of the Rue Drouot — When he is in power, the members CHAPTER VI. Rachel and some of her fellow-actors — Rachel's true character — Her greediness and spitefulness — Her vanity and her wit — Her powers of fascination — The cost of being fascinated by her — Her manner of levying toll — Some of her victims, Comte DuchÂtel and Dr. VÉron — The story of her guitar — A little transaction between her and M. Fould — Her supposed charity and generosity — Ten tickets for a charity concert — How she made them into twenty — How she could have made them into a hundred — Baron Taylor puzzled — Her manner of giving presents — Beauvallet's precaution with regard to one of her gifts — Alexandre Dumas the younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his generation — Rachel as a raconteuse — The story of her dÉbut at the Gymnase — What Rachel would have been as an actor instead of an actress — Her comic genius — Rachel's mother — What became of Rachel's money — Mama FÉlix as a pawnbroker — Rachel's trinkets — Two curious bracelets — Her first appearance before Nicholas I. — A dramatic recital in the open air — Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe — Rachel and Samson — Her obligations to him — How she repays them — How she goes to Berryer to be coached in the fable of "The Two Pigeons" — An anecdote of Berryer — Rachel's fear of a "warm reception" on the first night of "Adrienne Lecouvreur" — How she averts the danger — Samson as a man and as an actor — Petticoat-revolts at the ComÉdie-FranÇaise — Samson and RÉgnier as buffers — Their different ways of pouring oil upon the troubled waters — Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy — A parallel between her and Sarah Bernhardt — Samson and RÉgnier's pride in their profession — The different character of that pride — "Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a looking-glass" — Samson gives a lesson in declamation to a procureur-impÉrial — The secret of RÉgnier's greatness as an actor — A lesson at the Conservatoire — RÉgnier on "make-up" — RÉgnier's opinion of genius on the stage — A mot of Augustine Brohan — Giovanni, the wigmaker of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise — His pride in his profession — M. Ancessy, the musical director, and his three wigs 128 Two composers, Auber and FÉlicien David — Auber, the legend of his youthful appearance — How it arose — His daily rides, his love of women's society — His mot on Mozart's "Don Juan" — The only drawback to Auber's enjoyment of women's society — His reluctance to take his hat off — How he managed to keep it on most of the time — His opinion upon Meyerbeer's and HalÉvy's genius — His opinion upon GÉrard de Nerval, who hanged himself with his hat on — His love of solitude — His fondness of Paris — His grievance against his mother for not having given him birth there — He refuses to leave Paris at the commencement of the siege — His small appetite — He proposes to write a new opera when the Prussians are gone — Auber suffers no privations, but has difficulty in finding fodder for his horse — The Parisians claim it for food — Another legend about Auber's independence of sleep — How and where he generally slept — Why Auber snored in VÉron's company, and why he did not in that of other people — His capacity for work — Auber a brilliant talker — Auber's gratitude to the artists who interpreted his work, but different from Meyerbeer's — The reason why, according to Auber — Jealousy or humility — Auber and the younger Coquelin — "The verdict on all things in this world may be summed up in the one phrase, 'It's an injustice'" — FÉlicien David — The man — The beginnings of his career — His terrible poverty — He joins the Saint-Simoniens, and goes with some of them to the East — Their reception at Constantinople — M. Scribe and the libretto of "L'Africaine" — David in Egypt at the court of Mehemet-Ali — David's description of him — Mehemet's way of testing the educational progress of his sons — Woe to the fat kine — Mehemet-Ali suggests a new mode of teaching music to the inmates of the harem — FÉlicien David's further wanderings in Egypt — Their effect upon his musical genius — His return to France — He tells the story of the first performance of "Le DÉsert" — An ambulant box-office — His success — Fame, but no money — He sells the score of "Le DÉsert" — He loses his savings — "La Perle du BrÉsil" and the Coup-d'État — "No luck" — NapolÉon III. remains his debtor for eleven years — A mot of Auber, and one of Alexandre Dumas pÈre — The story of "AÏda" — Why FÉlicien David did not compose the music — The real author of the libretto 152 CHAPTER VIII. Three painters, and a school for pifferari — Gabriel Decamps, EugÈne Delacroix, and Horace Vernet — The prices of pictures in the forties — Delacroix' find no purchasers at all — Decamps' drawings fetch a thousand francs each — Decamps not a happy man — The cause of his unhappiness — The man and the painter — He finds no pleasure in being popular — EugÈne Delacroix — His contempt for the bourgeoisie — A parallel between Delacroix and Shakespeare — Was Delacroix tall or short? — His love of flowers — His delicate health — His personal appearance — His indifference to the love-passion — George Sand and Delacroix — A miscarried love-scene — Delacroix' housekeeper, Jenny Leguillou — Delacroix does not want to pose as a model for one of George Sand's heroes — Delacroix as a writer — His approval of Carlyle's dictum, "Show me how a man sings," etc. — His humour tempered by his reverence — His failure as a caricaturist — His practical jokes on would-be art-critics — Delacroix at home — His dress while at work — Horace Vernet's, Paul Delaroche's, Ingres' — Early at work — He does not waste time over lunch — How he spent his evenings — His dislike of being reproduced in marble or on canvas after his death — Horace Vernet — The CHAPTER IX. Louis-Philippe and his family — An unpublished theatrical skit on his mania for shaking hands with every one — His art of governing, according to the same skit — Louis-Philippe not the ardent admirer of the bourgeoisie he professed to be — The Faubourg Saint-Germain deserts the Tuileries — The English in too great a majority — Lord ——'s opinion of the dinners at the Tuileries — The attitude of the bourgeoisie towards Louis-Philippe, according to the King himself — Louis-Philippe's wit — His final words on the death of Talleyrand — His love of money — He could be generous at times — A story of the Palais-Royal — Louis-Philippe and the Marseillaise — Two curious stories connected with the Marseillaise — Who was the composer of it? — Louis-Philippe's opinion of the throne, the crown, and the sceptre of France as additions to one's comfort — His children, and especially his sons, take things more easily — Even the Bonapartists admired some of the latter — A mot of an imperialist — How the boys were brought up — Their nocturnal rambles later on — The King himself does not seem to mind those escapades, but is frightened at M. Guizot hearing of them — Louis-Philippe did not understand Guizot — The recollection of his former misery frequently haunts the King — He worries Queen Victoria with his fear of becoming poor — Louis-Philippe an excellent husband and father — He wants to write the libretto of an opera on an English subject — His religion — The court receptions ridiculous — Even the proletariat sneer at them — The entrÉe of the Duchesse d'OrlÉans into Paris — The scene in the Tuileries gardens — A mot of Princesse ClÉmentine on her father's too paternal solicitude — A practical joke of the Prince de Joinville — His caricatures and drawings — The children inherited their talent for drawing and modelling from their mother — The Duc de Nemours as a miniature and water-colour painter — Suspected of being a Legitimist — All Louis-Philippe's children great patrons of art — How the bourgeoisie looked upon their intercourse with artists — The Duc de Nemours' marvellous memory — The studio of EugÈne Lami — His neighbours, Paul Delaroche and HonorÉ de Balzac — The Duc de Nemours' bravery called in question — The Duc d'Aumale's exploits in Algeria considered mere skirmishes — A curious story of spiritism — The Duc d'Aumale a greater favourite with the world than any of the other sons of Louis-Philippe — His wit — The Duc d'OrlÉans also a great favourite — His visits to Decamps' studio — An indifferent classical scholar — A curious kind of black-mail — His indifference to money — There is no money in a Republic — His death — A witty reply to the Legitimists 185 The Revolution of '48 — The beginning of it — The National Guards in all their glory — The CafÉ GrÉgoire on the Place du Caire — The price of a good breakfast in '48 — The palmy days of the Cuisine Bourgeoise — The excitement on the Boulevards on Sunday, February 20th, '48 — The theatres — A ball at Poirson's, the erstwhile director of the Gymnase — A lull in the storm — Tuesday, February 22nd — Another visit to the CafÉ GrÉgoire — On my way thither — The ComÉdie-FranÇaise closes its doors — What it means, according to my old tutor — We are waited upon by a sergeant and corporal — We are no longer "messieurs," but "citoyens" — An eye to the main chance — The patriots do a bit of business in tricolour cockades — The company marches away — Casualties — "Le patriotisme" means the difference between the louis d'or and the Écu of three francs — The company bivouacs on the Boulevard Saint-Martin — A tyrant's victim "malgrÉ lui" — Wednesday, February 23rd — The CafÉ GrÉgoire once more — The National Guards en nÉgligÉ — A novel mode of settling accounts — The National Guards fortify the inner man — A bivouac on the Boulevard du Temple — A camp scene from an opera — I leave — My companion's account — The National Guards protect the regulars — The author of these notes goes to the theatre — The Gymnase and the VariÉtÉs on the eve of the Revolution — BouffÉ and DÉjazet — Thursday, February 24th, '48 — The Boulevards at 9.30 a.m. — No milk — The Revolutionaries do without it — The Place du Carrousel — The sovereign people fire from the roofs on the troops — The troops do not dislodge them — The King reviews the troops — The apparent inactivity of Louis-Philippe's sons — A theory about the difference in bloodshed. — One of the three ugliest men in France comes to see the King — Seditious cries — The King abdicates — Chaos — The sacking of the Tuileries — Receptions and feasting in the Galerie de Diane — "Du cafÉ pour nous, des cigarettes pour les dames" — The dresses of the princesses — The bourgeois feast the gamins who guard the barricades — The Republic proclaimed — The riff-raff insist upon illuminations — An actor promoted to the Governorship of the HÔtel de Ville — Some members of the "provisional Government" at work — MÉry on Lamartine — Why the latter proclaimed the Republic 208 CHAPTER XI. The Second Republic — Lamartine's reason for proclaiming it — Suspects Louis-NapolÉon of similar motives for wishing to overthrow it — Tells him to go back to England — De Persigny's account of Louis-NapolÉon's landing in France after February 24th, '48 — Providential interference on behalf of Louis-NapolÉon — Justification of Louis-NapolÉon's belief in his "star" — My first meeting with him — The origin of a celebrated nickname — Badinguet a creation of Gavarni — Louis-NapolÉon and his surroundings at the HÔtel du Rhin — His appearance and dress — Lord Normanby's opinion of his appearance — Louis-NapolÉon's French — A mot of Bismarck — Cavaignac, Thiers, and Victor Hugo's wrong estimate of his character — Cavaignac and his brother Godefroi — The difference between Thiers and General Cavaignac — An elector's mot — Some of the candidates for the presidency of the Second Republic — Electioneering expenses — Impecuniosity of Louis-NapolÉon — A story in connection with it — The woman with the wooden legs — The salons during the Second Republic — The theatres and their skits on the situation — "La PropriÉtÉ c'est le Vol" — France governed by the National — A curious list of ministers and officials of the Second Republic — Armand Marrast — His plans for reviving business — His receptions CHAPTER XII. 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 249 CHAPTER XIII. Some men of the Empire — Fialin de Persigny — The public prosecutor's opinion of him expressed at the trial for high treason in 1836 — Superior in many respects to Louis-NapolÉon — The revival of the Empire his only and constant dream — In order to realize it, he appeals first to JÉrÔme, ex-King of Westphalia — De Persigny's estimate of him — JÉrÔme's greed and Louis-NapolÉon's generosity — De Persigny's financial embarrassments — His charity — What the Empire really meant to him — De Persigny virtually the moving spirit in the Coup d'État — Louis-NapolÉon might have been satisfied with the presidency of the republic for life — Persigny seeks for aid in England — Palmerston's share in the Coup d'État — The submarine cable — Preparations for the Coup d'État — A warning of it sent to England — Count Walewski issues invitations for a dinner-party on the 2nd of December — Opinion in London that Louis-NapolÉon will get the worst in the struggle with the Chamber — The last funds from London — General de Saint-Arnaud and Baron Lacrosse — The ÉlysÉe-Bourbon on the evening of the 1st of December — I pass the ÉlysÉe at midnight — Nothing unusual — London on the 2nd of December — The dinner at Count Walewski's put off at the last moment — Illuminations at the French Embassy a few hours later — Palmerston at the Embassy — Some traits of De Persigny's character — His personal affection for Louis-NapolÉon — Madame de Persigny — Her parsimony — Her cooking of the household accounts — Chevet and Madame de Persigny — What the Empire might have been with a Von Moltke by the side of the Emperor instead of Vaillant, CHAPTER XIV. Society during the Second Empire — The Court at CompiÈgne — The English element — Their opinion of Louis-NapolÉon — The difference between the court of Louis-Philippe and that of NapolÉon III. — The luggage of M. Villemain — The hunts in Louis-Philippe's time — Louis-NapolÉon's advent — Would have made a better poet than an Emperor — Looks for a La ValliÈre or Montespan, and finds Mdlle. EugÉnie de Montijo — The latter determined not to be a La ValliÈre or even a Pompadour — Has her great destiny foretold in her youth — Makes up her mind that it shall be realized by a right-handed and not a left-handed marriage — Queen Victoria stands her sponsor among the sovereigns of Europe — Mdlle. de Montijo's mother — The Comtesse de Montijo and HalÉvy's "Madame Cardinal" — The first invitations to CompiÈgne — Mdlle. de Montijo's backers for the Imperial stakes — No other entries — Louis-NapolÉon utters the word "marriage" — What led up to it — The Emperor officially announces his betrothal — The effect it produced — The Faubourg St.-Germain — Dupin the elder gives his views — The engaged couple feel very uncomfortable — Negotiations to organize the Empress's future household — Rebuffs — Louis NapolÉon's retorts — Mdlle. de Montijo's attempt at wit and sprightliness — Her iron will — Her beauty — Her marriage — She takes Marie-Antoinette for her model — She fondly imagines that she was born to rule — She presumes to teach Princess Clotilde the etiquette of courts — The story of two detectives — The hunts at CompiÈgne — Some of the mise en scÈne and dramatis personÆ — The shooting-parties — Mrs. Grundy not banished, but specially invited and drugged — The programme of the gatherings — CompiÈgne in the season — A story of an Englishman accommodated for the night in one of the Imperial luggage-vans 288 CHAPTER XV. Society during the Empire — The series of guests at CompiÈgne — The amusements — the absence of musical taste in the Bonapartes — The programme on the first, second, third, and fourth days — An anecdote of Lafontaine, the actor — Theatrical performances and balls — The expenses of the same — The theatre at CompiÈgne — The guests, male and female — "Neck or nothing" for the latter, uniform for the former — The rest have to take "back seats" — The selection of guests among the notabilities of CompiÈgne — A mayor's troubles — The Empress's and the Emperor's conflicting opinions with regard to female charms — Bassano in "hot water" — Tactics of the demi-mondaines — Improvement from the heraldic point of view in the Empress's entourage — The cocodettes — Their dress — Worth — When every pretext for a change of toilette is exhausted, the court ladies turn themselves into ballerinas — "Le Diable À Quatre" at CompiÈgne — The ladies appear at the ball afterwards in their gauze skirts — The Emperor's dictum with regard to ballet-dancers and men's infatuation for them — The Emperor did not CHAPTER XVI. The story of a celebrated sculptor and his model — David d'Angers at the funeral of Cortot, the sculptor — How I became acquainted with him — The sculptor leaves the funeral procession to speak to a woman — He tells me the story — David d'Angers' sympathy with Greece in her struggle for independence — When Botzaris falls at Missolonghi, he makes up his mind to carve his monument — Wishes to do something original — He finds his idea in the cemetery of PÈre-la-Chaise — In search of a model — Comes unexpectedly upon her in the Rue du Montparnasse, while in company of Victor Hugo — The model and her mother — The bronze Christ on the studio wall — David gives it to his model — The latter dismissed — A plot against the sculptor's life — His model saves him — He tries to find her and fails — Only meets with her when walking behind the hearse of Cortot — She appears utterly destitute — Loses sight of her again — Meets her on the outer boulevards with a nondescript of the worst character — He endeavours to rescue her, but fails — Canler, of the Paris police, reveals the tactics pursued with regard to "unfortunates" — David's exile and death — The Botzaris Monument is brought back to Paris to be restored — The model at the door of the exhibition — Her death 323 CHAPTER XVII. Queen Victoria in Paris — The beginning of the era of middle-class excursions — English visitors before that — The British tourist of 1855 — The real revenge of Waterloo — The Englishman's French and the Frenchman's English — The opening of the Exhibition — The lord mayor and aldermen in Paris — The King of Portugal — All these considered so much "small fry" — NapolÉon III. goes to Boulogne to welcome the Queen — The royal yacht is delayed — The French hotel proprietor the greatest artist in fleecing — The Italian, the Swiss, the German, mere bunglers in comparison — NapolÉon III. before the arrival of the Queen — Pondering the past — Arrival of the Queen — The Queen lands, followed by Prince Albert and the royal children — The Emperor rides by the side of her carriage — Comments on the population — An old salt on the situation — An old soldier's retort — The general feeling — Arrival in Paris — The Parisians' reception of the Queen — A description of the route — The apartments of the Queen at St. Cloud — How the Queen spent Sunday — Visits the art section of the Exhibition on Monday — Ingres and Horace Vernet presented to her — Frenchmen's ignorance of English art in those days — English and French art critics — The Queen takes a carriage drive through Paris — Not a single cry of "Vive l'Angleterre!" a great many of "Vive la Reine" — England making a cats-paw of France — Reception at the ÉlysÉe-Bourbon — "Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr" at St. Cloud — Alexandre Dumas would have CHAPTER XVIII. Marshal Vaillant — The beginning of our acquaintance — His stories of the swashbucklers of the First Empire, and the beaux of the Restauration — Rabelaisian, but clever — Marshal Vaillant neither a swashbuckler nor a beau; hated both — Never cherished the slightest illusions about the efficiency of the French army — Acknowledged himself unable to effect the desired and necessary reforms — To do that, a minister of war must become a fixture — Why he stayed — Careful of the public moneys, and of the Emperor's also — NapolÉon III.'s lavishness — An instance of it — Vaillant never dazzled by the grandeur of court entertainments — Not dazzled by anything — His hatred of wind-bags — Prince de Canino — Matutinal interviews — Prince de Canino sends his seconds — Vaillant declines the meeting, and gives his reason — Vaillant abrupt at the best of times — A freezing reception — A comic interview — Attempts to shirk military duty — Tricks — Mistakes — A story in point — More tricks — Sham ailments: how the marshal dealt with them — When the marshal was not in an amiable mood — Another interview — Vaillant's tactics — "D——d annoying to be wrong" — The marshal fond of science — A very interesting scientific phenomenon himself — Science under the later Bourbons — Suspicion of the soldiers of the Empire — The priesthood and the police — The most godless republic preferable to a continuance of their rÉgime — The marshal's dog, Brusca — Her dislike to civilians — Brusca's chastity — Vaillant's objection to insufficiently prepaid letters — His habit of missing the train, notwithstanding his precautions — His objection to fuss and public honours 351 CHAPTER XIX. The Franco-German War — Friday, July 15, 1870, 6 p.m. — My friends "confident of France being able to chastise the insolence of the King of Prussia" — I do not share their confidence; but do not expect a crushing defeat — NapolÉon III.'s presence aggravated the disasters; his absence would not have averted them — He himself had no illusions about the efficiency of the army, did not suspect the rottenness of it — His previous endeavours at reorganization — The real drift of his proposed inquiries — His plan meant also compulsory service for every one — Why the legislature opposed it — The makeshift proposed by it — NapolÉon weary, body and soul — His physical condition — A great consultation and the upshot of it — Dr. Ricord and what he told me — I am determined to see and hear, though not to speak — I sally forth — The streets on the evening of Friday, the 15th of July — The illuminations — Patriotism or Chauvinism — The announcement of a bookseller — What Moltke thought of it — The opinion of a dramatist on the war — The people; no horse-play — No work done on Saturday and Sunday — Cabmen — "A man does not pay for his own funeral, monsieur" — The northern station on Sunday — The departing Germans — The Emperor's CHAPTER XX. The war — Reaction before the Emperor's departure — The moral effects of the publication of the draft treaty — "Bismarck has done the Emperor" — The Parisians did not like the Empress — The latter always anxious to assume the regency — A retrospect — Crimean war — The Empress and Queen Victoria — Solferino — The regency of '65 — Bismarck's millinery bills — Lord Lyons — Bismarck and the Duc de Gramont — Lord Lyons does not foresee war — The republicans and the war — The Empress — Two ministerial councils and their consequences — Mr. Prescott-Hewett sent for — Joseph Ferrari, the Italian philosopher — The Empress — The ferment in Paris — "Too much prologue to 'The Taming of the German Shrew'" — The first engagement — The "Marseillaise" — An infant performer — The "Marseillaise" at the ComÉdie-FranÇaise — The "Marseillaise" by command of the Emperor — A patriotic ballet — The courtesy of the French at Fontenoy — The CafÉ de la Paix — General Beaufort d'Hautpoul and Moltke — Newspaper correspondents — Edmond About tells a story about one of his colleagues — News supplied by the Government — What it amounted to — The information it gave to the enemy — Bazaine, "the glorious" one — Palikao — The fall of the Empire does not date from Sedan, but from Woerth and Speicheren — Those who dealt it the heaviest blow — The Empress, the Empress, and no one but the Empress 385 CHAPTER XXI. The 4th of September — A comic, not a tragic revolution — A burlesque Harold and a burlesque Boadicea — The news of Sedan only known publicly on the 3rd of September — Grief and consternation, but no rage — The latter feeling imported by the bands of Delescluze, Blanqui, and FÉlix Pyat — Blanqui, Pyat, & Co. versus Favre, Gambetta, & Co. — The former want their share of the spoil, and only get it some years afterwards — Ramail goes to the Palais-Bourbon — His report — Paris spends the night outdoors — Thiers a second-rate Talleyrand — His journey to the different courts of Europe — His interview with Lord Granville — The 4th of September — The Imperial eagles disappear — The joyousness of the crowd — The Place de la Concorde — The gardens of the Tuileries — The crowds in the Rue de Rivoli scarcely pay attention to the Tuileries — The soldiers fraternizing with the people, and proclaiming the republic from the barracks' windows — A serious procession — Sampierro Gavini gives his opinion — The "heroic struggles" of an Empress, and the crownless coronation of "le Roi PÉtaud" — Ramail at the Tuileries — How M. Sardou saved the palace from being burned and sacked — The republic proclaimed — Illuminations as after a victory 404 The siege — The Parisians convinced that the Germans will not invest Paris — Paris becomes a vast drill-ground, nevertheless — The Parisians leave off singing, but listen to itinerant performers, though the latter no longer sing the "Marseillaise" — The theatres closed — The ComÉdie-FranÇaise and the OpÉra — Influx of the Gardes Mobiles — The Parisian no longer chaffs the provincial, but does the honours of the city to him — The stolid, gaunt Breton and the astute and cynical Normand — The gardens of the Tuileries an artillery park — The mitrailleuse still commands confidence — The papers try to be comic — Food may fail, drink will not — My visit to the wine dÉpÔt at Bercy — An official's information — Cattle in the public squares and on the outer Boulevards — Fear with regard to them — Every man carries a rifle — The woods in the suburbs are set on fire — The statue of Strasburg on the Place de la Concorde — M. Prudhomme to his sons — The men who do not spout — The French shopkeeper and bourgeois — A story of his greed — He reveals the whereabouts of the cable laid on the bed of the Seine — Obscure heroes — Would-be Ravaillacs and Balthazar Gerards — Inventors of schemes for the instant annihilation of all the Germans — A musical mitrailleuse — An exhibition and lecture at the Alcazar — The last train — Trains converted into dwellings for the suburban poor — Interior of a railway station — The spy mania — Where the Parisians ought to have looked for spies — I am arrested as a spy — A chat with the officer in charge — A terrible-looking knife 414 CHAPTER XXIII. The siege — The food-supply of Paris — How and what the Parisians eat and drink — Bread, meat, and wine — Alcoholism — The waste among the London poor — The French take a lesson from the alien — The Irish at La Villette — A whisper of the horses being doomed — M. Gagne — The various attempts to introduce horseflesh — The journals deliver their opinions — The supply of horseflesh as it stood in '70 — The AcadÉmie des Sciences — Gelatine — Kitchen gardens on the balcony — M. Lockroy's experiment — M. Pierre Joigneux and the Englishman — If cabbages, why not mushrooms? — There is still a kitchen garden left — Cream cheese from the moon, to be fetched by Gambetta — His departure in a balloon — Nadar and NapolÉon III. — Carrier-pigeons — An aerial telegraph — Offers to cross the Prussian lines — The theatres — A performance at the Cirque National — "Le Roi s'amuse," at the ThÉÂtre de Montmartre — A dÉjeÛner at Durand's — Weber and Beethoven — Long winter nights without fuel or gas — The price of provisions — The Parisian's good-humour — His wit — The greed of the shopkeeper — Culinary literature — More's "Utopia" — An ex-lieutenant of the Foreign Legion — He gives us a breakfast — He delivers a lecture on food — Joseph, his servant — Milk — The slender resources of the poor — I interview an employÉ of the State Pawnshop — Statistics — Hidden provisions — Bread — Prices of provisions — New Year's Day, and New Year's dinners — The bombardment — No more bread — The end of the siege 429 CHAPTER XXIV. Some men of the Commune — Cluseret — His opinion of Rossel — His opinion of Bergeret — What Cluseret was fighting for — Thiers and Abraham Lincoln — Raoul Rigault on horseback — ThÉophile FerrÉ — FerrÉ and Gil-PÉrÈs, the actor — The comic men of the Commune — Gambon — Jourde, |
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