CHAPTER I

Alphonse Karr--The cuirassier--The medal of life saving and the Cross of the Légion d'honneur--Karr's home at Montmartre--_Sous les tilleuls_ and the critics--The taking of Algiers--M. Dupin senior--Why he did not write his Memoirs--Signing of the Ordinances of July--Reasons that prevented my going to Algiers

The events we have just recorded in our last chapter bring us up to the 2nd of June.

As Charles X. looked up at the starry heavens from the top of the Duc d'Orléans' terrace he said--

"What splendid weather for my Algerian fleet!"

But he was mistaken: almost immediately the fleet had left port it had been scattered by a storm, and, when Charles made his comment, it was having the utmost difficulty in rallying at Palma.

As regards other matters, the Opposition was going ahead and great and small newspapers kept hitting at the Government, some with clubs and some with staves. We have mentioned how the _Journal des Débats_ treated the Polignac Ministry upon its accession to power. If we had these little papers under our notice we might, perhaps, be able to prove that the banter of dwarfs can work as much mischief as insults inflicted by giants.

_Le Figaro_ was among the number of the small journals which, at that time, were carrying on a skirmishing engagement with the Government. It was under the management of Bohain, and, as is well known, Janin, Romieu, Nestor Roqueplan, Brucker, Vaulabelle, Michel Masson and Alphonse Karr were among its most prominent contributors. Karr was, at that time, perhaps, the least known of that Pleiades of fighting men. He has since become one of our most distinguished literary artists--observe, I say literary artists and not literati or men of letters--but at that time he was fighting his maiden battles. He had been present at the reading of _Henri III._, at Nestor Roqueplan's, where I became acquainted with him. According to our usual custom in the case of all the remarkable men of our day, let us select for particular comment, from his early efforts, that special faculty which has the power of giving to truth the charm of paradox. This truth, bare and undraped when treated by others, is always, on leaving the hands of Alphonse Karr, clad in a veil of gold. Without doubt Alphonse Karr has, since 1830, told the various Governments which have succeeded each other, as well as those who have flattered or attacked them, a greater number of truths than any other man. And, different from the supposed truths of others, those of Alphonse Karr are real and undeniable, the more they are probed the more they are proved to be true. Alphonse Karr was, in those days, a handsome young man of twenty-two or twenty-three, with regular features set in a frame of dark hair; he had adopted an eccentric form of dress, which he has always adhered to; he was extremely well made, strong physically, and an adept at all gymnastic exercises, especially at swimming and fencing. During the year 1829, when bathing in the Marne, he had rescued a cuirassier from drowning. The man was heavy and nearly as strong as Karr himself, so that it almost happened that, instead of Karr saving the cuirassier, the cuirassier drowned Karr. The act made sufficient of a stir for Karr to receive a medal from the Government, and I have occasionally seen him wear it. This medal was, in the hands of wags, the source of endless gibes, which Karr's reputation for bravery maintained, it is true, within the bounds of propriety, but which was never exhausted. There was no precedent for that famous medal, and I was reading something about it, only yesterday, in some newspaper rag or other. One day, at a great dinner at which I was present together with a host of people wearing decorations--not just ordinary medals but the Cross of the Légion d'honneur, which, at the present day, is distributed and conferred in a totally different manner from all the medals in the world--those jokes at Karr's expense, who was also one of the guests, broke out afresh. Karr, with his cool and habitual phlegm, called the waiter and asked for a pen, ink and paper. He cut the paper into as many round pieces as there were decorated guests at the table, wrote on each piece the reason for which the wearer had been decorated and passed each slip to its proper quarter. It completely silenced his scoffers.

Karr was born in Germany, in December 1808, and has only become a naturalised Frenchman since 1848. His father was one of the five or six German musicians who evolved the piano from the harpsichord. Three of his uncles died as captains in the French service. He was, besides, a nephew of Baron Heurteloup, and a cousin of Habeneck. In those days he wrote no political articles for the _Figaro._ He has more than once told me, in all seriousness, that he saw the Revolution of July, and even that of February, without knowing what they were about. But, later, he studied the subject of I revolutions very deeply; for, in 1848, he wrote on the subject--

"Plus cela change, plus c'est la même chose!" ("The more things change, the more do they remain the same!")

In 1829 he was an assistant professor in the Collège Bourbon and took to writing poetry, some of which he sent to the _Figaro._ Bohain opened all the letters received. Now Bohain was one of those plain-spoken men who openly professed a lofty scorn for poetry. His reply to Karr was--

"MY DEAR SIR,--Your lines are charming; but send me prose. I would rather be hanged than put a single line of poetry in my paper!"

Karr did not press the point: clever men are rare, and, as he did not wish Bohain to hang himself, he sent him prose instead. This was a great humiliation for the young poet to have to swallow. All the articles of a pastoral nature that were published by _le Figaro_ at this period were by Alphonse Karr. Karr had made himself the oddest of dwelling-places. He had hired the old Tivoli at Montmartre, which had half tumbled in ruins into the quarries: there still remained a little wood and the cloakroom made of rushes. By night he slept in the cloakroom; by day he walked in the little wood. Here he began his first novel, _Sous les tilleuls._ He finished it in the rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins, in the workshop of the two brothers Johannot, which he took after them. From Montmartre, Alphonse Karr only came into Paris about twice a month. He had a boat at Saint-Ouen, where he spent all the time he had left from his wood or the cloakroom.

_Sous les tilleuls_ appeared in 1831, I believe. The book, worthy of notice, was accordingly noticed. That means it was attacked bitterly, as all things that show originality and power are attacked in France. They first accused the author of imitating a book of Nodier's that had appeared a fortnight after his; unfortunately, the date being on the title page, they had to withdraw that accusation. They next accused him of having translated it wholesale from the German, and even went so far as to give the title of the German original, _Unter den Linden_ (Under the Limes), but it was soon seen that there was no book bearing such a title throughout the whole range of German literature, and that in nearly all the large towns was to be found a public promenade called thus--a fact Alphonse Karr did not deny. The author had placed as epigrams at the head of his chapters or letters verses of his own, no doubt those that Bohain had rejected, but which he had felt it his duty to adorn with the names of Schiller, Goethe and Uhland. The critics were taken in, and praised them at the expense of the prose. Prose and verse were both Karr's! Besides, a large number of the letters in the novel had been actually written to a young girl of whom Karr had been deeply enamoured. Karr did not receive his decoration until 1845 or 1846. One day he was told by Cavé that it was a question of giving the Cross to his father or himself. Marie-Louise had promised the Cross to his father, who, in 1840, was still waiting for it. Karr sought out M. Duchâtel, and, having satisfied himself that Cavé was quite correct in his statement, he said to the minister--

"Monsieur, when a father and son are both deserving of the Cross, the son does not accept it before his father."

And M. Duchâtel only gave the decoration to the father, whereas both father and son ought to have had it. When his father died, Karr received a decoration; he took the last ribbon his father had worn from his coat and put it on his own.

Early in June 1830, I met him in the street, arm in arm with Brucker. Brucker was a painter on china, and one of the most original workers in the journalism of 1830. I met them both at the very moment when the first of the hundred guns announcing the capture of Algiers were being fired.

"Listen!" Karr asked. "What is that? It sounds like the firing of guns."

"Doubtless Algiers has been taken," I replied.

"Bah! Have they been besieging it?" Karr replied.

Algiers was, indeed, taken; its surname of _la Guerrière_ had not availed to save it. That nest of vultures which, as Hugo said, had been only half killed by Duquesne, was, at last, destroyed by M. de Bourmont. Directly the great news was received, the Minister for Marine, Baron d'Haussez, rushed off to the king. When he was announced, Charles X. sprang towards him with open arms; M. d'Haussez intended to kiss his hand, but Charles drew him to his breast.

"Come to my arms," he said; "to-day we all kiss one another."

And the king and his minister embraced.

However, amidst these apparent favours which Providence seemed to be piling on the head of the Elder Branch, clearsighted men could discern a yawning abyss.

"Take care!" M. Beugnot exclaimed, like a terrified pilot. "Unless you take care, the Monarchy will founder under canvas like a fully armed ship!"

"I should be much less uneasy were M. de Polignac a bit more so!" M. de Metternich remarked to our Ambassador at Vienna, M. de Renneval.

It must be confessed that even the Opposition, who were not so far-seeing as M. Beugnot and M. de Metternich, undertook to reassure the king, in the event of His Majesty feeling any anxiety. How, indeed, could they fear anything, when M. Dupin senior, one of the leaders of the Opposition, said, during the debate on the Address--

"The _fundamental basis_ of the Address is _a profound respect for the person of the King_; it expresses in the very highest degree _veneration for the ancient race of Bourbons_; it represents _legitimacy_, as a _legal truths_ but, further, as a _social necessity_-a necessity--now recognised _by all thoughtful minds_, the true outcome of experience and of conviction."

O good Monsieur Dupin! of sound mind and integrity of judgment, a shining light of the Bar, a fearless and blameless legislator; you who, pondering over the trial of Jesus, wrote these sublime lines on Pontius Pilate--

"Pilate, seeing that he could not prevail over the spirit of the multitude, but that their excitement increased more and more, sent for water and washed his hands before the people, saying, 'I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man: see ye to it' (Matt, XXVII. 24); 'and he granted them their request' (Luke XXIII. 24), 'and delivered him into their hands to be crucified' (Matt, XXVII. 26). Wash thy hands, O Pilate! they are dyed with innocent blood. Thou hast given in through weakness, and art just as guilty as though thou hadst sacrificed him from wicked intention; generations have repeated it down to our times. 'The righteous man suffered under Pontius Pilate' (_passus est sub Pontio Pilato_). Thy name stands in history as a lesson to warn all public men, all pusillanimous judges, to show them the shame of yielding against their own convictions! The populace shrieked in fury at the foot of thy tribunal; perhaps thy own life was not safe, but what matter? Thy duty was plain, and in such a dilemma it is better to suffer death than to inflict it"--

O worthy Monsieur Dupin! advocate of Jesus Christ and of Béranger under the Restoration; President of the Chamber and Procurator-General under Louis-Philippe; President of the National Assembly, why do you not write your Memoirs, as I am writing mine? Why do you not, contrary to the cowardice and fear of Pontius Pilate, show yourself immovable in your convictions, unshaken in your duty, tenacious in your sympathies, immovable upon your bench as procurator-general, calm in your presidential chair, rigid on your curule chair of legislator? What instruction the world could have derived from the Memoirs of a man like yourself, who had such hosts of opportunities of showing proof of his faithful allegiance to the Elder Branch of the Bourbons on 29 July 1830, to the Younger Branch on 24 February 1848, and, finally, of his fidelity to the Republic on 2 December 1851! But you are too modest, good Monsieur Dupin! Modesty, combined with civil courage and a political conscience, is one of your greatest qualities, and it is only from modesty that you do not yourself dare to say what you think of yourself. But, never mind, for, every time that occasion presents, I shall do myself the honour of taking your place in the honourable task, my only regret being that I do not know more than I do, in order to speak out more fully and to treat you according to your deserts. What reason for fear had the legitimacy when the Society _Aide-toi! le ciel aidera_, at the Festival of the Gathering of the Grapes in Burgundy, declared that the king was the first power in the State, and drank toasts to the health of Charles X.? Why need they be afraid when M. Odilon Barrot, in another banquet given by six hundred electors, which was decorated with two hundred and twenty-one symbolic crowns, mingled the king and the law together in one single toast? O great statesmen, you who dig graves for kings and who bury monarchies, when, indeed, will the people, tired of your sham science, rub your faces, once for all, in the history which you are making, and which you do not see?

Thus, on 24 July, Charles X. called together a Council in absolute confidence. At this Council the fate of the Monarchy was again weighed in the balance, and it was decided to sign the Ordinances. But M. d'Haussez ventured to observe to the President of the Council that M. de Bourmont had extracted a promise from him to risk nothing during his absence.

"Bah!" the Prince de Polignac remarked, "what need have we of him? Am I not the War Minister during his absence?"

"But," M. d'Haussez asked, "how many men can you rely on in Paris? Have you, at the lowest computation, even as many as twenty-eight or thirty thousand?"

"Oh, more than that; I have forty-two thousand."

M. d'Haussez shook his head dubiously.

"Look, then, for yourself," the President of the Council said, and threw him a rolled document across the table.

M. d'Haussez unrolled it and added up the figures.

"But I can only find here thirteen thousand men, and that number on paper will mean scarcely seven to eight thousand men actually fit for war. Where do you get your missing twenty-nine thousand to complete your total of forty-two thousand?"

"Make yourself easy about the matter," M. de Polignac replied; "they are scattered round Paris and, in a few hours' time, if needed, could be all collected on the Place de la Concorde."

The Ordinances were signed the following day.

When signing, the king had the dauphin on his right hand and M. de Polignac on his left; the other ministers completed the circle round the green table. Each one signed in turn. M. d'Haussez again raised his objections.

"Monsieur," Charles X. said to him, "do you refuse to co-operate with your colleagues?"

"Sire," responded M. d'Haussez, "may I be allowed to put a question to the king?"

"What is it, monsieur?"

"Does the king intend to proceed, supposing one or more of his ministers should resign?"

"Yes," Charles replied with decision.

"Then, in that case," said the Naval Minister, "I will sign." And he did so.

Five minutes later, they all stood up and, as Charles X. passed by M. d'Haussez, he noticed that the minister's attentive gaze was fixed on the walls, and he asked--

"What are you looking at so attentively, Monsieur d'Haussez?"

"Sire, I was looking to see if by any chance I could find a picture of the Earl of Strafford."[1]

The king smiled and passed on.

These details became known afterwards; they were kept a profound secret at the time. Only two or three men were aware of what was happening. Casimir Périer, who was deeply attached to the Older Branch of the Bourbons, at that time, as were M. Dupin and M. Barrot and many others (we shall see presently how Périer did his utmost to quell the Revolution of July when it broke out) was dining at his country house in the bois de Boulogne, when he received a tiny triangular-shaped note. He opened, read it and grew pale, then livid, and his arms fell to his sides in despair. It announced that the Ordinances had been signed that very day. Who sent him the news never transpired. On the evening of the 25th or 26th, M. de Rothschild, who was speculating on a rise in stocks, received this simple statement from M. de Talleyrand:--

"I have just come from Saint-Cloud: speculate for a fall in prices."

But I, who was neither a M. Casimir Périer nor a M. de Rothschild nor yet a friend of M. de Talleyrand, I, who neither speculated upon rises or falls on the Stock Exchange, knew absolutely nothing of what was going on, and I was about to start for Algiers. Algiers would be a really fine sight during the early days of its conquest. I had taken my seat on the mail coach for Marseilles and packed my luggage; I had exchanged three thousand francs in silver for three thousand francs in gold, and I was to have set out at five in the evening of Monday the 26th, when, at eight on Monday morning, Achille Comte entered my room and said--

"Have you heard the great news?"

"No."

"The Ordinances are announced in the _Moniteur._ Shall you still go to Algiers?"

"I shall not be so foolish. We shall see stranger events here at home than out there!"

'Then I called my servant.

"Joseph," I said, "go to my gun-maker's and bring me back my double-barrelled gun and two hundred bullets of twenty calibre!"

[1] See the passage wherein Louis Blanc admirably describes this scene in his _Histoire de dix ans._