CHAPTER II

Letter of Charles X. to the Duc d'Orléans--A conjuring trick--Return of the Duc de Chartres to the Palais-Royal--Bourbons and Valois--Abdication of Charles X.--Preparations for the expedition of Rambouillet--An idea of Harel--The scene-shifters of the Odéon--Nineteen persons in one fiacre--Distribution of arms at the Palais-Royal--Colonel Jacqueminot

Meanwhile the Duc d'Orléans hid his grave preoccupation of mind beneath his affable manner that morning when he came up to me and told me I had produced my best drama. He had just received the answer to the letter which he had sent to Charles X. by the Duc de Mortemart.

My readers will recollect that letter, wherein he says to the old king, that _he had been brought to Paris by force; that he did not know what they wanted him to do, but that if he accepted power it would only be in the best interests of_ THE HOUSE. Only he did not specify _what House._ Did he mean in the interest of the _House of Orléans_ or of the _House of Bourbon_? Re-read the sentence and you will see he reserves his choice.

Charles X. replied to this letter by a declaration couched as follows:--

"The king, desirous of putting a stop to the troubles that exist in the capital and in another part of France, _relying especially on the sincere attachment of his cousin the Duc d'Orléans_, appoints him Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. The king, having seen fit to withdraw the Ordinances of 25 July, approves the assembling of the Chambers on 3 August, and he hopes they will be able to re-establish tranquillity in France. The king will await at Rambouillet the return of the person charged to bear this declaration to Paris. If any attempt is made upon the lives of the king and his family or upon his liberty, he will defend himself to the last.

"Drawn up at Rambouillet, I August 1830.

"_(Signed)_ CHARLES"

The courier left Rambouillet at six in the morning, and reached Paris at half-past eight. The Duc d'Orléans received the despatch at a quarter to nine. M. Dupin was already with him. It is well known how early M. Dupin could be the day, or day but one, after revolutions had taken place; moreover, thanks to the _Caricature_, the impressions of the shoes of this famous lawyer, printed along the route to Neuilly, both going and returning, and _vice versâ_, acquired a celebrity that afterwards became proverbial. M. Dupin, then, was with the Duc d'Orléans when he received the letter from Charles X. The Duc d'Orléans read it and passed it on to him. M. Dupin, remember, was head of the prince's Privy Council. M. Dupin read the proclamation in his turn, and advised that they should break openly and even brutally with the Older Branch.

"Diable!" said the prince, "such a letter as you suggest my writing will be anything but easy to draw up!"

"Shall I draw it up, your Highness?" asked M. Dupin.

"Yes, certainly. Try ... we will see."

M. Dupin wrote a letter as rough as himself. The Duc d'Orléans read it, approved, re-copied, signed, put it in an envelope and was going to seal it when, all at once, he said--

"Good gracious! I was going to send off a letter of such importance as this without showing it to the duchess.... Wait a moment, Monsieur Dupin, I will soon come back."

The letter must have been brutal indeed, for M. Dupin has himself confessed that it was; he was by nature rough and the plane of education had not effaced this roughness. He continued to argue with King Louis-Philippe in just the same fashion as he had done when he was Prince of Orléans. Once, during a political discussion, he forgot himself so far as to say to the king--

"Look here, sir, we shall never agree!"

"I was thinking the same thing, Monsieur Dupin," replied Louis-Philippe, "only I dared not tell you so."

I know few sayings more insolently aristocratic than this. King Louis-Philippe was diabolically witty. In proof whereof, he returned holding the same envelope and a letter that was to all appearances the same.

"Poor duchess!" he said, "it made her very sad; but, by Jove, it can't be helped!"

Then he slipped the letter into the envelope, held the wax to a candle, sealed the despatch with his seal and gave it to a messenger. But the letter he sent to Charles X. was not by any means the one M. Dupin had drawn up: it was one of his own composing, in which he renewed his assurances of devotion and respect towards the old king. This little game of sleight-of-hand was hardly finished before the outcries of the people gathered in the courtyard of the Palais-Royal summoned him out on the balcony. Louis-Philippe was obliged to show himself on this balcony twenty times a day for a week. Very soon this was not enough to satisfy the crowd, for the moment he appeared, the crowd struck up the _Marseillaise_; then, he himself must needs join in too, in a voice which, as I have remarked, was as out of tune as that of King Louis XV. Soon, this did not suffice them; when the lieutenant-general had shown himself and joined in singing the _Marseillaise_, he had to go down into the courtyard and shake hands with the rag-and-bone men and porters and pat them on the back. I have seen him go down two or three times in an hour and return with his wig awry, mopping his forehead, washing his hands and cursing vigorously the part he was compelled to play.

Ah! monseigneur, did you not know that in order to become king, after being prince, you would have frequently to mop your forehead and wash your hands?

The Duc de Chartres next arrived at the head of his regiment, and entered the Palais-Royal just as his father was courting popularity in the manner above described. I shall never forget the way he straightened himself in his saddle, and the look he cast on the scene. The arrival of her eldest son was a great delight to the poor duchess; he was the only one of her children that had been missing. She was well aware of the danger he had incurred and he was all the dearer to her on that account. As he entered his father's apartments I was leaving them, and I was only to return there once more at the summons of the king himself. This spectacle of a prince begging for a crown stirred me to the heart. The young duke held out his hand to me: I took it and pressed it with tears in my eyes. It was to be four years before I touched that loyal, open hand again, though, at that moment, I thought I should be parted from him for ever, and was therefore touching it for the last time. In due course I will relate the circumstances under which I was again to meet him.

As I left the Palais-Royal I came across a placard which openly asserted that the Orléans princes were not _Bourbons_, but of the house of _Valois_. I could hardly believe my eyes and stood for a quarter of an hour reading and re-reading it. Ten yards away I met Oudard, took him by the arm and led him in front of the placard.

"Oh!" I said, "it seems it was not enough for Philippe-Égalité to disown his father, but that the son must disown even his very race?"

I returned home, I must confess, completely cast down. I do not know which day this was, but I think it must have been the 2nd of August.

The powder had arrived with Bard that morning; I had handed it over to two students of the École polytechnique, who gave me a receipt for it and took it to la Salpétrière. It must have been on the 2nd, for I saw M. de Latour-Foissac, whom I knew by sight, driving to the Palais-Royal; I had met him at the house of Madame de Sériane, sister of General Coëtlosquet.

M. de Latour-Foissac was taking the answer to the lieu-tenant-general's letter of the previous day, the letter substituted, as we know, for the one written by M. Dupin. This answer was the abdication of Charles X. and that of the Duc d'Angoulême; it gave permission to the Duc d'Orléans to proclaim the Duc de Bordeaux under the title of Henri V. The lieutenant-general declined to receive the messenger, but he took the message.

Now, what was to be done? M. Sébastiani was consulted, and advised a Regency. Béranger was for a Monarchy. The Duc d'Orléans cut the difficult knot by saying--

"Be Regent? I would rather be nothing at all than Regent.... At the very first stomach-ache Henri V. might have, it would be proclaimed upon the housetops that I had poisoned him."

And from that moment there was no longer any doubt in anyone's mind that Louis-Philippe would become king.

The abdication was dated from Rambouillet, as the letter had been. Rambouillet was only thirty-six miles from Paris; Charles X. had still fourteen thousand men round him, with thirty-eight pieces of cannon. He had something even better than those--he had the two letters of the Duc d'Orléans. Charles X. could not remain at Rambouillet; by some combination or other he must be forced to leave Rambouillet, and, more than that, France itself. It did not prove a difficult matter to manage to bring this to pass--the means were probably already prepared. Meantime, on 2 August, General Hulot was sent to Cherbourg to take up the command of the four departments which separate Paris from the Channel; the same day also M. Dumont-d'Urville received orders to start for Havre with all haste, and there to freight two transport ships. The day before, they risked inserting in the _Courrier français_ the protest of the Duc d'Orléans against the birth of the Duc de Bordeaux. The reader knows how this proclamation, which in 1820 had caused the exile of the Duc d'Orléans, suggested a doubt as to the legitimacy of the young prince. Well, on 1 August the _Courrier français_ was asked to give it a place in one of its next issues. It did not keep the future king waiting long in impatience! Next morning, 2 August, the _Courrier_ contained the protest. Very likely it was set up by the very same compositors who had printed the placard stating that the Orléans princes were Valois by descent, and not Bourbons.

So all these things happened on 2 August, for on the 3rd I was awakened by the call to arms, which was being beaten furiously in the street, and by Delanoue, who burst into my room, a double-barrelled gun in his hand. A gun was such an unusual toilet accessory in the case of Delanoue that I was more struck by it than by all the rest of the commotion.

"What the dickens is happening?" I asked him.

"Charles X. is marching on Paris with twenty thousand men and fifty pieces of cannon, my dear boy, and all Paris on its part has risen to march against him. Will you come too?"

"By Jove! of course I will!" I cried, leaping out of bed. "I should rather think I would!"

I called Joseph, whose terrified face I had not seen behind Delanoue.

"Here I am, monsieur!" he said, "here I am!"

"Give me my shooting clothes, and take my rifle to the nearest gun-maker's to be cleaned."

"Don't let him take your gun to a shop," said Delanoue; "they will take it from him on the way."

"What!" I said, "they would seize it?"

"Without a doubt.... Things are worse than during the Three Days!"

"Then, my dear Joseph, clean it yourself!"

"Good heavens! good heavens!" said Joseph, "is monsieur going to return to Soissons?"

"No, Joseph; I am going, on the contrary, in exactly the opposite direction."

"Thank goodness!"

Harel came in whilst I was dressing.

"Good--morning, Harel.... What is the news, my friend?"

"The news is," said Harel, drawing his snuff-box from his pocket and plunging in his finger and thumb up to the first joint, "the news is that I have a cunning idea in my head." He breathed up his pinch of snuff with sensuous enjoyment, and, as is usual with great connoisseurs, scattered three-quarters of his snuff over the floor and into the air. "An excellent idea!" he went on.

"Well, my friend, you shall communicate it to me on my return."

"Where are you going?"

"To Rambouillet, of course!"

"Excellent! That's the finishing stroke! You ran the risk of being shot three days ago at Soissons, and now you want to go and get some limb or other broken at Rambouillet!"

"But don't you realise that Charles X. is marching on Paris with twenty thousand men and fifty pieces of cannon?"

"I know that is the report; but let fools believe such news as that. Poor Charles X.! I will wager, if he marches to any town whatsoever, it will be towards Havre or Cherbourg."

"Never mind, my dear friend! Delanoue has come to fetch me, and if it is nothing more than to hunt big game in the park at Rambouillet, I do not wish to miss the opportunity... So once more you must put off telling me your piece of news till my return, if I do return."

"Give me a part in your piece," Delanoue said in a whisper.

"Certainly, I promise."

I turned round to Harel.

"How did you come here?" I asked him.

"Why, in a cab, of course."

"Good! we will take it."

"What for?"

"To drive to Rambouillet."

"You must take me as far as the Odéon, then!"

"Agreed!"

"Besides," said Delanoue, "it is on the place de l'Odéon people are collecting."

"Ah! you will lend us your tricolour flag, Harel, won't you?"

"What tricolour flag do you mean?"

"The one under which they have been singing the _Marseillaise_ at your theatre for the last three days."

"What am I to do, then?"

"You will make an announcement to the public, telling them that I carried it away to Rambouillet.... The public is good-natured enough, and will do without the flag for a day or two."

"Come along and get it ... you know very well the whole theatre is at your service."

Whenever Harel wanted to get a play out of me, he always made this remark. My gun had been washed and rubbed and dried in the sun; I took it, we got into the cab and set off for the Odéon. There were two or three thousand persons in the square and its vicinity. I had scarcely put my foot to the ground, leaving Delanoue inside the cab, before I was surrounded by a score of men, calling me by my name and asking me to put myself at their head. They were the scene-shifters belonging to the Odéon, who still had in warm remembrance the tips I had given them when _Christine_ was being performed. I told one of them to go and find the flag, and whilst we left the cab under the protection of others (to whom I sent out seven or eight bottles of wine to keep up their patience) we went and had breakfast at Risbeck's. By the time we came out of the restaurant our troop was further augmented by a drummer. I have remarked before with what rapidity drummers multiply during times of revolution. We got into our cab, naturally taking the seat of honour; then everybody else crushed inside with us, or outside on the box with the driver, some behind, some on the shafts, and some on the imperial. The unlucky horses started, dragging nineteen people! Most of my men were only armed with pikes. At the corner of the rue du Bac and the quay, a man who seemed to be posted there on duty for this purpose shouted after us--

"Have you any arms?"

"No!" replied most of my men.

"Well! arms are being distributed at the Palais-Royal."

"To the Palais-Royal!" cried the men. "To the Palais-Royal."

The cab crossed the place du Carrousel and made its way towards the Palais-Royal. Traffic was becoming possible once more, little by little the barricades had disappeared and the paving stones had somehow or other been laid down again. We reached the Palais-Royal.

"One moment," I said; "order, if you please! I am known here, and, if there is any chance of obtaining anything, I shall have it."

We went into a low room, which was packed with people. As I went in, I knocked against a student of the École who was going out.

"Is that you, Charles?"

"Yes.... Have you come to get arms?"

"Of course."

"In that case, you had better hurry up. I have only been able to get a pistol."

He had a pistol stuck into his coat, the butt end projecting between two buttons.

"You are going there too?"

"Why, of course!"

"Then we shall meet again?"

"Probably."

"Good-day!"

"Adieu!"

We managed with the greatest difficulty to push our way to the distributor of arms. Fortunately, a valet in the livery of the Duc d'Orléans recognised me, and made room for us.

"Monsieur de Rumigny," he said, "here is M. Dumas."

"Very well, let him come to me."

The distributor was M. de Rumigny himself: he was then about thirty-five, and was a splendid figure in his uniform. He had a big case full of swords and pistols in front of him; the rifles had all gone. They had come from Lepage.

Swords and pistols were given to my men, and then, when all had been equipped, M. de Rumigny asked--

"Are your men thirsty?"

"Rather," I said, "they are scene-shifters from the théâtre de l'Odéon!"

"Give them a glass of wine each, then."

They went to a table full of bottles and glasses, and were served by His Royal Highness's own lackeys.

"Well?" I asked, when they had drunk.

"The livery is fine enough," they replied, "but the wine is poor."

"What do you mean?"

"It is not equal to that you sent us out on the place de l'Odéon.... We bet this wine here is not worth twelve sous a bottle."

"If you have any more like it again to-night, upon my word I shall think you very lucky."

"Messieurs," said a lackey, "please make room now for others."

"Quite right": so we went out.

Paris presented quite a new aspect--it seemed incredible after the many different spectacles it had been exhibiting. Whether the cabs were chartered by the Government, or whether their drivers shared the general enthusiasm, they placed themselves at the disposal of the combatants. At the corner of the rue Saint-Roch I caught sight of Charles Ledru running at full speed. I called out to him--

"Hi! come with us."

"Have you room for me?"

"We are only nine inside, and if we squeeze up a little more we can get you in."

"Thanks, I have a horse ready for me at Kausmann's."

"Stop," I said, "that reminds me I have one too.... I always forget it." I had only had it a short time.

I pulled up before my friend Hiraux's café, porte Saint-Honoré, and he regaled all my men with a _petit verre_ of eau-de-vie. The bottle was emptied in the process. But, as the flag waved, my men sang the _Marseillaise_ and the drum beat a roll. We had taken nearly three-quarters of an hour in coming from the Palais-Royal to the porte Saint-Honoré, the street was so crowded and the carriages walked in files as at Longchamp.

We now made a fresh start, some taking the road by the water and others the grand avenue of the Champs-Élysées. At the place Louis XV. "Make way!" was being shouted by General Pajol, who had just received the command of the Expeditionary Army, and who came along full gallop to take the head of the column. He had with him Charras, Charles Ledru and two or three others. We drew up, and he passed and went along by the water's edge. We kept to the grand allée. At the circus of the Champs-Élysées we turned to the left, to regain the quai de Billy by the avenue Montaigne. In the middle of this avenue stood a group of horsemen with Colonel Jacqueminot in the centre. He was in the dress of a deputy and still wore the silver fleur-de-lis on his collar. General Pajol had doubtless been sending to look for him, for he was talking eagerly with Charras. Étienne Arago passed at that moment with a band of about a hundred men. Every time we met they shouted "_Vive la Charte!_" and we shouted back the same! This seemed to annoy Colonel Jacqueminot, and with good cause, I think: it was not amusing at all to live in the din of those everlasting shoutings.

"Yes! yes! shout _Vive la Charte!_ It will make you as fat as eating bits of wafer!"

The phrase was so original that I have not forgotten a word of it in all these twenty-two years. We only shouted the louder, then went on our way in the direction of Versailles.