CHAPTER V

Death of Benjamin Constant--Concerning his life--Funeral honours that were conferred upon him--His funeral--Law respecting national rewards--The trial of the ministers--Grouvelle and his sister--M. Mérilhou and the neophyte--Colonel Lavocat--The Court of Peers--Panic--Fieschi

The month of December 1830 teemed with events. One of the gravest was the death of Benjamin Constant. On the 10th we received orders to be ready equipped and armed by the 12th, to attend the funeral procession of the famous deputy. He had died at seven in the evening of 8 December. His death created a great sensation throughout Paris. Benjamin Constant's popularity was a strange one, and it would be hard to say upon what it was founded. He was a Swiss Protestant, and had been brought up in England and Germany. He could speak English, German and French with equal ease; but he composed and wrote in French. He was young, good-looking, strong in body, but weak in character. From the time he set foot in France, Constant did nothing unless under the influence of women: they were his rulers in literature and his guides in politics. He was taken up by three of the most celebrated women of his time; by Madame Tallien, Madame de Beauharnais and Madame de Staël, and he was completely under their influence; the latter, especially, had an immense influence over his life. _Adolphe_ was he himself, and the heroine in it was Madame de Staël. Besides, the life of Benjamin was not by any means the life of a man, but that of a woman, that is to say, a mixture of inconsistencies and weaknesses. Raised to the Tribunal after the overturning of the Directory, he opposed Bonaparte when he was First Consul, not, as historians state, because he had no belief in the durability of Napoléon's good fortune, but because Madame de Staël, with whom he was then on most intimate terms, detested the First Consul. He was expelled from the Tribunal in 1801, and exiled from France in 1802, and went to live near his mistress (or rather master) at Coppet. About the year 1806 or 1807 this life of slavery grew insufferable to him, and, weak though he was, he broke his chains. Read his novel _Adolphe_, and you will see how heavily the chain galled him! He settled at Hanover, where he married a German lady of high birth, a relative of the Prince of Hardenberg, and behold him an aristocrat, moving in the very highest aristocratic circles in Germany, never leaving the princes of the north, but living in the heart of the coalition which threatened France, directing foreign proclamations, writing his brochure, _De l'esprit de conquête et d'usurpation_, upon the table of the Emperor Alexander; and, finally, re-entering France with Auguste de Staël, in the carriage of King Charles-John. How can one escape being a Royalist in such company!

He was also admitted to the _Journal des Débats_, and became one of the most active editors of that periodical. When Bonaparte landed at the gulf of Juan and marched on Paris, Benjamin Constant's first impulse was to take himself off. He began by hiding himself at the house of Mr. Crawford, ex-ambassador to the United States; then he went to Nantes with an American who undertook to get him out of France. But, on the journey, he learned of the insurrection in the West and retraced his steps and returned to Paris after a week's absence. In five more days' time, he went to the Tuileries at the invitation of M. Perregaux, where the emperor was awaiting an audience with him in his private room. Benjamin Constant was to be bought by any power that took the trouble to flatter him; he was in politics, literature and morality what we will call a courtezan, only Thomas, of the _National_, used a less polite word for it. Two days later, the newspaper announced the appointment of Benjamin Constant as a member of the State Council. Here it was that he drew up the famous _Acte additionnel_ in conjunction with M. Molé, a minister whom we had just thrown out of Louis-Philippe's Government. At the Second Restoration, it was expedient for Benjamin Constant to get himself exiled; and it regained him his popularity, so great was the public hatred against the Bourbons! He went to England and published _Adolphe._ In 1816, the portals of France were re-opened to him and he started the _Minerve_, and wrote in the _Courrier_ and _Constitutionnel_ and in the _Temps._ I met him at this time at the houses of Châtelain and M. de Seuven. He was a tall, well-built man, excessively nervous, pale and with long hair, which gave his face a strangely Puritanical expression; he was as irritable as a woman and a gambler to the pitch of infatuation! He had been a deputy since 1819, and each day he was one of the first arrivals at the Chamber, punctiliously clad in uniform, with its silver fleurs-de-lis, and always, summer and winter, carrying a cloak over his arm; his other hand was always full of books and printer's proofs; he limped and leant upon a sort of crutch, stumbling along frequently till he reached his seat. When seated, he began upon his correspondence and the correcting of his proofs, employing every usher in the place to execute his innumerable commissions. Ambitious in all directions, without ever succeeding in anything, nor even getting into the Academy, where he failed in his first attempt against Cousin, and in the second against M. Viennet! by turns irresolute and courageous, servile and independent, he spent his ten years as deputy under every kind of vacillation. The Monday of the Ordinances he was away in the country, where he had been undergoing a serious operation; he received a letter from Vatout, short and significant--

"MY DEAR FRIEND,--A terrible game is being played here with heads as stakes. Be the clever gambler you always are and come and bring your own head to our assistance."

The summons was tempting and he went. On the Thursday, he reached Montrouge, where the barricades compelled him to leave his carriage and to cross Paris upon the arm of his wife, who was terrified when she saw what men were guarding the Hôtel de Ville, and frightened her husband as well as herself.

"Let us start for Switzerland instantly!" exclaimed Benjamin Constant; "and find a corner of the earth where not even the cover of a newspaper can reach us!"

He was actually on the point of doing so when he was recognised, and some one called out "Vive Benjamin Constant!" lifted him in his arms and carried him in triumph. His name was placed last on the list of the protest of the deputies, and is to be found at the end of Act 30, conferring the Lieutenant-generalship upon the Duc d'Orléans; these two signatures, supported by his immense reputation and increasing popularity, once more took him into the State Council. Meanwhile, he was struggling against poverty, and Vatout induced the king to allow him two hundred thousand francs, which Constant accepted on condition, so he said to him who gave him this payment, that he was allowed the right of free speech. That's exactly how I understand it, said the king. At the end of four months, the two hundred thousand francs were all gambled away, and Constant was poorer than ever. A fortnight before his death, a friend went to his house, one morning at ten o'clock, and found him eating dry bread, soaked in a glass of water. That crust of bread was all he had had since the day before, and the glass of water he owed to the Auvergnat who had filled his cistern that morning. His death was announced to the Chamber of Deputies on 9 December.

"What did he die of?" several members asked.

And a melancholy accusing voice that none dared contradict replied--

"Of hunger!"

This was not quite the truth, but there was quite enough foundation for the statement to be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Then they set to work to arrange all kinds of funeral celebrations; they brought in a bill respecting the honours that should be bestowed upon great citizens by a grateful country, and, as this Act could not be passed by the following day, they bought provisionally a vault in the Cemetery de l'Est.

Oh! what a fine thing is the gratitude of a nation! True, it does not always secure one against death by starvation; but, at all events, it guarantees your being buried in style when you are dead--unless you die either in prison or in exile.

We had the privilege of contributing to the pomp of this cortège formed of a hundred thousand men; shadowed by flags draped in crêpe; and marching to the roll of muffled drums, and the dull twangings of the tam-tams. At one time, the whole boulevard was flooded by a howling sea like the rising tide, and, soon, the storm burst. As the funeral procession came out of the church, the students tried to get possession of the coffin, shouting, "To the Panthéon!" But Odilon Barrot came forward; the Panthéon was not in the programme, and he opposed their enthusiasm and, as a struggle began, he appealed to the law.

"The law must be enforced!" he cried. And he called to his aid that strength which people in power generally apply less to the maintenance of law than to the execution of their own desires; which, unfortunately, is not always the same thing.

Eighteen months later, these very same words, "The law must be enforced!" were pronounced over another coffin, but, in that instance, the law was not enforced until after two days of frightful butchery.

At the edge of Benjamin Constant's grave, La Fayette nearly fainted from grief and fatigue, and was obliged to be held up and pulled backward or he would have lain beside the dead before his time.

We shall relate how the same thing nearly happened to him at the grave of Lamarque, but, that time, he did not get up again.

Every one returned home at seven that evening, imbued with some of the stormy electricity with which the air during the whole of that day had been charged.

Next day, the Chamber enacted a law, which, in its turn, led to serious disturbances. It was the law relative to national pensions.

On 7 October, M. Guizot had ascended the tribune and said--

"GENTLEMEN,--The king was as anxious as you were to sanction by a legislative act the great debt of national gratitude, which our country owes to the victims of the Revolution.

"I have the honour to put before you a bill to that effect. Our three great days cost more than _five hundred orphans_ the loss of fathers, _five hundred widows_ their husbands, and over _three hundred old people_ have lost the affection and support of children. _Three hundred and eleven citizens_ have been mutilated and made incapable of carrying on their livelihood, and _three thousand five hundred and sixty-four wounded people_ have had to endure temporary disablement."

A Commission had been appointed to draw up this bill and, on 13 December, the bill called the Act of National Recompense was carried. It fixed the amounts to be granted to the widows, fathers, mothers and sisters of the victims; and decreed that France should adopt the orphans made during the Three Days fighting; among other dispositions it contained the following--

"ARTICLE 8.--Resolved that those who particularly distinguished themselves during the July Days shall be made noncommissioned officers and sub-lieutenants in the army, if they are thought deserving of this honour after the report of the Commission, provided that in each regiment the number of sub-lieutenants does not exceed the number of two and that of non-commissioned officers, four.

"ARTICLE 10.--A special decoration shall be granted to every citizen who distinguished himself during the July Days; the list of those who are permitted to wear it shall be drawn up by the Commission, and _submitted to the King's approval_; this decoration will rank in the same degree as the Légion d'honneur."

This law appeared in the _Moniteur_ on the 17th.

Just as the bill had been introduced the day after M. de Tracy's proposition with respect to the death penalty, this bill was adopted the day before the trial of the ex-ministers. It was as good as saying--"You dead, what more can you lay claim to? We have given your widows, fathers, mothers and sisters pensions! You, who live, what more can you want? We have made you non-commissioned officers and sub-lieutenants and given you the Cross! You would not have enjoyed such privileges if the ministers of Charles X. had not passed the Ordinances; therefore praise them instead of vilifying them!"

But the public was in no mood to praise Polignac and his accomplices; instead, it applauded the Belgian revolution and the Polish insurrection. All eyes were fixed upon the Luxembourg. If the ministers were acquitted or condemned to any other sentence than that of death, the Revolution of July would be abjured before all Europe, and by the king who won his crown by means of the barricades.

Mauguin, one of the examining judges, when questioned concerning the punishment that ought to be served to the prisoners, replied unhesitatingly--"Death!"

Such events as the violation of our territory by the Spanish army; the death of Benjamin Constant and refusal to allow his body to be taken to the Panthéon; the Belgian revolution and Polish insurrection; were so many side winds to swell the storm which was gathering above the Luxembourg.

On 15 December, two days after the vote upon the National Pensions Bill, and two days before its promulgation in the _Moniteur_, the prosecutions began. The trial lasted from the 15th to the 21st; for six days we never changed our uniform. We did not know what we were kept in waiting for; we were rallied together several times, either at Cavaignac's or Grouvelle's, to come to some decision, but nothing definite was proposed, beyond that our common centre should be the Louvre, where our arms and ammunition were stored, and that we should be guided by circumstances and act as the impulse of the moment directed.

I have already had occasion to mention Grouvelle; but let us dwell for a moment upon him and his sister. Both were admirable people, with hearts as devoted to the cause of Republicanism as any Spartan or Roman citizens. We shall meet them everywhere and in everything connected with politics until Grouvelle disappears from the arena, at the same time that his sister dies insane in the hospice de Montpellier. They were the son and daughter of the Grouvelle who made the first complete edition of the _Lettres de Madame de Sévigné_, and the same who, as secretary of the Convention, had read to Louis XVI. the sentence of death brought him by Garat. At the time I knew him, Grouvelle was thirty-two or three, and his sister twenty-five, years of age. There was nothing remarkable in his external appearance; he was very simply dressed, with a gentle face and scanty fair hair, and upon his scalp he wore a black band, no doubt to hide traces of trepanning. She, too, was fair and had most lovely hair, with blue eyes below white eyelashes, which gave an extremely sweet expression to her face, an expression, however, which assumed much firmness if you followed the upper lines to where they met round her mouth and chin. A charming portrait of herself hung in her house, painted by Madame Mérimée, the wife of the artist who painted the beautiful picture, _l'innocence et le Serpent_; the mother of Prosper Mérimée, author of _Le Vase Étrusque, Colomba, Vénus d'Ile_ and of a score of novels which are all of high merit. The mother of Laure Grouvelle was a Darcet, sister, I believe, of Darcet the chemist, who had invented the famous joke about gelatine; consequently, she was cousin to the poor Darcet who died a horrible death, being burnt by some new chemical that he was trying to substitute for lamp-oil; cousin also to the beautiful Madame Pradier, who was then simply Mademoiselle Darcet or at most called _madame._ They both had a small fortune, sufficient for their needs, for Laure Grouvelle had none of the usual feminine coquetry about her, but was something akin to Charlotte Corday.

It was a noticeable fact that all the men of 1830 and the Carbonari of 1821 and 1822 were either wealthy or of independent means, either from private fortunes or industry or talent. Bastide and Thomas were wealthy; Cavaignac and Guinard lived on their incomes; Arago and Grouvelle had posts; Loëve-Weymars possessed talent and Carrel, genius. I could name all and it would be seen that none of them acted from selfish ends, or needed to bring about revolutions to enrich himself; on the contrary, all lost by the revolutions they took part in, some losing their fortunes, others their liberty, some their lives.

Mademoiselle Grouvelle had never married, but it was said that Étienne Arago had proposed to her when she was a young girl; that was a long while back, in 1821 or 1822. Étienne Arago was then, in 1821, a student in chemistry at the École polytechnique, and was about twenty years of age; he made the acquaintance of Grouvelle at Thénard's house. He was a fiery-hearted son of the South; his friends were anxious to make him a propagandist, and through his instrumentality principally, to introduce the secret society of the _Charbonnerie_ into the École; Grouvelle, Thénard, Mérilhou and Barthe being its chief supporters.

These germs of Republicanism, sown by the young chemical student, and, even more, by the influence of Eugène Cavaignac, also a student at the École at that time, produced in after life such men as Vanneau, Charras, Lothon, Millotte, Caylus, Latrade, Servient and all that noble race of young men who, from 1830 to 1848, were to be found at the head of every political movement.

A year later, _La Charbonnerie_ was recruited by Guinard, Bastide, Chevalon, Thomas, Gauja and many more, who were always first in the field when fighting began.

The question of how to introduce the principles of _La Charbonnerie_ into Spain in the teeth of the _cordon sanitaire_ was being debated, in order to establish relations between the patriots of the army and those who were taking refuge in the peninsula. Étienne Arago was thought of, but as he was too poor to undertake the journey, they went to Mérilhou. Mérilhou, as I have said, was one of the ringleaders of Charbonarism. He was then living in the rue des Moulins. Cavaignac and Grouvelle introduced Étienne, and Mérilhou gazed at the neophyte, who did not look more than eighteen.

"You are very young, my friend," said the cautious lawyer to him.

"That may be, monsieur," Étienne responded, "but young though I am, I have been a Charbonist for two years."

"Do you realise to what dangers you would expose yourself if you undertook this propagandist mission?"

"Certainly, I do; I expose myself to death on the scaffold."

Whereupon the future minister of Louis-Philippe and peer of France, and presiding judge at the Barbés' trial, laid his hand upon Étienne's shoulder, and said, in the theatrical manner barristers are wont to assume--

"_Made animo, generose puer!_" And gave him the necessary money.

We shall come across M. Mérilhou again at Barbés' trial, and the _made animo_ will not be thrown away upon us.

For the moment, however, we must go back to the trial of the ministers.

La Fayette had declared his views positively; he had offered himself as guarantee to the High Court; he had sworn to the king to save the heads of the ministers, if they were acquitted. Thereupon ensued a strange revival of popularity in favour of the old general; fear made his greatest enemies sing his praises on all sides; the king and Madame Adélaïde showered favours upon him; he was indispensable; the monarchy could not survive without his support.... If Atlas failed this new Olympus, it would be overthrown!

La Fayette saw through it all and laughed to himself and shrugged his shoulders significantly. None of these flatteries and favours had induced him to act as he did, but simply the dictates of his own conscience.

"General," I said to him on 15 December, "you know you are staking your popularity to save the heads of these ministers?"

"My boy," he replied, "no one knows better than I the price to be put upon popularity; it is the richest and most inestimable of treasure, and the only one I have ever coveted; but, like all other treasures, in life, when the moment comes, one must strip oneself to the uttermost farthing in the interest of public welfare and national honour."

General La Fayette certainly acted nobly, much too nobly, indeed, for the deserts of those for whom he made the sacrifice, for they only attributed it to weakness instead of to devotion to duty.

The streets in the vicinity of the Luxembourg were dreadfully congested by the crowds waiting during the trial, so that the troops of the National Guard could scarcely circulate through them. Troops of the line and National Guards were, at the command of La Fayette, placed at his disposition with plenary power; he had the police of the Palais-Royal, of the Luxembourg and of the Chamber of Peers. He had made Colonel Lavocat second in command at the Luxembourg, with orders to watch over the safety of the peers; those same peers who had once condemned Lavocat to death. If he could but have evoked the shade of Ney, he would have placed him as sentinel at the gates of the palace!

Colonel Feisthamel was first in command. Lavocat was one of the oldest members of the Carbonari. Every kind of political party was represented in the crowd that besieged the gates of the Luxembourg, except Orléanist; we all rubbed against one another. Republicans, Carlists, Napoléonists, awaiting events in the hope of being able to further each his own interests, opinions and principles. We had tickets for reserved seats. I was present on the last day but one, and heard the pleading of M. de Martignac and also that of M. de Peyronnet, and I witnessed M. Sauzet's triumph and saw M. Crémieux fall ill.

Just at that second the sound of the beating of drums penetrated right into the Chamber of Peers. They were beating the rappel in a wild sort of frenzy.

I rushed from the hall; the sitting was almost suspended, half on account of the accident that had happened to M. Crémieux, half because of the terrible noise that made the accused men shiver on their benches and the judges in their seats. My uniform as artilleryman made way for me through the crowds, and I gained the courtyard; it was packed. A coach belonging to the king's printers had come into the principal court and the multitude had angrily rushed in after it. It was the sound of their angry growls combined with the drumming which had reached the hall. A moment of inexpressible panic and confusion succeeded among the peers, and it was quite useless for Colonel Lavocat to shout from the door--

"Have no fear! I will be answerable for everything. The National Guard is and will remain in possession of all the exits."

M. Pasquier could not hear him, and his little thin shrill voice could be heard saying--

"Messieurs les pairs, the sitting is dissolved. M. le Commandant de la Garde Nationale warns me that it will be unwise to hold a night sitting."

It was exactly the opposite of what Colonel Lavocat had said, but, as most of the peers were just as frightened as their illustrious president, they rose and left the hall hurriedly, and the sitting was deferred until the morrow.

As I went out I pushed against a man who seemed to be one of the most furious of the rioters; he was shouting in a foreign accent and his mouth was hideous and his eyes were wild.

"Death to the ministers!" he was yelling.

"Oh! by Jove!" I said to the chief editor of _The Moniteur_, a little white-haired man called Sauvo, who, like myself, was also watching him. "I bet twenty-five louis that that man is a spy!"

I don't know whether I was right at the time; but I do know that I found the very same man again five years later in the dock of the Court of Peers. He was the Corsican Fieschi.