Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville Part 2

Seeing that I did no good there whatever, my father decided, in the spring of 1831, to remove me altogether, and as my taste for a naval career was growing stronger and stronger, he resolved to make a sailor of me But before I seriously entered the profession he wished me to make a sea-voyage. So I was sent to Toulon, to be s.h.i.+pped as volunteer pilot's apprentice, on board the Arthemise frigate, commander Latreyte.

I was barely thirteen I could not have begun at a better age.

After bidding the tenderest farewell to my father and mother, my aunt, and my brothers and sisters, from whom I had never been parted before, I was packed into a post-chaise with Monsieur Trognon, and off we started.

As far as Lyons our journey was uneventful, but when we got there M.

Paulze d'Ivoy, the prefet, and M. Vitet, author of Barricades des Etats de Blois, took possession of me, nominally to show me the town--in reality to make me the pretext for certain demonstrations in favour of the new order of things. I was driven about, to Fourvieres, to La Croix-Rousse, and so forth, and had the best of receptions from their st.u.r.dy inhabitants. Thirteen-year-old lad as I was, I had to receive the officers of the National Guard--very military indeed they were, with their uniform with its white facings, copied from that of the Imperial Guard. And these receptions and official entertainments, which were not at all to my personal taste, were repeated all along the road till we got to Toulon, marked by increasing animation and fervour as we got farther south, and as the population through which we pa.s.sed became more and more divided by political pa.s.sions. At Valence I found an enormous crowd of people, and the garrison and National Guard both under arms, while a tall lieutenant-colonel, of the 49th Regiment of the Line, insisted on my inspecting the troops in person.

He took my hand with one of his, with the other he waved his sword, and led the plaudits. His name was Magnan, and he was a Marshal of France before he died. At Mornas, the native place of the famous Baron des Adrets, the reception took a very original shape. As we drove up to the posting-house, I saw a great crowd, and the National Guard drawn up in two ranks, on the right and left of the postilions who were to take us on. The carriage pulled up between the ranks, and I fancied I saw a sort of suppressed smile on the countenances of the National Guard. It did not last long, for the commandant in the wildest excitement rapidly gave the words of command: "Present arms--Fire!" And they were followed by the most abominable noise, every man having presented arms with his finger on the trigger of his musket. The crowd cheered tremendously, the horses plunged and reared, and there was a terrible disturbance, which seemed to afford the keenest joy to the officer in command. There was nothing very striking at Orange, nor at Avignon. Speeches by the authorities, visits to the public buildings, very much the same routine as that which official receptions have nowadays made so familiar to everybody. But at Orgon, between Avignon and Aix, it was a very different matter. An immense and excited crowd awaited our arrival, shouting all manner of things. Then the carriage was seized upon by people who looked drunk, but who were drunk with political pa.s.sion alone. It seems the town of Orgon was not reckoned to favour the regime of 1830. So from every side I was greeted with shouts of "We are Cavaillon's men! ... We've come down from the mountains so that you may tell your papa there are no Carlists in Provence." And then they sang the Ma.r.s.eillaise The horses were taken out of the carriage, the crowd surrounded it, climbing on the steps, the wheels, the fore-carriage, the roof. I was like a prisoner in a cage; all I could see out of the window was the boots of the people who were sitting on the top. They sang all the verses of the Ma.r.s.eillaise, and bawled between them. A gentleman contrived to slip up to the carriage door, gave himself out to be the mayor, and tried to rescue us, calling out: "Gentlemen, this really is not decent behaviour." All he got for his pains was a shout of "What the devil do we care about a mayor like you?" I don't know how long it would have gone on, if a detachment of the battalion of Government workmen quartered at Orgon, which had been sent for, had not come to our rescue.

Between Orgon and Ma.r.s.eilles we met the "Regiment de la Charte"

marching from Paris on their way to Algiers, and their pa.s.sage through the country did not a little to excite the inhabitants. At Ma.r.s.eilles the National Guard lined the Allees de Meillan, each man with a bouquet stuck into the muzzle of his rifle, which he took out and threw into the barouche in which I sat with General Gazan, so that I was soon fairly buried, with nothing but my head sticking out, while the crowd shouted at the top of its voice: "Vive le Prinnche!--Long live the Prince!" and I heard women's voices adding, "Que sis poulid! Qui est si joli!"

I had hardly reached Toulon, ere the frigate I had joined put to sea, my apprentices.h.i.+p began, and I soon made myself at home among our sailors, who all of them, officers, petty officers, and seamen alike, not only showed me an affection which won my heart from the very outset, but took every pains to make my stay amongst them a pleasant one, while each in his own special sphere initiated me into all the details of my duty.

The Arthemise was a fine sailing frigate, of fifty-two guns, with huge spars--one of the most elegant types of the old-fas.h.i.+oned s.h.i.+ps, but an old-fas.h.i.+oned s.h.i.+p she was indeed. We even had hempen cables instead of chain ones! The crew, drawn almost exclusively from the lists of registered seamen, was active and bold on the rigging, but somewhat insubordinate. The words of command were given amidst volleys of oaths, and carried out under a hail of blows dealt by the petty officers. The superior officers, who had all belonged to the old Imperial Navy, clung to that detestable habit, which has cost us so many reverses, of completely neglecting the military side of the s.h.i.+p's drill. The only thing they looked to was navigation. There was indeed a routine of regulation practice carried out, but it was utterly ridiculous. The ne plus ultra of perfection in artillery drill, for instance, was supposed to be when at the word "Ram" all the thirteen rammers of the s.h.i.+p's battery struck the bore of the guns with irreproachable simultaneity!

Now and then there was a rehearsal of the drill book, but it was always done amidst universal sleepiness and inattention. There never was one day's practice, nor even one shot fired, during the whole cruise.

The commander gave me boatswains and sailors to teach me the various details of my duty, and I soon learnt to give things their right names, to tie knots, and to climb about the rigging too, though I did not manage that, the first time, without being horribly frightened. I remember, when I got as far as the topgallant crosstrees, clinging on, and not daring to come down till I was driven to it by the jeers of the on-lookers. But I learnt most of all by observation, and from the outset I had that indescribable thing that n.o.body can teach another, the seafaring instinct. Our cruise was a pleasant one, and our stays in port were interesting. At Ajaccio I came upon more public functions, and was the hero of a Bonapartist demonstration. I was borne as though in triumph to the house where Napoleon was born, where I was received by a very old Signor Ramolino, brother to Madame Let.i.tia. In common with my sisters, who drew pictures of Napoleon all over the place, I professed the greatest admiration for the great warrior. So I asked his uncle for some souvenir of him, and he presented me with a red armchair, out of the room in which he was born.

After a visit to the Dey of Algiers, the last representative of those Barbary Moors who were the "Terror of the Seas," as the Muette de Portici has it, I received at Leghorn an invitation from the Grand Duke of Tuscany to come to Florence, and was taken thither by the French Minister, M. de Ganay, a charming man. There was nothing that excellent good Grand Duke and his family did not do for me while I staid at the Pitti Palace, and the only acknowledgment I could make of it all was to turn my schoolboy talents to constructing a jointed jumping jack, that turned head over heels, for one of the young princesses whom we used to call the Archd.u.c.h.ess Mimi, and who afterwards married Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. I returned on board the Arthemise full of grat.i.tude for my reception, and of admiration for the monuments and artistic marvels I had seen at Florence and Pisa and Pistoja, and in which, in spite of my youth, I had taken the deepest interest.

At Naples I found fresh delights in the midst of my mother's family and my young cousins, of both s.e.xes, one of whom, Antonietta, an admirably beautiful girl, later became Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Tuscany in her turn.

Nothing indeed could have been more charming than the Naples of those days. I do not speak of that wondrous setting which will last to all eternity, but of the Naples of the Neapolitans, gay, noisy, and teeming with wit, as it was before the plague of politics fell on it, bringing divisions and gloom, and despoiling it of all its charm of originality; Naples, with its lazzaroni and its macaroni, and its "corricoli"

tearing along with tinkling bells, crammed with monks and women in their costumes--the Naples, in fine, of Pulcinella and of Leopold Robert.

After Naples came Palermo, and then Malta, where we found the magnificent British squadron, and received the most hospitable of welcomes from General and Lady Emily Ponsonby, the governor and his charming wife.

Our stay at Malta ended with a disagreeable incident, hardly conceivable in these days, when naval discipline may be held up as a model to every one. On the evening of the day before that on which we were to weigh anchor, our whole crew deserted in a body. In spite of the efforts of the officer of the watch, and some others of inferior rank, who were present, over 300 men seized the boats and dories that lay alongside of us, and took "French leave" on sh.o.r.e. The next day we could not start, for we had no crew. We had to apply to the police and the English garrison, who sent out pickets, collected our rovers, and brought almost all of them back in the course of the evening, and we started somewhat humiliated at having given the English such a sad specimen of the insubordination which always follows on revolutions.

The English have had their revolution too, but they have taken good care to have no more than the one, and above all not to make laws which render a periodical recurrence of revolution inevitable. As we had over 300 delinquents, it was impossible to punish them. The men felt this, and, with the evident intention of setting their officers at defiance, they spent the next few evenings singing revolutionary songs, some verses of which they came and yelled on their knees on the quarterdeck.

The firmness of the commanding officers got the better of these saturnalia, by degrees.

Storms delayed us in the Maltese waters, and we only just missed being on the spot on the very day when an eruption threw up an island and a volcano from the depths of the sea, to which they have now returned.

After a long pa.s.sage, the frigate anch.o.r.ed at Algiers, which in 1831 was still the city of the Deys. Not a street had been widened, nor a European house built. It was still inhabited by a numerous native population. The Rue de la Marine, which was like a narrow winding staircase, was crowded with negro women street sellers, the cafes filled with Moors wearing huge turbans. To increase the picturesqueness of the situation, there was fighting going on at the city gates.

Berthezene, the Governor-General, had just been forced to beat a retreat from Medeah. I could see the firing on the slopes of Kouba from the frigate, and a column had to be sent out to revictual the Maison-Carree! Under these circ.u.mstances, the Governor bethought himself that it would be a good thing to show "the King's son" to the troops, and settled to hold a review the next day. The troops were to be withdrawn for the moment from the line of defense, and the review was to be held at Mustapha. I had ventured to suggest that I might go and see the soldiers in their own lines, hoping thus to get near the firing, a natural desire enough, seeing I wore a volunteer uniform in spite of my thirteen years, but n.o.body listened to me, and to Mustapha I was taken, mounted on the ex-Dey's white mule, which an artilleryman persisted in leading by the bridle, in spite of all my indignant protests.

A real downright review that was! The men had been fighting all the morning, and Zouaves and linesmen alike looked fierce indeed, with tanned faces, eyes reddened by the smoke, and a black mark at the corner of every mouth, from biting off the ends of the cartridges. The Zouaves had only just been raised, and were not a bit like the Zouaves of the present day. The ranks consisted mostly of Arabs, who wore almost the same uniform as the present one, only with bare legs and slippers on their feet, mingled with Parisian roughs, drafted out of the "Regiments de la Charte," most of them wearing blouses and caps.

Many of the non-commissioned officers had come from the Royal Guard, and still wore their blue cloaks. The excessively whimsical get-up of the officers put the finis.h.i.+ng touch to this motley show. Most of them had adopted the Mameluke dress--white turbans, huge trousers, yellow boots, a sun embroidered on their backs, and a scimitar. After the Zouaves I saw the squadron of "Cha.s.seurs Algeriens," the nucleus of the future "Cha.s.seurs d'Afrique," march past. They wore Turkish dress and turbans too, all but their commanding officer, a big bearded artillery captain, who wore a burnous and Arab pistols over his uniform. His name was Marey-Monge, and he was a general of division when he died.

After the review I was taken back to my s.h.i.+p. The frigate sailed for Port Mahon, where we underwent a long quarantine, and thence to Toulon, where we arrived just as the squadron which had forced the mouth of the Tagus, under the orders of Admiral Roussin, returned, I went over those fine s.h.i.+ps, and especially the Algesiras, with many a regret that the Arthemise had had no share in the fray. The commander of the Algesiras, M. Moulac, a tall, strongly built, grey-headed man, the bravest of the brave, who had fought boldly in all our naval struggles with England, told me a story which impressed me deeply, and which I here transcribe just as it remains fixed in my memory:--

"It has been blowing great guns, as you know, all the last few days.

The s.h.i.+p was running under easy sail when I heard a shout of 'Man overboard!' The lifebuoy was thrown, and, looking astern, I saw the man had caught it. But it was a raging sea--I saw and felt that to try and lower a boat to save the poor wretch must expose the men who manned it to the greatest danger. The crew read in my face the fearful struggle going on within me, and twenty, thirty, perhaps forty volunteers, headed by officers and mids.h.i.+pmen, crowded round me, beseeching me almost on their knees: 'Let us save our comrade, sir! we can't desert him!' I was weak enough to yield. By unexpected good luck, we managed to lower a boat without accident, and she started manned by a dozen men. We saw her, by still greater good fortune, get to the poor fellow and save him, and I was steering about so as to make it easier for her to get back, when a huge wave broke over her. A shout of horror went up from her, and then silence. In another minute I saw my boat capsized, on the crest of a wave, with two or three men, one of them a mids.h.i.+pman, clinging to the keel. To shorten their agony, I made as though I was going ahead. The middy understood that I was forced to abandon them, for he waved a farewell and let himself go. I had been weak, but I was cruelly punished. Thirteen men drowned instead of one, and by my fault!"

I shall never forget the severe expression that came over the commander's face as he added, laying his hand on my shoulder, "Some day, boy, you may be in command. May the thought of me remind you always that duty is inexorable!"

After this final episode in my first cruise I went ash.o.r.e, but I went ash.o.r.e a sailor to the core, and my one idea, when I got back to Paris, was to acquire the technical information needed for my profession. To this the years 1832 and 1833 were devoted. M. Guerard, a charming fellow, universally liked and an incomparable instructor, was my mathematical teacher. A lieutenant in the navy, M. Hernoux, put me through the course of study of the Naval School. At the same time I set a.s.siduously to work to learn drawing. My first master in this line was M. Barbier, the father of Jules Barbier, the poet and librettist, who, with Emile Augier, was a cla.s.s-mate of my young brothers. I did watercolours too, under an Englishman, William Callow, and oils in Gudin's studio. But my real master, who taught me to draw, and led and guided me, and gave me my taste for things artistic, was Ary Scheffer, with whom I remained on terms of the closest intimacy until his death.

It was somewhere about this time that a French army entered Belgium, and besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, and during this campaign my elder brothers first had the honour of leading our soldiers under fire. Antwerp once taken, the French Government, content with having given a proof of activity to Europe, and shown everybody what our legions could do, at once recalled the army, and my father went to review it in the cantonments on the frontier where it lay. I made this journey with him. The troops were splendid, full of zeal and confidence. I was shown one infantry brigade, which at the time of mobilization had done marches of sixty to seventy kilometres, so as to reach the given point at the hour fixed upon. It was an interesting journey, though a very trying one. Every day there was an entry into some town, and a partial review, in Siberian cold. And every evening there was a banquet, and every night a ball. The chief review was held at Valenciennes. The troops looked magnificent, drawn up on the snow, and, though it was so terribly cold, a brilliant sun lighted up the splendid military scene. It was enlivened by a little incident. The commandant of the fortress of Valenciennes was an old colonel, who had re-engaged in 1830, after having dabbled somewhat in conspiracy, under the Restoration. His name was M. de la Huberdiere, and he had had himself a hat made exactly like Napoleon's, and wore it just after the same fas.h.i.+on.

During the march past, either from sheer keenness or because he wanted to attract attention to himself, he edged himself gradually in front of the staff, on the side where the troops advanced, till at last he was abreast of the King, so that the troops appeared to be marching past him. This provoked one of my father's aides-de-camp, Heymes, who went up to him, and said, saluting, "It seems to me, Colonel, you would be better placed still if you were on the King's horse!" The shriek of laughter which greeted this remark may be imagined.

This same Heymes, one of the few survivors of General Leclerc's expedition to St. Domingo, had, on leaving that charnel-house, become aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney. He it was who, during the famous retreat from Russia, was sent to ask the general who was blowing up the Beresina bridges to suspend the work of destruction, so as to allow of the pa.s.sage of the column with the wounded, who must otherwise be doomed to death. It was worth seeing the expression of his face, severe enough already, when he repeated the answer the general in question gave him, with the most southern of accents, "What, my dear fellow! The wounded! The Emperor has decided to sacrifice them!"

The worthy Heymes did my father a great service a short time after the review which has led me to mention him. It was at the moment of the insurrection in June 1832. We were at St. Cloud. It was well known that the agitators of every description intended to make a demonstration on the occasion of General Lamarque's funeral, but the demonstration was not expected to be of any importance. However, at about five in the evening, we beheld Heymes, in plain clothes, gallop into the courtyard, on a dragoon's charger, covered with foam. He had just come from the demonstration, and had witnessed that ordinary prologue to revolutions, pillage and ma.s.sacre--pillage of gunsmiths' shops, and ma.s.sacre of the officers of the 6th Dragoons, shot down with pistols, without any provocation whatever, at the head of their squadrons in line.

"You must come to Paris, Sire," he said, as he dismounted. My father did not wait for him to say it twice, and an hour later he was at the Tuileries, thence giving the impulse which nipped the revolutionary attempt in the bud. The next morning he was on horseback amidst the troops and the National Guard, which hemmed the rioters into the ward of St. Merri. An incident occurred there which was highly characteristic of that Parisian population, in whom a generous chord will always thrill, even in its maddest moments. The King, with my brother Nemours and his staff, had gone down the Rue des Arcis, at the end of which lively firing was heard. The troops who were ma.s.sed in the street greeted the sovereign with cheers, and he, going forward, reached a square in which the fighting was actually going on. The cheering ran from one to another, the soldiers who were engaged ceasing their fire to join in. This change in the music struck the insurgents also at last. They stopped firing too, and were to be seen appearing at the windows, rifle in hand, taking off their caps to the plucky King, whom they would not have hesitated to shoot at a minute before.

I need not say that as soon as the King and his escort disappeared down a side street the fight began again, merrier than ever, and the 42nd Regiment of the line carried the monastery of St. Merri. An historic regiment that 42nd! After having fought against the "White"

insurrection in the Vendee and the republican insurrection at the St.

Merri monastery, caused the breakdown of Prince Napoleon's Boulogne adventure, occupied the Chamber of Deputies on the 2nd of December, and heroically lost its whole strength twice over in the siege of Paris, it has had the good fortune of being almost the only one of our regiments to keep its arms and its colours amidst all our mishaps.

There was no further interruption to the course of my studies, except a journey of the King's to Normandy, on which I accompanied him. The official object of this journey was to hold a review, at Cherbourg, of the squadron which had operated, in concert with an English one, in the North Sea, during the arrangement of the Belgian question. But its chief end was to go through the Departments in Normandy and enter into relations with the honest folk who populated them.

The trip was fruitful in incident. The first happened at Bernay, the native town of the virtuous Dupont de l'Eure, one of those virtuous individuals who would virtuously have your head cut off sooner than drop the smallest iota of their vulgar and utopian ideas. The prefect, M. Pa.s.sy, had warned the King that amongst the addresses that would be read to him on his arrival there would be one which would give him a lecture. Thus warned, we arrived, and having mounted a platform in the open air, with a verdant dome above it, the reception and the addresses began. There was nothing very particular at first; at last a "President de Tribunal" advanced, and the way he made his bow with his prim look, and the curiosity which stretched every neck, told me at once that the King was to get the promised lecture. It came, indeed, very studied, and very impertinent too. Everybody listened in silence. It was all about courtiers, the danger of listening to flatterers, and so forth.

As it ended, the heads of the president and his friends all came up with a "Take that, my fine fellow" look.

Then the King replied with the utmost politeness, thanking M. le President for the advice he had been good enough to give him.

"Flatterers and courtiers," he said, "have indeed done much mischief, and, sad to say, the race is not yet extinct, for nowadays there are courtiers who are far more dangerous than the flatterers of princes and of kings--those courtiers and flatterers of the people, who to buy a vain and contemptible popularity suggest to them dreams which are unrealizable and which bring them to misfortune," &c. On this head my father bestowed a well-directed hiding on the president, which was constantly interrupted by a running fire of applause, so that the worthy gentleman ended by not knowing which way to look. Amongst other eminently French qualities, my father possessed the gift of repartee to the highest degree. He always knew how to use it, though with a politeness and good nature which softened whatever might be too sharp about its sting. This time the blow went home. Our journey, thus begun, was continued amid constantly increasing cordiality and success. It was a somewhat tiring manner of life. We went by short stages, from one reception to another. Everywhere the National Guard and the troops were under arms. When they were in considerable numbers, we mounted horses, either lent or requisitioned beforehand. In the evening, wherever we slept, there would be a great banquet, and generally a ball as well. It was the duty of us young folk to lead the dancing--a pleasant task enough, if we could have chosen our partners among the pretty women whom I was beginning to notice, in spite of my being only fourteen, and of whom there were many, especially at Grandville and St. Lo. But our partners were given to us officially, and were chosen from the families of the authorities. We exerted ourselves to be pleasant in spite of that. I do not know whether I was succeeding too much or too little at a ball one night, but I saw the husband's head suddenly appear between my partner and myself, with the observation, "Well, my wife's not bad-looking, is she?" and he smacked his lips like a man who has eaten a good thing.

Falaise was the culminating point in our journey as far as incidents went. We were to make a halt there, and, as fifteen battalions of the National Guard were collected, the aide-de-camp, who did duty as quartermaster too, had seen to getting suitable mounts for the King, for us, and for Marshals Soult and Gerard, who accompanied us. The famous fair at Guibray, near Falaise, was just over, and a circus which had come to enliven it was still there. The circus horses were laid hands on, and when we arrived we were agreeably surprised to find fine white horses awaiting us instead of the ordinary nags and troop-horses we generally had to ride. So we got into the saddle, and the review began. Just as the King reached the right flank of the line, the band began to play, and then an unforeseen event occurred Our proud coursers, thinking that they were at a performance, set each of them to do his own particular duty. The King, Marshal Soult, and two others of our party were riding the horses who did that trick called the "Grand-Ecart," in which all four horses draw together at the same moment. When their riders pulled at their bridles, the four horses, feeling themselves reined up, instantly fell into the usual circus canter. Another horse kept wheeling round and round, and confusion became general, n.o.body guessing what had happened until the aide-de-camp smote his brow, and stopped the band.

The trouble did not end there. The National Guard was in proud possession of one gun, which it had horsed somehow or other. A jolt broke the axle-tree, just as it was going past. Then there was a half-squadron of cavalry mounted on stallions or geldings. But the trumpeter was on a mare, which fact brought difficulty on poor Rosinante during the march past. In the evening there was a great ball in a huge temporary shed, with tiers of seats all round it. All of a sudden half the tiers collapsed, like cards, and all the ladies were to be seen, though almost unhurt, on their backs with their legs in the air, amidst a most awful dust! I must confess we ungallantly seized the opportunity of the confusion to go off to our beds. The King, too, did the same, thus escaping from the persecutions of the Polish refugees, interned at Falaise, who had come to the ball in lancer uniforms worthy of the merry-andrews at the opera b.a.l.l.s, to pester him with their pet.i.tions.

CHAPTER III

1834-1836

My technical education recommenced more vigorously than ever when this journey was over. It had been decided that before being definitely placed on the Navy List I must pa.s.s my public examination as a first-cla.s.s pupil at Brest. So I was prepared accordingly, and received those successive doses of instruction which the English designate by the characteristic word "cramming," for which the only French equivalent I can find is "gaver." My mathematical teacher held a cla.s.s for a limited number of youths in a house in the Rue Git-le-Coeur, and thither I went, to gain the habit of speaking the language of algebra in public. In contrast to my memories of school lessons, I have the pleasantest recollections of those I received in that den--for den it was! This, perhaps, is on account of the good fellows I met there, and who have been my friends ever since, and also owing to the charm our kindly instructor wielded over us all. I do not believe there is a single one of his pupils, from the ill.u.s.trious Marshal Canrobert down through my contemporaries, Excelmans, Bonie, Morny, Daumesnil, the Greffulhe brothers, Friant, Baudin, Valbezen, and many more, to the younger generation that came after me, who does not cherish the most grateful and affectionate feelings for the worthy Guerard. When we were close on the time for my examination, he had me questioned several times over by the official examiners of the Ecole Polytechnique and others, so as to accustom me to the surprises of public examinations. I thus pa.s.sed through the hands of Baron Reynaud, and of Messieurs Bourdon, Delille, and Lefebure de Fourcy. This last inspired me with downright terror, on account of his reputation for methodical brutality. One of my cla.s.s-mates had reported to me that well-known colloquy between him and a candidate who got confused, at he stood chalk in hand before the black board, and who heard M. Lefebure de Fourcy's voice saying calmly, "Waiter, just bring a bundle of hay for this pupil's breakfast." To which the indignant pupil promptly added, "Waiter, bring two: the examiner will breakfast with me." At length, crammed to the muzzle with nautical and astronomical calculations, and all the other sciences the official programme demanded, I started for Brest, kept up even as I drove along, in the highest state of preparation. There were a few interludes during the journey. Certain spots in Brittany were still, early in that year 1834, disturbed by the consequences of the rising in 1831, and my pa.s.sage was the signal in several places for what we call, in parliamentary language, "mouvements en sens divers," conflicting emotions. Sometimes I saw white handkerchiefs waving or twisted round hats, doing duty for c.o.c.kades. At other points the tricolour demonstrations took a quaint form. I remember at one place where we changed horses my carriage drew up between two rows of National Guards, who were keeping back a considerable crowd of people. At the carriage door appeared the Mayor with his scarf round his waist, saluting me with this remark: "Sir, this place is but a hole, but it is a hole in which hearts devoted to your august family are throbbing;" while at the other the village priest and his clergy, all in surplice and alb, struck up

Soldats du drapeau tricolore D'Orieans toi qui la's Porte,

and so right through the Parisian to a bra.s.s accompaniment.

My examination was held in the great hall of the Prefecture of the Navy at Brest, before a board of officers, engineers, and professors. It was a public one; but what alarmed me most at its outset was the presence of all the pupils of the Naval School, who riled the tiers of seats on one side of the hall. Luckily the sight of some old chums amongst them cheered me up, and as the examination went pretty well I soon saw on their youthful faces, just as actors, they say, read their coming success on their audience at the theatre, that my cause was won, and that I was accepted, not only by the scientific big-wigs but by the universal suffrages of my contemporaries. Yet I was rejoiced when the sitting was over!

Some days later, at L'Orient, I joined the Sirene frigate, Commander d'Oysonville, as mids.h.i.+pman, and started on an ocean voyage. This cruise was uneventful, except for a few little incidents such as always occur in a sailor's life.

Thus, being in the maintop one day, when topsails were being reefed in a strong breeze, a rope chanced to break, twisted round my legs, and carried me into mid air, head downwards. If the sinewy arms of the captain of the maintop and one of the top men had not caught me as I pa.s.sed, I should have fallen into the sea or on the deck, and either alternative would have been disagreeable. Later on, at the end of the cruise, we re-entered Brest in a south-westerly squall, under circ.u.mstances which made a very useful impression on me.

We had bad weather for some days, no reliable observations had been taken, and we were very doubtful as to the frigate's position. Driving as we were at a great rate, before the gale, we were reckoning on the occasional partial lightening of the fog to catch sight of and recognize some point of land or rock, according to which we might steer our course amongst the reefs which swarm at the entrance of Brest harbour. We had to be ready to change our course and go about at any moment. Everybody was on deck, straining his eyes to try and see something, cool, and steady in nerve, as a well-disciplined body of men is in face of any danger. But one man was not present, our commanding officer, whose prompt judgment and word of command alone could bring us from perilous uncertainty into safety. Our commander was below, in his cabin, and there he persisted in staying, in spite of the indirect efforts made by the officer of the watch, the second in command, and the navigating officer to get him out of it. It was incomprehensible, and at the same time very alarming. Commander d'Oysonville, who was churchwarden of St. Roch when he died, was a kind and very honourable man, but n.o.body could possibly have been less of a sailor. He was a first-cla.s.s organizer, and he carried his theories to the extremist possible limit. He had one, amongst others, that the captain of a s.h.i.+p ought to command her from his cabin, so as never to appear before his crew except on the most solemn occasions, and it was for the sake of being true to this principle that he refused to show himself in the circ.u.mstances I speak of. His obstinacy very nearly cost us dear, for on the earnestly longed-for break in the fog suddenly taking place a point of land was seen. We thought we recognized the Island of Molenes: the commander was hurriedly informed, and he sent an order to change our course. A lightening at another point in the horizon showed us some rocks. "The Pierres Vertes ahead!" sang out a coasting pilot specially s.h.i.+pped for the voyage, who was looking out from his perch on the foreyards, and the navigating officer tore off again to warn the commanding officer. During all these comings and goings the curtain of fog came down again, and we went driving on towards the reefs at the rate of twelve knots an hour. It could not be allowed to go on! With or without leave the second officer took the command, and put an end to an impossible situation. Our worthy commander only appeared just as we were dropping anchor in the roadstead, when all uncertainty was over, and I seem yet to see the looks that greeted his tardy appearance.

Everybody's anxiety had been increased by knowing how he had lost the s.h.i.+p Le Superbe, seventy-four guns, off the Island of Paros, some years before, and under very peculiar circ.u.mstances. For my own part, I learnt on this occasion what everything has confirmed me in since--the danger of uncertain and divided authority either at sea or elsewhere.

When I got back to Paris, having finished the technical portion of my education, I went on with a course of history, with my sisters, especially my sister Mary, I applied myself with the utmost fervour to my drawing. I worked with her daily, under the direction of Ary Scheffer, and I recollect our grief one morning on finding the Jeanne d'Arc she was modelling in wax for Versailles, melted by an overheated stove, had collapsed the whole length of its framework, to such an extent as to become the merest cripple. By dint of lowering the temperature, and the use of a screw-jack applied in a peculiar manner, and vigorously turned by Ary Scheffer and myself, Jeanne d'Arc rose up again upon her framework, and the damage was soon made good.

About that time too, influenced by the genius of Victor Hugo, my sister Clementine and I were seized with a perfect pa.s.sion for old Paris, that delightful Paris of ancient story. We had Sauval's thick volumes, we had searched all the old books for traces of the ancient legends, and we used to spend our afternoons going to see the sites and hunt for the remains of the places we had read about, There is not a church or a monument of which we did not know every detail, nor an alley or a corner in the quarters of the Halles, the Hotel de Ville, the a.r.s.enal, the Temple, and the Pantheon that we had not carefully explored with the most fervent interest. What joy it was to us one day when we were trying to trace the Hotel St. Paul, the old palace of our kings, to come upon a course of masonry which had undoubtedly belonged to it!