The Memoirs of Victor Hugo Part 14

September 7, 1844.

Said the King to me last Thursday:

"M. Guizot has great qualities and immense defects. (Queerly enough, M. Guizot on Tuesday had made precisely the same remark to me about the King, beginning with the defects.) M. Guizot has in the highest degree, and I esteem him for it profoundly, the courage of his unpopularity among his adversaries; among his friends he lacks it. He does not know how to quarrel momentarily with his partisans, which was Pitt's great art. In the affair of Tahiti, as in that of the right of search, M.

Guizot is not afraid of the Opposition, nor of the press, nor of the Radicals, nor of the Carlists, nor of the Legitimists, nor of the hundred thousand howlers in the hundred thousand public squares of France; he is afraid of Jacques Lefebvre. What will Jacques Lefebvre say? And Jacques Lefebvre is afraid of the Twelfth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt. * What will the Twelfth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt say? The Twelfth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt does not like the English: we must stand firm against the English; but it does not like war: we must give way to the English. Stand firm and give way.

Reconcile that. The Twelfth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt governs Jacques Lefebvre, Jacques Lefebvre governs Guizot; a little more and the Twelfth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt will govern France. I say to Guizot: 'What are you afraid of? Have a little pluck. Have an opinion.' But there they all stand, pale and motionless and make no reply. Oh! fear! Monsieur Hugo, it is a strange thing, this fear of the hubbub that will be raised outside!

It seizes upon this one, then that one, then that one, and it goes the round of the table. I am not a Minister, but if I were, it seems to me that I should not be afraid. I should see the right and go straight towards it. And what greater aim could there be than civilization through peace?"

* Twelfth District of Paris.

The Duke d'Orleans, a few years ago, recounted to me that during the period which followed immediately upon the revolution of July, the King gave him a seat at his council table. The young Prince took part in the deliberations of the Ministers. One day M. Merilhou, who was Minister of Justice, fell asleep while the King was speaking.

"Chartres," said the King to his son, "wake up Monsieur the Keeper of the Seals."

The Duke d'Orleans obeyed. He was seated next to M. Merilhou, and nudged him gently with his elbow. The Minister was sleeping soundly; the Prince recommenced, but the Minister slept on. Finally the Prince laid his hand upon M. Merilhou's knee. The Minister awoke with a start and exclaimed:

"Leave off, Sophie, you are tickling me!"

This is how the word "subject" came to be eliminated from the preamble of laws and ordinances.

M. Dupont de l'Eure, in 1830, was Minister of Justice. On August 7, the very day the Duke d'Orleans took the oath as King, M. Dupont de l'Eure laid before him a law to sign. The preamble read: "Be it known and decreed to all our subjects," etc. The clerk who was instructed to copy the law, a hot-headed young fellow, objected to the word "subjects," and did not copy it.

The Minister of Justice arrived. The young man was employed in his office.

"Well," said the Minister, "is the copy ready to be taken to the King for signature?"

"No, Monsieur the Minister," replied the clerk.

Explanations. M. Dupont de l'Eure listened, then pinching the young man's ear said, half smilingly, half angrily:

"Nonsense, Monsieur the Republican, you just copy it at once."

The clerk hung his head, like a clerk that he was, and copied it.

M. Dupont, however, laughingly told the King about it. The King did not laugh. Everything appeared to be a serious matter at that time. M. Dupin senior, Minister without a portfolio, had entered the council chamber.

He avoided the use of the word and got round the obstacle. He proposed this wording, which was agreed to and has always been used since: "Be it known and decreed to all."

1847.

The State carriage of Louis Philippe was a big blue coach drawn by eight horses. The interior was of gold coloured damask. On the doors was the King's monogram surmounted by a crown, and on the panels were royal crowns. The roof was bordered by eight little silver crowns. There was a gigantic coachman on the box and three lackeys behind. All wore silk stockings and the tri-colour livery of the d'Orleans.

The King would enter the carriage first and seat himself in the right hand corner. Then the Duke de Nemours would take his place beside the King. The three other princes would follow and seat themselves, M. de Joinville opposite the King, M. de Montpensier opposite M. de Nemours, and M. d'Aumale in the middle.

The day the King attended Parliament, the grand deputations from both Houses, twelve peers and twenty-five deputies chosen by lot, awaited him on the grand staircase of the Palais Bourbon. As the sessions were nearly always held in winter, it was very cold on the stairs, a biting wind made all these old men s.h.i.+ver, and there are old generals of the Empire who did not die as the result of having been at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at the cemetery at Eylau, at the storming of the grand redoubt at Moskowa and under the fire of the Scottish squares at Waterloo, but of having waited in the cold upon these stairs.

The peers stood to the right and the deputies to the left, leaving the middle of the stairs clear. The staircase was part.i.tioned off with hangings of white drill with blue stripes, which was a poor protection against draughts. Where are the good and magnificent tapestries of Louis XIV. They were indeed royal; wherefore they were taken down. Drill is a common material and more pleasing to the deputies. It charms and it freezes them.

The Queen arrived first with the princesses, but without the d.u.c.h.ess d'Orleans, who came separately with the Count de Paris. These ladies walked quickly upstairs, bowing to right and left, without speaking, but graciously, followed by a swarm of aides-de-camp and grim turbaned old women whom M. de Joinville called "the Queen's Turks"--Mmes. de Dolokieu, de Cha.n.a.leilles, etc.

At the royal session of 1847, the Queen gave her arm to the d.u.c.h.ess de Montpensier. The princess was m.u.f.fled up on account of the cold. I could see only a big red nose. The three other princesses walked behind, chatting and laughing. M. Anatole de Montesquiou came next in the much worn uniform of a major-general.

The King arrived about five minutes after the Queen; he walked upstairs even more quickly than she had done, followed by the princes running like schoolboys, and bowed to the peers on the right and the deputies on the left. He tarried a moment in the throne-room and exchanged a few greetings with the members of the two deputations. Then he entered the large hall.

The speech from the throne was written on parchment, on both sides of the sheet, and usually filled four pages. The King read it in a firm, well modulated voice.

Marshal Soult was present, resplendent with decorations, sashes, and gold lace, and complaining of his rheumatism. M. Pasquier, the Chancellor, did not put in an appearance. He had excused himself on the plea of the cold and of his eighty years. He had been present the year before. It was the last time.

In 1847 I was a member of the grand deputation. While I strolled about the waiting room, conversing with M. Villemain about Cracow, the Vienna treaties and the frontier of the Rhine, I could hear the buzzing of the groups around me, and sc.r.a.ps of conversation reached my ears.

COUNT DE LAGRANGE.--Ah! here comes the Marshal (Soult).

BARON PEDRE LACAZE.--He is getting old.

VISCOUNT CAVAIGNAC.--Sixty-nine years!

MARQUIS DR RAIGECOURT.--Who is the dean of the Chamber of Peers at present?

DUKE DE TREVISE.--M. de Pontecoulant, is he not?

MARQUIS DE LAPLACE.--NO, President Boyer. He is ninety-two.

PRESIDENT BARTHE.--He is older than that.

BARON D'OBERLIN.--He no longer comes to the Chamber.

M. VIENNET.--They say that M. Rossi is returning from Rome.

DUKE DE FESENZAC.--Well, I pity him for quitting Rome. It is the finest and most amiable city in the world. I hope to end my days there.

COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT.--And Naples!

BARON THENARD.--I prefer Naples.

M. FULCHIRON.--Yes, Naples, that's the place. By the by, I was there when poor Nourrit killed himself. I was staying in the house next to his.

BARON CHARLES DUPIN.--He took his life? It was not an accident?

M. FULCHIRON.--Oh! it was a case of suicide, sure enough. He had been hissed the previous day. He could not stand that. It was in an opera composed expressly for him--"Polyceucte." He threw himself from a height of sixty feet. His voice did not please that particular public. Nourrit was too much accustomed to sing Gluck and Mozart. The Neapolitans said of him: "Vecchico canto."

BARON DUPIN.--Poor Nourrit! why did he not wait! Duprez has lost his voice. Eleven years ago Duprez demolished Nourrit; to-day Nourrit would demolish Duprez.