Memoirs of the Prince of Joinville. Prince of Joinville
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-fashioned ships, but an old-fashioned ship 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 ship'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 ship'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 nobody 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 Letitia. 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 Archduchess Mimi, and who afterwards married Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. I returned on board the Arthemise full of gratitude 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 sexes, one of whom, Antonietta, an admirably beautiful girl, later became Grand Duchess 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 shore. 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 passage, the frigate anchored 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 circumstances, 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 nobody 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 finishing 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 "Chasseurs Algeriens," the nucleus of the future "Chasseurs 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 ship. 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 ships, and especially the Algesiras, with many a regret that the Arthemise had