Memoirs of the Prince of Joinville. Prince of Joinville
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, nobody 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
therewas 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 balls, to pester him with their petitions.
CHAPTER III
1834-1836
M
y 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 pass my public examination as a first-class 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 class 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 illustrious 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 passed 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 class-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 passage 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 cockades. 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 brass 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