Memoirs of the Prince of Joinville. Prince of Joinville
later, at L'Orient, I joined the Sirene frigate, Commander d'Oysonville, as midshipman, 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 passed, 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 circumstances 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 nobody could possibly have been less of a sailor. He was a first-class organizer, and he carried his theories to the extremist possible limit. He had one, amongst others, that the captain of a ship 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 circumstances 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 shipped 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 ship Le Superbe, seventy-four guns, off the Island of Paros, some years before, and under very peculiar circumstances. 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 passion 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 Arsenal, 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!
Although I was on shore, I was still devoted to my profession. I used to see almost all the naval officers who passed through Paris, and tried to push forward those whom the general body of the profession singled out as being likely commanding officers. These matters of promotion, as well as any others that affected naval interests, brought me into daily touch with the ministers, and my relations with M Theirs date from that time.
Yet, oddly enough, it was riding on horseback that brought us together! During the King's stays at Camping and Fontainebleau, and his country trips to Versailles, St. Cloud, and Raunchy, when he used to invite foreign visitors and his ministers, and great personages in general, to join in his excursions, M. Thiers was as much bored as I was at having to go in the carriages and chars a bancs which drove in a long line one behind the other. We much preferred accompanying them on horseback, and nothing delighted the little minister more than to let his mount tear along full gallop with a loose rein. He had a very firm seat, and was very plucky, especially on a horse of ours called "Le Vendome," which in his southern accent he pronounced "Le Vanndomme." I remember one day, at Fontaineblean, as he was galloping along beside me on that same "Vanndomme," we passed by a young fagot-gatherer, bending under her load. She straightened herself at the noise; it was very hot, her jacket had come unbuttoned, and showed a bare white very well furnished bust. She smiled to M. Thiers, who pulled his horse up short, turned back to thrust a handful of small change into the young woman's palm, and started off again full tear, as if he had had an electric shock, jumping the fallen trees with a resolution and energy which I had never known him show before.
On another occasion he proved himself a less brilliant horseman. The statue of Napoleon, that statue which is put up and taken down in every Revolution, was to be ceremoniously replaced on the top of its column. The troops and the National Guard were under arms, with their bands and drums, headed by a splendid drum-major, massed at the foot of the column. We arrived in state by the Rue Castiglione, so that the column surmounted by the statue, covered by a veil that was to drop at a given signal, faced us just as we came out upon the square M. Thiers, in full uniform, with his minister's hat and feathers, and again riding "Vanndomme," struck in his spurs, left the
procession at full gallop, and passed before my father, shouting at the very top of his falsetto voice, "I take your Majesty's pleasure" the words being accompanied by a wave of his hat which ill-natured people might have said was copied from General Rapp's gesture in Gerard's picture of the Battle of Austerlitz at the Louvre. On this signal the drums beat, the bands played, the statue was unveiled—but M. Thiers had lost control of "Vanndomme," who, wild with enthusiasm, bolted head down, overthrowing drums and drum-major, while the little minister clung to his back like a monkey in a circus. It was a comical sight! But far from laughable under this same ministry of M. Thiers were the perpetual attempts upon my father's life. The speculators in revolution, who had been encouraged by their easy success in 1830, grew discouraged after several like essays at risings had been severely put down. They then fell back on assassination. The most serious attempt was Fieschi's, on July 28, 1835. Together with my two eldest brothers I was to accompany the King to a review of the National Guard and the regular army, drawn up on the Boulevards. All of us who were to take part in the procession, princes, marshals, generals, and aides-de-camp, were assembled in the drawing-room at the Tuileries, next to the Throne Room, when the Minister of the Interior, M. Thiers, burst in like a whirlwind, and, beckoning to my two brothers and me, led us into the embrasure of a window. "My dear princes," said he, looking at us over his spectacles, "it is more than likely there will be an attempt on the life of the King, your father, to-day. We have been warned from several quarters. They say there will be an infernal machine somewhere near the Ambigu Theatre.