Memoirs of the Prince of Joinville. Prince of Joinville
there must be something at the bottom of it all. We have had all the houses near the Ambigu searched this morning to no purpose. Should the King be warned? Should the review be put off?"
We answered unanimously that the King must be warned but that, brave as he was well known to be, he would never consent to having the review put off. So it turned out.
"Look well after your father," repeated M. Thiers, and we mounted our horses. The review went on well enough, except that we all remarked the presence of a large number of insolent-looking individuals, with red carnations in their button-holes—the members, evidently, of the secret societies, who had not been warned of what was going to happen, but to be ready for anything that might happen We had not been able to take any precautions, beyond dividing the care of watching over the King's person between my brothers and myself and the aides-de-camp on duty One of us with an aide-de-camp, was to take it in turn to keep just behind his horse, with our eye on the troops and the crowd, so as to interpose if we noticed any suspicious gesture. My turn had come to take the post of watcher, with General Heymes, aide-de-camp in waiting, on my right. On my left I had Lieutenant-Colonel Rieussec, commanding the legion of the National Guard before which we were passing. Close to the Ambigu, not the present theatre—the neighbourhood of which had been searched—but a former Ambigu, which had been shut up, opposite the Jardin Turc cafe, we heard a sort of platoon firing like the discharge of a mitrailleuse, and raising my eyes at the noise I saw smoke coming from a window which was half closed by an outside shutter.
I had no time to notice more, and at the moment I did not perceive that my left-hand neighbour, Colonel Rieussec, was killed, that Heymes' clothes were riddled with bullets and his nose carried away, nor that my own horse was wounded. All I saw was my father holding his left arm, and saying to me over his shoulder, "I'm hit!" And so he was: one bullet had grazed his forehead, another spent one had given him the blow of which he complained, and a third had passed through his horse's neck. But that we only knew afterwards, and it was only afterwards too that
we learnt the instrument of the crime had been an infernal machine. Our first thought was that the firing would go on, so I struck spurs into my horse, and seizing my father's by the bridle, while my two brothers struck it behind with their swords, we led him swiftly through the scene of immense confusion that ensued—horses riderless, or bearing wounded men, swaying in their seats, broken ranks, and people in blouses, who rushed upon the King, to touch him or his horse, with frantic shouts of "Long live the King!" As we retired, I just saw the taking by assault of the house whence the discharge had come. The young aides-de-camp had dismounted, leaving their horses loose, and with the Municipal Guards and the police they scaled the house and the one next door (the Cafe Barfetti), climbing on to the verandah and smashing in the windows. Then the review began again. We had ascertained the King was not wounded, nor we ourselves, but we were not aware as yet either of the great number or of the names of the victims. Hereupon M. Thiers appeared beside us, with his white kerseymere trousers covered with blood. All he said to us was, "The poor Marshal!"
"Whom do you mean?"
"Mortier! He fell dead across me, crying out, 'Oh, my God!'"
We reckoned ourselves up as we went along. Forty-two dead or wounded: dead—Marshal Mortier, General Lachasse de Verigny, Colonels Raffet and Rieussec, Captain Willatte, aide-de-camp to the Minister of War, seven others, and two women; wounded—Generals Heymes, Comte de Colbert, Pelet, Blin, and many more. The Due de Broglie was hit full in the chest by a bullet that flattened out on his star of the Legion of Honour.
It was not far from the scene of the crime to the farthest end of the line of troops, so the procession soon retraced its steps. The roadway where the blow had been struck was nothing but a pool of blood. The wounded and almost all the dead had been carried
away, and I only saw one corpse, flat on its face in the mud, among the dead horses, but all the blood about frightened our horses so that we had hard work to get on.
On the square of the Chateau d'Eau a huge and furious crowd surging round the station house, which was protected by numerous Municipal Guards, showed us the assassin, or one of them, had been arrested. The review was concluded, and my father's self-control was sorely tried by the unanimity and fervour of the acclamations of which he was the object from all sides, from soldiers and civilians alike. It is unnecessary to add that we did not see any more red carnations.
The march past was to take place in the Place Vendome, and the chancellor's offices were full of ladies of the official world, gathered round my mother. We dismounted for a moment to go and speak to them, and here again a moving scene took place. We had been able to send on an aide-de-camp to assure my mother and aunt and my sisters that we were safe and sound, but our messenger had not had time to learn the names of all the victims. So when we mounted the stairs of the chancellor's offices, some of us all bespattered with blood, all these women, their brilliant dresses contrasting sadly with their terrified eyes, rushed upon us to see whether those they loved were amongst us. Some of them were never to see their dear ones again!
Shortly after this bloody episode in our national history I joined the Didon frigate, Captain de Parseval, as enseigne de vaisseau. My new commanding officer, who had joined the navy at a very early age, had served as a midshipman on board Villeneuve's vessel, the Bucentaure, at Trafalgar. He was in command of the mizzentop, and saw Nelson's ship, the Victory, pass slowly astern of the Bucentaure—so close that her yards caught the other's ensign—while the fifty guns of the British ship poured their fire one after the other into the stern of the French one, sweeping her gun-deck from end to end, and laying low four
hundred of her crew. After this commencement of his career, Commander de Parseval had spent his whole life in fighting and adventure. He had been in three shipwrecks, one specially terrible one on the Isle de Sable, near the coast of Nova Scotia, in which (he was a lieutenant at the time) he swam ashore to get help and save the crew of his frigate. He died with the rank of admiral, after having had the chief command of the Baltic Fleet during the Crimean War. He was a charming fellow, slight and smart-looking, very carefully dressed, as resolute in command as he was formal as to politeness, a consummate seaman, managing his ship in first-rate style. I sailed a great deal with him, and learned much from him, and from the very first I felt a personal affection for him, which was never belied, and which he reciprocated. An extra bond of sympathy existed between us—when I was just becoming deaf, he was deaf already.
We made a cruise for drill, on the Didon, doing a deal of navigation in all sorts of weathers, and I performed the duties of captain of the watch—my first attempt at command, my first trial in a responsible position.
The winter season of 1836 found me back in Paris, where I began my classes again, and gave myself up in particular to my passion for the fine arts. This taste of mine was the cause of a terrible blowing up I got from my father. The jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture of Marilhat's—I think it was his first. Some of the artists who had seen the young painter's work thought this decision unjust. They grumbled, and their grumbling got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough to go and see the picture at Durand-Ruel's. It was a view of Rome by twilight, seen between great umbrella pines, I thought it a splendid picture, and spurred somewhat, I confess, by a spirit of contradiction, I was seized with an eager desire to acquire it. But I had not a halfpenny of my own, there was my difficulty! To overcome it, I laid siege to my aunt Adelaide, who doted on her
brother's children as if they had been her own, and who never (and well the rogues knew it!) could resist their wheedling. I succeeded, as I had hoped, and Marilhat's picture became my property. But certain of the jury went and complained to the King, and I was greeted with, "Oho! so you are going to set yourself up in opposition! I've trouble enough already with those artists! It's the Civil List (that means it's me) that takes them in at the Louvre. I can't be the only judge as to what is accepted and what isn't. I have to have a jury, the Institute is good enough to undertake the job—all its members are dying of fright, and I shield them under my own responsibility, just as I do my ministers, although it's contrary to the letter of the law—and it's you, one of my own sons, who comes and sets an example of insubordination! Much obliged to you, sir!"
My picture was inspected