Memoirs of the Prince of Joinville. Prince of Joinville
I need hardly say the grand-parents pronounced it frightful, a regular daub. I hung my head under this double-barrelled censure, and drooped my ears like a whipped spaniel, but I stuck to my opinion, and likewise to my Marilhat. I think it was shortly after this little adventure that I added another "daub" to my "gallery." One morning as I was busy modelling (for I dabbled in sculpture too) in my sister Marie's studio, Ary Scheffer came in, and began telling me about an unknown artist he had met, quite young, a man of undoubted talent, who was in a terribly poverty-stricken condition. Six hundred francs would take him out of his difficulties, and he would give two small pictures, pendants, which he had just finished, in exchange.
"What do they represent?" I inquired.
"They are both landscapes, connected with episodes in Walter Scott's novels. One represents the charge of Claverhouse in the Covenanters, and the other the Army of Charles the Bold crossing the Alps. Come!" added Scheffer, turning to me. "Be good-natured. If you have six hundred francs, give them to me!"
I chanced to have the money, and gave it him. "What's your protege's name?" asked I.
"Theodore Rousseau." Fancy that great artist selling his pictures in pairs, as furniture, in fact—for bread!
In 1836, too, on February 28, I was present at the first performance of Les Huguenots, an opera which enchanted me. The action, the music, the stage setting, the interpretation, made an ensemble that was unique, a work of art that defied comparison. Nothing on the stage to my mind, has ever surpassed the duet in the fourth act as created and sung by Nourrit and Mlle. Falcon. Inspired by the musical and dramatic situation, these two artists were completely carried away, and their emotion was as infectious as it was apparent. Mlle. Falcon had a way of interrupting her singing, to speak the words, "Raoul, ils te tueront!" with an expression into which her whole soul was thrown, which was the very embodiment of passion. Ah! Passion indeed! Passion it is that thrills in every page of that admirable book of Merimee's, La Chronique de Charles IX., which has given birth in succession to those two masterpieces, Le Pre aux Clercs and Les Huguenots. And what indeed would life be without passion? If Fieschi's crime marked the year 1835 with a crimson letter, 1836 was the year of Alibaud's attempt. The history of my father's reign is nothing but an innumerable succession of such attempts, some of which came to the birth, while others, again, miscarried. Alibaud, as my readers are aware, fired point-blank at the King with a walking-stick gun, which he steadied on the door of the carriage, as it passed slowly through the Tuileries archway, and missed him, except that his whiskers were singed by the wad. Neither my father's courage nor that of my mother and aunt, who were with him, failed them for a moment. I saw them get out of the carriage at Neuilly, without for an instant suspecting the risk they had run.
But the time soon came for me to go to sea again, and I was ordered to join the frigate Iphigenie, of which my old captain, M. de Parseval, had taken command, as full lieutenant, and we started for the Levant station. The recollection of a very extraordinary accident which occurred during this cruise remains with me. We were in the Archipelago, off the Island of Andros. I had just come off the first night watch, at midnight, and had got into bed, when I heard somebody say our consort, a twenty-gun brig, the Ducouedic, Commander Bruat, was making signals of distress, I got back on deck without delay. The brig's lights had disappeared. Nothing could be seen of her. It was blowing great guns, with a heavy sea. We continued in a state of great anxiety till morning. At last, by the first rays of daylight, we saw our consort dismasted. She signalled to us for a tow, which was quite impracticable in the state of the sea. All we could do was to stand by her, while she tried to get to Syra with her foresail, the only one left her. This she succeeded in doing. But the extraordinary thing is that what dismasted her was the contrary action of a tremendous roll, and a heavy squall, which came just at midnight, when the whole crew was mustered on deck, to change the watch, and that the mainmast with all its spars and gear and the maintopmast as well, fell on to the deck without hurting anybody.
Except for this one accident, all the interest of this fresh cruise of mine lay on the side of the picturesque. Greece with her mythological, poetic, and historical memories, and the great severe outlines of her landscapes, struck me with admiration. But this was quickly overshadowed by the impression made upon me by my first glimpse of Asia—the Mussulman East, which Lamartine's Voyage and Decamps' pictures had made me long so eagerly to know. My joy, therefore, may be conceived, when I saw, as I landed at Smyrna, the living image of Decamps' masterpiece, La Patrouille de Smyrne, now at Rotterdam, passing
by me—the very same police officer trotting along on his hunched-up Turcoman horse, surrounded by his policemen, regular bandits, running beside him, covered with brilliant rags and glistening weapons. This worthy police agent, whose name was Hadgy-Bey (which we promptly turned into "Quat'Gibets"), very soon became our ally. I did his likeness. He was all smiles whenever we met, and he winked at all our young midshipmen's pranks One they played was rather too strong, and roused the fury of the Turks. Smyrna was at that time the most Eastern of Eastern towns, full of tortuous bazaars, and narrow alleys winding in and out, in which circulation, difficult enough at all times, sometimes became impossible for hours, when long strings of camels, fastened together with ropes, were going along them. Nothing could have been more vexatious than these blocks, which man and beast alike seemed to take pleasure in prolonging, whenever the Giaours seemed annoyed by them.
What, think you, did our middies do? A great many of them together (for we had a very strong naval squadron at Smyrna just then) hired donkeys, tied them together with long cords, mounted them, each rider with a long pipe in his mouth and affecting a quiet Eastern gravity of demeanour, and off they started.
This farandole, which was quite a kilometre long, went round and round the bazaars all day, up and down and in and out, stopping all the traffic, as if a real caravan was passing' through. At first the "true believers" were puzzled, but when they realized they were being laughed at they grew furious, and rushed off to get "Quat'Gibets," who held his fat sides and roared with laughter when they told him what was amiss. Our midshipmen gave him a regular ovation. We were avenged on camels and camel men alike. The neighbourhood of Smyrna was delightful, and brigandage quite unknown. Civilization had not yet taught that refinement of the art, as practised nowadays, whereby
people are carried off and called upon to get themselves ransomed, on pain of having their noses or ears, or finally their heads, cut off. It was quite safe to go anywhere, to canter far along the road to Magnesia, or to stop and take coffee beside some cool spring in the shadow of the huge plane-trees, and watch the whole East pass by—caravans from Diarbekir, half-wild Turcoman tribes, bashi-bazouks from the four corners of Asia, all of them worthy subjects for an artist's pencil, and I never stopped drawing them. Coming back to the town, which had been cooled by the sea-breeze, the "Imbat," we used to spend our evenings in the Levantine or Armenian society of the place, amongst grandfathers who were still faithful to their old costume, wrapped in kaftans, and charming young ladies, with Tacticos on their heads, and their beautiful figures, which no stays had ever tortured, draped in half-oriental costumes. Native music, soft and plaintive, sounded, as we would watch Mademoiselles Peiser, Athanaso, Fonton, Tricon, &c., dance the Romaika. Nothing exists, nowadays, of what was so seductive then. The Orient has kept its sunshine and its colouring, but that horrible cosmopolitanism has invaded everything. Everywhere there are stays! and stays steal charm away!
We were young and gay at the time I speak of, and passionate too! Two of my brother lieutenants fought a duel, much more serious than those pin-prick encounters which are now the fashion. They fought with pistols, on the very marine promenade where they had been joking with young ladies the evening before. Just as the seconds gave the signal to fire, the sun rose on the horizon. Its first ray glinted on a breast button on the uniform of one principal: the other man's bullet, as though drawn by some fatal attraction, struck the button, and killed our unhappy comrade dead. A midshipman carried off a charming Greek lady, who was discovered in his cabin after his ship had got out to sea. And many another strange incident occurred! On leaving
Smyrna, the Iphigenie cruised all about the Archipelago, and along the Anatolian, Caramanian, and Syrian coasts. Whenever I was not on duty my pencil was in my fingers, for I had the most enchanting and picturesque of models under my hand. From Tripoli in Syria I climbed to the top of Mount Lebanon,