Memoirs of the Prince of Joinville. Prince of Joinville
The Court of the Palais-Royal was closed, but all the galleries were filled with a surging, yelling crowd, the more
violent of whom were battering at the staircase door facing Chevet's shop. "They are going to break it in and come upstairs: they'll be here in another moment," we said to ourselves. "What is to be done?"
Amidst the general shouting, yells of "Death to Louis Philippe!" were to be heard. Then, all at once, in the gaslight, I saw the policemen's swords twinkle, pinking people in all directions. Soon the troops came hurrying up with fixed bayonets, and the rabble took to their heels at the sight of them. This crowd had just come back from Vincennes, whither it had gone to demand the heads of Charles X.'s ministers, who were shut up in the fortress, from General Daumesnil, "the man with the wooden leg," and having failed in that attempt it wanted to have my father's instead.
So that affair ended; but fresh opportunities for creating disturbances soon occurred, and were as eagerly seized upon. One was during a great diplomatic dinner given by my father in the dining-room of the Palais-Royal, which looks out on the Cour des Fontaines. I was sitting by Lord Granville's daughter, and doing my best to make myself pleasant, when the uproar of the riot burst upon us suddenly and interrupted all the talk. Everybody looked at everybody else, and then down at their own plate, and everybody looked very sorry to be where he was at that moment. Then the noise of a great trampling of hoofs on the pavement revealed the fact that the cavalry was charging, whereupon the sky cleared, and conversation began again, though not without some appearance of effort.
Another time, again, matters became more serious. The riot—I don't remember which it was now, there were so many of them!—became very threatening at one moment. I see my father still, taking Casimir Perier by the arm, and shouting in his ear, "Tell them to serve out ball cartridge, ball cartridge, do you hear?" Casimir Perier, as excited as himself, was rushing away,
when he was stopped by an officer, who said, "There are three students of the Ecole Polytechnique, sent to parley, waiting below."
"Parley for whom? For the rioters? For the insurrection? Lay hands on them! Lock them up in prison."
"But, sir," said the officer, himself a former student at the Ecole Polytechnique, "I can't: I've given them my word!" But Casimir Perier was not there to listen even just then I observed a man of woebegone appearance, sitting in a corner of the drawing-room in which the foregoing scene had taken place. One of my eldest brother's aides-de-camp, General Marbot, was walking up and down in front of him, never taking his eyes off him. "What are you doing there?" I asked the general.
"I'm keeping my eye on that gentleman you see there."
"Who is he?"
"The Prefect of Police."
"Really?"
"They say he is playing us false"
And there you see a specimen of the plight you find yourself in on the morrow of a revolution, when order needs restoring not only in the open streets but in the highest quarters in the State.
For my own part, I was always delighted to hear the drums call the National Guard—and consequently all our masters, tutors, and professors, who served in it—to arms, at each fresh outbreak of disturbance.
It meant interrupted studies, and, above all, interrupted attendance at school, where, however, luckily for me, I was not to stay much longer. Seeing that I did no good there whatever, my father decided, in the spring of 1831, to remove me altogether, and as my taste for a naval career was growing
stronger and stronger, he resolved to make a sailor of me But before I seriously entered the profession he wished me to make a sea-voyage. So I was sent to Toulon, to be shipped as volunteer pilot's apprentice, on board the Arthemise frigate, commander Latreyte. I was barely thirteen I could not have begun at a better age.
After bidding the tenderest farewell to my father and mother, my aunt, and my brothers and sisters, from whom I had never been parted before, I was packed into a post-chaise with Monsieur Trognon, and off we started.
As far as Lyons our journey was uneventful, but when we got there M. Paulze d'Ivoy, the prefet, and M. Vitet, author of Barricades des Etats de Blois, took possession of me, nominally to show me the town—in reality to make me the pretext for certain demonstrations in favour of the new order of things. I was driven about, to Fourvieres, to La Croix-Rousse, and so forth, and had the best of receptions from their sturdy inhabitants. Thirteen-year-old lad as I was, I had to receive the officers of the National Guard—very military indeed they were, with their uniform with its white facings, copied from that of the Imperial Guard. And these receptions and official entertainments, which were not at all to my personal taste, were repeated all along the road till we got to Toulon, marked by increasing animation and fervour as we got farther south, and as the population through which we passed became more and more divided by political passions. At Valence I found an enormous crowd of people, and the garrison and National Guard both under arms, while a tall lieutenant-colonel, of the 49th Regiment of the Line, insisted on my inspecting the troops in person.
He took my hand with one of his, with the other he waved his sword, and led the plaudits. His name was Magnan, and he was a Marshal of France before he died. At Mornas, the native place of the famous Baron des Adrets, the reception took a very
original shape. As we drove up to the posting-house, I saw a great crowd, and the National Guard drawn up in two ranks, on the right and left of the postilions who were to take us on. The carriage pulled up between the ranks, and I fancied I saw a sort of suppressed smile on the countenances of the National Guard. It did not last long, for the commandant in the wildest excitement rapidly gave the words of command: "Present arms—Fire!" And they were followed by the most abominable noise, every man having presented arms with his finger on the trigger of his musket. The crowd cheered tremendously, the horses plunged and reared, and there was a terrible disturbance, which seemed to afford the keenest joy to the officer in command. There was nothing very striking at Orange, nor at Avignon. Speeches by the authorities, visits to the public buildings, very much the same routine as that which official receptions have nowadays made so familiar to everybody. But at Orgon, between Avignon and Aix, it was a very different matter. An immense and excited crowd awaited our arrival, shouting all manner of things. Then the carriage was seized upon by people who looked drunk, but who were drunk with political passion alone. It seems the town of Orgon was not reckoned to favour the regime of 1830. So from every side I was greeted with shouts of "We are Cavaillon's men! … We've come down from the mountains so that you may tell your papa there are no Carlists in Provence." And then they sang the Marseillaise The horses were taken out of the carriage, the crowd surrounded it, climbing on the steps, the wheels, the fore-carriage, the roof. I was like a prisoner in a cage; all I could see out of the window was the boots of the people who were sitting on the top. They sang all the verses of the Marseillaise, and bawled between them. A gentleman contrived to slip up to the carriage door, gave himself out to be the mayor,
and tried to rescue us, calling out: "Gentlemen, this really is not decent behaviour." All he got for his pains was a shout of "What
the devil do we care about a mayor like you?" I don't know how long it would have gone on, if a detachment of the battalion of Government workmen quartered at Orgon, which had been sent for, had not come to our rescue.
Between Orgon and Marseilles we met the "Regiment de la Charte" marching from Paris on their way to Algiers, and their passage through the country did not a little to excite the inhabitants. At Marseilles the National Guard lined the Allees de Meillan, each man with a bouquet stuck into the muzzle of his rifle, which he took out and threw into the barouche in which I sat with General Gazan, so that I was soon fairly buried, with nothing but my head sticking out, while the crowd shouted at the top of its voice: "Vive le Prinnche!—Long live the Prince!" and I heard women's voices adding, "Que sis poulid! Qui est si joli!"
I had hardly reached Toulon, ere the frigate I had joined put to sea, my apprenticeship began, and I soon made myself at home among our sailors, who all of them, officers, petty officers, and seamen alike, not only showed me an affection which won my heart from the very outset,