France in the Nineteenth Century. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer
terms of peace, by which he consented to Mehemet's hereditary viceroyalty in Egypt, and Ibrahim Pasha's hereditary possession of the pashalik of Syria.
But the Great Powers would not consent to this dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. A fierce struggle in diplomacy took place between France and England, which might have resulted in an open rupture, had not Louis Philippe and Marshal Soult (then Minister for Foreign Affairs in France) been both averse to war. The old marshal had seen more than enough of it, and Louis Philippe felt that peace alone could strengthen his party—the bourgeoisie. Mehemet Ali, his rights and his wrongs, seem to have been entirely overlooked in the tempest of diplomacy.
After some weeks of great excitement the Five Great Powers agreed among themselves that Mehemet Ali should become the Khedive, or hereditary viceroy, of Egypt, but that he must give up Syria. To this he demurred, and the allied troops attacked Ibrahim Pasha. Admiral Sir Charles Napier bombarded his stronghold, St. Jean d'Acre, and forced him into submission. The triumph of Lord Palmerston's policy was complete; as Charles Greville remarked: "Everything has turned out well for him. He is justified by the success of his operations, and by the revelations in the French Chambers of the intentions of M. Thiers; and it must be acknowledged he has a fair right to plume himself on his diplomacy."
After the death of Talleyrand, only M. Thiers remained of the four great men who had assisted Louis Philippe to attain supreme power. M. Thiers was not insensible to the advantage it would be to his History of the Consulate and Empire, if he could add to it a last and brilliant chapter describing the restoration to France of the mortal remains of her great emperor. Therefore in the early part of 1840, before any disturbance of the entente cordiale, he made a request to the English Government for the body of Napoleon, then lying beneath a willow-tree at Longwood, on a desolate island that hardly seemed to be part of the civilized world. Lord Palmerston responded very cordially, and Louis Philippe's third son, the Prince de Joinville, in his frigate, the "Belle Poule," attended by other French war-ships, was despatched upon the errand. Napoleon had died May 5, 1821. For almost twenty years his body had reposed at St. Helena. With the Prince de Joinville went Bertrand and Gourgaud, who had been the Emperor's companions in captivity.
The coffin was raised and opened. The face was perfect. The beard, which had been shaved before the burial, had apparently a week's growth. The white satin which had lined the lid of the coffin had crumbled into dust, and lay like a mist over the body, which was dressed in a green uniform, with the cocked hat across its knees.
The corpse was transferred to another coffin brought from France, and was carried over the rough rocks of St. Helena by English soldiers. All the honors that in that remote island England could give to her former captive were respectfully offered; and early in December, 1840, news arrived in Paris that the "Belle Poule" had reached Havre.
This was sooner than her arrival had been looked for, and at once all Paris was in a scramble of preparation. Laborers and artists worked night and day. The weather was piercingly cold. Indeed, no less than three hundred English were said to have died of colds contracted on the day of the funeral procession.
The body was landed at Courbevoie from a flat-bottomed barge that had been constructed to bring it up the Seine. Courbevoie is about two miles from the Arch of Triumph, which is again nearly the same distance from the Place de la Concorde.
Between each gilded lamp-post, with its double burners, and beneath long rows of leafless trees, were colossal plaster statues of Victory, alternating with colossal vases burning incense by day, and inflammable materials for illumination by night. Thus the procession attending the body had about five miles to march from the place of disembarkation to the Invalides, on the left bank of the Seine. The spectators began to assemble before dawn. All along the route scaffoldings had been erected, containing rows upon rows of seats. All the trees, bare and leafless at that season, were filled with freezing gamins. All the wide pavements were occupied. Before long, rows of National Guards fringed the whole avenue. They were to fall in behind the procession as it passed, and accompany it to the Invalides.
The arrival of the funeral barge had been retarded while the authorities hastened the preparations for its reception. When the body of Napoleon was about to re-land on French soil, "cannon to right of it, cannon to left of it, volleyed and thundered." The coffin was received beneath what was called a votive monument—a column one hundred feet in height, with an immense gilded globe upon the top, surmounted by a gilded eagle twenty feet high. Banners and tripods were there ad libitum, and a vast plaster bas-relief cast in the "Belle Poule's" honor.
The coffin, having been landed, was placed upon a catafalque, the cannon gave the signal to begin the march, and the procession started. The public was given to understand that in a sort of funeral casket blazing with gold and purple, on the top of the catafalque, twenty feet from the ground, was enclosed the coffin of the Emperor; but it was not so. The sailors of the "Belle Poule" protested that the catafalque was too frail, and the height too great. They dared not, they said, attempt to get the lead-lined coffin up to the place assigned for it, still less try to get it down again. It was consequently deposited, for fear of accident, on a low platform between the wheels.
First came the gendarmes, or mounted police, with glittering brazen breastplates, waving horse-hair crests, fine horses, and a band of trumpeters; then the mounted Garde Municipale; then Lancers; then the Lieutenant-General commanding the National Guard of Paris, surrounded by his staff, and all officers, of whatever grade, then on leave in the capital. These were followed by infantry, cavalry, sappers and miners, Lancers, and Cuirassiers, staff-officers, etc., with bands and banners. Then came a carriage containing the chaplain who had had charge of the body from the time it left St. Helena, following whom were a crowd of military and naval officers. Next appeared a led charger, son of a stallion ridden by Napoleon, and soon after came a bevy of the marshals of France. Then all the banners of the eighty-six departments, and at last the funeral catafalque.
As it passed under the Arch of Triumph, erected by Napoleon in commemoration of his victories, there were hundreds in the crowd who expected to see the Emperor come to life again.
Strange to say, the universal cry was "Vive l'empereur!" One heard nowhere "Vive le roi!"
The funeral car was hung with purple gauze embroidered with golden bees. As I said, the coffin of the Emperor was suffered to repose upon a gilded buckler supported by four golden caryatides; but it was, as the sailors would have said, "stowed safely in the hold."
The catafalque was hung all over with wreaths, emblems, and banners. It had solid gilded wheels, and was drawn by eight horses covered with green velvet, embroidered with gold bees; each horse was led by a groom in the Bonaparte livery. At the four corners of the car, holding the tassels of the pall, rode two marshals, an admiral, and General Bertrand, who had shared the captivity of the Emperor. Count Montholon was not suffered to leave his imprisonment for the occasion, though he also had been a companion of the Emperor at St. Helena. Around the catafalque marched the five hundred sailors of the "Belle Poule," headed by their captain, the Prince de Joinville—slender, tall, and dark, a very naval-looking man. He was supposed to be intensely hostile to England, and only to be kept in check by a strong hand. Then came all the Emperor's aides-de-camp who were still living, and all the aged veterans in Paris who had served under him. This was the most touching feature of the procession. Many tears were shed by the spectators, and a thrill ran through the hearts of eight hundred thousand people as the catafalque creaked onward, passing under the arch which celebrated Napoleon's triumphs, and beneath which at other times no carriage was allowed to pass. But enthusiasm rose to the highest point at the sight of the veterans in every kind of faded uniform—Grenadiers of the Guard, Chasseurs, Dragoons of the Empress, Red Lancers, Mamelukes, Poles, and, above all, the Old Guard. "Vive la Vieille Garde!" shouted the multitude; "Vive les Polonais! Vive l'empereur!"
The funeral was a political blunder. It stirred up the embers of Napoleonism. Ten years later they blazed into a consuming fire.
The procession passed through the Place de la Concorde, beneath the shadow of the obelisk of Luxor, which of old had looked on triumphs and funeral processions in Egypt; then it crossed the Seine. On the bridge were eight colossal statues, representing prudence, strength, justice, war,