Having finished this oracular sentence, the doctrinaire took a long pinch of snuff, and began discoursing of other matters: and I too withdrew from the discussion, persuaded that I could not bring it to a better conclusion.
LETTER XL.
Which Party is it ranks second in the estimation of all? — No Caricatures against the Exiles. — Horror of a Republic.
I have been taking some pains to discover, by the aid of all the signs and tokens of public feeling within my reach, who among the different parties into which this country is divided enjoys the highest degree of general consideration.
We know that if every man in a town were desired to say who among its inhabitants he should consider as fittest to hold an employment of honour and profit, each would probably answer, “Myself:” we know also, that should it happen, after the avowal of this very natural partiality, that the name of the second best were asked for, and that the man named as such by one were so named by all, this second best would be accounted by the disinterested lookers-on as decidedly the right and proper person to fill the station. According to this rule, the right and proper government for France is neither republican, nor military, nor doctrinaire, but that of a legitimate and constitutional monarchy.
When men hold office, bringing both power and wealth, consideration will of necessity follow. That the ministers and their friends, therefore, should be seen in pride of place, and enjoying the dignity they have achieved, is natural, inevitable, and quite as it should be. But if, turning from this every-day spectacle, we endeavour to discover who it is that, possessing neither power nor place, most uniformly receive the homage of respect, I should say, without a shadow of doubt or misgiving, that it was the legitimate royalists.
The triumphant doctrinaires pass no jokes at their expense; no bons mots are quoted against them, nor does any shop exhibit caricatures either of what they have been or of what they are.
The republicans are no longer heard to name them, either with rancour or disrespect: all their wrath is now poured out upon the present actual power of the prosperous doctrinaires. This, indeed, is in strict conformity to the principle which constitutes the foundation of their sect; namely, that whatever exists ought to be overthrown. But neither in jest nor earnest do they now show hostility to Charles the Tenth or his family: nor even do the blank walls of Paris, which for nearly half a century have been the favourite receptacle of all their wit, exhibit any pleasantries, either in the shape of hieroglyphic, caricature, or lampoon, alluding to them or their cause.
I have listened repeatedly to sprightly and to bitter jestings, to judicious and to blundering reasonings, for and against the different doctrines which divide the country; but in no instance do I remember to have heard, either in jest or earnest, any revilings against the exiled race. A sort of sacred silence seems to envelope this theme; or if it be alluded to at all, it is far from being in a hostile spirit.
“HENRI!” is a name that, without note or comment, may be read ça et là in every quarter of Paris, that of the Tuileries not excepted: and on a wall near the Royal College of Henri Quatre, where the younger princes of the house of Orleans still study, were inscribed not long ago these very intelligible words: —
“Pour arriver à Bordeaux, il faut passer par Orléans.”
In short, whatever feelings of irritation and anger might have existed in 1830, and produced the scenes which led to the exile of the royal family, they now seem totally to have subsided.
It does not, however, necessarily follow from this that the majority of the people are ready again to hazard their precious tranquillity in order to restore them: on the contrary, it cannot be doubted that were such a measure attempted at the present moment, it would fail — not from any dislike of their legitimate monarch, or any affection for the kinsman who has been placed upon his throne, but wholly and solely from their wish to enjoy in peace their profitable speculations at the Bourse — their flourishing restaurans — their prosperous shops — and even their tables, chairs, beds, and coffee-pots.
Very different, however, is the feeling manifested towards the republicans. Never did Napoleon in the days of his most absolute power, or the descendants of Louis le Grand in those of their proudest state, contemplate this factious, restless race with such abhorrence as do the doctrinaires of the present hour. It is not that they fear them — they have no real cause to do so; but they feel a sentiment made up of hatred and contempt, which never seems to repose, and which, if not regulated by wisdom and moderation, is very likely eventually to lead to more barricades; though to none, I imagine, that the National Guards may not easily throw down.
It is on the subject of this unpopular clique that by far the greater part of the ever-springing Parisian jokes expends itself; though the doctrinaires get it “pas mal” in return, as I heard a national guardsman remark, as we were looking over some caricatures together. But, in truth, the republicans seem upon principle to offer themselves as victims and martyrs to the quizzing propensities of their countrymen. Harlequin does not more scrupulously adhere to his parti-coloured suit, than do the republicans of Paris to their burlesque costume. It is, I presume, to show their courage, that they so ostentatiously march with their colours flying; but the effect is very ludicrous. The symbolic peculiarities of their dress are classed and lithographed with infinite fun.
Drolleries, too, on the parvenus of the Empire are to be found for the seeking; and when they beset King Philippe himself, it should seem that it is done with all the enthusiasm so well expressed by Garrick in days of yore: —
“’Tis for my king, and, zounds! I’ll do my best!”
The only extraordinary part of all this caricaturing on walls and in print-shops, is the license taken with those who have power to prevent it. The principle of legislation on this point appears, with a little variation, to be that of the old ballad:
“Thoughts, words, and deeds, the statute blames with reason;
But surely jokes were ne’er indicted treason.”
In speaking of the parties into which France is divided, the three grand divisions of Carlists, Doctrinaires, and Republicans naturally present themselves first and foremost, and, to foreigners in general, appear to contain between them the entire nation: but a month or two passed in Paris society suffices to show one that there are many who cannot fairly be classed with either.
In the first place, the Carlist party by no means contains all those who disapprove of treating a crown like a ready-made shoe, which, if it be found to pinch the person it was intended for, may be disposed of to the first comer who is willing to take it. The Carlist party, properly so called, demand the restoration of King Charles the Tenth, the immediate descendant and representative of their long line of kings — the prince who has been crowned and anointed King of France, and who, while he remains alive, must render the crowning and anointing of any other prince an act of sacrilege. Wherefore, in effect, King Louis-Philippe has not received “le sacre:” he is not as yet the anointed King of France, whatever he may be hereafter. Henri Quatre is said to have exclaimed under the walls of the capital, “Paris vaut bien une messe;” and it is probable that Louis-Philippe Premier thinks so too; but hitherto he has been able to have this performed only in military style — being incapable, in fact, of going through the ceremony either civilly or religiously. The Carlists are, therefore, those only who en rigueur do not approve of any king but the real one.
The legitimate royalists are, I believe, a much more numerous party. As strictly attached to the throne and to the principle of regular and legitimate succession as the Carlists, they nevertheless conceive that the pressure of circumstances may not only authorise, but render it imperative upon the country to accept, or rather to permit, the abdication of a sovereign. The king’s leaving the country and placing himself in exile, is one of the few causes that can justify this; and accordingly the abdication of Charles Dix is virtual death to him as a sovereign. But though this is granted, it does not follow in their creed,
that any part of the nation have thereupon a right to present the hereditary crown to whom they will. The law of succession, they say, is not to be violated because the king has fled before a popular insurrection; and having permitted his abdication, the next heir becomes king. This next heir, however, choosing to follow his royal father’s example, he too becomes virtually defunct, and his heir succeeds.
This heir is still an infant, and his remaining in exile cannot therefore be interpreted as his own act. Thus, according to the reasoning of those who conceive the abdication of the king and the dauphin to be acts within their own power, and beyond that of the nation to nullify, Henri, the son of the Duc de Berri, is beyond all doubt Henri Cinq, Roi de France.
Of this party, however, there are many, and I suspect their number is increasing, who, having granted the power of setting aside (by his own act) the anointed monarch, are not altogether averse to go a step farther, if so doing shall ensure the peace of the country; and considering the infancy of the rightful heir as constituting insufficiency, to confess Louis-Philippe as the next in succession to be the lawful as well as the actual King of the French.
It is this party who I always find have the most to say in support (or defence) of their opinions. Whether this proceed from their feeling that some eloquence is necessary to make them pass current, or that the conviction of their justice is such as to make their hearts overflow on the theme, I know not; but decidedly the sect of the “Parcequ’il est Bourbon” is that which I find most eager to discourse upon politics. And, to confess the truth, they have much to say for themselves, at least on the side of expediency.
It is often a matter of regret with me, that in addressing these letters to you I am compelled to devote so large a portion of them to politics; but in attempting to give you some idea of Paris at the present moment, it is impossible to avoid it. Were I to turn from this theme, I could only do so by labouring to forget everything I have seen, everything I see. Go where you will, do what you will, meet whom you will, it is out of your power to escape it. But observe, that it is wholly for your sake, and not at all for my own, that I lament it; for, however flat and unprofitable my report may be, the thing itself, when you are in the midst of it, is exceedingly interesting.
When I first arrived, I was considerably annoyed by finding, that as soon as I had noted down some piece of information as an undoubted fact, the next person I conversed with assured me that it was worth considerably less than nought; inasmuch as my informer had not only failed to give me useful instruction on the point concerning which I was inquiring, but had altogether deluded, deceived, and led me astray.
These days of primitive matter-of-factness are now, however, quite passed with me; and though I receive a vast deal of entertainment from all, I give my faith in return to very few. I listen to the Carlists, the Henri-Quintists, the Philippists, with great attention and real interest, but have sometimes caught myself humming as soon as they have left me,
“They were all of them kings in their turn.”
Indeed, if you knew all that happens to me, instead of blaming me for being too political, you would be very thankful for the care and pains I bestow in endeavouring to make a digest of all I hear for your advantage, containing as few contradictions as possible. And truly this is no easy matter, not only from the contradictory nature of the information I receive, but from some varying weaknesses in my own nature, which sometimes put me in the very disagreeable predicament of doubting if what is right be right, and if what is wrong be wrong.
When I came here, I was a thorough unequivocating legitimatist, and felt quite ready and willing to buckle on armour against any who should doubt that a man once a king was always a king — that once crowned according to law, he could not be uncrowned according to mob — or that a man’s eldest son was his rightful heir.
But, oh! these doctrinaires! They have such a way of proving that if they are not quite right, at least everybody else is a great deal more wrong: and then they talk so prettily of England and our revolution, and our glorious constitution — and the miseries of anarchy — and the advantages of letting things remain quietly as they are, till, as I said before, I begin to doubt what is right and what is wrong.
There is one point, however, on which we agree wholly and heartily; and it is this perhaps that has been the means of softening my heart thus towards them. The doctrinaires shudder at the name of a republic. This is not because their own party is regal, but is evidently the result of the experience which they and their fathers have had from the tremendous experiment which has once already been made in the country.
“You will never know the full value of your constitution till you have lost it,” said a doctrinaire to me the other evening, at the house of the beautiful Princess B —— , formerly an energetic propagandiste, but now a very devoted doctrinaire,— “you will never know how beneficial is its influence on every hour of your lives, till your Mr. O’Connell has managed to arrange a republic for you: and when you have tasted that for about three months, you will make good and faithful subjects to the next king that Heaven shall bestow upon you. You know how devoted all France was to the Emperor, though the police was somewhat tight, and the conscriptions heavy: but he had saved us from a republic, and we adored him. For a few days, or rather hours, we were threatened again, five years ago, by the same terrible apparition: the result is, that four millions of armed men stand ready to protect the prince who chased it. Were it to appear a third time — which Heaven forbid! — you may depend upon it that the monarch who should next ascend the throne of France might play at le jeu de quilles with his subjects, and no one be found to complain.”
LETTER XLI.
M. Dupré. — His Drawings in Greece. — L’Eglise des Carmes. — M. Vinchon’s Picture of the National Convention. — Léopold Robert’s Fishermen. — Reported cause of his Suicide. — Roman Catholic Religion. — Mr. Daniel O’Connell.
We went the other morning, with Miss C —— , a very agreeable countrywoman, who has however passed the greater portion of her life in Paris, to visit the house and atelier of M. Dupré, a young artist who seems to have devoted himself to the study of Greece. Her princes, her peasants, her heavy-eyed beauties, and the bright sky that glows above them, — all the material of her domestic life, and all the picturesque accompaniments of her classic reminiscences, are brought home by this gentleman in a series of spirited and highly-finished drawings, which give decidedly the most lively idea of the country that I have seen produced. Engravings or lithographs from them are, I believe, intended to illustrate a splendid work on this interesting country which is about to be published.
In our way from M. Dupré’s house, in which was this collection of Greek drawings, to his atelier — where he was kind enough to show us a large picture recently commenced — we entered that fatal “Eglise des Carmes,” where the most hideous massacre of the first revolution took place. A large tree that stands beside it is pointed out as having been sought as a shelter — alas! how vainly! — by the unhappy priests, who were shot, sabred, and dragged from its branches by dozens. A thousand terrible recollections are suggested by the interior of the building, aided by the popular traditions attached to it, unequalled in atrocity even in the history of that time of horror.
Another scene relating to the same period, which, though inferior to the massacre of the priests in multiplied barbarity, was of sufficient horror to freeze the blood of any but a republican, has, strange to say, been made, since the revolution of 1830, the subject of an enormous picture by M. Vinchon, and at the present moment makes part of the exhibition at the Louvre.
The canvass represents a hall at the Tuileries which in 1795 was the place where the National Convention sat. The mob has broken in, and murdered Feraud, who attempted to oppose them; and the moment chosen by the painter is that in which a certain “jeune fille nommée Aspasie Migelli” approaches the president’s chair with the young man’s head borne on a pike before her, while she triumphantly envelopes
herself in some part of his dress. The whole scene is one of the most terrible revolutionary violence. This picture is stated in the catalogue to belong to the minister of the interior; but whether the present minister of the interior, or any other, I know not. The subject was given immediately after the revolution of 1830, and many artists made sketches in competition for the execution of it. One of those who tried, and failed before the superior genius of M. Vinchon, told us, that the subject was given at that time as one likely to be popular, either for love of the noble resolution with which Boissy d’Anglas keeps possession of the president’s chair, which he had seized upon, or else from admiration of the energetic female who has assisted in doing the work of death. In either case, this young artist said, the popularity of such a subject was passed by, and no such order would be given now.
Finding myself again on the subject of pictures, I must mention a very admirable one which is now being exhibited at the “Mairie du Second Arrondissement.” It is from the hand of the unfortunate Leopold Robert, who destroyed himself at Venice almost immediately after he had completed it. The subject is the departure of a party of Italian fishermen; and there are parts of the picture fully equal to anything I have ever seen from the pencil of a modern artist. I should have looked at this picture with extreme pleasure, had the painter still lived to give hope of, perhaps, still higher efforts; but the history of his death, which I had just been listening to, mixed great pain with it.
I have been told that this young man was of a very religious and meditative turn of mind, but a Protestant. His only sister, to whom he was much attached, was a Catholic, and had recently taken the veil. Her affection for him was such, that she became perfectly wretched from the danger she believed awaited him from his heresy; and she commenced a species of affectionate persecution, which, though it failed to convert him, so harassed and distracted his mind, as finally to overthrow his reason, and lead him to self-destruction. This charming picture is exhibited for the benefit of the poor, at the especial desire of the unhappy nun; who is said, however, to be so perfect a fanatic, as only to regret that the dreadful act was not delayed till she had had time to work out the salvation of her own soul by a little more persecution of his.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 536