AT THE TUILERIES. 1844-1848.
II. THE DUCHESS D’ORLEANS.
III. THE PRINCES.
I. THE KING. * June, 28, 1844.
The King told me that Talleyrand said to him one day:
“You will never be able to do anything with Thiers, although he would make an excellent tool. He is one of those men one cannot make use of unless one is able to satisfy them. Now, he never will be satisfied. It is unfortunate for him, as for you, that in our times, he cannot be made a cardinal.”
A propos of the fortifications of Paris, the King told me how the Emperor Napoleon learned the news of the taking of Paris by the allies.
The Emperor was marching upon Paris at the head of his guard. Near Juvisy, at a place in the Forest of Fontainebleau where there is an obelisk (“that I never see without feeling heavy at heart,” remarked the King), a courier on his way to meet Napoleon brought him the news of the capitulation of Paris. Paris had been taken. The enemy had entered it. The Emperor turned pale. He hid his face in his hands and remained thus, motionless, for a quarter of an hour. Then, without saying a word, he turned about and took the road back to Fontainebleau.
General Athalin witnessed this scene and recounted it to the King.
July, 1844.
A few days ago the King said to Marshal Soult (in presence of others):
“Marshal, do you remember the siege of Cadiz?”
“Rather, sire, I should think so. I swore enough before that cursed Cadiz. I invested the place and was forced to go away as I had come.”
“Marshal, while you were before it, I was inside it.”
“I know, sire.”
“The Cortes and the English Cabinet offered me the command of the Spanish army.”
“I remember it.”
“The offer was a grave one. I hesitated long. Bear arms against France! For my family, it is possible; but against my country! I was greatly perplexed. At this juncture you asked me, through a trusty person, for a secret interview in a little house situated on the Cortadura, between the city and your camp. Do you remember the fact, Monsieur the Marshal?”
“Perfectly, sire; the day was fixed and the interview arranged.”
“And I did not turn up.”
“That is so.”
“Do you know why?”
“I never knew.”
“I will tell you. As I was preparing to go to meet you, the commander of the English squadron, apprised of the matter, I know not how, dropped upon me brusquely and warned me that I was about to fall into a trap; that Cadiz being impregnable, they despaired of seizing me, but that at the Cortadura I should be arrested by you; that the Emperor wished to make of the Duke d’Orleans a second volume of the Duke d’Enghien, and that you would have me shot immediately. There, really,” added the King with a smile, “your hand on your conscience, were you going to shoot me?”
The Marshal remained silent for a moment, then replied, with a smile not less inexpressible than that of the King:
“No, sire; I wanted to compromise you.”
The subject of conversation was changed. A few minutes later the Marshal took leave of the King, and the King, as he watched him go, said with a smile to the person who heard this conversation:
“Compromise! compromise! To-day it is called compromise. In reality, he would have shot me!”
August 4, 1844.
Yesterday the King said to me:
“One of my embarrassments at present, in all this affair of the University and the clergy, is M. Affre.” *
Saint Antoine on September 25, 1848, while trying to stop
the fighting between the troops and insurgents.
“Then why, sire,” said I, “did you appoint him?”
“I made a mistake, I admit. I had at first appointed to the archbishopric of Paris the Cardinal of Arras, M. de la Tour d’Auvergne.”
“It was a good choice,” I observed.
“Yes, good. He is insignificant. An honest old man of no account. An easy-going fellow. He was much sought after by the Carlists. Greatly imposed upon. His whole family hated me. He was induced to refuse. Not knowing what to do, and being in haste, I named M. Affre. I ought to have been suspicious of him. His countenance is neither open nor frank. I took his underhand air for a priestly air; I did wrong. And then, you know, it was in 1840. Thiers proposed him to me, and urged me to appoint him. Thiers is no judge of archbishops. I did it without sufficient reflection. I ought to have remembered what Talleyrand said to me one day: ‘The Archbishop of Paris must always be an old man. The see is quieter and becomes vacant more frequently.’ I appointed M. Affre, who is young; it was a mistake. However, I will re-establish the chapter of St. Denis and appoint as primate of it the Cardinal de la Tour d’Auvergne. The Papal Nuncio, to whom I spoke of my project just now, laughed heartily at it, and said: ‘The Abbé Affre will commit some folly. Should he go to Rome the Pope will receive him very badly. He has acted pusillanimously and blunderingly on all occasions since he has been an archbishop. An archbishop of Paris who has any wit ought always to be on good terms with the King here and the Pope yonder.’”