STILL ANOTHER CHAPTER OF MY MEMOIR.
(In Supplement of "Harper.")
BY MONSIEUR VAN DE BLOWITZOWN TROMP.
Forget at this moment where I was born, but I lived long enough at Marseilles to be married in that great southern French city. My wife's father had been in the Marines; her uncle (on the grandfather's side) had been a Sapeur pompier. Thus did I, as it were, become lié with the sea and land forces of my adopted country. My wife's mother was a descendant of a noble but anonymous family in the Vosges, whilst her maternal uncle was accustomed to attach to himself some local unpopularity by preferring for investigation a complicated sheet which set forth his genealogy, tracing his origin back to the Bourbons.
You ask me which Bourbon? I frankly answer, I cannot tell. My wife's maternal uncle spoke of them as "the Bourbons," just as you talk of "the Groceries," and no one asks you Lequel? As for my own ancestry, I do not speak of it. I have never been in the habit of thrusting myself on the attention of the public. It is sufficient for me that my wife's maternal uncle's ancestors were Bourbons.
I first began to take charge of public affairs in connection with an election that took place in the city where I found myself. M. DE LESSEPS opposed THIERS and GAMBETTA. He presented himself as an independent candidate. Was he? I suspected. Already I had my secret agents in every centre of population. One, whose letter bore the post-mark the Pyramids, placed in my hand proof that DE LESSEPS was an official candidate of the Empire. I secretly conveyed this information to a local newspaper. The news burst like a tempest on the public of Marseilles, and swept away in its irresistible whirl the candidature of M. DE LESSEPS.
This was pretty well for a first newspaper paragraph, worth at the time, as I remember thinking, more than the paltry three sous a line that became my due. But I had made more than a few sous—I had made an enemy! Years after, BISMARCK told me how, chatting with NAPOLEON THE THIRD at Donchery, that fallen monarch had recalled this incident, in which his prophetic eye justly discerned the beginning of the end. He admitted that he had said to the EMPRESS, "France is too small for me and VAN DE BLOWITZOWN TROMP. One of us must cross la Manche."
Sublime! One of us did.
But my time was not yet. My friends advised, nay, besought me to leave Marseilles. Towards the end of this year (1869) I took their advice, and retired to a small property I chanced to have in the centre of the Landes. This place being dry, and somewhat remote, was peculiarly suitable for watching the growth of great problems with a mind unbiassed by any knowledge of facts. I saw the Franco-German question grow, and I foresaw how it would end. I wrote to THIERS, and told him all about it. When the war broke out I mounted my stilts, and cautiously made my way across the untrodden track, following my Destiny. I had predicted the downfall of the Empire, and, in its last gasp, the Empire strove to wither me. Proceedings had been commenced, when Sedan put an end to them.
At this epoch France was on her knees, beaten down by the German hand, her eyes blind with blood and tears. One thing alone could cheer her. I could do it, and I did. I applied for Letters of Naturalisation. Some weeks later I became a French citizen, and received a letter from M. ADOLPH CRÉMIEUX, then Minister of Justice, and never suspected of being a wag. He wrote: "Your application for Naturalisation in the midst of our great disasters, is for me the signal of a new life for us. A country which in the midst of such catastrophes recruits citizens like you, is not to be despaired of."
Years after, THIERS, then President of the Republic, said, "I never will forget that you became a Frenchman in the time of our misfortunes." EDMUND ABOUT picturesquely said, "Il s'est fait naturaliser vaincu." BISMARCK has told me that the Emperor WILLIAM, then at Versailles, in the first flush of triumph at touch on his brow of the Imperial diadem, hearing of the event through the capturing of a balloon despatched with the news to dolorous Paris, passed a sleepless night.
"I fear me" he said, "all will now be lost."
"Not at all, your Majesty," said BISMARCK, affecting an indifference he assures me he did not feel. "There is not even a Frenchman the more. They have lost an Emperor and gained VAN DE BLOWITZOWN TROMP. Ce met égal."
"Not quite," said the Emperor, with subtle flattery. The Emperor WILLIAM, though he had his failings, was a keen judge of the comparative value of men.
The limits of this article compel me to glance hastily over succeeding epochs in a career with the main drift of which the civilised world is already familiar. After saving Marseilles to the Republic, by a series of actions alternating between desperate valour and brilliant strategy, I went to Paris to report on the great event. Calling on the official entrusted with the duty of considering claims to decorations, I began at once by saying that my own name must not be taken into consideration.
"Let my name," I said, gently but firmly, "be scored out in the proposed list of decorations."
"Mais, Monsieur" he said, "there is no such list."
I, however, was not to be put off with excuse of that kind. I insisted, both to the Secretary of the Minister of War, to M. THIERS, that I should not be decorated. I was only too successful. When the list came out, all my associates at Marseilles were decorated. I was not included. This was all right. It was what I had requested. I could say nothing. All the same, I could not help thinking that my advice had been too literally accepted.
Every morning, for a week after, I called on M. THIERS. At the end of the sixth day he said, "You must go to Riga. I do not quite know where it is, but it sounds remote. You shall be Consul at Riga." I was delighted. Like the President, I was not sure where Riga was; but the salary was certain, and there was fine old Roman flavour about the title Consul.
But it was not to be. I was predestined to be a great Newspaper Correspondent. How that came about cannot be told in this chapter. I will only say that early in my new career I secured the approbation of Mr. DELANE, who, I need scarcely say, was the most competent judge the world ever saw of the merits of a journalist.
At the risk of being dry and bald, I have confined myself to telling accurately what has happened, my greatest ambition being to leave no one the chance of misrepresenting, as his whim, fancy, or passion may dictate, facts in which I am so deeply interested. Let those note them who, after my time, have to defend my memory should it ever be attacked.
"MORE HONOURED IN THE BREACH THAN THE OBSERVANCE."—Breach of Promise cases—as a rule.