"He is too lazy to work, and, as a rule, has not got the pluck of a mouse, consequently he rarely resorts to crime, requiring the smallest amount of energy or daring. He furthermore loves his Paris, where, according to his own lights, he enjoys himself and lives upon the fat of the land; all these reasons make him careful not to commit himself, albeit that at every minute of the day he comes in contact with everything that is vile. But he gets hold of their secrets, though the word is almost a misnomer, seeing that few of these desperadoes can hold their tongue about their own business, knowing all the while, as they must do, that their want of reticence virtually puts their heads into the halter. But if they have done 'a good stroke of business,' even if they do not brag about it in so many words, they must show their success by their sudden show of finery, by their treating of everybody all round, etc. The souteneur is, as it were, jealous of all this; for though he lives in comparative comfort from what his mistress gives him, he rarely makes a big haul. His mistress gone, the pot ceases to boil; in fact, he calls her his marmite. In a few days he is on his beams' ends, unless he has one in every different quarter, which is not often the case, though it happens now and then. But, at any rate, the incarceration of one of them makes a difference, and, under the circumstance, he repairs, as far as he dares, to the préfecture, and obtains her liberation in exchange for the address of a burglar or even a murderer who is wanted. I have known one who had perfected his system of obtaining information to such a degree as to be able to sell his secrets to his fellow-souteneurs when they had none of their own wherewith to propitiate the detectives. He has had as much as three or four hundred francs for one revelation of that kind, which means twenty or thirty times the sum the police would have awarded him. Of course, three or four hundred francs is a big sum for the souteneur to shell out; but, when the marmite is a good one, he sooner does that than be deprived of his revenues for six months or so. I have diverted some of those secrets into my own channel, and Clémentine's souteneur is one of my clients; that is why I gave her up. Very shocking, gentlemen, but à la guerre comme à la guerre."
M. Canler furthermore counselled us to leave Clémentine alone. He positively refused to give us any information as to her whereabouts; that is why I did not meet with her until five years after David's death, too late to be of any use to her in this world.
CHAPTER XVII.
Queen Victoria in Paris — The beginning of the era of middle-class excursions — English visitors before that — The British tourist of 1855 — The real revenge of Waterloo — The Englishman's French and the Frenchman's English — The opening of the Exhibition — The lord mayor and aldermen in Paris — The King of Portugal — All these considered so much "small fry" — Napoléon III. goes to Boulogne to welcome the Queen — The royal yacht is delayed — The French hotel proprietor the greatest artist in fleecing — The Italian, the Swiss, the German, mere bunglers in comparison — Napoléon III. before the arrival of the Queen — Pondering the past — Arrival of the Queen — The Queen lands, followed by Prince Albert and the royal children — The Emperor rides by the side of her carriage — Comments of the population — An old salt on the situation — An old soldier's retort — The general feeling — Arrival in Paris — The Parisians' reception of the Queen — A description of the route — The apartments of the Queen at St. Cloud — How the Queen spent Sunday — Visits the art section of the Exhibition on Monday — Ingres and Horace Vernet presented to her — Frenchmen's ignorance of English art in those days — English and French art critics — The Queen takes a carriage drive through Paris — Not a single cry of "Vive l'Angleterre!" a great many of "Vive la Reine" — England making a cats-paw of France — Deception at the Élysée-Bourbon — "Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr" at St. Cloud — Alexandre Dumas would have liked to see the Queen — Visit to Versailles — State-performances at the Opéra — Ball at the Hôtel de Ville — The Queen's dancing — Canrobert on "the Queen's dancing and her soldiers' fighting" — Another visit to the Exhibition — Béranger misses seeing the Queen — "I am not going to see the Queen, but the woman" — A review in the Champ-de-Mars — A visit to Napoléon's tomb — Jérôme's absence on the plea of illness — Marshal Vaillant's reply to the Emperor when the latter invites him to take Jérôme's place — His comments on the receptions given by the Emperor to foreign sovereigns — Fêtes at Versailles — Homeward.
Magnificent as were the quasi-private entertainments at Compiègne, and the more public ones at the Tuileries, they were as nothing to the series of fêtes on the occasion of Queen Victoria's visit to Paris, in 1855. For nearly three months before, the capital had assumed the aspect of a fair. The Exposition Universelle of '55 virtually inaugurated the era of "middle-class excursions," which since then have assumed such colossal proportions, especially with regard to the English. Previous to this the development of railways had naturally brought many of our countrymen to Paris, but they were of a different class from those who now invaded the French metropolis. They were either men of business bent on business, though not averse to enjoying themselves in the intervals, or else belonging or pretending to belong to "the upper ten," and travelling more or less en grand seigneurs. They came singly, and left their cards at the Embassy, etc. The new visitors came in groups, though not necessarily acquainted or travelling with one another; they knew nothing of the Hôtel Meurice and the Hôtel Bristol or their traditions; they crowded the Palais-Royal and its cheap restaurants, and had, so to speak, no French at their command. Notwithstanding the exclamation of the Frenchman when he saw the statue of Wellington opposite Apsley House, it was then, and then only, that the revanche of Waterloo began. It has lasted ever since. It was '55 that marked the appearance in the shop-windows of small cards bearing the words, "English spoken here." Hitherto the English visitor to Paris was commonly supposed to have had a French tutor or governess, and though the French he or she did speak was somewhat trying to the ear, it was heavenly music compared to the English the Parisian shopkeeper now held it incumbent upon himself to "trot out" for the benefit of his customers, or that of the guide or valet de place, legions of whom infested the streets.
The Exhibition was opened on the 15th of May, but Queen Victoria was not expected until the middle of August. Meanwhile, the Parisians were treated to a sight of the Lord Mayor—Sir F. Moon, I believe—and the aldermen, who came in the beginning of June, and who were magnificently entertained by the Paris municipality, a deputation of which went as far as Boulogne to welcome them. Still, it was very evident that neither their visit nor that of the King of Portugal and his brother was to tax the ingenuity of upholsterers, carpenters, and caterers, or of the Parisians themselves in the matter of decoration; the watchword had apparently been given from the highest quarters to reserve their greatest efforts for what Napoléon up till then considered "the most glorious event of his reign." The Emperor, though he had gone to join the Empress, who was by this time known to be enceinte, at Eaux-Bonnes and Biarritz, returned to Paris at the end of July, and for more than a fortnight occupied himself personally and incessantly with the smallest details of the Queen's visit, the whole of the programme of which was settled by him.
I was one of the few privileged persons who travelled down to Boulogne with Louis-Napoléon, on Friday, the 17th of August, 1855. When we got to our destination, the yacht was not in sight, but we were already informed that, owing to its heavy tonnage, it would not be able to enter the harbour except at high tide, which would not be until 1 p.m., on Saturday. Shortly after that hour the vessel, accompanied by its flotilla, appeared in the offing; but the Queen remained on board, and we had to enjoy ourselves as best we could, which was not difficult, seeing that the whole of the town was absolutely in the streets, and that the latter were decidedly preferable to the stuffy attics at the hotels, for which we were charged the moderate sum of forty francs each. Uneventful as my life has been, it is only worth recording by reason of the celebrity of the persons with whom I have come in contact; nevertheless, I have travelled a good deal, and been present at a great many festive gatherings both in England and on the Continent. Commend me to the French hotel-proprietor for fleecing you in cold blood. The Swiss and the Italians, no mean masters of the art, are not in it with him; and as for the Germans, they are mere 'prentices compared with him. The Italian despoils you, like his countryman of operatic fame, Fra-Diavolo; the Swiss, like an English highwayman of the good old sort; the German, like a beggar who picks your pocket while you are looking in your purse for a coin to give him; the Frenchman, like the money-lender who is "not working for himself, but for a hard-hearted, relentless principal."
On the Saturday, the Emperor was astir betimes, and went to the camp occupied by the troops under the command of Marshal Baraguey-d'Hilliers. Louis-Napoléon's countenance was at all times difficult to read; I repeat, his eyes, like those of others, may have been "the windows of his soul," but their blinds were down most of the time. It was only at rare intervals that the impenetrable features were lighted up by a gleam from within, that the head, which generally inclined to the right, became erect. On that morning, the face was even a greater blank than usual. And yet that day, even to the fatalist he was, must have seemed a wonderful one; for the blind goddess of fortune, the "lucky star" in which he trusted, had never rewarded a mortal as she had rewarded him. A few years previously, during one of his presidential journeys, he had been hailed with enthusiasm at Strasburg, the city in which the scene of one of his bitterest fiascos had been laid. The contrast between those two days was startling indeed: on the one, he was hurried into a post-chaise as a prisoner to be taken to Paris, with an almost certain terrible fate overhanging him; on the other, he was greeted as the saviour of France, the Imperial Crown was within his grasp. But, startling as was this contrast, it could but have been mild compared to that which must have presented itself to his mind that autumn morning at Boulogne, when, a few hours later, the legions—his legions—took up their positions from Wimereux on the right to Porsel on the left, to do homage to the sovereign of a country which had been the most irreconcilable foe of the founder of his house; on the very heights at the foot of which he himself had failed to rouse the French to enthusiasm; on the very spot where he had become the laughing-stock of the world by his performance with that unfortunate tame eagle.
And yet, I repeat, not a gleam of pride or joy lighted up the Sphinx-like mask. To see this man standing there unmoved amidst the highest honours the world had to bestow, one could not help thinking of Voltaire's condemnation of fatalism as the guiding principal of life: "If perchance fatalism be the true doctrine, I would sooner be without such a cruel truth."
A regiment of lancers and one of dragoons lined the route from the landing-stage to the railway station, for in those days the trains did not stop alongside the boats; while on the bridge crossing the Liane, three hundred sappers, bearded like the Pard, shouldering their axes, wearing their white leathern aprons, stood in serried ranks, three deep.