[37] I have inserted them here in order not to fall into repetitions on the same subject.—Editor.
[38] Louis-François Dubois, the author of several heroic poems, "Ankarström," "Geneviève et Siegfried," etc., which are utterly forgotten. His main title to the recollection of posterity consists in his having saved, during the Revolution, a great many literary works of value, which he returned to the State afterwards.—Editor.
[39] It reminds one of the answer of the younger Dumas to a gentleman whose wife had been notorious for her conjugal faithlessness, and whose sons were all weaklings. "Ah, Monsieur Dumas, c'est un fils comme vous qu'il me fallait," he exclaimed. "Mon cher monsieur," came the reply, "quand on veut avoir un fils comme moi, il faut le faire soi-même."—Editor.
[40] She had unconsciously borrowed the words from the Duchesse de Coislin, who, under similar circumstances a few years before, said to Madame de Chateaubriand, "Cela sent la parvenue; nous autres, femmes de la cour, nous n'avions que deux chemises; on les renouvelait quand elles étaient usées; nous étions vêtues de robes de soie et nous n'avions pas l'air de grisettes comme ces demoiselles de maintenant."—Editor.
[41] The mother of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, the present ruler of Bulgaria. She was a particular favourite of Queen Victoria, and Louis-Philippe himself not only considered her the cleverest of his three daughters, but the most likely successor to his sister Adelaide, as his private adviser. That the estimate of her abilities was by no means exaggerated, subsequent events have proved. The last time I saw the princess was at the garden party at Sheen-House, on the occasion of the silver wedding of the Count and Countess de Paris. I did not remember her for the moment, for a score of years had made a difference. I asked an Austrian attaché who she was. The answer came pat, "Alexander III.'s nightmare, Francis-Joseph's bogy, and Bismarck's sleeping draught; one of the three clever women in Europe; Bulgaria's mother."—Editor.
[42] There was a similar divergence of dynastic opinion during the Second Empire between the sovereign and those placed very near him on the throne. When Alphonse Daudet came to Paris to make a name in literature, the Duc de Morny offered him a position as secretary. "Before I accept it, monsieur le duc, I had better tell you that I am a Legitimist," replied the future novelist. "Don't let that trouble you," laughed De Morny; "so am I to a certain extent, and the Empress is even more of a Legitimist than I am."—Editor.
[43] In order to understand this dread on Montauban's part, the English reader should be told that the term pékin is the contemptuous nickname for the civilian, with the French soldier.—Editor.
[44] The author, as will be seen directly, saw nothing of that massacre, though he must have passed within a few hundred yards of the spot immediately before it began. It would have been the same if he had; he could not have explained the cause, seeing that the most painstaking historians who have consulted the most trustworthy eye-witnesses have failed to do so. It will always remain a mystery whence the first shot came, whether from the military who were drawn up across the Boulevard des Capucines, on the spot where now stands the Grand Café, or from the crowd that wanted to pass, in order to proceed to Odilon-Barrot's to serenade him, because, notwithstanding the opposition of the king, he was to be included in the new ministry, which Molé had been instructed to form. It may safely be said, however, that, but for that shot and the slaughter consequent upon it, the revolution might have been averted then—after all, perhaps, only temporarily.—Editor.
[45] The author is slightly mistaken. The two ugliest men in France in the nineteenth century were Andrieux, who wrote "Les Étourdis," and Littré; but Cremieux ran them very hard.—Editor.
[46] So called after a large ornamental fountain; the same, I believe, which subsequently was transferred to what is now called the Place de la République, and which finally found its way to the Avenue Daumesnil, where it stands at present.—Editor.