The Revolution of '48 — The beginning of it — The National Guards in all their glory — The Café Grégoire on the Place du Caire — The price of a good breakfast in '48 — The palmy days of the Cuisine Bourgeoise — The excitement on the Boulevards on Sunday, February 20th, '48 — The theatres — A ball at Poirson's, the erstwhile director of the Gymnase — A lull in the storm — Tuesday, February 22nd — Another visit to the Café Grégoire — On my way thither — The Comédie-Française closes its doors — What it means, according to my old tutor — We are waited upon by a sergeant and corporal — We are no longer "messieurs," but "citoyens" — An eye to the main chance — The patriots do a bit of business in tricolour cockades — The company marches away — Casualties — "Le patriotisme" means the difference between the louis d'or and the écu of three francs — The company bivouacs on the Boulevard Saint-Martin — A tyrant's victim "malgré lui" — Wednesday, February 23rd — The Café Grégoire once more — The National Guards en négligé — A novel mode of settling accounts — The National Guards fortify the inner man — A bivouac on the Boulevard du Temple — A camp scene from an opera — I leave — My companion's account — The National Guards protect the regulars — The author of these notes goes to the theatre — The Gymnase and the Variétés on the eve of the Revolution — Bouffé and Déjazet — Thursday, February 24th, '48 — The Boulevards at 9.30 a.m. — No milk — The Revolutionaries do without it — The Place du Carrousel — The sovereign people fire from the roofs on the troops — The troops do not dislodge them — The King reviews the troops — The apparent inactivity of Louis-Philippe's sons — A theory about the difference in bloodshed. — One of the three ugliest men in France comes to see the King — Seditious cries — The King abdicates — Chaos — The sacking of the Tuileries — Receptions and feasting in the Galerie de Diane — "Du café pour nous, des cigarettes pour les dames" — The dresses of the princesses — The bourgeois feast the gamins who guard the barricades — The Republic proclaimed — The riff-raff insist upon illuminations — An actor promoted to the Governorship of the Hôtel de Ville — Some members of the "provisional Government" at work — Méry on Lamartine — Why the latter proclaimed the Republic [208]
CHAPTER XI.
The Second Republic — Lamartine's reason for proclaiming it — Suspects Louis-Napoléon of similar motives for wishing to overthrow it — Tells him to go back to England — De Persigny's account of Louis-Napoléon's landing in France after February 24th, '48 — Providential interference on behalf of Louis-Napoléon — Justification of Louis-Napoléon's belief in his "star" — My first meeting with him — The origin of a celebrated nickname — Badinguet a creation of Gavarni — Louis-Napoléon and his surroundings at the Hôtel du Rhin — His appearance and dress — Lord Normanby's opinion of his appearance — Louis-Napoléon's French — A mot of Bismarck — Cavaignac, Thiers, and Victor Hugo's wrong estimate of his character — Cavaignac and his brother Godefroi — The difference between Thiers and General Cavaignac — An elector's mot — Some of the candidates for the presidency of the Second Republic — Electioneering expenses — Impecuniosity of Louis-Napoléon — A story in connection with it — The woman with the wooden legs — The salons during the Second Republic — The theatres and their skits on the situation — "La Propriété c'est le Vol" — France governed by the National — A curious list of ministers and officials of the Second Republic — Armand Marrast — His plans for reviving business — His receptions at the Palais-Bourbon as President of the Chamber of Deputies — Some of the guests — The Corps Diplomatique — The new deputies, their wives and daughters [232]
CHAPTER XII.
Guizot, Lamartine, and Béranger — Public opinion at sea with regard to the real Guizot — People fail to see the real man behind the politician — Guizot regrets this false conception — "I have not the courage to be unpopular" — A tilt at Thiers — My first meeting with him — A picture and the story connected with it — M. Guizot "at home" — His apartment — The company — M. Guizot on "the Spanish marriages" — His indictment against Lord Palmerston — An incident in connection with Napoléon's tomb at the Invalides — Nicolas I. and Napoléon — My subsequent intimacy with M. Guizot — Guizot as a father — His correspondence with his daughters — A story of Henry Mürger and Marguerite Thuillier — M. Guizot makes up his mind not to live in Paris any longer — M. Guizot on "natural scenery" — Never saw the sea until he was over fifty — Why M. Guizot did not like the country; why M. Thiers did not like it — Thiers the only man at whom Guizot tilted — M. Guizot died poor — M. de Lamartine's poverty did not inspire the same respect — Lamartine's impecuniosity — My only visit to Lamartine's house — Du Jellaby doré — With a difference — All the stories and anecdotes about M. de Lamartine relate to his improvidence and impecuniosity — Ten times worse in that respect than Balzac — M. Guizot's literary productions and M. de Lamartine's — The national subscription raised for the latter — How he anticipates some of the money — Béranger — My first acquaintance with him — Béranger's verdict on the Second Republic — Béranger's constant flittings — Dislikes popularity — The true story of Béranger and Mdlle. Judith Frère [249]
CHAPTER XIII.
Some men of the Empire — Fialin de Persigny — The public prosecutor's opinion of him expressed at the trial for high treason in 1836 — Superior in many respects to Louis-Napoléon — The revival of the Empire his only and constant dream — In order to realize it, he appeals first to Jérôme, ex-King of Westphalia — De Persigny's estimate of him — Jérôme's greed and Louis-Napoléon's generosity — De Persigny's financial embarrassments — His charity — What the Empire really meant to him — De Persigny virtually the moving spirit in the Coup d'État — Louis-Napoléon might have been satisfied with the presidency of the republic for life — Persigny seeks for aid in England — Palmerston's share in the Coup d'État — The submarine cable — Preparations for the Coup d'État — A warning of it sent to England — Count Walewski issues invitations for a dinner-party on the 2nd of December — Opinion in London that Louis-Napoléon will get the worst in the struggle with the Chamber — The last funds from London — General de Saint-Arnaud and Baron Lacrosse — The Élysée-Bourbon on the evening of the 1st of December — I pass the Élysée at midnight — Nothing unusual — London on the 2nd of December — The dinner at Count Walewski's put off at the last moment — Illuminations at the French Embassy a few hours later — Palmerston at the Embassy — Some traits of De Persigny's character — His personal affection for Louis-Napoléon — Madame de Persigny — Her parsimony — Her cooking of the household accounts — Chevet and Madame de Persigny — What the Empire might have been with a Von Moltke by the side of the Emperor instead of Vaillant, Niel, and Lebœuf — Colonel (afterwards General) Fleury the only modest man among the Emperor's entourage — De Persigny's pretensions as a Heaven-born statesman — Mgr. de Mérode — De Morny — His first meeting with his half-brother — De Morny as a grand seigneur — The origin of the Mexican campaign — Walewski — His fads — Rouher — My first sight of him in the Quartier-Latin — The Emperor's opinion of him at the beginning of his career — Rouher in his native home, Auvergne — His marriage — Madame Rouher — His father-in-law [261]
CHAPTER XIV.
Society during the Second Empire — The Court at Compiègne — The English element — Their opinion of Louis-Napoléon — The difference between the court of Louis-Philippe and that of Napoléon III. — The luggage of M. Villemain — The hunts in Louis-Philippe's time — Louis-Napoléon's advent — Would have made a better poet than an Emperor — Looks for a La Vallière or Montespan, and finds Mdlle. Eugénie de Montijo — The latter determined not to be a La Vallière or even a Pompadour — Has her great destiny foretold in her youth — Makes up her mind that it shall be realized by a right-handed and not a left-handed marriage — Queen Victoria stands her sponsor among the sovereigns of Europe — Mdlle. de Montijo's mother — The Comtesse de Montijo and Halévy's "Madame Cardinal" — The first invitations to Compiègne — Mdlle. de Montijo's backers for the Imperial stakes — No other entries — Louis-Napoléon utters the word "marriage" — What led up to it — The Emperor officially announces his betrothal — The effect it produced — The Faubourg St.-Germain — Dupin the elder gives his views — The engaged couple feel very uncomfortable — Negotiations to organize the Empress's future household — Rebuffs — Louis Napoléon's retorts — Mdlle. de Montijo's attempt at wit and sprightliness — Her iron will — Her beauty — Her marriage — She takes Marie-Antoinette for her model — She fondly imagines that she was born to rule — She presumes to teach Princess Clotilde the etiquette of courts — The story of two detectives — The hunts at Compiègne — Some of the mise en scène and dramatis personæ — The shooting-parties — Mrs. Grundy not banished, but specially invited and drugged — The programme of the gatherings — Compiègne in the season — A story of an Englishman accommodated for the night in one of the Imperial luggage-vans [288]
CHAPTER XV.