I felt a real antipathy towards the Bourbons of the Elder Branch of the family, and it was only when I thought of the dead, of the past and of those living in exile, that I could bring myself to do justice to them later.
When the king, the dauphin, the dauphiness and the Duchesse de Berry had arrived, the fête began.
M. de Salvandy has related, with regard to this fête, the whole of his conversation with the Duc d'Orléans. It began with these words, which made the political fortune of the author of Alonzo:—
"Monseigneur, this is a true Neapolitan fête, for we are dancing upon the edge of a volcano ..."
And, indeed, the volcano very soon began to show its fires. They proceeded from the Palais-Royal, the crater of 1789, which people thought had been extinguished thirty-five years before, but which was, in reality, only slumbering. I was there and saw it spring up, and can therefore give an account of the eruption that took place under my own eyes. I had gone out to cool myself on the terrace, and was meditating upon the strange coincidence of fate that made me, even in those days a Republican, almost an enforced witness of a fête given by the Bourbons of France, against whom my father had fought, to those Bourbons of Naples who had poisoned him, when all of a sudden loud cries were heard and bright lights were seen in the gardens of the Palais-Royal. A mass of flame, as though coming from a stack of wood, rose from one of the square lawns among the flower-beds which seemed to spring from the pedestal of the statue of Apollo. And this was what had happened. The numerous spectators of the princely fête that crowded in the Palais-Royal garden were anxious to have their share in the festivities, and, in contempt of the sentinels who guarded the lawns, a dozen young people had scaled the balustrades and, taking each other's hands, had begun a round dance, singing the old revolutionary Ça ira. During this time other young people had entertained themselves by piling up a pyramid of chairs and illuminating it by putting in the interstices of the chairs lamps taken from here and there. The leading builder of this tottering edifice and the principal actor in this revolutionary escapade was a young man whose death gave him a certain celebrity. He styled himself a literary man and his name was Alphonse Signol. Three days before, he had brought me a drama, entitled le Chiffonnier, and had asked me to read it. It certainly had some merit (we shall see later what became of it), but it was so far removed from my own style of writing of which, consequently, I was master, that it would have been impossible for me to render him any assistance, even in the way of advice. If only Signol had been content with putting the lamps on the chairs, all would have been well; but, instead, he took it into his head to place the chairs on top of the lamps, and all went wrong. The flame from a lamp reached the straw of one of the chairs and the whole pile flared up. Thence issued flames and cries, and women flying through the trees and under the arches of the stone galleries. This tumult quickly attracted the attention of the guests of the Duc d'Orléans. It was a serious matter to have shrieks and a fire in the garden of the Palais-Royal whilst Charles X. was within its precincts! I saw the Duc d'Orléans gesticulating wildly at a window; and whilst I was beginning to be far more taken up by what was passing inside than out of doors, I felt someone touch me gently on the shoulder. I turned round, and it was M. le Duc de Chartres, who had tried in vain to find out the meaning of all the disorder and smoke, and wanted to know if I had been more lucky in my inquiries than he. I replied in the negative, but offered at once to go and find out for him the cause and the upshot of the commotion; and as I could see he rejected my offer only from motives of discretion, in five seconds I was out in the hall and in another five in the garden. I arrived just in time to witness a struggle between a young man and a soldier, in which the youth was going to come off worst; when, thinking I recognised him, I sprang forward. I was so strong that I soon managed to separate the two combatants. I was right in my conjectures: the youth was Signol. The soldier was a corporal or sergeant belonging to the 3rd Regiment of the Guard. Signol had been pretty severely handled in the struggle; he was, consequently, furious, and although separated from the soldier, he still threatened to attack him again.
"Oh, you scamp!" he said, shaking his fist at him, "I don't want to have anything to do with you ... but the first officer of your regiment that I come across, I promise you, on my word of honour, I will box his ears for him."
I tried to quieten him down.
"No, no, no," he said; "when I promise I keep my word; and you shall be my second, will you not?"
I replied "Yes," to quieten him, and dragged him away into the rue de Valois. There, under pretext of inquiring the motive of his quarrel, I asked him what had taken place, and he told me what I have just related. In the midst of his recital he found a chance to ask me if I had read his drama. I replied in the affirmative.
"Very well, then," he said; "I will come and talk about it with you to-morrow."