The events we have just recorded in our last chapter bring us up to the 2nd of June.
As Charles X. looked up at the starry heavens from the top of the Duc d'Orléans' terrace he said—
"What splendid weather for my Algerian fleet!"
But he was mistaken: almost immediately the fleet had left port it had been scattered by a storm, and, when Charles made his comment, it was having the utmost difficulty in rallying at Palma.
As regards other matters, the Opposition was going ahead and great and small newspapers kept hitting at the Government, some with clubs and some with staves. We have mentioned how the Journal des Débats treated the Polignac Ministry upon its accession to power. If we had these little papers under our notice we might, perhaps, be able to prove that the banter of dwarfs can work as much mischief as insults inflicted by giants.
Le Figaro was among the number of the small journals which, at that time, were carrying on a skirmishing engagement with the Government. It was under the management of Bohain, and, as is well known, Janin, Romieu, Nestor Roqueplan, Brucker, Vaulabelle, Michel Masson and Alphonse Karr were among its most prominent contributors. Karr was, at that time, perhaps, the least known of that Pleiades of fighting men. He has since become one of our most distinguished literary artists—observe, I say literary artists and not literati or men of letters—but at that time he was fighting his maiden battles. He had been present at the reading of Henri III., at Nestor Roqueplan's, where I became acquainted with him. According to our usual custom in the case of all the remarkable men of our day, let us select for particular comment, from his early efforts, that special faculty which has the power of giving to truth the charm of paradox. This truth, bare and undraped when treated by others, is always, on leaving the hands of Alphonse Karr, clad in a veil of gold. Without doubt Alphonse Karr has, since 1830, told the various Governments which have succeeded each other, as well as those who have flattered or attacked them, a greater number of truths than any other man. And, different from the supposed truths of others, those of Alphonse Karr are real and undeniable, the more they are probed the more they are proved to be true. Alphonse Karr was, in those days, a handsome young man of twenty-two or twenty-three, with regular features set in a frame of dark hair; he had adopted an eccentric form of dress, which he has always adhered to; he was extremely well made, strong physically, and an adept at all gymnastic exercises, especially at swimming and fencing. During the year 1829, when bathing in the Marne, he had rescued a cuirassier from drowning. The man was heavy and nearly as strong as Karr himself, so that it almost happened that, instead of Karr saving the cuirassier, the cuirassier drowned Karr. The act made sufficient of a stir for Karr to receive a medal from the Government, and I have occasionally seen him wear it. This medal was, in the hands of wags, the source of endless gibes, which Karr's reputation for bravery maintained, it is true, within the bounds of propriety, but which was never exhausted. There was no precedent for that famous medal, and I was reading something about it, only yesterday, in some newspaper rag or other. One day, at a great dinner at which I was present together with a host of people wearing decorations—not just ordinary medals but the Cross of the Légion d'honneur, which, at the present day, is distributed and conferred in a totally different manner from all the medals in the world—those jokes at Karr's expense, who was also one of the guests, broke out afresh. Karr, with his cool and habitual phlegm, called the waiter and asked for a pen, ink and paper. He cut the paper into as many round pieces as there were decorated guests at the table, wrote on each piece the reason for which the wearer had been decorated and passed each slip to its proper quarter. It completely silenced his scoffers.
Karr was born in Germany, in December 1808, and has only become a naturalised Frenchman since 1848. His father was one of the five or six German musicians who evolved the piano from the harpsichord. Three of his uncles died as captains in the French service. He was, besides, a nephew of Baron Heurteloup, and a cousin of Habeneck. In those days he wrote no political articles for the Figaro. He has more than once told me, in all seriousness, that he saw the Revolution of July, and even that of February, without knowing what they were about. But, later, he studied the subject of I revolutions very deeply; for, in 1848, he wrote on the subject—
"Plus cela change, plus c'est la même chose!" ("The more things change, the more do they remain the same!")
In 1829 he was an assistant professor in the Collège Bourbon and took to writing poetry, some of which he sent to the Figaro. Bohain opened all the letters received. Now Bohain was one of those plain-spoken men who openly professed a lofty scorn for poetry. His reply to Karr was—