My Memoirs, Vol. V, 1831 to 1832

by Alexandre Dumas

This law appeared in the Moniteur on the 17th.

Just as the bill had been introduced the day after M. de Tracy's proposition with respect to the death penalty, this bill was adopted the day before the trial of the ex-ministers. It was as good as saying—"You dead, what more can you lay claim to? We have given your widows, fathers, mothers and sisters pensions! You, who live, what more can you want? We have made you non-commissioned officers and sub-lieutenants and given you the Cross! You would not have enjoyed such privileges if the ministers of Charles X. had not passed the Ordinances; therefore praise them instead of vilifying them!"

But the public was in no mood to praise Polignac and his accomplices; instead, it applauded the Belgian revolution and the Polish insurrection. All eyes were fixed upon the Luxembourg. If the ministers were acquitted or condemned to any other sentence than that of death, the Revolution of July would be abjured before all Europe, and by the king who won his crown by means of the barricades.

Mauguin, one of the examining judges, when questioned concerning the punishment that ought to be served to the prisoners, replied unhesitatingly—"Death!"

Such events as the violation of our territory by the Spanish army; the death of Benjamin Constant and refusal to allow his body to be taken to the Panthéon; the Belgian revolution and Polish insurrection; were so many side winds to swell the storm which was gathering above the Luxembourg.

On 15 December, two days after the vote upon the National Pensions Bill, and two days before its promulgation in the Moniteur, the prosecutions began. The trial lasted from the 15th to the 21st; for six days we never changed our uniform. We did not know what we were kept in waiting for; we were rallied together several times, either at Cavaignac's or Grouvelle's, to come to some decision, but nothing definite was proposed, beyond that our common centre should be the Louvre, where our arms and ammunition were stored, and that we should be guided by circumstances and act as the impulse of the moment directed.

I have already had occasion to mention Grouvelle; but let us dwell for a moment upon him and his sister. Both were admirable people, with hearts as devoted to the cause of Republicanism as any Spartan or Roman citizens. We shall meet them everywhere and in everything connected with politics until Grouvelle disappears from the arena, at the same time that his sister dies insane in the hospice de Montpellier. They were the son and daughter of the Grouvelle who made the first complete edition of the Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, and the same who, as secretary of the Convention, had read to Louis XVI. the sentence of death brought him by Garat. At the time I knew him, Grouvelle was thirty-two or three, and his sister twenty-five, years of age. There was nothing remarkable in his external appearance; he was very simply dressed, with a gentle face and scanty fair hair, and upon his scalp he wore a black band, no doubt to hide traces of trepanning. She, too, was fair and had most lovely hair, with blue eyes below white eyelashes, which gave an extremely sweet expression to her face, an expression, however, which assumed much firmness if you followed the upper lines to where they met round her mouth and chin. A charming portrait of herself hung in her house, painted by Madame Mérimée, the wife of the artist who painted the beautiful picture, l'innocence et le Serpent; the mother of Prosper Mérimée, author of Le Vase Étrusque, Colomba, Vénus d'Ile and of a score of novels which are all of high merit. The mother of Laure Grouvelle was a Darcet, sister, I believe, of Darcet the chemist, who had invented the famous joke about gelatine; consequently, she was cousin to the poor Darcet who died a horrible death, being burnt by some new chemical that he was trying to substitute for lamp-oil; cousin also to the beautiful Madame Pradier, who was then simply Mademoiselle Darcet or at most called madame. They both had a small fortune, sufficient for their needs, for Laure Grouvelle had none of the usual feminine coquetry about her, but was something akin to Charlotte Corday.

It was a noticeable fact that all the men of 1830 and the Carbonari of 1821 and 1822 were either wealthy or of independent means, either from private fortunes or industry or talent. Bastide and Thomas were wealthy; Cavaignac and Guinard lived on their incomes; Arago and Grouvelle had posts; Loëve-Weymars possessed talent and Carrel, genius. I could name all and it would be seen that none of them acted from selfish ends, or needed to bring about revolutions to enrich himself; on the contrary, all lost by the revolutions they took part in, some losing their fortunes, others their liberty, some their lives.