"30 January—MM. Orfila and Auvity have just returned from Blaye, where they accomplished the mission with which they were entrusted. What that mission was, the Government does not say. But we will, because, with Madame, we think that it is a case where the sacrifice of the most sacred conventions is demanded by honour itself.
"For about a week past, infamous rumours have been spread abroad concerning Madame's condition. Respectable people of all parties have heard them with disgust, and we owe it to truth to declare that the Liberal opposition has loudly pronounced its indignation. One does not imagine that those in authority are generally in ignorance of such shameless insinuations; one presumes that some, at all events, of those in authority are a party to the calumny; but it would not occur to any one that they were the first to be themselves the dupes. Base words were repeated, it is true, and especially by M. Thiers, but one could not believe in a miracle of stupid malignancy.
"Well, they were deceived; less guilty, if you like, but more inept than could be imagined; what they said they believed; you understand? Let us, however, pass rapidly over these shameful matters. We will restrict ourselves to showing to what excess of blindness certain men can be led astray when possessed by base passions. Thus, then, the two learned doctors went to the citadel of Blaye. Behold them in the presence of Madame! They stammer and try to speak; they speak; but they had not uttered three words before Madame understood them. Then it was (we report it from evidence which certainly cannot be questioned) that, under this ordeal, cruel for any woman, offensive to a woman of the blood royal, then it was, we say, that Madame rose, armed with her character, to a sublime effort, above common charges and vulgar susceptibilities. Calm, without apparent emotion, less agitated, probably, than the men before her, the princess addressed them powerfully; she spoke to their conscience, she invoked their sense of honour, called upon them to fulfil their mission fully, she demanded that their professional opinion should be pronounced fully, entirely, unquestionably; she wished that before God and men they should testify what they knew of the widow of the Duc de Berry, the mother of Henri V.! The two learned men obeyed Madame's commands; formed their opinion, found out all that it was necessary they should know and then withdrew, blushing for shame.
"A first report was rapidly dispatched to the men who had believed.... Hence, a clumsy disavowal, which we have printed with all the mistrust it is bound to inspire. Authority dare not go further; it has not the courage to confess what it expected from the two professional men, or what it learnt from them."
The affair, as one can see, was begun by the Carlist party, both as an armed struggle and as written polemics, and it was entered into as boldly as possible. We shall see that it was upheld by the Republican party with equal ardour.
The report of MM. Auvity and Orfila, in fact, appeared in Le Moniteur of 5 February. It contained no particulars likely to establish opinion as to the supposed condition of the princess; so the newspapers continued to give rein to their conjectures. Le Corsaire, especially, stuck to its announcement of Madame's pregnancy. The upshot of it all was that a fresh challenge was made to her. Le Corsaire gave its readers the following information:—
"People have called at our offices to ask the reason for an article we recently published about the Duchesse de Berry. We replied that we did not recognise the right of any individual to call us to account in the name of the Duchesse de Berry, and we refused all information on the subject. We added that we were prepared even to accept the ill-will of the Legitimist party on this head. The word slanderous applied to the rumours spread about the duchess does not concern us: it belongs to those in high quarters, from whence the rumours have issued; their origin is now a matter of public notoriety. The editor of the article has expressly declared that he maintains that what he has written is true. Time alone can destroy or confirm his opinion. As for the political attitude of the Carlist party; which we have represented as thinking far more of conspiring than of fighting, we will call to mind the actual words of the prisoner of Blaye. When she saw the lists of those devoted to her, she exclaimed, 'They offer me their names, but not their arms!' That exclamation was reported only a month ago in a widely circulated paper and has not been denied.
"It is not the first but the second time that Le Corsaire has been exposed to such attacks, and one of its editors, M. Briffault, has even had the misfortune of being wounded by a so-called Legitimist whose right he had recognised of taking up the cause on behalf of the prisoner of Blaye. It is rather singular that the susceptibility of the Carlist party concerning the princes of the fallen family has only shown itself since what they call the attempted defeat by the patriotic party in June. It is true that royalty boasts of having made the Republicans turn pale; but all royal personages were not, perhaps, vanquished on that day along with Louis-Philippe. True, again, many patriots were dispersed, banished, imprisoned, in consequence of those June days; but there are enough left outside prison for the champions of legitimacy to be certain of finding some one to deal with them at every opportunity; only, in disputing the honour of killing M. Briffault, they should have waited till his wound was first cured.
"It is, indeed, extraordinary, if one cannot write a single word about the Duchesse de Berry without having sword at hand when replying to everybody interested in making a heroine of her. Who amused themselves by breaking lances before the July Revolution, either for or against the virtue of the Duchesse de Berry? And yet, slanderous rumours, whether true or untrue, were not wanting then any more than now. But the duchess is a captive, she is under misfortune! This ought to make the hearts of her attendant cavaliers bleed; but, as for us, who remember only too vividly how she danced at the Tuileries whilst the heads of our friends were being cut off on the place de Grève, it must be acknowledged that consideration from our side can only proceed from motives of pure generosity.
"The Carlist party is taking a very bad way to procure the kindly feeling of the patriotic press for the prisoner of Blaye; it should suffice for them to wish to impose silence on us as to scandalous details, whether they exist or not; but, when they go on to talk so that we feel obliged to dwell on gossip, which it is our usual custom to ignore, certainly we will recognise these gentlemen's right to testify against us in their devotion to the person of the Duchesse de Berry in as large numbers as they please; they will find at our office a long enough list of people disposed to offer them every occasion for distinguishing themselves which they may desire. These gentlemen must be counting much on the approach of a third Restoration for their devotion to begin to count, to allow themselves to be flung in prison, to insult the July Revolution by pamphlets, novels, signed protests, street processions, challenges addressed to patriotic papers; it would seem that the moment has arrived for proving the famous Republican-Carlist alliance. All right, that need not matter! Let the devoted knights state their numbers; let them but show themselves and get the question settled. In any case, we shall not go in search of persons to help us who take half-way views."
Such articles as these were not calculated to pacify political hatreds. La Tribune took up the cause of Le Corsaire and an ardent polemic took place between it and Le Revenant. The editor of the latter paper was then M. Albert de Calvimont, now préfet de l'empire. Le National, in its turn, interfered, and Le Revenant found itself confronted by three adversaries. M. Albert de Calvimont received a collective challenge for himself and his friends from La Tribune. He replied for himself personally, but declined to be implicated on the grounds they wished to impose upon him. At the same time, they replied to an aggressive article by Armand Carrel by sending him a list of a dozen persons from whom to select one name. The report soon went about amongst us that a challenging list asking for twelve opponents had been sent to Armand Carrel. I rushed off to Carrel; there was a crowd at his door to inscribe their names, and I wrote down mine as did the others. I had not seen Carrel for a long time; we were not personally on cool terms with one another; but Le National attacked the romantic school bitterly, and our intercourse had become infrequent. I probably owed the favour of being asked in to see him to the rarity of my visits. He was breakfasting with the charming lady of whom I have had occasion to speak, whose life, in the midst of all these riotings and duellings, was a perpetual torture, disguised beneath a smile of easily detected sadness, but which was still a smile. As far as I can remember, Grégoire was at breakfast with them.
"Ah! so it is you!" Carrel said to me; "something very important must be on the way to bring you."