Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
David has sent me the bust of Lafayette,[[31]] and some other things to England! Well! they will be there, I trust, to cheer me when I return, (if in mercy permitted to do so,) and have bidden to Paris a probably eternal adieu!
“By all means go to Lafayette’s on Tuesday,” (said two or three gentlemen to me.) Nous verrons,—he does not receive at his own house now, but in his staff house, in the Montblanc.
* * * I certainly much enjoyed la Baronne’s party, and her tea, and her cakes. I came home a little past midnight.
(1st day, 7th.) A night of wind! a day of rain! went to the Champs Elisées. Our sitting was still, and, I trust, favoured.
I expect to be alone all to-day—what a great privilege it is, not to feel solitude a trial, but a pleasure! The first thing I heard on waking this morning was la Parisienne, sung, I concluded, by passing soldiers. I checked the internal reproof rising to my lips, on remembering that the military band plays, as it returns with the soldiers from church, in my own city, and in all others; and most probably these soldiers were returning from early mass.
(2nd day, 8th.) I cannot but wonder at my own stillness, and the stillness of all that surrounds me in this busy city; the depository at this moment probably of all the springs and agencies, which, set in motion, must act upon, and decide, the destinies of Europe! At this moment (10 o’clock) even the Tuilleries are deserted; the fountain played yesterday, but it is quiet to-day; it only works on a Sabbath day! The morning is dark, and the view therefore is not as lovely as usual; I can sit by my fireside, instead of going to my balcony; so much the better, as I must leave it to-morrow, for a less lovely prospect. * * * * A sense of my inability to do the subject justice has alone kept me from committing to paper what passes in my mind, and is always uppermost in it, on the subject of politics, but I must relieve my mind by doing so very soon. The Journal des Débats has, to-day, some admirable remarks (in my opinion) on the liberty of the press. * * *
How impossible it is to know what is usually going on in any country without being in it, and even then how difficult! I see and feel, even from my short and limited experience, more of the real state of Paris at this moment, than I could have taken in, for months, at home!
I thought while I was observing, the other day, the mark of the bullet on the column of the Palais des quatres Nations, and saw the eagerness with which my valet-de-place pointed it out to me, how wise it would be to efface that striking provocation to a continuance of popular resentment; and rejoiced to see the other traces of civil war disappearing so fast.
I spoke and felt like a lover of peace, and a hater of all discord and all war; and I was painfully convinced how right I was in my ideas on the subject, by hearing a reputed Jacobin say, at M. Cuvier’s, “how sorry I am to see the traces of our three days so quickly disappearing! I wish them to remain for ever, to keep up the spirit of just indignation in the people!” I heard, sighed, and shuddered, and then, as well as I could, combated the frightful and fearful observation. The speaker was one of the National Guard, and in that Guard how many may there not be whose desire is for war, rather than peace; and republicanism, before royalty, even though the king be a citizen king! And there are pictures of Napoleon, at all ages of his life, exhibiting at the Luxembourg, with other pictures, for the benefit of the widows of the wounded: and Napoleon brought on the stage at the minor theatres, and applauded, and extolled, and mourned and wept over, on his bed of death and in his grave! If I were a royalist, and an intriguist, I would bring forward and support this Napoleon drama, which will, no doubt, end by bringing the young Napoleon before the minds of the people.