I would say, in concluding this chapter, that Colonel John Forney was universally credited, with perfect justice, as having carried Grant’s election. When Grant was about to deliver his inaugural speech, a stranger who stood by me, looking at the immense expectant crowd, remarked to a friend, “This is a proud day for John Forney!” “Yes,” replied the other, “the Dead Duck has elected Grant.” But Forney cheerfully and generously declared that it was the Weekly Press which had carried Pennsylvania, and that I had managed it entirely alone. All these things were known to thousands at the time, but we lived in such excitement that we made but little account thereof. However, there are men of good repute still living who will amply confirm all that I have said of my work on the Continental Magazine; and that Abraham Lincoln himself did actually credit me with this is proved by the following incident. Because I had so earnestly advocated Emancipation as a war measure at a time when even the most fiery and advanced Abolition papers, such as the Tribune, were holding back and shouting pas trop de zèle—and as it proved wisely, by advocating it publicly—merely as a war measure—the President, at the request of George H. Boker, actually signed for me fifty duplicate very handsome copies of the Proclamation of Emancipation on parchment paper, to every one of which Mr. Seward also added his signature. One of these is now hanging up in the British Museum as my gift. I perfectly understood and knew at the time, as did all concerned, that this was a recognition, and a very graceful and appropriate one, of what I had done for Emancipation—Harvard having A.M.’d me for the same. The copies I presented to the Sanitary Fair to be sold for its benefit, but there was not much demand for them; what were left over I divided with George Boker.
VII. EUROPE REVISITED. 1869-1870.
Voyage on the Pereire—General Washburne—I am offered a command in another French Revolution—Paris—J. Meredith Read and Prevost Paradol—My health—Spa—J. C. Hotten—Octave Delepierre—Heidelberg—Dresden—Julian Hawthorne and G. Lathrop—Verona—Venice—Rome—W. W. Story—Florence—Lorimer Graham—“Breitmann” in the Royal Family—Tuscany.
We sailed on the famed Pereire from New York to Brest in May, 1869. We had not left port before a droll incident occurred. On the table in the smoking-room lay a copy of the “Ballads of Hans Breitmann.” A fellow-passenger asked me, “Is that your book?” I innocently replied, “Yes.” “Excuse me, sir,” cried another, “it is mine.” “I beg your pardon,” I replied, “but it is really mine.” “Sir, I bought it.” “I don’t care if you did,” I replied; “it is mine—for I wrote it.” There was a roar of laughter, and we all became acquainted at once.
General Washburne was among the passengers. He had been appointed Minister to France and was going to Paris, where he subsequently distinguished himself during the siege by literally taking the place of seven foreign Ministers who had left, and kindly caring for all their protégés. It never occurred to the old frontiersman to leave a place or his duties because fighting was going on. I had a fine twelve-feet blue Indian blanket, which I had bought somewhere beyond Leavenworth of a trader. When sitting on deck wrapped in it, the General would finger a fold lovingly, and say, “Ah! the Indians always have good blankets!”
We arrived in Brest, and Mrs. Leland, who had never before been in Europe, was much pleased at her first sight, early in the morning, of a French city; the nuns, soldiers, peasants, and all, as seen from our window, were indeed very picturesque. We left that day by railway for Paris, and on the road a rather remarkable incident occurred. There was seated opposite to us a not very amiable-looking man of thirty, who might be of the superior class of mechanics, and who evidently regarded us with an evil eye, either because we were suspected Anglais or aristocrats. I resolved that he should become amicable. Ill-tempered though he might be, he was still polite, for at every stopping-place he got out to smoke, and extinguished his cigar ere he re-entered. I said to him, “Madame begs that you will not inconvenience yourself so much—pray continue to smoke in here.” This melted him, as it would any Frenchman. Seeing that he was reading the Rappel, I conversed “liberally.” I told him that I had been captain of barricades in Forty-eight, and described in full the taking of the Tuileries. His blood was fired, and he confided to me all the details of a grand plot for a Revolution which he was going up to Paris to attend to, and offered me a prominent place among the conspirators, assuring me that I should have a glorious opportunity to fight again at the barricades! I was appalled at his want of discretion, but said nothing. Sure enough, there came the émeute of the plebiscite, as he had predicted, but it was suppressed. George Boker wrote to me: “When I heard of a revolution in Paris, I knew at once that you must have arrived and had got to work.” And when I told him that I knew of it in advance, and had had a situation offered me as leader, he dryly replied, “Oh, I suppose so—as a matter of course.” It was certainly a strange coincidence that I left Paris in Forty-eight as a Revolutionary suspect, and re-entered it in 1870 in very nearly the same capacity.
We found agreeable lodgings at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysées. The day after our arrival I determined to
arrange the terms of living with our landlord. He and his wife had the reputation of being fearful screws in their “items.” So he, thinking I was a newly arrived and perfectly ignorant American, began to draw the toils, and enumerate so much for the rooms, so much for every towel, so much, I believe, for salt and every spoon and fork. I asked him how much he would charge for everything in the lump. He replied, “Mais, Monsieur, nous ne faisons pas jamais comme cela à Paris.” Out of all patience, I burst out into vernacular: “Sacré nom de Dieu et mille tonnerres, vieux galopin! you dare to tell me, a vieux carabin du Quartier Latin, that you cannot make arrangements! Et depuisse-quand, s’il vous plait?” [372] He stared at me in blank amazement, and then said with a smile: “Tiens! Monsieur est donc de nous!” “That I am,” I replied, and we at once made a satisfactory compromise.
We had pleasant friends, and saw the sights and shopped; but I began to feel in Paris for the first time that the dreaded break-down or collapse which I had long apprehended was coming over me. There was a very clever surgeon and physician named Laborde, who was called Nelaton’s right-hand man. I met him several times, and he observed to a mutual friend that I was evidently suffering seriously from threatening nervous symptoms, and that he would like to attend me. He did so, and gave me daily a teaspoonful of bromide of potassium. This gave me sleep and appetite; but, after some weeks or months, the result was a settled, mild melancholy and tendency to rest. In fact, it was nearly eighteen months before I recovered so that I could write or work, and live as of old.
I had inherited from both parents, and suffered all my life fearfully at intervals, from brachycephalic or dorsal neuralgia. Dr. Laborde made short work of this by giving me appallingly strong doses of tincture of aconite and sulphate