“What route does monsieur take?”
“Avignon—no, Strasbourg—Couilly, I think, is the first post. I should like to see Munich once more, or, at least, its gallery. The city is a poor thing, worthy of its people, and, I was going to say—no matter what! Germany, in any case, for the summer, as I am sentenced to die in Italy. I feel I am taking what the Irish call ‘a long day’ in not crossing the Alps till late in autumn!”
How many places there are which one has been near enough to have visited and somehow always neglected to see! and what a longing, craving wish to behold them comes over the heart at such a time as this? What, then, is “this time,” that I speak it thus?
How late it is! De Vigny was very agreeable, combining in his manner a great deal of the refinement of a highly cultivated mind, with the shrewd perception of a keen observer of the world. He is a Légitimiste, I take it, without any hope of his party. This, after all, is the sad political creed of all who adhere to the “elder branch.” Their devotion is indeed great, for it wars against conviction. But where can an honest man find footing in France nowadays? Has not Louis Philippe violated in succession every pledge by which he had bound himself? Can such an example of falsehood so highly placed be without its influence on the nation? Can men cry “Shame!” on the Minister, when they witness the turpitude of the Monarch?
But what hope does any other party offer?—None. Henri Cinque, a Bourbon of the vieille roche, gentle, soft-hearted, sensual, and selfish, who, if he returned to France to-morrow, would never believe that the long interval since the Three Days had been any thing but an accident; and would not bring himself to credit the possibility that the succession had been ever endangered.
I believe, after all, one should be as lenient in their judgment of men’s change of fealty in France as they are indulgent to the capricious fancies of a spoiled beauty. The nation, like a coquette, had every thing its own way. The cold austerities of principle had yielded to the changeful fortunes of success for so many years, that men very naturally began to feel that instability and uncertainty were the normal state of things, and that to hold fast one set of opinions was like casting anchor in a stream when we desired to be carried along by the current. Who are they who have risen in France since the time of the Great Revolution? Are they the consistent politicians, the men of one unvarying, unaltered faith? or are they the expediency makers, the men of emergencies and crises, yielding, as they would phrase it, to “the enlightened temper of the times”—the Talleyrands, the Soults, the Guizots of the day?—not to speak of one higher than them all, but not more conspicuous for his elevation than for the subserviency that has placed him there.
Poor Chateaubriand! the man who never varied, the man that was humblest before his rightful sovereign, and prouder than the proudest Marshal in presence of the Emperor, how completely forgotten is he—standing like some ruined sign-post to point the way over a road no longer travelled! A more complete revolution was never worked in the social condition of a great kingdom than has taken place in France since the time of the Emperor. The glorious career of conquering armies had invested the soldier’s life with a species of chivalry, that brought back the old days of feudalism again. Now, it is the bourgeoisie are uppermost. Trade and money-getting, railroads and mines, have seized hold of the nation’s heart; and where the bâton of a Maréchal was once the most coveted of all earthly distinctions, a good bargain on the Bourse, or a successful transaction in scrip, are now the highest triumphs. The very telegraph, whose giant limbs only swayed to speak of victories, now beckons to an expectant crowd the rates of exchange from London to Livorno, and with a far greater certainty of stirring the spirits it addresses.
I fell into all this moody reflection from thinking of an incident—I might almost call it story—I remembered hearing from an old cuirassier officer some years ago. I was passing through the north of France, and stopped to dine at Sedan, where a French cavalry regiment, three thousand strong, were quartered. Some repairs that were necessary to my carriage detained me till the next day; and as I strolled along the shady boulevards in the evening, I met an old soldier-like person, beside whom I dined at the table-d’hôte. He was the very type of a chef-d’escadron of the Empire, and such he really proved to be.
After a short preamble of the ordinary commonplaces, we began to talk of the service in which he lived, and I confess it was with a feeling of surprise I heard him say that the old soldiers of the Empire had met but little favour from the new dynasty; and I could not help observing that this was not the impression made upon us in England, but that we inclined to think it was the especial policy of the present reign to conciliate the affections of the nation by a graceful acknowledgment of those so instrumental to its glory.