At Maintenon the Duc de Noailles has just been having a party of clever and intriguing people. M. de Chateaubriand, Madame Récamier, the Vicomtesse de Noailles, M. Ampère, in fact the whole morning congregation of the Abbaye-aux-Bois.[51] I am sorry to hear it: the Duc de Noailles should not forsake the high road for such a byway.
From what I hear from Touraine I see that the atrocity at Paris of the 28th July,[52] has aroused indignation there, an indignation, however, which feared to speak above its breath and which is perhaps even now forgotten. We live in a time when so many monstrosities are produced on the stage, when books are so full of them, and when they are so common in real life that the public have supped full with horrors and have become indifferent to them and quite familiarised with crime. The town of Tours, a place so essentially calm, has distinguished itself by refusing to send addresses from the Tribunal, the Conseil Municipal and the Conseil d'Arrondissement. Two rogues, glibly arguing about the letter of the law, were enough to set all the indifferent at their ease. It appears however that a creditable number of the Garde Nationale showed themselves the day of the funeral service and sent an address with some show of cordiality. When one sees the most violent and criminal passions on the one side and on the other an exhibition of laziness and indifference, one wonders whether the repressive laws asked for by the French Ministry will be enough. Perhaps they will only irritate!
This is an evil age of ours; good centuries are rare but there is no example of one that is worse than this. I pity with all my heart those who are called upon to govern it, M. Thiers, for example, whose weariness and anxiety appear in a letter which I received from him yesterday from which I give an extract. After speaking of the personal danger from which he escaped at the time of the attempt of July 28, he adds, "But my only trouble, and it is overwhelming, is the immense responsibility of my position. I am on my feet day and night. I go from the Prefecture of Police to the Tuileries, to the Chamber, without a moment's rest, and without being sure that I have foreseen everything, for the fertility of evil is infinite, as is the case in every disordered society in which every criminal has formed a hope that he may attain anything by setting the world on fire. There are some scoundrels who would blow up this planet if they were allowed. On the day after the horrible massacre all that occurred to them to say was 'we shall see:' these are the very words of the leader of the assassins. I know not when I shall have the rest which will be the reward of these troubles, nor what issue out of my affliction will be vouchsafed to me."
Immediately after the explosion of the infernal machine, when she learned that her husband and children had not perished, our good Queen said, "How did my sons behave?" an inquiry which I think was worthy of her. The young Princes behaved with touching devotion. They gathered closely round the King, and the next day, when traces of a bullet were discovered on the King's forehead, the Duc d'Orléans said, "And yet I made myself as tall as I could yesterday."
While Madame Récamier is at Maintenon with the Duchesse de Noailles, my sister-in-law, the Princesse de Poix, goes to the Duchesse d'Abrantès' Mondays where one meets Madame Victor Hugo! Wit and politics have strangely intermingled all society, good and bad!
M. le Duc de Nemours is going to London. He is nice-looking, dignified, serious and reserved, with a great air of youth and nobility. One would expect him to have a great success in England, but his excessive shyness so completely deprives him of all ease and grace in conversation that he will perhaps be rated at much less than his real value.
Of all the congratulatory letters written to the King of the French by foreign sovereigns on the occasion of the attempt of July 28, the most cordial was that of the King of the Netherlands. This seems to me very good taste on his part, and I am very glad of it. I have always thought that since his misfortunes the King of the Netherlands has shown ability, readiness, and a persistency which, whatever his ultimate success, will assure him a fine page in the history of our time in which there is so little that is good to say about anybody.
While the King of the French submits to escorts and measures of precaution, and is adopting a more Royal state, the President of his Council comes to diplomatic dinners at the Tuileries in coloured trousers and without decorations, and this Minister is the Duc de Broglie!
Jerome Bonaparte and all his family have left Florence and are now at Vevey; the cholera is driving every one out of Italy into Switzerland.
Bex, August 24, 1835.—The weather having cleared, we have been to see the salt mines near Bex, which are the only ones in Switzerland, and do not produce enough to supply the needs of the country. We did not go far into the mine because of the damp cold which we felt gaining on us, but we saw the refining plant in detail. The salt seemed to me very pure and white.