As we passed along the boulevards I glanced with a shudder at the house from which Fieschi committed his crime. It is quite small and of a mean appearance. The too celebrated window is boarded up. In a year or two perhaps this house will be demolished, and I shall be sorry. They will no doubt build some memorial on the site, which will disappear in its turn with the first turn of the political weathercock, and will, in any case, be much less impressive than would be the preservation of the scene of the atrocity exactly as it is. If it were preserved it would assist tradition; every one knows the history of the event, and may find a lesson in it. The Rue de la Ferronnerie still exists. They pulled down the Opera house in which the Duc de Berry was assassinated only to demolish thereafter the chapel which was built in its place. And yet the chapel from which Charles IX. shot his subjects is still there, always pointed out, always referred to. Why should the crimes of monarchs be made manifest and those of peoples remain concealed?
I shall give some extracts from the letters from M. de Talleyrand which awaited me at Paris: "In the Ministry here you will find more politeness than friendship. To be intimate with M. Royer-Collard and not to have prevented him speaking against the press law is too bad! That is our real crime. Even Thiers has not been here for two days. I am not sorry, as I should have told him very plainly that I thought the articles in the Journal de Paris which he writes or inspires very improper, and that he should have so much respect for M. Royer-Collard as at least to keep silent. The confidence of the Tuileries is also one of the causes of the Ministerial coolness.... Thiers has lost a great deal at the recent sittings of the Chamber. To appear in the tribune with a copy of the National dating from before 1830 in order to prove that one did not say so and so, is to rate oneself very low! Men who have not been properly educated to begin with grow up with great difficulty; they lose their heads whenever they are contradicted.... You cannot too highly praise M. de Broglie's speech; all the incense bearers in Paris have passed through his salon.... The affair of the escape of Pépin has much diminished the stability of the Ministry, which has shown itself so incompetent to deal with a serious situation. People say, 'If the Government doesn't serve the King better than that what have we to rely upon?' Thiers, instead of using his ability to consolidate his position, has used it to produce an impression of mere cleverness. He came badly out of these sittings. In the first place, he was beaten on an amendment of Firmin Didot's, then he brought his claims as a journalist into the tribune which produced a bad effect everywhere. And yet he is the best the Ministry have got, because he has humanity behind all his cleverness; he loves his friends, he is a good creature (in the best sense of the term), but he requires to have good people about him, and those he has are the reverse.... Do not forget that espionage in the Chamber, in the streets, and in letters is pushed to the utmost lengths.... The King, the Queen, and Madame Adélaïde look forward to seeing you among the greatest of their consolations. They need consolation, for I assure you they are very unhappy. The Guizots and the Broglies will perhaps talk to you of my coldness; you can say to them that the coldness is not on my side. It did not come from me, but from them."
Here now is an extract from a letter from Madame de Lieven, dated Baden, September 2: "I have reason to believe, from a few lines I have from England, that there is an understanding between Peel and Lord Grey. The quarrel of the two Houses will be adjusted, I understand from Lady Cowper. They think very well of M. le Duc de Nemours in England."
Paris, September 8, 1835.—M. Thiers is aged and ill; his illness is nothing but fatigue and exhaustion, but what a life! He is angry with his colleagues for grudging him the days of rest for which he asks, and roundly accuses them of cowardice for shrinking from assuming for three weeks a responsibility which burdens him all the year. But what a responsibility it is to preserve the King from the daggers of assassins! Every day there is a new conspiracy; to defeat them all is a superhuman task.
Up till now Fieschi's crime has not been connected with anything of importance. There are a few obscure public-house accomplices and that is all; the Ministry cannot find anything bigger. M. Thiers even goes so far as to think it the most ominous feature of the case that such an atrocity should be the fruit not of fanaticism or intense passion, or even of some deep laid political conspiracy, but simply the product of the licence and anarchy which dominate the public mind.
Fieschi, being pressed by a doctor to declare the motive which led him to commit the crime, replied, "I did it as a boy lets off a cracker." Hideous frivolity! He asserts that all the clubs and secret societies, Carlist and others, were informed that on July 28 an attempt would be made to kill the King. Fieschi had relations with some ruffians of his own stamp; these talked to their friends, and thus a vague rumour spread and even reached the Government. No details however were given, no proper names, nothing precise. As for Fieschi himself, he is simply an Italian bravo, who is always ready to set his hand to a crime even though the reward is not great.
M. Guizot, who had to break the news to the Queen, told me that she was seized with an attack of nerves, that Madame Adélaïde was in despair, and yet so angry that she lost all self-control and literally did not know what she was doing. As for Madame de Broglie, who was also at the Chancellerie at the Place Vendôme with the Queen, she was much affected, but had her emotion under control. On this occasion M. Guizot told me that he felt inclined to compare Madame de Broglie's soul to a great desert in which there are beautiful oases. There are many gaps in her nature, and yet much force and power.
Paris, September 9, 1835.—The absurdities of Sébastiani are talked of even in the cabinet of Madame Adélaïde; and they seem in fact to pass all bounds. He is much laughed at in London, which he does not like at all. He says, in his dogmatic and paralytic way, "English society gives me indigestion." As for his wife, her silliness and simplicity have become proverbial. They entertain very little, and no one comes near them; Lord Palmerston alone, in order to mark the contrast with the insolence with which he honoured M. de Talleyrand, is constantly paying little attentions to the General. He is always coming to see him, and is most careful to keep him supplied with all the news.
The English Legion raised by General Alava has just been beaten in Spain. The abominable canaille he recruited turned and fled at once.
The compromise between the two Houses in England has taken place; it is a truce until next Session.