Rochecotte, December 17, 1840.—We have not yet heard how the funeral passed off at Paris the day before yesterday. Some uneasiness prevailed. The Duchesse de Montmorency told me: "There is an idea of attacking the English Embassy and wrecking the house. Some soldiers have been placed within the residence and Lady Granville has moved. It is estimated that eight hundred thousand people will be on foot. My children went to the Pecq, and thought that everything was very well conducted; there was a general silence when the boat came in, and all heads were bared. General Bertrand was on the right of the coffin, General Gourgaud on the left, M. de Chabot before it, and the Prince of Joinville went to and fro giving orders and had all the decorations removed which were not religious. The priests were there with surplices and many candles, and there was nothing worldly or mythological."
The newspapers speak of great excitement. I shall be delighted when the evening post tells us how it has all gone off. I have written to secure my grandson Boson a view of the ceremony. Foolish, incoherent, contradictory, and ridiculous as it may be, still the solemn arrival of the coffin brought back from St. Helena will be very imposing, and he will be glad one day to have seen it. Unfortunately at his age he will be merely impressed, and will be unable to draw any of the strange conclusions which the sight should inspire—the complete forgetfulness of the oppression and the universal maledictions with which Europe resounded twenty-six years ago; to-day nothing remains but the recollections of Napoleon's victories, which make his memory so popular. Paris, proclaiming her eager love of liberty, and France, humiliated before the foreigner, are doing their utmost to honour the man who did most to reduce them to servitude and was the most terrible of conquerors.
In the newspapers we have read a description of the decorations in the Champs Elysées, with the row of kings and great men. The great Condé at least should not have found a place among them. Condé offering a crown to his grandson's assassin! What I think should be fine is the hearse. I like the idea of Napoleon brought back to France on a buckler....
Rochecotte, December 18, 1840.—Yesterday we awaited the post most anxiously, and by some fatality the box was broken and we had to go to bed without letters. Fortunately my son Dino, who had been at Tours, brought back a copy of a telegram received by the Prefect which said that everything went off very well, apart from a small demonstration by some fifty men in blouses, who tried to break through the lines in the Place Louis XV., but were driven back.
Rochecotte, December 19, 1840.—At last our letters have come. Madame Mollien, who was at the Church of the Invalides in the King's suite, says: "This ceremony was just as unpopular in the position where I was placed as it was popular in the streets of Paris. For every reason people are delighted that yesterday is over. Before entering the church we met in a kind of room, or rather chapel without an altar, which had already been used for the same purpose at the funeral of the victims of Fieschi. The royal family, the Chancellor, the Ministers, the Households, and even the tutors, waited together for two hours. The time was chiefly spent in speculation upon the progress of the procession and in attempts to derive some heat from two enormous fireplaces that had been hastily constructed and avoid the volumes of smoke which they belched into the room. Recollections of the Emperor were conspicuous by their absence; people talked of any subject except that. The Chancellor[ [146] was noticeable for his cheerfulness and his comical outbursts against the smoke. The Queen was feverish, but nothing could prevent her from accompanying the King, and she went home from the Invalides really ill. I can tell you nothing of the scene within the church. I was so shut in on my stand that I saw nothing, and could hardly hear the beautiful mass by Mozart, divinely sung."
The following is another account: "The hearse, in my opinion, was really admirable; nothing could be more magnificent and imposing; the departmental standards borne by subalterns made an excellent effect, and the trumpets playing a simple funeral march in unison impressed me deeply. I liked, too, the five hundred sailors from La Belle Poule, whose austere appearance contrasted with the general splendour; but a ridiculous effect was produced by the old costumes of the Empire, which looked as though they had been brought out from Franconi's. The progress of the hearse was not followed sufficiently closely by the crowd, so that the people rushed along in too noisy a fashion. There were some unpleasant shouts of 'Down with Guizot!' 'Death to the men of Ghent!' Some red flags were also seen, and the Marseillaise was heard once or twice, but these attempts were immediately checked. The Prince de Joinville has grown brown and thin, but he is handsome and looked very well. He was warmly welcomed throughout the procession yesterday."
The Duchesse d'Albuféra saw the procession pass from Madame de Flahaut's house, who had invited the old ladies who had figured under the Empire, the wife of Marshal Ney, the Duchesse de Rovigo, &c., with a number of modern society figures or strangers. The eighty thousand troops are said to have given the ceremony the aspect of a review rather than of a funeral. The Marshal's wife reasonably disliked the attitude of the people, which was neither religious nor impressive nor respectful.
I have also a letter from M. Royer Collard, who says nothing about the ceremony, at which he was not present; but in answer to a statement of mine, expressing my astonishment at his silence concerning Berryer's speech, he says: "If I were to give you my plain opinion of the protagonists in the debate upon the Address, I should be tempted to use very violent language. M. Berryer is supporting the cause of good by evil methods, an imaginary good by what is certainly wrong, and the cause of order by means of confusion. He has the outward graces of an orator, but not the essential points. He makes no impression upon men's minds, and nothing will be left to him but his name. You ask my opinion of M. de Tocqueville. He has a fund of honest motives which is not adequate for his purposes, and which he imprudently expends, but some remnants of which will always be left to him. I am afraid that in his anxiety to succeed he will wander into impossible paths by an attempt to reconcile irreconcilable elements. He extends both hands simultaneously, the right hand in welcome to the left, and the left hand to ourselves, and regrets that he has not a third hand behind him which he could offer unseen. He proposes to present himself for election to the French Academy in place of M. de Bonald. My first vote is promised to Ballanche, but he will have my second. His opponents—for there is an opposition—say that his literary success has already brought him into the Institute, the Chamber, and will give him an armchair at Barrot's house, and that he can therefore wait." Our hermit of the Rue d'Enfer displays a considerable spice of malignity beneath his excellent qualities. The notion of a third hand is very persuasive, a capital metaphor, in my opinion.
Rochecotte, December 20, 1840.—The Duc de Noailles also sends me a small account of the funeral, and says that the crowd of onlookers watched the procession going by almost as if it were that of the Bœuf-Gras, and that the people in the church were entirely absorbed by the question of the cold and the business of wrapping themselves up; that the service was confused and that the social spectacle was the main point in everybody's mind. The obvious inference seems to me to be that there are no more Bonapartists in France. The fact is that there is nothing in this country except newspaper articles.
My son-in-law is told that a proposal is to be brought forward in the Chamber to efface the figure of Henry IV. from the star of the Legion of Honour and to replace it by the effigy of Napoleon. As a matter of fact there will be nothing more extraordinary in destroying the image of one's ancestor than in staining one's coat of arms.[ [147]