His escape from prison was not known until the evening. Dr. Conneau gave out that he had been very ill during the night, but under the influence of opiates was sleeping quietly. The governor insisted on remaining all day in the sitting-room, and finally upon seeing him. In the dim light of the sick chamber he saw only a figure, with its face turned to the wall, covered up in the bed-clothes.
At last he became suspicious. Thélin's prolonged absence seemed unaccountable. A closer examination was insisted on, and the truth was discovered. Nobody was punished except Dr. Conneau, who suffered a few months' imprisonment.
LOUIS PHILLIPE.
("The Citizen-King.")
[CHAPTER IV.]
TEN YEARS OF THE REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING.
Besides the affairs of the Duchesse de Berri, of Louis Napoleon, of Fieschi and his infernal machine, and difficulties attending on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans, the first ten years of Louis Philippe's reign were full of vicissitudes. France after a revolution is always an "unquiet sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Frenchmen do not accept the inevitable as Americans have learned to do, through the working of their institutions.
One of the early troubles of Louis Philippe was the peremptory demand of President Jackson for five million dollars,—a claim for French spoliations in 1797. This amount had been acknowledged by the Government of Louis Philippe to be due, but the Chambers were not willing to ratify the agreement. In the course of the negotiations the secretary of General Jackson, having occasion to translate to him a French despatch, read, "The French Government demands—" "Demands!" cried the general, with a volley of rough language; "if the French Government dares to demand anything of the United States, it will not get it."
It was long before he could be made to understand the true meaning of the French word demande, and his own demands were backed with threats and couched in terms more forcible than diplomatic. The money was paid after the draft of the United States for the first instalment had been protested, and France has not yet forgotten that when she was still in the troubled waters of a recent revolution, she was roughly treated by the nation which she had befriended at its birth.
The greatest military success in Louis Philippe's reign was the capture of Constantine in Algeria. So late as 1810 Algerine corsairs were a terror in the Mediterranean, and captured M. Arago, who was employed on a scientific expedition.[1] In 1835, France resolved to undertake a crusade against these pirates, which might free the commerce of the Mediterranean. The enterprise was not popular in France. It would cost money, and it seemed to present no material advantages. It was argued that its benefits would accrue only to the dynasty of Louis Philippe, that Algeria would be a good training-school for the army, and that the main duty of the army in future might be to repress republicanism.