I remember him perfectly well, and suppose that I am about the last living of the partners who danced with him in the London ballrooms of some sixty years ago. An agreeable and clever talker, he could be amusing when he chose, and in later years, when Emperor, many stories were current as to his witty sayings. Perhaps the most amusing of these was the remark which he is supposed to have made at a fancy dress ball at the Tuileries, to which a certain lady had come attired in a costume which was an adornment rather than a covering. In the course of the evening the Imperial host approached this lady and, congratulating her upon her beautiful dress, at the same time inquired what it might be intended to represent. “L’Afrique, Sire,” was the reply. “Très bien,” said the Emperor, “I must then again congratulate you on the accuracy with which you have followed the progress of geographical exploration; for of your dress, as of the Dark Continent, it may truthfully be said que c’est seulement la partie centrale qui n’est pas encore découverte.”
I was little in Paris during the second Empire, but after the disastrous war of 1870 I paid a visit to France and collected a few relics of that dreadful struggle. Amongst other things I purchased a number of very amusing caricatures, some of them dealing with the humours of underground life in the cellars during the siege of Paris; in others the (very) irregular forces improvised by the so-called Government of the Commune, such as the “Voltigeurs de la Villette” and the “Chasseurs de Belleville,” were held up to ridicule.
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
English sympathies during the Franco-German war were very generally given to the French, and a good deal of sarcastic comment was passed upon the pious utterances of the old Emperor William, whose piety was nevertheless quite sincere. Amongst other skits were published some very ribald verses supposed to be written in imitation of the Prussian King’s letters to his Queen after a victory. They began, as far as I remember:—
By Heaven’s aid, my dear Augusta,
We’ve gone another awful buster;
Ten thousand Frenchmen gone below,
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
At the time of the French reverses it was thought that France could scarcely recover from the effect of the terrible catastrophe which had overtaken her, but to the astonishment of the world this gloomy estimate was completely falsified, and in 1878 Europe, flocking to see the Great Exhibition, found to its surprise and delight that Paris, but a few years before bombarded and beleaguered, was, as the late George Augustus Sala wrote, “comelier, richer, gayer, and more fascinating than ever.” These words occurred in a very well written and interesting book which Mr. Sala produced after a visit to the Exhibition. It was entitled Paris Herself Again, and though it is now some twenty-nine years old it may still be read with pleasure. Besides containing interesting information about Paris and the ways of its inhabitants, the volume is also full of amusing illustrations by clever artists and caricaturists such as Bertall, Cham and Grévin,—names now but memories to survivors of the generation which admired a verve almost amounting to genius.
Mr. Sala was a very clever draughtsman; I rather think that it was he who drew a panoramic roll illustrating the funeral procession which accompanied the Iron Duke to his grave; this has now become scarce, and when in good condition is somewhat valuable. Mr. Sala’s knowledge of Paris was very thorough, and he had seen the pleasure-loving city under many different conditions—during the Revolution of 1848, the coup d’état of 1851 (when he was nearly shot), and in addition he was all but murdered as a Prussian spy on the 4th of September 1870. Having received his early education in France he spoke French just as well as his native tongue, and was as much at home in that country as in England.