This same Heymes, one of the few survivors of General Leclerc's expedition to St. Domingo, had, on leaving that charnel-house, become aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney. He it was who, during the famous retreat from Russia, was sent to ask the general who was blowing up the Beresina bridges to suspend the work of destruction, so as to allow of the passage of the column with the wounded, who must otherwise be doomed to death. It was worth seeing the expression of his face, severe enough already, when he repeated the answer the general in question gave him, with the most southern of accents, "What, my dear fellow! The wounded! The Emperor has decided to sacrifice them!"
The worthy Heymes did my father a great service a short time after the review which has led me to mention him. It was at the moment of the insurrection in June 1832. We were at St. Cloud. It was well known that the agitators of every description intended to make a demonstration on the occasion of General Lamarque's funeral, but the demonstration was not expected to be of any importance. However, at about five in the evening, we beheld Heymes, in plain clothes, gallop into the courtyard, on a dragoon's charger, covered with foam. He had just come from the demonstration, and had witnessed that ordinary prologue to revolutions, pillage and massacre—pillage of gunsmiths' shops, and massacre of the officers of the 6th Dragoons, shot down with pistols, without any provocation whatever, at the head of their squadrons in line.
"You must come to Paris, Sire," he said, as he dismounted. My father did not wait for him to say it twice, and an hour later he was at the Tuileries, thence giving the impulse which nipped the revolutionary attempt in the bud. The next morning he was on horseback amidst the troops and the National Guard, which hemmed the rioters into the ward of St. Merri. An incident occurred there which was highly characteristic of that Parisian population, in whom a generous chord will always thrill, even in its maddest moments. The King, with my brother Nemours and his staff, had gone down the Rue des Arcis, at the end of which lively firing was heard. The troops who were massed in the street greeted the sovereign with cheers, and he, going forward, reached a square in which the fighting was actually going on. The cheering ran from one to another, the soldiers who were engaged ceasing their fire to join in. This change in the music struck the insurgents also at last. They stopped firing too, and were to be seen appearing at the windows, rifle in hand, taking off their caps to the plucky King, whom they would not have hesitated to shoot at a minute before.
I need not say that as soon as the King and his escort disappeared down a side street the fight began again, merrier than ever, and the 42nd Regiment of the line carried the monastery of St. Merri. An historic regiment that 42nd! After having fought against the "White" insurrection in the Vendee and the republican insurrection at the St. Merri monastery, caused the breakdown of Prince Napoleon's Boulogne adventure, occupied the Chamber of Deputies on the 2nd of December, and heroically lost its whole strength twice over in the siege of Paris, it has had the good fortune of being almost the only one of our regiments to keep its arms and its colours amidst all our mishaps.
There was no further interruption to the course of my studies, except a journey of the King's to Normandy, on which I accompanied him. The official object of this journey was to hold a review, at Cherbourg, of the squadron which had operated, in concert with an English one, in the North Sea, during the arrangement of the Belgian question. But its chief end was to go through the Departments in Normandy and enter into relations with the honest folk who populated them.
The trip was fruitful in incident. The first happened at Bernay, the native town of the virtuous Dupont de l'Eure, one of those virtuous individuals who would virtuously have your head cut off sooner than drop the smallest iota of their vulgar and utopian ideas. The prefect, M. Passy, had warned the King that amongst the addresses that would be read to him on his arrival there would be one which would give him a lecture. Thus warned, we arrived, and having mounted a platform in the open air, with a verdant dome above it, the reception and the addresses began. There was nothing very particular at first; at last a "President de Tribunal" advanced, and the way he made his bow with his prim look, and the curiosity which stretched every neck, told me at once that the King was to get the promised lecture. It came, indeed, very studied, and very impertinent too. Everybody listened in silence. It was all about courtiers, the danger of listening to flatterers, and so forth. As it ended, the heads of the president and his friends all came up with a "Take that, my fine fellow" look.
Then the King replied with the utmost politeness, thanking M. le President for the advice he had been good enough to give him. "Flatterers and courtiers," he said, "have indeed done much mischief, and, sad to say, the race is not yet extinct, for nowadays there are courtiers who are far more dangerous than the flatterers of princes and of kings—those courtiers and flatterers of the people, who to buy a vain and contemptible popularity suggest to them dreams which are unrealizable and which bring them to misfortune," &c. On this head my father bestowed a well-directed hiding on the president, which was constantly interrupted by a running fire of applause, so that the worthy gentleman ended by not knowing which way to look. Amongst other eminently French qualities, my father possessed the gift of repartee to the highest degree. He always knew how to use it, though with a politeness and good nature which softened whatever might be too sharp about its sting. This time the blow went home. Our journey, thus begun, was continued amid constantly increasing cordiality and success. It was a somewhat tiring manner of life. We went by short stages, from one reception to another. Everywhere the National Guard and the troops were under arms. When they were in considerable numbers, we mounted horses, either lent or requisitioned beforehand. In the evening, wherever we slept, there would be a great banquet, and generally a ball as well. It was the duty of us young folk to lead the dancing—a pleasant task enough, if we could have chosen our partners among the pretty women whom I was beginning to notice, in spite of my being only fourteen, and of whom there were many, especially at Grandville and St. Lo. But our partners were given to us officially, and were chosen from the families of the authorities. We exerted ourselves to be pleasant in spite of that. I do not know whether I was succeeding too much or too little at a ball one night, but I saw the husband's head suddenly appear between my partner and myself, with the observation, "Well, my wife's not bad-looking, is she?" and he smacked his lips like a man who has eaten a good thing.
Falaise was the culminating point in our journey as far as incidents went. We were to make a halt there, and, as fifteen battalions of the National Guard were collected, the aide-de-camp, who did duty as quartermaster too, had seen to getting suitable mounts for the King, for us, and for Marshals Soult and Gerard, who accompanied us. The famous fair at Guibray, near Falaise, was just over, and a circus which had come to enliven it was still there. The circus horses were laid hands on, and when we arrived we were agreeably surprised to find fine white horses awaiting us instead of the ordinary nags and troop-horses we generally had to ride. So we got into the saddle, and the review began. Just as the King reached the right flank of the line, the band began to play, and then an unforeseen event occurred Our proud coursers, thinking that they were at a performance, set each of them to do his own particular duty. The King, Marshal Soult, and two others of our party were riding the horses who did that trick called the "Grand-Ecart," in which all four horses draw together at the same moment. When their riders pulled at their bridles, the four horses, feeling themselves reined up, instantly fell into the usual circus canter. Another horse kept wheeling round and round, and confusion became general, nobody guessing what had happened until the aide-de-camp smote his brow, and stopped the band.
The trouble did not end there. The National Guard was in proud possession of one gun, which it had horsed somehow or other. A jolt broke the axle-tree, just as it was going past. Then there was a half-squadron of cavalry mounted on stallions or geldings. But the trumpeter was on a mare, which fact brought difficulty on poor Rosinante during the march past. In the evening there was a great ball in a huge temporary shed, with tiers of seats all round it. All of a sudden half the tiers collapsed, like cards, and all the ladies were to be seen, though almost unhurt, on their backs with their legs in the air, amidst a most awful dust! I must confess we ungallantly seized the opportunity of the confusion to go off to our beds. The King, too, did the same, thus escaping from the persecutions of the Polish refugees, interned at Falaise, who had come to the ball in lancer uniforms worthy of the merry-andrews at the opera balls, to pester him with their petitions.