And all the time the good pasha kept on making agitated bows, and my mother had to keep on smiling at him and returning them!
As regards the condition of things in general, it appeared pacific enough in that year of grace 1842. The tempest in the East was almost forgotten, a breath of peace seemed to be passing over Europe, under the influence of which calm and prosperity reigned in France. We had a magnificent army, in which my brothers took as much interest as I did in the navy. And the head of the army was an eminent Minister of War, Marshal Soult, who, although he looked on M. Thiers as a tiresome little fidget, employed the fruits of his great experience and long service in the Ministry in bringing every branch of our land forces to perfection gradually, and in the most admirably consistent spirit. This army was waging an incessant war in Africa under a commander no less eminent than the Marshal himself, General Bugeaud, thus carrying on the conquest of our splendid Algerian colony, which would have been peerless indeed if we could have filled it with that excess of population which other nations still possess, but which has been dried up, in our case, by our revolutionary laws. Our naval forces were in good condition too, so far as they could be, on the eve of that great duel between sails and steam which was to end by revolutionising everything, in spite of all the delays of the red tape faction.
Of politics, my pet aversion, I will not speak. I had sufficient curiosity, before writing these lines, to look through the back numbers of the Moniteur for that period, and started in horror at the terrible accumulation of useless chatter I came upon. In contrast to these torrents of fairly inoffensive eloquence, the unofficial press indulged in a large amount of intemperate writing, far more dangerous, seeing that it flattered more passions, and that the calumnies thus spread were much farther reaching. The Government, honest, useful, and enlightened as it was, consistently patriotic and far-seeing, was able as yet to thread its way amongst the obstacles cast in its path. Six more years were to elapse before it was to be completely hemmed in, and the deluded mob to dance wildly round the throne it had overturned singing the democratic creed, the chorus of every revolution we have had the last hundred years.
Demolissons
Tant que nous pourrons!
Apres, nous verrons
Ce que nous ferons.
But my winter in Paris slipped swiftly by, and towards the end of May
Admiral Hugon's squadron prepared to go to sea, the repairs to the
Belle-Poule were finished, and I started to join my ship.
At Lyons I embarked on a steamer to go to Toulon, and this vessel brought me to Arles under a lovely sunset. Nothing could be prettier than the scene on arriving at this picture of an old town, with its tall towers and the great walls of its amphitheatre, its stone houses set in the Rhone, and its port full of boats with long graceful lateen yards. It was Sunday, besides, and the promenade was crowded with pretty women. I am very fond of the little town, and am always glad to get back to it. So I lost no time about jumping on shore, and making over my baggage to the porter from the Hotel du Forum, I took advantage of the long twilight to see what changes three years had wrought in my old acquaintance. The women of Arles, a Greek colony, still preserve the type of countenance so much admired by the ancients, undeteriorated by their slight admixture of Catalonian blood. The magnificent monuments of the Roman city, the theatre and the arena, show the rank it held in ancient Gaul. In the present day it is a well-to-do, gay, careless town, with a lively and frivolous population, fond of pleasure, and indulging freely in it. Night overtook me during my walk, and under the splendid moonlight I could have fancied myself in some Arab town; I was in a labyrinth of lanes, where the heat of day still hung. The women sat before the doors in their pretty Sunday dresses, chattering with the young men, and no carriage nor any sound disturbed their low talk in that harmonious tongue on which the poems of the trouveres have shed such glory. It was exquisite. What a beautiful, nay, what an adorable country is France in all her varied aspects, east and west, north and south! What endless enchantments they afford, if only one can get rid of the sickening politics that break up and destroy everything they touch!
On the morrow I travelled down the Rhone, through the Camargue, with its droves of oxen and its flights of flamingos, lost in dreamy reverie as though foreseeing even then that beautiful poem of "Mireille," which Mistral and Gounod have since rendered immortal.
We sailed from Toulon, a splendid squadron, twenty strong, to manoeuvre at sea. We were under the orders of Admiral Hugon, "Le Pere la Chique," as the men called him. The soubriquet bears its own explanation with it. Born at Granville and thoroughly Norman in character, the admiral concealed the most unshakable determination under an appearance of the greatest good-nature. I never met a more thorough-born sailor. He divined what weather was coming, foretold it long before the barometer did, and took all the necessary precautions in advance. He was the very personification of the seafaring instinct. Besides this, he had a long record of bravery behind him. At Navarino, where he commanded the Armide, he came up and lay with true fraternal chivalry between the Turkish ships and a British frigate that was suffering very much from their fire, which same service the British corvette Rose rendered him in return, and with equal gallantry, towards the close of the engagement.
The consequence of all this was that we all felt ourselves well led, and had the most absolute confidence in our chief, and I myself was particularly fond of him. It really was a fine sight both from the picturesque point of view and from that of a justifiable national pride, when our twenty white-sailed ships manoeuvred all together, under the admiral's signal, on the blue Mediterranean waters, with no sound to break the silence except the shrill voices of the officers of the watch.
We went on in this fashion, sailing and manoeuvring and firing our guns, and gauging day by day the respective values alike of officers and men, till we got to the Gulf of Naples, where we cast anchor, so as to give everybody a spell of rest and recreation. Very complete the recreation was, every class of the population joining to give us the kindliest of welcomes. We sent our crews ashore, and there the Frenchman's gaiety soon went into partnership with the Neapolitan's. Everywhere corricoli were to be seen galloping along carrying clusters of merry sailors. Our ambassador, the Duc de Montebello, who kept great state and the most open house at the Rothschild palace, introduced our officers into the most delightful society of Naples, and there was a succession of parties and merry-makings. By way of response, the admiral gave a very pretty afternoon party on board his three-decker, the Ocean, and I a ball on board the Belle-Poule. I had found a goodly number of old acquaintances, besides my cousins of both sexes, and especially I frequented the society of a certain charming Tertullia, who held her daily court at the Palazzo Fernandina, a place of meeting which all of my generation at Naples must recollect. It was a Spanish house, belonging to the Toledo family, numerous branches of which were represented in it, such as the Villafranca, the Alcanicez, the Bivona, the Sclafani, &c. What charming women of every nationality one met there! What pleasant parties we organised thence, with Isabella Colonna, Teresa Sclafani, and that exquisite creature Lauretta Acton, who afterwards became Madame Minghetti, and many another! Now it would be a night ascent of Vesuvius, in eruption, and then again a moonlight excavation at Pompeii. Show me the man who would not have fallen in love in such company, beneath that exquisite sky, environed and intoxicated by the indefinable enchantments in which the landscape and the very air you breathed were steeped! But the signal to get under way is hoisted at the mainmast of the Ocean, and we must tear ourselves away from these delights, and start forth with hearts that are heavy, but full of sweetest memories. And whither? That is the Admiral's secret!