Madame de Berry has her chamber council in Paris, as Charles X. has his: paltry sums were collected in her name to succour the poorer of the Royalists. I proposed to distribute among the cholera patients a sum of twelve thousand francs on behalf of the mother of Henry V. We wrote to Massa, and not only did the Princess approve of the disposition of the funds, but she would have liked us to apportion a more considerable sum: her approval arrived on the day on which I sent the money to the mayors' offices. Thus, everything is strictly true in my explanations concerning the gift of the exile. On the 14th of April, I sent the whole sum to the Prefect of the Seine to be distributed among the indigent class of the cholera-stricken population of Paris. M. de Bondy was not at the Hôtel de Ville when my letter was taken there. The Secretary-general opened my missive, and did not consider himself authorized to receive the money. Three days elapsed; M. de Bondy replied at last that he could not accept the twelve thousand francs, because people would see in it, beneath an apparent benevolence, "a political combination against which the entire population of Paris would protest by its refusal[385]." Then my secretary went to the twelve mayors' offices. Of five mayors who were present, four accepted the gift of a thousand francs; one refused it. Of the seven mayors who were absent, five kept silence; two refused[386]. I was forthwith besieged by an army of paupers: benevolent and charitable societies, workmen of all kinds, women and children. Polish and Italian exiles, men of letters, artists, soldiers, all wrote, all demanded a share in the bounty. If I had had a million, it would have been distributed in a few hours. M. de Bondy was wrong in saying that "the entire population of Paris would protest by its refusal:" the population of Paris will always take money from everybody. The scared attitude of the Government was enough to make one die of laughing: one would have thought that this perfidious legitimist money was going to stir up the cholera patients, to excite an insurrection among the men dying in the hospitals to march to the assault of the Tuileries, with coffins rolling, with tolling of funeral knells, with winding-sheet unfurled under the command of Death. My correspondence with the mayors was prolonged through the complication of the refusal of the Prefect of Paris. Some of them wrote to me to send me back my money or to ask for the return of their receipts for the gifts of Madame la Duchesse de Berry. I sent these back loyally, and I handed the following receipt to the office of the Mayor of the 12th Ward:
Attitude of the Mayors.
"I have received from the Mayor's office of the 12th Ward the sum of one thousand francs which it had at first accepted and which it has returned to me by order of M. the Prefect of the Seine.
Paris, 22 April 1832."
The Mayor of the 9th Ward, M. Cronier, was braver: he kept the thousand francs and was dismissed. I wrote him this note:
"29 April 1832.
"Sir,
"I hear with keen sorrow of the disgrace of which Madame la Duchesse de Berry's benevolence has in your case been the cause or the pretext. You will have, for your consolation, the esteem of the public, the sense of your independence, and the happiness of having sacrificed yourself to the cause of the unfortunate.
"I have the honour, etc., etc."
The Mayor of the 4th Ward is a very different man: M. Cadet de Gassicourt, a poet-apothecary composing little verses, writing in his time, in the time of liberty and the Empire, an agreeable classical declaration against my romantic prose and that of Madame de Staël[387]. M. Cadet de Gassicourt is the hero who took the cross of the front of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois by assault, and who, in a proclamation on the cholera, gave us to understand that possibly those wicked Carlists were the wine-poisoners to whom the people had already done ample justice[388]. And so the illustrious champion wrote me the following letter:
"Paris, 18 April 1832.
"Sir,
"I was not at the Mayor's office when the person sent by you called: this will explain to you the delay in my reply.
"M. the Prefect of the Seine, when declining to accept the money which you undertook to offer him, seems to me to have traced the line of conduct which the members of the Municipal Council must follow. I shall imitate M. the Prefect's example the more readily inasmuch as I think that I know and as I share the sentiments which must have prompted his refusal.
"I will refer only in passing to the title of 4 Royal Highness' given with some affectation to the person whose mouth-piece you constitute yourself: the daughter-in-law of Charles X. is no more a 'Royal Highness' in France than her father-in-law is King[389]! But, Sir, there is no one who is not morally convinced that this lady is very actively at work and that she is spending sums of money very much more considerable than that of which she has entrusted the employment to yourself to stir up trouble in our country and bring about civil war. The alms which she pretends to make are but a means for drawing upon herself and her party an attention and a kindly feeling which her intentions are far from justifying. You will therefore not think it extraordinary that a magistrate, firmly attached to the constitutional royalty of Louis-Philippe, should refuse a relief which comes from such a source and should look to true citizens for purer bounties addressed sincerely to humanity and the country.
"I am, Sir, with a very distinguished regard, etc.
"F. Cadet de Gassicourt."
Cadet de Gassicourt.
This is a very proud revolt on the part of M. Cadet de Gassicourt against "this lady" and her "father-in-law:" what a progress in enlightenment and philosophy! What indomitable independence! Messieurs Fleurant and Purgon dared not look people in the face except upon their knees[390]; he, M. Cadet, says, with the Cid: