“It is a surprise,” said the President to us, “they are the musicians from the Opera.”
A minute afterwards programmes written with a pen were handed round. They indicated that the following five selections were being played:
1. Priere de la “Muette.”
2. Fantaisie sur des airs favoris de la “Reine Hortense.”
3. Final de “Robert Bruce”.
4. “Marche Republicaine.”
5. “La Victoire,” pas redoublé.
In the rather uneasy state of mind I, like the whole of France, was in at that moment, I could not help remarking this “Victory” piece coming after the “Republican March.”
I rose from table still hungry.
We went into the grand salon, which was separated from the dining-room by the smaller salon that I had passed through on entering.
This grand salon was extremely ugly. It was white, with figures on panels, after the fashion of those of Pompeii, the whole of the furniture being in the Empire style with the exception of the armchairs, which were in tapestry and gold and in fairly good taste. There were three arched windows to which three large mirrors of the same shape at the other end of the salon formed pendants and one of which, the middle one, was a door. The window curtains were of fine white satin richly flowered.
While the Prince de la Moskowa and I were talking Socialism, the Mountain, Communism, etc., Louis Bonaparte came up and took me aside.
He asked me what I thought of the situation. I was reserved. I told him that a good beginning had been made; that the task was a difficult but a grand one; that what he had to do was to reassure the bourgeoisie and satisfy the people, to give tranquillity to the former, work to the latter, and life to all; that after the little governments, those of the elder Bourbons, Louis Philippe, and the Republic of February, a great one was required; that the Emperor had made a great government through war, and that he himself ought to make a great one through peace; that the French people having been illustrious for three centuries did not propose to become ignoble; that it was his failure to appreciate this high-mindedness of the people and the national pride that was the chief cause of Louis Philippe’s downfall; that, in a word, he must decorate peace.
“How?” asked Louis Napoleon.