The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-03 00:00:00

212 Nittraturt. Memoirs d'un Bourgeois de Paris. Par Dr. Veron. Paris : Coquebert. THE last two volumes of this work have just appeared in Paris. They have excited infi nitely greater interest than the first four ; and this interest seems to us to be fully justified by the nature of their contents. For they give comparatively little about Dr. Veron him self and his doings, the former being a quack and a bore, and the latter of no earthly con cern to the public, while they treat of recent events, some of them of gigantic importance, and they throw light on the public and private cha'xicters of the men who have played the teasing part therein : in a word, they are a valu able contriblition to modern history. Neverthe less, in a literary point of view, they are pitiable in the extreme: every page, and almost every sentence, displays the pen of an unpractised writer; the reflections are singularly shallow and trivial ; there is no great cohesion or liaison in the subjects treated, and still less in the manner of treating them ; and the volumes are swelled by copious cuttings from the Moniteur, and from those grotesque leading articles which Veron, in the time of the dead and gone Republic, used, with astounding im pudence, to palm on the public in the columns of the Constitutionnel Casting aside the rubbish of the two volumes, we will briefly notice their more interesting fea tures. In the first place, then, there are some very curious private letters of M. Guizot, about the Eastern question of 1840. In the next there is a 'detailed account of the Revolution of 1848, and in the Appenlix along report of a general, an aide-decamp of Louis Philippe, who was actively concerned in it. In this account we are introduced to the royal family, in the Tuileries, on the eventful day which stripped them of their power and . glory, and sent them impoverished as exiles into a foreign land. Much of what is said has been said before by Lamartine, and other French writers, and by our own Mr. Croker in the Quarterly Review ; but Dr. Veron's narrative is not the less interesting. What particularly strikes us in it is, that the aged and venerable Queen of Louis Philippe was the only member of the family who displayed anything like energy When energy was so much needed. She it was who, when things were rapidly coming to a crisis, compelled M. Guizot and his col leagues to resign,—a step which if taken in due time might have stayed the revolutionary tempest. " YOUT continued presence in power, •' gentlemen," said she, " endangers the throne, " and I invite you to resignwas her Maiestor, toe, who compelled Louis Philippe to mount his horse and show himself to the troops and National 'Guard ; and it was she who com bated the proposition that he should abdicate. It was she, also, though Dr. Veron does not mention this, who, when flight became neces sary, led off the poor old King leaning on her s:rtn. But though Louis Philippe was in dis may, and anything but dignified, in quitting the Tuileries, he seems soon to have recovered his serenity of mind; for on arriving at Dreux he wrote in a calm and firm hand to Count Montalivet, the Intendant of his Civil List, for a supply of money, and gave the necessary written authorisation for the payment of a certain sum. Another trait is—and it is one which does him great credit—that notwith standing his anxieties for himself, his children, and his grandchildren, and, it may be added, his country also, he found time to make in quiries about one of his aides-de-camp, Gene ral Athalin. Passing over the account of the escape of the King and Queen from Havre—an escape effected by the instrumentality of the English consul, Mr. Featherstonhaugh—wa come to details of the sack of the Tuileries, which, though not new, will be read with cu riosity. The only novel incident we notice in them is, that in Prince de Joinville's apart ments the mob were surprised and delighted find poll-parrot, which cried, as loud as Dow- But amongst !e copies of a preserved ac te wanton de- to find a poll-parrot, wuicu claux■ any of them, " Down with Guizot!" decid ew m atter we notice numb merits cide : , i ... 4:Tom flu iflf . 1 ...4-., r ... ...,:. •..:711 1 rwr 7 - -, • ~, .. • ' - - ' . .. t• . 111imL......._' erVitrum jav THE PRESS. struction which bofel the private papers of the King, Queen, and royal family. These letters and documents are of remarkable interest. Amongst them are denunciations, made to the chief of the King's secret police, of plots against his Majesty's life; and, if only half of them be true, they prove that in almost every part of Paris bands of villains were brooding night and day over the means of committing regi cide. Amongst them, also, are specimens of extravagant love letters, addressed to the princesses. There is also a letter from the Duke d'Orleans to his younger brother, the Duke de Nemours, on his duty as a husband: it is a frank, honest, sensible epistle, which will de light every wife who reads it, the sum and substance of it being, " To be happy in mar " riage—love your wife!" A plan drawn up by the Duchess d'Orleans for the education of her elder sort, is also given : it is admirable in every respect, and two or three pages from a diary written by her, which are also given, display the most fervent piety, and the most profound sense of her maternal duties. In deed, it may safely be said, that of all the confidential letters or other papers written by members of the Orleans family to one another, and which have been made public since the catastrophe of February, there is not one which does not represent them in the most amiable light, and does not do the highest honour to their minds and hearts. Here is a note from the Queen, to her son, the Duke de Nemours, concerning Qaeen Victoria's stay at Eu You will have seen by the little note I wrote to Victoire (the Duchess de Nemours ) what were our pleasures of the day. The trip to St. Catherine, in the midst of beautiful weather, was really delightful; everybody was gay, in good humour, and amused. The posthorses and our French postilions greatly diverted Queen Victoria. In the evening we had the Chdicau de ma Niece. It is a little piece de societe, very pretty, and of good taste; but Arnal, in the Humoriste, made the Queen and all the company laugh heartily—even Lord Aberdeen. In another letter of her Majesty the cher Scotch nobleman is also mentioned : Le Ore (so Louis Philippe was always called by his own family) is very much pleased with his conversations with Lord Aberdeen. The manner in which the Duchess d'Orleans mourned her husband is well known. Dr. Veron tells us that after his death she would not allow his apartment to be entered by any one except herself. From 1842 to 1848, when its sanctity was violated by the republican conquerors, Not a piece of furniture changed its place—not an ob. ject, even the most trivial, was touched. Near the window of the bedroom was the toilette table of the Prince. Even the water iu which he had washed his hands before leaving was left untouched, but had evaporated with time ; and the towel which he had used was lying beside it. Near the chimney was a large arm-chair : the Prince had thrown the Journal des Dibats open into it, and it had not been touched for six years. We next arrive at some long details about the Republic, which are as old as the hills, and about as interesting to re-read as would be the discussions of the Anti-Corn-Law League, from which heaven deliver us ! But further on the book assumes a real political and historical importance, for it treats of what preceded the coup d'etat of the 2nd of Decem ber, and of that awful and gigantic event. As editor of the Constitution net, Dr. Veron was admitted behind the scenes of the political stage, and was placed in possession of many important secrets. If he speaks the truth, and he no doubt does, the Republic was con stantly menaced by coups detat from the be ginning of 1849 to the end of 1851, when it was laid low. In January, April, and June of the former year M. Thiers, as representative of the " party of Order," General Changarnier, as commander of the National Guard, and Count de Morny, as representative of Prince Louis Napoleon, held meetings in which they discussed the means of effecting, and the object to be attained by, a coup ditat against the Republic ; and on those occasions they settled who was to be arrested, and who not. In August, 1851, another formal discussion took place between Count de Morny, M. Berryer, Count Mole, and the Duke de Broglie, on the same subject, but it led to no result. Again, in November of the same year, a meeting for the same purpose was held by the chiefs of the monarchical and Bonapartean parties at Count Darn's, but it ended in SATURDAY, nothing. Thus, then, we see that the heads of the different political parties conspired, if conspiracy it is to be called, with Louis Napo leon against the Republic ; and this circum stance is a great extenuation of what he did in December, 1851, supposing his coup ditat to stand in need of excuse. The reason why no understanding could be come to in these various meetings, was that the old political parties would insist on having the coup effected by themselves, and for them selves alone, without taking into account the pretensions which Louis Napoleon, as the elect of millions, and as the head of the most numerous party in the country, was justly entitled to put forward. Yet nothing, it seems, could be more reasonable than those pretensions. So late as November, 1851, the Prince had the extraordinary modesty to pro pose that they should be confined to the simple declaration by the National Assembly that, in spite of the enactment of the Consti tution, he might be re-elected if the people were willing to choose him ! But finding that the soi-disant Conservative parties were too stupid, obstinate, and headstrong to act as their own interests and as the interests of the country commanded, and feeling that his name and position made it his duty to save France froin the anarchy with which she was threatened by the retention of her absurd and impracticable Republican Constitu tion, the Prince determined on effecting a coup d'itat himself. In September, 1851, he held a deliberation with some of his prin cipal counsellors at the Palace of St. Cloud on the project of one drawn up by M. Carter, Prefect of Police, but the time was not deemed opportune. Again, in November following, he was prepared to execute one, and he would have done so on the 18th of that month if the Assembly had fulfilled its threat of passing a resolution virtually depriving him of the coni maud of the army. Finally, ho fixed the blow for the 2nd of December, the anniversary of his uncle's coronaticn and of the battle of Austerlitz, the immediate cause of his resolu tion being an insulting and unconstitutional motion against him in the Assembly. Before describing this famous coup d'etat, Dr. Veron describes the hero of it. Many a better description has been given, but it is in teresting as coming from one who had the op portunity of observing him closely : From the 10th December, 1848, to the eve of the 2nd December, 1651, in the most difficult times, and amidst the gravest circumstances, I often had the honour to be received by the President of the Republic. I never found him disquieted, irritated, or discouraged. Of unchangeable serenity in presence of events, of mildness, full of dignity towards men—his heart, sorely triedby misfortune, became master of itself by solitude and exile, and met with no thing that could alarm or even astonish it ; it had faith in itself and faith in the future of France. Amidst the political scepticism excited and spread since the end of the last century by so many revolutions, Prince Louis Napo leon retains at the bottom of his heart the sacred tire of young and ardent convictions. It is thus that he dominates all men whom doubt paralyses. I have carefully studied the serious and melancholy character of the Prince, his words and his attitude. Do not seek in hint the fickleness or the fantasies of the French character ; his lofty intelligence is not wasted in ingenious and subtle ideas—it takes pleasure only in grand ideas, which are perceived iu practical deductions and applications. The admired and applauded speeches in which he expresses and develops his great ideas arc marked by elevated, simple, unornamented, firm, and con scientious language. On the morning of the coup ditat on* of his enemies asked me with disquietude—" Is this a man of mediocrity who is ending, or a man of genius who is beginning, his career? " As to what took place on the eve of the coup ditat, when, it will be remembered, a party was given at the Palace of the Elysee by the President, Dr. Wren gives us the follow ing particulars in addition to what is already well known : In the evening of the Ist December there were a dinner and a reception at the Elysee. At eight o'clock Id, Mocquart, the Prince's secretary, entered the Cabinet of the President of the Republic. Prince Louis Napoleon had, on the previous evening, recommended him to collect all the documents relative to the coup delat, and place them under cover. Amongst them was the decree for dissolving the Chamber and the Council of State, and for re-establishing universal suffrage. On the envelope the Prince had written in pencil " itubicon." After this the Prince joined the company . in the salons, and, in course of conversation with M. Vieyra, one of the chiefs of the National Guard, who was destined to play an active part in the coup, informed him in a loud