Part 27

I remarked to President Franck-Carré, who was seated next to me: “It is a struggle between civil courage and military poltroonery.”

The article was adopted.

June 22, 1847.

The Girardin* affair was before the Chamber of Peers to-day. Acquittal. The vote was taken by means of balls, white ones for condemnation, black ones for acquittal. There were 199 votes cast, 65 white, 134 black. In placing my black ball in the urn I remarked: “In blackening him we whiten him.”

* Emile de Girardin had been prosecuted for publishing an article in a newspaper violently attacking the government.

I said to Mme. D--: “Why do not the Minister and Girardin provoke a trial in the Assize Court?”

She replied: “Because Girardin does not feel himself strong enough, and the Minister does not feel himself pure enough.”

MM. de Montalivet and Mole and the peers of the Château voted, queerly enough, for Girardin against the Government. M. Guizot learned the result in the Chamber of Deputies and looked exceedingly wrath.

June 28, 1847.

On arriving at the Chamber I found Franck-Carre greatly scandalised.

In his hand was a prospectus for champagne signed by the Count de Mareuil, and stamped with a peer’s mantle and a count’s coronet with the de Mareuil arms. He had shown it to the Chancellor, who had replied: “I can do nothing!”

“I could do something, though, if a mere councillor were to do a thing like that in my court,” said Franck-Carré to me. “I would call the Chambers together and have him admonished in a disciplinary manner.”

1848.

Discussion by the committees of the Chamber of Peers of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.

I was a member of the fourth committee. Among other changes I demanded this. There was: “Our princes, your well-beloved children, are doing in Africa the duties of servants of the State.” I proposed: “The princes, your well-beloved children, are doing,” etc., “their duty as servants of the State.” This fooling produced the effect of a fierce opposition.

January 14, 1848.

The Chamber of Peers prevented Alton-Shée from pronouncing in the tribune even the name of the Convention. There was a terrific knocking upon desks with paper-knives and shouts of “Order! Order!” and he was compelled almost by force to descend from the tribune.

I was on the point of shouting to them: “You are imitating a session of the Convention, but only with wooden knives!”

I was restrained by the thought that this mot, uttered during their anger, would never be forgiven. For myself I care little, but it might affect the calm truths which I may have to tell them and get them to accept later on.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.

I. THE DAYS OF FEBRUARY. II. EXPULSIONS AND EVASIONS. III. LOUIS PHILIPPE IN EXILE. IV. KING JEROME. V. THE DAYS OF JUNE. VI. CHATEAUBRIAND. VII. DEBATES ON THE DAYS OF JUNE.

I. THE DAYS OF FEBRUARY.

THE TWENTY-THIRD.

As I arrived at the Chamber of Peers--it was 3 o’clock precisely--General Rapatel came out of the cloak-room and said: “The session is over.”

I went to the Chamber of Deputies. As my cab turned into the Rue de Lille a serried and interminable column of men in shirt-sleeves, in blouses and wearing caps, and marching arm-in-arm, three by three, debouched from the Rue Bellechasse and headed for the Chamber. The other extremity of the street, I could see, was blocked by deep rows of infantry of the line, with their rifles on their arms. I drove on ahead of the men in blouses, with whom many women had mingled, and who were shouting: “Hurrah for reform!” “Hurrah for the line!” “Down with Guizot!” They stopped when they arrived within rifle-shot of the infantry. The soldiers opened their ranks to let me through. They were talking and laughing. A very young man was shrugging his shoulders.

I did not go any further than the lobby. It was filled with busy and uneasy groups. In one corner were M. Thiers, M. de Rémusat, M. Vivien and M. Merruau (of the “Constitutionnel”); in another M. Emile de Girardin, M. d’Alton-Shée and M. de Boissy, M. Franck-Carré, M. d’Houdetot, M. de Lagrenée. M. Armand Marrast was talking aside with M. d’Alton. M. de Girardin stopped me; then MM. d’Houdetot and Lagrenée. MM. Franck-Carré and Vignier joined us. We talked. I said to them:

“The Cabinet is gravely culpable. It forgot that in times like ours there are precipices right and left and that it does not do to govern too near to the edge. It says to itself: ‘It is only a riot,’ and it almost rejoices at the outbreak. It believes it has been strengthened by it; yesterday it fell, to-day it is up again! But, in the first place, who can tell what the end of a riot will be? Riots, it is true, strengthen the hands of Cabinets, but revolutions overthrow dynasties. And what an imprudent game in which the dynasty is risked to save the ministry! The tension of the situation draws the knot tighter, and now it is impossible to undo it. The hawser may break and then everything will go adrift. The Left has manoeuvred imprudently and the Cabinet wildly. Both sides are responsible. But what madness possesses the Cabinet to mix a police question with a question of liberty and oppose the spirit of chicanery to the spirit of revolution? It is like sending process-servers with stamped paper to serve upon a lion. The quibbles of M. Hébert in presence of a riot! What do they amount to!”

As I was saying this a deputy passed us and said: