Part 54

“She was the mistress of Napoleon, son of Jerome, you know,” said Prince de la Moskowa to me, sotto voce, “now she is Louis’s mistress.”

“Well,” I answered, “changing a Napoleon for a Louis is an everyday occurrence.”

These bad puns did not prevent me from eating and observing.

The two women seated beside the President had square-topped chairs. The President’s chair was surmounted with a little round top. As I was about to draw some inference from this I looked at the other chairs and saw that four or five guests, myself among them, had chairs similar to that of the President. The chairs were covered with red velvet with gilt headed nails. A more serious thing I noticed was that everybody addressed the President of the Republic as “Monseigneur” and “your Highness.” I who had called him “Prince,” had the air of a demagogue.

When we rose from table the Prince asked after my wife, and then apologized profusely for the rusticity of the service.

“I am not yet installed,” he said. “The day before yesterday, when I arrived here, there was hardly a mattress for me to sleep upon.”

The dinner was a very ordinary one, and the Prince did well to excuse himself. The service was of common white china and the silverware bourgeois, worn, and gross. In the middle of the table was a rather fine vase of craquelé, ornamented with ormolu in the bad taste of the time of Louis XVI.

However, we heard music in an adjoining hall.

“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.

“By all the greatness of art, literature and science, by the victories of industry and progress. Popular labour can accomplish miracles. And then, France is a conquering nation; when she does not make conquests with the sword, she wants to make them with the mind. Know this and act accordingly. Ignore it and you will be lost.”

He looked thoughtful and went away. Then he returned, thanked me warmly, and we continued to converse.

We spoke about the press. I advised him to respect it profoundly and at the same time to establish a State press. “The State without a newspaper, in the midst of newspapers,” I observed, “restricting itself to governing while publicity and polemics are the rule, reminds one of the knights of the fifteenth century who obstinately persisted in fighting against cannon with swords; they were always beaten. I grant that it was noble; you will grant that it was foolish.”

He spoke of the Emperor. “It is here,” he said, “that I saw him for the last time. I could not re-enter this palace without emotion. The Emperor had me brought to him and laid his hand on my head. I was seven years old. It was in the grand salon downstairs.”

Then Louis Bonaparte talked about La Malmaison. He said:

“They have respected it. I visited the place in detail about six weeks ago. This is how I came to do so. I had gone to see M. Odilon Barrot at Bougival.

“‘Dine with me,’ he said.

“’ I will with pleasure.’ It was 3 o’clock. ‘What shall we do until dinner time?’

“‘Let us go and see La Malmaison,’ suggested M. Barrot.

“We went. Nobody else was with us. Arrived at La Malmaison we rang the bell. A porter opened the gate, M. Barrot spoke: