An Englishman In Paris Part 20

De Persigny turned as white as a ghost; whereupon Napoleon, who was soft-hearted to a degree, took a bundle of notes from his drawer and handed them to him. De Persigny went away beaming.

It must not be inferred from this that De Persigny was grasping like Prince Jerome and others, who constantly drained Napoleon's purse. De Persigny's charity was proverbial, but he gave blindly, and as a consequence, was frequently imposed upon. When young he had joined the Saint-Simoniens; his great aim was to make everybody happy. To him the restoration of the Empire meant not only the revival of Napoleon's glory, but the era of universal happiness, of universal material prosperity. As a rule, he was thoroughly unpractical; the whole of his life's work may be summed up in one line--he conceived and organized the Coup d'etat. As such he was virtually the founder of the Second Empire.

In that task practice went hand in hand with theory; when the task was accomplished, his inspiration was utterly at fault.

Historians have been generally content to attribute the princ.i.p.al role in the Coup d'etat, next to that of Louis-Napoleon, to M. de Morny. Of course, I am speaking of those who conceived it, not of those who executed it. The parts of Generals Magnan and De Saint-Arnaud, of Colonel de Beville and M. de Maupas, scarcely admit of discussion. But the fact is that De Morny did comparatively nothing as far as the conception was concerned. The prime mover was undoubtedly De Persigny, and it is a very moot question whether, but for him, it would have been conceived at all. I know I am treading on dangerous ground, but I have very good authority for the whole of the following notes relating to it.

In De Persigny's mind the whole of the scheme was worked out prior to Louis-Napoleon's election to the presidency, though of course the success of it depended on that election. He did not want a republic, even with Louis-Napoleon as a president for life; he wanted an empire. I should not like to affirm that Prince Louis would _not_ have been content with such a position; it was Persigny who put down his foot, exclaiming, "_Aut Caesar, aut nullus!_" That the sentence fell upon willing ears, there is equally no doubt, and when the Prince-President had his foot upon the first rung of the ladder, he would probably have rushed, or endeavoured to rush, to the top at once, regardless of the risk involved in this perilous ascent, for there would have been no one, absolutely no one, to steady the ladder at the bottom. De Persigny held him back while he busied himself in finding not only the _personnel_ that was to hold the latter, but the troops that would prevent the crowd from interfering with the ladder-holders. It was he who was the first to broach the recall of De Saint-Arnaud from Africa; it was he who drew attention to M. de Maupas, then little more than an obscure prefect; it was he who was wise enough to see that "the ladder-holders" would have to be sought for in England, and not in France. "The English," he said to Napoleon, "owe you a good turn for the harm they have done to your uncle. They are sufficiently generous or sufficiently sensible to do that good turn, if it is in their interest to do so; look for your support among the English."

I fancy it was Lord Palmerston's dislike of Louis-Philippe on account of "the Spanish marriages," rather than a sentiment of generosity towards Louis-Napoleon, that made him espouse his cause, but I feel certain that he did espouse it. I have good ground for saying that his interviews with Comte Walewski were much more frequent than his ministerial colleagues suspected, or the relations between England and France, however friendly they may have been, warranted. But everything was not ready. Palmerston and Walewski on the English side of the Channel, Louis-Napoleon and De Persigny on the French side, were waiting for something. What was it? Nothing more nor less than the laying of the submarine cable between Dover and Calais, the concession for which was given on the 8th of January, 1851, and on which occasion the last words to Mr. Walker Breit were to hurry it on as much as possible, "_seeing that it is of the utmost importance for the French Government to be in direct and rapid communication with the Cabinet of St. James_." The Cabinet meant Lord Palmerston. Nevertheless, it is not until ten months later that the cable is laid, and from that moment events march apace.

Let us glance at them for a moment. Telegraphic communication between Dover and Calais is established on the 13th of November. On the 15th, General Saint-Arnaud gives orders that the degree of 1849, conferring on the president of the National a.s.sembly the right of summoning and disposing of the military forces which had hitherto been hung up in every barracks throughout the land, shall be taken down. On the 16th, Changarnier, Leflo, and Baze, with many others, decide that a bill shall be introduced immediately, conferring once more that right on the president of the a.s.sembly. The opponents of the Prince-President are already rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of their success, for it means that Prince Louis and his adherents will be in their power, and in their power means removal to Vincennes or elsewhere, as prisoners of State. On the 18th, the bill is thrown out by a majority of 108, and the a.s.sembly is virtually powerless henceforth against any and every attack from the military. It was on that very evening that the date of the Coup d'etat was fixed for the 2nd of December, notwithstanding the hesitation and wavering of Louis-Napoleon. On the 26th a young attache is despatched from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the French Emba.s.sy in London, instead of the ordinary cabinet (or queen's) messenger, which proves that the despatches are more important than usual. They contain letters from the Prince-President himself to Comte Walewski, the contents of which are probably known to the Marquis de Turgot, but which are despatched in that way, instead of being sent directly from the elysee by a trustworthy person, because the presidential residence is watched day and night by the "counter-police" of the a.s.sembly. The reason why the Marquis de Turgot selects a young aristocrat is because he feels certain that he cannot be tampered with. On the 29th of November a connection of mine receives a letter from a friend in London, who is supposed to be behind the scenes, but who this time is utterly in the dark. It is to the following effect: "There is something in the wind, but I know not what. Both yesterday morning (27th) and to-day Walewski has been closeted for more than two hours each time with Palmerston. There is to be a grand dinner at Walewski's on the second of next month, to which I received an invitation. Can you tell me what mischief is brewing?"

The recipient of the letter was neither better nor worse informed than the rest of us, and in spite of all the a.s.sertions to the contrary which have been made since, no one foresaw the crisis in the shape it came upon us. On the contrary, the general opinion was that in the end Louis-Napoleon would get the worse, in spite of the magic influence of his name with the army. It was expected that if the troops were called upon to act against the National a.s.sembly, they would refuse and turn against their leaders. I am by no means certain that the Prince-President did not entertain a similar opinion up to the last moment, for I have it on excellent authority that as late as the 26th of November he endeavoured to postpone the affair for a month. It was then that De Persigny showed his teeth, and insisted upon the night of the 1st or 2nd of December as the latest. The interview was a very stormy one. On that very morning De Persigny had received a letter from London, not addressed to his residence. It contained a draft for 2000, but with the intimation that these would be the last funds forthcoming. He showed the Prince-President the letter, and Napoleon gave in there and then.

The letters spoken of just now were despatched on the same day. It was with that money that the Coup d'etat was made, and all the stories about a million and a half of francs being handed respectively to De Morny, De Maupas, Saint-Arnaud, and the rest are so much invention.

Up to six o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of December, General de Saint-Arnaud was virtually undecided, not with regard to the necessity of the Coup d'etat, but with regard to the opportuneness of it within the next twelve hours. I have the following story from the lips of Baron Lacrosse, who was one of the actors in it. On the eve of the Coup d'etat he was Minister of Public Works, and as such was present at the sitting of the a.s.sembly on the 1st of December. A member ascended the tribune to interpellate the Minister for War, and, the latter being absent, the question was deferred until next day. That same evening, 1st of December, there was an official dinner at M. Daviel's, the Minister of Justice, and at the termination of the sitting, M. Lacrosse called in his carriage at the Ministry for War to take his colleague. "You may make up your mind for a warm half-hour to-morrow," he said with a smile, as he entered General Saint-Arnaud's room. "Why?" asked the general.

"You are going to be interpellated." "I expected as much, and was just considering my answer. I am glad you warned me in time. I think I know what to say now."

I do not believe that Baron Lacrosse had the faintest inkling of the real drift of the remark, nor have I ever asked him directly whether he had. As far as I could gather afterwards from one or two people who were there, the elysee presented no unusual feature that night. The reception was well attended, as the ordinary receptions on Mondays generally were, for the times had gone by when the courtyard was a howling wilderness dotted with two, or perhaps three, hackney cabs. It would appear that a great many well-known men and a corresponding number of pretty women moved as usual through the salons, only one of which was shut up, that at the very end of the suite, and which did duty as a council-chamber, and contained the portrait of the then young Emperor of Austria, Francis-Joseph. But this was scarcely noticed, nor did the early withdrawal of the Prince-President provoke any comment, for it happened pretty often. Very certain is it that at twelve o'clock that night the elysee was wrapt in darkness, for I happened to pa.s.s there at that hour.

Standing at the door, or rather inside it, was the captain of the guard, smoking a cigar. I believe it was Captain Desondes of the "Guides," but I will not be sure, for I was not near enough to distinguish plainly.

The Faubourg St. Honore was pretty well deserted, save for a few individuals prowling about; they were probably detectives in the pay of the Prince-President's adversaries.

Let me return for a moment to London, and give an account of what happened there on the 2nd of December, as supplied by the writer of the above-mentioned letter, in an epistle which reached Paris only on the 7th.

It appears that on the day of the Coup d'etat London woke up amidst a dense fog. Virtually the news of what happened in Paris early that morning did not spread until between two and three o'clock. Our informant had been invited to a dinner-party at the French Emba.s.sy that night, and though in no way actively connected with politics, he was asking himself whether he should go or stay away, when, at five o'clock, he received a note from the Emba.s.sy, saying that the dinner would not take place. The fact was that at the eleventh hour the whole of the corps diplomatique had sent excuses. Our friend went to his club, had his dinner, and spent part of the evening there. At about eleven a crony of his came in, and seeing him seated in the smoking-room, exclaimed, "Why, I thought you were going to Walewski's dinner and reception." "So I was," remarked our friend, "but it was countermanded at five."

"Countermanded? Why, I pa.s.sed the Emba.s.sy just now, and it was blazing with light. Come and look."

They took a cab, and sure enough the building was positively illuminated. Our friend went in, and the salons were crammed to suffocation. Lord Palmerston was talking animatedly to Count Walewski; the whole corps diplomatique accredited to the court of St. James was there. The fact was that about nine or half-past the most favourable news from Paris had reached London. The report soon spread that Lord Palmerston had officially adhered to the Coup d'etat, and that he had telegraphed in that sense to the various English emba.s.sies abroad without even consulting his fellow-ministers.

I believe our friend was correctly informed, for it is well known that Palmerston did not resign, but was virtually dismissed from office. He never went to Windsor to give up the seals; Lord John Russell had to do it for him. Persigny, therefore, considered that he had fallen in the cause of Louis-Napoleon, and as such he became little short of an idol.

The Prince-President himself was not far from sharing in that wors.h.i.+p.

Not once, but a hundred times, his familiars have heard him say, "Avec Palmerston on peut faire des grandes choses." Nevertheless, Palmerston appealed more to De Persigny's imagination than to Louis-Napoleon's.

After all, he was perhaps much more of a Richelieu than a const.i.tutional minister in a const.i.tutional country has a right to be nowadays, and that was what Persigny admired above all things. His long stay in England had by no means removed his inherent dislike to parliamentary government, and, rightly or wrongly, he credited Palmerston with a similar sentiment.

De Persigny was amiable and obliging enough, provided one knew how to manage him, and with those whom he liked, but exceedingly thin-skinned and often violent with those whom he disliked. He was, moreover, very jealous with regard to Louis-Napoleon's affection for him. I doubt whether he really minded the influence wielded by the Empress, De Morny, and Walewski over the Emperor, but he grudged them their place in the Emperor's heart. This was essentially the case with regard to the former. He would have been glad to see his old friend and Imperial master contract a loveless marriage with some insignificant German or Russian princess, who would have borne her husband few or many children, in order to secure the safety of the dynasty, but the pa.s.sion that prompted the union with Eugenie de Montijo he considered virtually as an injury to himself. I give his opinion on that subject in English, because, though expressed in French, it had certainly been inspired by his sojourn in England. "When love invades a man's heart, there is scarcely any room left for friends.h.i.+p. You cannot drive love for a woman and friends.h.i.+p for a man in double harness, you are obliged to drive them tandem; and what is worse in a case like that of the Emperor, friends.h.i.+p becomes the leader and love the wheeler. Of course, to the outsider, friends.h.i.+p has the place of honour; in reality, love, the wheeler, is in closest contact with the driver and the vehicle, and can, moreover, have a sly kick at friends.h.i.+p, the leader. Personally, I am an exception--I may say a phenomenal exception--because my affection for the Emperor is as strong as my love for my wife."

Those who knew both the Emperor and Madame de Persigny might have fitly argued that this equal division of affection was a virtual injustice to the sovereign, who was decidedly more amiable than the spouse. The former rarely did a spiteful thing from personal motives of revenge; I only know of two. He never invited Lady Jersey to the Tuileries during the Empire, because she had shown her dislike of him when he was in London; he exiled David d'Angers because the sculptor had refused to finish the monument of Queen Hortense after the Coup-d'etat. David d'Angers was one of the n.o.blest creatures that ever lived, and I mean to speak of him at greater length. On the other hand, Madame de Persigny made her husband's life, notwithstanding his love for her, a burden by her whimsical disposition, her vindictive temperament, and her cheeseparing in everything except her own lavish expenditure on dress.

She was what the French call "une femme qui fait des scenes;" she almost prided herself upon being superior in birth to her husband, though in that respect there was really not a pin to choose between her grandfather, Michel Ney, the stable-boy, who had risen to be a duke of the First Empire, and her husband, the sergeant-quartermaster Fialin, who became Duc de Persigny under the second. She was always advocating retrenchment in the household. "True," said Persigny, "she cuts down her dresses too, but the more she cuts, the more they cost." For in his angry moments he would now and then tell a story against his wife. Here is one. Persigny, as I have already said, was hospitable to a fault, but he had always to do battle when projecting a grand entertainment. "There was so much trouble with the servants, and as for the chef, his extravagance knew no bounds." So said madame; and sick at last of always hearing the same complaints, he decided to let Chevet provide. All went well at first, because he himself went to the Palais-Royal to give his orders, merely stating the number of guests, and leaving the rest to the famous caterers, than whom there are no more obliging or conscientious purveyors anywhere. After a little while he began to leave the arrangements to madame; she herself sent out the invitations, so there could be no mistake with regard to the number. He soon perceived, however, that the dinners, if not inferior in quality to the former ones, were decidedly inferior in quant.i.ty. At last, one evening, when there were twenty-six people round the board, there was not enough for twenty, and next day De Persigny took the road to the Palais-Royal once more to lodge his complaint personally. "Comment, monsieur le comte,"

was the reply of one of the princ.i.p.als, "vous dites qu'il y avait vingt-six convives et qu'il n'y avait pas de quoi nourrir vingt; je vous crois parfaitement; voila la commande de madame la comtesse, copiee dans notre registre: 'Diner chez M. de Persigny pour seize personnes.'"

Madame had simply pocketed, or intended to pocket, fifteen hundred francs--for Chevet rarely charged less than a hundred and fifty francs per head, wines included--and had endeavoured to make the food for sixteen do for twenty-six. Of course there was a scene. Madame promised amendment, and the husband was only too willing to believe. The amendment was worse than the original offence, for one night the whole of the supper-table, set out a la Francaise, _i. e._, with everything on it, gave way, because, her own dining-table having proved too small, she had declined Chevet's offer of providing one at a cost of seven or eight francs, and sent for a jobbing carpenter to put together some boards and trestles at the cost of two francs. Chevet managed to provide another banquet within three quarters of an hour, which, with the one that had been spoiled, was put in the bill. Within a comparatively short time of her husband's death, early in the seventies, Madame de Persigny contracted a second marriage, in direct opposition to the will of her family.

Most of the men in the immediate entourage of the Emperor were intoxicated with their sudden leap into power, but of course the intoxication manifested itself in different ways. A good many considered themselves the composers of the Napoleonic Opera--for it was really such in the way it held the stage of France for eighteen years, the usual tragic finale not even being wanting. With the exception of De Persigny, they were in reality but the orchestral performers, and he, to give him his utmost due, was only the orchestrator of the score and part author of the libretto. The original themes had been composed by the exile of St. Helena, and were so powerfully attractive to, and so constantly haunting, the ears of the majority of Frenchmen as to have required no outward aid to remembrance for thirty-five years, though I do not forget either Thiers' works, Victor Hugo's poetry, Louis-Philippe's generous transfer of the great captain's remains to France, nor Louis-Napoleon's own attempts at Strasburg and Boulogne, all of which contributed to that effect. Nevertheless, all the artisans of the Coup d'etat considered themselves nearly as great geniuses as the intellectual and military giant who conceived and executed the 19th Brumaire, and pretended to impose their policy upon Europe by imposing their will upon the Emperor, though not one could hold a candle to him in statecraft. Napoleon with a Moltke by his side would have been a match for Bismarck, and the left bank of the Rhine _might_ have been French; Alsace-Lorraine would certainly not have been German. It is not my purpose, however, to enter upon politics. I repeat, De Persigny, De Morny, and to a certain extent Walewski, endeavoured to exalt themselves into political Napoleons at all times and seasons; De Saint-Arnaud felt convinced that the strategical mantle of the great warrior had fallen upon him; De Maupas fancied himself another Fouche. The only one who was really free from pretensions of either kind was Colonel (afterwards General) Fleury. He was the only modest man among the lot.

The greatest offender in that way was, no doubt, De Persigny. During his journey to Rome in 1866 he did not hesitate to tender his political advice to such past masters in diplomacy as Pius IX. and Cardinal Antonelli. Both pretended to profit by the lesson, but Mgr. de Merode,[52] who was not quite so patient, had many an animated discussion with him, in which De Persigny frequently got the worst. One evening the latter thought fit to twit him with his pugnaciousness. "I suppose, monsignor," he said, "it's the ancient leaven of the trooper getting the upper hand now and then." "True," replied the prelate; "I was a captain in the foreign legion, and fought in Africa, where I got my cross of the Legion of Honour. But you, monsieur le duc, I fancy I have heard that you were more or less of a sergeant-quartermaster in a cavalry regiment."

[Footnote 52: Frederic Xavier de Merode was the descendant of an ancient Flemish family, and became an influential member of the Prelatura. He took an active share in the organization of the Papal troops which fought at Mentana. There is a romantic but absolutely true story connected with his military career.

He was from his very youth intended for the priesthood, but one day, when he was but nineteen, he had a quarrel with a fellow-student, who gave him a box on the ears. M. de Merode was too conscientious a Catholic to fight a duel, and still his pride forbade him to remain under the imputation of being a coward. So he enlisted first in a Belgian, subsequently in a foreign regiment, and proved his courage. He was very hot-tempered, and had frequent disagreements with Generals Lamoriciere and De Guyon, and even with Pius IX. himself, who, on the occasion of the promulgation of the decree of infallibility, positively forbade him to enter the Vatican again. But he soon afterwards made his peace with the Pontiff.

His worst enemies--and he had many--never questioned his sincerity and loyalty.--EDITOR.]

Mgr. de Merode could have done De Persigny no greater injury than to remind him of his humble origin. He always winced under such allusions; his constant preoccupation was to make people forget it, and he often exposed himself to ridicule in the attempt. He knew nothing about art, and yet he would speak about it, not as if he had studied the subject, but as if he had been brought up in a refined society, where the atmosphere had been impregnated with it. As a matter of course, he became an easy victim to the picture-dealers and bric-a-brac merchants.

I remember his silver being taken to the mint during the Siege. He had paid an enormous price for it on the dealer's representation that it was antique: "C'est du Louis XV. tout pur." "Tellement pur que c'est du Victoria," said a connoisseur; and he was not mistaken, for it had been manufactured by a firm of London silversmiths. But it was a compliment for all that to the Queen.

With all his faults, De Persigny was at heart a better man than De Morny, who affected to look down upon him. True, the latter had none of his glaring defects, neither had he any of his sterling virtues. One evening, in January, 1849, when the Prince-President had been less than a month at the elysee, a closed carriage drove into the courtyard and stopped before the flight of steps leading to the hall, which, like the rest of the building, was already wrapt in semi-darkness. A gentleman alighted who was evidently expected, for the officer on duty conducted him almost without a word to the private apartments of the President, where the latter was walking up and down, the usual cigarette between his lips, evidently greatly preoccupied and visibly impatient. The door had scarcely opened when the Prince's face, generally so difficult to read, lighted up as if by magic. Before the officer had time to announce the visitor, the prince stepped forward, held out his hand, and with the other clasped the new-comer to his breast. The officer knew the visitor.

It was the Comte Auguste de Morny. As a matter of course he retired, and saw and heard no more. I had the above account from his own lips, and he felt certain that this was the first time the brothers had ever met.

The Comte de Morny was close upon forty then, and for at least half of that time had been emanc.i.p.ated from all restraint; he was a well-known figure in the society of Louis-Philippe's reign; he had been a deputy for one of the const.i.tuencies in Auvergne; at the period of his first meeting with Louis-Napoleon he was at the head of an important industrial establishment down that way, and one fain asks one's self why he had waited until then to shake his brother's hand. The answer is not difficult. There is an oft-repeated story about De Morny having been at the Opera-Comique during the evening of the 1st of December, 1851.

Rumours of the Coup d'etat were rife, and a lady said, "Il parait qu'on va donner un fameux coup de balai. De quel cote serez vous, M. de Morny?" "Soyez sure, madame, que je serai du cote du manche." Morny always averred that he had said nothing of the kind. "They invented it afterwards, perhaps because they credited me with the instinctive faculty of being on the winning side, the side of the handle, in any and every emergency."

I think one may safely accept that version, and that is why he refrained from claiming his brother's friends.h.i.+p and acquaintance until he felt almost certain that the latter was fingering the handle of the broom that was to make a clean sweep of the Second Republic. It is difficult to determine how much or how little he contributed to the success of that sweep, but I have an idea that it was very little. One thing is very certain, for I have it on very good--I may say, the best--authority. He did not contribute any money to the undertaking; he endeavoured to raise funds from others, but he himself did not loosen his purse-strings; when, curiously enough, he was the only one among the immediate entourage of Louis-Napoleon whose purse-strings were worth loosening.

Allowing for the difference of s.e.x, better breeding and better education, De Morny often reminded one of Rachel. They possessed the same powers of fascination, and were, I am afraid, equally selfish at heart. To read the biographies of both--I do not mean those that pretend to be historical--one would think that there had never been a grande dame on the stage of the Comedie-Francaise before Rachel or contemporary with her, though Augustine Brohan was decidedly more grande dame than Rachel in every respect. It is the same with regard to De Morny. To the chroniqueur during the Second Empire he was the only grand seigneur--the rest were only seigneurs; but I am inclined to think that the chroniqueur of those days had seen very few real grand seigneurs. To use a popular locution, "they did not go thirteen to the dozen" at the court of Napoleon III.; and among the people with whom De Morny came habitually in contact, in the course of his financial and industrial schemes, a grand seigneur was even a greater rarity than at the Tuileries. If a kind of quiet impertinence to some of one's fellow-creatures, and a tacitly expressed contempt for nearly the whole of the rest, const.i.tute the grand seigneur, then certainly De Morny could have claimed the t.i.tle. I have elsewhere noted the meeting of Taglioni with her husband at De Morny's dinner-party. If it had been arranged by the host with the view of effecting a reconciliation between the couple, then nothing could have been more praiseworthy; but I am not at all sure of it. If it were not, then it became an unpardonable joke at the woman's expense, and in the worst taste; but the chroniqueur of those days would have applauded it all the same.

Here are two stories which, at different times, were told by De Morny's familiars and sycophants in order to stamp him the grand seigneur. Late in the fifties he was an a.s.siduous frequenter of the salons of a banker, whose sisters-in-law happened to be very handsome. One evening, while talking to one of them, they came to ask him to take a hand at lansquenet. He had evidently no intention of leaving the society of the lady for that of the gaming-table, and said so. Of course, his host was in the wrong in pressing the thing, nevertheless one has yet to learn that "two wrongs make one right."

"What will you play?" they asked, when they had as good as badgered him away from his companion.

"The simple rouge and the noir. That's the quickest."

"How much for?"

"Ten thousand francs."

The stake seemed somewhat high, and no one cared to take it up. But the host himself felt bound to set the example, and the sum was made up. De Morny lost, and was about to rise from the table, when they said--

"Have your revenge."

"Very well; ten thousand on the black."

He lost again. Most grand seigneurs would have got up without saying anything. Twenty thousand francs was, after all, not an important sum to him, and I feel, moreover, certain that it was not the loss of the money that vexed him. But he felt bound to emphasize his indifference.

"There, that will do. I trust I shall be left in peace now."

My informant considered this exceedingly _talon rouge_; I did not.

A story of a similar kind, when he was a simple deputy. A bigwig, with an inordinate ambition to become a minister, invited him to dinner. He had been told that his host was in the habit of drinking a rare Bordeaux which was only offered to one or two guests, quietly pointed out by the former to the servant. At the question of the latter whether he (M. de Morny) would take Brane-Mouton or Ermitage, he pointed to the famous bottle that had been hidden away. The servant, as badly trained as the master, looked embarra.s.sed, but at last filled De Morny's gla.s.s with the precious nectar. De Morny simply poured it into a tumbler and diluted it with water.

Ridiculous as it may seem, De Morny often spoke and acted as if he had royal blood in his veins, and in that respect scarcely considered himself inferior to Colonna Walewski, of whose origin there could be no doubt. A glance at the man's face was sufficient. Both frequently spoke and acted as if Louis-Napoleon occupied the Imperial throne by their good will, and that, therefore, he was, in a measure, bound to dance to their fiddling. Outwardly these two were fast friends, up to a certain period; I fancy that their common hatred of De Persigny was the strongest link of that bond. In reality they were as jealous of one another and of their influence over the Emperor as they were of De Persigny and his. The latter, who was well aware of all this, frankly averred that he preferred Walewski's undisguised and outspoken hostility to De Morny's very questionable cordiality. "The one would take my head like Judith took Holofernes', the other would shave it like Delilah shaved Samson's, provided I trusted myself to either, which I am not likely to do."

It was De Persigny who told me the substance of the following story, and I believe every word of it, because, first, I never caught De Persigny telling a deliberate falsehood; secondly, because I heard it confirmed many years afterwards in substance by two persons who were more or less directly concerned in it.

In the latter end of 1863 one of the sons of Baron James de Rothschild died; I believe it was the youngest of the four, but I am not certain.

The old baron, who was generosity itself when it came to endowing charitable inst.i.tutions, was absolutely opposed to any waste of money.

Amidst the terrible grief at his loss, he was still the careful administrator, and sent to M. emile Perrin, the then director of the Grand Opera, and subsequently the director of the Comedie-Francaise, asking him to dispose of his box on the grand tier, under the express condition that it should revert to him after a twelvemonth. It was the very thing M. Perrin was not empowered to do. Though nominally the director, he was virtually the manager under Comte Bacciochi, the superintendent of the Imperial theatres; that is, the theatres which received a subsidy from the Emperor's civil list. The subscriber who wished to relinquish his box or seat, for however short a time--of course without continuing to pay for it--forfeited all subsequent claim to it. In this instance, though, apart from the position of Baron James, the cause which prompted the application warranted an exception being made; still M. Perrin did not wish to act upon his own responsibility, and referred the matter to Comte Bacciochi, telling him at the same time that Comte Walewski would be glad to take the box during the interim.

The latter had but recently resigned the Ministry of State by reason of an unexpected difficulty in the "Roman Question;"[53] the ministerial box went, as a matter of course, with the appointment, and Comte Walewski regretted the loss of the former, which was one of the best in the house, more than the loss of the latter, and had asked his protege--M. Perrin owed his position at the Opera to him--to get him as good a one as soon as possible.

[Footnote 53: If Comte Walewski ruled Napoleon III., the second Comtesse Walewska, who was an Italian by birth and very handsome, absolutely ruled her husband. The first Comtesse Walewska was Lord Sandwich's daughter.--EDITOR.]

It so happened that Comte Bacciochi had a grudge against Walewski for having questioned certain of his prerogatives connected with the superintendence of the Opera. The moment he heard of Walewski's wish, he replied, "M. de Morny applied to me several months since for a better box, and I see no reason why Comte Walewski should have it over his head."