The Memoirs of Victor Hugo Part 17

When they reached the gendarmerie barracks one of the soldiers entered, and the man stayed at the door guarded by the other soldier.

A carriage was standing at the door of the barracks. It was decorated with a coat of arms; on the lanterns was a ducal coronet; two grey horses were harnessed to it; behind it were two lackeys. The windows were raised, but the interior, upholstered in yellow damask, was visible. The gaze of the man fixed upon this carriage, attracted mine.

In the carriage was a woman in a pink bonnet and costume of black velvet, fresh, white, beautiful, dazzling, who was laughing and playing with a charming child of sixteen months, buried in ribbons, lace and furs.

This woman did not see the terrible man who was gazing at her.

I became pensive.

This man was no longer a man for me; he was the spectre of misery, the brusque, deformed, lugubrious apparition in full daylight, in full sunlight, of a revolution that is still plunged in darkness, but which is approaching. In former times the poor jostled the rich, this spectre encountered the rich man in all his glory; but they did not look at each other, they pa.s.sed on. This condition of things could thus last for some time. The moment this man perceives that this woman exists, while this woman does not see that this man is there, the catastrophe is inevitable.

GENERAL FABVIER

Fabvier had fought valiantly in the wars of the Empire; he fell out with the Restoration over the obscure affair of Gren.o.ble. He expatriated himself about 1816. It was the period of the departure of the eagles.

Lallemand went to America, Allard and Vannova to India, Fabvier to Greece.

The revolution of 1820 broke out. He took an heroic part in it. He raised a corps of four thousand palikars, to whom he was not a chief, but a G.o.d. He gave them civilization and taught them barbarity. He was rough and brave above all of them, and almost ferocious, but with that grand, Homeric ferocity. One might have thought that he had come from a tent of the camp of Achilles rather than from the camp of Napoleon. He invited the English Amba.s.sador to dinner at his bivouac; the Amba.s.sador found him seated by a big fire at which a whole sheep was roasting; when the animal was cooked and unskewered, Fabvier placed the heel of his bare foot upon the neck of the smoking and bleeding sheep and tore off a quarter, which he offered to the Amba.s.sador. In bad times nothing daunted him. He was indifferent alike to cold, heat, fatigue and hunger; he never spared himself. The palikars used to say: "When the soldier eats cooked gra.s.s Fabvier eats it green."

I knew his history, but I had not seen him when, in 1846, General Fabvier was made a peer of France. One day he had a speech to make, and the Chancellor announced: "Baron Fabvier has the tribune." I expected to hear a lion, I thought an old woman was speaking.

Yet his face was a truly masculine one, heroic and formidable, that one might have fancied had been moulded by the hand of a giant and which seemed to have preserved a savage and terrible grimace. What was so strange was the gentle, slow, grave, contained, caressing voice that was allied to this magnificent ferocity. A child's voice issued from this tiger's mouth.

General Fabvier delivered from the tribune speeches learned by heart, graceful, flowery, full of allusions to the woods and country--veritable idylls. In the tribune this Ajax became a Nemorin.

He spoke in low tones like a diplomat, he smiled like a courtier. He was not averse to making himself agreeable to princes. This is what the peerage had done for him. He was only a hero after all.

August 22, 1846.

The Marquis de Boissy has a.s.surance, coolness, self-possession, a voice that is peculiar to himself, facility of speech, wit occasionally, the quality of imperturbability, all the accessories of a great orator. The only thing he lacks is talent. He wearies the Chamber, wherefore the Ministers do not consider themselves bound to answer him. He talks as long as everybody keeps quiet. He fences with the Chancellor as with his particular enemy.

Yesterday, after the session which Boissy had entirely occupied with a very poor speech, M. Guizot said to me:

"It is an affliction. The Chamber of Deputies would not stand him for ten minutes after the first two times. The Chamber of Peers extends its high politeness to him, and it does wrong. Boissy will not be suppressed until the day the whole Chamber rises and walks out when he asks permission to speak."

"You cannot think of such a thing," said I. "Only he and the Chancellor would be left. It would be a duel without seconds."

It is the custom of the Chamber of Peers never to repeat in its reply to the speech from the throne the t.i.tles that the King gives to his children. It is also the custom never to give the princes the t.i.tle of Royal Highness when speaking of them to the King. There is no Highness in presence of his Majesty.

To-day, January 18, the address in reply to the speech from the throne was debated. Occasionally there are flashes of keen and happy wit in M. de Boissy's nonsense. He remarked to-day: "I am not of those who are grateful to the government for the blessings of providence."

As usual he quarrelled with the Chancellor. He was making some more than usually roving excursion from the straight path. The Chamber murmured and cried: "Confine yourself to the question." The Chancellor rose:

"Monsieur the Marquis de Boissy," he said, "the Chamber requests that you will confine yourself to the question under discussion. It has saved me the trouble of asking you to do so." ("Our colleague might as well have said 'spared me!'" I whispered to Lebrun.)

"I am delighted on your account, Monsieur the Chancellor," replied M. de Boissy, and the Chamber laughed.

A few minutes later, however, the Chancellor took his revenge. M. de Boissy had floundered into some quibble about the rules. It was late.

The Chamber was becoming impatient.

"Had you not raised an unnecessary incident," observed the Chancellor, "you would have finished your speech a long time ago, to your own satisfaction and that of everybody else."

Whereat everybody laughed.

"Don't laugh!" exclaimed the Duke de Mortemart. "Laughter diminishes the prestige of a const.i.tuted body."

M. de Pontecoulant said: "M. de Boissy teases Monsieur the Chancellor, Monsieur the Chancellor torments M. de Boissy. There is a lack of dignity on both sides!"

During the session the Duke de Mortemart came to my bench and we spoke about the Emperor. M. de Mortemart went through all the great wars.

He speaks n.o.bly of him. He was one of the Emperor's orderlies in the Campaign of 1812.

"It was during that campaign that I learned to know the Emperor," he said. "I was near him night and day. I saw him shave himself in the morning, sponge his chin, pull on his boots, pinch his valet's ear, chat with the grenadier mounting guard over his tent, laugh, gossip, make trivial remarks, and amid all this issue orders, trace plans, interrogate prisoners, decree, determine, decide, in a sovereign manner, simply, unerringly, in a few minutes, without missing anything, without losing a useful detail or a second of necessary time. In this intimate and familiar life of the bivouac flashes of his intellect were seen every moment. You can believe me when I say that he belied the proverb: 'No man is great in the eyes of his valet.'"

"Monsieur the Duke," said I, "that proverb is wrong. Every great man is a great man in the eyes of his valet."

At this session the Duke d'Aumale, having attained his twenty-fifth birthday, took his seat for the first time. The Duke de Nemours and the Prince de Joinville were seated near him in their usual places behind the ministerial bench. They were not among those who laughed the least.

The Duke de Nemours, being the youngest member of his committee, fulfilled the functions of secretary, as is customary. M. de Montalembert wanted to spare him the trouble. "No," said the prince, "it is my duty." He took the urn and, as secretary, went the round of the table to collect the votes.

At the close of the session of January 21, 1847, at which the Chamber of Peers discussed Cracow and kept silent concerning the frontier of the Rhine, I descended the grand staircase of the Chamber in company with M.

de Chastellux. M. Decazes stopped me and asked:

"Well, what have you been doing during the session?"

"I have been writing to Mme. Dorval." (I held the letter in my hand.)

"What a fine disdain! Why did you not speak?"

"On account of the old proverb: 'He whose opinion is not shared by anybody else should think, and say nothing.'

"Did your opinion, then, differ from that of the others?"

"Yes, from that of the whole Chamber."

"What did you want then?"

"The Rhine."