The Memoirs of Victor Hugo

M. Dupont de l’Eure, in 1830, was Minister of Justice. On August 7, the very day the Duke d’Orleans took the oath as King, M. Dupont de l’Eure laid before him a law to sign. The preamble read: “Be it known and decreed to all our subjects,” etc. The clerk who was instructed to copy the law, a hot-headed young fellow, objected to the word “subjects,” and did not copy it.

The Minister of Justice arrived. The young man was employed in his office.

“Well,” said the Minister, “is the copy ready to be taken to the King for signature?”

“No, Monsieur the Minister,” replied the clerk.

Explanations. M. Dupont de l’Eure listened, then pinching the young man’s ear said, half smilingly, half angrily:

“Nonsense, Monsieur the Republican, you just copy it at once.”

The clerk hung his head, like a clerk that he was, and copied it.

M. Dupont, however, laughingly told the King about it. The King did not laugh. Everything appeared to be a serious matter at that time. M. Dupin senior, Minister without a portfolio, had entered the council chamber. He avoided the use of the word and got round the obstacle. He proposed this wording, which was agreed to and has always been used since: “Be it known and decreed to all.”

1847

The State carriage of Louis Philippe was a big blue coach drawn by eight horses. The interior was of gold coloured damask. On the doors was the King’s monogram surmounted by a crown, and on the panels were royal crowns. The roof was bordered by eight little silver crowns. There was a gigantic coachman on the box and three lackeys behind. All wore silk stockings and the tri-colour livery of the d’Orleans.

The King would enter the carriage first and seat himself in the right hand corner. Then the Duke de Nemours would take his place beside the King. The three other princes would follow and seat themselves, M. de Joinville opposite the King, M. de Montpensier opposite M. de Nemours, and M. d’Aumale in the middle.

The day the King attended Parliament, the grand deputations from both Houses, twelve peers and twenty-five deputies chosen by lot, awaited him on the grand staircase of the Palais Bourbon. As the sessions were nearly always held in winter, it was very cold on the stairs, a biting wind made all these old men shiver, and there are old generals of the Empire who did not die as the result of having been at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at the cemetery at Eylau, at the storming of the grand redoubt at Moskowa and under the fire of the Scottish squares at Waterloo, but of having waited in the cold upon these stairs.

The peers stood to the right and the deputies to the left, leaving the middle of the stairs clear. The staircase was partitioned off with hangings of white drill with blue stripes, which was a poor protection against draughts. Where are the good and magnificent tapestries of Louis XIV. They were indeed royal; wherefore they were taken down. Drill is a common material and more pleasing to the deputies. It charms and it freezes them.

The Queen arrived first with the princesses, but without the Duchess d’Orleans, who came separately with the Count de Paris. These ladies walked quickly upstairs, bowing to right and left, without speaking, but graciously, followed by a swarm of aides-de-camp and grim turbaned old women whom M. de Joinville called “the Queen’s Turks” – Mmes. de Dolokieu, de Chanaleilles, etc.

At the royal session of 1847, the Queen gave her arm to the Duchess de Montpensier. The princess was muffled up on account of the cold. I could see only a big red nose. The three other princesses walked behind, chatting and laughing. M. Anatole de Montesquiou came next in the much worn uniform of a major-general.

The King arrived about five minutes after the Queen; he walked upstairs even more quickly than she had done, followed by the princes running like schoolboys, and bowed to the peers on the right and the deputies on the left. He tarried a moment in the throne-room and exchanged a few greetings with the members of the two deputations. Then he entered the large hall.

The speech from the throne was written on parchment, on both sides of the sheet, and usually filled four pages. The King read it in a firm, well modulated voice.

Marshal Soult was present, resplendent with decorations, sashes, and gold lace, and complaining of his rheumatism. M. Pasquier, the Chancellor, did not put in an appearance. He had excused himself on the plea of the cold and of his eighty years. He had been present the year before. It was the last time.

In 1847 I was a member of the grand deputation. While I strolled about the waiting room, conversing with M. Villemain about Cracow, the Vienna treaties and the frontier of the Rhine, I could hear the buzzing of the groups around me, and scraps of conversation reached my ears.

COUNT DE LAGRANGE. – Ah! here comes the Marshal (Soult).

BARON PEDRE LACAZE. – He is getting old.

VISCOUNT CAVAIGNAC. – Sixty-nine years!

MARQUIS DR RAIGECOURT. – Who is the dean of the Chamber of Peers at present?

DUKE DE TREVISE. – M. de Pontecoulant, is he not?

MARQUIS DE LAPLACE. – NO, President Boyer. He is ninety-two.

PRESIDENT BARTHE. – He is older than that.

BARON D’OBERLIN. – He no longer comes to the Chamber.

M. VIENNET. – They say that M. Rossi is returning from Rome.

DUKE DE FESENZAC. – Well, I pity him for quitting Rome. It is the finest and most amiable city in the world. I hope to end my days there.

COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT. – And Naples!

BARON THENARD. – I prefer Naples.

M. FULCHIRON. – Yes, Naples, that’s the place. By the by, I was there when poor Nourrit killed himself. I was staying in the house next to his.

BARON CHARLES DUPIN. – He took his life? It was not an accident?

M. FULCHIRON. – Oh! it was a case of suicide, sure enough. He had been hissed the previous day. He could not stand that. It was in an opera composed expressly for him – “Polyceucte.” He threw himself from a height of sixty feet. His voice did not please that particular public. Nourrit was too much accustomed to sing Glück and Mozart. The Neapolitans said of him: “Vecchico canto.”

BARON DUPIN. – Poor Nourrit! why did he not wait! Duprez has lost his voice. Eleven years ago Duprez demolished Nourrit; to-day Nourrit would demolish Duprez.

MARQUIS DE BOISSY. – How cold it is on this staircase.

COUNT PHILIPPE DE SEGUR. – It was even colder at the Academy the other day. That poor Dupaty is a good man, but he made a bad speech.

BARON FEUTRIER. – I am trying to warm myself. What a frightful draught! It is enough to drive one away.

BARON CHARLES DUPIN. – M. Français de Nantes had conceived this expedient to rid himself of those who came to solicit favours and abridge their solicitations: he was given to receiving people between two doors.

M. Thiers at this time had a veritable court of deputies about him. After the session he walked out in front of me. A gigantic deputy, whose back only I could see, stepped aside, saying: “Make way for historical men!” And the big man let the little man pass.

Historical? May be. In what way?

II. THE DUCHESS D’ORLEANS

Madame the Duchess d’Orleans is a rare woman, of great wit and common sense. I do not think that she is fully appreciated at the Tuileries. The King, though, holds her in high esteem and often engages in long conversations with her. Frequently he gives her his arm to escort her from the family drawing-room to her apartments. The royal daughters-in-law do not always appear to act as kindly towards her.

February 26, 1844

Yesterday the Duchess d’Orleans said to me:

“My son is not what one would call an amiable child. He is not one of those pretty little prodigies who are an honour to their mothers, and of whom people say: ‘What a clever child! What wit! What grace!’ He has a kind heart, I know; he has wit, I believe; but nobody knows and believes this save myself. He is timid, wild, uncommunicative, easily scared. What will he become? I have no idea. Often at his age a child in his position understands that he must make himself agreeable, and, little as he is, sets himself to play his role. Mine hides himself in his mother’s skirt and lowers his eyes. But I love him, just as he is. I even prefer him this way. I like a savage better than a comedian.”

August, 1844

The Count de Paris has signed the birth certificate of the Princess Françoise de Joinville. It was the first time that the little prince had signed his name. He did not know what was wanted of him, and when the King handed him the certificate and said “Paris, sign your name,” the child refused. The Duchess d’Orleans took him on her knee and whispered something to him. Then the child took the pen, and at the dictation of his grandfather wrote upon the certificate L. P. d. O. He made the O much too large and wrote the other letters awkwardly, and was very much embarrassed and shy.

He is charming, though, and adores his mother, but he hardly knows that his name is Louis Philippe d’Orleans. He writes to his comrades, to his tutor, and to his mother, but he signs his little missives “Paris.” It is the only name he knows himself by.

This evening the King sent for M. Regnier, the prince’s tutor, and gave him orders to teach the Count de Paris to sign his name.