The Memoirs of Victor Hugo

I said to the Prince: “You see, thrones disappear, arm-chairs remain.”

While we were talking a few persons came, among others M. Duclerc, the ex-Minister of Finance of the Executive Committee, an old woman in black velvet whom I did not know, and Lord Normanby, the English Ambassador, whom the President quickly took into an adjoining salon. I saw Lord Normanby taken aside in the same way by Louis Philippe.

The President in his salon had an air of timidity and did not appear at home. He came and went from group to group more like an embarrassed stranger than the master of the house. However, his remarks are a propos and sometimes witty.

He endeavoured to get my opinion anent his Ministry, but in vain. I would say nothing either good or bad about it.

Besides, the Ministry is only a mask, or, more properly speaking, a screen that hides a baboon. Thiers is behind it. This is beginning to bother Louis Bonaparte. He has to contend against eight Ministers, all of whom seek to belittle him. Each is pulling his own way. Among these Ministers some are his avowed enemies. Nominations, promotions, and lists arrive all made out from the Place Saint Georges. They have to be accepted, signed and endorsed.

Yesterday Louis Bonaparte complained about it to the Prince de la Moskowa, remarking wittily: “They want to make of me a Prince Albert of the Republic.”

Odilon Barrot appeared mournful and discouraged. To-day he left the council with a crushed air. M. de la Moskowa encountered him.

“Hello!” said he, “how goes it?”

“Pray for us!” replied Odilon Barrot.

“Whew!” said Moskowa, “this is tragical!”

“What are we to do?” went on Odilon Barrot. “How are we to rebuild this old society in which everything is collapsing? Efforts to prop it up only help to bring it down. If you touch it, it topples over. Ah! pray for us!”

And he raised his eyes skywards.

I quitted the Elysee about 10 o’clock. As I was going the President said to me: “Wait a minute.” Then he went into an adjoining room and came out again a moment later with some papers which he placed in my hand, saying: “For Madame Victor Hugo.”

They were tickets of admission to the gallery of the Garde-Meuble for the review that is to be held to-day.

And as I went home I thought a good deal. I thought about this abrupt moving in, this trial of etiquette, this bourgeois-republican-imperial mixture, this surface of a deep, unfathomed quantity that to-day is called the President of the Republic, his entourage, the whole circumstances of his position. This man who can be, and is, addressed at one and the same time and from all sides at once as: prince, highness, monsieur, monseigneur and citizen, is not one of the least curious and characteristic factors of the situation.

Everything that is happening at this moment stamps its mark upon this personage who sticks at nothing to attain his ends.

IV. THE FIRST MONTH. January. 1849

The first month of Louis Bonaparte’s presidency is drawing to a close. This is how we stand at present:

Old-time Bonapartists are cropping up. MM. Jules Favre, Billault and Carteret are paying court – politically Speaking – to the Princess Mathilde Demidoff. The Duchess d’Orleans is residing with her two children in a little house at Ems, where she lives modestly yet royally. All the ideas of February are brought up one after the other; 1849, disappointed, is turning its back on 1848. The generals want amnesty, the wise want disarmament. The Constituent Assembly’s term is expiring and the Assembly is in savage mood in consequence. M. Guizot is publishing his book On Democracy in France. Louis Philippe is in London, Pius IX. is at Gaete, M. Barrot is in power; the bourgeoisie has lost Paris, Catholicism has lost Rome. The sky is rainy and gloomy, with a ray of sunshine now and then. Mlle. Ozy shows herself quite naked in the role of Eve at the Porte Saint Martin; Fréderick Lemaitre is playing “L’Auberge des Adrets” there. Five per cents are at 74, potatoes cost 8 cents the bushel, at the market a pike can be bought for 20 sous. M. Ledru-Rollin is trying to force the country into war, M. Prudhon is trying to force it into bankruptcy. General Cavaignac takes part in the sessions of the Assembly in a grey waist-coat, and passes his time gazing at the women in the galleries through big ivory opera-glasses. M. de Lamartine gets 25,000 francs for his “Toussaint L’Ouverture.” Louis Bonaparte gives grand dinners to M. Thiers, who had him captured, and to M. Mole, who had him condemned. Vienna, Milan, and Berlin are becoming calmer. Revolutionary fires are paling and seem to be dying out everywhere on the surface, but the peoples are still deeply stirred. The King of Prussia is getting ready to seize his sceptre again and the Emperor of Russia to draw his sword. There has been an earthquake at Havre, the cholera is at Fécamp; Arnal is leaving the Gymnase, and the Academy is nominating the Duke de Noailles as Chateaubriand’s successor.

V. FEELING HIS WAY. January, 1849

At Odilon Barrot’s ball on January 28 M. Thiers went up to M. Leon Faucher and said: “Make So-and-So a prefect.” M. Leon Faucher made a grimace, which is an easy thing for him to do, and said: “Monsieur Thiers, there are objections.” “That’s funny!” retorted Thiers, “it is precisely the answer the President of the Republic gave to me the day I said: ‘Make M. Faucher a Minister!’”

At this ball it was remarked that Louis Bonaparte sought Berryer’s company, attached himself to him and led him into quiet corners. The Prince looked as though he were following Berryer, and Berryer as though he were trying to avoid the Prince.

At 11 o’clock the President said to Berryer: “Come with me to the Opera.”

Berryer excused himself. “Prince,” said he, “it would give rise to gossip. People would believe I am engaged in a love affair!”

“Pish!” replied Louis Bonaparte laughingly, “Representatives are inviolable!”

The Prince went away alone, and the following quatrain was circulated:

En vain l’empire met du fard,
On baisse ses yeux et sa robe.
Et Berryer-Joseph so derobe
A Napoléon-Putiphar.

February, 1849

Although he is animated with the best intentions in the world and has a very visible quantity of intelligence and aptitude, I fear that Louis Bonaparte will find his task too much for him. To him, France, the century, the new spirit, the instincts peculiar to the soil and the period are so many closed books. He looks without understanding them at minds that are working, Paris, events, men, things and ideas. He belongs to that class of ignorant persons who are called princes and to that category of foreigners who are called êmigrês. To those who examine him closely he has the air of a patient rather than of a governing man.

There is nothing of the Bonapartes about him, either in his face or manner. He probably is not a Bonaparte. The free and easy ways of Queen Hortense are remembered. “He is a memento of Holland!” said Alexis de Saint Priest to me yesterday. Louis Bonaparte certainly possesses the cold manner of the Dutch.

Louis Bonaparte knows so little about Paris that the first time I saw him he said to me:

“I have been hunting for you. I went to your former residence. What is this Place des Vosges?”

“It is the Place Royale,” I said.

“Ah!” he continued, “is it an old place?”

He wanted to see Beranger. He went to Passy twice without being able to find him at home. His cousin Napoleon timed his visit more happily and found Béranger by his fireside. He asked him:

“What do you advise my cousin to do?”

“To observe the Constitution.”

“And what ought he to avoid?”

“Violating the Constitution.”

Béranger could not be induced to say anything else.

Yesterday, December 5, 1850, I was at the Français. Rachel played “Adrienne Lecouvreur.” Jerome Bonaparte occupied a box next to mine. During an entr’acte I paid him a visit. We chatted. He said to me:

“Louis is mad. He is suspicious of his friends and delivers himself into the hands of his enemies. He is suspicious of his family and allows himself to be bound hand and foot by the old Royalist parties. On my return to France I was better received by Louis Philippe at the Tuileries than I am at the Elysee by my nephew. I said to him the other day before one of his ministers (Fould): ‘Just remember a little! When you were a candidate for the presidency, Monsieur here (I pointed to Fould) called upon me in the Rue d’Alger, where I lived, and begged me in the name of MM. Thiers, Mole, Duvergier de Hauranne, Berryer, and Bugeaud to enter the lists for the presidency. He told me that never would you get the “Constitutionnel;” that in Mole’s opinion you were an idiot, and that Thiers looked upon you as a blockhead; that I alone could rally everybody to me and win against Cavaignac. I refused. I told them that you represented youth and the future, that you had a quarter of a century before you, whereas I could hardly count upon eight or ten years; that I was an invalid and wanted to be let alone. That is what these people were doing and that is what I did. And you forget all this! And you make these gentlemen the masters! And you show the door to your cousin, my son, who defended you in the Assembly and devoted himself to furthering your candidacy! And you are strangling universal suffrage, which made you what you are! I’ faith I shall say like Mole that you are an idiot, and like Thiers that you are a blockhead!’”

The King of Westphalia paused for a moment, then continued:

“And do you know, Monsieur Victor Hugo, what he replied to me? ‘You will see!’ No one knows what is at the bottom of that man!”

THE SIEGE OF PARIS. EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-BOOKS

BRUSSELS, September 1. – Charles[15 - Victor Hugo’s son.] leaves this morning with MM. Claretie, Proust, and Frédérix for Virton. Fighting is going on near there, at Carignan. They will see what they can of the battle. They will return tomorrow.

September 2. – Charles and his friends did not return to-day.

September 3. – Yesterday, after the decisive battle had been lost, Louis Napoleon, who was taken prisoner at Sedan, surrendered his sword to the King of Prussia. Just a month ago, on August 2, at Sarrebrück, he was playing at war.

To save France now would be to save Europe.