Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

After the failure at Strasburg Prince Louis Napoleon went for a time to Switzerland, whence he made his way to England, where, as princes usually are, he was well received. A friend of Count d’Orsay, he was a frequent visitor at Lady Blessington’s. What was more important, he maintained friendly relations with Lord Palmerston, who, according to some good authorities, looked from the first with favour upon Prince Napoleon’s project of gaining supreme power in France. Louis Blanc, in his “History of Ten Years” (from 1830 to 1840), declares that before starting on his expedition to Boulogne, the prince received a secret visit from Lord Palmerston; and in the Russian “Diplomatic Study on the Crimean War” it is set forth that during Prince Louis Napoleon’s stay in London, Lord Palmerston laid with him the basis of the understanding by which some dozen years afterwards France and England formed a compact against Russia. The tardy speculations of these prophets of the past must be taken for what they are worth. Prince Louis Napoleon formed, in any case, a plan for invading France, and, followed by the troops who at every step were to join him, marching towards Paris, there to be received with acclamations by an enthusiastic population, eager for the restoration of the Napoleonic dynasty and the Napoleonic mode of government. For Prince Napoleon appealed to democrats as well as imperialists. He was to give with the one hand universal suffrage and with the other military government.

No one makes an invasion without reconnoitring beforehand the country to be invaded; and Prince Louis Napoleon’s emissaries had already ascertained that at Boulogne, at Calais, at Saint-Omer, and at the great military centre of Lille, there were officers ready to cast in their lot with his. According to Louis Blanc, Prince Louis Napoleon’s intention was, after securing the adhesion of the Boulogne garrison, to march upon Calais, whence he was to make his way to Saint-Omer. But the better-informed Count Orsi, who took part in the expedition, and was one of the prince’s most trusted friends, tells us, in a valuable little volume devoted to the subject, that the plan of campaign was to march from Boulogne straight to Saint-Omer. The point to be reached after Saint-Omer was in any case Lille; and if the garrison of Lille had once been secured, the prince’s enterprise would have been far, indeed, from hopeless.

To return once more to Louis Blanc – that brilliant, sensational, but by no means accurate historian. Prince Louis Napoleon was, according to his account, encouraged in his hazardous project by Lord Palmerston; not because that statesman believed in its success, but because he knew that it must inconvenience and possibly injure Louis Philippe, whose policy he detested. Louis Blanc also holds, in connection with the Boulogne expedition, that the French embassy in London was kept well informed as to the progress of the enterprise, but did not interfere because, anticipating with confidence a complete failure, it looked upon this fiasco as destined to have a strengthening effect on the existing Government, certain at once to suppress it. However all this may have been, Louis Napoleon’s friends engaged for him, in the month of July, 1840, a steamer named the Edinburgh Castle. On the 4th of August the arms, ammunition, and baggage were taken on board at Gravesend, where the vessel remained for some little time. Here it was that the famous eagle, which has become the subject of a ridiculous legend, was brought on board. An officer of the party who had gone on shore happened to meet with a youth who was offering an eagle for sale. Struck by the appropriateness of the bird, he determined, more in a jocular than in a superstitious spirit, to purchase it and place the expedition under its auspices. It was afterwards pretended that the eagle had been trained in London to fly round the head of Prince Louis Napoleon; this gyration, according to Louis Blanc, being caused by the bird’s knowledge that a piece of bacon was secreted beneath the rim of his master’s hat.

Louis Blanc, in his “Histoire de Dix Ans,” gives a long account of the Boulogne expedition, which is in the main correct. Several inaccuracies, however, have crept into his narrative, so often one-sided; and the only authentic account of this invasion on a small scale that has been written by a participator in the events is the one published for the first time some dozen years ago by Count Orsi. In asking the count to join him in the expedition, Prince Napoleon declared that if he ever succeeded in placing himself on the throne of France, which, sooner or later, he was convinced he should do, one of his first cares would be to free Italy from the domination of Austria, and unite the different Italian states into one independent kingdom. Apart, however, from this assurance. Count Orsi was quite prepared to throw in his lot with that of the Prince. He it was who secured the Edinburgh Castle for the expedition, and who, before the day of starting, obtained for the prince a loan of twenty thousand pounds. The steamer left London with about sixty of Napoleon’s adherents on board, and anxious inquiries were made as to its destination before it had got farther than Gravesend.

“I want to know,” said the custom-house officer who came alongside in a boat, “what you are doing here in the middle of the river.”

“We are waiting for a party of friends, who should have arrived by this time.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Hamburg.”

“Have you goods on board?”

“None; the steamer is chartered for a pleasure-trip.”

“How many people have you on board?”

“I have several private gentlemen, and I expect two more from London. I have three more to take up at Ramsgate.”

Here it is that the incident of the tame eagle comes in. Colonel Parquin had gone on shore to buy some cigars, when, on his way back from the tobacconist’s, he saw a boy seated on a log of wood feeding an eagle with shreds of meat. The eagle had a chain fastened to one of its claws, with which it was secured. The colonel asked whether the bird was for sale, and it was ultimately purchased for a pound. Conveyed on board, the eagle was fastened to the mainmast, and from that moment was never taken notice of until it was discovered and seized by the authorities at Boulogne. The eagle was for many years afterwards on view at the Boulogne slaughter-house, where there were abundant opportunities of supplying it with raw meat. The unhappy bird was destined, however, from first to last, to be made the subject of fables. Even Count Orsi’s account of its adventures at Boulogne is in some particulars incorrect. He had been informed that after the capture of Prince Napoleon and his followers the eagle was taken to the museum, whence, he says, it fled away next morning, owing to some carelessness on the part of the men who had it in charge. It was, as a matter of fact, however, taken to the abattoir, where the present writer remembers seeing it some half-dozen years after Prince Napoleon’s landing.

After vainly waiting at Gravesend for some hours after the time at which the prince was due, Count Orsi took a post-chaise and hastened to Ramsgate, where General Montholon, Colonel Voisin, and Colonel Laborde had been sent on by the prince in anticipation of his arrival. Colonel Voisin was the only one of the three who understood the real purport of the expedition. The count reached Ramsgate late on the night of the 4th of August, and put up at the hotel where the prince’s friends were staying. With Colonel Voisin, after General Montholon and Colonel Laborde had gone to bed, Orsi had a secret conference. Voisin was in the greatest state of concern at the delay in the prince’s arrival, because the whole success of the expedition depended on his reaching Boulogne early next morning. “Colonel Voisin,” we are assured, “was in utter despair at the non-appearance of the steamer, and almost out of his mind.” He declared to Orsi that the expedition would be a disastrous failure unless the Edinburgh Castle were at Boulogne by four o’clock the next morning. The only man, he said, whom the prince had to dread was Lieutenant-Colonel Puygellier, commanding the battalion at Boulogne – a man unflinching in the discharge of his duty and a staunch Republican, whom nothing could tempt to join an Imperial pretender. Orsi replied to the distracted Voisin that the hour of the ship’s arrival at Boulogne could not make much difference, since the hostility of Puygellier must at one time or another be faced. “You are mistaken,” said the colonel. “Puygellier will not be at Boulogne all day to-morrow. The prince has purposely fixed the 5th for presenting himself before the battalion, because he knows that Puygellier has been invited to a shooting-party at some distance from Boulogne, and in all probability not be back until late at night. If we miss being there to-morrow we are doomed to perish.”

It was one o’clock in the morning. Colonel Voisin, in a state of feverish agitation, threw the window open to get a breath of the sea-breeze, and walked up and down the room. The night was bright and calm. Leaning against the window-sill, Orsi perceived to the left, at some distance, a black column of smoke slowly elongating itself along the surface of the water, and fancied he heard the regular beat of paddle-wheels. For some little time he did not mention the circumstance to the colonel, lest he should be disappointed and the steamer should prove to be merely one of the many boats trading with Calais, Hamburg, and various Continental seaports. Ere long, however, the steamer reached the shore, and presently there was a hurried ring at the bell of the hotel. Thélin, one of the prince’s party, announced that Napoleon had arrived. Orsi was ordered to go on board at once with Voisin, Montholon, and Laborde. Thélin, hurrying to the room of the two last-named, made them get out of bed, dress, and follow him downstairs. As they were going out General Montholon drew Orsi aside and whispered: “I now understand; the prince has planned a coup-de-tête.” In a few minutes the party were on board the Edinburgh Castle. Not a soul was on deck. The prince had assembled his followers in the cabin, and was on the point of addressing them when Orsi and his friends joined the company. The address of the prince roused everyone to the highest pitch of enthusiasm – though the expression of this enthusiasm was restrained by Napoleon himself, who feared that the attention of the captain and crew might be attracted by the noise.

On the conclusion of the address the cabin was, at the prince’s request, cleared of everyone but General Montholon, the colonels Voisin, Montauban, Laborde, Count Persigny, Forestier, Ornano, Viscount de Querelles, Galvani, D’Hunin, Faure, and Orsi himself, who were summoned by their leader to deliberate in council as to the programme now to be followed.

The four hundred men of the 42nd line regiment, forming the garrison of Boulogne, were ready to proclaim the prince, and all preparations had been made in the town for a popular rising to succeed the military demonstration. But, inasmuch as it was now too late to reach Boulogne on the appointed day, the expedition was one of grave hazard and difficulty. There was no use in landing at or near Boulogne until the 6th, as nothing could be attempted in broad daylight.

The prince requested each member of his improvised council to give his opinion as to what course should be pursued in the emergency. Out of twelve three of his advisers begged him to go back to London. The rest were for landing at Boulogne, and making a dash towards the barracks in order to secure the adhesion of the garrison at all hazards.

The prince asked Count Orsi what would occur if they went back to London. “It is difficult to say,” was the reply; “though if the British Government took a bad view of the matter we should most likely be arrested and tried for misdemeanour.” What, moreover, was to be done with the arms, the uniforms, the printed proclamations and other revolutionary documents, which the Custom-house officers would find when the steamer got back to London Bridge? “We steer between two great dangers,” said Orsi to the prince. “By returning to London we become the laughing-stock of everybody; and ridicule kills. If we cross the Channel we run the risk of being shot or imprisoned for a longer or shorter period. Of the two I prefer the latter. As regards yourself, nothing would be more disastrous to your future prospects than being shown up to the public as a man who, at the eleventh hour, had been acted upon by considerations of a purely personal character. Let us save, at least, our honour, if we are doomed to lose everything else.”

Napoleon, who had been showing his approval of these words by constantly nodding at the count as he spoke, now rose and said: “Gentlemen, a show of hands from those who wish to be left behind and to return to London.” There was a dead silence, and then the prince, eyeing each of his auditors in succession as though he would read their inmost souls, exclaimed: “Gentlemen, a show of hands from those who are ready to follow me and share my fate.”

These words produced an indescribable outburst of enthusiasm, mingled with expressions of the most touching devotion. All sprang from their seats. For a few moments the prince was too much overpowered with emotion to vent his gratitude in words. Then he said: “Friends, I thank you for the alacrity and high spirit with which you have responded to my call. I never doubted your willingness to aid me in my projects, but the devotion you have just displayed has lent a new vigour to my mind and has bound my heart to you with a sense of deep, of eternal gratitude. Let us bear together the consequences of this enterprise, whatever they may be, with the calmness befitting men who act on conviction. Our cause is that of the country at large. Sooner or later success will be ours. I feel it. I have faith in my destiny. I look forward to the future as confidently as I expect the sun to rise this morning to dispel the darkness. We shall have obstacles to grapple with and obloquy to face; but the hour will come, and we shall not have long to wait for it.”

It was now nearly three o’clock on the morning of the 5th. The moment had arrived for a prompt decision as to the wisest method of proceeding. It was arranged that Forestier, the cousin of Count Persigny, should go at once to Boulogne, for the purpose of informing Lieutenant Aladenize of what had happened, and to prepare everything, as far as possible, for the following day. A boat, manned by two men, was with difficulty hired: Forestier stepped into it, and, crossing the Channel, reached Boulogne at eleven that same morning.

The next question was whether the prince’s party should remain at Ramsgate till night or tack about at sea until the hour arrived for the descent on Boulogne. The latter course was decided on, as the French police had already been dogging the prince’s steps very closely in London, and there was every chance of the vessel anchored off Ramsgate being inconveniently watched.

At 5.0 a.m. Count Orsi ordered the captain to put to sea, and the Edinburgh Castle was thenceforward kept well away from the land and from observation. Throughout the 5th of August she was steered hither and thither, simply to pass the time unperceived. Towards three o’clock on the morning of the 6th arms and uniforms were distributed to the prince’s adherents. Then the lights were extinguished. No light, even at the mast, was allowed, and absolute silence was maintained. It was three o’clock when the vessel stood off Wimereux, a little village near Boulogne. The landing began at once, but as there was only one boat on board the process was slow. The first boatful consisted of Viscount de Querelles and eight men. As they approached the shore a couple of coast-guardsmen shouted to them, “Qui vive?” Querelles replied: “A detachment of the 42nd from Dunkirk to join the battalion at Boulogne. Through an accident to the engine the steamer cannot get further.” As the invaders were clothed and armed exactly like the French garrison, the coast-guardsmen at once believed them. Next time the boat brought Colonel Voisin and nine men on shore. Then the Prince, General Montholon, Count Persigny, and a few others landed. At five o’clock the whole party were within fifty yards of the barracks. At the sight of this armed force the sentinel shouted, “Who goes there?” and “To arms!” One of the prince’s men, who had been in the army, was sent ahead with the watchword – which he well knew. On his pronouncing it, the gate of the barracks was thrown open, and the prince, followed by his supporters, entered the yard.

The soldiers composing the garrison were just getting out of bed. Those few who were already downstairs soon learnt who the visitors were, and rushed up to tell their comrades that the prince, whose name was so familiar to them, waited at their threshold. The soldiers were seized with enthusiasm. Some of them, looking out of the windows, cried “Vive le Prince!” Others hurried downstairs in their shirt-sleeves. Within half an hour every soldier was under arms and formed in battalion. The prince’s men stood facing it. Between the companies Napoleon and his friends took up their position.

The address which the prince now delivered to the garrison had an electrical effect, and the men were wild with enthusiasm; but just as the whole battalion, under the Pretender’s orders, were about to quit the barracks in order to excite the inhabitants to rally round the Imperial standard, a first check was experienced. A garrison officer, not in the secret of the conspiracy, had rushed to Lieutenant-Colonel Puygellier’s house to inform him of what was happening at the barracks. Instantly the officer put on his uniform, and, rushing to the spot, forced his way past one of the prince’s sentinels, and dashing through the crowd at the barrack-gates, got within sight of his battalion, and waved his sword to them. Seeing the danger their chief was in – one of the Imperial party had injudiciously pointed a revolver at his head – the soldiers who, a few minutes before, had shouted “Vive le Prince!” now cried, “Vive notre Colonel!”

The tide of feeling, however, quickly turned again in favour of the prince, and Colonel Puygellier, now absolutely powerless, would have been shot had not one of his officers rushed forward and shielded him with his own body.

Quitting the barrack-yard, the prince, at the head of his friends and adherents, now endeavoured to enter the old town. They found the gate closed, nor did their united efforts suffice to unhinge it.

The enterprise had failed. The chiefs of the popular movement, who were to second the military rising, having inferred from the non-arrival of the prince on the morning of the 5th that something had occurred, either in London or at sea, to put the French authorities on the scent, had decamped from the town. Forestier, who reached Boulogne towards noon on the 5th, with the news that the prince would land next morning, had arrived too late.

Nothing now remained but to endeavour to save the prince. He himself wished to die – to be shot or cut down by his enemies; but the friends who were with him fairly dragged him down to the sea-shore in the hope of getting him safely on board the Edinburgh Castle. This vessel lay some distance out at sea, and the signals made to her to approach the land were unanswered, as though she had already been seized by the authorities.

On the sand, however, a small boat was found. “The prince,” says Orsi, “was still offering the greatest resistance. Time was precious. The ridges of the cliffs were already covered with gendarmes, followed by the National Guard. The soldiers of the 42nd regiment had been shut up in barracks. The work of pursuing us was left to the National Guard and to the gendarmes. The former behaved like savages. Firing soon began from the height of the hill, and gradually increased. We could hear the whistling of the bullets, but not one of us had yet been hit.”

The prince at last got into the boat with Colonel Voisin, Count Persigny, and Galvani, whilst Orsi and another rushed into the waves to push the little craft into deep water. Then the National Guard opened a brisker fire. Galvani and Voisin were wounded, the former in the right hip, while the latter had the elbow of his left arm entirely shattered. The boat had now in the confusion got capsized, and the prince and his friends disappeared under her. As she lay keel upwards there was a terrible discharge of musketry, which cut open the bottom of the boat and fractured the keel into matchwood. Had not the prince and his friends been at that instant immersed, they must have perished.

For some time the prince and Count Persigny remained under water, and Count Orsi began to apprehend that they might be drowning, when both appeared at a good distance from the shore swimming towards the Edinburgh Castle. The National Guard now pointed all their muskets at the prince, but by some miraculous accident failed to hit him. At last, just as he was reaching the steamer – which was already in the hands of the Boulogne authorities – a boat, with several officials on board coming out of the harbour, cut off his retreat, and both he and his fellow-swimmer Persigny found themselves prisoners. They were taken to the Vieux-Château, where all the Imperialists were confined who could anywhere be discovered.

The few days which followed the seizure of the Edinburgh Castle and the arrest of the prince’s party were employed by the Boulogne judicial authorities in examining the English captain – by name Crow – and his crew as to what they had seen, known, or imagined to be the object of the expedition, and as to the particular part played by each person on board.

One morning the prisoners were all, with the exception of the prince, brought together in a room, where Captain Crow and his first mate were requested to look at every one of them, and see if they could distinguish the man who had given orders for the steamer to anchor off Wimereux. Both pointed to Count Orsi.

As soon as the preliminary judicial formalities had been gone through at Boulogne the prince was conveyed to Paris, to be arraigned with his associates before the Court of Peers on a charge of having engaged in an expedition whose object was to overthrow the existing Government. At length, two months later, the day of the trial arrived.

The prince was defended by the eloquent advocate M. Berryer, assisted by M. Marie. On being called upon himself to speak he claimed the whole responsibility of the enterprise, and concluded with these magnanimous words: —

“I repeat that I had no accomplices. Alone I formed my plan. Not a soul knew beforehand what were my projects, my resources, or my hopes. If I am guilty towards anyone it is towards my friends alone. Yet let them not accuse me of lightly abusing such courage and devotion as theirs. They will understand the motives of honour and of prudence which forbade my revealing to them how wide and powerful were the reasons on which my hope of success was founded.

“One last word, gentlemen. I represent before you a principle, a cause, and a defeat. The principle is the sovereignty of the people; the cause is the empire; the defeat is Waterloo. The principle you have recognised; the cause you have served; the defeat you wish to avenge. Yes, you and myself are of one mind, and my sole aspiration now is to bear the full penalty of the defection of others.

“Representative as I am of a political cause, I cannot accept as judge of my desires and my actions a political tribunal. Your forms impose on no one. You are the victorious party. I have no justice to expect from you, and I wish nothing from your generosity.”

The sentence on Prince Louis Napoleon was imprisonment for life, that on Count Orsi imprisonment for five years; while the other conspirators were condemned to punishments which varied according to the nature of the part they had played in the disastrous expedition.

The case of the Duc de Praslin – tried, like that of Louis Napoleon, at the Luxemburg – was very painful and very dramatic. The duke was a member of the Choiseul family, whose name he bore in addition to his own. Under Louis Philippe he was attached to the household of the Duchess of Orleans, and in 1845, having previously been a deputy, was raised to the peerage. In 1824 he had married the daughter of Marshal Sebastiani, and that marriage, for seventeen years, seemed a happy one. Many children were born of the union; and it was not until 1841 that any sign of disagreement manifested itself between the husband and the wife. The jealousy of the latter was then roused; not, it was afterwards said, for the first time. A young lady named Henriette Deluzy-Desportes had just been engaged as governess. She was lively, graceful, and moderately pretty, and soon gained such an ascendency over her pupils as well as over the duke as to cause the duchess the greatest uneasiness. To make matters worse, the duchess was advised by her husband not to trouble herself any more about the education of her children, which was now, he said, in excellent hands. At last, after suffering the deepest vexation (of which she gave a touching account in her private diary, found after her death), she resolved to apply for a separation. Then, to avoid all scandal, the old marshal made representations to his son-in-law, while two other persons addressed remonstrances to Mlle. Deluzy. An arrangement was entered into by which the duchess agreed to abandon the lawsuit while Mlle. Deluzy was to leave the house. The marshal agreed to pay her an annuity of 1,500 francs, which was guaranteed by the duchess. The arrangement was made in the month of June, 1847; and on the 18th of July following Mlle. Deluzy left the Hôtel Sebastiani in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where the Praslin family had taken up their residence. The duchess had gained the victory. But she was by no means satisfied with the position of things, and felt that she was still menaced by an approaching danger. Her husband, it appeared, had uttered some dark threats. “He will never forgive me,” she wrote in her diary. “The future terrifies me. I cannot think of it without trembling.” The day the governess left the Paris house the whole Praslin family started for the duke’s country place at Vaux-Praslin. They were not to return to Paris until the 17th of August. Meanwhile the duke made three journeys to Paris, remaining there each time for two or three days; and he never failed to pay a visit to Mlle. Deluzy, who had gone to live with a schoolmistress in the Rue Harlay. The valet who accompanied the duke on all these journeys remarked on one occasion that the governess saw the duke back to the railway station, and on wishing him good-bye burst into tears.

On the 17th of August the Praslin family returned to Paris, intending to go on to Dieppe for the sea-bathing. The duke at once drove to the school where Mlle. Deluzy was staying. She wished, it seemed, to be engaged in this school as teacher; but before signing the engagement the schoolmistress thought it necessary to have from the Duchess de Praslin a letter recommending Mlle. Deluzy, and at the same time denying the truth of certain reports which had got abroad respecting her conduct while governess in the ducal family.

The duke promised to get the required letter from his wife, and it was arranged that Mlle. Deluzy should call on the afternoon of the following day at the Hôtel Sebastiani, in order, in the first place, to express her regret to the duchess, and afterwards to ask for the letter, which, according to the duke, Mme. de Praslin would be sure, under the circumstances, to give. It was already late in the evening, and when, at eleven o’clock, the duke got home, the duchess was in bed. After wishing his daughter good-night the duke went to his room, which, like his wife’s, was on the ground floor, the two communicating with one another by a corridor. The house was dark, except in the duchess’s room, where she was accustomed to keep a lamp burning all night.

At half-past four in the morning shrieks were heard; and at the same time the duchess’s bell rang violently. The duke’s valet and the duchess’s maid were awakened by the noise. They got up, dressed hurriedly, and were soon outside their mistress’s room, which, contrary to custom, they found bolted. Shrieks, groans, and other sounds, as of blows, were still heard. Then someone seemed to be rushing across the bedroom, interrupted here and there, as if by an obstacle. The two servants tried to get through another door communicating with the drawing-room, but this also was fastened.

They cried out “Madam!” “Madam!” but received no answer. Nothing was to be heard but gasps and groans. They hurried into the garden; but the windows, both of the duchess’s bedroom and of her boudoir, were closed, as they generally were. At one point, however, they found open the door of a staircase leading to the antechamber which separated the duke’s apartment from that of the duchess. The servants entered. It was quite dark; but on lighting a lamp they found the duchess lying on the ground, her head resting on a settee, with nothing on but a chemise, and bathed in blood. In a few moments the alarm was given throughout the house. The duke came out of his room. He wore a grey dressing-gown. There was a wild expression in his eyes, and, striking his hands against the wall and against his own head, he kept repeating, “What is it?” “What is it?” Then, casting his eyes upon his wife, he uttered cries of despair. The duchess was still living; but soon breathed her last without being able to utter one word. In a short time two commissaries of police arrived, who proceeded to a preliminary examination. The body was examined by three doctors, when five wounds were discovered at the back of the head and neck, and eight on the forehead and breast. The jugular vein and the carotid artery had both been cut, and blood was still flowing from these wounds. There were wounds, too, on both hands, evidently caused by the edge of a sharp instrument at which the unhappy victim had clutched. The face was marked with scratches round the mouth, indicating a struggle in which the duke had attempted to stifle his wife’s cries. This struggle had evidently been of the most violent kind. All the furniture had been upset. Both the bed and the carpet were covered with blood; and the door leading to the drawing-room was, all round the lock and the bolts, marked by bloodstained fingers.