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MEMOIRS
(VIEUX SOUVENIRS)
OF THE
PRINCE DE JOINVILLE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
LADY MARY LOYD

CHAPTER I

1818-1830

I was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, on the 14th
of August, 1818. Immediately after my birth, and as soon as the
Chancellor of France, M. Dambray, had declared me to be a boy, I was
made over to the care of a wet nurse and another attendant. Three years
later I passed out of female hands, earlier, somewhat, than is generally
the case, for a little accident befell my nurse, in which my eldest
brother's tutor, an unfrocked priest, as he was then discovered to be,
was also concerned. My earliest memory, and a very hazy one it is, mixed
up with some story or other about a parrot, is of having seen my
grandmother, the Duchesse d'Orleans-Penthievre, at Ivry. After that I
recollect being at the Chateau of Meudon with my great-aunt, the
Duchesse de Bourbon, a tiny little woman; and being taken to see the
Princesse Louise de Conde at the Temple, and then I remember seeing
Talma act in Charles the Bold, and the great impression his gilt cuirass
made upon me.

But the first event that really is exceedingly clear in my recollection
is a family dinner given by Louis XVIII. at the Tuileries on Twelfth
Night, 1824. Even now, sixty-six years after, I can see every detail of
that party, as if it had been yesterday. Our arrival in the courtyard of
the Tuileries, under the salute of the Swiss Guard at the Pavillon
Marsan and the King's Guard at the Pavillon de Flore. Our getting out of
the carriage under the porch of the stone staircase to the deafening
rattle of the drums of the Cent Suisses. Then my huge astonishment when
we had to stand aside halfway up the stairs, to let "La viande du Roi,"
in other words, his Majesty's dinner, pass by, as it was being carried
up from the kitchen to the first floor, escorted by his bodyguard.

At the head of the stairs we were received by a red-coated Steward of
the Household, who, as I was told, bore the name of de Cosse, and,
crossing the Salle des Gardes, we were ushered into the drawing-room,
where the whole family soon assembled: to wit, Monsieur, who afterwards
became Charles X., the Duc and Duchesse d'Angouleme, the Duchesse de
Berri, my father and mother, my aunt Adelaide, my two elder brothers,
Chartres and Nemours, my three sisters, Louise, Marie, and Clementine,
and last and youngest of all, myself. There was only one person present
who did not belong to the Royal House of France, and that was the Prince
de Carignan, afterwards known as Charles Albert, a tall, thin, severe-
looking person. He had just served in the ranks of the French army, with
all the proverbial valour of his race, through the Spanish campaign of
1823, and he wore on his uniform that evening the worsted epaulettes
given him on the field of battle by the men of the 4th Regiment of the
Guard, with whom he had fought in the assault on the Trocadero.
Presently the door of the King's study opened, and Louis XVIII.
appeared, in his wheeled chair, with that handsome white head and in the
blue uniform with epaulettes which the pictures of him have rendered so
familiar. He kissed each of us in our turn, without speaking to any of
us except my brother Nemours, whom he questioned about his Latin
lessons. Nemours began to stammer, and was only saved from disgrace by
the opportune entrance of the Prince de Carignan.

At dinner the Twelfth Night customs were duly observed, and when I broke
my cake I found the bean within it. I must confess the fact had not been
altogether unforeseen, and my mother had consequently primed me as to my
behaviour. This did not prevent me from feeling heartily shy when I saw
every eye fixed on me. I got up from the table, and carried the bean on
a salver to the Duchesse d'Angouleme. I loved her dearly even then, that
good kind Duchess! for she had always been so good to us, ever since we
were babies, and never failed to give us the most beautiful New Year's
gifts. My respectful affection deepened as I grew old enough to realize
her sorrows and the nobility of her nature, and I was always glad, after
we were separated by the events of 1830, to take every opportunity of
letting her know how unalterable my feelings for her were. She broke the
ice by being the first to raise her glass to her lips, when I had made
her my queen, and Louis XVIII. was the first to exclaim, "The Queen
drinks." A few months later the king was dead, and I watched his funeral
procession from the windows of the Fire Brigade Station in the Rue de la
Paix, as it passed on its way to Saint-Denis.

Then came the echo of the excitement caused by the coronation of Charles
X., that great ceremonial of which the Cathedral of Rheims was the
scene, and which, coming as it did after all the horrors of the
Revolution, gave rise to the sanguine hope that the ancient monarchy
would repair every disaster now, just as it had in the time of Charles
VII. But our childish ideas were not of so far-reaching a nature. It was
the splendour displayed that interested us--the dresses, the carriages,
and so on, of the princes and ambassadors who came from all parts of the
world to greet the opening of the new monarch's reign. Numbers of
artists solicited my father's permission to do his portrait, in the gold
and ermine robes of a prince of the blood which he wore at the
coronation, and our pet amusement at the time was to go and see papa
"sitting as Pharamond." I said Pharamond, like my elders, although my
own historical knowledge was of the most elementary description. To be
frank, I was exceedingly backward, and have always remained so. My
mother had taught me to read, but beyond that I had reached the age of
six knowing nothing or hardly anything. But I was a very good rider and
went out alone on a pony Lord Bristol had given my father, which I rode
boldly, and I might even say recklessly. The pony's name was Polynice.
He and I understood each other perfectly, and I was his friend to the
last. I took care he should end his days in the park at St. Cloud, where
he roamed in freedom, with a stable of his own to retire into if the
fancy took him. Often and often I have been to see him, in that same
stable, which he ended by never leaving except to come and greet us, and
warm himself in the sunshine. He died, there, fortunately for himself,
full of years, just before the pleasant revolutionary occurrences of
1848, in which he would certainly have had his share. But my father
desired me to be something more than a mere horseman. He got me a tutor,
and from that day out, for several years, my recollections are divided,
to the exclusion of everything else, between my education and my life
with my family. My tutor was called M. Trognon, and his name brought
many

[Illustration: Looks a little like a courtroom unfortunately without a
caption.]

a jest upon him, amongst others a line of Victor Hugo's in Ruy Bias
about that

Affreuse compagnonne,
Dont la barbe fleurit et dont le nez trognonne.

"Fleurit" was an allusion to Cuvillier-Fleury, my brother Aumale's
tutor, and Victor Hugo thought he owed both the gentlemen a grudge. M.
Trognon, a distinguished pupil of the Ecole Normale, had begun his
teaching career as professor of rhetoric at the college at Langres,
where, coming in one day to take his class, he found his desk occupied
by a donkey, which his pupils had established in his seat "Gentlemen,"
he said as he went out, "I leave you with a professor who is worthy of
you." Soon after, he was recalled to Paris, as assistant to M. Guizot in
his courses of historical lectures at the College of France.

He was not only an accomplished university man, but something else
besides, as we learnt from a copy of the Figaro, which our eldest
brother brought back from college. In this newspaper we read, in fact, a
set of verses by Baour-Lormian, beginning thus:--

Que me veut ce Trognon, pedagogue en besicles,
Dans la fosse du Globe enterrant ses articles!

There was no doubt about it. My tutor was a journalist, and these lines
a revengeful answer to an article of his in the Globe, a newspaper
which, as we soon learnt, he had founded in concert with Pierre Leroux,
Dubois, Jouffroy, Remusat, and some others. We discovered too that our
journalist was a freethinker as well, and author of a thick octavo book
which had been condemned by the Index at Rome, a fact which did not
prevent his dying in the most religious frame of mind possible, well
nigh in the odour of sanctity. My tutor was, in truth, of too lofty an
intelligence to persevere long in that religious nihilism, that denial
of the existence of a future state, which, spreading from religion to
family life, and from thence again to the affairs of the State, ends by
leaving nothing standing but animal man and his animal passions and
appetites. The long death-struggle of a passionately loved sister, who
was supported by the constant ministrations of the Bishop of Beauvais,
M. Feutrier, and her calm end, of which he was an eyewitness, began the
change within him. When, in later years, the Abbe Dupanloup, then Vicar
of the Church of the Assumption, was charged with the care of my
religious education, he and Trognon became very intimate, and death
alone interrupted the close communion then established between these two
great minds.

The first years of my education were very happy. Anything dry about it
was liberally compensated for by the constant intimacy of the family
circle. We were three sisters and six brothers (this last number soon
reduced to five by the death of my brother Penthievre), all living
together, eating together, often doing lessons together, together always
in all games and pleasure parties and excursions. What a joyous band we
were may easily be guessed. Each boy had his own tutor, and two
governesses were in charge of my sisters. So long as tutors and
governesses only had to deal with their own pupils, all went well, but
when the brothers and sisters were all together, and influenced by the
spirit of insubordination and love of playing pranks which the elder
ones brought back from school, we made life hard and sour to the
preceptorial body. But they got on, somehow. The GRANDSPARENTS, as we
called our parents, taken up as they were by their social engagements,
left all initiative to the tutors. Each of these was only expected to
enter daily in a book his report and opinion of the pupil committed to
his care. This book was seen by my father, and he added his own remarks
and orders, and then returned it.

Our day generally began at five o'clock in the morning. The elder ones
went to school to attend their classes, took their meals and played with
the boarders, and came home after evening school. The boys who were not
at school and the girls spent the day doing their lessons. In the
evening, pupils and teachers of both sexes all dined together, and then
went to the drawing-room, where there was always company, for my parents
received every evening. Thursdays and Sundays, which were school
holidays, were given up specially to lessons in what were known as
accomplishments: drawing, music, physical exercises, riding, fencing,
singlestick, dancing, &c. On Sundays, every one, great and small, dined
at "THE GREAT TABLE," and this life of ours was as regular as clockwork
summer and winter alike.

In winter time we lived in the Palais-Royal, which then was not at all
what it is nowadays. Where the Galerie d'Orleans is now to be seen,
there were hideous wooden passages, with muddy floors, exclusively
occupied by milliners' shops, and peopled, it was said, by thousands of
rats. To get rid of this collection of shanties, they were sawn through
below, and allowed to come down with a crash. Crowds of people came to
witness the collapse, in the hope of seeing the expected multitude of
rats rush out. There was not a single one! They had all cleared out in
good time. Such is the wisdom of the brute creation!

When I first lived at the Palais-Royal, I had a room in the Rue de
Valois, which overlooked the Boeuf a la Mode restaurant, and opposite
there dwelt an old lady, always dressed in black, who regularly every
day, at the very same hour, placed an indispensable article of domestic
use upon her window-sill, so that it was as good as a clock to us. Later
on, I changed my room for one looking over the courtyard, facing the
rooms occupied by an actor at the Comedie-Francaise named Dumilatre, and
his daughters; Dumilatre, whom I knew well, having seen him play those
small tragedy parts which consist in making a dignified exit and saying,
"Yes, my lord," had the same habits as my black lady, and the same
object used to appear upon his window-sill with equal regularity. I had
only changed my clock!

It was during the winter sojourn at the Palais-Royal, too, that our
masters and their lessons multiplied. And several of these masters were
oddities, amongst others our professor of German. Picture a little
bland-mannered old man, dressed all in black, with satin breeches,
woollen stockings, enormous shoes, and a broad-brimmed hat. He had been
tutor to Prince Metternich in his youth. I know not what chance had
later driven him into France--where, during the Terror, he became one of
the secretaries of the much-dreaded Committee of Public Safety at
Strasbourg. He lived alone with his daughter, whom he often sent to
Germany, not by the ordinary means of communication, but concealed in
the van which was sent periodically into Hungary to fetch supplies of
leeches for the hospitals, which circumstance made us conclude that the
simple name of "Herr Simon" by which he called himself probably
concealed some deep mystery. Nothing, alas! remains to me of his German,
nor of that of a valet of the same race, who had been put about me, so
ill adapted has my mental constitution always proved to any foreign
language.

Another oddity was our dancing master, an Opera dancer, named Seuriot.
What a fine presence that man had! His lesson, which we all took
together, like a little corps de ballet, was a great amusement to us,
especially because of the theatrical stories we used to make him tell
us. One day he arrived in a great state of excitement, and addressing
the governesses he said, "Ladies, you see before you a man who had a
remarkable escape yesterday. The ballet called Les Filets de Vulcain was
being danced, I was playing Jupiter, and I was just going to ascend in
my glory, with Mercury beside me, when I felt that same glory was out of
order, and I had only just time to jump off, and to shout to Mercury, '
Jump, my friend, jump, don't lose an instant!' Well, well!" During the
pauses in the lesson, when his fiddle ceased, and while he wiped the
perspiration from his brow, we used to crowd round him and ask him
questions. The elder ones always tried to get him on the subject of a
danseuse named Mademoiselle Legallois, one on which he would descant
unendingly. This was the lady who on one occasion appeared in a ballet
as the allegorical representative of Religion, which fact caused it to
be said of a certain [Illustration: Man and woman dancing.] Marshal of
France "qu'il s'etait eteint dans les bras de la religion" (that he had
passed away peacefully in the arms of religion). But the moment we were
seen crowding round and whispering with the old dancer, the governesses
would charge down upon us with their "What is it? What is it?" and we
began our BATTEMENTS and our steps again. Personally I owed one of the
earliest successes in my life to old Seuriot. I had profited so much by
his lessons, that I appear to have danced the minuet in a quite
remarkable way, so much so that my parents had a complete crimson velvet
dress in the style of the last century made for me, with the
indispensable three-cornered hat and a sword with knots of ribbon. Thus
accoutred, with powdered head and pigtail, I had to give several
performances of my minuet, which I danced with my sister Clementine,
both of us displaying all the airs and graces of bygone times. My
marquis's dress, of which I was excessively proud, served me also for a
fancy dress ball given by the Duchesse de Berri, at which, identifying
myself too much with my character, I had a quarrel with a Cossack of my
own age, young de B-- about a partner. In my fury I drew my sword, he
did likewise, and we were just falling on each other, when the Duchesse
rushed up crying, "Stop, you naughty children! Take their swords away,
M. de Brissac!" As for my sister Clementine, who was at the ball too,
wearing her minuet gown, and looking utterly bewitching in her powder
and her looped-up dress, she attracted the notice of Charles X., to whom
she doubtless brought back memories of his own youth. He came to her and
kissed her, and gazed at her for a long time, holding her hand. Then,
turning to my father, he said, "Monsieur, if I were forty years younger,
your daughter should be Queen of France," whereupon he kissed her over
again.

Our dancing lessons, which were looked upon as recreation, alternated
with walks about Paris. The girls went in one direction, and the boys in
another. When we went out thus, one tutor alone took the extra duty of
looking after us. When it was Trognon who came out, we always expected
to be taken to Sautelet's, a bookseller in the Rue de Richelieu, whose
establishment became, I recollect, in later days, the head office of the
NATIONAL. There Trognon would hold forth amongst the journalists, while
the clerks talked to us. I remember their showing me the splendid
manuscript of the Memoirs of Saint-Simon, which Sautelet was then
publishing. When, on the other hand, it was Cuvillier-Fleury who
marshalled us, the objects of our walks became more varied, and we soon
began to discover that there was not unfrequently a petticoat somewhere
about. Yet I owe to him the precious memory of a visit to the studio of
Eugene Delacroix; and also of one to M. de Lavalette, Postmaster-General
under the first Napoleon, a most interesting man, well known for his
celebrated escape on the eve of the day appointed for his execution,
after the Hundred Days, when his wife came and took his place, and
brought him garments to escape in. But oftenest of all we used to go to
a bookseller's in the Rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts, who was a great friend
of Fleury's, and we were always sure to find either him or his charming
wife at home.

Fleury's friendship for this bookseller was indeed the cause of a
comical adventure. In the confusion of the first few days of the
Revolution of 1830, the gentleman in question appeared before us with
white belt and a sword over his civilian's dress. "Look here, Fleury,"
said he, "what use can I be to you today?" Fleury considered for a
minute, and then he said he really didn't quite see, but that after all
he thought nobody had troubled their heads about the Prefecture of
Police. "I'll be off there," said my bookseller, and off he went,
appointed himself Prefect of Police, and performed all his functions for
several days. I have never heard of him since.

Turn about with these walks, too, we had lessons in gymnastics, of which
science a certain Colonel Amoros was the apostle. This worthy colonel
gave prizes to everybody, so as to make his classes popular. These
prizes took the form of collars, inscribed in large painted letters with
the particular merit of the pupil rewarded, such as agility, courage,
strength, &c. One pupil was given a prize for "hidden virtue." After the
gymnastic lessons came riding lessons, for which we were taken to the
Cirque Olympique, I and my two elder brothers being always put in the
charge of a single tutor. But as he invariably found the riding school
too cold, he used to go and shut himself up in the manager's room, and
leave us to the tender care of Laurent Franconi and the rough riders,
which amounted to leaving us to ourselves. This icy cold arena, in the
Place du Chateau-d'Eau consisted of one immense hall, where the place of
the pit was taken up by the circus or riding school for all sorts of
horsemanship, which circus was connected with the stage by inclined
planes, whenever a military piece with battles in it was performed. In
this circus Laurent Franconi made us practise "la haute ecole," and his
assistants. Bassin and Lagoutte, taught us to vault on horseback,
astride and sitting, and standing upright--after every fashion, in fact.
And to our great amusement, too, these lessons, falling as they did on
Sunday afternoons, generally coincided with the rehearsals on the stage,
in which we joyfully took our share during the intervals we were allowed
for rest, scaling the practicable scenery, or taking part with the
artists in certain interludes not mentioned on the programme. This was
not indeed our only initiation into theatrical art, a career bearing so
much analogy to that of every prince. Taking advantage of the close
proximity of the Palais-Royal to the Comedie-Francaise, my father had
added a regular course of dramatic literature to the educational plan he
had laid out for us. So very often when the old stock plays were being
given at the Francais, he would take us by a door leading from his
drawing-room into the passage which separates the side scenes from the
artists' green-room, and leave us in his box--the three centre ones on
the grand tier thrown together--returning to fetch us at the end of the
performance. Those evenings at the Comedie-Francaise were our greatest
joy, and taught us many a useful lesson, filling our heads with classic
literature far more efficiently than all the reading and courses of
lectures in the world. But those unlucky classics were very much
neglected. They were not a bit the fashion. There would hardly be two
hundred people in the theatre, and all the boxes were empty. A wretched
orchestra, conducted by a stout man of the name of Chodron, squeaked a
tune that set everybody's teeth on edge. Up would go the curtain,
without any warning, in the very middle of some phrase in the music
which would break off with a sigh from the clarionet, and drearily the
play would begin. We were all eyes and ears in spite of that, and
nothing in the play of the tragic actresses--Madame Duchesnois, Madame
Paradol, and Madame Bourgoin--ever escaped us. I can see and hear yet
all Corneille's plays, and Racine's too, and Zaire, and Mahomet, and
L'Orphelin de la Chine, and many more. But what we longed for most
impatiently were Moliere's plays. They were our prime favourites, and
what actors too! Monrose, Cartigny, Samson, Firmin, Menjaud, and Faure,
whose appearances as Fleurant in Le Malade and Truffaldin in L'Etourdi
we always greeted with delight, on account of the properties he carried
in his hand. This same Faure, an old soldier of 1782, never failed to
say to my father, as he escorted him to the door, taper in hand, "Ha,
Sir! this is not the camp at la Lune!" referring to a bivouac just
before the battle of Valmy. It was always a great amusement to us to go
along the passages behind the scenes, especially when the classic Roman
processions were being formed up there for the tragedies, for among the
lictors and the other Romans we recognized many of the clerks and
workmen employed about the Palais-Royal, and we used to bid them good
day, and call them by their names, and be very proud indeed of speaking
to artists, and we went home to our own fold, imitating the call in the
theatre: "On va-a commmencer! On co-mmence!"(Going to begin, just
beginning).Sometimes too we were taken to see modern plays, but that did
not happen often. Yet even now I seem to hear the actor Armand, just
before 1830, talking thick behind his Directoire cravat, in TOM JONES:--

Point d'amis, point de grace,
A la session prochaine il faudra qu'on y passe!

and the whole house rose at him! I remember also being taken to the
first night of Henri III., and being very much amused by the cups and
balls and the pea-shooters. I was much affected too by the death of
Arthur, a charming page in a violet dress, played by Mile. Despreaux,
who afterwards became Madame Allan. I had no eyes for anybody else. As
we were going away, my father leading me by the hand, we found the
Duchesse de Guise, Mademoiselle Mars, panting, and wrapped in a rose-
coloured satin cloak lined with swansdown, waiting for the compliments
which my father showered on her. She had not impressed me nearly so much
as the page in violet.

Talking of Henri III., a play we took great interest in, because its
author, quite unknown at the time, belonged to our household, I will
recall here a recollection connected with the name of Alexandre Dumas.
Everybody knows he began life as a clerk in my father's library at the
Palais-Royal. The chief librarian was Vatout, whose works, and perhaps
too some well-known songs, have gained him a seat in the Academy. But
Vatout was never in the library by any chance. The real librarian, and a
very worthy fellow he was, was a man of the name of Tallencourt. He was
an old soldier, and this caused him to be elected captain of a grenadier
company in the Citizen Guard--a position to which, in the first blush of
his enthusiasm, he attached an exaggerated importance. Well, some time
after Dumas had resigned his position in the library, in the midst of
the riots which occurred so frequently about that period, we saw
Tallencourt come home one day in full warlike attire, with his bearskin
cap and his cloak, and a very gloomy countenance." What do you think has
just happened to me? I was in command of a patrol in my ward--as we had
heard several shots, we were advancing with the greatest caution, in
double file, keeping close to the walls, with our eyes and ears open.
All at once I heard a shout--'Here's for you, de Tallencourt!' and then
a shot. Well, the shout--that voice--it was Alexandre Dumas' voice!"
"Oh, nonsense!" we all cried. But he stuck to it--and we resisted the
violent inclination to laugh that assailed us, convinced as we were that
if the worthy man really had recognized the voice, he had been the
victim of a prank of Alexandre Dumas, who had doubtless enjoyed the fun
of seeing the rout of his former chief and his brave "guernadiers"!

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