6 Sir, you do not know me-I am a man of honour; and where my duty is in question, I am neither to be won by solicitation, nor intimi dated by menace.'-p. 114. And then turning round to Lafayette, and seizing his arm, he exclaimed-in words that recall the spirit of Henry IV. and the despotism of Louis XIV Lafayette, you have heard him. If I did not respect the laws, I should cause that fellow to be punished on the spot. It is monstrous.' 'Such boldness,' adds Bonnellier, must in that crisis have either ruined or raised him :-it raised him. General Dubourg was abashed-he muttered a few words, of which all that was heard was, Oh, I spoke because I know you'-was lost in the crowd, and has never since been heard of, except in some paltry vexations with which the agents of the established powers persecuted him,* and we can give no further account of this general of a day—this sovereign of an hour. One cannot help thinking of the 18th Brumaire, and conjecturing whether, if this poor devil had had a Lucien and two hundred grenadiers to back him at this critical moment, he might not have been another Buonaparte. The game of the republican revolutionists was now up. Of all the actors in this drama, the Duke of Orleans was facillime PRINCEPS-the ablest in a council of purblind blockheads-the least dishonest in a gang of selfish knaves. On the 31st he was declared Lieutenant-General or Regent of the kingdom-the kingdom of Charles X. or Henry V.; and after a week of negociation, intrigue, fraud, and violence, all combined, Charles X. and Henry V. were driven into exile-the duke ascended the vacated-not the vacant-throne; and the selfish and mercenary leaders of the revolt outran one another in emulative subserviency;-each scrambling to get something for himself they threw the public liberties—the pretext of their insurrection-at the feet of the new monarch without restriction, condition, or guarantee. We do not blame them for this; because we believe that, as circumstances stood, abler and honester men than they were saw no alternative but a * Sarrans, having occasion to mention his name, gives no other account of him than that he was the General Dubourg subsequently persecuted with so much virulence by the ministers of Louis Philippe.'-Sarrans' Lafayette, vol. i. p. 277. Here, again, we must make an exception in favour of M. Casimir Périer, whose conduct seems to have been all along much more moderate and respectable than that of any of his colleagues. There are in M. Bonnellier's work many curious, though no longer important, details as to M. C. Périer's original reluctance to push the revolt to revolution, and of his subsequent efforts to evade and to keep out of the Moni. teur' his own nomination by the Provisional Government to the Home Department. This last affair is quite a riddle, which M. Bonnellier (though he was the working instrument) seems unable to solve. The truth we take to be, that M. Périer, while affairs were so nicely balanced, did not wish to accept such a trust from the Provisional Commission, and, on the other hand, thought it imprudent to dispute their temporary authority. bloody bloody anarchy, or a speedy submission to the Duke of Orleans; but we do blame the base and factious arts-the selfish hypocrisy and the frightful injustice by which the only fifteen years of rational liberty ever enjoyed by France were so disastrously terminated, to the sole profit of two or three dozen intriguing and trading politicians. But though the Duke's accession did virtually annul the Provisional Commission, it affected for a few days longer to exercise its authority-andava combattendo, ed era morto. Bonnellier, who would have liked prodigiously to have remained one of the Secretaries of State, is exceedingly indignant at the shabby way in which the supreme power was first lowered, and finally abdicated, by all the members of the commission-except Mauguin, who seems to have been as drunk as Bonnellier himself with personal vanity, political enthusiasm, and upstart authority. Bonnellier gives many striking instances of the illegality and tyranny with which this commission conducted itself, and of the incompetency of themselves and their agents for the duties they thus usurped. We can find room but for one instance, which we shall abridge-though we thereby render it less odious and characteristic-from the candid confessions of Bonnellier. On the first of August an agent of the police [a spy] came to the Provisional Commission while the members were at dinner, and informed them that there was a considerable sum of money in the possession of M. Charlet, private secretary to the Duchess d'Angoulême. The Commission decided immediately (at the dinner-table) to seize it, and Bonnellier was to be the agent. He and Mauguin got up from table he wrote an order to himself, which Mauguin signed, to take, for his protection, ten of the Polytechnic students, and fifty National Guards, to seize the money-which they ventured, in this official document-without even the authority of their spy -to designate as the money of the Duchess! That folly might not be wanting to injustice, M. Bonnellier and his polytechnic students thought it dignified to ride to the scene of action, though the distance was only about the length of our Oxford-street; and a dozen horses having been put in requisition, they mounted and set out, the National Guards following on foot, to M. Charlet's private house, No. 20, Rue de la Chaise, where they made dispositions to blockade the whole street, very much in the style afterwards so ably practised in the Rue Transnonnaine, of bloody memory. M. Charlet and his whole family, however, except the porter, were fortunately absent-out of town-at a watering-place. An active and indecent rummage of the house was begun of the spirit in which it was conducted we may judge by one fact. In a bedchamber there hung over the chimney a small enamelled miniature, framed and glazed, of Charles the Tenth. One of the inquisitors quisitors tore down this little portrait, and smashed the glass, picture and all, on the corner of the mantel-piece,-and this brutality-this barbarism-this robbery-was committed by-a Polytechnic student! Amiable and generous youth!-we should like to know his further history. Is he at Mont St. Michel-or at St. Pélagie-or in the Bagne of Toulon-or did he finish his glorious career in the Cloître St. Mery-or is he pining under the procès monstre?-for these are the categories in which the real heroes of the Three Great Days now find themselves. At last, however, an iron chest is discovered in one of the rooms. A clerk of M. Charlet's, who had by this time come in, had not the key: Bonnellier 'sent for two working smiths with their heaviest sledge hammers. About nine in the evening the roar of their sledges began to resound in the neighbourhood, and by its violence and vibration threw the inhabitants into wonder and terror. By eleven o'clock, the smiths had been able to make but one small hole in the chest-they were fatigued, discouraged. I ordered M. Charlet's servant to produce some wine to refresh them. Six bottles were brought, and this, I declare,' acids M. Bonnellier, with admirable pleasantry, was the only “black mail” levied on M. Charlet.'-p. 138. They then recommenced their hammering, but still with little effect; at last, a M. Bourgoin, nephew of M. Charlet, arrived quite out of breath, and began to expostulate with natural indignation on the lawless invasion of his absent relative's private house and property. This tone displeased the disciples of liberty; M. Bourgoin was menaced with personal violence if he did not retire, and at last was by force turned out of the house—and even out of the street. Another hour of battering on the chest had elapsed, when the same young gentleman returned, bringing a formal order, from the Prefect of Police, in the name of the Provisional Government, distinctly revoking Bonnellier's authority, and directing that the seals of the State should be put on the chest, which was to remain under sequestration till further orders, but that all the rest of M. Charlet's property should be left free. Even this was in vain : Bonnellier set the Prefect and his order at defiance; the Polytechnics were exasperated' at the importunity of M. Bourgoin; and his person-that of an unarmed young man, endeavouring, under a legal authority, to protect the property of an absent relative-was endangered' by the generous indignation of these brave students. At last, by one o'clock in the morning, one pannel of the chest was broken, and the mighty treasure was discovered; the patriots found the value of 4007, in gold coin-a number [not stated] of five franc silver pieces, and about 1200/. in bank notes; six jewel cases, containing female ornaments; some silver-gilt forks and spoons in similar cases; and, finally, a case containing a gilt crucifix crucifix and the plate necessary for administering the holy sacrament. There was also found an account-book, on one page of which, signed by the duchess, appeared an entry of the date of au inscription on the great book [the public funds] of 80,000l. capital. M. Bonnellier, with a delicacy for which he seems to claim great merit, affected (fit semblant) to believe the jewels and spoons to be M. Charlet's private property-but he carried off the crucifix, the sacramental plate, the cash and the bank-notes-though these were certainly as likely to have been Monsieur Charlet's property as the female ornaments. We must confess there seems something very suspicious in the whole of this part of the affair. He also carried off the account-book, which, in his supreme ignorance, he considered a great prize,-though, in fact, it was only a note that Madame had so much stock,-and was not worth a rush, except as a memorandum between her and her secretary. But while he was thus triumphantly bullying, rummaging, and seizing, a serious reverse was preparing for him. The regular patroles which traversed the town observed Bonnellier's detachments at each end of the Rue de la Chaise, and demanded the countersign-the pass-word; they had it not; nor-such were the prévoyance and habits of business of the Provisional Government and its agents-any token whatsoever that these people were acting by authority. Strong suspicions ensued that they were robbers or disguised Carlists; the regular troops accumulated; they forced the detachments at the street ends; a scuffle and skirmish ensued, which bore for a time a very serious aspect; at length the Polytechnics, who had by this time remounted, were all unhorsedand they, and the National Guards, M. Bonnellier, and all his assistants, were knocked down, beaten, and finally arrested, and carried off prisoners to the Hôtel de Ville, on foot, through the same streets along which they had so lately ridden in such triumphant state. The only person of the whole party who escaped was a common street porter, whom Bonnellier-having only sixty men and the whole police of the quarter at his disposal -had most judiciously hired to carry away the money and effects, which had accordingly been fastened on the poor man's pack just as the tumult began, and with which, strange to say, he walked quietly away, while his employers were taken into custody. Was there ever a more comic retribution of a more odious atrocity? However, when Mr. Secretary Bonnellier and his suite were brought to the Hôtel de Ville, they were recognized, and, of course, set at liberty; and next day the poor street porter, whose name or residence no one knew or knows, came voluntarily and delivered up his valuable cargo, and M. Bonnellier generously rewarded him with 17s. 6d. of the public money-and never asked his his name, for which parsimony and neglect he is now very sorry,' -as he is no doubt for many other occasions manquées of his short reign. M. Bonnellier does not tell us whether M. Charlet's cash, or Madame's crucifix and account book have been returned to them. As M. Bonnellier owns that he seized them, it would have been as well if he had been so obliging as to tell us what became of them. We wish also that M. Charlet would tell us how much he lost, and how much has been restored. This last adventure must of itself have settled M. Bonnellierbut as there was no longer any danger, even from feux de joie, he began to have a great many colleagues and rivals. 'M. Plougoulm and M. Aylies, barristers [now both law-officers of the crown], under the patronage of their friend the Honourable M. Mauguin-[the French make strange trash of their imitation of our parliamentary phrase of "Honourable Gentleman"]-appeared to assume the functions of secretaries of the government. A M. Lecomte (since dead) installed himself at this time by the same title.'-p. 136. Here, then, were six Secretaries of State to a Council of five members; and, wonderful to relate, they increased in number just in the proportion that the dangers and business decreased. When the commission might have had something to do, they had only Bonnellier; as they became powerless and insignificant, they had, in addition, Odillon Barrot, Baude, Plougoulm, Aylies, and Lecomte. We suspect that Odillon and Baude had already begun to fly higher, and that Mauguin had his Plougoulm and Aylies ready to fill their places. Plougoulm and Aylies, however, have by this time outstripped their patron; and the whole affair is a specimen of impudent pretension and shameless jobbing, which nothing-no, nothing-in the most profligate days of the ancien régime can equal; and so it is all throughout. The July revolt, which was, in its principle, the most profligate of all the profligacies of the whole revolution, has stained, personally and indelibly, with fraud, perjury, or corruption, every man, from the highest to the lowest, who has had any hand in it. The public men of revolutionary France are, we hesitate not to say, a dishonoured class ;-dishonoured by the successive abandonment of every public principle dishonoured by the shameless exhibition of every personal meanness-there is no man in France in whom any other man has the slightest confidence-except the King. In him--believing him to be the cleverest, and (though very unjustly) the most thorough rogue of all-they have some reliance; but the real ground of even that confidence is, that they do not see whom it is worth his while to cheat. Such, we believe, is the sum total of French public morality; the political heart of the nation is corrupted to its core; and with no over-favourable leaning towards |
