The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume Ii Part 3

We have suffered neither fear nor danger--and I would not have missed the grand spectacle of the second of December[7] for anything in the world--scarcely, I say, for the sight of the Alps.

On the only day in which there was much fighting (Thursday), Wiedeman was taken out to walk as usual, under the precaution of keeping in the immediate neighbourhood of this house. This will prove to you how little we have feared for ourselves.

But the natural emotion of the situation one could not escape from, and on Thursday night I sate up in my dressing gown till nearly one, listening to the distant firing from the boulevards. Thursday was the only day in which there was fighting of any serious kind. There has been _no resistance_ on the part of the real people--nothing but sympathy for the President, I _believe_, if you except the natural mortification and disappointment of baffled parties. To judge from our own tradespeople: 'il a bien fait! c'est le vrai neveu de son oncle!' such phrases rung on every tone expressed the prevailing sentiment.

For my own part I have not only more hope in the situation but more faith in the French people than is ordinary among the English, who really try to exceed one another in discoloration and distortion of the circ.u.mstances. The government was in a deadlock--what was to be done?

Yes, all parties cried out, 'What was to be done?' and felt that we were waist deep a fortnight ago in a state of crisis. In throwing back the sovereignty from a 'representative a.s.sembly' which had virtually ceased to represent, into the hands of the people, I think that Louis Napoleon did well. The talk about 'military despotism' is absolute nonsense. The French army is eminently civic, and nations who take their ideas from the very opposite fact of a _standing army_ are far from understanding how absolutely a French soldier and French citizen are the same thing.

The independence of the elections seems to be put out of reach of injury; and intelligent men of adverse opinions to the government think that the majority will be large in its favour. Such a majority would certainly justify Louis Napoleon, or _should_--even with you in England.

I think you quite understate the amount of public virtue in France. The difficulties of statesmans.h.i.+p here are enormous. I do not accuse even M.

Thiers of want of public virtue. What he has wanted, has been length and breadth of view--purely an intellectual defect--and his petty, puny _traca.s.series_ destroyed the Republican a.s.sembly just as it destroyed the throne of Louis Philippe, in spite of his own intentions.

There is a conflict of ideas in France, which we have no notion of in England, but we ought to understand that it does not involve the failing of _principle_, in the elemental moral sense. Be just to France, dear friend, you who are more than an Englishwoman--a Mrs. Jameson!

Everything is perfectly tranquil in Paris, I a.s.sure you--theatres full and galleries open as usual. At the same time, timid and discouraged persons say, 'Wait till after the elections,' and of course the public emotion will be a good deal excited at that time. Therefore, judge for yourself. For my own part I have not had the slightest cause for alarm of any kind--and there is my child! Judge....

The weather is exquisite, and I am going out to walk directly. It is scarcely possible to bear a fire, and some of our friends sit with the window open. We are all well.

This should have gone to you yesterday, but we had visitors who talked past post time. The delay, however, has allowed of my writing more than I meant to have done in beginning this letter. Robert's best love.

Your ever affectionate BA.

Robert says that according to the impression of the wisest there can be no danger. Don't wait till after the elections. The time is most interesting, and it is well worth your while to come and see for yourself.

_To Mrs. Martin_

[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysees: December 11, [1851].

To show how alive I am, dearest Mrs. Martin, I will tell you that I have just come home from a long walk to the Tuileries. We took a carriage to return, that's true. Then yesterday I was out, besides, and last Sat.u.r.day, _the 6th_, we drove down the boulevards to see the field of action on the terrible Thursday (the only day on which there was any fighting of consequence), counting the holes in the walls bored by the cannon, and looking at the windows smashed in. Even then, though the asphalte was black with crowds, the quiet was absolute, and most of the shops reopened. On Sunday the theatres were as full as usual, and our Champs-Elysees had quite its complement of promenaders. Wiedeman's prophecy had not been carried out, any more than the prophecies of the wiser may--the soldiers had not shot Punch.

And now I do beg you not to be down-hearted. See, if French blood runs in your veins, that you don't take a pedantic view of this question like an Englishwoman. Const.i.tutional forms and essential principles of liberty are so a.s.sociated in England, that they are apt to be confounded, and are, in fact, constantly confounded. For my part, I am too good a democrat to be afraid of being thrown back upon the primitive popular element, from impossible paper const.i.tutions and unrepresenting representative a.s.semblies. The situation was in a deadlock, and all the conflicting parties were full of dangerous hope of taking advantage of it; and I don't see, for my part, what better could be done for the French nation than to sweep the board clear and bid them begin again.

With no sort of prejudice in favour of Louis Napoleon (except, I confess to you, some artistical admiration for the consummate ability and courage shown in his _coup d'etat_), with no particular faith in the purity of his patriotism, I yet hold him justified _so far_, that is, I hold that a pure patriot would be perfectly justifiable in taking the same steps which up to this moment he has taken. He has broken, certainly, the husk of an oath, but fidelity to the intention of it seems to me reconcilable with the breach; and if he had not felt that he had the great ma.s.s of the people to back him, he is at least too able a man, be certain, if not too honest a man, to have dared what he has dared. You will see the result of the elections. As to Paris, don't believe that Paris suffers violence from Louis Napoleon. The result of my own impressions is a conviction that _from the beginning_ he had the sympathy of the whole population here with him, to speak generally, and exclusively of particular parties. All our tradespeople, for instance, milkman, breadman, wine merchant, and the rest, yes, even the shrewd old washerwoman, and the concierge, and our little lively servant were in a glow of sympathy and admiration. 'Mais, c'est le vrai neveu de son oncle! il est admirable! enfin la patrie sera sauvee.' The bourgeoisie has now accepted the situation, it is admitted on all hands. 'Scandalous adhesion!' say some. 'Dreadful apathy!' say others. Don't _you_ say either one or the other, or I think you will be unjust to Paris and France.

The French people are very democratical in their tendencies, but they must have a visible type of hero-wors.h.i.+p, and they find it in the bearer of that name Napoleon. That name is the only tradition dear to them, and it is deeply dear. That a man bearing it, and appealing at the same time to the whole people upon democratical principles, should be answered from the heart of the people, should neither astonish, nor shame, nor enrage anybody.

An editor of the 'National,' a friend of ours, feels this so much, that he gnashes his teeth over the imprudence of the extreme Reds, who did not set themselves to trample out the fires of Buonapartism while they had some possibility of doing it. 'Ce peuple a la tete _dure_,' said he vehemently.

As to military despotism, would France bear _that_, do you think? Is the French army, besides, made after the fas.h.i.+on of standing armies, such as we see in other countries? Are they not eminently _civic_, flesh of the people's flesh? I fear no military despotism for France, oh, none. Every soldier is a citizen, and every citizen is or has been a soldier.

Altogether, instead of despairing, I am full of hope. It seems to me probable that the door is open to a wider and calmer political liberty than France has yet enjoyed. Let us wait.

The American _forms_ of republicanism are most uncongenial to this artistic people; but democratical inst.i.tutions will deepen and broaden, I think, even if we should soon all be talking of the 'Empire.'

As to the repressive measures, why, grant the righteousness of the movement, and you must accept its conditions. Don't believe the tremendous exaggerations you are likely to hear on all sides--don't, I beseech you.

The President rode under our windows on December 2, through a shout extending from the Carrousel to the Arc de l'Etoile. The troups poured in as we stood and looked. No sight could be grander, and I would not have missed it, not for the Alps, I say.

You say nothing specific. How I should like to know _why_ exactly you are out of spirits, and whether dear Mr. Martin is sad too. Robert and I have had some domestic _emeutes_, because he hates some imperial names; yet he confessed to me last night that the excessive and contradictory nonsense he had heard among Legitimists, Orleanists, and _English_, against the movement inclined him almost to a revulsion of feeling.

I would have written to you to-day, even if I had not received your letter. You will forgive that what I have written should have been scratched in the utmost haste to save the post. I can't even read it over. There's the effect of going out to walk the first thing in the morning....

Your ever affectionate BA--to both of you.

_To Miss Mitford_

[Paris,] 138 Avenue des Champs-Elysees: Christmas Eve, [1851].

What can you have thought of me? That I was shot or deserved to be?

Forgive in the first instance, dearest friend, and believe that I won't behave so any more, if in any way I can help it.

Tell me your thought now about L. Napoleon. He rode under our windows on December 2 through an immense shout from the Carrousel to the Arc de l'Etoile. There was the army and the sun of Austerlitz, and even I thought it one of the grandest of sights; for he rode there in the name of the people, after all....

But we know men most opposed to him, writers of the old 'Presse' and 'National,' and Orleanists, and Legitimists, and the fury of all such I can scarcely express to you after the life. Emile de Girardin and his friends had a sublime scheme of going over in a body to England, and establis.h.i.+ng a Socialist periodical, inscribing on their new habitation, 'Ici c'est la France.' He actually advertised for sale his beautiful house close by in the Champs-Elysees, asked ten thousand pounds (English) for it; and would have been 'rather disappointed,' as one of his sympathising friends confessed to us, if the offer had been accepted. I heard a good story the other day. A lady visitor was groaning politically to Madame de Girardin over the desperateness of the situation. 'Il n'y a que Celui, qui est en haut, qui peut nous en tirer,' said she, casting up her eyes. 'Oui, c'est vrai,' replied Madame, 'il le pourrait, lui,' glancing towards the second floor, where Emile was at work upon feuilletons. Not that she mistakes him habitually for her deity, by any manner of means, if scandal is to be listened to.

I hear that Lamennais is profoundly disgusted. He said to a friend of ours, that the French people were 'putrefied to the heart.' Which means that they have one tradition still dear to them (the name of Napoleon) and that they put no faith in the Socialistic prophets. Wise or unwise they may be accordingly; but an affection and an apprehension can't reasonably be said to amount to a 'putrefaction,' I think. No, indeed.

Louis Napoleon is said to say (a bitter foe of his told me this) that 'there will be four phases of his life.' The first was all rashness and imprudence, but 'it was necessary to make him known:' the second, 'the struggle with and triumph over anarchy:' the third, 'the settlement of France and the pacification of Europe:' the fourth, a _coup de pistolet.

Se non e vero, e ben trovato._ Nothing is more likely than the catastrophe in any case; and the violence of the pa.s.sions excited in the minority makes me wonder at his surviving a day even. Do you know I heard your idol of a Napoleon (the antique hero) called the other evening through a black beard and gnas.h.i.+ng teeth, 'le plus grand scelerat du monde,' and his empire, 'le regne du Satan,' and his marshals, 'les coquins.' After that, I won't tell you that 'le neveu' is reproached with every iniquity possible to anybody's public and private life. Perhaps he is not 'sans reproche' in respect to the latter, not altogether; but one can't believe, and oughtn't, even infinitesimally, the things which are talked on the subject....

Ah, I am so vexed about George Sand. She came, she has gone, and we haven't met! There was a M. Francois who pretended to be her very very particular friend, and who managed the business so particularly ill, from some motive or some incapacity, that he did not give us an opportunity of presenting our letter. He did not '_dare_' to present it for us, he said. She is shy--she distrusts bookmaking strangers, and she intended to be incognita while in Paris. He proposed that we should leave it at the theatre, and Robert refused. Robert said he wouldn't have our letter mixed up with the love letters of the actresses, or perhaps given to the 'premier comique' to read aloud in the green room, as a relief to the 'Chere adorable,' which had produced so much laughter. Robert was a little proud and M. Francois very stupid; and I, between the two, in a furious state of dissent from either. Robert tries to smooth down my ruffled plumage now, by promising to look out for some other opportunity, but the late one has gone. She is said to have appeared in Paris in a bloom of recovered beauty and brilliancy of eyes, and the success of her play, 'Le Mariage de Victorine,' was complete. A strange, wild, wonderful woman, certainly. While she was here, she used a bedroom which belongs to her son--a mere 'chambre de garcon'--and for the rest, saw whatever friends she chose to see only at the 'cafe,'

where she breakfasted and dined. She has just finished a romance, we hear, and took fifty-two nights to write it. She writes only at night.

People call her Madame Sand. There seems to be no other name for her in society or letters.

Now listen. Alexandre Dumas _does_ write his own books, that's a fact.

You know I always maintained it, through the odour of Dumas in the books, but people swore the contrary with great foolish oaths worth nothing. Maquet prepares historical materials, gathers together notes, and so on, but Dumas writes every word of his books with his own hand, and with a facility amounting to inspiration, said my informant. He called him a great savage negro child. If he has twenty sous and wants bread, he buys a pretty cane instead. For the rest, 'bon enfant,' kind and amiable. An inspired negro child! In debt at this moment, after all the sums he has made, said my informant--himself a most credible witness and highly cultivated man.

I heard of Eugene Sue, too, yesterday. Our child is invited to a Christmas tree and party, and Robert says he is too young to go, but I persist in sending him for half an hour with Wilson--oh, really I must--though he will be by far the youngest of the thirty children invited. The lady of the house, Miss Fitton, an English resident in Paris, an elderly woman, shrewd and kind, said to Robert that she had a great mind to have Eugene Sue, only he was so scampish. I think that was the word, or something alarmingly equivalent. Now I should like to see Eugene Sue with my little innocent child in his arms; the idea of the combination pleases me somewhat. But I sha'n't see it in any case. We had three cold days last week, which brought back my cough and took away my voice. I am dumb for the present and can't go out any more....

At last I have caught sight of an advertis.e.m.e.nt of your book. A very catching t.i.tle, and if I mayn't compliment you upon it, I certainly do your publisher. I dare say the book is charming, and the more of yourself in it, the more charming.

Write, and say how you are always when you write. Say, too, how you continue to like your new house. We heard a good deal of you from Mr.

Fields, though he came to us only once. With him came Mr. Longfellow, the poet's brother, who is at present in Paris--I mean the brother, not the poet. Robert's love, may I say?

Wiedeman has struck up two friends.h.i.+ps: one, with the small daughter of our concierge and one with a little Russian princess, a month younger than himself. He calls them both 'boys,' having no idea yet of the less sublime s.e.x, but he likes the plebeian best. May G.o.d make you happy on this and other seasons!

Love your affectionate and grateful BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_