Certainly, now that Te Deums had become almost a daily form of entertainment, Paris seemed to be more and more difficult to stir up. War having started again, this time with Prussia, when the double victory of Jena and Auerstedt was announced, the capital was pleased, at it had been pleased by Austerlitz, that is to say without over-excitement, like a well-behaved child.
Its attitude of reserve was actually so marked that the authorities were surprised. In a confidential note the Foreign Minister, Champagny, exhorted the prefect of the Seine to stimulate public opinion, to do whatever he thought appropriate to 'facilitate the explosion of its enthusiasm'. And dotting his is, he asked Frochot c to give some encouragement to the dance resorts ordinarily frequented by the people of a Sunday, the bastringues, that is, to make them more attractive, better attended, gayer, more animated *
The Imperial Government reduced to subsidizing the accordion dance-halls and shilling hops, and the purveyors of triple time, to make the French realize the importance of such an event as the collapse, in five weeks, of the powerful army forged by the great Frederick, was that not a sign of the times?
Frochot's 'encouragements' would be more useful still the following year, during our struggle with the Russians, and particularly after Eylau, a bloody butchery that sent a host of frankly pessimistic rumours circulating through the city. The police spent their time inspecting the cafes, 'where the spirit of the habitues did not conform to the wishes of true Frenchmen'. It needed the victory of FriecUand, the interview between the two emperors, and above all, the Peace of Tilsit, to steady the general morale and let loose a wave of gladness, which this time would be spontaneous.
When Napoleon re-entered Saint-Cloud, he was overwhelmed with evidences of the love everybody bore him, including these lines penned by a poor madwoman before throwing herself out of window: 'I am not sorry to die. But I would have liked to see the return of the Emperor. His arrival will restore people's happiness I*
The August 15th that followed Tilsit was undoubtedly the most brilliant ever seen, or to be seen by the Empire. Never had there been so much gaiety in the streets; never, on the houses, so many yards of calico covered with allegories and dithyrambic phrases. To celebrate the great man who had just given them peace, even the vendors of thermometers turned poets, and this quatrain was to be seen on the shop of Chevallier the engineer;
'I know not what genius will venture
To sing a hero guided by victory.
For my part, I could not make a thermometer
Capable of marking the degree of his fame!'
When would the people of Paris return to this happy mood? Not, of a certainty, during the two years to follow, for hostilities were soon to be renewed almost everywhere, like a chronic pestilence, and after the Spanish affair, after the new campaign in Austria, even after the costly victory of Wagram and the Treaty of Vienna that followed, many people were convinced that unlimited conquests must burden the county with endless wars.
Hence a general disquiet, an increasing coolness on the part of the public, which even the finest spectacles could not dispel. Not even Bonaparte's marriage to the daughter of an emperor, not even Marie-Louise's entry into her new capital.
Seated beside her husband in the gilded Coronation coach in which Josephine had preceded her, when Paris saw her pass under the scaffolding round the Arc de TEtoile, decorated with painted canvas, drive down the Chainps-Elysees, slowly across the Place de la Concorde-a spot that must have recalled many sad family memories to the great-niece of Marie-Antoinette - to reach the Tuileries with her escort of pages, grand dignitaries and Highnesses; when Paris witnessed all this, the Paris that Napoleon believed to be so responsive and impressionable, it showed deference, curiosity, but according to an eye-witness, 'neither enthusiasm nor gladness*.
To wake it up a bit, it would have to be given its usual diversions: bands, theatres, greasy poles, tilting at the ring, break-neck sports, seesaws. Above all, it must be gorged with victuals: 4,800 pasties, 1,200 tongues, 1,040 legs of mutton, 1,000 shoulders of mutton, 240 turkeys, 360 capons, 360 fowls and 3,000 sausages. These were the prizes of a tombola to be distributed to twelve buffets along the Seine, where fountains of wine would spout. So that for the lower classes the marriage of Marie-Louise would long be a synonym of a formidable attack of indigestion.
What impression had the young sovereign made as she passed by? She was not considered very pretty, firstly because she wasn't, and secondly because people rather regretted Josephine, who knew how to dress and had made herself really popular. The populace always prefers marriages that have come about of their own accord to unions arranged by the notaries ... or the diplomats.
So Marie-Louise's face had appeared insignificant, though, as Dubois wrote complaisantly: 'Her manner was considered noble and gracious, her figure handsome and of good augury for the hopes of the nation, which sees in her the mother of the heirs of the throne of Napoleon/ In short, a good mould for emperors. And the blond, rosy Austrian was to justify these prognostics, for less than a year after the marriage the guns of the Invalides would announce the birth of the King of Rome.
For the crowd counting the detonations that day - twenty were to signify a princess, twenty-two a little prince—this was doubtless the finest, most moving chapter of history seen from the street.
Several accounts, including those of the Comtesse de Boigne and the Duchesse Decazes, depict the scene in almost the same terms: pedestrians stopping suddenly in the squares and gardens, anxious faces leaning out of the windows, and suddenly, when they had taken it in, an immense shout of joy c going off like a discharge'. But of all tihe contemporaries it was Stendhal, as usual, who gave his reportage the most picturesque turn.
*I was in bed with Angeline. The cannon woke her at ten o'clock. It was the third report. At our nineteenth, which was the twenty-second for the public, we heard clapping in the streets. In the most solitary places, such as the Jardin des Augustins, everybody applauded the twenty-second gun. My wigmaker told me that in the Rue Saint-Honore people applauded as they do at the appearance of a favourite actor. It's a great and happy event.*
And all the French thought the same. Whatever their sex, age or condition, whatever their political leanings, they were glad to see the future of the Empire assured, even if they were not too fond of the Emperor .. . and even if they had just woken up beside the charming Angeline.
CHAPTER XX. IN THE PROVINCES
'The smell of the Provinces' — Evening parties in Marseilles — A ball at Moulins - The Chariots of Thespis - In love with the First Consul — The great Prefects - A country gentleman — Exemplary little girls - English Exiles in Verdun ~ Mme de Stael and the Prefect