After receiving and acknowledging these politenesses, the French captain takes his charge on board, and the first thing we afterwards hear of him is the determination "qu'il a su faire passer" into all his crew, to sink rather than yield up the body of the Emperor aux mains de l'etranger--into the hands of the foreigner.My dear Monseigneur, is not this par trop fort? Suppose "the foreigner" had wanted the coffin, could he not have kept it? Why show this uncalled-for valor, this extraordinary alacrity at sinking? Sink or blow yourself up as much as you please, but your Royal Highness must see that the genteel thing would have been to wait until you were asked to do so, before you offended good-natured, honest people, who--heaven help them!--have never shown themselves at all murderously inclined towards you.A man knocks up his cabins forsooth, throws his tables and chairs overboard, runs guns into the portholes, and calls le quartier du bord ou existaient ces chambres, Lacedaemon.Lacedaemon! There is a province, O Prince, in your royal father's dominions, a fruitful parent of heroes in its time, which would have given a much better nickname to your quartier du bord: you should have called it Gascony.
"Sooner than strike we'll all ex-pi-er On board of the Bell-e Pou-le."Such fanfaronading is very well on the part of Tom Dibdin, but a person of your Royal Highness's "pious and severe dignity" should have been above it.If you entertained an idea that war was imminent, would it not have been far better to have made your preparations in quiet, and when you found the war rumor blown over, to have said nothing about what you intended to do? Fie upon such cheap Lacedaemonianism! There is no poltroon in the world but can brag about what he WOULD have done: however, to do your Royal Highness's nation justice, they brag and fight too.
This narrative, my dear Miss Smith, as you will have remarked, is not a simple tale merely, but is accompanied by many moral and pithy remarks which form its chief value, in the writer's eyes at least, and the above account of the sham Lacedaemon on board the "Belle Poule" has a double-barrelled morality, as I conceive.Besides justly reprehending the French propensity towards braggadocio, it proves very strongly a point on which I am the only statesman in Europe who has strongly insisted.In the "Paris Sketch Book" it was stated that THE FRENCH HATE US.They hate us, my dear, profoundly and desperately, and there never was such a hollow humbug in the world as the French alliance.Men get a character for patriotism in France merely by hating England.Directly they go into strong opposition (where, you know, people are always more patriotic than on the ministerial side), they appeal to the people, and have their hold on the people by hating England in common with them.Why? It is a long story, and the hatred may be accounted for by many reasons both political and social.Any time these eight hundred years this ill-will has been going on, and has been transmitted on the French side from father to son.On the French side, not on ours: we have had no, or few, defeats to complain of, no invasions to make us angry; but you see that to discuss such a period of time would demand a considerable number of pages, and for the present we will avoid the examination of the question.
But they hate us, that is the long and short of it; and you see how this hatred has exploded just now, not upon a serious cause of difference, but upon an argument: for what is the Pasha of Egypt to us or them but a mere abstract opinion? For the same reason the Little-endians in Lilliput abhorred the Big-endians; and I beg you to remark how his Royal Highness Prince Ferdinand Mary, upon hearing that this argument was in the course of debate between us, straightway flung his furniture overboard and expressed a preference for sinking his ship rather than yielding it to the etranger.
Nothing came of this wish of his, to be sure; but the intention is everything.Unlucky circumstances denied him the power, but he had the will.
Well, beyond this disappointment, the Prince de Joinville had nothing to complain of during the voyage, which terminated happily by the arrival of the "Belle Poule" at Cherbourg, on the 30th of November, at five o'clock in the morning.A telegraph made the glad news known at Paris, where the Minister of the Interior, Tanneguy-Duchatel (you will read the name, Madam, in the old Anglo-French wars), had already made "immense preparations" for receiving the body of Napoleon.
The entry was fixed for the 15th of December.
On the 8th of December at Cherbourg the body was transferred from the "Belle Poule" frigate to the "Normandie" steamer.On which occasion the mayor of Cherbourg deposited, in the name of his town, a gold laurel branch upon the coffin--which was saluted by the forts and dykes of the place with ONE THOUSAND GUNS! There was a treat for the inhabitants.
There was on board the steamer a splendid receptacle for the coffin:
"a temple with twelve pillars and a dome to cover it from the wet and moisture, surrounded with velvet hangings and silver fringes.
At the head was a gold cross, at the foot a gold lamp: other lamps were kept constantly burning within, and vases of burning incense were hung around.An altar, hung with velvet and silver, was at the mizzen-mast of the vessel, AND FOUR SILVER EAGLES AT EACH CORNER OFTHE ALTAR." It was a compliment at once to Napoleon and--excuse me for saying so, but so the facts are--to Napoleon and to God Almighty.
Three steamers, the "Normandie," the "Veloce," and the "Courrier,"formed the expedition from Cherbourg to Havre, at which place they arrived on the evening of the 9th of December, and where the "Veloce" was replaced by the Seine steamer, having in tow one of the state-coasters, which was to fire the salute at the moment when the body was transferred into one of the vessels belonging to the Seine.
