Chapter 32 - Page 2

at home. His cousin
Napoleon timed his visit more happily and found Béranger by
his fireside. He asked him:

"What do you advise my cousin to do?"

"To observe the Constitution."

"And what ought he to avoid?"

"Violating the Constitution."

Béranger could not be induced to say anything else.

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Yesterday, December 5, 1850, I was at the Français.
Rachel played "Adrienne Lecouvreur." Jerome Bonaparte
occupied a box next to mine. During an entr'acte I paid
him a visit. We chatted. He said to me:

"Louis is mad. He is suspicious of his friends and delivers
himself into the hands of his enemies. He is suspicious of
his family and allows himself to be bound hand
and foot by the old Royalist parties. On my return to
France I was better received by Louis Philippe at the
Tuileries than I am at the Elysee by my nephew. I said
to him the other day before one of his ministers (Fould):
'Just remember a little! When you were a candidate for
the presidency, Monsieur here (I pointed to Fould) called
upon me in the Rue d'Alger, where I lived, and begged
me in the name of MM. Thiers, Mole, Duvergier de Hauranne,
Berryer, and Bugeaud to enter the lists for the presidency.
He told me that never would you get the
"Constitutionnel;" that in Mole's opinion you were an idiot,
and that Thiers looked upon you as a blockhead; that I
alone could rally everybody to me and win against
Cavaignac. I refused. I told them that you represented
youth and the future, that you had a quarter of a century
before you, whereas I could hardly count upon eight or ten
years; that I was an invalid and wanted to be let alone.
That is what these people were doing and that is what I
did. And you forget all this! And you make these gentlemen
the masters! And you show the door to your cousin,
my son, who defended you in the Assembly and devoted
himself to furthering your candidacy! And you are
strangling universal suffrage, which made you what you
are! I' faith I shall say like Mole that you are an idiot,
and like Thiers that you are a blockhead!'"

The King of Westphalia paused for a moment, then continued:

"And do you know, Monsieur Victor Hugo, what he replied to
me? 'You will see!' No one knows what is at
the bottom of that man!"