HKB
And all the time the good pasha kept on making agitated bows, and my mother had to keep on smiling at him and returning them!
As regards the condition of things in general, it appeared pacific enough in that year of grace 1842. The tempest in the East was almost forgotten, a breath of peace seemed to be passing over Europe, under the influence of which calm and prosperity reigned in France. We had a magnificent army, in which my brothers took as much interest as I did in the navy. And the head of the army was an eminent Minister of War, Marshal Soult, who, although he looked on M. Thiers as a tiresome little fidget, employed the fruits of his great experience and long service in the Ministry in bringing every branch of our land forces to perfection gradually, and in the most admirably consistent spirit. This army was waging an incessant war in Africa under a commander no less eminent than the Marshal himself, General Bugeaud, thus carrying on the conquest of our splendid Algerian colony, which would have been peerless indeed if we could have filled it with that excess of population which other nations still possess, but which has been dried up, in our case, by our revolutionary laws. Our naval forces were in good condition too, so far as they could be, on the eve of that great duel between sails and steam which was to end by revolutionising everything, in spite of all the delays of the red tape faction.
Of politics, my pet aversion, I will not speak. I had sufficient curiosity, before writing these lines, to look through the back numbers of the Moniteur for that period, and started in horror at the terrible accumulation of useless chatter I came upon. In contrast to these torrents of fairly inoffensive eloquence, the unofficial press indulged in a large amount of intemperate writing, far more dangerous, seeing that it flattered more passions, and that the calumnies thus spread were much farther reaching. The Government, honest, useful, and enlightened as it was, consistently patriotic and far-seeing, was able as yet to thread its way amongst the obstacles cast in its path. Six more years were to elapse before it was to be completely hemmed in, and the deluded mob to dance wildly round the throne it had overturned singing the democratic creed, the chorus of every revolution we have had the last hundred years.
Demolissons Tant que nous pourrons! Apres, nous verrons Ce que nous ferons.
But my winter in Paris slipped swiftly by, and towards the end of May Admiral Hugon's squadron prepared to go to sea, the repairs to the Belle-Poule were finished, and I started to join my ship.