 had a Turkish Ambassador. For centuries there had been
none but temporary Ottoman missions. The first permanently appointed
ambassador we had, before Namick and Reschid Pashas, who both spoke
French very well, was Ahmed Fethi Pasha. He did not know a single word
of our language. I was present at a great dinner in his honour at the
Tuileries, and this is what took place. Of course he had been placed on
my mother's right hand at table, with a Foreign Office interpreter, all
gold lace and decorations, on his other side. As soon as dinner began,
the pasha conceived it incumbent on him to address my mother with a
fine Turkish compliment, which, judging by the way he turned up his
eyes, and laid his hands on his heart, and the bows he made her, must
have been adorned with every flower of Oriental poetry. When his speech
was finished, the pasha turned to the interpreter for him to translate
it to my mother, and this he proceeded to do, the pasha accompanying
and accentuating his remarks with more bows and grimacing and pressure
of his hands to his heart.

Now, behold the translation, which the dragoman, who no doubt had
perused the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, delivered to the Queen. "Madam, I
have a daughter whom I am very anxious to get into the Maison de St.
Denis. To do that I need your Majesty's powerful support. Your Majesty
will understand my seizing this unequalled chance of making my request."

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.

At Lyons I embarked on a steamer to go to Toulon, and this vessel
brought me to Arles under a lovely sunset. Nothing could be prettier
than the scene on arriving at this picture of an old town, with its
tall towers and the great walls of its amphitheatre, its stone houses
set in the Rhone, and its port full of boats with long graceful lateen
yards. It was Sunday, besides, and the promenade was crowded with
pretty women. I am very fond of the little town, and am always glad to
get back to it. So I lost no time about jumping on shore, and making
over my baggage to the porter from the Hotel du Forum, I took advantage
of the long twilight to see what changes three years had wrought in my
old acquaintance. The women of Arles, a Greek colony, still preserve
the type of countenance so much admired by the ancients, undeteriorated
by their slight admixture of Catalonian blood. The magnificent
monuments of the Roman city, the theatre and the arena, show the rank
it held in ancient Gaul. In the present day it is a well-to-do, gay,
careless town, with a lively and frivolous population, fond of
pleasure, and indulging freely in it. Night overtook me during my walk,
and under the splendid moonlight I could have fancied myself in some
Arab town; I was in a labyrinth of lanes, where the heat of day still
hung. The women sat before the doors in their pretty Sunday dresses,
chattering with the young men, and no carriage nor any sound disturbed
their low talk in that harmonious tongue on which the poems of the
trouveres have shed such glory. It was exquisite. What a beautiful,
nay, what an adorable country is France in all her varied aspects, east
and west, north and south! What endless enchantments they afford, if
only one can get rid of the sickening politics that break up and
destroy everything they touch!

On the morrow I travelled down the Rhone, through the Camargue, with
its droves of oxen and its flights of flamingos, lost in dreamy reverie
as though foreseeing even then that beautiful poem of "Mireille," which
Mistral and Gounod have since rendered immortal.

We sailed from Toulon, a splendid squadron, twenty strong, to manoeuvre
at sea. We were under the orders of Admiral Hugon, "Le Pere la Chique,"
as the men called him. The soubriquet bears its own explanation with
it. Born at Granville and thoroughly Norman in character, the admiral
concealed the most unshakable determination under an appearance of the
greatest good-nature. I never met a more thorough-born sailor. He
divined what weather was coming, foretold it long before the barometer
did, and took all the necessary precautions in advance. He was the very
personification of the seafaring instinct. Besides this, he had a long
record of bravery behind him. At Navarino, where he commanded the
Armide, he came up and lay with true fraternal chivalry between the
Turkish ships and a British frigate that was suffering very much from
their fire, which same service the British corvette Rose rendered him
in return, and with equal gallantry, towards the close of the
engagement.

The consequence of all this was that we all felt ourselves well led,
and had the most absolute confidence in our chief, and I myself was
particularly fond of him. It really was a fine sight both from the
picturesque point of view and from that of a justifiable national
pride, when our twenty white-sailed ships manoeuvred all together,
under the admiral's signal, on the blue Mediterranean waters, with no
sound to break the silence except the shrill voices of the officers of
the watch.

We went on in this fashion, sailing and manoeuvring and firing our
guns, and gauging day by day the respective values alike of officers
and men, till we got to the Gulf of Naples, where we cast anchor, so as
to give everybody a spell of rest and recreation. Very complete the
recreation was, every class of the population joining to give us the
kindliest of welcomes. We sent our crews ashore, and there the
Frenchman's gaiety soon went into partnership with the Neapolitan's.
Everywhere corricoli were to be seen galloping along carrying clusters
of merry sailors. Our ambassador, the Duc de Montebello, who kept great
state and the most open house at the Rothschild palace, introduced our
officers into the most delightful society of Naples, and there was a
succession of parties and merry-makings. By way of response, the
admiral gave a very