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[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 734.      SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1878.      PRICE 1½_d._]




THE STORY OF THIERS.


In a densely populated street of the quaint sea-port of Marseilles
there dwelt a poor locksmith and his family, who were so hard pressed
by the dearness of provisions and the general hardness of the times,
that the rent and taxes for the wretched tenement which they called
a home had been allowed to fall many weeks into arrear. But the good
people struggled on against their poverty; and the locksmith (who
was the son of a ruined cloth-merchant), though fallen to the humble
position of a dock-porter, still managed to wade through life as if
he had been born to opulence. This poor labourer’s name was Thiers,
and his wife was a descendant of the poet Chenier; the two being
destined to become the parents of Louis Adolphe Thiers, one of the most
remarkable men that ever lived.

The hero of our story was at his birth mentally consigned to oblivion
by his parents, while the neighbours laughed at the ungainly child,
and prognosticated for him all kinds of evil in the future. And it is
more than probable that these evil auguries would have been fulfilled
had it not been for the extraordinary care bestowed upon him by his
grandmother. But for her, perhaps our story had never been written.

Under her fostering care the child survived all those diseases which
were, according to the gossips, to prove fatal to him; but while his
limbs remained almost stationary, his head and chest grew larger, until
he became a veritable dwarf. By his mother’s influence with the family
of André Chenier, the lad was enabled to enter the Marseilles Lyceum
at the age of nine; and here the remarkable head and chest kept the
promise they made in his infancy, and soon fulfilled Madame Thiers’
predictions.

Louis Adolphe Thiers was a brilliant though somewhat erratic pupil. He
was noted for his practical jokes, his restlessness, and the ready and
ingenious manner in which he always extricated himself from any scrapes
into which his bold and restless disposition had led him. Thus the
child in this case would appear to have been ‘father to the man,’ by
the manner in which he afterwards released his beloved country from one
of the greatest ‘scrapes’ she ever experienced.

On leaving school Thiers studied for the law, and was eventually called
to the bar, though he never practised as a lawyer. He became instead
a local politician; and so well did the rôle suit him, that he soon
evinced a strong desire to try his fortune in Paris itself. He swayed
his auditory, when speaking, in spite of his diminutive stature,
Punch-like physiognomy, and shrill piping speech; and shout and yell
as his adversaries might, they could not drown his voice, for it arose
clear and distinct above all the hubbub around him. While the studious
youth was thus making himself a name in his native town, he was ever on
the watch for an opportunity to transfer his fortunes to the capital.
His almost penniless condition, however, precluded him from carrying
out his design without extraneous assistance of some kind or other;
but when such a stupendous ambition as that of governing one of the
greatest nations of the earth filled the breast of the Marseilles
student, it was not likely that the opportunity he was seeking would be
long in coming.

The Academy of Aix offered a prize of a few hundred francs for a
eulogium on _Vauvenargues_, and here was the opportunity which Louis
Adolphe Thiers required. He determined to compete for the prize,
and wrote out two copies of his essay, one of which he sent to the
Academy’s Secretary, and the other he submitted to the judgment of
his friends. This latter indiscretion, however, would appear to have
been the cause of his name being mentioned to the Academicians as a
competitor; and as they had a spite against him, and disapproved of his
opinions, they decided to reject any essay which he might submit to
them.

On the day of the competition they were as good as their word, and
Thiers received back his essay with only an ‘honourable mention’
attached to it. The votes, however, had been equally divided, and the
principal prize could not be adjudged until the next session. The
future statesman and brilliant journalist was not, however, to be cast
aside in this contemptuous manner, and he accordingly adopted a _ruse
de guerre_, which was perfectly justifiable under the circumstances. He
sent back his first essay for the second competition with his own name
attached thereto, and at the same time transmitted another essay, by
means of a friend, through the Paris post-office. This paper was signed
‘Louis Duval;’ and as M. Thiers knew that they had resolved to reject
his essay and accept the next best on the list, he made it as near as
possible equal to the other in point of merit.

The Academicians were thoroughly out-generalled by this clever
artifice, and the prize was awarded to the essay signed ‘Louis Duval;’
but the chagrin of the dons when the envelope was opened and the name
of Louis Adolphe Thiers was read out, can be better imagined than
described. The prize, which amounted to about twenty pounds, was
added to another sum of forty pounds gained by his friend Mignet for
essay-writing; and with this modest amount, the two friends set out
on their journey to Paris. On their arrival there, both of them were
at once engaged as writers on the _Globe_ newspaper, and M. Thiers’
articles soon attracted such attention that the highest political
destinies were predicted for their author.

Alluding to the small stature of our hero, Prince Talleyrand once
said: ‘_Il est petit, mais il grandira!_’ (He is little, but he will
be great!) Meanwhile, the young adventurer, as we may call him, was
engaged on general literary work for the press, writing political
leaders one day, art-criticisms the next, and so on, until a publisher
asked him to write the _History of the French Revolution_. He accepted;
and when published, the work met with so great a success that it placed
him in the front rank of literature, and gained for him the proud title
of ‘National Historian.’ After this the two friends published the
_National_ newspaper, an undertaking which we are told was conceived
in Talleyrand’s house, and was largely subscribed to by the Duke
of Orleans, afterwards King Louis-Philippe. M. Thiers disliked the
Bourbons; and when, in 1829, Charles X. dissolved a liberal parliament,
he took the lead in agitating for the reinstating of the people’s
rights. The king having determined to reply to the re-election of the
‘221’ by a _coup d’état_, the nature of which was secretly communicated
to M. Thiers, the latter hastened to the office of the _National_
and drew up the celebrated Protest of the Journalists, which before
noon was signed by every writer on the liberal side. As M. Thiers was
leaving the office, a servant of Prince Talleyrand placed in his hand a
note, which simply bore the words, ‘Go and gather cherries.’ This was a
hint that danger was near the young patriot, and that he should repair
to the house of one of the Prince’s friends at Montmorency--a place
famous for its cherries--and there lie hidden until the storm had blown
over.

M. Thiers did not immediately accept the hint, but remained in the
capital during the day, to watch the course of events and endeavour to
prevent his friends from doing anything rash. He energetically sought
to dissuade those who were for resisting the king’s decree by force of
arms; but did not succeed. When the barricades were raised, he left
Paris, because he thought that the people were doing an unwise thing,
which would lead to a fearful slaughter, and perhaps result in himself
and friends being shot.

When, however, the battle between the army and the people had really
begun, the indomitable little man returned to Paris, and heedless of
the bullets that were flying about, he ran here and there trying to
collect adherents for the Duke of Orleans. He also had a proclamation
of the Duke, as king, printed, rushed out with it, damp as it was from
the press, and distributed copies to the victorious insurgents; but
this operation nearly cost him his life, for the crowds on the Place
de la Bourse were shouting for a republic, and a cry was immediately
raised to lynch M. Thiers. He only escaped by dashing into a
pastry-cook’s shop, and taking a header down the open cellar which led
to the kitchen.

Nothing daunted by this _contretemps_, however, he sought out M.
Scheffer, an intimate friend of the Duke of Orleans, and started off
for Neuilly with him (without consulting anybody else), to offer the
crown of France to the Duke. When they found the Duke, he despatched
M. Thiers to Prince Talleyrand to ask his advice on the subject; and
the latter, who was in bed at the time, said: ‘Let him accept;’ but
positively refused to put this advice in writing. Thus the Duke of
Orleans became King of the French under the name of Louis-Philippe, and
the Marseilles student found himself a step nearer the accomplishment
of his aim. The poor locksmith’s son had overthrown one king and
established another!

It was M. Thiers who caused the remains of Napoleon to be removed from
the gloomy resting-place in St Helena to the church of the Invalides in
Paris, where they were re-interred amid great pomp and circumstance.
He it was who also invented or gave currency to the now well-known
constitutional maxim, ‘The king reigns, but does not govern.’

In this reign