c d'Orleans, was, on the
contrary, due directly to the man himself. As far as one can judge of
him, he was the reverse of Charles II., in that he never said a wise
thing and never did a foolish one. He was probably not half so clever as
his father, nor, brave as he may have been, would he have ever made so
dashing a soldier as his brother D'Aumale, or so rollicking a sailor as
his brother De Joinville. He did not pretend to the wisdom of his
brother De Nemours, nor to the mystic tendencies of his youngest sister,
nor to the sprightly wit of Princesse Clementine, and yet withal he
understood the French nation better than any of them. Even his
prenuptial escapades, secrets to no one, were those of the grand
seigneur, though by no means affichees; they endeared him to the
majority of the people. "Chacun colon-ise a sa facon," was the lenient
verdict on his admiration for Jenny Colon, at a moment when colonization
in Algeria was the topic of the day. On the whole he liked artists
better, perhaps, than art itself, yet it did not prevent him from buying
masterpieces as far as his means would allow him. Though still young, in
the latter end of the thirties, I was already a frequent visitor to the
studios of the great French painters, and it was in that of Decamps'
that I became alive to his character for the first time. I was talking
to the great painter when the duke came in. We had met before, and shook
hands, as he had been taught to do by his father when he met with an
Englishman. But I could not make out why he was carrying a pair of
trousers over his arm. After we had been chatting for about ten
minutes, I wondering all the while what he was going to do with the
nether garment, he caught one of my side glances, and burst out
laughing. "I forgot," he said; "here, Decamps, here are your breeches."
Then he turned to me to explain. "I always bring them up with me when I
come in the morning. The concierge is very old, and it saves her
trudging up four flights of stairs." The fact was, that the concierge,
before she knew who he was, had once asked him to take up the painter's
clothes and boots. From that day forth he never failed to ask for them
when passing her lodge.

I can but repeat, the Duc d'Orleans was one of the most charming men I
have known. I always couple him in my mind with Benjamin Disraeli, and
Alexandre Dumas the elder. I knew the English statesman almost as well
during part of my life as the French novelist. T