Eustace Grenville Murray's 'Men of the Second Empire' 1872

Smith, Elder and Co. first edition - 1872

In 1871, Eustace Grenville Murray's (possibly most famous) novel, The Member for Paris: a Tale of the Second Empire, was published (see my Blog of 29th April, 2023). As I mentioned then, Murray wrote countless sketches and essays for both the English and American papers in the same period. He was particularly adept at circulating private gossip, mainly by the use of hint and innuendo. One of the papers he wrote for was the Pall Mall Gazette. This book of sketches first appeared in that journal. In his Preface, the author states that he wrote, at a time when the Second Empire, after a seventeen years' gallop, much too fast to last, was rapidly nearing the brink which everybody saw except itself. Not that bystanders actually perceived that the particular brink over which the Second Empire would disappear was to be the Prussian one; but it was only a choice of brinks. Count Bismarck, Garibaldi and Henry Rochefort stood up ahead like three posts marked "Dangerous" to warn of the roads where lay the German, Roman, and Revolutionary ravines...

The rest of this sixteen page Preface shines a forensic light on the politics and personnel of the 1868-1870 period, highlighting figures such as Rouher, Gambetta, Baudin, Forcade de la Roquette, Emile Ollivier and other long-forgotten names, and focusing very much on Napoleon III - much to the latter's disadvantage. He might either have attempted a new coup d'état, or accepted constitutionalism frankly. He preferred doing neither, but prolonging a hybrid state of things that was neither freedom nor tyranny, though it comprised all the disadvantages of both. Murray castigates Napoleon III, in particular, for his indecision, wavering where he should have been firm. He ends his Preface with a withering appraisal of both Napoleons: The glorious results of the first Bonaparte's reign may be summed up in two lines - a million French men slain, two invasions, three provinces lost, and a hundred million pounds tagged on to the national debt; and the second Bonaparte's legacy is not less commendable: "Two provinces lost, a Communist revolution, and the national debt increased by five hundred million pounds!" Some legacy.

I must admit not knowing enough about the characters of the Second Empire, so I was regularly confused as to whether Murray's personnel being skewered were fictional or real! There are twenty chapters, or sketches, starting with "L'Homme du Deux Decembre" and taking in such as The Imperialist Senator, The Paris Priest, The Opposition Deputy, The Country Mayor, The Field Marshal, The Private Soldier and The Journalist. Some of Murray's trademark satirical comments I thoroughly enjoyed. Here are a few:

The Imperialist Senator, M. de Parapluie (in English - umbrella) is one of the race of persons who distinguish themselves like mushrooms, by rising unobserved, and nobody knows how...occasionally he is obliged to say "No", a word which sits as ill upon his constantly affirmative lips as a frown upon the usually smooth, unruffled surface of his brow.

The Paris Priest, M. de Vernis (in English, varnish): his cassock is of cloth so fine that it might all be passed through a wedding ring. He wears black silk stockings, patent leather shoes, cuffs and collars of cambric. His hat is always new, and he never goes out without black kid gloves for which he pays six francs the pair, and which he puts on three times at the most.

The Country Priest, M. le Curé Chausson (in English - slipper): Monseigneur, I have substituted a plate for a bag in the usual church collections on Sunday. I have been led to this step by finding that parishioners put more into the plate where their offertories can be seen than they did into the bag, which ensured a sort of secrecy. The last time I made use of the bag I found that there were many farthings in it, together with six brass buttons and a haricot bean. The bean, Monseigneur, I believe to have been the mayor's. That man, I regret to say, is capable of anything.

The Imperialist Deputy, M. Pavé de l'Ours (in English - paving stone): at his election M. Pavé pledged himself to two things - firstly, to vote always with his conscience; and secondly, to vote invariably with the Government... he contracted with King Bungo of Dahomey to furnish trousers to the troops of the Nudi Islands, who had never worn any before...

The Official Candidate - M. de Bois Réglisse (English - liquorice wood) was not at all an unpleasant man...it was he who had given the marble bust of the Emperor to the town-hall, and the stone bust of the Empress to the town hospital, and the bronze bust of the Prince Imperial to the local school... during the eleven years that he sat for Bombeville he invariably gave his vote in "favour of peace and plenty", which is another way of saying that he voted for the Crimean, Italian, Chinese, and Mexican expeditions, and consistently supported every annual increase in taxation.

The French are beings of impulse compounded in equal doses of rashness and vanity.

The Journalist - with him there is no respect of persons. The senator, the prelate, the field-marshal, the Imperialist deputy, the Opposition deputy, are all one in his eyes. He looks upon them as figures raised aloft by Providence for him to fire shots at. Friend or foe, reactionary or liberal, it scarcely matters a rush; they are people in power, that is enough. The mission of a journalist is to shoot, that of men in office to be shot at. Surely, this was Murray's self portrait.

I read these sketches in short bursts - they were very much aimed at separate journal readings. To read the whole lot in one would have meant losing their bite.

I now just have Volume One of Murray's Side Lights on English History: Sketches from Life Social & Satirical (1881) to read. These were written in safety from Paris. and include sections on Flirts and Semi-Detached Wives! Perhaps, it was fortuitous that the author died on 20th December that same year.