Jules Favre

“ In Busch's 'Bismarck' there are many references to Jules Favre's emotional disposition. At the first interview which took place, a French peasant was told to keep watch outside the house where the Chancellor and Favre were negotiating, and the latter was unable to resist the temptation of making a speech to his fellow-countryman. 'Favre, who had gone into the house with the Chancellor, came out and addressed his countryman in a speech full of pathos and noble sentiments. ”

“ In stipulating the surrender of Paris, Jules Favre, acting for the Government of National Defence, had arranged for the retention of their arms by the Parisian Nationals. This was not done out of any affection for the citizen soldiers, but because the Government well knew that any attempt to disarm this proletarian army would be met by a resistance they had no adequate means of dealing with, and which would not improbably have upset them and all their schemes, especially the terms of surrender, which were regarded by all classes as already humiliating enough. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII Sarah grew to know at least two members of the revolutionary government extremely well. One was Jules Favre, who was given the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and the other Rochefort, the notorious editor of La Lanterne, who was taken out of prison by the mob on the night the Empire was overthrown.
Two more opposite characters it would be hard to imagine. Favre was a man in middle life—calm, rigidly upright, a thinker and a statesman. Rochefort was little better than a literary apache, and was the idol of the worst quarters of Paris. ”

“ Jules Favre complained to him that the German cannon in front of Paris fired upon the sick and blind in the Blind Institute, Bismarck in those days of swaggering prosperity had a fine turn of badinage. "I don't know what you find so hard in that," he retorted, "you do far worse; you shoot at our soldiers who are hale and useful fighting men." ”

“ M. Jules Favre, having mounted the tribune, obtained a moment's silence. 'No scenes of violence,' cried he; 'let us reserve our arms for our enemies.' Finding it utterly impossible to obtain any further hearing inside the Chamber, M. Gambetta, accompanied by the members of the Left, proceeded to the steps of the peristyle, and there announced the dethronement of the Emperor to the people assembled outside. ”

“ Instead of this, the infamous impostors resolved upon curing the heroic foliy of Paris by a regimen of famine and broken heads, and to dupe her in the mean while by ranting manifestoes, holding forth that Trochu, "the Governor of Paris, will never capitulate," and Jules Favre, the Foreign Minister, will "not cede an inch of our territory, nor a stone of our fortresses." In a letter to Gambetta, that very same Jules Favre avows that what they were "defending" against were not the Prussian soldiers, but the working men of Paris. ”

“ Jules Favre and its other members were indeed already more unpopular than the fallen ministers of Napoleon III. Since they would not conquer the Prussians, it was their duty to make way for others, for the revolutionaries, who were certain of conquering by decreeing the levée en masse, and by employing the inventors who offered to undermine the suburbs of the city or to annihilate the enemy with a torrent of Greek fire.
On the eve of the rising of October 31 Maurice was thus consumed by that malady of the siege days compounded of distrust and illusion. ”

“ How much more dignity there was in the conduct of General Wimpffen and his colleagues, when they discussed with the German Minister and the German General Staff the conditions of the capitulation of Sedan! No one likes Jules Favre, whom even his partisans consider to be a demagogue of talent, but nothing more. And certainly France does not need demagogues at the present time. ”

“ The general rode up and down the lines, returning the salute, amidst prolonged acclamations, and presently his colleagues, Jules Favre and the others—excepting, of course, Gambetta, who had already left Paris—also came out of the Hotel-de-Ville and received an enthusiastic greeting from their supporters. For the time, the Reds were absolutely defeated, and in order to prevent similar disturbances in future, Keratry, the Prefect of Police, wished to arrest Flourens, Blanqui, Milliere, and others, which suggestion was countenanced by Trochu, but opposed by Rochefort and Etienne Arago. ”

“ The stamp of the outcast was mercilessly upon him. But the eyes were dark and fine. They proclaimed the possession of something that was neither worn nor broken, something that was proud to be outcast, and welcomed it.
“He’s cracky, you know,” explained Favre, “and half blind. He lives in that hut on the edge of the forest”⁠—pointing with his thumb toward Côtendard⁠—“and plays on the leaf for what he can earn.”
We listened for five minutes perhaps while this singular being stood there in the dusk and piped his weird tunes ”

“ I told him that I had been at loggerheads with the popular representatives for four whole years, but that the raising of a loan without the Diet was the limit to which I went, and which it never occurred to me to overstep. That seemed to disconcert him somewhat, but he only said that in France ‘on ne se gênerait pas.’ And yet he returned afterwards to the immense freedom which they enjoy in France. It is really funny to hear a Frenchman talk in that way, and particularly Favre, who has always been a member of the Opposition. ”

“ There are people who will not believe it, learned men, but the State itself acts on this belief, although it will not openly confess to it. No woodman will think of felling a birch tree which is intended to throw out shoots when the moon is waning.”
After dinner I read a number of documents relating to the armistice and the revictualling of Paris, including several letters in Favre’s own hand, which is neat and legible. One of the letters states that Paris has only flour enough to last up to the 4th of February, and after that nothing but horseflesh. ”

“ For Faber's promise to become one of the presidents of the Federation League, he was very grateful. "You have done much for this country," he said; "your name will mean a great deal to me."
They fell afterwards to talking of their more domestic affairs. Sir Jules said that his daughter Eva had gone to Winchester to lunch with a friend, but he expected her to dinner. The same hesitation which had led Faber to defer his departure upon so many recent occasions, now prompted his acceptance of the suggestion that he should join the party, and he went over to the Savannah immediately to dress. ”

“ It does not surprise us to see the serene kindliness of our compatriot veiling itself in dejection and becoming almost pugnacious when confronted by the melancholy exploits of force; for how could he remain unaffected before the stupendous barbarism and iniquity of 1870?
At the time of his retirement to Orange, Fabre was already the father of five children: Antonia, Aglaé, Claire, Emile, and Jules, who, in course of time, were joined by three others, Paul, Anna, and Marie-Pauline. ”

“ A year before that epoch, I had left the enterprise, Favre having confided to me the general supervision over the manufacture of dynamite that he had undertaken at Varallo Pombia for the needs of his tunnel, but my friend M. Stockalper, engineer in chief of the Goschenen section, who accompanied Favre on his fatal subterranean excursion, has many a time recounted to me the sad details of his sudden death. ”

“ The Minister then related some particulars of his interview with Favre. “I like him better now than at Ferrières,” he said. “He spoke a good deal and in long, well-rounded periods. It was often not necessary to pay attention or to answer. They were anecdotes of former times. He is a very good raconteur.” “He was not at all offended at my recent letter to him. On the contrary, he felt indebted to me for calling his attention to what he owed to himself.” “He also spoke of having a villa near Paris, which was, however, wrecked and pillaged. ”

“ I was amused with the response. "Sit down, Victor Favraud, and eat your dinner Christian-like, without remarks! You have never got over the spoiling you, received when you lay wounded under this roof. I shall indulge you no longer." Shaking her long forefinger at him. "Your familiarity needs to be checked." Her manner of grave and kindly irony removed all impression of rebuke from this speech, which Major Favraud received very coolly, spoiled child that he really was, rubbing his hands as he took the foot of the table. ”

“ One dares not even think of it.”
The Minister said one of the objects of Favre’s visit to-day was to request that the masses of country people who had fled to Paris in September should be allowed to leave. They were mostly inhabitants of the environs and there must be nearly 300,000 of them, “I declined permission,” he continued, “explaining to him that our soldiers now occupied their houses. ”

“ It was pretended that Bismarck had demanded not only Toul, Verdun, and Strasburg, but the fort that commands Paris, and Metz, with the army of Bazaine. When Favre reported to his colleagues the failure of his mission, there were some who listened with a secret joy, for they were willing that the Republic should have a chance of retrieving the disasters which had crushed the Empire. "We may have to submit to the abuse of force," said Favre, "but not to a voluntary degradation." ”

“ It was to turn the fire before the lark. The lighted firebrands, the hearth and chimney, dragged heavily by the enormous machine, all turned around the lark.”
“Well, that beats all!” Jules ejaculated.
“You laugh, children, at this odd idea; and yet, like that eccentric man, you make the firebrands, hearth, the whole house turn around a little bird on the spit. The earth is the little bird; the house is the heavens, with their enormous, innumerable stars.”
“The sun isn’t very big—at most, as large as a grindstone,” said Jules. “The stars are only sparks. But the earth is so large and heavy!” ”

“ It was stated in a leaflet circulated throughout Paris that Favras had organized a plot of which the count of Provence was the moving spirit. A force of 30,000 was to be raised, La Fayette and Bailly, the mayor of Paris, were to be assassinated, and Paris was to be starved into submission by cutting off supplies. The count hastened publicly to disavow Favras in a speech delivered before the commune of Paris and in a letter to the National Assembly, although there is no reasonable doubt of his complicity in the plot that did exist. ”

“ Just listen!"
"Yes, hear him, and he edified," was the sarcastic response of Favraud to Duganne, who took no other notice, even if he understood the point, than to lead the way to the portico, where swung the cage of the jolly bird in question; and, headed by Madame Grambeau leaning on her cane, we followed simultaneously, with the exception of Major Favraud, who continued at the table with his cigar and cognac-flask, in sullen and solitary state.
"Nutmegs and nullification!" shrieked the parrot, as we stood before him. "Ha, ha, ha!" ”

“ As we write, we understand that the forgeries of Favre on the birth registers of a mairie, and the interested care which Ernest Picard took of his blackleg brother, are facts which have never been successfully controverted ”

“ In the same letter, he tells her that Favart—the poor man was then hiding in a cellar in the house of a village priest in Lorraine—had paid a visit to Paris, and been seen by several persons; that he was informed that no steps would be taken against him by the police, so long as he remained quiet, and that he had appeared very far from inconsolable at his wife's captivity: "The race of poets does not take things so much to heart. ”

“ I was amazed to see how quietly a man whose mind was so stored by life and by books as that of Julius Faber—a man who had loved the clash of conflicting intellects, and acquired the rewards of fame—could accommodate himself to the cabined range of his kinsfolks' half-civilized existence, take interest in their trivial talk, find varying excitement in the monotonous household of a peasant-like farmer. ”

“ Look at me well, and see whether you think it was so, or ever could be so. Look at me well, Jethro Fawe."
"You are mine—it was so done seventeen years ago," he answered, defiantly and tenaciously.
"I was three years old, seventeen years ago," she returned quietly, but her eyes forced his to look at her, when they turned away as though their light hurt him.
"It is no matter," he rejoined. "It is the way of our people. It has been so, and it will be so while there is a Romany tent standing or moving on."
In his rage Gabriel Druse could keep silence no longer. ”

“ An immense reward was offered by the bureau to any one who would betray his accomplices, and Monsieur Favart was placed at the head of a commission of inquiry. This person had himself been a faux monnoyer, and was an adept in the art, and it was he who had discovered the redoubted coiner who had brought the crime into such notoriety. Monsieur Favart was a man of the most vigilant acuteness, the most indefatigable research, and of a courage which; perhaps, is more common than we suppose. It is a popular error to suppose that courage means courage in everything. ”

“ Pierre had arrived at the Post three days before, to find a half-breed trapper and an Indian helpless before the sickness which was hurrying to close on John Fawdor's heart and clamp it in the vice of death. He had come just in time. He was now ready to learn, by what ways the future should show, why this man, of such unusual force and power, should have lived at a desolate post in Labrador for twenty-five years.
“'This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us—'” Fawdor repeated the words slowly, and then said: “It is good to be out of the restless world. ”