The time was one when the surface of life in Paris showed an unruffled aspect; but under the surface were heavings of inward agitation.  On the morning of December 2nd the great stroke against the Republic was delivered; the coup d’etat was an accomplished fact.  Later in the day Louis Napoleon rode under the windows of the apartment in the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, from the Carrousel to the Arc de l’Etoile.  To Mrs Browning it seemed the grandest of spectacles—­“he rode there in the name of the people after all.”  She and her husband had witnessed revolutions in Florence, and political upheavals did not seem so very formidable.  On the Thursday of bloodshed in the streets—­December 4th—­Pen was taken out for his usual walk, though not without certain precautions; as the day advanced the excitement grew tense, and when night fell the distant firing on the boulevards kept Mrs. Browning from her bed till one o’clock.  On Saturday they took a carriage and drove to see the field of action; the crowds moved to and fro, discussing the situation, but of real disturbance there was none; next day the theatres had their customary spectators and the Champs-Elysees its promenaders.  For the dishonoured “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite,” as Mrs. Browning heard it suggested, might now be inscribed “Infanterie, Cavallerie, Artillerie.”

Such may have been her husband’s opinion, but such was not hers.  Her faith in the President had been now and again shaken; her faith in the Emperor became as time went on an enthusiasm of hero-worship.  The display of force on December 2nd impressed her imagination; there was a dramatic completeness in the whole performance; Napoleon represented the people; a democrat, she thought, should be logical and thorough; the vote of the millions entirely justified their chief.  Browning viewed affairs more critically, more sceptically.  “Robert and I,” writes his wife jestingly, “have had some domestic emeutes, because he hates some imperial names.”  He detested all Buonapartes, he would say, past, present, and to come,—­an outbreak explained by Mrs Browning to her satisfaction, as being only his self-willed way of dismissing a subject with which he refused to occupy his thoughts, a mere escapade of feeling and known to him as such.  When all the logic and good sense were on the woman’s side, how could she be disturbed by such masculine infirmities?  Though only a very little lower than the angels, he was after all that humorous being—­a man.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 47:  “Mrs Orr’s Life and Letters of R.B.,” 173.]

Chapter VIII

1851 to 1855