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Security Engineering for Embedded
and Cyber-Physical Systems

Digital transformation, also known as Industry 4.0, Smart Industry, and Smart
Manufacturing, is at the top of leaders’ agendas. Such a transformation stimulates inno-
vation in new products and services, the digital transformation of processes, and the cre-
ation of new business models and ecosystems. In the world of manufacturing, Industry
4.0 is based on various technological advances, among which we can mainly cite CPS
(cyber-physical systems), IoT (Internet of Things), and IoS (internet of services).
While engaging, this fourth wave also brings significant challenges for manufacturers.
Business operations and the supply chain are becoming more vulnerable to cyber threats.
Security Engineering for Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems is an invaluable
resource to discover cybersecurity and privacy techniques for embedded and cyber-
physical systems. This book presents the latest studies and research results on all aspects
of security engineering for embedded and cyber-physical systems. It also provides a pre-
mier interdisciplinary reference for researchers, practitioners, and educators to discover
the most recent innovations, trends, concerns, and practical challenges encountered and
solutions adopted in security engineering for embedded and cyber-physical systems.
The book offers comprehensive coverage of the essential topics, including the
following:

• Embedded and cyber-physical systems threats and vulnerabilities

• Security engineering techniques for embedded and cyber-physical systems
• Security engineering for embedded and cyber-physical systems and potential
future-use cases
• Artificial intelligence techniques for cybersecurity and privacy
• Security engineering for Internet of Things
• Blockchain for cybersecurity in embedded and cyber-physical systems

This book comprises a number of state-of-the-art contributions from both scientists and
practitioners working in security engineering for embedded and cyber-physical systems.
It aspires to provide a relevant reference for students, researchers, engineers, and profes-
sionals working in this area or those interested in grasping its diverse facets and explor-
ing the latest advances and future trends related to security engineering for embedded
and cyber-physical systems.
 Security Engineering
for Embedded and
Cyber-Physical Systems

Edited by
Saad Motahhir
Yassine Maleh
First edition published 2023
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

and by CRC Press

4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Saad Motahhir and Yassine Maleh; individual chapters, the
contributors

Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher
cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors
and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and
apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright
material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced,
transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without written permission from the publishers.

For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www.copyright.com or
contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-
8400. For works that are not available on CCC please contact [email protected]

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN: 978-1-032-23546-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-23547-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-27820-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.1201/9781003278207

Typeset in Times
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents

Editorsvii
Prefaceix

Section ONE  Security Engineering for Embedded and

Cyber-Physical Systems: Challenges and Applications1

1 Algorithms and Security Concern in Blockchain Technology:

A Brief Review 3
Rejwan Bin Sulaiman, Amer Kareem, and
Muhammad Umer Farooq

2 IoT-Based Secure Smart Healthcare Solutions 25

C.M. Naga Sudha, K. Gokulakrishnan, and
J. Jesu Vedha Nayahi

3 A Purposed Multilayered Framework for Security

and Privacy in Big Data 49
Danish Bilal Ansari and Muhammad Abdul Khaliq

Section TWO  Blockchain for Security Engineering in

Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems 77

4 Blockchain and Cyber-Physical System for Security

Engineering in the Smart Industry 79
Javaid Ahmad Malik and Muhammad Saleem

5 Applications of Blockchain Technology and Related

Security Threats: A Comparative Study 99
Amer Kareem and Rejwan Bin Sulaiman

6 Smart Applications of Big Data and Blockchain:

Challenges and Solutions 111
Swathi Lakkineni and Lo’ai Tawalbeh

v
vi Contents

7 Cybersecurity-Based Blockchain for Cyber-Physical Systems 137

Yassine Maleh, Ahmed A. Abd El-Latif, and Saad Motahhir

Section THREE  Artificial Intelligence for Security

Engineering in Cyber-Physical Systems 171
8 The Future of Cybersecurity in the Hands of
Artificial Intelligence 173
Lisa Devine and Kevin Curran

9 Cybersecurity-Based Machine Learning for

Cyber-Physical Systems 189
Mustapha Belaissaoui, Youssef Qasmaoui, Soufyane Mounir,
and Yassine Maleh

10 Mitigation of Malware Using Artificial Intelligence

Techniques: A Literature Review221
Farhat Lamia Barsha and Hossain Shahriar

11 AI Techniques in Blockchain Technology for Fraud

Detection and Prevention235
Yogesh Kumar

Index253
Editors

Saad Motahhir, PhD, IEEE Senior Member, has expertise as an embedded system
engineer at Zodiac Aerospace Morocco (2014–2019) and a professor at the National
School of Applied Sciences (ENSA), Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah (SMBA) University,
Fez, Morocco since 2019. He earned an engineering degree in embedded system at
ENSA Fez in 2014. He earned a PhD in electrical engineering from SMBA University
in 2018. Dr. Motahhir has published a number of papers in journals and at conferences
in recent years, most of which relate to photovoltaic (PV) solar energy and embedded
systems. He published a number of patents in the Morocco patent office. He has edited
one book and acted as guest editor of different special issues and topical collections. Dr.
Motahhir is a reviewer and on the editorial boards of different journals. He has been
associated with more than 30 international conferences as a program committee/advi-
sory board/review board member.

Yassine Maleh is a cybersecurity professor and practitioner with industry and academic
experience. He earned a PhD in computer sciences. Since 2019 he has been a profes-
sor of cybersecurity at Sultan Moulay Slimane University, Morocco. He worked for
the National Port Agency (ANP) in Morocco as a Senior Security Analyst from 2012
to 2019. He is the founding chair of IEEE Consultant Network Morocco and founding
president of the African Research Center of Information Technology and Cybersecurity.
He is a senior member of IEEE and a member of the International Association of
Engineers and the Machine Intelligence Research Labs. Dr. Maleh has made contribu-
tions in the fields of information security and privacy, Internet of Things security, and
wireless and constrained networks security. His research interests include information
security and privacy, Internet of Things, network security, information system, and IT
governance. He has published over 120 papers (book chapters, international journals,
conferences/workshops), 20 edited books, and 3 authored books. He is the editor-in-
chief of International Journal of Information Security and Privacy (IJISP) and the
International Journal of Smart Security Technologies (IJSST). He serves as an associ-
ate editor for IEEE Access (2019 Impact Factor 4.098), International Journal of Digital
Crime and Forensics, and International Journal of Information Security and Privacy.
He was also a guest editor of a special issue, “Recent Advances on Cyber Security and
Privacy for Cloud-of-Things,” of International Journal of Digital Crime and Forensics.
He has served and continues to serve on executive and technical program committees
and as a reviewer of numerous international conferences and journals such as Elsevier
Ad Hoc Networks, IEEE Network Magazine, IEEE Sensor Journal, ICT Express, and
Springer Cluster Computing. He was the publicity chair of BCCA 2019 and the general
chair of the MLBDACP 19 symposium and ICI2C’21 Conference.

vii
Preface

Industry 4.0 or IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) is a discipline that combines indus-
trial systems, the Internet of Things, the cloud, and data and analytics. In Factory 4.0,
industrial production systems (IoT) are instrumented to feed data about their opera-
tion to the cloud through dedicated communication networks. The data in the cloud is
analyzed and cross-referenced with other external data by intelligent systems to make
production and supply chain optimization decisions. The decisions made are fed back
to the industrial systems to drive the industrial processes automatically and remotely.
Most critical infrastructures such as the power grid, rail or air traffic control, indus-
trial automation in manufacturing, water/wastewater infrastructure, banking system,
etc., are cyber-physical systems (CPS). Due to the cyber-physical nature of most of these
systems and the increasing use of networks, embedded computing, attack surfaces have
increased. Given that the continued availability of their core functions is critical to
people’s every day and economic lives, there is widespread concern that they could be
subject to intense cyber-attacks. A number of these cases have occurred over the past
decade. It is therefore essential to defend these systems against cyber threats.
IIoT solutions and industrial systems (IoT) are poorly prepared to operate in a
connected environment that is more exposed to cyberattacks. This makes them poten-
tial targets for hackers and cybercriminals looking for notoriety, industrial secrets, or
financial gain through ransomware and/or data exfiltration. Poorly protected, remote
accesses implemented on supervision systems can constitute potential vulnerabilities
and put at risk certain industrial applications for production control and monitoring.
With the introduction of IIoT, the boundary between enterprise information sys-
tems (IT) and industrial systems (IoT) is gradually disappearing and IoT systems no
longer have the perimeter security (air gap) they originally enjoyed. Industrial automa-
tion systems (robots, numerically controlled machines, programmable logic controllers)
are becoming much more interconnected, open and accessible from a company’s man-
agement computer network, or even the Internet. Cyber-attacks targeting management
networks would, therefore, easily spread to IoT systems.
This book presents the state-of-the-art and practices addressing the following
unique challenges in cybersecurity and privacy in embedded and CPS. This book is
ideal for policymakers, industrial engineers, researchers, academics, and professionals
seeking a thorough understanding of security engineering principles for embedded and
cyber-physical systems. They will learn promising solutions to these research problems
and identify unresolved and challenging issues for their research.

ix
SECTION ONE

Security Engineering
for Embedded and
Cyber-Physical Systems

Challenges and Applications

Algorithms and
Security Concern
in Blockchain
1
Technology
A Brief Review

Rejwan Bin Sulaiman, Amer Kareem,

and Muhammad Umer Farooq
School of Computer Science and Technology,
University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK

Contents
1.1 Introduction 4
1.2 Security Concern in Blockchain 5
1.3 Mining in Blockchain 6
1.4 Innovation of Bitcoin 7
1.5 Bitcoin 8
1.6 Background Technologies 8
1.7 Point-to-Point Network 9
1.8 Cryptography in Bitcoin 9
1.9 Challenges Associated with Bitcoins 10
1.9.1 Twice Spending on Coins 10
1.9.2 Access to the Network 11
1.9.3 Anonymous Users 12
1.9.4 Legal Issues in Bitcoin 12
1.9.5 Technical Issues in Bitcoin 12

DOI: 10.1201/9781003278207-2 3
4 Security Engineering for Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems

1.10 The Consensus Algorithm in Blockchain 13

1.10.1 Proof of Work (PoW) 14
1.10.2 Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) 15
1.10.3 Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) 15
1.10.4 Raft Consensus Algorithm 16
1.10.4.1 Technology behind blockchain 16
1.10.4.2 Aspects of blockchain technology 17
1.11 Exhumation of Blockchain Technology in the Concern of
Information Security 18
1.11.1 Authentication of Identity 18
1.11.2 Protection of the Infrastructure 19
1.12 Data Security in Blockchain 19
1.13 Discussion 20
1.14 Algorithms 20
1.15 User Roles in Blockchain Project 21
1.16 Developer Concepts 21
1.17 Conclusion 22
Acknowledgment 22
References 23

1.1 INTRODUCTION
The basic concept of blockchain technology is that it uses the process of the distributed
database, which performs a number of transactions that are entirely open to the partici-
pants. The blockchain system verifies all the transactions that are made, and once the
transaction is done, it keeps track of the transactions and it is not possible to destroy the
records. The blockchain specifies that it gives pure verification to all the transactions
and keeps a solid record that can never be misguided. In simple words, it is much easier
to steal something placed in a specific place rather than stealing the same thing placed
in front of thousands of people [1].
The blockchain is made up of blocks, each of which contains a record of all the
exchanges made between its users at a given time. These different blocks thus provide
a history of all the transactions since its creation and allow everyone to check the accu-
racy of the data exchanged.
The blockchain is a distributed register: it is the user who own and update the infor-
mation, without the need for a central authority. This decentralized nature allows it to
be used in many different ways, beyond digital currencies such as Bitcoin, for which it
was invented in 2008. Bitcoin is one of the prominent examples introducing the world
with a multi-billion market with all the anonymous transactions. It doesn’t involve any
centralized control. It is one of the famous cryptocurrencies that has attracted millions
of people to participate, but, on the other hand, there are many controversies [2].
Let’s analyze the current situation of the digital economy. It will be clear that all
vendors providing the services are based on trustworthy sources. In simple words, it will
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in spite of all their outcries for equality and the abolition of all the
privileges enjoyed in former times by the upper classes.
The Duc d’Aumale had even made himself popular, with a low kind of
popularity of which he never succeeded in getting rid during the whole
course of his life; but still he was popular in his way. I shall talk of him later
on, as he deserves a chapter to himself, and Chantilly, too, is worthy of a
description not embodied in a few words. He was always considered to be
the clever man of his family, and was the most respected by his numerous
nephews and nieces, partly on account of his large fortune, the inheritance
of the Princess de Condé, and bequeathed to him by the last of that name
and race. He had become the master of the old home of the Condés, made
illustrious by the Connétable de Montmorency, and the brave warrior
known to his contemporaries by the name of Monsieur le Prince, and to
history under that of the Great Condé. There was much of chivalry in the
nature of the Duc d’Aumale, more so, perhaps, than in the character of his
brothers, who were less princely in their manners and ways.
The head of this historic family, the Comte de Paris can be described in
very few words: he was essentially an honest man, but devoid of initiative;
timid in the manifestation of his opinions; an excellent soldier, as he proved
himself to be during the American war in which he took part as a volunteer,
but a mediocre officer—one born to obedience but not reared to command;
weak in character, but firm in his convictions; an excellent father, a devoted
husband, a dutiful son; a perfect King had he ever become one, so long as
his country was prosperous, but an incapable one had it found itself in
difficulties; a man always careful to fulfil his duties, but certainly not one
who inspired love for those duties outside his own immediate family circle.
He did not possess any of the qualities of a Pretender, except domestic
virtues, which no one asked of him, and which even his best friends did not
require. Though he was head of his house, he never could divest himself of
an excess of deference to the advice of his uncles, and could rarely muster
enough courage to speak or to act independently of them.
The only time he allowed himself to indulge in politics was at the period
of the famous Boulangist agitation, when he made the rather naïve remark
that he had been induced to take part in that intrigue because a great
Christian like the Count de Mun, and a great lady like the Duchesse d’Uzès,
were attracted to it. This attempt to restore the throne of Louis Philippe by
the help of an adventurer with a white feather in his cap had, as is known,
ended in a ridicule that had considerably shaken the personal position of the
Comte de Paris, already made insecure through his own and his partisans’
many mistakes. The Comte had essentially a reasoning mind, but was
always filled with abstract ideas; he could never put things on a practical
ground. He had few illusions but a false look out, as well as a wrong point
of view. Instead of adopting one of two lines of conduct which would have
been equally dignified—submission to the Comte de Chambord, or brave
adherence to the principles of his ancestors and those of that dynasty of
July, “la monarchie de juillet,” as it was still called in France—he had taken
a middle course, that of recognising the personality but not the rights of his
cousin. This made him bow down before the universal suffrage that had
proclaimed the Republic in the kingdom of which he would in any case
have been the lawful heir. He thought that by his attitude of absolute
submission to the wishes of the nation he would have inspired it with the
desire to call him to its head. A false reasoning if ever there was one, that
was to cause him to take many erratic and undignified steps, and which at
last exiled him anew; an exile in which he remained until his death.
The only time that the Comte de Paris ventured openly upon a step
which could be construed as a manifestation of his pretensions to the throne
of France was on the occasion of the wedding of his eldest daughter, Queen
Amélie of Portugal, when he gave in his Paris residence, the Hotel Galliera,
a reception at which all the pomp that attended royalty in former days was
displayed. It was as ill-timed as useless, and was the pretext for his
expulsion from his country, an expulsion that had been asked for a long
time since by the Republican leaders, who did not care for the nation to
become used to the continued presence of the descendants of its former
Kings. He did not attempt to resist, though it is said that some of his
partisans begged him to allow them to make a manifestation in his favour;
he embarked for British shores with a resignation that would have been
admirable in a private person, but which was very near akin to cowardice in
the representative of the Divine rights of Kings, those rights that Henri IV.
knew how to impose, even on such great lords as the members of that
powerful house of Lorraine, who also, at one time, aspired to the throne that
belonged to him, and which he conquered at the point of his sword.
Philippe VII. was of a more pacific disposition than his illustrious
ancestor. He bade good-bye to his lovely castle of Eu, and settled at Stowe
House, the old residence of the Dukes of Buckingham, where he ended his
life, after cruel sufferings, borne with the patience that was the distinctive
feature of his honest, straightforward, and distinctly middle-class character.
With the Comte de Chambord had disappeared a principle together with a
man; when the Comte de Paris expired in his turn, there died a good and
virtuous person but nothing else. He represented in the world his own
estimable self, but not the royalty to which he had been born.
About his son, little need be said. Gifted with a more adventurous spirit
than that of his father, the Duc d’Orleans began his career by risking
imprisonment in France, when he appeared there to enrol himself in the
ranks of her army. He has never made the least attempt to secure a crown
which does not even tempt him. He has led the life of an idle man of means,
travelling about, playing at science when it suited him, ignorant of the great
aims of life; a man not even to be pitied, because misfortune has never
touched him; one who has never known what society, his country, and the
great name he bears required of him; who has laughed at what his
forefathers have always respected; who calls himself the heir to all the
Bourbons that have left their impress on history, but who would be very
sorry had he ever to follow in their footsteps; the Republic can well afford
to ignore him, because he would be the first to be embarrassed by its fall.
The Duc d’Orleans had no children by his marriage with an Austrian
Archduchess, from whom he parted very soon after they had been united.
His only brother, the Duke of Montpensier, is still unmarried, and at present
the grandchildren of the Duc de Chartres constitute the hope of the partisans
of the Orleans dynasty.
The Duc de Chartres was the one brilliant figure among the descendants
of King Louis Philippe. There was something dashing about him that
appealed to the imagination of people. When the Franco-German War broke
out, he at once offered his services first to the Imperial, afterwards to the
Republican, government, and when they had both refused them, he
succeeded in entering a regiment of volunteers, under the assumed name of
Robert Le Fort, only the Comtesse de Vallon and one or two other friends
being aware of his identity.
When the campaign was over he remained on active service, until the
proscription that fell on his brother had also an influence upon his fate, and
obliged him to retire into private life. He had been a great favourite in
Parisian society; men appreciated his wit, and women his chivalrous
devotion to them. It is not an indiscretion to say that his love affairs with the
Princesse de Sagan were at one time a general subject of conversation. He
was always a welcome guest at a dinner table, and a conspicuous figure in
the hunting field, and succeeded better than any of his uncles and cousins in
winning for himself the sympathies even of Republicans, who secretly
feared his popularity among the army and in his own regiment.
He was a born soldier, with all the intrepidity of the fighter who never
shirks a battlefield. People liked him and respected him, because with all
the sterling qualities of his elder brother, the Comte de Paris, he had none of
the latter’s apathy. Perhaps, if he had not been a younger son, he might have
made an effort to win back the throne for his race. But reared in principles
of absolute submission to the head of his house, he never criticised anything
his elders did, and though I have known him intimately and well, the only
time when I have heard him talk politics was one afternoon at his little
country home of St. Firmin on the borders of the Forest of Chantilly, when
the conversation turned on the trial of Marshal Bazaine, over which the Duc
d’Aumale had presided. The Duc de Chartres happened to be in a
communicative mood, and expressed the opinion that he thought it had been
a mistake on the part of his uncle to have accepted the task of judging the
unfortunate commander-in-chief of the army of Metz. He said that a
member of the house of Bourbon ought not to have consented to appear
before the public as a kind of avenger of wrongs in which politics had had
so great a part. And he added these significant words: “We Orleans, more
than even members of other royal houses, ought to avoid showing ourselves
as arbiters of another man’s fate. It is quite enough to have to carry into
history the stigma that attaches to us ever since the trial of Louis XVI.”
I looked up to him rather in astonishment.
“Yes,” he said, “I understand what you mean, and that you are surprised
to hear me talk in the way I do, but you must not think that I have not often
given a thought to that fatal act of my ancestor, when he helped an
ungrateful nation to murder its legitimate King. You see, I belong to another
generation than the one which saw all those horrors, and I cannot consider
them without deep regret and shame. I can understand a good many things
—cruelty, ambition, ingratitude, wickedness even—I cannot admit crimes
against nature, and the vote of the Duc d’Orleans belonged to that kind of
crime. Beside it, the so-called—because I cannot look at it in that light since
it was the result of the free choice of a great nation—the so-called
usurpation of my grandfather was a small matter. It only offended and
sinned against a principle, it did not offend the natural feelings that ought
always to be sacred to every man, no matter what position he holds in life.
And when I reflect on the trial of Marshal Bazaine, I cannot help thinking
that my uncle would have been better advised if he had kept aloof, and left
to others the task of asking from that victim of his ambition or of
circumstances—which it was, it is not for me to say—an account of his
actions and an explanation of his deeds.”
The Duc de Chartres had married his cousin, the daughter of the Prince
de Joinville and of a Brazilian Princess. His wife was a very distinguished
woman, who by her tact and her cleverness made herself universally liked.
They had several children, and their eldest daughter, the Princess Marie,
who was married to a Prince belonging to the Royal House of Denmark,
played at one time rather an important part in European politics, thanks to
the influence which she exercised over the mind of the Emperor Alexander
III. of Russia. She died young, and the Duc did not survive her long. The
Duchesse de Chartres, widowed and past middle age, now spends her time
in her little home at St. Firmin, having sold the house in the Rue Jean
Goujon, where she had lived with her husband, and which at one time was a
centre of reunion for a certain portion of Paris society. The only members of
the family of Orleans whom one can meet in the salons of the French
aristocracy are the Duc and the Duchesse de Vendôme, who live at Neuilly,
and go about a good deal. The Comtesse de Paris comes sometimes to the
capital, but never stays there longer than for a few days, spending the rest of
her time either in her palace of Villamanrique in Spain, or in her castle of
Randan, near Vichy, where her life is entirely given up to practices of
devotion and good deeds. All her daughters are married. Tragedy has
broken the life of her eldest daughter, Queen Amélie of Portugal, but the
Comtesse is placid by nature, possessing something of the fatalism that
ruled the Comte de Paris, and that never disputes the decrees of a
Providence it has learned to bless whether it sends good or evil to mankind.
The future of the Orleans family, that promised to become so important
on returning to France after the fall of the Empire, proved to be quite
insignificant in so far as the destiny of France was concerned. The Orleans
had neither the courage nor the energy, nor especially the unselfishness, to
try to win back for themselves the position which they had lost. They never
had enough initiative, much less determination to brave public opinion, and
eat humble pie before the Comte de Chambord. These things alone could
have put them back on the height whence they had fallen. But the
descendants of Louis Philippe never could make up their minds to any
resolution, whether grave or frivolous. They always professed the fallacious
opinion that the will of a nation ought to be respected, no matter how or in
what way expressed. France was for them a master before whose decrees
they never for one moment felt the temptation to rebel. They accepted those
decrees so well that now no one dreams of looking upon them as pretenders
to anything, be it a throne, or simply the wish to have their word considered
at times when the vital interests of their country are at stake. They always
talk, or rather allow their followers to talk, of their duties, of their fidelity to
the principles that made their ancestors great, but in reality they have not
the slightest wish to put forward their persons in order to secure to their
race anything beyond the millions which they already possess. The Comte
de Paris was a dreamer; the Duc de Nemours a saint; the Duc de Chartres a
soldier, never looking beyond the field of a soldier’s activity; the Duc
d’Orleans a man of the world; the Duc d’Aumale a scholar, immersed in his
books and his artistic tastes. Among them all a man was wanted, and a King
could not be found.
 CHAPTER XII

The Duc d’Aumale and Chantilly

The Duc d’Aumale was certainly the one member of the Orleans family
who made the most friends for himself, and had the greatest number of
admirers. Whether this was due to his personal merits, or to the millions
which he inherited from the last Prince of Condé, it is not for me to say. He
had plenty to give to others; it is but natural that these others praised him in
the hope he would give them a little more than he had intended. He courted
popularity, made sacrifices of pride, principles, and sometimes personal
affections, in order to win it; and he succeeded in a certain sense, at least
from the point of view of those who measure praise and blame according to
the social standing of the person to whom they deal it. He was more learned
than clever, more clever than brilliant; his wit was inferior to his
intelligence, but he had cunning, a singular way of at once finding his
personal advantage out of an entangled situation. He put his own wellbeing
beyond everything else, and cared in reality only for his comforts and being
left alone to lead an easy, indolent existence among his books, his pictures,
his flowers, his manuscripts, all the magnificences of the old home of the
Condés. This he had restored with care and a singular artistic knowledge,
and had succeeded in endowing it with some of its past glories.
He was a perfect host, even though, perhaps, a little dull; and one
enjoyed a first visit to Chantilly more than a second, on account of the
necessity it entailed to perform with its master what is called “le tour du
propriétaire,” to admire what he admired, to look only upon what he
showed you himself, and not to be allowed to roam at will in the avenues of
the park, or in the vast halls full of lovely things, and of remembrances of
the past. One would have liked to spend hours contemplating the wonders
of art gathered under that roof, to examine the sword of the Great Condé, or
to look through the quantity of interesting documents, historical and
otherwise, that were kept in businesslike order in the great cupboards of the
long library, whose windows opened on the meadows, where probably the
lovely Madame de Longueville had roamed together with one or other of
her numerous admirers.
 This solitary place required silence rather than the casual remarks which
echoed through its corridors as the motley crowd generally met at the
Sunday breakfasts which the Duc liked to give. These breakfasts were quite
a feature in the life of the master of this palace, and the queerest assemblage
of people could be met at them—Academicians, colleagues of the Duc,
military men, foreigners, scientists, diplomats, men of letters and men of the
world, ladies of the highest rank and actresses. He made no distinctions, and
never cared whether he brought together people who agreed with each other
or not. There was no link between his guests, who forgot all about those
who had been their companions of the afternoon at Chantilly after that
afternoon was over; they never chatted together, and perhaps their host did
not care for them to do so. He liked to concentrate around his own person
the attention of those who had partaken of his hospitality; he would have
felt offended had he caught them talking to each other, and not listening
exclusively to himself. He was full of attention to those whom he guessed
were admirers of his deeds or works, and took a deal of trouble to show to
self-made people that he esteemed them more than those who were his
equal in birth if not in rank. For instance, I remember one day when having
at lunch the Duchesse de Noailles and Madame Cuvillier Fleury, the widow
of his old tutor, he put the latter on his right and the Duchesse on his left.
The fact was instantly noticed by a few Academicians, of what I would call
the inferior ranks of the Academy, and instantly it was remarked what a
kind, noble and attentive nature was Henri d’Orleans, Duc d’Aumale, who
thus ignored the high standing of one of the noblest amongst the noble
Duchesses of France in order to show gratitude to the relict of the man to
whom he owed his moral training. This action of the Duke was just one of
these things he was so fond of doing, in order to provoke admiration. He
liked to forget the exclusive traditions of his race whenever he thought that
it would ensure for him the sympathies of the mob; that mob which his
family had ever courted, to which it owed in part its fame and its successes,
and which despised it for the very facility with which it bowed down
licking the very dust. Among all the opportunist Orleans the Duc d’Aumale
was foremost.
Since the death of his wife and children all his affections had
concentrated on his splendid Chantilly, the reconstruction of which had
entirely absorbed him from the day of his return to France after the
revolution that had overthrown the Bonaparte dynasty. In spite of all that
has been said he had no political ambitions. He knew that he had no right to
the crown of France, and that he could not pretend to it without foregoing
all the principles which he did not possess, but which he was supposed to
represent. Having been sounded as to whether he would accept the
Presidency of the Republic, he had consented to do so, because he had been
told that he had to do it, but he did not regret that, as events turned out, the
candidature of Marshal MacMahon was preferred to his own. He returned
to his country home, to his roses, his pictures, his works of art, his horses,
and his dogs, and took up again his easy, happy, careless life as a grand
seigneur of olden times, absorbed in his books and studies, able to gather
his friends round him whenever he liked, and to do the honours of his
stately domain. Fond of hunting the stag in his vast forests, he was not
above coming to Paris whenever he wanted amusements that would have
been incompatible with the grandeur of Chantilly—to kiss the hand of a
Leonide Leblanc, or to enjoy an hour’s chat with the lovely Countess de
Castiglione, whose beauty then was on the wane. He was an amiable talker,
rather dry in his remarks, but always ready to make use of his many
remembrances and his vast erudition to add to the enjoyment of those with
whom he was conversing. He told an anecdote pleasantly, and related an
historical fact with a grand eighteenth-century manner, without offending
the Republican instincts of those who were listening to him.
His appearance was entirely that of a grand seigneur of old, no matter
whether he was dressed in his uniform or evening clothes, with the red
ribbon of the Legion of Honour across his chest, or whether he was met
walking in his park in corduroy trousers, and gaiters rather the worse for
wear. His thin, delicate features, with the white tuft on the chin, the long,
soft, silken moustache, and eyes with a haunted look, reminded one of a
picture by Velasquez or Van Dyck. The figure was slightly bent, but wiry
and agile, and had kept much of the elasticity of its younger days.
He talked quickly, sometimes sharply, but always with extreme courtesy,
and even when disagreeing did so in most measured tones, and with the
utmost care not to wound the feelings of those with whom he was in
discussion. He had a sympathetic manner, but not a kingly one by any
means. There was nothing regal about him, but there was also nothing that
was not gentlemanly in the fullest sense of the word. And sometimes, when
one saw him leaning against the pedestal of the statue of the Connétable of
Montmorency, which he had had erected in front of his palace of Chantilly,
or handling with love and reverence the sword which the Great Condé had
carried at Rocroy, for one short, flitting moment he gave one the impression
that he was only the guardian of those historical relics of which he was
master.
The Duc d’Aumale had never had the initiative to fight for the privileges
to which he had been born. In 1848, he was in command of an important
army in Algeria, with which he might have fought the insurrectional
government with advantage. He either lacked courage, or didn’t think it
worth while to risk his own personal position as a factor in the France of the
future to do so. He resigned his command, with more alacrity than dignity,
and accepting as the decision of his country the rebellion of the few, retired
to England, and with occasional stays in his Sicilian domains, near Palermo,
he awaited in retirement and silence for the dawn of another day which
would allow him to return to the France he liked so much and to the
Chantilly he loved so well.
When at last that moment came, his first care was to use his efforts to
avoid the possibility of a new banishment. In order to do this he opened his
doors wide to all political men and to all the literary celebrities of the day.
His hospitality was unbounded; he flattered the middle classes, who had
suddenly become the leading force in France, with consummate skill. He
tried as much as he could to make others forget that he was a member of the
ancient house of Bourbon, with whose destinies those of their country had
been inseparably associated for centuries. He strove always to appear to
those whom he welcomed under his roof as a private gentleman, the owner
of an historical place, and as a member of that Academy to which he was so
proud to belong, the membership of which was dearer to him than all the
glories of his race. He democratised himself, if such an expression can be
pardoned. He came down from the throne, on the steps of which he had
been born, into the crowd with which he liked to mix himself, quite
forgetting that this crowd could at any minute descend to the gutter, whither
they would drag him too whether he liked it or not.
There came, however, a day in the career of the Duc d’Aumale when he
felt constrained to assert himself, when for once the blood of Henri IV.
spoke in him. It was when he wrote to the President, Jules Grévy, that
famous letter which resulted in his being sent to join his nephew across the
frontiers of France. This letter was penned after the government had sent
the Comte de Paris into an exile whence he was never to return, and he
himself had been deprived of his rank and command. The shock was
terrible to him, and bitterly did he regret the attack of indignation that had
made him speak when he should have remained silent. As he said himself
many years later: “J’ai laissé parler mon cœeur, tandis que j’aurais dû
écouter ma raison” (“I listened to my heart when I ought only to have heard
my reason”).
He retired to Brussels, which was nearer than England to the royal home
he had adorned with such loving care, in the hope to bequeath it to his race,
a living memento of the glories of their ancestors. When he saw himself
parted from Chantilly, especially when it became evident to him that he
would remain in exile until death released him, he took a resolution which,
better than anything else, proves that in his heart and mind his family held
but a small place.
He made a will by which he left Chantilly, its collections, its treasures,
its library, its historical documents, its park and forests to the French
Academy. And he divulged his intention in the hope that, as a reward for the
splendid gift he was making to her, France would once more admit him
within her doors, and by restoring him to his home thank him for having
given it to her.
This act of selfish generosity has been very differently commented upon.
Whilst many have admired it, a few old men and women, born and bred in
ideas of an age when traditions, love for one’s race, and desire to help it to
keep its high position and its inheritance were uppermost, have bitterly
reproached him for having thus transgressed traditions that ought to have
been sacred to him.
This attack of “Christian generosity,” as someone wittily termed it,
which made him not only forgive the injury that had been done to him, but
even reward by a kingly gift the injustice of a country which had used him
so mercilessly, not only estranged him from his family, which, though it
said nothing, thought a great deal, but also made him lose the sympathies of
many former partisans of the Orleans dynasty. This alienation of the home
of the Condés, in favour of a Republican government, made all realise that
whatever were the qualities of the Duc d’Aumale, they were obscured by
his unlimited selfishness.
France also felt the degradation of this gift, and did not hasten to reward
the donor of it as he had expected. She left him for some months in
Brussels, alone with the shame of his unworthy action, until at last an
advocate of talent, Maitre Cléry, succeeded in obtaining from President
Carnot the repeal of the decree which had banished the Duke from France.
He thereupon returned in haste to his beloved Chantilly, where he took up
again his former existence, with the difference that when he received at his
table the members of the Academy he used to tell them: “Maintenant vous
êtes ici chez vous, messieurs” (“Now you are at home”). It was related at
the time that a member of the learned Assembly took this opportunity to
entreat the Duke to change the place of a certain picture which he thought
had not been put where it ought to have been hung. Henri d’Orleans’ eyes
flashed with indignation at this audacity, and drawing himself up very
haughtily he said: “Vous vous oubliez, monsieur” (“You forget yourself,
sir”), to which, nothing daunted, the impertinent visitor remarked: “Mais,
puisque vous venez de dire que nous sommes chez nous, monseigneur”
(“But you have just said that we are at home, sir”).
Maitre Cléry, to whom the Prince owed his return from exile, did not
know him personally, and had never been among those whom he had
invited to his receptions. Consequently his action when he undertook to
plead the cause of the Duc d’Aumale with the President of the Republic was
absolutely disinterested. He had, however, expected a word of thanks for his
intervention in the matter. That word was a long time in coming, too long,
perhaps, in the opinion of some people. When at last the celebrated
advocate received an invitation to lunch at Chantilly, he remarked that it
came like mustard after dinner—“comme de la moutarde après dîner.”
The last years of the life of the Duc d’Aumale were saddened by
uncongenial family stories and incidents, in which his nephews—so gossip
said—figured in rather an unpleasant light. Angry beyond words at these
rumours, his relations with his people became more and more distant and
estranged, and the big family parties that he liked to gather round him in
former times took place no more. He kept himself among a small circle of
friends, and in the society of Madame de Clinchamps, a former lady-in-
waiting of the Duchesse d’Aumale, whom he married secretly, and who—
and this is very characteristic of him—he left very badly off after his death,
with nothing but a small pittance out of his many millions. Madame de
Clinchamps was invariably amiable. She appeared at the lunches given at
Chantilly, and visitors found her sitting by the fire in the tapestried drawing-
room, where the Duc used to receive his guests. She did not put herself
forward in any way, and never attempted even to do the honours of the
place. She must have really loved the Duc, or else she would never have put
up with the slights he showered upon her, or accepted the false position in
which he left her, and her devotion to him never failed up to his death, after
which she retired to a small house on the edge of the Forest of Chantilly,
where, at the time I am writing, she lives in strict retirement and in
comparative poverty.
I have met most of the celebrities of modern France at the Duc
d’Aumale’s lunches. He was very catholic as to the people whom he
invited, and only required them to be amiable and to listen well to him,
without attempting to interrupt. Among his great friends was Jules
Lemaitre, the Academician, an amusing, intelligent little man, rather void of
manners, who buzzed about in a way that would have been aggressive had
it not been so funny. He was full of wit, but sometimes said gauche things,
the value of which did not appear to strike his otherwise critical mind. For
instance, one day, whilst the Duc was showing to his visitors a lovely
collection of miniatures of the Royal Family of France, from the end of the
eighteenth century, he interrupted him with the question: “And where, sir,
do you keep the letters of M. Cuvillier Fleury?” The late Duc de la
Trémouille was standing next to me; we looked at each other, and smiled.
Evidently a member of the French Academy of the end of the nineteenth
century could not feel the slightest interest in anything else but Cuvillier
Fleury, the bourgeois tutor of a bourgeois pupil, such as the Duc d’Aumale
had proved himself to be in the eyes of a certain number of the people
whom he had made his friends.
Bonnat, the painter, was also a frequent visitor at Chantilly, and his
portrait of the Duc is one of the best pictures that ever came from his brush.
The Prince is represented in the uniform of a general, perhaps the same
which he wore on the day when, with a cruelty one would have preferred
not to have seen in him, he condemned Marshal Bazaine to an ignominious
death.
It is related that the Duc d’Aumale used to say that he would like to die
at Chantilly, and that he had even left directions how his funeral was to take
place. In them he expressed a wish to lie in state in the chapel for a day or
two, near the hearts of the Princes de Condé, buried there and respected by
the Revolution of 1789. This desire was not destined to be fulfilled. He
breathed his last in Sicily, at his castle near Palermo, and his mortal remains
were brought back straight to the family vault at Dreux. Chantilly stands
empty and deserted now, save on the days when tourists invade it, and roam
in the rooms which have rung with women’s soft laughter and listened to so
many momentous and interesting conversations. No one, even among the
old servants still left in charge of the place, ever talks of the Duc d’Aumale,
and mention is only made of the former lords of the Castle, of those
illustrious and unfortunate Princes de Condé, the souls of whom still fill the
old walls their fame has immortalised for ever. In the Gallery des Batailles,
as it is called, the sword of the hero of Rocroy still hangs, tarnished with
age, but now no reverential hand ever lifts it; only the heavy fingers of a
sleepy housemaid dusts it now and then. The pictures, the portraits, the
works of art are in the same place they occupied when an intelligent master
had arranged them with loving care. In the long dining-room the table at
which so many celebrities and high-born people sat is still there, with chairs
standing round it; in the drawing-room the two arm-chairs the Duc and
Madame de Clinchamps used to occupy are in the same place; and in the
library the inkstand has been left open with its pen lying beside it.
Everything seems a little dingy, a little empty, a little forsaken, everything
has the appearance of one of those vast temples of old, whence, according
to the words of the Russian poet, “the idols have fled.”
 CHAPTER XIII

The Presidency of Marshal MacMahon

When a coalition of the different parties who constituted the Right in the
National Assembly overturned M. Thiers, it was felt everywhere, though
perhaps none would say it aloud, that this event was but the first step
towards the re-establishment of a monarchy, which could only be that of the
Orleans family. In fact, the Chamber was almost entirely composed of
Orleanists. The few Bonapartists were too timid to come out openly as such
after the catastrophes that had accompanied the fall of the Empire, but they
were determined nevertheless to do their best to bring the Prince Imperial
back to France as Emperor. There were but few extreme Radicals in the
Assembly. Gambetta was perhaps the most advanced member in that
direction, together with Jules Ferry and Jules Favre, and their Radicalism
would be considered Conservatism nowadays. In fact, the Left, or what was
called the Left, resembled rather an opposition as it is understood in
England, than a revolutionary party such as later on tried to snatch the
government of the country into its hands. France was still under the
influence of the eighteen years of Imperial regime it had gone through, and
respect for authority had not yet died. The elections, which had been
conducted under the eyes of the enemy, had brought back a large
monarchical majority to the Assembly. That majority knew very well that so
long as M. Thiers remained at the head of the Republic, a restoration, either
of the Comte de Chambord, the Comte de Paris, or the Prince Imperial, was
not to be thought of. The little man would have defended his own person in
defending the Republic. His manner of crushing the Commune, indeed, had
shown that he would not hesitate before a display of force, and would be
quite capable of sending to prison the leaders of any movement to destroy
the government over which he presided.
But when M. Thiers had been put aside, the field was free to the
Royalists, and in order to pave the way to a restoration they offered the
Presidency of the Republic to the Duc d’Aumale, in the hope that he would
see his way to resign his functions to his nephew, and be strong enough to
bring him back in triumph to the Elysée.
 The Duc d’Aumale accepted. Whether he would have fulfilled the hopes
that had been centred in him is another question. My opinion is that he
would have shown himself even more respectful of the Republic who had
called him to her head than M. Thiers or Marshal MacMahon. But we need
not go into suppositions, as his election did not take place on account of the
Bonapartists refusing to vote for him, being frightened at the thought that he
might feel tempted to accomplish another coup d’état, and at all events
would exclude them from the ranks of his advisers. The Duc d’Aumale
once put aside, there remained but two people whose names could have
rallied around them the different parties that constituted the Assembly; they
were Marshal Canrobert and Marshal MacMahon.
The last mentioned was chosen partly because some believed he was
more favourable than his illustrious colleague to the idea of an Orleanist
restoration, partly because it was hoped that he would allow others to
govern in his name. They forgot that, being used to obedience in military
matters, he would insist on being listened to on political issues, and that his
very honesty would not allow him to associate himself with intrigue in
governing the country, whose welfare he would consider it was his duty to
promote above all other considerations.
Marshal MacMahon was essentially a gentleman. Not superabundantly
gifted with intelligence, not, perhaps, possessing much strength of
character, he had, nevertheless, a keen sense of right and wrong, a horror of
anything that approached intrigue, a great respect for his duty, before the
accomplishment of which he never hesitated no matter how painful it might
be for him to perform it. He was a brave soldier, an honest man, but he was
no politician, and whenever he tried to interest himself in politics he failed
utterly in his attempts, partly through want of experience, partly through
want of knowledge, and especially because he never knew how to find
among the people who surrounded him a majority of supporters.
He never understood why he had been elected President of the Republic,
and always imagined that he owed it to his personal merits. This illusion
was carefully fostered by his entourage, and by ministers who wanted to
persuade him to adopt their own views. It was a great mistake on their part,
because had the Marshal been less sure of the infallibility of his own
judgments, he might not have risked the coup d’état of the 16th of May,
which threw France into the arms of the extreme Republican and Radical
parties, which have ruled it ever since.
 The first ministers of MacMahon were Orleanists of the purest water,
and they did their best to bring the Orleans dynasty back to the throne,
especially after the publication of the famous letter of the Comte de
Chambord, which sealed for ever his fate as a Pretender. They were all, too,
gentlemen by birth and by education, and men of learning and experience.
Two among them, the Duc de Broglie and the Duc Decazes, have left their
impress on the history of France, and deserve its gratitude for the services
they have rendered to her. But all of them were utopian in the sense that
they believed in the triumph of the opinions they held. They never admitted
the possibility of new people coming to the front, new ideas developing so
quickly that they would have to be reckoned with by every government no
matter to what shade it belonged. More especially did they fail to foresee
the triumph of the Radical and revolutionary elements. They considered
them as of no serious importance, perhaps because they had never troubled
to study them carefully, and so appreciate their strength.
It is said that the Duc d’Aumale, when sounded as to whether or not he
would accept the Presidency of the Republic, and under what conditions,
had replied: “Je veux bien être une transaction; une transition jamais.”
Marshal MacMahon was to form the bridge of transition from the
government of a gentleman to that of a political man, such as the Presidents
who have succeeded him have all essentially been. He brought with him to
the Elysée traditions that are still respected, and customs that have become
a dead letter since his fall. His tenure of office was attended with great
dignity, and an amount of state that savoured a little of real Court life such
as he had known and understood how to represent. He did not indulge in
petty economies unworthy of his high position, and kept open house for his
followers and friends, dispensing at the same time a generous and
unbounded hospitality in regard to all who came to pay their respects to him
in his capacity as First Magistrate of the French Republic. His wife, too, the
Duchesse de Magenta, was a really great lady, by birth as well as by
education, and she seconded him to the best of her ability—entertaining for
him on a grand scale, receiving foreign ambassadors with a queenly grace
combined with the affability of a true grande dame. La Maréchale, as she
was familiarly called by her friends, was a remarkable woman in her way,
and it is very much to be regretted that she refused the whole time that her
husband remained in office to interest herself in public affairs, from which
she kept aloof as much as she possibly could; she was exceedingly
generous, and the poor of Paris remember her to this day.
When the Marshal had to retire into private life, it was found that he had
not only spent all the allowance that he received from the State, but also a
great deal of his own private fortune, so that when he gave up his high
office, he was a poorer man than when he had entered upon it. The
Duchesse de Magenta, when she became a widow, was left with less than
moderate means, and had to lead a simple existence, devoid of accustomed
luxuries. She was a very modest woman, and it is related that she was often
to be met in the morning riding in an omnibus, with a basket on her arm,
doing her own marketing in company with her cook or housemaid. France
did not show herself grateful for the services which, in spite of his many
political errors, Marshal MacMahon undoubtedly rendered to her, and did
not trouble itself as to the fate of his widow or his children. The Duchesse
only received the pension attached to the military position which her late
husband had occupied, and had her son, the present Duc de Magenta, not
married the daughter of the Duc de Chartres, the Princess Marguerite of
Orleans, he would have hardly had enough to live according to the
exigencies of his rank as a captain in the French army. The example is rare,
and ought not to be forgotten, especially nowadays, when the first
preoccupation of people in power is to lay aside as much money as they can
against the time when they have to abandon office.
During the whole time that Marshal MacMahon remained at the Elysée
he kept beside him, in the quality of private secretary, the Vicomte
Emmanuel d’Harcourt, one of the pleasantest, most amiable, and most
intelligent men in Paris society. He was perhaps the only real statesman
among the many politicians who surrounded the President, and, had he only
been listened to, it is probable that the monarchical restoration, so much
desired at that time by all the sane elements in French political life, could
have been brought about. Unfortunately, the majority did not credit him
with being in earnest, and the few who did so were too much afraid of him
not to do all that was in their power to counteract his influence on the Duc
de Magenta. It is related that one evening when the President happened to
be irritated by all these perpetual hints he was receiving concerning
Monsieur d’Harcourt, he asked him abruptly: “Pourquoi, est-ce que vous
tenez à rester auprès de moi, et que vous ne cherchez pas à faire partie
d’une combinaison ministérielle?” (“Why do you care to stay with me, why
don’t you try to enter into a Cabinet?”) The Vicomte simply replied: “Parce
que j’ai de l’affection pour vous, Monsieur le Maréchal, et que je ne tiens
pas à vous abandonner aux mains de ceux qui n’en ont pas” (“Because I
have an affection for you, Monsieur le Maréchal, and I don’t care to
abandon you to those who haven’t”).
MacMahon became very red, but never more after that day did he try to
wound the feelings of a man in whom he recognised a sincere friend.
The Republican party has always accused Monsieur d’Harcourt of
having inspired the famous letter which the Marshal addressed to Jules
Simon, and which brought about what is known as “the crisis of the 16th of
May.” This reproach was partly true and partly unjust. It is quite certain that
the Vicomte encouraged the President to dismiss a Cabinet which he
considered far too advanced in its opinions, and especially because he could
not agree with the ideas of Jules Simon, its chief, notwithstanding the great
intelligence and the sincere patriotism of the latter. But, on the other hand, it
must be said, and it cannot be repeated too loudly, that Emmanuel
d’Harcourt always told the President that he could not venture upon such a
grave and important step without every possible precaution to ensure its
success. First of all he advised the exercise of a considerable pressure on
the new elections that were bound to follow upon such a step and the
imprisonment of a few leaders whose influence might make them turn
against the government. He was a partisan of strong measures, and had that
contempt for legality that all daring statesmen have ever professed. The
Marshal, on the contrary, would never have dreamed of defying the law, and
he refused to adopt any of the measures which not only his secretary but
also his ministers—with the exception of the Duc de Broglie, whose rigid
Protestant principles, which he had inherited from his mother, prevented
him from resorting to any violent actions—recommended to him. I have
heard that on the eve of these elections, which had such an enormous
influence on the future destinies of France, the Vicomte d’Harcourt was
discussing them with M. de Fortoul, who was Minister of the Interior, and
they were both deploring the obstinacy of the President of the Republic,
who would not understand that once he had entered upon the road of
resistance to the wishes of the Chambers, represented by the ministers
whom he had dismissed, he was bound to go on and to enforce his wishes
upon the nation. Fortoul knew he had been called by the confidence which
the Duc de Magenta had in his honesty to the difficult post which he
occupied, but he was well aware that he did not possess the latter’s
sympathies, so asked the Vicomte d’Harcourt whether there was no means
by which the Chief of the State could be convinced that it would be
cowardice not to see to the bitter end the adventure in which he had
engaged himself. He got from him this characteristic reply: “No! One
cannot convince him; because he is a man who, though in a position to
command, has never forgotten how to obey.”
Fortoul understood, and did not attempt further to shake the convictions
of the President, but prepared himself to lose the game which with a little
energy might so easily have been won.
Emmanuel d’Harcourt was the man who best understood that honest,
feeble, and in some parts enigmatical character of Marshal MacMahon.
Apart from him it is to be doubted whether anyone save the Marquis
d’Abzac, who was attached to his person during long years, ever guessed
what went on in that narrow but well-intentioned mind. The Marquis
d’Abzac was at one time a leading figure in Paris society, and I think that
no one who has ever known him has forgotten the charming, amiable man
he was, the perfect gentleman he always showed himself, and the true
friend he remained to all those who had treated him as such. He was the
leading spirit of the little Court of the Elysée, where he organised all the
balls and receptions that gave it such brilliancy during the tenure of office
of the Duc de Magenta, when all that was illustrious in France, even the
most confirmed Royalists, considered it an honour to pay their respects to
the Head of the State and to his amiable wife. He had the entire confidence
of the President, who, perhaps, was more inclined to give it to a soldier like
the General d’Abzac than to a civilian with whom his military soul had but
little in common, and whose subtleties of reasoning appeared too
complicated for his simple mind. The Marquis had married a Russian, Mlle.
Lazareff, whose mother had been a Princess of Courland, related to the
famous Duchesse de Sagan. His wife had vast estates in Silesia, and though
he did not live with her yet he visited there often, and always made an
appearance at the German Court, where he was essentially a persona grata,
ever since he had accompanied Marshal MacMahon when the latter had
been sent to Berlin as an Ambassador of Napoleon III. to represent that
Sovereign at the coronation of William I. as King of Prussia.
Very often his visits to the German Court allowed him to clear up
misunderstandings between the French Government and the Prussian
Foreign Office; misunderstandings that were often provoked by the state of
antagonism which existed between Prince Bismarck and the French
Ambassador, the Vicomte de Gontaut Biron, about whom I shall have more
to say presently. The German Chancellor liked the Marquis d’Abzac, and
frequently took him into his confidence, well aware of his tact and
discretion. I have heard from a person very much au courant of what was
going on in the Wilhelmstrasse, that Bismarck once expressed himself to
the aide-de-camp of the President of the French Republic, concerning the
monarchical intrigues that were going on in Paris. He spoke with a mixture
of contempt and regret of the woeful way they were conducted, and of what
small chances they had of being successful. D’Abzac replied that of course
it was not for him to venture an opinion on a subject that did not enter at all
into his activities, but that he had always imagined that Prussia was very
much adverse to the re-establishment of a Monarchy in France. The Prince
immediately replied: “You are entirely mistaken, we have nothing against it,
our objection is to the people who would inevitably come into power and
prominence with it. If we could see in Paris a King without those who want
at the present moment to proclaim him, we should, on the contrary, feel far
more reassured than we do now at the immediate future both of France and
of Germany. Neither the Comte de Paris nor the Prince Imperial would, nor
could, risk position by declaring a war against us, the price of which might
be the loss of the newly recovered throne. But we greatly dread all the
councillors and advisers who would be eager to prove before the country
who had sent them to represent it, that they had been right in changing the
form of the government, because the one whom they had helped to call into
existence was ready to win back for the nation the provinces as well as the
prestige that it had lost.”
Later on, when speaking of this remarkable conversation with one of his
intimate friends, the Marquis d’Abzac had been obliged to own that the
German Chancellor had been right in his appreciation of a situation he
understood better than did many Frenchmen.
I have already spoken of the obstinacy that was one of the characteristics
of MacMahon. Those who induced him so unnecessarily to assert himself in
regard to Jules Simon, played on that chord when they persuaded him that it
was his duty to check the growing tide of Radicalism, and to attempt to save
the Republic from those who were leading it into a path which would
alienate from it the sympathy of Europe, at a time when France sorely
needed this support. He imagined that by dismissing his Cabinet he was
doing a great thing for his country, but being the faithful slave of his
convictions, i.e. that the nation ought to be free to express its opinions and
its wishes as to the form of government it liked, he did not pursue what he
had begun so well, and refused to allow the Cabinet whom he had called
together to fight the battle to the bitter end. For thus he might have ensured,
with the help of some moral pressure, the triumph of the step which he had
taken more violently than wisely. The result is well known, and though the
death of M. Thiers, which happened on the very eve of the elections, carried
away one of his greatest and most powerful adversaries, yet the Radical
party secured a complete victory. One of the greatest mistakes that Marshal
MacMahon ever made in his life was in failing to resign when the result of
the elections became known. He sacrificed his ministers, he allowed those
who had borne the brunt of the battle to be ousted out of the field and
almost out of political life, which for some of them remained fast closed
after that experience, and he himself, instead of following them in their
retreat, remained still Head of the State, and continued to occupy the
Elysée, losing the esteem of those who had considered him, until that time
at any rate, a respectable nonentity. He received the new ministers whom
his own stupidity had brought into power, he still discussed with them, and
he went on trying to push forward his own opinions and his own wishes,
unobservant of all the slights that were continually poured upon him. The
only time that his Cabinet seriously tried to assure itself of his help in a
matter of international politics—the advisability of making some advances
to Russia in view of a possible rapprochement in the future—he violently
opposed the idea, invoking the remembrances of the Crimean War, which,
as someone wittily remarked, “he had gone through, but not outlived.” After
that no one attempted even to keep him in the current of the affairs of the
government, and after the elections which took place in the Senate, and
which resulted in a majority holding the same ideas as those which already
existed in the Chamber, the Marshal himself saw that nothing was left to
him but to resign, and, bereft of the prestige which would have attached to
his name had he done so after the 16th of May had been condemned by the
nation, he retired into private life, and also into obscurity, which is far
worse.
By a strange coincidence he died just when that Russian alliance to
which he had been so opposed was very near to becoming an accomplished
fact. Also, he was followed to his grave by a deputation of Russian sailors,
headed by Admiral Avellan, who came to Paris from Toulon during the
memorable visit paid to that town by the Russian squadron which had been
sent to return the visit paid to Cronstadt by the French fleet a few months
before. It was one of those freaks of destiny which occur so often in life,
that at his funeral, too, should be represented the nation against whom he
had fought in the Crimean fields and at Sebastopol, and whose soldiers he
had never expected would, together with those he had commanded, fire the
last volleys over his grave. The old warrior, who, in spite of his mistakes
and errors, still represented something of the glory of his country, and was
one of the remnants of an epoch and of a regime that had given to the world
the illusion of a strong and powerful France, was accompanied to his last
resting-place by the sincere regrets of all those who had loved the man,
while they distrusted and condemned the statesman, and perhaps even
despised his capacity as a politician. But his personal honesty had come out
unimpaired from the trials of his public career, his honour had never been
questioned, his courage had never been the subject of the slightest doubt.
He deserved fully the honours which were paid to him at his death, and the
homage that France rendered to him at his funeral.
 CHAPTER XIV

Two Great Ministers

I have mentioned the Duc de Broglie and the Duc Decazes. They were the
last two ministers of the old school of which the Third French Republic
could boast. After them came mostly self-made men, who were perhaps
cleverer than they had been but who did not possess the traditions of old
France, and who brought along with them not only a change of policy but a
change in political manners and customs. After the two great ministers of
whom I am about to speak, the Republic became democratic, far removed
from the aristocratic country it had been whilst they were ruling it.
The Duc de Broglie was the son of remarkable parents. His father, the
old Duke Victor, had been a writer, a thinker, a politician and an orator of
no mean talent; one, moreover, who, amidst the corruption which had
prevailed at the time of the first restoration of the Bourbons, had succeeded
in keeping his hands clean from every suspicion. He showed the great
independence of his noble, straightforward character when almost alone
among his colleagues in the House of Peers he refused to vote for the
condemnation of Marshal Ney.
The old Duc’s wife was the lovely Duchesse de Broglie, Albertine de
Stael, the daughter of the celebrated Madame de Stael, and the
granddaughter of Necker. Madame de Broglie was one of those figures who
leave their impress on posterity, and whose influence survives them for a
long time. She had, allied to considerable beauty, a noble soul, a great
intelligence, and strict Protestant principles, which had communicated a
tinge of austerity to all that she said, did or wrote.
Her son Albert inherited much of this Calvinistic severity, which gave
him sometimes a harsh appearance and harsh manners. He was one of those
men who never will accept a compromise, or resort to diplomacy of
whatever kind, to achieve anything they have made up their minds to do. He
was unusually well read, a man of considerable erudition, who was more at
his ease at his writing-table than in a drawing-room. He had never been
frivolous, as one of his friends once said, and had but seldom shown
himself amiable. This absence of human passions made him sometimes
unjust towards those who had felt their influence, or allowed themselves to
be carried away by them. One could not imagine a time when the Duc de
Broglie had been young, nor a moment when he had not been absorbed by
his duties or his studies. He was a living encyclopædia, and was continually
improving his own mind by devoting his attention to some serious subject
or other. When he was elected a member of the Academy no one was
surprised at it, the contrary would have seemed wonderful because he
appeared to have been born an Academician, and to be out of place
anywhere else but among the ranks of that select company known as the
Institut de France.
The Duc de Broglie possessed a high moral character. He had strong
prejudices, no indulgence for others, perhaps because he had never had any
for himself; he was narrow-minded in some things, but generous in
everything that did not touch on the question of principles. He came from
an Orleanist family, and never wavered in his allegiance to the younger
branch of the house of France, and when he accepted office, under Marshal
MacMahon, he certainly did so with the idea that he could in time bring
back Philippe VII. to Paris as King.
In spite of his apparent coldness and austerity, he had strong political
passions, the only ones that his soul had ever known. These passions made
him sometimes lose sight of the obstacles in his way, and the natural
hauteur of a grand seigneur made him despise adversaries that he ought
either to have tried to conciliate or else to have reckoned with more
carefully than he did. He was not sympathetic, and very few liked him, but
this latter fact did not trouble him much. The only thing he cared for was to
be respected, esteemed, honoured by his foes as well as by his friends. No
man was ever more respectful of a given word than the Duc de Broglie, and
he would rather have died than have broken a promise once made, no
matter how rash that promise might have been. He was certainly not a
politician of the modern school, and both for him and for his country it
might have been better had he confined himself to the historical studies
which have made for him such a great name in modern French literature of
the graver sort.
An amusing anecdote is related of the Duc de Broglie. He was staying
with one of his friends in the country, and one day took up a novel which,
forgotten, had been left on the table. With the attention that he always gave
to everything he did, he read it through—it was the “Histoire de Sybille,” of
Octave Feuillet—and then gravely asked his host whether one of the heroes
of it was still alive? When the latter, more than surprised, inquired what he
meant, he found out that the Duke had thought the book treated of facts that
had really occurred, and had not imagined that the tale was just a novel.
“Why waste one’s time in writing about things that have never existed?” he
remarked. “Life is too short to afford it!” And when Feuillet was elected to
the Academy he would never consent to give him his vote, saying that
through him he had lost a few hours he might have employed in reading
something more useful than a mere romance. For he could not forgive the
fact that it had interested him in spite of his abomination for that kind of
literature.
One can imagine that a man with such strength of character could not
well understand the weakness of Marshal MacMahon, and it is not to be
wondered at that the two serious discussions during the few months that
elapsed between the birth and the fall of that Cabinet were always known in
the annals of Parliamentary France as “the Cabinet of the 16th of May.” The
Duc de Broglie would have liked to carry through the elections under the
flag of Orleanism, to which he was so very much attached, and for whose
profit, he had imagined, the Marshal had decided upon his coup d’état when
he dismissed Jules Simon. When he perceived that the Duc de Magenta had
simply given way to an attack of bad temper, the disillusion which he
experienced was very great, but he did not think it right to desert the post
which he had accepted under a misapprehension, and he and his colleagues
only left office when the result of the elections made it but too apparent that
their day had come to an end.
The Duc de Broglie never returned to political life after that effort. He
spent the rest of his existence in retirement, absorbed in his studies, and
seeking among his books an enjoyment that nothing else could give him.
One did not meet him often in society, but sometimes he put in an
appearance at the house parties given by his son, Prince Amédée de Broglie,
at his splendid castle of Chaumont sur Loire, once the residence of
Catherine de Medici.
Prince Amédée had married an heiress, Mademoiselle Say, the daughter
of the great sugar refiner, who had brought him something like twenty
million francs as her dowry. When her marriage took place one was not
used yet in aristocratic France to these unions between the representatives
of great names and daughters of the people, and one evening at a party
given in honour of the young bride the Comte Horace de Choiseul, well
known for his caustic tongue, approached her, and showing her a spot on
her dress made by an ice that had fallen upon it, he said: “Vous avez une
tâche de sucre sur votre robe, Princesse” (“You have a spot of sugar on your
gown, Princess”). Madame de Broglie turned round, and instantly retorted:
“Je préfère une tâche de sucre à une tâche de sang” (“I prefer a spot of
sugar to a spot of blood”), thus alluding to the murder of the Comte de
Choiseul’s mother, the Duchesse de Praslin, by her husband.
She is an amiable woman that Princesse de Broglie, in spite of her sharp
tongue, and certainly she is one of the pleasantest in Paris society at present.
The Duc Decazes was a great contrast to the Duc de Broglie. Just as
clever, though perhaps not so learned as the latter, he was, moreover, a most
accomplished man of the world in the fullest sense of that expression. He
made himself friends wherever he went, even among the ranks of his
adversaries. During the seven years that he remained in charge of the
Foreign Office, in several Cabinets, he succeeded in winning for France the
respect of Europe, and in presenting the idea that though governments
might change in that country, its foreign policy would not depart from the
line it had taken. He was frank, loyal, a cultured, gentle, and an excellent,
though not a brilliant, politician. Placed in office at a very difficult moment,
just after the disasters of the Franco-German War had entirely destroyed the
prestige of his fatherland, he contrived to raise it in the opinion of foreign
governments, and to give them a high idea of its moral resources and
dignity.
The advent of the Republic had, of course, been received with every
feeling of apprehension and distrust, and the old Monarchists, who had
already considerably hesitated before they admitted the Bonapartes as their
equals, could not but look with distrust at the political adventurers who had
replaced them. The Duc Decazes contrived to win for the governments of
M. Thiers and of Marshal MacMahon the respect of all those with whom
they had to be in contact; he continued, also, the tradition of the grand
manners which had distinguished the Duc de Morny, Count Walewski, the
Marquis de Moustiers, and all the high-born gentlemen to whom had been
entrusted, for nearly a quarter of a century, the task of speaking in the name
of France abroad. He renewed old links, and succeeded in forming new
friendships which were to be very useful to him as well as to his country in
the future.
 The name of the Duc Decazes will always remain associated with the so-
called German aggression in 1875, when, it is still currently believed in
some quarters, the Prussian Government wanted to declare war against
France, a war that was only averted by the intervention of the Emperor
Alexander II. of Russia, to whom the French Foreign Minister had appealed
for help. The story has been related a thousand times, but what has not been
said is that with all his intelligence, his tact and his political experience the
Duc Decazes fell a victim to the intrigues of the French Ambassador in
Berlin, the Vicomte de Gontaut Biron.
M. de Gontaut was one of those noblemen of the old school who have
forgotten nothing, and learned but very little. He had intelligence, tact,
knowledge of the world, but he was devoted to himself, and entertained the
greatest respect for and opinion of his personal capacities.
He had several relations at the Court of Berlin among the members of
the highest aristocracy, who, unfortunately for him, were among the
enemies and adversaries of Prince Bismarck. He listened to them, appealed
to them to carry to the ears of the Emperor William, and especially to those
of the Empress Augusta, many things he would have done better to keep to
himself, or else to communicate direct to the German Chancellor; he
persisted in carrying a personal line of policy, by which he hoped to put
spokes in the wheels of the great minister who held the destinies of
Germany in his hands, and he allowed himself to be influenced by gossip
which was purely founded on suppositions and old women’s love of
slander.
The result of such conduct became but too soon apparent. Bismarck was
not a man to allow himself to be treated as a negligible quantity, and he
very soon began in his turn a campaign against the Vicomte de Gontaut,
making him feel by slights on every possible occasion that it would be
advisable for him to retire from the field of action, at least in Berlin. M. de
Gontaut was fond of his position as an ambassador. Moreover, his was such
an extraordinary vanity that he allowed himself very easily to be convinced
that by remaining at his post he was rendering the greatest of services to his
country, because no other man in his place could use the resources he had at
his disposal so successfully in learning the secrets of the Berlin Court and
of the Prussian Foreign Office.
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