Pencillings by the Way
by Nathaniel Parker Willis · English · Gutenberg #39179 · 881,526 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Pencillings by the Way
Author: Nathaniel Parker Willis
Release date: March 17, 2012 [eBook #39179]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39179
Credits: Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY ***
Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. The author's use of accents was retained as printed.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY:
WRITTEN
DURING SOME YEARS OF RESIDENCE AND TRAVEL
IN
EUROPE.
BY
N. PARKER WILLIS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET.
MDCCCLX.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
PREFACE.
A word or two of necessary explanation, dear reader.
I had resided on the Continent for several years, and had been a year
in England, without being suspected, I believe, in the societies in
which I lived, of any habit of authorship. No production of mine had
ever crossed the water, and my Letters to the New-York Mirror, were
(for this long period, and I presumed would be forever), as far as
European readers were concerned, an unimportant and easy secret.
Within a few months of returning to this country, the Quarterly Review
came out with a severe criticism on the Pencillings by the Way,
published in the New-York Mirror. A London publisher immediately
procured a broken set of this paper from an American resident there,
and called on me with an offer of L300 for an immediate edition of
what he had--rather less than one half of the Letters in this present
volume. This chanced on the day before my marriage, and I left
immediately for Paris--a literary friend most kindly undertaking to
look over the proofs, and suppress what might annoy any one then
living in London. The book was printed in three volumes, at about $7
per copy, and in this expensive shape three editions were sold by the
original publisher. After his death a duodecimo edition was put forth,
very beautifully illustrated; and this has been followed by a fifth
edition lately published, with new embellishments, by Mr. Virtue. The
only American edition (long ago out of print) was a literal copy of
this imperfect and curtailed book.
In the present complete edition, the Letters objected to by the
Quarterly, are, like the rest, re-published _as originally written_.
The offending portions must be at any rate, harmless, after being
circulated extensively in this country in the Mirror, and prominently
quoted from the Mirror in the Quarterly--and this being true, I have
felt that I could gratify the wish to be put _fairly on trial_ for
these alleged offences--to have a comparison instituted between my
sins, in this respect, and Hamilton's, Muskau's, Von Raumer's,
Marryat's and Lockhart's--and so, to put a definite value and meaning
upon the constant and vague allusions to these iniquities, with which
the critiques of my contemporaries abound. I may state as a fact, that
the only instance in which a quotation by me from the conversation of
distinguished men gave the least offence in England, was the one
remark made by Moore the poet at a dinner party, on the subject of
O'Connell. It would have been harmless, as it was designed to be, but
for the unexpected celebrity of my Pencillings; yet with all my heart
I wished it unwritten.
I wish to put on record in this edition (and you need not be at the
trouble of perusing them unless you please, dear reader!) an extract
or two from the London prefaces to "Pencillings," and parts of two
articles written apropos of the book's offences.
The following is from the Preface to the first London edition:--
"The extracts from these Letters which have appeared in the public
prints, have drawn upon me much severe censure. Admitting its justice
in part, perhaps I may shield myself from its remaining excess by a
slight explanation. During several years' residence in Continental and
Eastern countries, I have had opportunities (as _attache_ to a foreign
Legation), of seeing phases of society and manners not usually
described in books of travel. Having been the Editor, before leaving
the United States, of a monthly Review, I found it both profitable and
agreeable, to continue my interest in the periodical in which that
Review was merged at my departure, by a miscellaneous correspondence.
Foreign courts, distinguished men, royal entertainments, &c.
&c.,--matters which were likely to interest American readers more
particularly--have been in turn my themes. The distance of America
from these countries, and the ephemeral nature and usual obscurity of
periodical correspondence, were a sufficient warrant to my mind, that
the descriptions would die where they first saw the light, and fulfil
only the trifling destiny for which they were intended. I indulged
myself, therefore, in a freedom of detail and topic which is usual
only in posthumous memoirs--expecting as soon that they would be read
in the countries and by the persons described, as the biographer of
Byron and Sheridan, that these fruitful and unconscious themes would
rise from the dead to read their own interesting memoirs! And such a
resurrection would hardly be a more disagreeable surprise to that
eminent biographer, than was the sudden appearance to me of my own
unambitious Letters in the Quarterly Review.
"The reader will see (for every Letter containing the least personal
detail has been most industriously republished in the English papers)
that I have in some slight measure corrected these Pencillings by the
Way. They were literally what they were styled--notes written on the
road, and despatched without a second perusal; and it would be
extraordinary if, between the liberty I felt with my material, and the
haste in which I scribbled, some egregious errors in judgment and
taste had not crept in unawares. The Quarterly has made a long arm
over the water to refresh my memory on this point. There _are_
passages I would not re-write, and some remarks on individuals which I
would recall at some cost, and would not willingly see repeated in
these volumes. Having conceded thus much, however, I may express my
surprise that this particular sin should have been visited upon _me_,
at a distance of three thousand miles, when the reviewer's own
literary fame rests on the more aggravated instance of a book of
personalities, published under the very noses of the persons
described. Those of my Letters which date from England were written
within three or four months of my first arrival in this country.
Fortunate in my introductions, almost embarrassed with kindness, and,
from advantages of comparison, gained by long travel, qualified to
appreciate keenly the delights of English society, I was little
disposed to find fault. Everything pleased me. Yet in one
instance--one single instance--I indulged myself in stricture upon
individual character, and I _repeat it in this work_, sure that there
will be but one person in the world of letters who will not read it
with approbation--the editor of the _Quarterly_ himself. It was
expressed at the time with no personal feeling, for I had never seen
the individual concerned, and my name had probably never reached his
ears. I but repeated what I had said a thousand times, and never
without an indignant echo to its truth--an opinion formed from the
most dispassionate perusal of his writings--that the editor of that
Review was the most unprincipled critic of his age. Aside from its
flagrant literary injustice, we owe to the _Quarterly_, it is well
known, every spark of ill-feeling that has been kept alive between
England and America for the last twenty years. The sneers, the
opprobrious epithets of this bravo in literature, have been received
in a country where the machinery of reviewing was not understood, as
the voice of the English people, and an animosity for which there was
no other reason, has been thus periodically fed and exasperated. I
conceive it to be my duty as a literary man--I _know_ it is my duty as
an American--to lose no opportunity of setting my heel on the head of
this reptile of criticism."
The following is part of an article, written by myself, on the subject
of personalities, for a periodical in New York:
"There is no question, I believe, that pictures of living society,
where society is in very high perfection, and of living persons, where
they are 'persons of mark,' are both interesting to ourselves, and
valuable to posterity. What would we not give for a description of a
dinner with Shakspeare and Ben Jonson--of a dance with the Maids of
Queen Elizabeth--of a chat with Milton in a morning call? We should
say the man was a churl, who, when he had the power, should have
refused to 'leave the world a copy' of such precious hours. Posterity
will decide who are the great of our time--but they are at least
_among_ those I have heard talk, and have described and quoted, and
who would read without interest, a hundred years hence, a character of
the second Virgin Queen, caught as it was uttered in a ball-room of
her time? or a description of her loveliest Maid of Honor, by one who
had stood opposite her in a dance, and wrote it before he slept? or a
conversation with Moore or Bulwer?--when the Queen and her fairest
maid, and Moore and Bulwer have had their splendid funerals, and are
dust, like Elizabeth and Shakspeare?
"The harm, if harm there be in such sketches, is in the spirit in
which they are done. If they are ill-natured or untrue, or if the
author says aught to injure the feelings of those who have admitted
him to their confidence or hospitality, he is to blame, and it is
easy, since he publishes while his subjects are living, to correct his
misrepresentations, and to visit upon him his infidelities of
friendship.
"But (while I think of it), perhaps some fault-finder will be pleased
to tell me, why this is so much deeper a sin in _me_ than in all other
travellers. Has Basil Hall any hesitation in describing a dinner party
in the United States, and recording the conversation at table? Does
Miss Martineau stick at publishing the portrait of a distinguished
American, and faithfully recording all he says in a confidential
_tete-a-tete_? Have Captain Hamilton and Prince Pukler, Von Raumer and
Captain Marryat, any scruples whatever about putting down anything
they hear that is worth the trouble, or of describing any scene,
private or public, which would tell in their book, or illustrate a
national peculiarity? What would their books be without this class of
subjects? What would any book of travels be, leaving out everybody the
author saw, and all he heard? Not that I justify all these authors
have done in this way, for I honestly think they have stepped over the
line, which I have but trod close upon."
Surely it is the _abuse_, and not the _use_ of information thus
acquired, that makes the offence.
The most formal, unqualified, and severe condemnation recorded against
my Pencillings, however, is that of the renowned Editor of the
Quarterly, and to show the public the immaculate purity of the forge
where this long-echoed thunder is manufactured, I will quote a passage
or two from a book of the same description, by the Editor of the
Quarterly himself. 'Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk,' by Mr. Lockhart,
are three volumes exclusively filled with portraits of persons, living
at the time it was written in Scotland, their conversation with the
author, their manners, their private histories, etc., etc. In one of
the letters upon the 'Society of Edinburgh,' is the following delicate
passage:--
"'Even you, my dear Lady Johnes, are a perfect history in every branch
of knowledge. I remember, only the last time I saw you, you were
praising with all your might the legs of Col. B----, those flimsy,
worthless things that look as if they were bandaged with linen rollers
from the heel to the knee. You may say what you will, but I still
assert, and I will prove it if you please by pen and pencil, that,
with one pair of exceptions, the best legs in Cardigan are Mrs.
P----'s. As for Miss J---- D----'s, I think they are frightful.'...
"Two pages farther on he says:--
"'As for myself, I assure you that ever since I spent a week at Lady
L----'s and saw those great fat girls of hers, waltzing every night
with that odious De B----, I can not endure the very name of the
thing.'
"I quote from the second edition of these letters, by which it appears
that even these are _moderated_ passages. A note to the first of the
above quotations runs as follows:
"'A great part of this letter is omitted in the Second Edition in
consequence of the displeasure its publication gave to certain ladies
in Cardiganshire. As for the gentleman who chose to take what I said
of him in so much dudgeon, he will observe, that I have allowed what I
said to remain _in statu quo_, which I certainly should not have
done, had he expressed his resentment in a proper manner.'
"So well are these unfortunate persons' names known by those who read
the book in England, that in the copy which I have from a circulating
library, they are all filled out in pencil. And I would here beg the
reader to remark that these are private individuals, compelled by no
literary or official distinction to come out from their privacy and
figure in print, and in this, if not in the _taste_ and _quality_ of
my descriptions, I claim a fairer escutcheon than my self-elected
judge--for where is a person's name recorded in my letters who is not
either by tenure of public office, or literary, or political
distinction, a theme of daily newspaper comment, and of course fair
game for the traveller.
"I must give one more extract from Mr. Lockhart's book, an account of
a dinner with a private merchant of Glasgow.
"'I should have told you before, that I had another visiter early in
the morning, besides Mr. H. This was a Mr. P----, a respectable
merchant of the place, also an acquaintance of my friend W----. He
came before H----, and after professing himself very sorry that his
avocations would not permit him to devote his forenoon to my service,
he made me promise to dine with him.... My friend soon joined me, and
observing from the appearance of my countenance that I was
contemplating the scene with some disgust,' (the Glasgow Exchange) 'My
good fellow,' said he, 'you are just like every other well-educated
stranger that comes into this town; you can not endure the first
sight of us mercantile whelps. Do not, however, be alarmed; I will not
introduce you to any of these cattle at dinner. No, sir! You must know
that there are a few men of refinement and polite information in this
city. I have warned two or three of these _rarae aves_, and depend upon
it, you shall have a very snug _day's work_.' So saying he took my
arm, and observing that five was _just on the chap_, hurried me
through several streets and lanes till we arrived in the ----, where
his house is situated. His wife was, I perceived, quite the fine lady,
and, withal, a little of the blue stocking. Hearing that I had just
come from Edinburgh, she remarked that Glasgow would be seen to much
more disadvantage after that elegant city. 'Indeed,' said she, 'a
person of taste, must, of course, find many disagreeables connected
with a residence in such a town as this; but Mr. P----'s business
renders the thing necessary for the present, and one can not make a
silk purse of a sow's ear--he, he, he!' Another lady of the company,
carried this affectation still farther; she pretended to be quite
ignorant of Glasgow and its inhabitants, although she had lived among
them the greater part of her life, and, by the by, seemed no chicken.
I was afterward told by my friend Mr. H----, that this damsel had in
reality sojourned a winter or two in Edinburgh, in the capacity of
_lick-spittle_ or _toad-eater_ to a lady of quality, to whom she had
rendered herself amusing by a malicious tongue; and that during this
short absence, she had embraced the opportunity of utterly forgetting
everything about the West country.
"'The dinner was excellent, although calculated apparently for forty
people rather than sixteen, which last number sat down. While the
ladies remained in the room, there was such a noise and racket of
coarse mirth, ill restrained by a few airs of sickly sentiment on the
part of the hostess, that I really could neither attend to the wine
nor the dessert; but after a little time a very broad hint from a fat
Falstaff, near the foot of the table, apparently quite a privileged
character, thank Heaven! sent the ladies out of the room. The moment
after which blessed consummation, the butler and footman entered, as
if by instinct, the one with a huge punch bowl, _the other with,
&c._'"
I do thank Heaven that there is no parallel in my own letters to
either of these three extracts. It is a thing of course that there is
not. They are violations of hospitality, social confidence, and
delicacy, of which even my abusers will allow me incapable. Yet this
man accuses me of all these things, and so runs criticism!
And to this I add (to conclude this long Preface) some extracts from a
careful review of the work in the North American:--
"'Pencillings by the Way,' is a very spirited book. The letters out of
which it is constructed, were written originally for the New-York
'Mirror,' and were not intended for distinct publication. From this
circumstance, the author indulged in a freedom of personal detail,
which we must say is wholly unjustifiable, and we have no wish to
defend it. This book does not pretend to contain any profound
observations or discussions on national character, political
condition, literature, or even art. It would be obviously impossible
to carry any one of these topics thoroughly out, without spending
vastly more time and labor upon it than a rambling poet is likely to
have the inclination to do. In fact, there are very few men, who are
qualified, by the nature of their previous studies, to do this with
any degree of edification to their readers. But a man of general
intellectual culture, especially if he have the poetical imagination
superadded, may give us rapid sketches of other countries, which will
both entertain and instruct us. Now this book is precisely such a one
as we have here indicated. The author travelled through Europe,
mingling largely in society, and visited whatever scenes were
interesting to him as an American, a scholar, and a poet. The
impressions which these scenes made upon his mind, are described in
these volumes; and we must say, we have rarely fallen in with a book
of a more sprightly character, a more elegant and graceful style, and
full of more lively descriptions. The delineations of manners are
executed with great tact; and the shifting pictures of natural scenery
pass before us as we read, exciting a never-ceasing interest. As to
the personalities which have excited the wrath of British critics, we
have, as we said before, no wish to defend them; but a few words upon
the tone, temper, and motives, of those gentlemen, in their dealing
with our author, will not, perhaps, be considered inappropriate.
"It is a notorious fact, that British criticism, for many years past,
has been, to a great extent, free from all the restraints of a regard
to literary truth. Assuming the political creed of an author, it would
be a very easy thing to predict the sort of criticism his writings
would meet with, in any or all of the leading periodicals of the
kingdom. This tendency has been carried so far, that even discussions
of points in ancient classical literature have been shaped and colored
by it. Thus, Aristophanes' comedies are turned against modern
democracy, and Pindar, the Theban Eagle, has been unceremoniously
classed with British Tories, by the London Quarterly. Instead of
inquiring 'What is the author's object? How far has he accomplished
it? How far is that object worthy of approbation?'--three questions
that are essential to all just criticism; the questions put by English
Reviewers are substantially 'What party does he belong to? Is he a
Whig, Tory, Radical, or is he an American?' And the sentence in such
cases depends on the answer to them. Even where British criticism is
favorable to an American author, its tone is likely to be haughty and
insulting; like the language of a condescending city gentleman toward
some country cousin, whom he is kind enough to honor with his
patronage.
"Now, to critics of this sort, Mr. Willis was a tempting mark. No one
can for a moment believe that the London Quarterly, Frazer's Magazine,
and Captain Marryat's monthly, are honest in the language they hold
toward Mr. Willis. Motives, wide enough from a love of truth, guided
the conduct of these journals. The editor of the London Quarterly, it
is well known, is the author of 'Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk,' a
work full of personalities, ten times more objectionable than
anything to be found in the 'Pencillings.' Yet this same editor did
not blush to write and print a long and most abusive tirade upon the
American traveller, for doing what he had himself done to a much
greater and more reprehensible extent; and, to cap the climax of
inconsistency, republished in his journal the very personalities,
names and all, which had so shocked his delicate sensibilities. It is
much more likely that a disrespectful notice of the London Quarterly
and its editor, in these 'Pencillings,' was the source from which this
bitterness flowed, than that any sense of literary justice dictated
the harsh review. Another furious attack on Mr. Willis's book appeared
in the monthly journal, under the editorial management of Captain
Marryat, the author of a series of very popular sea novels. Whoever
was the author of that article, ought to be held disgraced in the
opinions of all honorable men. It is the most extraordinary tissue of
insolence and coarseness, with one exception, that we have ever seen,
in any periodical which pretended to respectability of literary
character. It carries its grossness to the intolerable length of
attacking the private character of Mr. Willis, and throwing out
foolish sneers about his birth and parentage. It is this article which
led to the well-known correspondence, between the American Poet and
the British Captain, ending in a hostile meeting. It is to be
regretted that Mr. Willis should so far forget the principles of his
New England education, as to participate in a duel. We regard the
practice with horror; we believe it not only wicked, but absurd. We
can not possibly see how, Mr. Willis's tarnished fame could be
brightened by the superfluous work of putting an additional quantity
of lead into the gallant captain. But there is, perhaps, no disputing
about tastes; and, bad as we think the whole affair was, no candid man
can read the correspondence without feeling that Mr. Willis's part of
it, is infinitely superior to the captain's, in style, sense, dignity
of feeling, and manly honor.
"But, to return to the work from which we have been partially drawn
aside. Its merits in point of style are unquestionable. It is written
in a simple, vigorous, and highly descriptive form of English, and
rivets the reader's attention throughout. There are passages in it of
graphic eloquence, which it would be difficult to surpass from the
writings of any other tourist, whatever. The topics our author
selects, are, as has been already stated, not those which require long
and careful study to appreciate and discuss; they are such as the
poetic eye would naturally dwell upon, and a poetic hand rapidly
delineate, in a cursory survey of foreign lands. Occasionally, we
think, Mr. Willis enters too minutely into the details of the
horrible. Some of his descriptions of the cholera, and the pictures he
gives us of the catacombs of the dead, are ghastly. But the manners of
society he draws with admirable tact; and personal peculiarities of
distinguished men, he renders with a most life-like vivacity. Many of
his descriptions of natural scenery are more like pictures, than
sketches in words. The description of the Bay of Naples will occur as
a good example.
"It would be impossible to point out, with any degree of
particularity, the many passages in this book whose beauty deserves
attention. But it may be remarked in general, that the greater part of
the first volume is not so fresh and various, and animated, as the
second. This we suppose arises partly from the fact that France and
Italy have long been beaten ground.
"The last part of the book is a statement of the author's observations
upon English life and society; and it is this portion, which the
English critics affect to be so deeply offended with. The most
objectionable passage in this is the account of a dinner at Lady
Blessington's. Unquestionably Mr. Moore's remarks about Mr. O'Connell
ought not to have been reported, considering the time when, and the
place where, they were uttered; though they contain nothing new about
the great Agitator, the secrets disclosed being well known to some
millions of people who interest themselves in British politics, and
read the British newspapers. We close our remarks on this work by
referring our readers to a capital scene on board a Scotch steamboat,
and a breakfast at Professor Wilson's, the famous editor of Blackwood,
both in the second volume, which we regret our inability to quote."
"Every impartial reader must confess, that for so young a man, Mr.
Willis has done much to promote the reputation of American literature.
His position at present is surrounded with every incentive to a noble
ambition. With youth and health to sustain him under labor; with much
knowledge of the world acquired by travel and observation, to draw
upon; with a mature style, and a hand practised in various forms of
composition, Mr. Willis's genius ought to take a wider and higher
range than it has ever done before. We trust we shall meet him again,
ere long, in the paths of literature; and we trust that he will take
it kindly, if we express the hope, that he will lay aside those
tendencies to exaggeration, and to an unhealthy tone of sentiment,
which mar the beauty of some of his otherwise most agreeable books."
CONTENTS.
PAGE
LETTER I.
Getting under Way--The Gulf Stream--Aspect of the Ocean--
Formation of a Wave--Sea Gems--The Second Mate, 11
LETTER II.
A Dog at Sea--Dining, with a High Sea--Sea Birds--Tandem of
Whales--Speaking a Man-of-War--Havre, 18
LETTER III.
Havre--French Bed-room--The Cooking--Chance Impressions, 25
LETTER IV.
Pleasant Companion--Normandy--Rouen--Eden of Cultivation--St.
Denis--Entrance to Paris--Lodgings--Walk of Discovery--Palais
Royal, 30
LETTER V.
Gallery of the Louvre--Greenough--Feeling as a Foreigner--
Solitude in the Louvre--Louis Philippe--The Poles--Napoleon
II, 40
LETTER VI.
Taglioni--French Acting--French Applause--Leontine Fay, 48
LETTER VII.
Lelewel--Pere La Chaise--Pauvre Marie--Versailles--The
Trianons--Josephine's Boudoir--Time and Money at Paris--Wives
and Fuel--One Price Shops, 53
LETTER VIII.
Mr. Cooper--Mr. Greenough--Fighting Animals--The Dog Pit--
Fighting Donkey--Sporting Englishmen, 63
LETTER IX.
Malibran--Paris at a Late Hour--Glass Gallery--Cloud and
Sunshine--General Romarino--Parisian Students--Tumult Ended, 70
LETTER X.
French Children--Royal Equipages--French Driving--City
Riding--Parisian Picturesque--Beggar's Deception--Genteel
Beggars, 78
LETTER XI.
Madame Mars--Franklin's House--Ball for the Poor--Theatrical
Splendor--Louis Philippe--Duke of Orleans--Young Queen of
Portugal--Don Pedro--Close of the Ball, 86
LETTER XII.
Champs Elysees--Louis Philippe--Literary Dinner--Bowring and
others--The Poles--Dr. Howe's Mission, 96
LETTER XIII.
Club Gambling House--Frascati's--Female Gambler, 103
LETTER XIV.
Tuileries--Men of Mark--Cooper and Morse--Contradictions--
Dinner Hour--How to Dine Well, 107
LETTER XV.
The Emperor--Turenne--Lady Officer--Gambling Quarrel--Curious
Antagonists--Influence of Paris, 114
LETTER XVI.
Cholera Gaieties--Cholera Patient--Morning in Paris--Cholera
Hospital--New Patient--Physician's Indifference--Punch
Remedy--Dead Room--Non-Contagion, 121
LETTER XVII.
Unexpected Challenge--Court Presentation--Louis Philippe--
Royal Family at Tea--Countess Guiccioli--Mardi Gras--Bal
Costume--Public Masks--Lady Cavalier--Ball at the Palace--
Duke of Orleans--Dr. Bowring--Celebrated Men--Glass Verandah, 131
LETTER XVIII.
Cholera--Social Tea Party--Recipe for Caution--Baths and
Happiness, 146
LETTER XIX.
Bois de Boulogne--Guiccioli--Sismondi--Cooper, 151
LETTER XX.
Friend of Lady Morgan--Dr. Spurzheim--Cast-Taking--De
Potter--David the Sculptor, 156
LETTER XXI.
Attractions of Paris--Mr. Cooper--Mr. Rives, 162
LETTER XXII.
Chalons--Sens--Auxerre--St. Bris--Three Views In One--
Chalons, 166
LETTER XXIII.
Boat on the Saone--Scenery above Lyons--Lyons--Churches at
Lyons--Monastery, 173
LETTER XXIV.
Travelling Party--Breakfast on the Road--Localities of
Antiquity--Picturesque Chateau--French Patois, 179
LETTER XXV.
Arles--The Cathedral--Marseilles--Parting with Companions--
Pass of Ollioules--Toulon--Antibes--Coast of Mediterranean--
Forced to Return--Lazaretto--Absurd Hindrances--Fear of
Contagion--Sleep out of Doors--Lazaretto Occupations--
Delicious Sunday--New Arrivals--Companions--End of
Quarantine, 185
LETTER XXVI.
Nice--Funeral of an Arch-Duchess--Nice to Genoa--Views--
Entrance to Genoa--Genoa, 204
LETTER XXVII.
The Venus--The Fornarina--A Coquette and the Arts--A
Festa--Ascension Day--The Cascine--Madame Catalani, 211
LETTER XXVIII.
Titian's Bella--The Grand-Duchess--An Improvisatrice--Living
in Florence--Lodgings at Florence--Expense of Living, 219
LETTER XXIX.
Companions--Scenery of Romagna--Wives--Bologna, 225
LETTER XXX.
Gallery at Bologna--A Guido--Churches--Confession--Chapel--
Festa--Agreeable Manners, 231
LETTER XXXI.
Regatta--Venetian Sunset--Privileged Admission--Guillotining--
Bridge of Sighs--San Marc--The Nobleman Beggar, 238
LETTER XXXII.
An Evening in Venice--The Streets of Venice--The Rialto--
Sunset from San Marc, 246
LETTER XXXIII.
Titian's Pictures--Last Day in Venice, 251
LETTER XXXIV.
Italian Civility--Juliet's Tomb--The Palace of the
Capuletti--A Dinner, 254
LETTER XXXV.
Good and Ill-Breeding--Bridal Party, 259
LETTER XXXVI.
Manner of Living--Originals of Novels--Ill, 262
LETTER XXXVII.
The Duke of Lucca--Modena--The Palace--Bologna--Venice
Again--Its Splendor, 266
LETTER XXXVIII.
Armenian Island--Agreeable Monk--Insane Hospital--Insane
Patients--The Lagune--State Galley--Instruments of Torture, 273
LETTER XXXIX.
Venice at Evening--The Patriotism of a Noble--Church of St.
Antony--Petrarch's Cottage and Tomb--Petrarch's Room, 281
LETTER XL.
Cultivation of the Fields--The Vintage--Malibran in Gazza
Ladra--Gallery of the Lambaccari, 287
LETTER XLI.
Sienna--Catholic Devotion--Acquapendente--Lake Bolsena--
Vintage Festa--Monte Cimino--First Sight of Rome--Baccano, 292
LETTER XLII.
St. Peter's--The Apollo Belvidere--Raphael's
Transfiguration--The Pantheon--The Forum, 301
LETTER XLIII.
The Falls of Tivoli--Villa of Adrian--A Ramble by Moonlight--
The Cloaca Maxima, 307
LETTER XLIV.
The Last Judgment--The Music--Gregory the Sixteenth, 312
LETTER XLV.
Byron's Statue--The Borghese Palace--Society of Rome, 316
LETTER XLVI.
The Climate--Falls of Terni--The Clitumnus--A Lesson not
Lost--Thrasimene--Florence--Florentine Women--Need of an
Ambassador, 320
LETTER XLVII.
Chat in the Ante-Chamber--Love in High Life--Ball at the
Palazzo Pitti--The Grand Duke--An Italian Beauty--An English
Beauty, 329
LETTER XLVIII.
Oxen of Italy--Vallombrosa--A Convent Dinner--Vespers at
Vallombrosa--The Monk's Estimate of Women--Milton's Room--
Florence, 336
LETTER XLIX.
The House of Michael Angelo--Fiesole--San Miniato--Christmas
Eve--Amusing Scenes in Church, 344
LETTER L.
Penitential Processions--The Carlist Refugees--The Miracle of
Rain--The Miraculous Picture--Giovanni Di Bologna--Andrea Del
Sarto, 350
LETTER LI.
The Entertainments of Florence--A Peasant Beauty--The Morality
of Society--The Italian Cavalier--The Features of Society, 357
LETTER LII.
Artists and the French Academy--Beautiful Scenery--Sacred
Woods of Bolsena, 363
LETTER LIII.
The Virtuoso of Viterbo--Robberies--Rome as Fancied--Rome as
Found, 367
LETTER LIV.
The Fountain of Egeria--The Pontine Marshes--Mola--The
Falernian Hills--The Doctor of St. Agatha--The Queen of
Naples, 372
LETTER LV.
St. Peter's--The Fountains--The Obelisk--The Forum--Its
Memories--The Cenci--Claude's Pictures--Fancies Realized--The
Last of the Dorias--A Picture by Leonardo Da Vinci--Palace of
the Cesars--An Hour on the Palatine, 379
LETTER LVI.
Roman Eyes versus Feet--Vespers at Santa Trinita--Roman
Baths--Baths of Titus--Shelley's Haunt, 390
LETTER LVII.
The Tomb of the Scipios--The Early Christians--The Tomb of
Metella--Fountain of Egeria--Changed Aspect of Rome, 396
LETTER LVIII.
Palm Sunday--A Crowd--The Miserere--A Judas--The Washing of
Feet--The Dinner, 402
LETTER LIX.
The Protestant Cemetery--Shelley's Grave--Beauty of the
Place--Keats--Dr. Bell, 409
LETTER LX.
Audience with the Pope--Humility and Pride in Contrast--The
Miserere at St. Peter's--Italian Moonlight--Dancing at the
Coliseum, 415
LETTER LXI.
Easter Sunday--The Pope's Blessing--Illumination of St.
Peter's--Florentine Sociability--A Marriage of Convenience, 421
LETTER LXII.
The Correggio--Austrians in Italy--The Cathedral at Milan--
Guercino's Hagar--Milanese Coffee, 427
LETTER LXIII.
Still in Italy--Isola Bella--Ascent of the Simplon--Farewell
to Italy--An American--Descent of the Simplon, 433
LETTER LXIV.
The Cretins--The Goitre--First Sight of Lake Leman--Mont
Blanc--June in Geneva--The Winkelreid, 440
LETTER LXV.
American and Genevese Steamers--Lilies of the Valley--A
Frenchman's Apology--Genevese Women--Voltaire's Room, 446
LETTER LXVI.
The Jura--Arrival at Morez--Lost my Temper--National
Characteristics--Politeness versus Comfort, 452
LETTER LXVII.
Lafayette's Funeral--Crossing the Channel--An English Inn--
Mail Coaches and Horses--A Gentleman Driver--A Subject for
Madame Trollope, 458
LETTER LXVIII.
First Dinner in London--The King's Birth-day--A Handsome
Street--Introduction to Lady Blessington--A Chat about
Bulwer--The D'Israeli's--Contrast of Criticism--Countess
Guiccioli--Lady Blessington--An Apology, 465
LETTER LXIX.
An Evening at Lady Blessington's--Fonblanc--Tribute to American
Authors--A Sketch of Bulwer--Bulwer's Conversation--An Author
his own Critic, 476
LETTER LXX.
Ascot Races--Handsome Men--The Princess Victoria--Charles
Lamb--Mary Lamb--Lamb's Conversation--The Breakfast at Fault, 483
LETTER LXXI.
A Dinner at Lady Blessington's--D'Israeli, the Younger--The
Author of Vathek--Mr. Beckford's Whims--Irish Patriotism--The
Effect of Eloquence, 491
LETTER LXXII.
The Opera House--What Books will pay for--English Beauty--A
Belle's Criticism on Society--Celebrities, 498
LETTER LXXIII.
Breakfast with Proctor--A Story of Hazlitt--Procter as a
Poet--Impressions of the Man, 504
LETTER LXXIV.
Moore's Dread of Criticism--Moore's Love of Rank--A generous
Offer nobly Refused--A Sacrifice to Jupiter--The Election of
Speaker--Miss Pardoe--Prices of Books, 509
LETTER LXXV.
Dinner at Lady Blessington's--Scott--The Italians--Scott's Mode
of Living--O'Connell--Grattan--Moore's Manner of Talking--Lady
Blessington's Tact--Moore's Singing--A Curious Incident--The
Maid Metamorphosed, 517
PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY.
LETTER I.
AT SEA.--I have emerged from my berth this morning for the first time
since we left the Capes. We have been running six or seven days before
a strong northwest gale, which, by the scuds in the sky, is not yet
blown out, and my head and hand, as you will see by my penmanship, are
anything but at rights. If you have ever plunged about in a cold
rain-storm at sea for seven successive days, you can imagine how I
have amused myself.
I wrote to you after my pilgrimage to the tomb of Washington. It was
almost the only object of natural or historical interest in our own
country that I had not visited, and that seen, I made all haste back
to embark, in pursuance of my plans of travel, for Europe. At
Philadelphia I found a first-rate merchant-brig, the Pacific, on the
eve of sailing for Havre. She was nearly new, and had a French
captain, and no passengers--three very essential circumstances to my
taste--and I took a berth in her without hesitation. The next day she
fell down the river, and on the succeeding morning I followed her with
the captain in the steamboat.
Some ten or fifteen vessels, bound on different voyages, lay in the
roads waiting for the pilot boat; and, as she came down the river,
they all weighed anchor together and we got under way. It was a
beautiful sight--so many sail in close company under a smart breeze,
and I stood on the quarter-deck and watched them in a mood of mingled
happiness and sadness till we reached the Capes. There was much to
elevate and much to depress me. The dream of my lifetime was about to
be realized. I was bound to France; and those fair Italian cities,
with their world of association and interest were within the limit of
a voyage; and all that one looks to for happiness in change of scene,
and all that I had been passionately wishing and imagining since I
could dream a day-dream or read a book, was before me with a visible
certainty; but my home was receding rapidly, perhaps for years, and
the chances of death and adversity in my absence crowded upon my
mind--and I had left friends--(many--many--as dear to me, any one of
them, as the whole sum of my coming enjoyment), whom a thousand
possible accidents might remove or estrange; and I scarce knew whether
I was more happy or sad.
We made Cape Henlopen about sundown, and all shortened sail and came
to. The little boat passed from one to another, taking off the pilots,
and in a few minutes every sail was spread again, and away they went
with a dashing breeze, some on one course some on another, leaving us
in less than an hour, apparently alone on the sea. By this time the
clouds had grown black, the wind had strengthened into a gale, with
fits of rain; and as the order was given to "close-reef the
top-sails," I took a last look at Cape Henlopen, just visible in the
far edge of the horizon, and went below.
OCT. 18.--It is a day to make one in love with life. The remains of
the long storm, before which we have been driven for a week, lie, in
white, turreted masses around the horizon, the sky overhead is
spotlessly blue, the sun is warm, the wind steady and fresh, but soft
as a child's breath, and the sea--I must sketch it to you more
elaborately. We are in the Gulf Stream. The water here as you know,
even to the cold banks of Newfoundland, is always blood warm, and the
temperature of the air mild at all seasons, and, just now, like a
south wind on land in June. Hundreds of sea birds are sailing around
us--the spongy sea-weeds, washed from the West Indian rocks, a
thousand miles away in the southern latitudes, float by in large
masses--the sailors, barefoot and bareheaded, are scattered over the
rigging, doing "fair-weather work"--and just in the edge of the
horizon, hidden by every swell, stand two vessels with all sail
spread, making, with the first fair wind they have had for many days,
for America.
This is the first day that I have been able to be long enough on deck
to study the sea. Even were it not, however, there has been a constant
and chilly rain which would have prevented me from enjoying its
grandeur, so that I am reconciled to my unusually severe sickness. I
came on deck this morning and looked around, and for an hour or two I
could scarce realize that it was not a dream. Much as I had watched
the sea from our bold promontory at Nahant, and well as I thought I
knew its character in storms and calms, the scene which was before me
surprized and bewildered me utterly. At the first glance, we were just
in the gorge of the sea; and, looking over the leeward quarter, I
saw, stretching up from the keel, what I can only describe as a hill
of dazzling blue, thirty or forty feet in real altitude, but sloped so
far away that the white crest seemed to me a cloud, and the space
between a sky of the most wonderful beauty and brightness. A moment
more, and the crest burst over with a splendid volume of foam; the sun
struck through the thinner part of the swell in a line of vivid
emerald, and the whole mass swept under us, the brig rising and riding
on the summit with the buoyancy and grace of a bird.
The single view of the ocean which I got at that moment, will be
impressed upon my mind for ever. Nothing that I ever saw on land at
all compares with it for splendor. No sunset, no lake scene of hill
and water, no fall, not even Niagara, no glen or mountain gap ever
approached it. The waves had had no time to "knock down," as the
sailors phrase it, and it was a storm at sea without the hurricane and
rain. I looked off to the horizon, and the long majestic swells were
heaving into the sky upon its distant limit, and between it and my eye
lay a radius of twelve miles, an immense plain flashing with green and
blue and white, and changing place and color so rapidly as to be
almost painful to the sight. I stood holding by the tafferel an hour,
gazing on it with a childish delight and wonder. The spray had broken
over me repeatedly, and, as we shipped half a sea at the scuppers at
every roll, I was standing half the time up to the knees in water; but
the warm wind on my forehead, after a week's confinement to my berth,
and the excessive beauty lavished upon my sight, were so delicious,
that I forgot all, and it was only in compliance with the captain's
repeated suggestion that I changed my position.
I mounted the quarter-deck, and, pulling off my shoes, like a
schoolboy, sat over the leeward rails, and, with my feet dipping into
the warm sea at every lurch, gazed at the glorious show for hours. I
do not hesitate to say that the formation, progress, and final burst
of a sea-wave, in a bright sun, are the most gorgeously beautiful
sight under heaven. I must describe it like a jeweller to you, or I
can never convey my impressions.
First of all, a quarter of a mile away to windward, your eye is caught
by an uncommonly high wave, rushing right upon your track, and heaping
up slowly and constantly as it comes, as if some huge animal were
ploughing his path steadily and powerfully beneath the surface. Its
"ground," as a painter would say, is of a deep indigo, clear and
smooth as enamel, its front curved inward, like a shell, and turned
over at the summit with a crest of foam, flashing and changing
perpetually in the sunshine, like the sudden outburst of a million of
"unsunned diamonds;" and, right through its bosom, as the sea falls
off, or the angle of refraction changes, there runs a shifting band of
the most vivid green, that you would take to have been the cestus of
Venus, as she rose from the sea, it is so supernaturally translucent
and beautiful. As it nears you, it looks in shape like the prow of
Cleopatra's barge, as they paint it in the old pictures; but its
colors, and the grace and majesty of its march, and its murmur (like
the low tones of an organ, deep and full, and, to my ear, ten times as
articulate and solemn), almost startle you into the belief that it is
a sentient being, risen glorious and breathing from the ocean. As it
reaches the ship, she rises gradually, for there is apparently an
under-wave driven before it, which prepares her for its power; and as
it touches the quarter, the whole magnificent wall breaks down beneath
you with a deafening surge, and a volume of foam issues from its
bosom, green and blue and white, as if it had been a mighty casket in
which the whole wealth of the sea, crysoprase, and emerald, and
brilliant spars, had been heaped and lavished at a throw. This is the
"tenth wave," and, for four or five minutes, the sea will be smooth
about you, and the sparkling and dying foam falls into the wake, and
may be seen like a white path, stretching away over the swells behind,
till you are tired of gazing at it. Then comes another from the same
direction, and with the same shape and motion, and so on till the sun
sets, or your eyes are blinded and your brain giddy with splendor.
I am sure this language will seem exaggerated to you, but, upon the
faith of a lonely man (the captain has turned in, and it is near
midnight and a dead calm), it is a mere skeleton, a goldsmith's
inventory, of the reality. I long ago learned that first lesson of a
man of the world, "to be astonished at nothing," but the sea has
overreached my philosophy--quite. I am changed to a mere child in my
wonder. Be assured, no view of the ocean from land can give you a
shadow of an idea of it. Within even the outermost Capes, the swell is
broken, and the color of the water in soundings is essentially
different--more dull and earthy. Go to the mineral cabinets of
Cambridge or New Haven, and look at the _fluor spars_, and the
_turquoises_, and the clearer specimens of _crysoprase_, and _quartz_,
and _diamond_, and imagine them all polished and clear, and flung at
your feet by millions in a noonday sun, and it may help your
conceptions of the sea after a storm. You may "swim on bladders" at
Nahant and Rockaway till you are gray, and be never the wiser.
The "middle watch" is called, and the second mate, a fine rough old
sailor, promoted from "the mast," is walking the quarter-deck,
stopping his whistle now and then with a gruff "How do you head?" or
"keep her up, you lubber," to the man at the helm; the "silver-shell"
of a waning moon, is just visible through the dead lights over my
shoulder (it has been up two hours, to me, and by the difference of
our present merideans, is just rising now over a certain hill, and
peeping softly in at an eastern window that I have watched many a time
when its panes have been silvered by the same chaste alchymy), and so
after a walk on the deck for an hour to look at the stars and watch
the phosphorus in the wake, I think of ----, I'll get to mine own
uneven pillow, and sleep too.
LETTER II.
AT SEA, OCTOBER 20.--We have had fine weather for progress, so far,
running with north and north-westerly winds from eight to ten knots an
hour, and making, of course, over two hundred miles a day. The sea is
still rough; and though the brig is light laden and rides very
buoyantly, these mounting waves break over us now and then with a
tremendous surge, keeping the decks constantly wet, and putting me to
many an uncomfortable shiver. I have become reconciled, however, to
much that I should have anticipated with no little horror. I can lie
in my berth forty-eight hours, if the weather is chill or rainy, and
amuse myself very well with talking bad French across the cabin to the
captain, or laughing at the distresses of my friend and
fellow-passenger, Turk (a fine setter dog, on his first voyage), or
inventing some disguise for the peculiar flavor which that dismal cook
gives to all his abominations, or, at worst, I can bury my head in my
pillow, and brace from one side to the other against the swell, and
enjoy my disturbed thoughts--all without losing my temper, or wishing
that I had not undertaken the voyage.
Poor Turk! his philosophy is more severely tried. He has been bred a
gentleman, and is amusingly exclusive. No assiduities can win him to
take the least notice of the crew, and I soon discovered, that, when
the captain and myself were below, he endured many a persecution. In
an evil hour, a night or two since, I suffered his earnest appeals for
freedom to work upon my feelings, and, releasing him from his chain
under the windlass, I gave him the liberty of the cabin. He slept very
quietly on the floor till about midnight, when the wind rose and the
vessel began to roll very uncomfortably. With the first heavy lurch a
couple of chairs went tumbling to leeward, and by the yelp of
distress, Turk was somewhere in the way. He changed his position, and,
with the next roll, the mate's trunk "brought away," and shooting
across the cabin, jammed him with such violence against the captain's
state-room door, that he sprang howling to the deck, where the first
thing that met him was a washing sea, just taken in at midships, that
kept him swimming above the hatches for five minutes. Half-drowned,
and with a gallon of water in his long hair, he took again to the
cabin, and making a desperate leap into the steward's berth, crouched
down beside the sleeping creole with a long whine of satisfaction. The
water soon penetrated however, and with a "_sacre!_" and a blow that
he will remember for the remainder of the voyage, the poor dog was
again driven from the cabin, and I heard no more of him till morning.
His decided preference for me has since touched my vanity, and I have
taken him under my more special protection--a circumstance which costs
me two quarrels a day at least, with the cook and steward.
The only thing which forced a smile upon me during the first week of
the passage was the achievement of dinner. In rough weather, it is as
much as one person can do to keep his place at the table at all; and
to guard the dishes, bottles, and castors, from a general slide in
the direction of the lurch, requires a sleight and coolness reserved
only for a sailor. "_Prenez garde!_" shouts the captain, as the sea
strikes, and in the twinkling of an eye, everything is seized and held
up to wait for the other lurch in attitudes which it would puzzle the
pencil of Johnson to exaggerate. With his plate of soup in one hand,
and the larboard end of the tureen in the other, the claret bottle
between his teeth, and the crook of his elbow caught around the
mounting corner of the table, the captain maintains his seat upon the
transom, and, with a look of the most grave concern, keeps a wary eye
on the shifting level of his vermicelli; the old weather-beaten mate,
with the alacrity of a juggler, makes a long leg back to the cabin
panels at the same moment, and with his breast against the table,
takes his own plate and the castors, and one or two of the smaller
dishes under his charge; and the steward, if he can keep his legs,
looks out for the vegetables, or if he falls, makes as wide a lap as
possible to intercept the volant articles in their descent. "Gentlemen
that live at home at ease" forget to thank Providence for the
blessings of a permanent level.
OCT. 24.--We are on the Grand Bank, and surrounded by hundreds of
sea-birds. I have been watching them nearly all day. Their
performances on the wing are certainly the perfection of grace and
skill. With the steadiness of an eagle and the nice adroitness of a
swallow, they wheel round in their constant circles with an arrowy
swiftness, lifting their long tapering pinions scarce perceptibly, and
mounting and falling as if by a mere act of volition, without the
slightest apparent exertion of power. Their chief enjoyment seems to
be to scoop through the deep hollows of the sea, and they do it so
quickly that your eye can scarce follow them, just disturbing the
polish of the smooth crescent, and leaving a fine line of ripple from
swell to swell, but never wetting a wing, or dipping their white
breasts a feather too deep in the capricious and wind-driven surface.
I feel a strange interest in these wild-hearted birds. There is
something in this fearless instinct, leading them away from the
protecting and pleasant land to make their home on this tossing and
desolate element, that moves both my admiration and my pity. I cannot
comprehend it. It is unlike the self-caring instincts of the other
families of Heaven's creatures. If I were half the Pythagorean that I
used to be, I should believe they were souls in punishment--expiating
some lifetime sin in this restless metempsychosis.
Now and then a land-bird has flown on board, driven to sea probably by
the gale; and so fatigued as hardly to be able to rise again upon the
wing. Yesterday morning a large curlew came struggling down the wind,
and seemed to have just sufficient strength to reach the vessel. He
attempted to alight on the main yard, but failed and dropped heavily
into the long-boat, where he suffered himself to be taken without an
attempt to escape. He must have been on the wing two or three days
without food, for we were at least two hundred miles from land. His
heart was throbbing hard through his ruffled feathers, and he held his
head up with difficulty. He was passed aft; but, while I was
deliberating on the best means for resuscitating and fitting him to
get on the wing again, the captain had taken him from me and handed
him over to the cook, who had his head off before I could remember
French enough to arrest him. I dreamed all that night of the man "that
shot the albatross." The captain relieved my mind, however, by telling
me that he had tried repeatedly to preserve them, and that they died
invariably in a few hours. The least food, in their exhausted state,
swells in their throats and suffocates them. Poor Curlew! there was a
tenderness in one breast for him at least--a feeling I have the
melancholy satisfaction to know, fully reciprocated by the bird
himself--that seat of his affections having been allotted to me for my
breakfast the morning succeeding his demise.
OCT. 29.--We have a tandem of whales ahead. They have been playing
about the ship an hour, and now are coursing away to the east, one
after the other, in gallant style. If we could only get them into
traces now, how beautiful it would be to stand in the foretop and
drive a degree or two, on a summer sea! It would not be more
wonderful, _de novo_, than the discovery of the lightning-rod, or
navigation by steam! And by the way, the sight of these huge creatures
has made me realize, for the first time, the extent to which the sea
has _grown_ upon my mind during the voyage. I have seen one or two
whales, exhibited in the docks, and it seemed to me always that they
were monsters--out of proportion, entirely, to the range of the ocean.
I had been accustomed to look out to the horizon from land (the
radius, of course, as great as at sea), and, calculating the probable
speed with which they would compass the intervening space, and the
disturbance they would make in doing it, it appeared that in any
considerable numbers, they would occupy more than their share of
notice and sea-room. Now--after sailing five days, at two hundred
miles a day, and not meeting a single vessel--it seems to me that a
troop of a thousand might swim the sea a century and chance to be
never crossed, so endlessly does this eternal horizon open and stretch
away!
OCT. 30.--The day has passed more pleasantly than usual The man at the
helm cried "a sail," while we were at breakfast, and we gradually
overtook a large ship, standing on the same course, with every sail
set. We were passing half a mile to leeward, when she put up her helm
and ran down to us, hoisting the English flag. We raised the
"star-spangled banner" in answer, and "hove to," and she came dashing
along our quarter, heaving most majestically to the sea, till she was
near enough to speak us without a trumpet. Her fore-deck was covered
with sailors dressed all alike and very neatly, and around the gangway
stood a large group of officers in uniform, the oldest of whom, a
noble-looking man with gray hair, hailed and answered us. Several
ladies stood back by the cabin door--passengers apparently. She was a
man of war, sailing as a king's packet between Halifax and Falmouth,
and had been out from the former port nineteen days. After the usual
courtesies had passed, she bore away a little, and then kept on her
course again, the two vessels in company at the distance of half a
pistol shot. I rarely have seen a more beautiful sight. The fine
effect of a ship under sail is entirely lost to one on board, and it
is only at sea and under circumstances like these, that it can be
observed. The power of the swell, lifting such a huge body as lightly
as an egg-shell on its bosom, and tossing it sometimes half out of the
water without the slightest apparent effort, is astonishing. I sat on
deck watching her with undiminished interest for hours. Apart from the
spectacle, the feeling of companionship, meeting human beings in the
middle of the ocean after so long a deprivation of society (five days
without seeing a sail, and nearly three weeks unspoken from land), was
delightful. Our brig was the faster sailer of the two, but our captain
took in some of his canvas for company's sake; and all the afternoon
we heard her half-hour bells, and the boatswain's whistle, and the
orders of the officers of the deck, and I could distinguish very
well, with a glass, the expression of the faces watching our own
really beautiful vessel as she skimmed over the water like a bird. We
parted at sunset, the man-of-war making northerly for her port, and we
stretching south for the coast of France. I watched her till she went
over the horizon, and felt as if I had lost friends when the night
closed in and we were once more
"Alone on the wide, wide sea."
NOV. 3.--We have just made the port of Havre, and the pilot tells us
that the packet has been delayed by contrary winds, and sails early
to-morrow morning. The town bells are ringing "nine" (as delightful a
sound as I ever heard, to my sea-weary ear), and I close in haste, for
all is confusion on board.
LETTER III.
HAVRE.--This is one of those places which scribbling travellers hurry
through with a crisp mention of their arrival and departure, but, as I
have passed a day here upon customhouse compulsion, and passed it
pleasantly too, and as I have an evening entirely to myself, and a
good fire, why I will order another _pound_ of wood (they sell it like
a drug here), and Monsieur and Mademoiselle Somebodies, "violin
players right from the hands of Paganini, only fifteen years of age,
and miracles of music," (so says the placard), may delight other
lovers of precocious talent than I. Pen, ink, and paper for No. 2!
If I had not been warned against being astonished, short of Paris, I
should have thought Havre quite an affair. I certainly have seen more
that is novel and amusing since morning than I ever saw before in any
seven days of my life. Not a face, not a building, not a dress, not a
child even, not a stone in the street, nor shop, nor woman, nor beast
of burden, looks in any comparable degree like its namesake the other
side of the water.
It was very provoking to eat a salt supper and go to bed in that
tiresome berth again last night, with a French hotel in full view, and
no permission to send for a fresh biscuit even, or a cup of milk. It
was nine o'clock when we reached the pier, and at that late hour there
was, of course, no officer to be had for permission to land; and there
paced the patrole, with his high black cap and red pompon, up and down
the quay, within six feet of our tafferel, and a shot from his
arquebuss would have been the consequence of any unlicensed
communication with the shore. It was something, however, to sleep
without rocking; and, after a fit of musing anticipation, which kept
me conscious of the sentinel's measured tread till midnight, the
"gentle goddess" sealed up my cares effectually, and I awoke at
sunrise--in France!
It is a common thing enough to go abroad, and it may seem idle and
common-place to be enthusiastic about it; but nothing is common or a
trifle, to me, that can send the blood so warm to my heart, and the
color to my temples as generously, as did my first conscious thought
when I awoke this morning. _In France._ I would not have had it a
dream for the price of an empire.
Early in the morning a woman came clattering into the cabin with
wooden shoes, and a _patois_ of mingled French and English--a
_blanchisseuse_--spattered to the knees with mud, but with a cap and
'kerchief that would have made the fortune of a New York milliner.
_Ciel!_ what politeness! and what white teeth and what a knowing row
of papillotes, laid in precise parallel, on her clear brunette
temples.
"_Quelle nouvelle!_" said the captain.
"_Poland est a bas!_" was the answer, with a look of heroic sorrow,
that would have become a tragedy queen, mourning for the loss of a
throne. The French manner, for once, did not appear exaggerated. It
was news to sadden us all. Pity! pity! that the broad Christian world
could look on and see this glorious people trampled to the dust in one
of the most noble and desperate struggles for liberty that the earth
ever saw! What an opportunity was here lost to France for setting a
seal of double truth and splendor on her own newly-achieved triumph
over despotism. The washerwoman broke the silence with "_Any clothes
to wash, Monsieur?_" and in the instant return of my thoughts to my
own comparatively-pitiful interests, I found the philosophy for all I
had condemned in kings--the humiliating and selfish individuality of
human nature! And yet I believe with Dr. Channing on that dogma.
At ten o'clock I had performed the traveller's routine--had submitted
my trunk and my passport to the three authorities, and had got into
(and out of) as many mounting passions at what seemed to me the
intolerable impertinencies of searching my linen, and inspecting my
person for scars. I had paid the porter three times his due rather
than endure his cataract of French expostulation; and with a bunch of
keys, and a landlady attached to it, had ascended by a cold, wet,
marble staircase, to a parlor and bedroom on the fifth floor: as
pretty a place, when you get there, and as difficult to get to as if
it were a palace in thin air. It is perfectly French! Fine, old,
last-century chairs, covered with splendid yellow damask, two sofas of
the same, the legs or arms of every one imperfect; a coarse wood
dressing-table, covered with fringed drapery and a sort of throne
pincushion, with an immense glass leaning over it, gilded probably in
the time of Henri Quatre; artificial flowers all around the room, and
prints of Atala and _Napoleon mourant_ over the walls; windows opening
to the floor on hinges, damask and muslin curtains inside, and boxes
for flower-pots without; a bell-wire that pulls no bell, a bellows too
asthmatic even to wheeze, tongs that refuse to meet, and a carpet as
large as a table-cloth in the centre of the floor, may answer for an
inventory of the "parlor." The bedchamber, about half as large as the
boxes in Rattle-row, at Saratoga, opens by folding doors, and
discloses a bed, that, for tricksy ornament as well as size, might
look the bridal couch for a faery queen in a panorama; the same
golden-sprig damask looped over it, tent-fashion, with splendid
crimson cord, tassels, fringes, etc., and a pillow beneath that I
shall be afraid to sleep on, it is so dainty a piece of needle-work.
There is a delusion about it, positively. One cannot help imagining,
that all this splendor means something, and it would require a worse
evil than any of these little deficiencies of _comfort_ to disturb the
self-complacent, Captain-Jackson sort of feeling, with which one
throws his cloak on one sofa and his hat on the other, and spreads
himself out for a lounge before this mere apology of a French fire.
But, for eating and drinking! if they cook better in Paris, I shall
have my passport altered. The next _prefet_ that signs it shall
substitute _gourmand_ for _proprietaire_. I will profess a palate, and
live to eat. Making every allowance for an appetite newly from sea, my
experience hitherto in this department of science is transcended in
the degree of a rushlight to Arcturus.
I strolled about Havre from breakfast till dinner, seven or eight
hours, following curiosity at random, up one street and down another,
with a prying avidity which I fear travel will wear fast away. I must
compress my observations into a sentence or two, for my fire is out,
and this old castle of a hotel lets in the wind "shrewdly cold," and,
besides, the diligence calls for me in a few hours and one must sleep.
Among my impressions the most vivid are--that, of the twenty thousand
inhabitants of Havre, by far the greater portion are women and
soldiers--that the buildings all look toppling, and insecurely antique
and unsightly--that the privates of the regular army are the most
stupid, and those of the national guard the most intelligent-looking
troops I ever saw--that the streets are filthy beyond endurance, and
the shops clean beyond all praise--that the women do all the buying
and selling, and cart-driving and sweeping, and even shoe-making, and
other sedentary craftswork, and at the same time have (the meanest of
them) an air of ambitious elegance and neatness, that sends your hand
to your hat involuntarily when you speak to them--that the children
speak French, and look like little old men and women, and the horses,
(the famed Norman breed) are the best of draught animals, and the
worst for speed in the world--and that, for extremes ridiculously
near, dirt and neatness, politeness and knavery, chivalry and
_petitesse_, of bearing and language, the people I have seen to-day
_must_ be pre-eminently remarkable, or France, for a laughing
philosopher, is a paradise indeed! And now for my pillow, till the
diligence calls. Good night.
LETTER IV.
PARIS.--It seems to me as if I were going back a month to recall my
departure from Havre, my memory is so clouded with later incidents. I
was awaked on the morning after I had written to you, by a servant,
who brought me at the same time a cup of coffee, and at about an hour
before daylight we were passing through the huge gates of the town on
our way to Paris. The whole business of diligence-travelling amused me
exceedingly. The construction of this vehicle has often been
described; but its separate apartments (at four different prices), its
enormous size, its comfort and clumsiness, and, more than all, the
driving of its postillions, struck me as equally novel and diverting.
This last mentioned performer on the whip and voice (the only two
accomplishments he at all cultivates), rides one of the three wheel
horses, and drives the four or seven which are in advance, as a
grazier in our country drives a herd of cattle, and they travel very
much in the same manner. There is leather enough in two of their
clumsy harnesses, to say nothing of the postillion's boots, to load a
common horse heavily. I never witnessed such a ludicrous absence of
contrivance and tact as in the appointments and driving of horses in a
diligence. It is so in everything in France, indeed. They do not
possess the quality as a nation. The story of the Gascoigne, who saw a
bridge for the first time, and admired the ingenious economy that
placed it across the river, instead of lengthwise, is hardly an
exaggeration.
At daylight I found myself in the _coupe_ (a single seat for three in
the front of the body of the carriage, with windows before and at the
sides), with two whiskered and mustached companions, both very polite,
and very unintelligible. I soon suspected, by the science with which
my neighbor on the left hummed little snatches of popular operas, that
he was a professed singer (a conjecture which proved true), and it was
equally clear, from the complexion of the portfeuille on the lap of
the other, that his vocation was a liberal one--a conjecture which
proved true also, as he confessed himself a _diplomat_, when we became
better acquainted. For the first hour or more my attention was divided
between the dim but beautiful outline of the country by the slowly
approaching light of the dawn, and my nervousness at the distressing
want of skill in the postillion's driving. The increasing and singular
beauty of the country, even under the disadvantage of rain and the
late season, soon absorbed all my attention, however, and my
involuntary and half-suppressed exclamations of pleasure, so unusual
in an Englishman (for whom I found I was taken), warmed the
diplomatist into conversation, and I passed the three ensuing hours
very pleasantly. My companion was on his return from Lithuania, having
been sent out by the French committee with arms and money for Poland.
He was, of course, a most interesting fellow-traveller; and, allowing
for the difficulty with which I understood the language, in the rapid
articulation of an enthusiastic Frenchman, I rarely have been better
pleased with a chance acquaintance. I found he had been in Greece
during the revolution, and knew intimately my friend, Dr. Howe, the
best claim he could have on my interest, and, I soon discovered, an
answering recommendation of myself to him.
The province of Normandy is celebrated for its picturesque beauty, but
I had no conception before of the _cultivated_ picturesque of an old
country. I have been a great scenery-hunter in America, and my eye was
new, like its hills and forests. The massive, battlemented buildings
of the small villages we passed through, the heavy gateways and
winding avenues and antique structure of the distant and half-hidden
chateaux, the perfect cultivation, and, to me, singular appearance of
a whole landscape without a fence or a stone, the absence of all that
we define by _comfort_ and _neatness_, and the presence of all that we
have seen in pictures and read of in books, but consider as the
representations and descriptions of ages gone by--all seemed to me
irresistibly like a dream. I could not rub my hand over my eyes, and
realize myself. I could not believe that, within a month's voyage of
my home, these spirit-stirring places had stood all my lifetime as
they do, and have--for ages--every stone as it was laid in times of
worm-eaten history--and looking to my eyes now as they did to the eyes
of knights and dames in the days of French chivalry. I looked at the
constantly-occurring ruins of the old priories, and the magnificent
and still-used churches, and my blood tingled in my veins, as I saw,
in the stepping-stones at their doors, cavities that the sandals of
monks, and the iron-shod feet of knights in armor a thousand years
ago, had trodden and helped to wear, and the stone cross over the
threshold, that hundreds of generations had gazed upon and passed
under.
By a fortunate chance the postillion left the usual route at Balbec,
and pursued what appeared to be a bye-road through the grain-fields
and vineyards for twenty or twenty-five miles. I can only describe it
as an uninterrupted green lane, winding almost the whole distance
through the bosom of a valley that must be one of the very loveliest
in the world. Imagine one of such extent, without a fence to break the
broad swells of verdure, stretching up from the winding and unenclosed
road on either side, to the apparent sky; the houses occurring at
distances of miles, and every one with its thatched roof covered all
over with bright green moss, and its walls of marl interlaid through
all the crevices with clinging vines, the whole structure and its
appurtenances faultlessly picturesque, and, when you have conceived a
valley that might have contented Rasselas, scatter over it here and
there groups of men, women, and children, the Norman peasantry in
their dresses of all colors, as you see them in the prints--and if
there is anything that can better please the eye, or make the
imagination more willing to fold up its wings and rest, my travels
have not crossed it. I have recorded a vow to walk through Normandy.
As we approached Rouen the road ascended gradually, and a sharp turn
brought us suddenly to the brow of a steep hill, opposite another of
the same height, and with the same abrupt descent, at the distance of
a mile across. Between, lay Rouen. I hardly know how to describe, for
American eyes, the peculiar beauty of this view; one of the most
exquisite, I am told, in all France. A town at the foot of a hill is
common enough in our country, but of the hundreds that answer to this
description, I can not name one that would afford a correct
comparison. The nice and excessive cultivation of the grounds in so
old a country gives the landscape a complexion essentially different
from ours. If there were another Mount Holyoke, for instance, on the
other side of the Connecticut, the situation of Northampton would be
very similar to that of Rouen; but, instead of the rural village, with
its glimpses of white houses seen through rich and luxurious masses of
foliage, the mountain sides above broken with rocks, and studded with
the gigantic and untouched relics of the native forest, and the fields
below waving with heavy crops, irregularly fenced and divided, the
whole picture one of an overlavish and half-subdued Eden of
fertility--instead of this I say--the broad meadows, with the winding
Seine in their bosom, are as trim as a girl's flower-garden, the grass
closely cut, and of a uniform surface of green, the edges of the river
set regularly with willows, the little bright islands circled with
trees, and smooth as a lawn; and instead of green lanes lined with
bushes, single streets running right through the unfenced verdure,
from one hill to another, and built up with antique structures of
stone--the whole looking, in the _coup d'oeil_ of distance, like
some fantastic model of a town, with gothic houses of sand-paper, and
meadows of silk velvet.
You will find the size, population, etc., of Rouen in the guide-books.
As my object is to record impressions, not statistics, I leave you to
consult those laconic chronicles, or the books of a thousand
travellers, for all such information. The Maid of Orleans was burnt
here, as you know, in the fourteenth century. There is a statue
erected to her memory, which I did not see, for it rained; and after
the usual stop of two hours, as the barometer promised no change in
the weather, and as I was anxious to be in Paris, I took my place in
the night diligence and kept on.
I amused myself till dark, watching the streams that poured into the
broad mouth of the postillion's boots from every part of his dress,
and musing on the fate of the poor Maid of Orleans; and then, sinking
down into the comfortable corner of the _coupe_, I slept almost
without interruption till the next morning--the best comment in the
world on the only _comfortable_ thing I have yet seen in France, a
diligence.
It is a pleasant thing in a foreign land to see the familiar face of
the sun; and, as he rose over a distant hill on the left, I lifted the
window of the _coupe_ to let him in, as I would open the door to a
long-missed friend. He soon reached a heavy cloud, however, and my
hopes of bright weather, when we should enter the metropolis,
departed. It began to rain again; and the postilion, after his blue
cotton frock was soaked through, put on his greatcoat over it--an
economy which is peculiarly French, and which I observed in every
succeeding postilion on the route. The last twenty-five miles to Paris
are uninteresting to the eye; and with my own pleasant thoughts, tinct
as they were with the brightness of immediate anticipation, and an
occasional laugh at the grotesque figures and equipages on the road, I
made myself passably contented till I entered the suburb of St. Denis.
It is something to see the outside of a sepulchre for kings, and the
old abbey of St. Denis needs no association to make a sight of it
worth many a mile of weary travel. I could not stop within four miles
of Paris, however, and I contented myself with running to get a second
view of it in the rain while the postilion breathed his horses. The
strongest association about it, old and magnificent as it is, is the
fact that Napoleon repaired it after the revolution; and standing in
probably the finest point for its front view, my heart leaped to my
throat as I fancied that Napoleon, with his mighty thoughts, had stood
in that very spot, possibly, and contemplated the glorious old pile
before me as the place of his future repose.
After four miles more, over a broad straight avenue, paved in the
centre and edged with trees, we arrived at the port of St. Denis. I
was exceedingly struck with the grandeur of the gate as we passed
under, and, referring to the guide-book, I find it was a triumphal
arch erected to Louis XIV., and the one by which the kings of France
invariably enter. This also was restored by Napoleon, with his
infallible taste, without changing its design: and it is singular how
everything that great man touched became his own--for, who remembers
for whom it was raised while he is told who employed his great
intellect in its repairs?
I entered Paris on Sunday at eleven o'clock. I never should have
recognized the day. The shops were all open, the artificers all at
work, the unintelligible criers vociferating their wares, and the
people in their working-day dresses. We wound through street after
street, narrow and dark and dirty, and with my mind full of the
splendid views of squares, and columns, and bridges, as I had seen
them in the prints, I could scarce believe I was in Paris. A turn
brought us into a large court, that of the Messagerie, the place at
which all travellers are set down on arrival. Here my baggage was once
more inspected, and, after a half-hour's delay, I was permitted to get
into a _fiacre_, and drive to a hotel. As one is a specimen of all, I
may as well describe the _Hotel d'Etrangers_, Rue Vivienne, which, by
the way, I take the liberty at the same time to recommend to my
friends. It is the precise centre for the convenience of sight-seeing,
admirably kept, and, being nearly opposite Galignani's, that bookstore
of Europe, is a very pleasant resort for the half hour before dinner,
or a rainy day. I went there at the instance of my friend the
_diplomat_.
The _fiacre_ stopped before an arched passage, and a fellow in
livery, who had followed me from the Messagerie (probably in the
double character of porter and police agent, as my passport was yet to
be demanded), took my trunk into a small office on the left, over
which was written "_Concierge_." This person, who is a kind of
respectable doorkeeper, addressed me in broken English, without
waiting for the evidence of my tongue, that I was a foreigner, and,
after inquiring at what price I would have a room, introduced me to
the landlady, who took me across a large court (the houses are built
_round_ the yard always in France), to the corresponding story of the
house. The room was quite pretty, with its looking-glasses and
curtains, but there was no carpet, and the fireplace was ten feet
deep. I asked to see another, and another, and another; they were all
curtains and looking-glasses, and stone-floors! There is no wearying a
French woman, and I pushed my modesty till I found a chamber to my
taste--a nutshell, to be sure, but carpeted--and bowing my polite
housekeeper out, I rang for breakfast and was at home in Paris.
There are few things bought with money that are more delightful than a
French breakfast. If you take it at your room, it appears in the shape
of two small vessels, one of coffee and one of hot milk, two kinds of
bread, with a thin, printed slice of butter, and one or two of some
thirty dishes from which you choose, the latter flavored exquisitely
enough to make one wish to be always at breakfast, but cooked and
composed I know not how or of what. The coffee has an aroma peculiarly
exquisite, something quite different from any I ever tasted before;
and the _petit-pain_, a slender biscuit between bread and cake, is,
when crisp and warm, a delightful accompaniment. All this costs about
one third as much as the beefsteaks and coffee in America, and at the
same time that you are waited upon with a civility that is worth three
times the money.
It still rained at noon, and, finding that the usual dinner hour was
five, I took my umbrella for a walk. In a strange city I prefer always
to stroll about at hazard, coming unawares upon what is fine or
curious. The hackneyed descriptions in the guidebooks profane the
spirit of a place; I never look at them till after I have found the
object, and then only for dates. The Rue Vivienne was crowded with
people, as I emerged from the dark archway of the hotel to pursue my
wanderings.
A walk of this kind, by the way, shows one a great deal of novelty. In
France there are no shop-_men_. No matter what is the article of
trade--hats, boots, pictures, books, jewellery, anything or everything
that gentlemen buy--you are waited upon by girls, always handsome, and
always dressed in the height of the mode. They sit on damask-covered
settees, behind the counters; and, when you enter, bow and rise to
serve you, with a grace and a smile of courtesy that would become a
drawing-room. And this is universal.
I strolled on until I entered a narrow passage, penetrating a long
line of buildings. It was thronged with people, and passing in with
the rest, I found myself unexpectedly in a scene that equally
surprised and delighted me. It was a spacious square enclosed by one
entire building. The area was laid out as a garden, planted with long
avenues of trees and beds of flowers, and in the centre a fountain was
playing in the shape of a _fleur-de-lis_, with a jet about forty feet
in height. A superb colonnade ran round the whole square, making a
covered gallery of the lower story, which was occupied by shops of the
most splendid appearance, and thronged through its long sheltered
_paves_ by thousands of gay promenaders. It was the far-famed _Palais
Royal_. I remembered the description I had heard of its gambling
houses, and facilities for every vice, and looked with a new surprise
on its Aladdin-like magnificence. The hundreds of beautiful pillars,
stretching away from the eye in long and distant perspective, the
crowd of citizens, and women, and officers in full uniform, passing
and re-passing with French liveliness and politeness, the long windows
of plated glass glittering with jewellery, and bright with everything
to tempt the fancy, the tall sentinels pacing between the columns, and
the fountain turning over its clear waters with a fall audible above
the tread and voices of the thousands who walked around it--who could
look upon such a scene and believe it what it is, the most corrupt
spot, probably, on the face of the civilized world?
LETTER V.
THE LOUVRE--AMERICANS IN PARIS--POLITICS, ETC.
The salient object in my idea of Paris has always been the Louvre. I
have spent some hours in its vast gallery to-day and I am sure it will
retain the same prominence in my recollections. The whole palace is
one of the oldest, and said to be one of the finest, in Europe; and,
if I may judge from its impressiveness, the vast inner court (the
_facades_ of which were restored to their original simplicity by
Napoleon), is a specimen of high architectural perfection. One could
hardly pass through it without being better fitted to see the
masterpieces of art within; and it requires this, and all the
expansiveness of which the mind is capable besides, to walk through
the _Musee Royale_ without the painful sense of a magnificence beyond
the grasp of the faculties.
I delivered my passport at the door of the palace, and, as is
customary, recorded my name, country, and profession in the book, and
proceeded to the gallery. The grand double staircase, one part leading
to the private apartments of the royal household, is described
voluminously in the authorities; and, truly, for one who has been
accustomed to convenient dimensions only, its breadth, its lofty
ceilings, its pillars and statuary, its mosaic pavements and splendid
windows, are enough to unsettle for ever the standards of size and
grandeur. The strongest feeling one has, as he stops half way up to
look about him, is the ludicrous disproportion between it and the size
of the inhabiting animals. I should smile to see any man ascend such a
staircase, except, perhaps, Napoleon.
Passing through a kind of entrance-hall, I came to a spacious _salle
ronde_, lighted from the ceiling, and hung principally with pictures
of a large size, one of the most conspicuous of which, "The Wreck,"
has been copied by an American artist, Mr. Cooke, and is now
exhibiting in New York. It is one of the best of the French school,
and very powerfully conceived. I regret, however, that he did not
prefer the wonderfully fine piece opposite, which is worth all the
pictures ever painted in France, "The Marriage Supper at Cana." The
left wing of the table, projected toward the spectator, with seven or
eight guests who occupy it, absolutely stands out into the hall. It
seems impossible that color and drawing upon a flat surface can so
cheat the eye.
From the _salle ronde_, on the right opens the grand gallery, which,
after the lesson I had just received in perspective, I took, at the
first glance, to be a painting. You will realize the facility of the
deception when you consider, that, with a breadth of but forty-two
feet, this gallery is one thousand three hundred and thirty-two feet
(more than a quarter of a mile) in length. The floor is of tesselated
woods, polished with wax like a table; and along its glassy surface
were scattered perhaps a hundred visiters, gazing at the pictures in
varied attitudes, and with sizes reduced in proportion to their
distance, the farthest off looking, in the long perspective, like
pigmies of the most diminutive description. It is like a matchless
painting to the eye, after all. The ceiling is divided by nine or ten
arches, standing each on four Corinthian columns, projecting into the
area; and the natural perspective of these, and the artists scattered
from one end to the other, copying silently at their easels, and a
soldier at every division, standing upon his guard, quite as silent
and motionless, would make it difficult to convince a spectator, who
was led blindfold and unprepared to the entrance, that it was not some
superb diorama, figures and all.
I found our distinguished countryman, Morse, copying a beautiful
Murillo at the end of the gallery. He is also engaged upon a Raffaelle
for Cooper, the novelist. Among the French artists, I noticed several
soldiers, and some twenty or thirty females, the latter with every
mark in their countenances of absorbed and extreme application. There
was a striking difference in this respect between them and the artists
of the other sex. With the single exception of a lovely girl, drawing
from a Madonna, by Guido, and protected by the presence of an elderly
companion, these lady painters were anything but interesting in their
appearance.
Greenough, the sculptor, is in Paris, and engaged just now in taking
the bust of an Italian lady. His reputation is now very enviable; and
his passion for his art, together with his untiring industry and his
fine natural powers, will work him up to something that will, before
long, be an honor to our country. If the wealthy men of taste in
America would give Greenough liberal orders for his time and talents,
and send out Augur, of New Haven, to Italy, they would do more to
advance this glorious art in our country, than by expending ten times
the sum in any other way. They are both men of rare genius, and both
ardent and diligent, and they are both cramped by the universal curse
of genius--necessity. The Americans in Paris are deliberating at
present on some means for expressing unitedly to our government their
interest in Greenough, and their appreciation of his merit of public
and private patronage. For the love of true taste, do everything in
your power to second such an appeal when it comes.
* * * * *
It is a queer feeling to find oneself a _foreigner_. One cannot
realize, long at a time, how his face or his manners should have
become peculiar; and, after looking at a print for five minutes in a
shop window, or dipping into an English book, or in any manner
throwing off the mental habit of the instant, the curious gaze of the
passer by, or the accent of a strange language, strikes one very
singularly. Paris is full of foreigners of all nations, and of course,
physiognomies of all characters may be met everywhere, but, differing
as the European nations do decidedly from each other, they differ
still more from the American. Our countrymen, as a class, are
distinguishable wherever they are met; not as Americans however, for,
of the habits and manners of our country, people know nothing this
side the water. But there is something in an American face, of which I
never was aware till I met them in Europe, that is altogether
peculiar. The French take the Americans to be English: but an
Englishman, while he presumes him his countryman, shows a curiosity to
know who he is, which is very foreign to his usual indifference. As
far as I can analyze it, it is the independent self-possessed bearing
of a man unused to look up to any one as his superior in rank, united
to the inquisitive, sensitive, communicative expression which is the
index to our national character. The first is seldom possessed in
England but by a man of decided rank, and the latter is never
possessed by an Englishman at all. The two are united in no other
nation. Nothing is easier than to tell the rank of an Englishman, and
nothing puzzles a European more than to know how to rate the
pretensions of an American.
* * * * *
On my way home from the Boulevards this evening, I was fortunate
enough to pass through the grand court of the Louvre, at the moment
when the moon broke through the clouds that have concealed her own
light and the sun's ever since I have been in France. I had often
stopped, in passing the sentinels at the entrance, to admire the
grandeur of the interior to this oldest of the royal palaces; but
to-night, my dead halt within the shadow of the arch, as the view
broke upon my eye, and my sudden exclamation in English, startled the
grenadier, and he had half presented his musket, when I apologized and
passed on. It was magically beautiful indeed! and, with the moonlight
pouring obliquely into the sombre area, lying full upon the taller of
the three _facades_, and drawing its soft line across the rich windows
and massive pilasters and arches of the eastern and western, while the
remaining front lay in the heavy black shadow of relief, it seemed to
me more like an accidental regularity in some rocky glen of America,
than a pile of human design and proportion. It is strange how such
high walls shut out the world. The court of the Louvre is in the very
centre of the busiest quarter of Paris, thousands of persons passing
and repassing constantly at the extremity of the long arched
entrances, and yet, standing on the pavement of that lonely court, no
living creature in sight but the motionless grenadiers at either gate,
the noises without coming to your ear in a subdued murmur, like the
wind on the sea, and nothing visible above but the sky, resting like a
ceiling on the lofty walls, the impression of utter solitude is
irresistible. I passed out by the archway for which Napoleon
constructed his bronze gates, said to be the most magnificent of
modern times, and which are now lying in some obscure corner unused,
no succeeding power having had the spirit or the will to complete,
even by the slight labor that remained, his imperial design. All over
Paris you may see similar instances; they meet you at every step:
glorious plans defeated; works, that with a mere moiety of what has
been already expended in their progress, might be finished with an
effect that none but a mind like Napoleon's could have originally
projected.
* * * * *
Paris, of course, is rife with politics. There is but one opinion on
the subject of another pending revolution. The "people's king" is
about as unpopular as he need be for the purposes of his enemies; and
he has aggravated the feeling against him very unnecessarily by his
late project in the Tuileries. The whole thing is very characteristic
of the French people. He might have deprived them of half their civil
rights without immediate resistance; but to cut off a strip of the
public garden to make a play ground for his children--to encroach a
hundred feet on the pride of Paris, the daily promenade of the idlers,
who do all the discussion of his measures, it was a little too
venturesome. Unfortunately, too, the offence is in the very eye of
curiosity, and the workmen are surrounded, from morning till night, by
thousands of people, of all classes, gesticulating, and looking at the
palace windows and winding themselves gradually up to the
revolutionary pitch.
In the event of an explosion, the liberal party will not want
partizans, for France is crowded with refugees from tyranny, of every
nation. The Poles are flocking hither every day, and the streets are
full of their melancholy faces! Poor fellows! they suffer dreadfully
from want. The public charity for refugees has been wrung dry long
ago, and the most heroic hearts of Poland, after having lost
everything but life, in their unavailing struggle, are starving
absolutely in the streets. Accident has thrown me into the confidence
of a well-known liberal--one of those men of whom the proud may ask
assistance without humiliation, and circumstances have thus come to my
knowledge, which would move a heart of stone. The fictitious
sufferings of "Thaddeus of Warsaw," are transcended in real-life
misery every day, and by natures quite as noble. Lafayette, I am
credibly assured, has anticipated several years of his income in
relieving them; and no possible charity could be so well bestowed as
contributions for the Poles, starving in these heartless cities.
I have just heard that Chodsko, a Pole, of distinguished talent and
learning, who threw his whole fortune and energy into the late
attempted revolution, was arrested here last night, with eight others
of his countrymen, under suspicion by the government. The late serious
insurrection at Lyons has alarmed the king, and the police is
exceedingly strict. The Spanish and Italian refugees, who receive
pensions from France, have been ordered off to the provincial towns,
by the minister of the interior, and there is every indication of
extreme and apprehensive caution. The papers, meantime, are raving
against the ministry in the most violent terms, and the king is abused
without qualification, everywhere.
I went, a night or two since, to one of the minor theatres to see the
representation of a play, which has been performed for the _hundred
and second time_!--"Napoleon at Schoenbrun and St. Helena." My object
was to study the feelings of the people toward Napoleon II., as the
exile's love for his son is one of the leading features of the piece.
It was beautifully played--most beautifully! and I never saw more
enthusiasm manifested by an audience. Every allusion of Napoleon to
his child, was received with that undertoned, gutteral acclamation,
that expresses such deep feeling in a crowd; and the piece is so
written that its natural pathos alone is irresistible. No one could
doubt for an instant, it seems to me, that the entrance of young
Napoleon into France, at any critical moment, would be universally and
completely triumphant. The great cry at Lyons was "_Vive Napoleon
II.!_"
I have altered my arrangements a little, in consequence of the state
of feeling here. My design was to go to Italy immediately, but affairs
promise such an interesting and early change, that I shall pass the
winter in Paris.
LETTER VI.
TAGLIONI--FRENCH STAGE, ETC.
I went last night to the French opera, to see the first dancer of the
world. The prodigious enthusiasm about her, all over Europe, had, of
course, raised my expectations to the highest possible pitch. "_Have
you seen Taglioni?_" is the first question addressed to a stranger in
Paris; and you hear her name constantly over all the hum of the
_cafes_ and in the crowded resorts of fashion. The house was
overflowed. The king and his numerous family were present; and my
companion pointed out to me many of the nobility, whose names and
titles have been made familiar to our ears by the innumerable private
memoirs and autobiographies of the day. After a little introductory
piece, the king arrived, and, as soon as the cheering was over, the
curtain drew up for "_Le Dieu et la Bayadere_." This is the piece in
which Taglioni is most famous. She takes the part of a dancing girl,
of whom the Bramah and an Indian prince are both enamored; the former
in the disguise of a man of low rank at the court of the latter, in
search of some one whose love for him shall be disinterested. The
disguised god succeeds in winning her affection, and, after testing
her devotion by submitting for a while to the resentment of his rival,
and by a pretended caprice in favor of a singing girl, who accompanies
her, he marries her, and then saves her from the flames as she is
about to be burned for marrying beneath her _caste_. Taglioni's part
is all pantomime. She does not speak during the play, but her motion
is more than articulate. Her first appearance was in a troop of Indian
dancing girls, who performed before the prince in the public square.
At a signal from the vizier a side pavilion opened, and thirty or
forty bayaderes glided out together, and commenced an intricate dance.
They were received with a tremendous round of applause from the
audience; but, with the exception of a little more elegance in the
four who led the dance, they were dressed nearly alike; and as I saw
no particularly conspicuous figure, I presumed that Taglioni had not
yet appeared. The splendor of the spectacle bewildered me for the
first moment or two, but I presently found my eyes rivetted to a
childish creature floating about among the rest, and, taking her for
some beautiful young _eleve_ making her first essays in the chorus, I
interpreted her extraordinary fascination as a triumph of nature over
my unsophisticated taste; and wondered to myself whether, after all, I
should be half so much captivated with the show of skill I expected
presently to witness. _This was Taglioni!_ She came forward directly,
in a _pas seul_, and I then observed that her dress was distinguished
from that of her companions by its extreme modesty both of fashion and
ornament, and the unconstrained ease with which it adapted itself to
her shape and motion. She looks not more than fifteen. Her figure is
small, but rounded to the very last degree of perfection; not a muscle
swelled beyond the exquisite outline; not an angle, not a fault. Her
back and neck, those points so rarely beautiful in woman, are
faultlessly formed; her feet and hands are in full proportion to her
size, and the former play as freely and with as natural a yieldingness
in her fairy slippers, as if they were accustomed only to the dainty
uses of a drawing-room. Her face is most strangely interesting; not
quite beautiful, but of that half-appealing, half-retiring sweetness
that you sometimes see blended with the secluded reserve and
unconscious refinement of a young girl just "out" in a circle of high
fashion. In her greatest exertions her features retain the same timid
half smile, and she returns to the alternate by-play of her part
without the slightest change of color, or the slightest perceptible
difference in her breathing, or in the ease of her look and posture.
No language can describe her motion. She swims in your eye like a curl
of smoke, or a flake of down. Her difficulty seems to be to keep to
the floor. You have the feeling while you gaze upon her, that, if she
were to rise and float away like Ariel, you would scarce be surprised.
And yet all is done with such a childish unconsciousness of
admiration, such a total absence of exertion or fatigue, that the
delight with which she fills you is unmingled; and, assured as you are
by the perfect purity of every look and attitude, that her hitherto
spotless reputation is deserved beyond a breath of suspicion, you
leave her with as much respect as admiration; and find with surprise
that a dancing girl, who is exposed night after night to the profaning
gaze of the world, has crept into one of the most sacred niches of
your memory.
* * * * *
I have attended several of the best theatres in Paris, and find one
striking trait in all their first actors--_nature_. They do not look
like actors, and their playing is not like acting. They are men,
generally, of the most earnest, unstudied simplicity of countenance;
and when they come upon the stage, it is singularly without
affectation, and as the character they represent would appear. Unlike
most of the actors I have seen, too, they seem altogether unaware of
the presence of the audience. Nothing disturbs the fixed attention
they give to each other in the dialogue, and no private interview
between simple and sincere men could be more unconscious and natural.
I have formed consequently a high opinion of the French drama,
degenerate as it is said to be since the loss of Talma; and it is easy
to see that the root of its excellence is in the taste and judgment of
the people. _They applaud judiciously._ When Taglioni danced her
wonderful _pas seul_, for instance, the applause was general and
sufficient. It was a triumph of art, and she was applauded as an
artist. But when, as the neglected bayadere, she stole from the corner
of the cottage, and, with her indescribable grace, hovered about the
couch of the disguised Bramah, watching and fanning him while he
slept, she expressed so powerfully, by the saddened tenderness of her
manner, the devotion of a love that even neglect could not estrange,
that a murmur of delight ran through the whole house; and, when her
silent pantomime was interrupted by the waking of the god, there was
an overwhelming tumult of acclamation that came from the _hearts_ of
the audience, and as such must have been both a lesson, and the
highest compliment, to Taglioni. An actor's taste is of course very
much regulated by that of his audience. He will cultivate that for
which he is most praised. We shall never have a high-toned drama in
America, while, as at present, applause is won only by physical
exertion, and the nice touches of genius and nature pass undetected
and unfelt.
Of the French actresses, I have been most pleased with Leontine Fay.
She is not much talked of here, and perhaps, as a mere artist in her
profession, is inferior to those who are more popular; but she has
that indescribable something in her face that has interested me
through life--that strange talisman which is linked wisely to every
heart, confining its interest to some nice difference invisible to
other eyes, and, by a happy consequence, undisputed by other
admiration. She, too, has that retired sweetness of look that seems to
come only from secluded habits, and in the highly-wrought passages of
tragedy, when her fine dark eyes are filled with tears, and her tones,
which have never the out-of-doors key of the stage, are clouded and
imperfect, she seems less an actress than a refined and lovely woman,
breaking through the habitual reserve of society in some agonizing
crisis of real life. There are prints of Leontine Fay in the shops,
and I have seen them in America, but they resemble her very little.
LETTER VII.
JOACHIM LELEWEL--PALAIS ROYAL--PERE LA CHAISE--VERSAILLES, ETC.
I met, at a breakfast party, to-day, Joachim Lelewel, the celebrated
scholar and patriot of Poland. Having fallen in with a great deal of
revolutionary and emigrant society since I have been in Paris, I have
often heard his name, and looked forward to meeting him with high
pleasure and curiosity. His writings are passionately admired by his
countrymen. He was the principal of the university, idolized by that
effective part of the population, the students of Poland; and the
fearless and lofty tone of his patriotic principles is said to have
given the first and strongest momentum to the ill-fated struggle just
over. Lelewel impressed me very strongly. Unlike most of the Poles,
who are erect, athletic, and florid, he is thin, bent, and pale; and
were it not for the fire and decision of his eye, his uncertain gait
and sensitive address would convey an expression almost of timidity.
His form, features, and manners, are very like those of Percival, the
American poet, though their countenances are marked with the
respective difference of their habits of mind. Lelewel looks like a
naturally modest, shrinking man, worked up to the calm resolution of a
martyr. The strong stamp of his face is devoted enthusiasm. His eye is
excessively bright, but quiet and habitually downcast; his lips are
set firmly, but without effort, together; and his voice is almost
sepulchral, it is so low and calm. He never breaks through his
melancholy, though his refugee countrymen, except when Poland is
alluded to, have all the vivacity of French manners, and seem easily
to forget their misfortunes. He was silent, except when particularly
addressed, and had the air of a man who thought himself unobserved,
and had shrunk into his own mind. I felt that he was winning upon my
heart every moment. I never saw a man in my life whose whole air and
character were so free from self-consciousness or pretension--never
one who looked to me so capable of the calm, lofty, unconquerable
heroism of a martyr.
* * * * *
"Paris is the centre of the world," if centripetal tendency is any
proof of it. Everything struck off from the other parts of the
universe flies straight to the _Palais Royal_. You may meet in its
thronged galleries, in the course of an hour, representatives of every
creed, rank, nation, and system, under heaven. Hussein Pacha and Don
Pedro pace daily the same _pave_--the one brooding on a kingdom lost,
the other on the throne he hopes to win; the Polish general and the
proscribed Spaniard, the exiled Italian conspirator, the contemptuous
Turk, the well-dressed negro from Hayti, and the silk-robed Persian,
revolve by the hour together around the same _jet d'eau_, and costumes
of every cut and order, mustaches and beards of every degree of
ferocity and oddity, press so fast and thick upon the eye that one
forgets to be astonished. There are no such things as "lions" in
Paris. The extraordinary persons outnumber the ordinary. Every other
man you meet would keep a small town in a ferment for a month.
* * * * *
I spent yesterday at _Pere la Chaise_, and to day at _Versailles_. The
two places are in opposite environs, and of very opposite
characters--one certainly making you in love with life, the other
almost as certainly with death. One could wander for ever in the
wilderness of art at Versailles, and it must be a restless ghost that
could not content itself with _Pere la Chaise_ for its elysium.
This beautiful cemetery is built upon the broad ascent of a hill,
commanding the whole of Paris at a glance. It is a wood of small
trees, laid out in alleys, and crowded with tombs and monuments of
every possible description. You will scarce get through without being
surprised into a tear; but, if affectation and fantasticalness in such
a place do not more grieve than amuse you, you will much oftener
smile. The whole thing is a melancholy mock of life. Its distinctions
are all kept up. There are the fashionable avenues, lined with costly
chapels and monuments, with the names of the exclusive tenants in
golden letters upon the doors, iron railings set forbiddingly about
the shrubs, and the blessing-scrap writ ambitiously in Latin. The
tablets record the long family titles, and the offices and honors,
perhaps the numberless virtues of the dead. They read like chapters of
heraldry more than like epitaphs. It is a relief to get into the outer
alleys, and see how poverty and simple feeling express what should be
the same thing. It is usually some brief sentence, common enough, but
often exquisitely beautiful in this prettiest of languages, and
expressing always the _kind_ of sorrow felt by the mourner. You can
tell, for instance, by the sentiment simply, without looking at the
record below, whether the deceased was young, or much loved, or
mourned by husband, or parent, or brother, or a circle of all. I
noticed one, however, the humblest and simplest monument perhaps in
the whole cemetery, which left the story beautifully untold; it was a
slab of common marl, inscribed "_Pauvre Marie!_"--nothing more. I have
thought of it, and speculated upon it, a great deal since. What was
she? and who wrote her epitaph? _why_ was she _pauvre Marie_?
Before almost all the poorer monuments is a minature garden with a low
wooden fence, and either the initials of the dead sown in flowers, or
rose-trees, carefully cultivated, trained to hang over the stone. I
was surprised to find, in a public cemetery, in December, roses in
full bloom and valuable exotics at almost every grave. It speaks both
for the sentiment and delicate principle of the people. Few of the
more costly monuments were either interesting or pretty. One struck my
fancy--a small open chapel, large enough to contain four chairs, with
the slab facing the door, and a crucifix encircled with fresh flowers
on a simple shrine above. It is a place where the survivors in a
family might come and sit at any time, nowhere more pleasantly. From
the chapel I speak of, you may look out and see all Paris; and I can
imagine how it would lessen the feeling of desertion and forgetfulness
that makes the anticipation of death so dreadful, to be certain that
your friends would come, as they may here, and talk cheerfully and
enjoy themselves near you, so to speak. The cemetery in summer must be
one of the sweetest places in the world.
* * * * *
_Versailles_ is a royal summer chateau, about twelve miles from Paris,
with a demesne of twenty miles in circumference. Take that for the
scale, and imagine a palace completed in proportion, in all its
details of grounds, ornament, and architecture. It cost, says the
guide book, two hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and, leaving
your fancy to expend that trifle over a residence, which, remember, is
but one out of some half dozen, occupied during the year by a single
family, I commend the republican moral to your consideration, and
proceed with the more particular description of my visit.
My friend, Dr. Howe, was my companion. We drove up the grand avenue on
one of the loveliest mornings that ever surprised December with a
bright sun and a warm south wind. Before us, at the distance of a
mile, lay a vast mass of architecture, with the centre, falling back
between the two projecting wings, the whole crowning a long and
gradual ascent, of which the tri-colored flag waving against the sky
from the central turrets was the highest point. As we approached, we
noticed an occasional flash in the sun, and a stir of bright colors,
through the broad deep court between the wings, which, as we advanced
nearer, proved to be a body of about two or three thousand lancers and
troops of the line under review. The effect was indescribably fine.
The gay uniforms, the hundreds of tall lances, each with its red flag
flying in the wind, the imposing crescent of architecture in which the
array was embraced, the ringing echo of the grand military music from
the towers--and all this intoxication for the positive senses fused
with the historical atmosphere of the place, the recollection of the
king and queen, whose favorite residence it had been (the unfortunate
Louis and Marie Antoinette), or the celebrated women who had lived in
their separate palaces within its grounds, of the genius and chivalry
of Court after Court that had made it, in turn, the scene of their
brilliant follies, and, over all, Napoleon, who _must_ have rode
through its gilded gates with the thought of pride that he was its
imperial master by the royalty of his great nature alone--it was in
truth, enough, the real and the ideal, to dazzle the eyes of a simple
republican.
After gazing at the fascinating show for an hour, we took a guide and
entered the palace. We were walked through suite after suite of cold
apartments, desolately splendid with gold and marble, and crowded with
costly pictures, till I was sick and weary of magnificence. The guide
went before, saying over his rapid rigmarole of names and dates,
giving us about three minutes to a room in which there were some
twenty pictures, perhaps, of which he presumed he had told us all that
was necessary to know. I fell behind, after a while; and, as a
considerable English party had overtaken and joined us, I succeeded in
keeping one room in the rear, and enjoying the remainder in my own
way.
The little marble palace, called "_Petit Trianon_," built for Madame
Pompadour in the garden grounds, is a beautiful affair, full of what
somebody calls "affectionate-looking rooms;" and "_Grand Trianon_,"
built also on the grounds at the distance of half a mile, for Madame
Maintenon, is a very lovely spot, made more interesting by the
preference given to it over all other places by Marie Antoinette. Here
she amused herself with her Swiss village. The cottages and artificial
"mountains" (ten feet high, perhaps) are exceedingly pretty models in
miniature, and probably illustrate very fairly the ideas of a
palace-bred fancy upon natural scenery. There are glens and grottoes,
and rocky beds for brooks that run at will ("_les rivieres a
volonte_," the guide called them), and trees set out upon the crags at
most uncomfortable angles, and every contrivance to make a lovely
lawn as inconveniently like nature as possible. The Swiss families,
however, must have been very amusing. Brought fresh from their wild
country, and set down in these pretty mock cottages, with orders to
live just as they did in their own mountains, they must have been
charmingly puzzled. In the midst of the village stands an exquisite
little Corinthian temple; and our guide informed us that the cottage
which the Queen occupied at her Swiss tea-parties was furnished at an
expense of sixty thousand francs--two not very Switzer-like
circumstances.
It was in the little palace of _Trianon_ that Napoleon signed his
divorce from Josephine. The guide showed us the room, and the table on
which he wrote. I have seen nothing that brought me so near Napoleon.
There is no place in France that could have for me a greater interest.
It is a little _boudoir_, adjoining the state sleeping-room, simply
furnished, and made for familiar retirement, not for show. The single
sofa--the small round table--the enclosing, tent-like curtains--the
modest, unobtrusive elegance of ornaments, and furniture, give it
rather the look of a retreat, fashioned by the tenderness and taste of
private life, than any apartment in a royal palace. I felt unwilling
to leave it. My thoughts were too busy. What was the strongest motive
of that great man in this most affecting and disputed action of his
life?
After having been thridded through the palaces, we had a few moments
left for the grounds. They are magnificent beyond description. We know
very little of this thing in America, as an art; but it is one, I have
come to think, that, in its requisition of genius, is scarce inferior
to architecture. Certainly the three palaces of Versailles together
did not impress me so much as the single view from the upper terrace
of the gardens. It stretches clear over the horizon. You stand on a
natural eminence that commands the whole country, and the plan seems
to you like some work of the Titans. The long sweep of the avenue,
with a breadth of descent that at the first glance takes away your
breath, stretching its two lines of gigantic statues and vases to the
water level; the wide, slumbering canal at its foot, carrying on the
eye to the horizon, like a river of an even flood lying straight
through the bosom of the landscape; the side avenues almost as
extensive; the palaces in the distant grounds, and the strange union
altogether, to an American, of as much extent as the eye can reach,
cultivated equally with the trim elegance of a garden--all these,
combining together, form a spectacle which nothing but nature's
royalty of genius could design, and (to descend ungracefully from the
climax) which only the exactions of an unnatural royalty could pay
for.
* * * * *
I think the most forcible lesson one learns at Paris is the value of
time and money. I have always been told, erroneously, that it was a
place to waste both. You could do so much with another hour, if you
had it, and buy so much with another dollar, if you could afford it,
that the reflected economy upon what you _can_ command, is inevitable.
As to the worth of time, for instance, there are some twelve or
fourteen _gratuitous_ lectures every day at the _Sorbonne_, the
_School of Medicine_ and the _College of France_, by men like Cuvier,
Say, Spurzheim, and others, each, in his professed pursuit, the most
eminent perhaps in the world; and there are the Louvre, and the Royal
Library, and the Mazarin Library, and similar public institutions,
all open to gratuitous use, with obsequious attendants, warm rooms,
materials for writing, and perfect seclusion; to say nothing of the
thousand interesting but less useful resorts with which Paris abounds,
such as exhibitions of flowers, porcelains, mosaics, and curious
handiwork of every description, and (more amusing and time-killing
still) the never-ending changes of sights in the public places, from
distinguished foreigners down to miracles of educated monkeys. Life
seems most provokingly short as you look at it. Then, for money, you
are more puzzled how to spend a poor pitiful franc in Paris (it will
buy so many things you want) than you would be in America with the
outlay of a month's income. Be as idle and extravagant as you will,
your idle hours look you in the face as they pass, to know whether, in
spite of the increase of their value, you really mean to waste them;
and the money that slipped through your pocket you know not how at
home, sticks embarrassed to your fingers, from the mere multiplicity
of demands made for it. There are shops all over Paris called the
"_Vingt-cinq-sous_," where every article is fixed at that
price--_twenty five cents_! They contain everything you want, except a
wife and fire-wood--the only two things difficult to be got in France.
(The latter, with or without a pun, is much the _dearer_ of the two.)
I wonder that they are not bought out, and sent over to America on
speculation. There is scarce an article in them that would not be held
cheap with us at five times its purchase. There are bronze standishes
for ink, sand, and wafers, pearl paper-cutters, spice-lamps,
decanters, essence-bottles, sets of china, table-bells of all devices,
mantel ornaments, vases of artificial flowers, kitchen utensils,
dog-collars, canes, guard-chains, chessmen whips, hammers, brushes,
and everything that is either convenient or pretty. You might freight
a ship with them, and all good and well finished, at twenty-five cents
the set or article! You would think the man were joking, to walk
through his shop.
LETTER VIII.
DR. BOWRING--AMERICAN ARTISTS--BRUTAL AMUSEMENT, ETC.
I have met Dr. Bowring in Paris, and called upon him to-day with Mr.
Morse, by appointment. The translator of the "Ode to the Deity" (from
the Russian of Derzhavin) could not by any accident be an ordinary
man, and I anticipated great pleasure in his society. He received us
at his lodgings in the _Place Vendome_. I was every way pleased with
him. His knowledge of our country and its literature surprised me, and
I could not but be gratified with the unprejudiced and well-informed
interest with which he discoursed on our government and institutions.
He expressed great pleasure at having seen his ode in one of our
schoolbooks (Pierpont's Reader, I think), and assured us that the
promise to himself of a visit to America was one of his brightest
anticipations. This is not at all an uncommon feeling, by the way,
among the men of talent in Paris; and I am pleasingly surprised,
everywhere, with the enthusiastic hopes expressed for the success of
our experiment in liberal principles. Dr. Bowring is a slender man, a
little above the middle height, with a keen, inquisitive expression of
countenance, and a good forehead, from which the hair is combed
straight back all round, in the style of the Cameronians. His manner
is all life, and his motion and gesture nervously sudden and angular.
He talks rapidly, but clearly, and uses beautiful language--concise,
and full of select expressions and vivid figures. His conversation in
this particular was a constant surprise. He gave us a great deal of
information, and when we parted, inquired my route of travel, and
offered me letters to his friends, with a cordiality very unusual on
this side the Atlantic.
* * * * *
It is a cold but common rule with travellers in Europe to avoid the
society of their own countrymen. In a city like Paris, where time and
money are both so valuable, every additional acquaintance, pursued
either for etiquette or intimacy, is felt, and one very soon learns to
prefer his advantage to any tendency of his sympathies. The
infractions upon the rule, however, are very delightful, and, at the
general _reunion_ at our ambassador's on Wednesday evening, or an
occasional one at Lafayette's, the look of pleasure and relief at
beholding familiar faces, and hearing a familiar language once more,
is universal. I have enjoyed this morning the double happiness of
meeting an American circle, around an American breakfast. Mr. Cooper
had invited us (Morse, the artist, Dr. Howe, a gentleman of the navy,
and myself). Mr. C. lives with great hospitality, and in all the
comfort of American habits; and to find him as he is always found,
with his large family about him, is to get quite back to the
atmosphere of our country. The two or three hours we passed at his
table were, of course, delightful. It should endear Mr. Cooper to the
hearts of his countrymen, that he devotes all his influence, and no
inconsiderable portion of his large income, to the encouragement of
American artists. It would be natural enough, after being so long
abroad, to feel or affect a preference for the works of foreigners;
but in this, as in his political opinions, most decidedly, he is
eminently patriotic. We feel this in Europe, where we discern more
clearly by comparison the poverty of our country in the arts, and
meet, at the same time, American artists of the first talent, without
a single commission from home for original works, copying constantly
for support. One of Mr. Cooper's purchases, the "Cherubs," by
Greenough, has been sent to the United States, and its merit was at
once acknowledged. It was done, however (the artist, who is here,
informs me), under every disadvantage of feeling and circumstances;
and, from what I have seen and am told by others of Mr. Greenough, it
is, I am confident, however beautiful, anything but a fair specimen of
his powers. His peculiar taste lies in a bolder range, and he needs
only a commission from government to execute a work which will begin
the art of sculpture nobly in our country.
* * * * *
My curiosity led me into a strange scene to-day. I had observed for
some time among the placards upon the walls an advertisement of an
exhibition of "fighting animals," at the _Barriere du Combat_. I am
disposed to see almost any sight _once_, particularly where it is,
like this, a regular establishment, and, of course, an exponent of the
popular taste. The place of the "_Combats des Animaux_," is in one of
the most obscure suburbs, outside the walls, and I found it with
difficulty. After wandering about in dirty lanes for an hour or two,
inquiring for it in vain, the cries of the animals directed me to a
walled place, separated from the other houses of the suburb, at the
gate of which a man was blowing a trumpet. I purchased a ticket of an
old woman who sat shivering in the porter's lodge; and, finding I was
an hour too early for the fights, I made interest with a
savage-looking fellow, who was carrying in tainted meat, to see the
interior of the establishment. I followed him through a side gate, and
we passed into a narrow alley, lined with stone kennels, to each of
which was confined a powerful dog, with just length of chain enough to
prevent him from reaching the tenant of the opposite hole. There were
several of these alleys, containing, I should think, two hundred dogs
in all. They were of every breed of strength and ferocity, and all of
them perfectly frantic with rage or hunger, with the exception of a
pair of noble-looking black dogs, who stood calmly at the mouths of
their kennels; the rest struggled and howled incessantly, straining
every muscle to reach us, and resuming their fierceness toward each
other when we had passed by. They all bore, more or less, the marks of
severe battles; one or two with their noses split open, and still
unhealed; several with their necks bleeding and raw, and galled
constantly with the iron collar, and many with broken legs, but all
apparently so excited as to be insensible to suffering. After
following my guide very unwillingly through the several alleys,
deafened with the barking and howling of the savage occupants, I was
taken to the department of wild animals. Here were all the tenants of
the menagerie, kept in dens, opening by iron doors upon the pit in
which they fought. Like the dogs, they were terribly wounded; one of
the bears especially, whose mouth was torn all off from his jaws,
leaving his teeth perfectly exposed, and red with the continually
exuding blood. In one of the dens lay a beautiful deer, with one of
his haunches severely mangled, who, the man told me, had been hunted
round the pit by the dogs but a day or two before. He looked up at us,
with his large soft eye, as we passed, and, lying on the damp stone
floor, with his undressed wounds festering in the chilly atmosphere of
mid-winter, he presented a picture of suffering which made me ashamed
to the soul of my idle curiosity.
The spectators began to collect, and the pit was cleared. Two thirds
of those in the amphitheatre were Englishmen, most of whom were
amateurs, who had brought dogs of their own to pit against the regular
mastiffs of the establishment. These were despatched first. A strange
dog was brought in by the collar, and loosed in the arena, and a
trained dog let in upon him. It was a cruel business. The sleek,
well-fed, good-natured animal was no match for the exasperated, hungry
savage he was compelled to encounter. One minute, in all the joy of a
release from his chain, bounding about the pit, and fawning upon his
master, and the next attacked by a furious mastiff, who was taught to
fasten on him at the first onset in a way that deprived him at once of
his strength; it was but a murderous exhibition of cruelty. The
combats between two of the trained dogs, however, were more equal.
These succeeded to the private contests, and were much more severe and
bloody. There was a small terrier among them, who disabled several
dogs successively, by catching at their fore-legs, and breaking them
instantly with a powerful jerk of his body. I was very much interested
in one of the private dogs, a large yellow animal, of a noble
expression of countenance, who fought several times very unwillingly,
but always gallantly and victoriously. There was a majesty about him,
which seemed to awe his antagonists. He was carried off in his
master's arms, bleeding and exhausted, after punishing the best dogs
of the establishment.
The baiting of the wild animals succeeded the canine combats. Several
dogs (Irish, I was told), of a size and ferocity such as I had never
before seen, were brought in, and held in the leash opposite the den
of the bear whose head was so dreadfully mangled.
The door was then opened by the keeper, but poor bruin shrunk from the
contest. The dogs became unmanageable at the sight of him, however,
and, fastening a chain to his collar, they drew him out by main force,
and immediately closed the grating. He fought gallantly, and gave more
wounds than he received, for his shaggy coat protected his body
effectually. The keepers rushed in and beat off the dogs, when they
had nearly finished peeling the remaining flesh from his head; and the
poor creature, perfectly blind and mad with pain, was dragged into his
den again, to await another day of _amusement_!
I will not disgust you with more of these details. They fought several
foxes and wolves afterward, and, last of all, one of the small donkeys
of the country, a creature not so large as some of the dogs, was led
in, and the mastiffs loosed upon her. The pity and indignation I felt
at first at the cruelty of baiting so unwarlike an animal, I soon
found was quite unnecessary. She was the severest opponent the dogs
had yet found. She went round the arena at full gallop, with a dozen
savage animals springing at her throat, but she struck right and left
with her fore-legs, and at every kick with her heels threw one of them
clear across the pit. One or two were left motionless on the field,
and others carried off with their ribs kicked in, and their legs
broken, while their inglorious antagonist escaped almost unhurt. One
of the mastiffs fastened on her ear and threw her down, in the
beginning of the chase, but she apparently received no other injury.
I had remained till the close of the exhibition with some violence to
my feelings, and I was very glad to get away. Nothing would tempt me
to expose myself to a similar disgust again. How the intelligent and
gentlemanly Englishmen whom I saw there, and whom I have since met in
the most refined society of Paris, can make themselves familiar, as
they evidently were, with a scene so brutal, I cannot very well
conceive.
LETTER IX.
MALIBRAN--PARIS AT MIDNIGHT--A MOB, ETC.
Our beautiful and favorite MALIBRAN is playing in Paris this winter. I
saw her last night in Desdemona. The other theatres are so attractive,
between Taglioni, Robert le Diable (the new opera), Leontine Fay, and
the political pieces constantly coming out, that I had not before
visited the Italian opera. Madame Malibran is every way changed. She
sings, unquestionably, better than when in America. Her voice is
firmer, and more under control, but it has lost that gushing wildness,
that brilliant daringness of execution, that made her singing upon our
boards so indescribably exciting and delightful. Her person is perhaps
still more changed. The round, graceful fulness of her limbs and
features has yielded to a half-haggard look of care and exhaustion,
and I could not but think that there was more than Desdemona's
fictitious wretchedness in the expression of her face. Still, her
forehead and eyes have a beauty that is not readily lost, and she will
be a strikingly interesting, and even splendid creature, as long as
she can play. Her acting was extremely impassioned; and in the more
powerful passages of her part, she exceeded everything I had
conceived of the capacity of the human voice for pathos and melody.
The house was crowded, and the applause was frequent and universal.
Madame Malibran, as you probably know, is divorced from the man whose
name she bears, and has married a violinist of the Italian orchestra.
She is just now in a state of health that will require immediate
retirement from the stage, and, indeed, has played already too long.
She came forward after the curtain dropped, in answer to the continual
demand of the audience, leaning heavily on Rubini, and was evidently
so exhausted as to be scarcely able to stand. She made a single
gesture, and was led off immediately, with her head drooping on her
breast, amid the most violent acclamations. She is a perfect passion
with the French, and seems to have out-charmed their usual caprice.
* * * * *
It was a lovely night, and after the opera I walked home. I reside a
long distance from the places of public amusement. Dr. Howe and myself
had stopped at a _cafe_ on the Italian Boulevards an hour, and it was
very late. The streets were nearly deserted--here and there a solitary
cabriolet with the driver asleep under his wooden apron, or the
motionless figure of a municipal guardsman, dozing upon his horse,
with his helmet and brazen armor glistening in the light of the lamps.
Nothing has impressed me more, by the way, than a body of these men
passing me in the night. I have once or twice met the King returning
from the theatre with a guard, and I saw them once at midnight on an
extraordinary patrol winding through the arch into the Place
Carrousel. Their equipments are exceedingly warlike (helmets of
brass, and coats of mail), and, with the gleam of the breast-plates
through their horsemen's cloaks, the tramp of hoofs echoing through
the deserted streets, and the silence and order of their march, it was
quite a realization of the descriptions of chivalry.
We kept along the Boulevards to the Rue Richelieu. A carriage, with
footmen in livery, had just driven up to Frascati's, and, as we
passed, a young man of uncommon personal beauty jumped out and entered
that palace of gamblers. By his dress he was just from a ball, and the
necessity of excitement after a scene meant to be so gay, was an
obvious if not a fair satire on the happiness of the "gay" circle in
which he evidently moved. We turned down the Passage Panorama, perhaps
the most crowded thoroughfare in all Paris, and traversed its long
gallery without meeting a soul. The widely-celebrated _patisserie_ of
Felix, the first pastry-cook in the world, was the only shop open from
one extremity to the other. The guard, in his gray capote, stood
looking in at the window, and the girl, who had served the palates of
half the fashion and rank of Paris since morning, sat nodding fast
asleep behind the counter, paying the usual fatiguing penalty of
notoriety. The clock struck two as we passed the _facade_ of the
Bourse. This beautiful and central square is, night and day, the grand
rendezvous of public vice; and late as the hour was, its _pave_ was
still thronged with flaunting and painted women of the lowest
description, promenading without cloaks or bonnets, and addressing
every passer-by.
The Palais Royal lay in our way, just below the Bourse, and we entered
its magnificent court with an exclamation of new pleasure. Its
thousand lamps were all burning brilliantly, the long avenues of trees
were enveloped in a golden atmosphere created by the bright radiation
of light through the mist, the Corinthian pillars and arches retreated
on either side from the eye in distinct and yet mellow perspective,
the fountain filled the whole palace with its rich murmur, and the
broad marble-paved galleries, so thronged by day, were as silent and
deserted as if the drowsy _gens d'armes_ standing motionless on their
posts were the only living beings that inhabited it. It was a scene
really of indescribable impressiveness. No one who has not seen this
splendid palace, enclosing with its vast colonnades so much that is
magnificent, can have an idea of its effect upon the imagination. I
had seen it hitherto only when crowded with the gay and noisy idlers
of Paris, and the contrast of this with the utter solitude it now
presented--not a single footfall to be heard on its floors, yet every
lamp burning bright, and the statues and flowers and fountains all
illuminated as if for a revel--was one of the most powerful and
captivating that I have ever witnessed. We loitered slowly down one of
the long galleries, and it seemed to me more like some creation of
enchantment than the public haunt it is of pleasure and merchandise. A
single figure, wrapped in a cloak, passed hastily by us and entered
the door to one of the celebrated "hells," in which the playing scarce
commences till this hour--but we met no other human being.
We passed on from the grand court to the Galerie Nemours. This, as you
may find in the descriptions, is a vast hall, standing between the
east and west courts of the Palais Royal. It is sometimes called the
"glass gallery." The roof is of glass, and the shops, with fronts
entirely of windows, are separated only by long mirrors, reaching in
the shape of pillars from the roof to the floor. The pavement is
tesselated, and at either end stand two columns completing its form,
and dividing it from the other galleries into which it opens. The
shops are among the costliest in Paris; and what with the vast
proportions of the hall, its beautiful and glistening material, and
the lightness and grace of its architecture, it is, even when
deserted, one of the most fairy-like places in this fantastic city. It
is the lounging place of military men particularly; and every evening
from six to midnight, it is thronged by every class of gayly dressed
people, officers off duty, soldiers, polytechnic scholars, ladies, and
strangers of every costume and complexion, promenading to and fro in
the light of the _cafes_ and the dazzling shops, sheltered completely
from the weather, and enjoying, without expense or ceremony, a scene
more brilliant than the most splendid ball-room in Paris. We lounged
up and down the long echoing pavement an hour. It was like some kingly
"banquet hall deserted." The lamps burned dazzlingly bright, the
mirrors multiplied our figures into shadowy and silent attendants, and
our voices echoed from the glittering roof in the utter stillness of
the hour, as if we had broken in, Thalaba-like, upon some magical
palace of silence.
It is singular how much the differences of time and weather affect
scenery. The first sunshine I saw in Paris, unsettled all my previous
impressions completely. I had seen every place of interest through the
dull heavy atmosphere of a week's rain, and it was in such leaden
colors alone that the finer squares and palaces had become familiar to
me. The effect of a clear sun upon them was wonderful. The sudden
gilding of the dome of the Invalides by Napoleon must have been
something like it. I took advantage of it to see everything over
again, and it seemed to me like another city. I never realized so
forcibly the beauty of sunshine. Architecture, particularly, is
nothing without it. Everything looks heavy and flat. The tracery of
the windows and relievos, meant to be definite and airy, appears
clumsy and confused, and the whole building flattens into a solid
mass, without design or beauty.
* * * * *
I have spent the whole day in a Paris mob. The arrival of General
Romarino and some of his companions from Warsaw, gave the malcontents
a plausible opportunity of expressing their dislike to the measures of
government; and, under cover of a public welcome to this distinguished
Pole, they assembled in immense numbers at the Port St. Denis, and on
the Boulevard Montmartre. It was very exciting altogether. The cavalry
were out, and patroled the streets in companies, charging upon the
crowd wherever there was a stand; the troops of the line marched up
and down the Boulevards, continually dividing the masses of people,
and forbidding any one to stand still. The shops were all shut, in
anticipation of an affray. The students endeavored to cluster, and
resisted, as far as they dared, the orders of the soldiery; and from
noon till night there was every prospect of a quarrel. The French are
a fine people under excitement. Their handsome and ordinarily
heartless faces become very expressive under the stronger emotions;
and their picturesque dresses and violent gesticulation, set off a
popular tumult exceedingly. I have been highly amused all day, and
have learned a great deal of what it is very difficult for a foreigner
to acquire--the language of French passion. They express themselves
very forcibly when angry. The constant irritation kept up by the
intrusion of the cavalry upon the sidewalks, and the rough manner of
dispersing gentlemen by sabre-blows and kicks with the stirrup, gave
me sufficient opportunity of judging. I was astonished, however, that
their summary mode of proceeding was borne at all. It is difficult to
mix in such a vast body, and not catch its spirit, and I found myself,
without knowing why, or rather with a full conviction that the
military measures were necessary and right, entering with all my heart
into the rebellious movements of the students, and boiling with
indignation at every dispersion by force. The students of Paris are
probably the worst subjects the king has. They are mostly young men of
from twenty to twenty-five, full of bodily vigor and enthusiasm, and
excitable to the last degree. Many of them are Germans, and no small
proportion Americans. They make a good _amalgam_ for a mob, dress
being the last consideration, apparently, with a medical or law
student in Paris. I never saw such a collection of atrocious-looking
fellows as are to be met at the lectures. The polytechnic scholars, on
the other hand, are the finest-looking body of young men I ever saw.
Aside from their uniform, which is remarkably neat and beautiful,
their figures and faces seem picked for spirit and manliness. They
have always a distinguished air in a crowd, and it is easy, after
seeing them, to imagine the part they played as leaders in the
revolution of the three days.
Contrary to my expectation, night came on without any serious
encounter. One or two individuals attempted to resist the authority of
the troops, and were considerably bruised; and one young man, a
student, had three of his fingers cut off by the stroke of a dragoon's
sabre. Several were arrested, but by eight o'clock all was quiet, and
the shops on the Boulevards once more exposed their tempting goods,
and lit up their brilliant mirrors without fear. The people thronged
to the theatres to see the political pieces, and evaporate their
excitement in cheers at the liberal allusions; and so ends a tumult
that threatened danger, but operated, perhaps, as a healthful vent for
the accumulating disorders of public opinion.
LETTER X.
GARDEN OF THE TUILERIES--FASHIONABLE DRIVES--FRENCH
OMNIBUSES--CHEAP RIDING--SIGHTS--STREET-BEGGARS--IMPOSTORS,
ETC.
The garden of the Tuileries is an idle man's paradise. Magnificent as
it is in extent, sculptures, and cultivation, we all know that statues
may be too dumb, gravel walks too long and level, and trees and
flowers and fountains a little too Platonic, with any degree of
beauty. But the Tuileries are peopled at all hours of sunshine with,
to me, the most lovely objects in the world--children. You may stop a
minute, perhaps, to look at the thousand gold fishes in the basin
under the palace-windows, or follow the swans for a single voyage
round the fountain in the broad avenue--but you will sit on your hired
chair (at this season) under the shelter of the sunny wall, and gaze
at the children chasing about, with their attending Swiss maids, till
your heart has outwearied your eyes, or the palace-clock strikes five.
I have been there repeatedly since I have been in Paris, and have seen
nothing like the children. They move my heart always, more than
anything under heaven; but a French child, with an accent that all
your paid masters cannot give, and manners, in the midst of its
romping, that mock to the life the air and courtesy for which Paris
has a name over the world, is enough to make one forget Napoleon,
though the column of Vendome throws its shadow within sound of their
voices. Imagine sixty-seven acres of beautiful creatures (that is the
extent of the garden, and I have not seen such a thing as an _ugly_
French child)--broad avenues stretching away as far as you can see,
covered with little foreigners (so they seem to _me_), dressed in gay
colors, and laughing and romping and talking French, in all the
amusing mixture of baby passions and grown-up manners, and answer
me--is it not a sight better worth seeing than all the grand palaces
that shut it in?
The Tuileries are certainly very magnificent, and, to walk across from
the Seine to the Rue Rivoli, and look up the endless walks and under
the long perfect arches cut through the trees, may give one a very
pretty surprise for once--but a winding lane is a better place to
enjoy the loveliness of green leaves, and a single New England elm,
letting down its slender branches to the ground in the inimitable
grace of nature, has, to my eye, more beauty than all the clipped
vistas from the king's palace to the _Arc de l'Etoile_, the _Champs
Elysees_ inclusive.
One of the finest things in Paris, by the way, is the view from the
terrace in front of the palace to this "Arch of Triumph," commenced by
Napoleon at the extremity of the "Elysian Fields," a single avenue of
about two miles. The part beyond the gardens is the _fashionable
drive_, and, by a saunter on horseback to the _Bois de Boulogne_,
between four and five, on a pleasant day, one may see all the dashing
equipages in Paris. Broadway, however, would eclipse everything here,
either for beauty of construction or appointments. Our carriages are
every way handsomer and better hung, and the horses are harnessed more
compactly and gracefully. The lumbering vehicles here make a great
show, it is true--for the box, with its heavy hammer-cloth, is level
with the top, and the coachman and footmen and outriders are very
striking in their bright liveries; but the elegant, convenient,
light-running establishments of Philadelphia and New York, excel them,
out of all comparison, for taste and fitness. The best driving I have
seen is by the king's whips, and really it is beautiful to see his
retinue on the road, four or five coaches and six, with footmen and
outriders in scarlet liveries, and the finest horses possible for
speed and action. His majesty generally takes the outer edge of the
_Champs Elysees_, on the bank of the river, and the rapid glimpses of
the bright show through the breaks in the wood, are exceedingly
picturesque.
There is nothing in Paris that looks so outlandish to my eye as the
common vehicles. I was thinking of it this morning as I stood waiting
for the _St. Sulpice omnibus_, at the corner of the Rue Vivienne, the
great thoroughfare between the Boulevards and the Palais Royal. There
was the hack-cabriolet lumbering by in the fashion of two centuries
ago, with a horse and harness that look equally ready to drop in
pieces; the hand-cart with a stout dog harnessed under the axle-tree,
drawing with twice the strength of his master; the market-waggon,
driven always by women, and drawn generally by a horse and mule
abreast, the horse of the Norman breed, immensely large, and the mule
about the size of a well-grown bull-dog; a vehicle of which I have not
yet found out the name, a kind of demi-omnibus, with two wheels and a
single horse, and carrying nine; and last, but not least amusing, a
small close carriage for one person, swung upon two wheels and drawn
by a servant, very much used, apparently, by elderly women and
invalids, and certainly most admirable conveniences either for the
economy or safety of getting about a city. It would be difficult to
find an American servant who would draw in harness as they do here;
and it is amusing to see a stout, well-dressed fellow, strapped to a
carriage, and pulling along the _paves_, sometimes at a jog-trot,
while his master or mistress sits looking unconcernedly out of the
window.
I am not yet decided whether the French are the best or the worst
drivers in the world. If the latter they certainly have most
miraculous escapes. A cab-driver never pulls the reins except upon
great emergencies, or for a right-about turn, and his horse has a most
ludicrous aversion to a straight line. The streets are built inclining
toward the centre, with the gutter in the middle, and it is the habit
of all cabriolet-horses to run down one side and up the other
constantly at such sudden angles that it seems to you they certainly
will go through the shop windows. This, of course, is very dangerous
to foot-passengers in a city where there are no side-walks; and, as a
consequence, the average number of complaints to the police of Paris
for people killed by careless driving, is about four hundred annually.
There are probably twice the number of legs broken. One becomes vexed
in riding with these fellows, and I have once or twice undertaken to
get into a French passion, and insist upon driving myself. But I have
never yet met with an accident. "_Gar-r-r-r-e!_" sings out the driver,
rolling the word off his tongue like a bullet from a shovel, but never
thinking to lift his loose reins from the dasher, while the frightened
passenger, without looking round, makes for the first door with an
alacrity that shows a habit of expecting very little from the
_cocher's_ skill.
Riding is very cheap in Paris, if managed a little. The city is
traversed constantly in every direction by omnibuses, and you may go
from the Tuileries to _Pere la Chaise_, or from St. Sulpice to the
Italian Boulevards (the two diagonals), or take the "_Tous les
Boulevards_" and ride quite round the city for six sous the distance.
The "_fiacre_" is like our own hacks, except that you pay but "twenty
_sous_ the course," and fill the vehicle with your friends if you
please; and, more cheap and comfortable still, there is the universal
cabriolet, which for "fifteen _sous_ the course," or "twenty the
hour," will give you at least three times the value of your money,
with the advantage of seeing ahead and talking bad French with the
driver.
Everything in France is either _grotesque_ or _picturesque_. I have
been struck with it this morning, while sitting at my window, looking
upon the close inner court of the hotel. One would suppose that a
_pave_ between four high walls, would offer very little to seduce the
eye from its occupation; but on the contrary, one's whole time may be
occupied in watching the various sights presented in constant
succession. First comes the itinerant cobbler, with his seat and
materials upon his back, and coolly selecting a place against the
wall, opens his shop under your window, and drives his trade, most
industriously, for half an hour. If you have anything to mend, he is
too happy; if not he has not lost his time, for he pays no rent, and
is all the while at work. He packs up again, bows to the _concierge_,
as politely as his load will permit, and takes his departure, in the
hope to find your shoes more worn another day. Nothing could be more
striking than his whole appearance. He is met in the gate, perhaps,
by an old clothes man, who will buy or sell, and compliment you for
nothing, cheapening your coat by calling the Virgin to witness that
your shape is so genteel that it will not fit one man in a thousand;
or by a family of singers, with a monkey to keep time; or a regular
beggar, who, however, does not dream of asking charity till he has
done something to amuse you; after these, perhaps, will follow a
succession of objects singularly peculiar to this fantastic
metropolis; and if one could separate from the poor creatures the
knowledge of the cold and hunger they suffer, wandering about,
houseless, in the most inclement weather, it would be easy to imagine
it a diverting pantomime, and give them the poor pittance they ask, as
the price of an amused hour. An old man has just gone from the court
who comes regularly twice a week, with a long beard, perfectly white,
and a strange kind of an equipage. It is an organ, set upon a rude
carriage, with four small wheels, and drawn by a mule, of the most
diminutive size, looking (if it were not for the venerable figure
crouched upon the seat) like some roughly-contrived plaything. The
whole affair, harness and all, is evidently his own work; and it is
affecting to see the difficulty, and withal, the habitual apathy with
which the old itinerant fastens his rope-reins beside him, and
dismounts to grind his one--solitary--eternal tune, for charity.
Among the thousands of wretched objects in Paris (they make the heart
sick with their misery at every turn), there is, here and there, one
of an interesting character; and it is pleasant to select them, and
make a habit of your trifling gratuity. Strolling about, as I do,
constantly, and letting everybody and everything amuse me that will, I
have made several of these penny-a-day acquaintances, and find them
very agreeable breaks to the heartless solitude of a crowd. There is a
little fellow who stands by the gate of the Tuileries, opening to the
Place Vendome, who, with all the rags and dirt of a street-boy, begs
with an air of superiority that is absolutely patronizing. One feels
obliged to the little varlet for the privilege of giving to him--his
smile and manner are so courtly. His face is beautiful, dirty as it
is; his voice is clear, and unaffected, and his thin lips have an
expression of high-bred contempt, that amuses me a little, and puzzles
me a great deal. I think he must have gentleman's blood in his veins,
though he possibly came indirectly by it. There is a little Jewess
hanging about the Louvre, who begs with her dark eyes very eloquently;
and in the _Rue de la Paix_ there may be found at all hours, a
melancholy, sick-looking Italian boy, with his hand in his bosom,
whose native language and picture-like face are a diurnal pleasure to
me, cheaply bought with the poor trifle which makes him happy. It is
surprising how many devices there are in the streets for attracting
attention and pity. There is a woman always to be seen upon the
Boulevards, playing a solemn tune on a violin, with a child as pallid
as ashes, lying, apparently, asleep in her lap. I suspected, after
seeing it once or twice, that it was wax, and a day or two since I
satisfied myself of the fact, and enraged the mother excessively by
touching its cheek. It represents a sick child to the life, and any
one less idle and curious would be deceived. I have often seen people
give her money with the most unsuspecting look of sympathy, though it
would be natural enough to doubt the maternal kindness of keeping a
dying child in the open air in mid-winter. Then there is a woman
without hands, making braid with wonderful adroitness; and a man
without legs or arms, singing, with his hat set appealingly on the
ground before him; and cripples, exposing their abbreviated limbs,
and telling their stories over and over, with or without listeners,
from morning till night; and every description of appeal to the most
acute sympathies, mingled with all the gayety, show, and fashion, of
the most crowded promenade in Paris.
In the present dreadful distress of trade, there are other still more
painful cases of misery. It is not uncommon to be addressed in the
street by men of perfectly respectable appearance, whose faces bear
every mark of strong mental struggle, and often of famishing
necessity, with an appeal for the smallest sum that will buy food. The
look of misery is so general, as to mark the whole population. It has
struck me most forcibly everywhere, notwithstanding the gayety of the
national character, and, I am told by intelligent Frenchmen, it is
peculiar to the time, and felt and observed by all. Such things
startle one back to nature sometimes. It is difficult to look away
from the face of a starving man, and see the splendid equipages, and
the idle waste upon trifles, within his very sight, and reconcile the
contrast with any belief of the existence of human pity--still more
difficult, perhaps, to admit without reflection, the right of one
human being to hold in a shut hand, at will, the very life and breath
for which his fellow-creatures are perishing at his door. It is this
that is visited back so terribly in the horrors of a revolution.
LETTER XI.
FOYETIER--THE THRACIAN GLADIATOR--MADEMOISELLE MARS--DOCTOR
FRANKLIN'S RESIDENCE IN PARIS--ANNUAL BALL FOR THE POOR.
I had the pleasure to day of being introduced to the young sculptor
Foyetier, the author of the new statue on the terrace of the
Tuileries. Aside from his genius, he is interesting from a
circumstance connected with his early history. He was a herd-driver in
one of the provinces, and amused himself in his leisure moments with
the carving of rude images, which he sold for a sous or two on
market-days in the provincial town. The celebrated Dr. Gall fell in
with him accidentally, and felt of his head, _en passant_. The bump
was there which contains his present greatness, and the phrenologist
took upon himself the risk of his education in the arts. He is now the
first sculptor, beyond all competition, in France. His "_Spartacus_,"
the Thracian gladiator, is the admiration of Paris. It stands in front
of the palace, in the most conspicuous part of the regal gardens, and
there are hundreds of people about the pedestal at all hours of the
day. The gladiator has broken his chain, and stands with his weapon
in his hand, every muscle and feature breathing action, his body
thrown back, and his right foot planted powerfully for a spring. It is
a gallant thing. One's blood stirs to look at it.
_Foyetier_ is a young man, I should think about thirty. He is small,
very plain in appearance; but he has a rapid, earnest eye, and a mouth
of singular suavity of expression. I liked him extremely. His
celebrity seems not to have trenched a step on the nature of his
character. His genius is everywhere allowed, and he works for the king
altogether, his majesty bespeaking everything he attempts, even in the
model; but he is, certainly, of all geniuses, one of the most modest.
* * * * *
The celebrated Mars has come out from her retirement once more, and
commenced an engagement at the _Theatre Francais_. I went a short time
since to see her play in Tartuffe. This stage is the home of the true
French drama. Here Talma played when he and Mademoiselle Mars were the
delight of Napoleon and of France. I have had few gratifications
greater than that of seeing this splendid woman re-appear in the place
were she won her brilliant reputation. The play, too, was _Moliere's_,
and it was here that it was first performed. Altogether it was like
something plucked back from history; a renewal, as in a magic mirror,
of glories gone by.
I could scarce believe my eyes when she appeared as the "wife of
Argon." She looked about twenty-five. Her step was light and graceful;
Her voice was as unlike that of a woman of sixty as could well be
imagined; sweet, clear, and under a control which gives her a power
of expression I never had conceived before; her mouth had the
definite, firm play of youth; her teeth (though the dentist might do
that) were white and perfect, and her eyes can have lost none of their
fire, I am sure. I never saw so _quiet_ a player. Her gestures were
just perceptible, no more; and yet they were done so exquisitely at
the right moment--so unconsciously, as if she had not meant them, that
they were more forcible than even the language itself. She repeatedly
drew a low murmur of delight from the whole house with a single play
of expression across her face, while the other characters were
speaking, or by a slight movement of her fingers, in pantomimic
astonishment or vexation. It was really something new to me. I had
never before seen a first-rate female player in _comedy_. Leontine Fay
is inimitable in tragedy; but, if there be any comparison between
them, it is that this beautiful young creature overpowers the _heart_
with her nature, while Mademoiselle Mars satisfies the uttermost
demand of the _judgment_ with her art.
* * * * *
I yesterday visited the house occupied by Franklin while he was in
France. It is one of the most beautiful country residences in the
neighborhood of Paris, standing on the elevated ground of Passy, and
overlooking the whole city on one side, and the valley of the Seine
for a long distance toward Versailles on the other. The house is
otherwise celebrated. Madame de Genlis lived there while the present
king was her pupil; and Louis XV. occupied it six months for the
country air, while under the infliction of the gout--its neighborhood
to the palace probably rendering it preferable to the more distant
_chateaux_ of St. Cloud or Versailles. Its occupants would seem to
have been various enough, without the addition of a Lieutenant-General
of the British army, whose hospitality makes it delightful at present.
The lightning-rod, which was raised by Franklin, and which was the
first conductor used in France, is still standing. The gardens are
large, and form a sort of terrace, with the house on the front edge.
It must be one of the sweetest places in the world in summer.
* * * * *
The great annual ball for the poor was given at the _Academie Royale_,
a few nights since. This is attended by the king and royal family, and
is ordinarily the most splendid affair of the season. It is managed by
twenty or thirty lady-patronesses, who have the control of the
tickets; and, though by no means exclusive, it is kept within very
respectable limits; and, if one is content to float with the tide, and
forego dancing, is an unusually comfortable and well-behaved
spectacle.
I went with a large party at the early hour of eight. We fell into the
train of carriages, advancing slowly between files of dragoons, and
stood before the door in our turn in the course of an hour. The
staircases were complete orangeries, with immense mirrors at every
turn, and soldiers on guard, and servants in livery, from top to
bottom. The long saloon, lighted by ten chandeliers, was dressed and
hung with wreaths as a receiving-room; and passing on through the
spacious lobbies, which were changed into groves of pines and exotics,
we entered upon the grand scene. The _coup d'oeil_ would have
astonished Aladdin. The theatre, which is the largest in Paris, and
gorgeously built and ornamented, was thrown into one vast ball-room,
ascending gradually from the centre to platforms raised at either end,
one of which was occupied by the throne and seats for the king's
family and suite. The four rows of boxes were crowded with ladies, and
the house presented, from the floor to the _paradis_, one glittering
and waving wall of dress, jewelry, and feathers. An orchestra of near
a hundred musicians occupied the centre of the hall; and on either
side of them swept by the long, countless multitudes of people,
dressed with a union of taste and show; while, instead of the black
coats which darken the complexion of a party in a republican country,
every other gentleman was in a gay uniform; and polytechnic scholars,
with their scarlet-faced coats, officers of the "National Guard" and
the "line," gentlemen of the king's household, and foreign ministers,
and _attaches_, presented a variety of color and splendor which
nothing could exceed.
The theatre itself was not altered, except by the platform occupied by
the king; it is sufficiently splendid as it stands; but the stage,
whose area is much larger than that of the pit, was hung in rich
drapery as a vast tent, and garnished to profusion with flags and
arms. Along the sides, on a level with the lower row of boxes,
extended galleries of crimson velvet, festooned with flowers. These
were filled with ladies, and completed a circle about the house of
beauty and magnificence, of which the king and his dazzling suite
formed the _corona_. Chandeliers were hung close together from one end
of the hall to the other. I commenced counting them once or twice, but
some bright face flitting by in the dance interrupted me. An English
girl near me counted fifty-five, and I think there must have been
more. The blaze of light was almost painful. The air glittered, and
the fine grain of the most delicate complexions was distinctly
visible. It is impossible to describe the effect of so much light and
space and music crowded into one spectacle. The vastness of the hall,
so long that the best sight could not distinguish a figure at the
opposite extremity, and so high as to absorb and mellow the vibration
of a hundred instruments--the gorgeous sweep of splendor from one
platform to the other, absolutely drowning the eye in a sea of gay
colors, nodding feathers, jewelry, and military equipment--the
delicious music, the strange faces, dresses, and tongues, (one-half of
the multitude at least being foreigners), the presence of the king,
and the gallant show of uniforms in his conspicuous _suite_, combined
to make up a scene more than sufficiently astonishing. I felt the
whole night the smothering consciousness of senses too narrow--eyes,
ears, language, all too limited for the demand made upon them.
The king did not arrive till after ten. He entered by a silken curtain
in the rear of the platform on which seats were placed for his family.
The "_Vive le Roi_" was not so hearty as to drown the music, but his
majesty bowed some twenty times very graciously, and the good-hearted
queen curtsied, and kept a smile on her excessively plain face, till I
felt the muscles of my own ache for her. King Philippe looks anxious.
By the remarks of the French people about me when he entered, he has
reason for it. I observed that the polytechnic scholars all turned
their backs upon him; and one exceedingly handsome, spirited-looking
boy, standing just at my side, muttered a "_sacre!_" and bit his lip,
with a very revolutionary air, at the continuance of the acclamation.
His majesty came down, and walked through the hall about midnight. His
eldest son, the Duke of Orleans, a handsome, unoffending-looking youth
of eighteen, followed him, gazing round upon the crowd with his mouth
open, and looking very much annoyed at his part of the pageant. The
young duke has a good figure, and is certainly a very beautiful
dancer. His mouth is loose and weak, and his eyes are as opaque as
agates. He wore the uniform of the _Garde Nationale_, which does not
become him. In ordinary gentleman's dress, he is a very authentical
copy of a Bond-street dandy, and looks as little like a Frenchman as
most of Stultz's subjects. He danced all the evening, and selected,
very popularly, decidedly the most vulgar women in the room, looking
all the while as one who had been petted by the finest women in France
(Leontine Fay among the number), might be supposed to look, under such
an infliction. The king's second son, the Duke of Nemours, pursued the
same policy. He has a brighter face than his brother, with hair almost
white, and dances extremely well. The second daughter is also much
prettier than the eldest. On the whole, the king's family is a very
plain, though a very amiable one, and the people seem attached to
them.
These general descriptions, are, after all, very vague. Here I have
written half a sheet with a picture in my mind of which you are
getting no semblable idea. Language is a mere skeleton of such things.
The _Academie Royale_ should be borne over the water like the chapel
of Loretto, and set down in Broadway with all its lights, music, and
people, to give you half a notion of the "_Bal en faveur des
Pauvres_." And so it is with everything except the little histories of
one's own personal atmosphere, and that is the reason why egotism
should be held virtuous in a traveller, and the reason why one cannot
study Europe at home.
After getting our American party places, I abandoned myself to the
strongest current, and went in search of "lions." The first face that
arrested my eye was that of the Duchess D'Istria, a woman celebrated
here for her extraordinary personal beauty.
Directly opposite this lovely dutchess, in the other stage-box, sat
Donna Maria, the young Queen of Portugal, surrounded by her relatives.
The ex-empress, her mother, was on her right, her grandmother on her
left, and behind her some half dozen of her Portuguese cousins. She is
a little girl of twelve or fourteen, with a fat, heavy face, and a
remarkably pampered, sleepy look. She was dressed like an old woman,
and gaped incessantly the whole evening. The box was a perfect blaze
of diamonds. I never before realized the beauty of these splendid
stones. The necks, heads, arms, and waists of the ladies royal were
all streaming with light. The necklace of the empress mother
particularly flashed on the eye in every part of the house. By the
unceasing exclamations of the women, it was an unusually brilliant
show, even here. The little Donna has a fine, well-rounded chin; and
when she smiled in return to the king's bow, I thought I could see
more than a child's character in the expression of her mouth. I should
think a year or two of mental uneasiness might let out a look of
intelligence through her heavy features. She is likely to have it, I
think, with the doubtful fortunes that seem to beset her.
I met Don Pedro often in society before his departure upon his
expedition. He is a short, well-made man, of great personal
accomplishment, and a very bad expression, rather aggravated by an
unfortunate cutaneous eruption. The first time I saw him, I was induced
to ask who he was, from the apparent coldness and dislike with which
he was treated by a lady whose beauty had strongly arrested my attention.
He sat by her on a sofa in a very crowded party, and seemed to be
saying something very earnestly, which made the lady's Spanish eyes
flash fire, and brought a curl of very positive anger upon a pair of
the loveliest lips imaginable. She was a slender, aristocratic-looking
creature, and dressed most magnificently. After glancing at them a
minute or two, I made up my mind that, from the authenticity of his
dress and appointments, he was an Englishman, and that she was some
French lady of rank whom he was particularly annoying with his
addresses. On inquiry, the gentleman proved to be Don Pedro, and the
lady the Countess de Lourle, _his sister_! I have often met her since,
and never without wondering how two of the same family could look so
utterly unlike each other. The Count de Lourle is called the Adonis of
Paris. He is certainly a very splendid fellow, and justifies the
romantic admiration of his wife, who married him clandestinely, giving
him her left hand in the ceremony, as is the etiquette, they say, when
a princess marries below her rank. One can not help looking with great
interest on a beautiful creature like this, who has broken away from
the imposing fetters of a royal sphere, to follow the dictates of
natural feeling. It does not occur so often in Europe that one may not
sentimentalize about it without the charge of affectation.
To return to the ball. The king bowed himself out a little after
midnight, and with him departed most of the fat people, and all the
little girls. This made room enough to dance, and the French set
themselves at it in good earnest. I wandered about for an hour or two;
after wearying my imagination quite out in speculating on the
characters and rank of people whom I never saw before and shall
probably never see again, I mounted to the _paradis_ to take a last
look down upon the splendid scene, and made my exit. I should be quite
content never to go to such a ball again, though it was by far the
most splendid scene of the kind I ever saw.
LETTER XII.
PLACE LOUIS XV.--PANORAMIC VIEW OF PARIS--A LITERARY CLUB
DINNER--THE GUESTS--THE PRESIDENT--THE EXILED POLES, ETC.
I have spent the day in a long stroll. The wind blew warm and
delicious from the south this morning, and the temptation to abandon
lessons and lectures was irresistible. Taking the _Arc de l'Etoile_ as
my extreme point I yielded to all the leisurely hinderances of
shop-windows, beggars, book-stalls, and views by the way. Among the
specimen-cards in an engraver's window I was amused at finding, in the
latest Parisian fashion, "HUSSEIN-PACHA, _Dey d'Algiers_."
These delightful Tuileries! We rambled through them (I had met a
friend and countryman, and enticed him into my idle plans for the
day), and amused ourselves with the never-failing beauty and grace of
the French children for an hour. On the inner terrace we stopped to
look at the beautiful hotel of Prince Polignac, facing the Tuileries,
on the opposite bank. By the side of this exquisite little model of a
palace stands the superb commencement of Napoleon's ministerial
hotel, breathing of his glorious conception in every line of its
ruins. It is astonishing what a godlike impress that man left upon all
he touched.
Every third or fourth child in the gardens was dressed in the full
uniform of the National Guard--helmet, sword, epaulets, and all. They
are ludicrous little caricatures, of course, but it inoculates them
with love of the corps, and it would be better if that were synonymous
with a love of liberal principals. The _Garde Nationale_ are supposed
to be more than half "Carlists" at this moment.
We passed out by the guarded gate of the Tuileries to the _Place Louis
XV._ This square is a most beautiful spot, as a centre of unequalled
views, and yet a piece of earth so foully polluted with human blood
probably does not exist on the face of the globe. It divides the
Tuileries from the _Champs Elysees_, and ranges of course, in the long
broad avenue of two miles, stretching between the king's palace and
the _Arc de l'Etoile_. It is but a list of names to write down the
particular objects to be seen in such a view, but it commands, at the
extremities of its radii, the most princely edifices, seen hence with
the most advantageous foregrounds of space and avenue, and softened by
distance into the misty and unbroken surface of engraving. The king's
palace is on one hand, Napoleon's Arch at a distance of nearly two
miles on the other, Prince Talleyrand's regal dwelling behind, with
the church of Madelaine seen through the _Rue Royale_, while before
you, to the south, lies a picture of profuse splendor: the broad
Seine, spanned by bridges that are the admiration of Europe, and
crowded by specimens of architectural magnificence; the Chamber of
Deputies; and the _Palais Bourbon_, approached by the _Pont Louis
XVI._ with its gigantic statues and simple majesty of structure; and,
rising over all, the grand dome of the "_Invalides_," which Napoleon
gilded, to divert the minds of his subjects from his lost battle, and
which Peter the Great admired more than all Paris beside. What a spot
for a man to stand upon, with but one bosom to feel and one tongue to
express his wonder!
And yet, of what, that should make a spot of earth sink to perdition,
has it not been the theatre? Here were beheaded the unfortunate Louis
XVI.--his wife, Marie Antoinette--his kinsman, Philip duke of Orleans,
and his sister Elizabeth; and here were guillotined the intrepid
Charlotte Corday, the deputy Brissot, and twenty of his colleagues,
and all the victims of the revolution of 1793, to the amount of two
thousand eight hundred; and here Robespierre and his cursed crew met
at last with their insufficient retribution; and, as if it were
destined to be the very blood-spot of the earth, here the fireworks,
which were celebrating the marriage of the same Louis that was
afterward brought hither to the scaffold, exploded, and killed
fourteen hundred persons. It has been the scene, also, of several
minor tragedies not worth mentioning in such a connexion. Were I a
Bourbon, and as unpopular as King Philippe I. at this moment, the view
of the Place Louis XV. from my palace windows would very much disturb
the beauty of the perspective. Without an _equivoque_, I should look
with a very ominous dissatisfaction on the "Elysian fields" that lie
beyond.
We loitered slowly on to the _Barrier Neuilly_, just outside of which,
and right before the city gates, stands the Triumphal Arch. It has the
stamp of Napoleon--simple grandeur. The broad avenue from the
Tuileries swells slowly up to it for two miles, and the view of Paris
at its foot, even, is superb. We ascended to the unfinished roof, a
hundred and thirty-five feet from the ground, and saw the whole of the
mighty capital of France at a _coup d'oeil_--churches, palaces,
gardens; buildings heaped upon buildings clear over the edge of the
horizon, where the spires of the city in which you stand are scarcely
visible for the distance.
I dined, a short time since, with the editors of the _Revue
Encyclopedique_ at their monthly reunion. This is a sort of club
dinner, to which the eminent contributors of the review invite once a
month all the strangers of distinction who happen to be in Paris. I
owed my invitation probably to the circumstance of my living with Dr.
Howe, who is considered the organ of American principles here, and
whose force of character has given him a degree of respect and
prominence not often attained by foreigners. It was the most
remarkable party, by far, that I had ever seen. There were nearly a
hundred guests, twenty or thirty of whom were distinguished Poles,
lately arrived from Warsaw. Generals Romarino and Langermann were
placed beside the president, and another general, whose name is as
difficult to remember as his face is to forget, and who is famous for
having been the last on the field, sat next to the head seat. Near him
were General Bernard and Dr. Bowring, with Sir Sidney Smith (covered
with orders, from every quarter of the world), and the president of
Colombia. After the usual courses of a French dinner, the president,
Mons. Julien, a venerable man with snow-white hair, addressed the
company. He expressed his pleasure at the meeting, with the usual
courtesies of welcome, and in the fervent manner of the old school of
French politeness; and then pausing a little, and lowering his voice,
with a very touching cadence, he looked around to the Poles, and began
to speak of their country. Every movement was instantly hushed about
the table--the guests leaned forward, some of them half rising in
their earnestness to hear; the old man's voice trembled, and sunk
lower; the Poles dropped their heads upon their bosoms, and the whole
company were strongly affected. His manner suddenly changed at this
moment, in a degree that would have seemed too dramatic, if the strong
excitement had not sustained him. He spoke indignantly of the Russian
barbarity toward Poland--assured the exiles of the strong sympathy
felt by the great mass of the French people in their cause, and
expressed his confident belief that the struggle was not yet done, and
the time was near when, with France at her back, Poland would rise and
be free. He closed, amid tumultuous acclamation, and all the Poles
near him kissed the old man, after the French manner, upon both his
cheeks.
This speech was followed by several others, much to the same effect.
Dr. Bowring replied handsomely, in French, to some compliment paid to
his efforts on the "question of reform," in England. _Cesar Moreau_,
the great schemist, and founder of the _Academie d'Industrie_, said a
few very revolutionary things quite emphatically, rolling his fine
visionary-looking eyes about as if he saw the "shadows cast before" of
coming events; and then rose a speaker, whom I shall never forget. He
was a young Polish noble, of about nineteen, whose extreme personal
beauty and enthusiastic expression of countenance had particularly
arrested my attention in the drawing-room, before dinner. His person
was slender and graceful--his eye and mouth full of beauty and fire,
and his manner had a quiet native superiority, that would have
distinguished him anywhere. He had behaved very gallantly in the
struggle, and some allusion had been made to him in one of the
addresses. He rose modestly, and half unwillingly, and acknowledged
the kind wishes for his country in language of great elegance. He
then went on to speak of the misfortunes of Poland, and soon warmed
into eloquence of the most vivid earnestness and power. I never was
more moved by a speaker--he seemed perfectly unconscious of everything
but the recollections of his subject. His eyes swam with tears and
flashed with indignation alternately, and his refined, spirited mouth
assumed a play of varied expression, which, could it have been
arrested, would have made a sculptor immortal. I can hardly write
extravagantly of him, for all present were as much excited as myself.
One ceases to wonder at the desperate character of the attempt to
redeem the liberty of a land when he sees such specimens of its
people. I have seen hundreds of Poles, of all classes, in Paris, and I
have not yet met with a face of even common dulness among them.
You have seen by the papers, I presume, that a body of several
thousand Poles fled from Warsaw, after the defeat, and took refuge in
the northern forests of Prussia. They gave up their arms under an
assurance from the king that they should have all the rights of
Prussian subjects. He found it politic afterward to recall his
protection, and ordered them back to Poland. They refused to go, and
were surrounded by a detachment of his army, and the orders given to
fire upon them. The soldiers refused, and the Poles, taking advantage
of the sympathy of the army, broke through the ranks, and escaped to
the forest, where, at the last news, they were armed with clubs, and
determined to defend themselves to the last. The consequence of a
return to Poland would be, of course, an immediate exile to Siberia.
The Polish committee, American and French, with General Lafayette at
their head, have appropriated a great part of their funds to the
relief of this body, and our countryman, Dr. Howe, has undertaken the
dangerous and difficult task of carrying it to them. He left Paris for
Brussels, with letters from the Polish generals, and advices from
Lafayette to all Polish committees upon his route, that they should
put all their funds into his hands. He is a gallant fellow, and will
succeed if any one can; but he certainly runs great hazard. God
prosper him!
LETTER XIII.
THE GAMBLING-HOUSES OF PARIS.
I accepted, last night, from a French gentleman of high standing, a
polite offer of introduction to one of the exclusive gambling clubs
of Paris. With the understanding, of course, that it was only as a
spectator, my friend, whom I had met at a dinner party, despatched
a note from the table, announcing to the temporary master of
ceremonies his intention of presenting me. We went at eleven, in full
dress. I was surprised at the entrance with the splendor of the
establishment--gilt balustrades, marble staircases, crowds of servants
in full livery, and all the formal announcement of a court. Passing
through several ante-chambers, a heavy folding-door was thrown open,
and we were received by one of the noblest-looking men I have seen in
France--Count ----. I was put immediately at my ease by his dignified
and kind politeness; and after a little conversation in English, which
he spoke fluently, the entrance of some other person left me at
liberty to observe at my leisure. Everything about me had the impress
of the studied taste of high life. The lavish and yet soft disposition
of light, the harmony of color in the rich hangings and furniture,
the quiet manners and subdued tones of conversation, the respectful
deference of the servants, and the simplicity of the slight
entertainment, would have convinced me, without my Asmodeus, that I
was in no every-day atmosphere. Conversation proceeded for an hour,
while the members came dropping in from their evening engagements, and
a little after twelve a glass door was thrown open, and we passed from
the reception-room to the spacious suite of apartments intended for
play. One or two of the gentlemen entered the side rooms for billiards
and cards, but the majority closed about the table of hazard in the
central hall. I had never conceived so beautiful an apartment. It can
be described in two words--_columns_ and _mirrors_. There was nothing
else between the exquisitely-painted ceiling and the floor. The form
was circular, and the wall was laid with glass, interrupted only with
pairs of Corinthian pillars, with their rich capitals reflected and
re-reflected innumerably. It seemed like a hall of colonnades of
illimitable extent--the multiplication of the mirrors into each other
was so endless and illusive. I felt an unconquerable disposition to
abandon myself to a waking revery of pleasure; and as soon as the
attention of the company was perfectly engrossed by the silent
occupation before them, I sank upon a sofa, and gave my senses up for
a while to the fascination of the scene. My eye was intoxicated. As
far as my sight could penetrate, stretched apparently interminable
halls, carpeted with crimson, and studded with graceful columns and
groups of courtly figures, forming altogether, with its extent and
beauty, and in the subdued and skilfully-managed light, a picture
that, if real, would be one of unsurpassable splendor. I quite forgot
my curiosity to see the game. I had merely observed, when my companion
reminded me of the arrival of my own appointed hour for departure
that, whatever was lost or won, the rustling bills were passed from
one to the other with a quiet and imperturbable politeness, that
betrayed no sign either of chagrin or triumph; though, from the fact
that the transfers were in paper only, the stakes must have been
anything but trifling. Refusing a polite invitation to partake of the
supper, always in waiting, we took leave about two hours after
midnight.
As we drove from the court, my companion suggested to me, that, since
we were out at so late an hour, we might as well look in for a moment
at the more accessible "hells," and, pulling the _cordon_, he ordered
to "_Frascati's_." This, you know of course, is the fashionable place
of ruin, and here the heroes of all novels, and the rakes of all
comedies, mar or make their fortunes. An evening dress, and the look
of a gentleman, are the only required passport. A servant in
attendance took our hats and canes, and we walked in without ceremony.
It was a different scene from the former. Four large rooms, plainly
but handsomely furnished, opened into each other, three of which were
devoted to play, and crowded with players. Elegantly-dressed women,
some of them with high pretensions to French beauty, sat and stood at
the table, watching their own stakes in the rapid games with fixed
attention. The majority of the gentlemen were English. The table was
very large, marked as usual with the lines and figures of the game,
and each person playing had a small rake in his hand, with which he
drew toward him his proportion of the winnings. I was disappointed at
the first glance in the faces: there was very little of the high-bred
courtesy I had seen at the club-house, but there was no very striking
exhibition of feeling, and I should think, in any but an extreme case,
the whispering silence and general quietness of the room would
repress it. After watching the variations of luck awhile, however, I
selected one or two pretty desperate losers, and a young Frenchman who
was a large winner, and confined my observation to them only. Among
the former was a girl of about eighteen, a mild, quiet-looking
creature, with her hair curling long on her neck, and hands childishly
small and white, who lost invariably. Two piles of five-franc pieces
and a small heap of gold lay on the table beside her, and I watched
her till she laid the last coin upon the losing color. She bore it
very well. By the eagerness with which, at every turn of the last
card, she closed her hand upon the rake which she held, it was evident
that her hopes were high; but when her last piece was drawn into the
bank, she threw up her little fingers with a playful desperation, and
commenced conversation even gayly with a gentleman who stood leaning
over her chair. The young Frenchman continued almost as invariably to
win. He was excessively handsome; but there was a cold, profligate,
unvarying hardness of expression in his face, that made me dislike
him. The spectators drew gradually about his chair; and one or two of
the women, who seemed to know him well, selected a color for him
occasionally, or borrowed of him and staked for themselves. We left
him winning. The other players were mostly English, and very
uninteresting in their exhibition of disappointment. My companion told
me that there would be more desperate playing toward morning, but I
had become disgusted with the cold selfish faces of the scene, and
felt no interest sufficient to detain me.
LETTER XIV.
THE GARDEN OF THE TUILERIES--PRINCE MOSCOWA--SONS OF NAPOLEON--
COOPER AND MORSE--SIR SIDNEY SMITH--FASHIONABLE WOMEN--CLOSE
OF THE DAY--THE FAMOUS EATING-HOUSES--HOW TO DINE WELL IN PARIS,
ETC.
It is March, and the weather has all the characteristics of
New-England May. The last two or three days have been deliciously
spring-like, clear, sunny, and warm. The gardens of the Tuileries are
crowded. The chairs beneath the terraces are filled by the old men
reading the gazettes, mothers and nurses watching their children at
play, and, at every few steps, circles of whole families sitting and
sewing, or conversing, as unconcernedly as at home. It strikes a
stranger oddly. With the _privacy_ of American feelings, we cannot
conceive of these out-of-door French habits. What would a Boston or
New York mother think of taking chairs for her whole family, grown-up
daughters and all, in the Mall or upon the Battery, and spending the
day in the very midst of the gayest promenade of the city? People of
all ranks do it here. You will see the powdered, elegant gentleman of
the _ancien regime_, handing his wife or daughter to a straw-bottomed
chair, with all the air of drawing-room courtesy; and, begging pardon
for the liberty, pull his journal from his pocket, and sit down to
read beside her; or a tottering old man, leaning upon a stout Swiss
servant girl, goes bowing and apologizing through the crowd, in search
of a pleasant neighbor, or some old compatriot, with whom he may sit
and nod away the hours of sunshine. It is a beautiful custom,
positively. The gardens are like a constant _fete_. It is a holiday
revel, without design or disappointment. It is a masque, where every
one plays his character unconsciously, and therefore naturally and
well. We get no idea of it at home. We are too industrious a nation to
have idlers enough. It would even pain most of the people of our
country to see so many thousands of all ages and conditions of life
spending day after day in such absolute uselessness.
Imagine yourself here, on the fashionable terrace, the promenade, two
days in the week, of all that is distinguished and gay in Paris. It is
a short raised walk, just inside the railings, and the only part of
all these wide and beautiful gardens where a member of the _beau
monde_ is ever to be met. The hour is four, the day Friday, the
weather heavenly. I have just been long enough in Paris to be an
excellent walking dictionary, and I will tell you who people are. In
the first place, all the well-dressed men you see are English. You
will know the French by those flaring coats, laid clear back on their
shoulders, and their execrable hats and thin legs. Their heads are
fresh from the hair-dresser; their hats are _chapeaux de soie_ or
imitation beaver; they are delicately rouged, and wear very white
gloves; and those who are with ladies, lead, as you observe, a small
dog by a string, or carry it in their arms. No French lady walks out
without her lap-dog. These slow-paced men you see in brown mustaches
and frogged coats are refugee Poles. The short, thick, agile-looking
man before us is General ----, celebrated for having been the last to
surrender on the last field of that brief contest. His handsome face
is full of resolution, and unlike the rest of his countrymen, he looks
still unsubdued and in good heart. He walks here every day an hour or
two, swinging his cane round his forefinger, and thinking, apparently
of anything but his defeat. Observe these two young men approaching
us. The short one on the left, with the stiff hair and red mustache,
is _Prince Moscowa_, the son of Marshal Ney. He is an object of more
than usual interest just now, as the youngest of the new batch of
peers. The expression of his countenance is more bold than handsome,
and indeed he is anything but a carpet knight; a fact of which he
seems, like a man of sense, quite aware. He is to be seen at the
parties standing with his arms folded, leaning silently against the
wall for hours together. His companion is, I presume to say, quite the
handsomest man you ever saw. A little over six feet, perfectly
proportioned, dark silken-brown hair, slightly curling about his
forehead, a soft curling mustache, and beard just darkening the finest
cut mouth in the world, and an olive complexion, of the most golden
richness and clearness--Mr. ---- is called the handsomest man in
Europe. What is more remarkable still, he looks like the most modest
man in Europe, too; though, like most modest _looking_ men, his
reputation for constancy in the gallant world is somewhat slender. And
here comes a fine-looking man, though of a different order of
beauty--a natural son of Napoleon. He is about his father's height,
and has most of his features, though his person and air must be quite
different. You see there Napoleon's beautiful mouth and thinly
chiselled nose, but I fancy that soft eye is his mother's. He is said
to be one of the most fascinating men in France. His mother was the
Countess Waleski, a lady with whom the Emperor became acquainted in
Poland. It is singular that Napoleon's talents and love of glory have
not descended upon any of the eight or ten sons whose claims to his
paternity are admitted. And here come two of our countrymen, who are
to be seen constantly together--_Cooper_ and _Morse_. That is Cooper
with the blue surtout buttoned up to his throat, and his hat over his
eyes. What a contrast between the faces of the two men! Morse with his
kind, open, gentle countenance, the very picture of goodness and
sincerity; and Cooper, dark and corsair-looking, with his brows down
over his eyes, and his strongly lined mouth fixed in an expression of
moodiness and reserve. The two faces, however, are not equally just to
their owners--Morse is all that he looks to be, but Cooper's features
do him decided injustice. I take a pride in the reputation which this
distinguished countryman of ours has for humanity and generous
sympathy. The distress of the refugee liberals from all countries
comes home especially to Americans, and the untiring liberality of Mr.
Cooper particularly, is a fact of common admission and praise. It is
pleasant to be able to say such things. Morse is taking a sketch of
the Gallery of the Louvre, and he intends copying some of the best
pictures also, to accompany it as an exhibition, when he returns. Our
artists do our country cre
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