Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)
by Frances Milton Trollope · English · Gutenberg #39710 · 548,029 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)
Author: Frances Milton Trollope
Release date: May 16, 2012 [eBook #39710]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39710
Credits: Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARIS AND THE PARISIANS IN 1835 (VOL. 2) ***
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. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Page 46: The phrase "find out if he can any single" seems to be
missing a word.
Page 384: The phrase starting "swarm _au sixième_" has no closing
quotation mark.
Preparing for publication, by the same Author,
In 3 vols. post 8vo. with 15 Characteristic Engravings.
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
JONATHAN JEFFERSON WHITLAW;
OR,
SCENES ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
PARIS AND THE PARISIANS,
IN 1835.
VOL. 2.
[Illustration: MUSEUM DES CURIOSITES HISTORIQUES
LE PUBLIC EST PRIÉ DE
NE TOUCHER À AUCUN
DE CES OBJETS.
Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.]
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to His Majesty.
1835.
PARIS
AND
THE PARISIANS
IN 1835.
BY FRANCES TROLLOPE,
AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE AMERICANS,"
"TREMORDYN CLIFF," &c.
"Le pire des états, c'est l'état populaire."--CORNEILLE.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to His Majesty.
1836.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
CONTENTS
TO
THE SECOND VOLUME.
LETTER XLIII.
Peculiar Air of Frenchwomen.--Impossibility that an
Englishwoman should not be known for such in Paris.--Small
Shops.--Beautiful Flowers, and pretty arrangement of
them.--Native Grace.--Disappearance of Rouge.--Grey
Hair.--Every article dearer than in London.--All temptations
to smuggling removed. Page 1
LETTER XLIV.
Exclusive Soirées.--Soirée Doctrinaire.--Duc de
Broglie.--Soirée Républicaine.--Soirée Royaliste.--Partie
Impériale.--Military Greatness.--Dame de l'Empire. 11
LETTER XLV.
L'Abbé Lacordaire.--Various Statements respecting
him.--Poetical description of Notre Dame.--The Prophecy of a
Roman Catholic.--Les Jeunes Gens de Paris.--Their
omnipotence. 22
LETTER XLVI.
La Tour de Nesle. 37
LETTER XLVII.
Palais Royal.--Variety of Characters.--Party of
English.--Restaurant.--Galerie d'Orléans.--Number of
Loungers.--Convenient abundance of Idle Men.--Théâtre du
Vaudeville. 49
LETTER XLVIII.
Literary Conversation.--Modern Novelists.--Vicomte
d'Arlincourt.--His Portrait.--Châteaubriand.--Bernardin de
Saint Pierre.--Shakspeare.--Sir Walter Scott.--French
familiarity with English Authors.--Miss Mitford.--Miss
Landon.--Parisian passion for Novelty.--Extent of general
Information. 62
LETTER XLIX.
Trial by Jury.--Power of the Jury in France.--Comparative
insignificance of that vested in the Judge.--Virtual
Abolition of Capital Punishments.--Flemish Anecdote. 75
LETTER L.
English Pastry-cooks.--French horror of English
Pastry.--Unfortunate experiment upon a Muffin.--The Citizen
King. 85
LETTER LI.
Parisian Women.--Rousseau's failure in attempting to
describe them.--Their great influence in Society.--Their
grace in Conversation.--Difficulty of growing old.--Do the
ladies of France or those of England manage it best? 92
LETTER LII.
La Sainte Chapelle.--Palais de Justice.--Traces of the
Revolution of 1830.--Unworthy use made of La Sainte
Chapelle.--Boileau.--Ancient Records. 105
LETTER LIII.
French ideas of England.--Making love.--Precipitate retreat
of a young Frenchman.--Different methods of arranging
Marriages.--English Divorce.--English Restaurans. 116
LETTER LIV.
Mixed Society.--Influence of the English Clergy and their
Families.--Importance of their station in Society. 132
LETTER LV.
Le Grand Opéra.--Its enormous Expense.--Its Fashion.--Its
acknowledged Dulness.--'La Juive.'--Its heavy Music.--Its
exceeding Splendour.--Beautiful management of the
Scenery.--National Music. 143
LETTER LVI.
The Abbé Deguerry.--His eloquence.--Excursion across the
water.--Library of Ste. Geneviève.--Copy-book of the
Dauphin.--St. Etienne du Mont.--Pantheon. 156
LETTER LVII.
Little Suppers.--Great Dinners.--Affectation of
Gourmandise.--Evil effects of "dining out."--Evening
Parties.--Dinners in private under the name of
Luncheons.--Late Hours. 166
LETTER LVIII.
Hôpital des Enfans Trouvés.--Its doubtful advantages.--Story
of a Child left there. 177
LETTER LIX.
Procès Monstre.--Dislike of the Prisoners to the ceremony of
Trial.--Société des Droits de l'Homme.--Names given to the
Sections.--Kitchen and Nursery Literature.--Anecdote of
Lagrange.--Republican Law. 201
LETTER LX.
Memoirs of M. Châteaubriand.--The Readings at
L'Abbaye-aux-Bois.--Account of these in the French
Newspapers and Reviews.--Morning at the Abbaye to hear a
portion of these Memoirs.--The Visit to Prague. 212
LETTER LXI.
Jardin des Plantes.--Not equal in beauty to our Zoological
Gardens.--La Salpêtrière.--Anecdote.--Les
Invalides.--Difficulty of finding English Colours
there.--The Dome. 232
LETTER LXII.
Expedition to Montmorency.--Rendezvous in the Passage
Delorme.--St. Denis.--Tomb prepared for Napoleon.--The
Hermitage.--Dîner sur l'herbe. 241
LETTER LXIII.
George Sand. 258
LETTER LXIV.
"Angelo Tyran de Padoue."--Burlesque at the Théâtre du
Vaudeville.--Mademoiselle Mars.--Madame Dorval.--Epigram. 270
LETTER LXV.
Boulevard des Italiens.--Tortoni's.--Thunder-storm.--Church
of the Madeleine.--Mrs. Butler's "Journal." 292
LETTER LXVI.
A pleasant Party.--Discussion between an Englishman and a
Frenchman.--National Peculiarities. 302
LETTER LXVII.
Chamber of Deputies.--Punishment of Journalists.--Institute
for the Encouragement of Industry.--Men of Genius. 313
LETTER LXVIII.
Walk to the Marché des Innocens.--Escape of a Canary
Bird.--A Street Orator.--Burying-place of the Victims of
July. 323
LETTER LXIX.
A Philosophical Spectator.--Collection of Baron
Sylvestre.--Hôtel des Monnaies.--Musée d'Artillerie. 335
LETTER LXX.
Concert in the Champs Elysées.--Horticultural
Exhibition.--Forced Flowers.--Republican Hats.--Carlist
Hats--Juste-Milieu Hats.--Popular Funeral. 347
LETTER LXXI.
Minor French Novelists. 360
LETTER LXXII.
Breaking-up of the Paris Season.--Soirée at Madame
Récamier's.--Recitation.--Storm.--Disappointment.
--Atonement.--Farewell. 371
POSTSCRIPT 379
EMBELLISHMENTS
TO
THE SECOND VOLUME.
Soirée Page 20
Le Roi Citoyen 88
Prêtres de la Jeune France 158
Lecture à l'Abbaye-aux-Bois 228
Boulevard des Italiens 294
"V'là les restes de notre Révolution de Juillet" 328
PARIS
AND THE PARISIANS
IN 1835.
LETTER XLIII.
Peculiar Air of Frenchwomen.--Impossibility that an
Englishwoman should not be known for such in Paris.--Small
Shops.--Beautiful Flowers, and pretty arrangement of
them.--Native Grace.--Disappearance of Rouge.--Grey
Hair.--Every article dearer than in London.--All
temptations to smuggling removed.
Considering that it is a woman who writes to you, I think you will
confess that you have no reason to complain of having been overwhelmed
with the fashions of Paris: perhaps, on the contrary, you may feel
rather disposed to grumble because all I have hitherto said on the
fertile subject of dress has been almost wholly devoted to the
historic and fanciful costume of the republicans. Personal appearance,
and all that concerns it, is, however, a very important feature in
the daily history of this showy city; and although in this respect it
has been made the model of the whole world, it nevertheless contrives
to retain for itself a general look, air, and effect, which it is
quite in vain for any other people to attempt imitating. Go where you
will, you see French fashions; but you must go to Paris to see how
French people wear them.
The dome of the Invalides, the towers of Notre Dame, the column in the
Place Vendôme, the windmills of Montmartre, do not come home to the
mind as more essentially belonging to Paris, and Paris only, than does
the aspect which caps, bonnets, frills, shawls, aprons, belts,
buckles, gloves,--and above, though below, all things else--which
shoes and stockings assume, when worn by Parisian women in the city of
Paris.
It is in vain that all the women of the earth come crowding to this
mart of elegance, each one with money in her sack sufficient to cover
her from head to foot with all that is richest and best;--it is in
vain that she calls to her aid all the _tailleuses_, _coiffeuses_,
_modistes_, _couturières_, _cordonniers_, _lingères_, and _friseurs_
in the town: all she gets for her pains is, when she has bought, and
done, and put on all and everything they have prescribed, that, in the
next shop she enters, she hears one _grisette_ behind the counter
mutter to another, "Voyez ce que désire cette dame anglaise;"--and
that, poor dear lady! before she has spoken a single word to betray
herself.
Neither is it only the natives who find us out so easily--that might
perhaps be owing to some little inexplicable freemasonry among
themselves; but the worst of all is, that we know one another in a
moment. "There is an Englishman,"--"That is an Englishwoman," is felt
at a glance, more rapidly than the tongue can speak it.
That manner, gait, and carriage,--that expression of movement, and, if
I may so say, of limb, should be at once so remarkable and so
impossible to imitate, is very singular. It has nothing to do with the
national differences in eyes and complexion, for the effect is felt
perhaps more strongly in following than in meeting a person; but it
pervades every plait and every pin, every attitude and every gesture.
Could I explain to you what it is which produces this effect, I should
go far towards removing the impossibility of imitating it: but as this
is now, after twenty years of trial, pretty generally allowed to be
impossible, you will not expect it of me. All I can do, is to tell you
of such matters appertaining to dress as are open and intelligible to
all, without attempting to dive into that very occult part of the
subject, the effect of it.
In milliners' phrase, the ladies dress much _less_ in Paris than in
London. I have no idea that any Frenchwoman, after her morning
dishabille is thrown aside, would make it a practice, during "the
season," to change her dress completely four times in the course of
the day, as I have known some ladies do in London. Nor do I believe
that the most _précieuses_ in such matters among them would deem it an
insufferable breach of good manners to her family, did she sit down to
dinner in the same apparel in which they had seen her three hours
before it.
The only article of female luxury more generally indulged in here than
with us, is that of cashmere shawls. One, at the very least, of these
dainty wrappers makes a part of every young lady's _trousseau_, and
is, I believe, exactly that part of the _présent_ which, as Miss
Edgeworth says, often makes a bride forget the _futur_.
In other respects, what is necessary for the wardrobe of a French
woman of fashion, is necessary also for that of an English one; only
jewels and trinkets of all kinds are more frequently worn with us than
with them. The dress that a young Englishwoman would wear at a dinner
party, is very nearly the same as a Frenchwoman would wear at any ball
but a fancy one; whereas the most elegant dinner costume in Paris is
exactly the same as would be worn at the French Opera.
There are many extremely handsome "_magasins de nouveautés_" in every
part of the town, wherein may be found all that the heart of woman can
desire in the way of dress; and there are smart _coiffeuses_ and
_modistes_ too, who know well how to fabricate and recommend every
production of their fascinating art: but there is no Howell and
James's wherein to assemble at a given point all the fine ladies of
Paris; no reunions of tall footmen are to be seen lounging on benches
outside the shops, and performing to the uninitiated the office of
signs, by giving notice how many purchasers are at that moment engaged
in cheapening the precious wares within. The shops in general are very
much smaller than ours,--or when they stretch into great length, they
have uniformly the appearance of warehouses. A much less quantity of
goods of all kinds is displayed for purposes of show and
decoration,--unless it be in china shops, or where or-molu ornaments,
protected by glass covers, form the principal objects: here, or indeed
wherever the articles sold can be exhibited without any danger of loss
from injury, there is very considerable display; but, on the whole,
there is much less appearance of large capital exhibited in the shops
here than in London.
One great source of the gay and pretty appearance of the streets, is
the number and elegant arrangement of the flowers exposed for sale.
Along all the Boulevards, and in every brilliant Passage (with which
latter ornamental invention Paris is now threaded in all directions),
you need only shut your eyes in order to fancy yourself in a delicious
flower-garden; and even on opening them again, if the delusion
vanishes, you have something almost as pretty in its place.
Notwithstanding the multitudinous abominations of their streets--the
prison-like locks on the doors of their _salons_, and the odious
common stair which must be climbed ere one can get to them--there is
an elegance of taste and love of the graceful about these people which
is certainly to be found nowhere else. It is not confined to the
spacious hotels of the rich and great, but may be traced through every
order and class of society, down to the very lowest.
The manner in which an old barrow-woman will tie up her sous' worth of
cherries for her urchin customers might give a lesson to the most
skilful decorator of the supper-table. A bunch of wild violets, sold
at a price that may come within reach of the worst-paid _soubrette_ in
Paris, is arranged with a grace that might make a duchess covet them;
and I have seen the paltry stock-in-trade of a florist, whose only
pavilion was a tree and the blue heavens, set off with such felicity
in the mixture of colours, and the gradations of shape and form, as
made me stand to gaze longer and more delightedly than I ever did
before Flora's own palace in the King's Road.
After all, indeed, I believe that the mystical peculiarity of dress of
which I have been speaking wholly arises from this innate and
universal instinct of good taste. There is a fitness, a propriety, a
sort of harmony in the various articles which constitute female
attire, which may be traced as clearly amongst the cotton _toques_,
with all their variety of brilliant tints, and the 'kerchief and apron
to match, or rather to accord, as amongst the most elegant bonnets at
the Tuileries. Their expressive phrase of approbation for a
well-dressed woman, "_faite à peindre_," may often be applied with
quite as much justice to the peasant as to the princess; for the same
unconscious sensibility of taste will regulate them both.
It is this national feeling which renders their stage groups, their
corps _de ballet_, and all the _tableaux_ business of their theatres,
so greatly superior to all others. On these occasions, a single
blunder in colour, contrast, or position, destroys the whole harmony,
and the whole charm with it: but you see the poor little girls hired
to do angels and graces for a few sous a night, fall into the
composition of the scene with an instinct as unerring, as that which
leads a flight of wild geese to cleave the air in a well-adjusted
triangular phalanx, instead of scattering themselves to every point
of the compass; as, _par exemple_, our _figurantes_ may be often seen
to do, if not kept in order by the ballet-master as carefully as a
huntsman whistles in his pack.
It is quite a relief to my eyes to find how completely rouge appears
to be gone out of fashion here. I will not undertake to say that no
bright eyes still look brighter from having a touch of red skilfully
applied beneath them: but if this be done, it is so well done as to be
invisible, excepting by its favourable effect; which is a prodigious
improvement upon the fashion which I well remember here, of larding
cheeks both young and old to a degree that was quite frightful.
Another improvement which I very greatly admire is, that the majority
of old ladies have left off wearing artificial hair, and arrange their
own grey locks with all the neatness and care possible. The effect of
this upon their general appearance is extremely favourable: Nature
always arranges things for us much better than we can do it for
ourselves; and the effect of an old face surrounded by a maze of
wanton curls, black, brown, or flaxen, is infinitely less agreeable
than when it is seen with its own "sable silvered" about it.
I have heard it observed, and with great justice, that rouge was only
advantageous to those who did not require it: and the same may be said
with equal truth of false hair. Some of the towering pinnacles of
shining jet that I have seen here, certainly have exceeded in quantity
of hair the possible growth of any one head: but when this fabric
surmounts a youthful face which seems to have a right to all the
flowing honours that the friseur's art can contrive to arrange above
it, there is nothing incongruous or disagreeable in the effect; though
it is almost a pity, too, to mix anything approaching to deceptive art
with the native glories of a young head. For which sentiment
_messieurs les fabricans_ of false hair will not thank me;--for having
first interdicted the use of borrowed tresses to the old ladies, I now
pronounce my disapproval of them for the young.
_Au reste_, all I can tell you farther respecting dress is, that our
ladies must no longer expect to find bargains here in any article
required for the wardrobe; on the contrary, everything of the kind is
become greatly dearer than in London: and what is at least equally
against making such purchases here is, that the fabrics of various
kinds which we used to consider as superior to our own, particularly
those of silks and gloves, are now, I think, decidedly inferior; and
such as can be purchased at the same price as in England, if they can
be found at all, are really too bad to use.
The only foreign bargains which I long to bring home with me are in
porcelain: but this our custom-house tariff forbids, and very
properly; as, without such protection, our Wedgewoods and Mortlakes
would sell but few ornamental articles; for not only are their prices
higher, but both their material and the fashioning of it are in my
opinion extremely inferior. It is really very satisfactory to one's
patriotic feelings to be able to say honestly, that excepting in
these, and a few other ornamental superfluities, such as or-molu and
alabaster clocks, etcætera, there is nothing that we need wish to
smuggle into our own abounding land.
LETTER XLIV.
Exclusive Soirées.--Soirée Doctrinaire.--Duc de
Broglie.--Soirée Républicaine.--Soirée Royaliste.--Partie
Impériale.--Military Greatness.--Dame de l'Empire.
Though the _salons_ of Paris probably show at the present moment the
most mixed society that can be found mingled together in the world,
one occasionally finds oneself in the midst of a set evidently of one
stamp, and indeed proclaiming itself to be so; for wherever this
happens, the assembly is considered as peculiarly chosen and select,
and as having all the dignity of exclusiveness.
The picture of Paris as it is, may perhaps be better caught at a
glance at a party collected together without any reference to politics
or principles of any kind; but I have been well pleased to find myself
on three different occasions admitted to _soirées_ of the exclusive
kind.
At the first of these, I was told the names of most of the company by
a kind friend who sat near me, and thus became aware that I had the
honour of being in company with most of King Philippe's present
ministry. Three or four of these gentlemen were introduced to me, and
I had the advantage of seeing _de près_, during their hours of
relaxation, the men who have perhaps at this moment as heavy a weight
of responsibility upon their shoulders as any set of ministers ever
sustained.
Nevertheless, nothing like gloom, preoccupation, or uneasiness,
appeared to pervade them; and yet that chiefest subject of anxiety,
the _Procès Monstre_, was by no means banished from their discourse.
Their manner of treating it, however, was certainly not such as to
make one believe that they were at all likely to sink under their
load, or that they felt in any degree embarrassed or distressed by it.
Some of the extravagances of _les accusés_ were discussed gaily
enough, and the general tone was that of men who knew perfectly well
what they were about, and who found more to laugh at than to fear in
the opposition and abuse they encountered. This light spirit however,
which to me seemed fair enough in the hours of recreation, had better
not be displayed on graver occasions, as it naturally produces
exasperation on the part of the prisoners, which, however little
dangerous it may be to the state, is nevertheless a feeling which
should not be unnecessarily excited. In that amusing paper or
magazine--I know not which may be its title--called the "Chronique de
Paris," I read some days ago a letter describing one of the _séances_
of the Chamber of Peers on this _procès_, in which the gaiety
manifested by M. de Broglie is thus censured:--
"J'ai fait moi-même partie de ce public privilégié que les accusés ne
reconnaissent pas comme un vrai public, et j'ai pu assister jeudi à
cette dramatique audience où la voix tonnante d'un accusé lisant une
protestation, a couvert la voix du ministère public. J'étais du nombre
de ceux qui ont eu la fièvre de cette scène, et je n'ai pu comprendre,
au milieu de l'agitation générale, qu'un homme aussi bien élevé que M.
de Broglie (je ne dis pas qu'un ministre) trouvât seul qu'il y avait
là sujet de rire en lorgnant ce vrai Romain, comparable à ces tribuns
qui, dans les derniers temps de la république, faisaient trembler les
patriciens sur leurs chaises curules."
"_Ce vrai Romain_," however, rather deserved to be scourged than
laughed at; for never did any criminal when brought to the bar of his
country insult its laws and its rulers more grossly than the prisoner
Beaune on this occasion. If indeed the accounts which reach us by the
daily papers are not exaggerated, the outrageous conduct of the
accused furnishes at every sitting sufficient cause for anger and
indignation, however unworthy it may be of inspiring anything
approaching to a feeling of alarm: and the calm, dignified, and
temperate manner in which the Chamber of Peers has hitherto conducted
itself may serve, I think, as an example to many other legislative
assemblies.
The ministers of Louis-Philippe are very fortunate that the mode of
trial decided on by them in this troublesome business is likely to be
carried through by the upper house in a manner so little open to
reasonable animadversion. The duty, and a most harassing one it is,
has been laid upon them, as many think, illegally; but the task has
been imposed by an authority which it is their duty to respect, and
they have entered upon it in a spirit that does them honour.
The second exclusive party to which I was fortunate enough to be
admitted, was in all respects quite the reverse of the first. The fair
mistress of the mansion herself assured me that there was not a single
doctrinaire present.
Here, too, the eternal subject of the _Procès Monstre_ was discussed,
but in a very different tone, and with feelings as completely as
possible in opposition to those which dictated the lively and
triumphant sort of persiflage to which I had before listened.
Nevertheless, the conversation was anything but _triste_, as the party
was in truth particularly agreeable; but, amidst flashes of wit,
sinister sounds that foreboded future revolutions grumbled every now
and then like distant thunder. Then there was shrugging of shoulders,
and shaking of heads, and angry taps upon the snuff-box; and from
time to time, amid the prattle of pretty women, and the well-turned
_gentillesses_ of those they prattled to, might be heard such phrases
as, "Tout n'est pas encore fini".... "Nous verrons ... nous
verrons".... "S'ils sont arbitraires!" ... and the like.
The third set was as distinct as may be from the two former. This
reunion was in the quartier St. Germain; and, if the feeling which I
know many would call prejudice does not deceive me, the tone of
first-rate good society was greatly more conspicuous here than at
either of the others. By all the most brilliant personages who adorned
the other two _soirées_ which I have described, I strongly suspect
that the most distinguished of this third would be classed as
_rococo_; but they were composed of the real stuff that constitutes
the true patrician, for all that. Many indeed were quite of the old
régime, and many others their noble high-minded descendants: but
whether they were old or young,--whether remarkable for having played
a distinguished part in the scenes that have been, or for sustaining
the chivalric principles of their race, by quietly withdrawing from
the scenes that are,--in either case they had that air of inveterate
superiority which I believe nothing on earth but gentle blood can
give.
There is a fourth class still, consisting of the dignitaries of the
Empire, which, if they ever assemble in distinct committee, I have yet
to become acquainted with. But I suspect that this is not the case:
one may perhaps meet them more certainly in some houses than in
others; but, unless it be around the dome of the Invalides, I do not
believe that they are to be found anywhere as a class apart.
Nothing, however, can be less difficult than to trace them: they are
as easily discerned as a boiled lobster among a panier full of such as
are newly caught.
That amusing little vaudeville called, I think, "La Dame de l'Empire,"
or some such title, contains the best portrait of a whole _clique_,
under the features of an individual character, of any comedy I know.
None of the stormy billows which have rolled over France during the
last forty years have thrown up a race so strongly marked as those
produced by the military era of the Empire. The influence of the
enormous power which was then in action has assuredly in some
directions left most noble vestiges. Wherever science was at work,
this power propelled it forward; and ages yet unborn may bless for
this the fostering patronage of Napoleon: some midnight of devastation
and barbarism must fall upon the world before what he has done of this
kind can be obliterated.
But the same period, while it brought forth from obscurity talent and
enterprise which without its influence would never have been greeted
by the light of day, brought forward at the same time legions of men
and women to whom this light and their advanced position in society
are by no means advantageous in the eyes of a passing looker-on.
I have heard that it requires three generations to make a gentleman.
Those created by Napoleon have not yet fairly reached a second; and,
with all respect for talent, industry, and valour be it spoken, the
necessity of this slow process very frequently forces itself upon
one's conviction at Paris.
It is probable that the great refinement of the post-imperial
aristocracy of France may be one reason why the deficiencies of those
now often found mixed up with them is so remarkable. It would be
difficult to imagine a contrast in manner more striking than that of a
lady who would be a fair specimen of the old Bourbon _noblesse_, and a
bouncing _maréchale_ of Imperial creation. It seems as if every
particle of the whole material of which each is formed gave evidence
of the different birth of the spirit that dwells within. The sound of
the voice is a contrast; the glance of the eye is a contrast; the
smile is a contrast; the step is a contrast. Were every feature of a
_dame de l'Empire_ and a _femme noble_ formed precisely in the same
mould, I am quite sure that the two would look no more alike than
Queen Constance and Nell Gwyn.
Nor is there at all less difference in the two races of gentlemen. I
speak not of the men of science or of art; their rank is of another
kind: but there are still left here and there specimens of decorated
greatness which look as if they must have been dragged out of the
guard-room by main force; huge moustached militaires, who look at
every slight rebuff as if they were ready to exclaim, "Sacré nom de
D***! je suis un héros, moi! Vive l'Empereur!"
A good deal is sneeringly said respecting the parvenus fashionables of
the present day: but station, and place, and court favour, must at any
rate give something of reality to the importance of those whom the
last movement has brought to the top; and this is vastly less
offensive than the empty, vulgar, camp-like reminiscences of Imperial
patronage which are occasionally brought forward by those who may
thank their sabre for having cut a path for them into the salons of
Paris. The really great men of the Empire--and there are certainly
many of them--have taken care to have other claims to distinction
attached to their names than that of having been dragged out of heaven
knows what profound obscurity by Napoleon: I may say of such, in the
words of the soldier in Macbeth--
"If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannon overcharged with double cracks."
As for the elderly ladies, who, from simple little bourgeoises
demoiselles, were in those belligerent days sabred and trumpeted into
maréchales and duchesses, I must think that they make infinitely worse
figures in a drawing-room, than those who, younger in years and newer
in dignity, have all their blushing honours fresh upon them. Besides,
in point of fact, the having one Bourbon prince instead of another
upon the throne, though greatly to be lamented from the manner in
which it was accomplished, can hardly be expected to produce so
violent a convulsion among the aristocracy of France, as must of
necessity have ensued from the reign of a soldier of fortune, though
the mightiest that ever bore arms.
Many of the noblest races of France still remain wedded to the soil
that has been for ages native to their name. Towards these it is
believed that King Louis-Philippe has no very repulsive feelings; and
should no farther changes come upon the country--no more immortal days
arise to push all men from their stools, it is probable that the
number of these will not diminish in the court circles.
Meanwhile, the haut-ton born during the last revolution must of
course have an undisputed _entrée_ everywhere; and if by any external
marks they are particularly brought forward to observation, it is
only, I think, by a toilet among the ladies more costly and less
simple than that of their high-born neighbours; and among the
gentlemen, by a general air of prosperity and satisfaction, with an
expression of eye sometimes a little triumphant, often a little
patronizing, and always a little busy.
It was a duchess, and no less, who decidedly gave me the most perfect
idea of an Imperial parvenue that I have ever seen off the stage. When
a lady of this class attains so very elevated a rank, the perils of
her false position multiply around her. A quiet bourgeoise turned into
a noble lady of the third or fourth degree is likely enough to look a
little awkward; but if she has the least tact in the world, she may
remain tranquil and _sans ridicule_ under the honourable shelter of
those above her. But when she becomes a duchess, the chances are
terribly against her: "Madame la Duchesse" must be conspicuous; and if
in addition to mauvais ton she should par malheur be a bel esprit,
adding the pretension of literature to that of station, it is likely
that she will be very remarkable indeed.
[Illustration: Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.
SOIREE.
London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1835.]
My parvenue duchess _is_ very remarkable indeed. She steps out like a
corporal carrying a message: her voice is the first, the last, and
almost the only thing heard in the salon that she honours with her
presence,--except it chance, indeed, that she lower her tone
occasionally to favour with a whisper some gallant _décoré_, military,
scientific or artistic, of the same standing as herself; and moreover,
she promenades her eyes over the company as if she had a right to
bring them all to roll-call.
Notwithstanding all this, the lady is certainly a person of talent;
and had she happily remained in the station in which both herself and
her husband were born, she might not perhaps have thought it necessary
to speak quite so loud, and her bons mots would have produced
infinitely greater effect. But she is so thoroughly out of place in
the grade to which she has been unkindly elevated, that it seems as if
Napoleon had decided on her fate in a humour as spiteful as that of
Monsieur Jourdain, when he said--
"Votre fille sera marquise, en dépit de tout le monde: et si vous me
mettez en colère, je la ferai duchesse."
LETTER XLV.
L'Abbé Lacordaire.--Various Statements respecting
him.--Poetical description of Notre Dame.--The prophecy of
a Roman Catholic.--Les Jeunes Gens de Paris--Their
omnipotence.
The great reputation of another preacher induced us on Sunday to
endure two hours more of tedious waiting before the mass which
preceded the sermon began. It is only thus that a chair can be hoped
for when the Abbé Lacordaire mounts the pulpit of Notre Dame. The
penalty is really heavy; but having heard this celebrated person
described as one who "appeared sent by Heaven to restore France to
Christianity"--as "a hypocrite that set Tartuffe immeasurably in the
background"--as "a man whose talent surpassed that of any preacher
since Bossuet"--and as "a charlatan who ought to harangue from a tub,
instead of from the _chaire de Notre Dame de Paris_,"--I determined
upon at least seeing and hearing him, however little I might be able
to decide on which of the two sides of the prodigious chasm that
yawned between his friends and enemies the truth was most likely to
be found. There were, however, several circumstances which lessened
the tedium of this long interval: I might go farther, and confess that
this period was by no means the least profitable portion of the four
hours which we passed in the church.
On entering, we found the whole of the enormous nave railed in, as it
had been on Easter Sunday for the concert (for so in truth should that
performance be called); but upon applying at the entrance to this
enclosure, we were told that no ladies could be admitted to that part
of the church--but that the side aisles were fully furnished with
chairs, and afforded excellent places.
This arrangement astonished me in many ways:--first, as being so
perfectly un-national; for go where you will in France, you find the
best places reserved for the women,--at least, this was the first
instance in which I ever found it otherwise. Next, it astonished me,
because at every church I had entered, the congregations, though
always crowded, had been composed of at least twelve women to one man.
When, therefore, I looked over the barrier upon the close-packed,
well-adjusted rows of seats prepared to receive fifteen hundred
persons, I thought that unless all the priests in Paris came in person
to do honour to their eloquent confrère, it was very unlikely that
this uncivil arrangement should be found necessary. There was no
time, however, to waste in conjecture; the crowd already came rushing
in at every door, and we hastened to secure the best places that the
side aisles afforded. We obtained seats between the pillars
immediately opposite to the pulpit, and felt well enough contented,
having little doubt that a voice which had made itself heard so well
must have power to reach even to the side aisles of Notre Dame.
The first consolation which I found for my long waiting, after placing
myself in that attitude of little ease which the straight-backed chair
allowed, was from the recollection that the interval was to be passed
within the venerable walls of Notre Dame. It is a glorious old church,
and though not comparable in any way to Westminster Abbey, or to
Antwerp, or Strasburg, or Cologne, or indeed to many others which I
might name, has enough to occupy the eye very satisfactorily for a
considerable time. The three elegant rose-windows, throwing in their
coloured light from north, west, and south, are of themselves a very
pretty study for half an hour or so; and besides, they brought back,
notwithstanding their miniature diameter of forty feet, the remembrance
of the magnificent circular western window of Strasburg--the
recollection of which was almost enough to while away another long
interval. Then I employed myself, not very successfully, in labouring
to recollect the quaint old verses which I had fallen upon a few days
before, giving the dimensions of the church, and which I will herewith
transcribe for your use and amusement, in case you should ever find
yourself sitting as I was, _bolt upright_, as we elegantly express
ourselves when describing this ecclesiastical-Parisian attitude, while
waiting the advent of the Abbé Lacordaire.
"Si tu veux savoir comme est ample
De Notre Dame le grand temple,
Il y a, dans oeuvre, pour le seur,
Dix et sept toises de hauteur,
Sur la largeur de vingt-quatre,
Et soixante-cinq, sans rebattre,
A de long; aux tours haut montées
Trente-quatre sont comptées;
Le tout fondé sur pilotis--
Aussi vrai que je te le dis."
While repeating this poetical description, you have only to remember
that _une toise_ is the same as a fathom,--that is to say, six feet;
and then, as you turn your head in all directions to look about you,
you will have the satisfaction of knowing exactly how far you can see
in each.
I had another source of amusement, and by no means a trifling one, in
watching the influx of company. The whole building soon contained as
many human beings as could be crammed into it; and the seats, which we
thought, as we took them, were very so-so places indeed, became
accomodations for which to be most heartily thankful. Not a pillar
but supported the backs of as many men as could stand round it; and
not a jutting ornament, the balustrade of a side altar, or any other
"point of 'vantage," but looked as if a swarm of bees were beginning
to hang upon it.
But the sight which drew my attention most was that displayed by the
exclusive central aisle. When told that it was reserved for gentlemen,
I imagined of course that I should see it filled by a collection of
staid-looking, middle-aged, Catholic citizens, who were drawn together
from all parts of the town, and perhaps the country too, for the
purpose of hearing the celebrated preacher: but, to my great
astonishment, instead of this I saw pouring in by dozens at a time,
gay, gallant, smart-looking young men, such indeed as I had rarely
seen in Paris on any other religious occasion. Amongst these was a
sprinkling of older men; but the great majority were decidedly under
thirty. The meaning of this phenomenon I could by no means understand;
but while I was tormenting myself to discover some method of obtaining
information respecting it, accident brought relief to my curiosity in
the shape of a communicative neighbour.
In no place in the world is it so easy, I believe, to enter into
conversation with strangers as in Paris. There is a courteous
inclination to welcome every attempt at doing so which pervades all
ranks, and any one who wishes it may easily find or make opportunities
of hearing the opinions of all classes. The present time, too, is
peculiarly favourable for this; a careless freedom in uttering
opinions of all kinds being, I think, the most remarkable feature in
the manners of Paris at the present day.
I have heard that it is difficult to get a tame, flat, short,
matter-of-fact answer from a genuine Irishman;--from a genuine
Frenchman it is impossible: let his reply to a question which seeks
information contain as little of it as the dry Anglicism "I don't
know," it is never given without a tone or a turn of phrase that not
only relieves its inanity, but leaves you with the agreeable
persuasion that the speaker would be more satisfactory if he could,
and moreover that he would be extremely happy to reply to any further
questions you may wish to ask, either on the same, or any other
subject whatever.
It was in consequence of my moving my chair an inch and a half to
accommodate the long limbs of a grey-headed neighbour, that he was
induced to follow his "Milles pardons, madame!" with an observation on
the inconvenience endured on the present occasion by the appropriation
of all the best places to the gentlemen. It was quite contrary, he
added, to the usual spirit of Parisian arrangements; and yet, in fact,
it was the only means of preventing the ladies suffering from the
tremendous rush of _jeunes gens_ who constantly came to hear the Abbé
Lacordaire.
"I never saw so large a proportion of young men in any congregation,"
said I, hoping he might explain the mystery to me. What I heard,
however, rather startled than enlightened me.
"The Catholic religion was never so likely to be spread over the whole
earth as it is at present," he replied. "The kingdom of Ireland will
speedily become fully reconciled to the see of Rome. Le Sieur
O'Connell desires to be canonized. Nothing, in truth, remains for that
portion of your country to do, but to follow the example we set during
our famous Three Days, and place a prince of its own choosing upon the
throne."
I am persuaded that he thought we were Irish Roman Catholics: our
sitting with such exemplary patience to wait for the preaching of this
new apostle was not, I suppose, to be otherwise accounted for. I said
nothing to undeceive him, but wishing to bring him back to speak of
the congregation before us, I replied,
"Paris at least, if we may judge from the vast crowd collected here,
is more religious than she has been of late years."
"France," replied he with energy, "as you may see by looking at this
throng, is no longer the France of 1823, when her priests sang
canticles to the tune of "_Ça ira_." France is happily become most
deeply and sincerely Catholic. Her priests are once more her orators,
her magnates, her highest dignitaries. She may yet give cardinals to
Rome--and Rome may again give a minister to France."
I knew not what to answer: my silence did not seem to please him, and
I believe he began to suspect he had mistaken the party altogether,
for after sitting for a few minutes quite silent, he rose from the
place into which he had pushed himself with considerable difficulty,
and making his way through the crowd behind us, disappeared; but I saw
him again, before we left the church, standing on the steps of the
pulpit.
The chair he left was instantly occupied by another gentleman, who had
before found standing-room near it. He had probably remarked our
sociable propensities, for he immediately began talking to us.
"Did you ever see anything like the fashion which this man has
obtained?" said he. "Look at those _jeunes gens_, madame! ... might
one not fancy oneself at a première représentation?"
"Those must be greatly mistaken," I replied, "who assert that the
young men of Paris are not among her _fidèles_."
"Do you consider their appearing here a proof that they are
religious?" inquired my neighbour with a smile.
"Certainly I do, sir," I replied: "how can I interpret it otherwise?"
"Perhaps not--perhaps to a stranger it must have this appearance; but
to a man who knows Paris...." He smiled again very expressively, and,
after a short pause, added--"Depend upon it, that if a man of equal
talent and eloquence with this Abbé Lacordaire were to deliver a
weekly discourse in favour of atheism, these very identical young men
would be present to hear him."
"Once they might," said I, "from curiosity: but that they should
follow him, as I understand they do, month after month, if what he
uttered were at variance with their opinions, seems almost
inconceivable."
"And yet it is very certainly the fact," he replied: "whoever can
contrive to obtain the reputation of talent at Paris, let the nature
of it be of what kind it may, is quite sure that _les jeunes gens_
will resort to hear and see him. They believe themselves of
indefeasible right the sole arbitrators of intellectual reputation;
and let the direction in which it is shown be as foreign as may be to
their own pursuits, they come as a matter of prescriptive right to
put their seal upon the aspirant's claim, or to refuse it."
"Then, at least, they acknowledge that the Abbé's words have power, or
they would not grant their suffrage to him."
"They assuredly acknowledge that his words have eloquence; but if by
power, you mean power of conviction, or conversion, I do assure you
that they acknowledge nothing like it. Not only do I believe that
these young men are themselves sceptics, but I do not imagine that
there is one in ten of them who has the least faith in the Abbé's own
orthodoxy."
"But what right have they to doubt it?... Surely he would hardly be
permitted to preach at Notre Dame, where the archbishop himself sits
in judgment on him, were he otherwise than orthodox?"
"I was at school with him," he replied: "he was a fine sharp-witted
boy, and gave very early demonstrations of a mind not particularly
given either to credulity, or subservience to any doctrines that he
found puzzling."
"I should say that this was the greatest proof of his present
sincerity. He doubted as a boy--but as a man he believes."
"That is not the way the story goes," said he. "But hark! there is the
bell: the mass is about to commence."
He was right: the organ pealed, the fine chant of the voices was heard
above it, and in a few minutes we saw the archbishop and his splendid
train escorting the Host to its ark upon the altar.
During the interval between the conclusion of the mass and the arrival
of the Abbé Lacordaire in the pulpit, my sceptical neighbour again
addressed me.
"Are you prepared to be very much enchanted by what you are going to
hear?" said he.
"I hardly know what to expect," I replied: "I think my idea of the
preacher was higher when I came here, than since I have heard you
speak of him."
"You will find that he has a prodigious flow of words, much vehement
gesticulation, and a very impassioned manner. This is quite sufficient
to establish his reputation for eloquence among _les jeunes gens_."
"But I presume you do not yourself subscribe to the sentence
pronounced by these young critics?"
"Yes, I do,--as far, at least, as to acknowledge that this man has not
attained his reputation without having displayed great ability. But
though all the talent of Paris has long consented to receive its crown
of laurels from the hands of her young men, it would be hardly
reasonable to expect that their judgment should be as profound as
their power is great."
"Your obedience to this beardless synod is certainly very
extraordinary," said I: "I cannot understand it."
"I suppose not," said he, laughing; "it is quite a Paris fashion; but
we all seem contented that it should be so. If a new play appears, its
fate must be decided by _les jeunes gens_; if a picture is exhibited,
its rank amidst the works of modern art can only be settled by them:
does a dancer, a singer, an actor, or a preacher appear--a new member
in the tribune, or a new prince upon the throne,--it is still _les
jeunes gens_ who must pass judgment on them all; and this judgment is
quoted with a degree of deference utterly inconceivable to a
stranger."
"Chut! ... chut!" ... was at this moment uttered by more than one
voice near us: "le voilà!" I glanced my eye towards the pulpit, but it
was still empty; and on looking round me, I perceived that all eyes
were turned in the direction of a small door in the north aisle,
almost immediately behind us. "Il est entré là!" said a young woman
near us, in a tone that seemed to indicate a feeling deeper than
respect, and, in truth, not far removed from adoration. Her eyes were
still earnestly fixed upon the door, and continued to be so, as well
as those of many others, till it reopened and a slight young man in
the dress of a priest prepared for the _chaire_ appeared at it. A
verger made way for him through the crowd, which, thick and closely
wedged as it was, fell back on each side of him, as he proceeded to
the pulpit, with much more docility than I ever saw produced by the
clearing a passage through the intervention of a troop of horse.
Silence the most profound accompanied his progress; I never witnessed
more striking demonstrations of respect: and yet it is said that
three-fourths of Paris believe this man to be a hypocrite.
As soon as he had reached the pulpit, and while preparing himself by
silent prayer for the duty he was about to perform, a movement became
perceptible at the upper part of the choir; and presently the
archbishop and his splendid retinue of clergy were seen moving in a
body towards that part of the nave which is immediately in front of
the preacher. On arriving at the space reserved for them, each
noiselessly dropped into his allotted seat according to his place and
dignity, while the whole congregation respectfully stood to watch the
ceremony, and seemed to
"Admirer un si bel ordre, et reconnaître l'église."
It is easier to describe to you everything which preceded the sermon,
than the sermon itself. This was such a rush of words, such a burst
and pouring out of passionate declamation, that even before I had
heard enough to judge of the matter, I felt disposed to prejudge the
preacher, and to suspect that his discourse would have more of the
flourish and furbelow of human rhetoric than of the simplicity of
divine truth in it.
His violent action, too, disgusted me exceedingly. The rapid and
incessant movement of his hands, sometimes of one, sometimes of both,
more resembled that of the wings of a humming-bird than anything else
I can remember: but the _hum_ proceeded from the admiring
congregation. At every pause he made, and like the claptraps of a bad
actor, they were frequent, and evidently faits exprès: a little gentle
laudatory murmur ran through the crowd.
I remember reading somewhere of a priest nobly born, and so anxious to
keep his flock in their proper place, that they might not come
"between the wind and his nobility," that his constant address to them
when preaching was, "Canaille Chrétienne!" This was bad--very bad,
certainly; but I protest, I doubt if the Abbé Lacordaire's manner of
addressing his congregation as "Messieurs" was much less unlike the
fitting tone of a Christian pastor. This mundane apostrophe was
continually repeated throughout the whole discourse, and, I dare say,
had its share in producing the disagreeable effect I experienced from
his eloquence. I cannot remember having ever heard a preacher I less
liked, reverenced, and admired, than this new Parisian saint. He made
very pointed allusions to the reviving state of the Roman Catholic
Church in Ireland, and anathematized pretty cordially all such as
should oppose it.
In describing the two hours' prologue to the mass, I forgot to mention
that many young men--not in the reserved places of the centre aisle,
but sitting near us, beguiled the tedious interval by reading. Some of
the volumes they held had the appearance of novels from a circulating
library, and others were evidently collections of songs, probably less
spiritual than _spirituels_.
The whole exhibition certainly showed me a new page in the history of
_Paris as it is_, and I therefore do not regret the four hours it cost
me: but once is enough--I certainly will never go to hear the Abbé
Lacordaire again.
LETTER XLVI.
La Tour de Nesle.
It is, I believe, nearly two years ago since the very extraordinary
drama called "La Tour de Nesle" was sent me to read, as a specimen of
the outrageous school of dramatic extravagance which had taken
possession of all the theatres in Paris; but I certainly did not
expect that it would keep its place as a favourite spectacle with the
people of this great and enlightened capital long enough for me to see
it, at this distance of time, still played before a very crowded
audience.
That this is a national disgrace, is most certain: but the fault is
less attributable to the want of good taste, than to the lamentable
blunder which permits every species of vice and abomination to be
enacted before the eyes of the people, without any restraint or check
whatever, under the notion that they are thereby permitted to enjoy a
desirable privilege and a noble freedom. Yet in this same country it
is illegal to sell a deleterious drug! There is no logic in this.
It is however an undeniable fact, as I think I have before stated,
that the best class of Parisian society protest against this
disgusting license, and avoid--upon principle loudly proclaimed and
avowed--either reading or seeing acted these detestable compositions.
Thus, though the crowded audiences constantly assembled whenever they
are brought forward prove but too clearly that such persons form but a
small minority, their opinion is nevertheless sufficient, or ought to
be so, to save the country from the disgrace of admitting that such
things are good.
We seem to pique ourselves greatly on the superiority of our taste in
these matters; but let us pique ourselves rather on our theatrical
censorship. Should the clamours and shoutings of misrule lead to the
abolition of this salutary restraint, the consequences would, I fear,
be such as very soon to rob us of our present privilege of abusing our
neighbours on this point.
While things do remain as they are, however, we may, I think, smile a
little at such a judgment as Monsieur de Saintfoix passes upon our
theatrical compositions, when comparing them to those of France.
"Les actions de nos tragédies," says he, "sont pathétiques et
terribles; celles des tragédies angloises sont atroces. On y met sous
les yeux du spectateur les objets les plus horribles; un mari qui
discourt avec sa femme, qui la caresse et l'étrangle."
Might one not think that the writer of this passage had just arrived
from witnessing the famous scene in the "Monomane," only he had
mistaken it for English? But he goes on--
"Une fille toute sanglante...." (Triboulet's daughter Blanche, for
instance.)--"Après l'avoir violée...."
He then proceeds to reason upon the subject, and justly enough, I
think--only we should read England for France, and France for England.
"Il n'est pas douteux que les arts agréables ne réussissent chez un
peuple qu'autant qu'ils en prennent le génie, et qu'un auteur
dramatique ne sauroit espérer de plaire si les objets et les images
qu'il présente ne sont pas analogues au caractère, au naturel, et au
goût de la nation: on pourroit donc conclure de la différence des deux
théâtres, que l'âme d'un ANGLAIS est sombre, féroce, sanguinaire; et
que celle d'un FRANÇAIS est vive, impatiente, emportée, mais généreuse
même dans sa haine; idolatrant l'honneur"--(just like Buridan in this
same drama of the Tour de Nesle--this popular production of _la Jeune
France_--_la France régénérée_)--"idolatrant l'honneur, et ne cessant
jamais de l'apercevoir, malgré le trouble et toute la violence des
passions."
Though it is impossible to read this passage without a smile, at a
time when it is so easy for the English to turn the tables against
this patriotic author, one must sigh too, while reflecting on the
lamentable change which has taken place in the moral feeling of
revolutionised France since the period at which it was written.
What would Saintfoix say to the notion that Victor Hugo had "heaved
the ground from beneath the feet of Corneille and Racine"? The
question, however, is answered by a short sentence in his "Essais
Historiques," where he thus expresses himself:--
"Je croirois que la décadence de notre nation seroit prochaine, si les
hommes de quarante ans n'y regardoient pas CORNEILLE comme le plus
grand génie qui ait jamais été."
If the spirit of the historian were to revisit the earth, and float
over the heads of a party of Parisian critics while pronouncing
sentence on his favourite author, he might probably return to the
shades unharmed, for he would only hear "Rococo! Rococo! Rococo!"
uttered as by acclamation; and unskilled to comprehend the new-born
eloquence, he would doubtless interpret it as a _refrain_ to express
in one pithy word all reverence, admiration, and delight.
But to return to "La Tour de Nesle." The story is taken from a passage
in Brantôme's history "des Femmes Galantes," where he says, "qu'une
reine de France"--whom however he does not name, but who is said to
have been Marguérite de Bourgogne, wife of Louis Dix--"se tenoit là (à
la Tour de Nesle) d'ordinaire, laquelle fesant le guet aux passans, et
ceux qui lui revenoient et agréoient le plus, de quelque sorte de gens
que ce fussent, les fesoit appeler et venir à soy, et après ... les
fesoit précipiter du haut de la tour en bas, en l'eau, et les fesoit
noyer. Je ne veux pas," he continues, "assurer que cela soit vrai,
mais le vulgaire, au moins la plupart de Paris, l'affirme, et n'y a si
commun qu'en lui montrant la tour seulement, et en l'interrogeant, que
de lui-même ne le die."
This story one might imagine was horrible and disgusting enough; but
MM. Gaillardet et ***** (it is thus the authors announce themselves)
thought otherwise, and accordingly they have introduced her majesty's
sisters, the ladies Jeanne and Blanche of Burgundy, who were both
likewise married to sons of Philippe-le-Bel, the brothers of Louis
Dix, to share her nocturnal orgies. These "imaginative and powerful"
scenic historians also, according to the fashion of the day among the
theatrical writers of France, add incest to increase the interest of
the drama.
This is enough, and too much, as to the plot; and for the execution of
it by the authors, I can only say that it is about equal in literary
merit to the translations of an Italian opera handed about at the
Haymarket. It is in prose--and, to my judgment, very vulgar prose; yet
it is not only constantly acted, but I am assured that the sale of it
has been prodigiously great, and still continues to be so.
That a fearful and even hateful story, dressed up in all the
attractive charm of majestic poetry, and redeemed in some sort by the
noble sentiments of the personages brought into the scenes of which it
might be the foundation--that a drama so formed might captivate the
imagination even while it revolted the feelings, is very possible,
very natural, and nowise disgraceful either to the poet, or to those
whom his talent may lead captive. The classic tragedies which long
served as models to France abound in fables of this description.
Alfieri, too, has made use of such, following with a poet's wing the
steady onward flight of remorseless destiny, yet still sublime in
pathos and in dignity, though appalling in horror. In like manner, the
great French dramatists have triumphed by the power of their genius,
both over the disgust inspired by these awful classic mysteries, and
the unbending strictness of the laws which their antique models
enforced for their composition.
If we may herein deem the taste to have been faulty, the grace, the
majesty, the unswerving dignity of the tragic march throughout the
whole action--the lofty sentiments, the bursts of noble passion, and
the fine drapery of stately verse in which the whole was clothed, must
nevertheless raise our admiration to a degree that may perhaps almost
compete with what we feel for the enchanting wildness and unshackled
nature of our native dramas.
But what can we think of those who, having ransacked the pages of
history to discover whatever was most revolting to the human soul,
should sit down to arrange it in action, detailed at full length, with
every hateful circumstance exaggerated and brought out to view for the
purpose of tickling the curiosity of his countrymen and countrywomen,
and by that means beguiling them into the contemplation of scenes that
Virtue would turn from with loathing, and before which Innocence must
perish as she gazes? No gleam of goodness throughout the whole for the
heart to cling to,--no thought of remorseful penitence,--no spark of
noble feeling; nothing but vice,--low, grovelling, brutal vice,--from
the moment the curtain rises to display the obscene spectacle, to that
which sees it fall between the fictitious infamy on one side, and the
real impurity left on the other!
As I looked on upon the hideous scene, and remembered the classic
horrors of the Greek tragedians, and of the mighty imitators who have
followed them, I could not help thinking that the performance of MM.
Gaillardet et ***** was exceedingly like that of a monkey mimicking
the operations of a man. He gets hold of the same tools, but turns the
edges the wrong way; and instead of raising a majestic fabric in
honour of human genius, he rolls the materials in mud, begrimes his
own paws in the slimy cement, and then claws hold of every unwary
passenger who comes within his reach, and bespatters him with the
rubbish he has brought together. Such monkeys should be chained, or
they will do much mischief.
It is hardly possible that such dramas as the "Tour de Nesle" can be
composed with the intention of producing a great tragic effect; which
is surely the only reason which can justify bringing sin and misery
before the eyes of an audience. There is in almost every human heart a
strange love for scenes of terror and of woe. We love to have our
sympathies awakened--our deepest feelings roused; we love to study in
the magic mirror of the scene what we ourselves might feel did such
awful visitations come upon us; and there is an unspeakable interest
inspired by looking on, and fancying that were it so with us, we might
so act, so feel, so suffer, and so die. But is there in any land a
wretch so lost, so vile, as to be capable of feeling sympathy with any
sentiment or thought expressed throughout the whole progress of this
"Tour de Nesle"? God forbid!
I have heard of poets who have written under the inspiration of brandy
and laudanum--the exhalations from which are certainly not likely to
form themselves into images of distinctness or beauty; but the
inspiration that dictated the "Tour de Nesle" must have been something
viler still, though not less powerful. It must, I think, have been the
cruel calculation of how many dirty francs might be expressed from the
pockets of the idle, by a spectacle new from its depth of atrocity,
and attractive from its newness.
But, setting aside for a moment the sin and the scandal of producing
on a public stage such a being as the woman to whom MM. Gaillardet et
***** have chosen to give the name of Marguérite de Bourgogne, it is
an object of some curiosity to examine the literary merits of a piece
which, both on the stage and in the study, has been received by so
many thousands--perhaps millions--of individuals belonging to "_la
grande nation_" as a work deserving their patronage and support--or at
least as deserving their attention and attendance for years; years,
too, of hourly progressive intellect--years during which the march of
mind has outdone all former marches of human intelligence--years
during which Young France has been labouring to throw off her ancient
coat of worn-out rococoism, and to clothe herself in new-fledged
brightness. During these years she has laid on one shelf her
once-venerated Corneille,--on another, her almost worshipped Racine.
Molière is named but as a fine antique; and Voltaire himself, spite of
his strong claims upon their revolutionary affections, can hardly be
forgiven for having said of the two whom Victor Hugo is declared to
have overthrown, that "Ces hommes enseignèrent à la nation, à penser,
à sentir, à s'exprimer; leurs auditeurs, instruits par eux seuls,
devinrent enfin des juges sévères pour eux mêmes qui les avaient
éclairés." Let any one whose reason is not totally overthrown by the
fever and delirium of innovation read the "Tour de Nesle," and find
out if he can any single scene, speech, or phrase deserving the
suffrage which Paris has accorded to it. Has the dialogue either
dignity, spirit, or truth of nature to recommend it? Is there a single
sentiment throughout the five acts with which an honest man can
accord? Is there even an approach to grace or beauty in the
_tableaux_? or skill in the arrangement of the scenes? or keeping of
character among the demoniacal _dramatis personæ_ which MM. Gaillardet
et ***** have brought together? or, in short, any one merit to
recommend it--except only its superlative defiance of common decency
and common sense?
If there be any left among the men of France; I speak not now of her
boys, the spoilt grandchildren of the old revolution;--but if there be
any left among her men, as I in truth believe there are, who deprecate
this eclipse of her literary glory, is it not sad that they should be
forced to permit its toleration, for fear they should be sent to Ham
for interfering with the liberty of the press?
It is impossible to witness the representation of one of these
infamous pieces without perceiving, as you glance your eye around the
house, who are its patrons and supporters. At no great distance from
us, when we saw the "Tour de Nesle," were three young men who had all
of them a most thoroughly "_jeunes gens_" and republican cast of
countenance, and tournure of person and dress. They tossed their heads
and snuffed the theatrical air of "_la Jeune France_," as if they felt
that they were, or ought to be, her masters: and it is a positive fact
that nothing pre-eminently absurd or offensive was done or said upon
the stage, which this trio did not mark with particular admiration and
applause.
There was, however, such a saucy look of determination to do what they
knew was absurd, that I gave them credit for being aware of the
nonsense of what they applauded, from the very fact that they did
applaud it.
It is easy enough sometimes to discover "le vrai au travers du
ridicule;" and these silly boys were not, I am persuaded, such utter
blockheads as they endeavoured to appear. It is a bad and mischievous
tone, however; and the affecting a vice where you have it not, is
quite as detestable a sort of hypocrisy as any other.
Some thousand years hence perhaps, if any curious collectors of rare
copies should contrive among them to preserve specimens of the French
dramas of the present day, it may happen that while the times that are
gone shall continue to be classed as the Iron, the Golden, the Dark,
and the Augustan ages, this day of ours may become familiar in all
men's mouths as the Diabolic age,--unless, indeed, some charitable
critic shall step forward in our defence, and bestow upon it the
gentler appellation of "the Idiot era."
LETTER XLVII.
Palais Royal.--Variety of Characters.--Party of
English.--Restaurant.--Galerie d'Orléans.--Number of
Loungers.--Convenient abundance of Idle Men.--Théâtre du
Vaudeville.
Though, as a lady, you may fancy yourself quite beyond the possibility
of ever feeling any interest in the Palais Royal, its restaurans, its
trinket-shops, ribbon-shops, toy-shops &c. &c. &c. and all the world
of misery, mischief, and good cheer which rises _étage_ after _étage_
above them; I must nevertheless indulge in a little gossip respecting
it, because few things in Paris--I might, I believe, say nothing--can
show an aspect so completely un-English in all ways as this singular
region. The palace itself is stately and imposing, though not
externally in the very best taste. Corneille, however, says of it,--
"L'univers entier ne peut voir rien d'égal
Au superbe dehors du Palais Cardinal,"
as it was called from having been built and inhabited by the Cardinal
de Richelieu. But it is the use made of the space which was originally
the Cardinal's garden, which gives the place its present interest.
All the world--men, women and children, gentle and simple, rich and
poor,--in short, I suppose every living soul that enters Paris, is
taken to look at the Palais Royal. But though many strangers linger
there, alas! all too long, there are many others who, according to my
notions, do not linger there long enough. The quickest eye cannot
catch at one glance, though that glance be in activity during a tour
made round the whole enclosure, all the national characteristic,
picturesque, and comic groups which float about there incessantly
through at least twenty hours of the twenty-four. I know that the
Palais Royal is a study which, in its higher walks and profoundest
depths, it would be equally difficult, dangerous, and disagreeable to
pursue: but with these altitudes and profundities I have nothing to
do; there are abundance of objects to be seen there, calculated and
intended to meet the eyes of all men, and women too, which may furnish
matter for observation, without either diving or climbing in pursuit
of knowledge that, after all, would be better lost than found.
But one should have the talent of Hogarth to describe the different
groups, with all their varied little episodes of peculiarity, which
render the Palais Royal so amusing. These groups are, to be sure, made
up only of Parisians, and of the wanderers who visit _la belle ville_
in order to see and be seen in every part of it; yet it is in vain
that you would seek elsewhere the same odd selection of human beings
that are to be found sans faute in every corner of the Palais Royal.
How it happens I know not, but so it is, that almost every person you
meet here furnishes food for speculation. If it be an elegant
well-appointed man of fashion, the fancy instantly tracks him to a
_salon de jeu_; and if you are very good-natured, your heart will ache
to think how much misery he is likely to carry home with him. If it be
a low, skulking, semi-genteel _moustache_, with large, dark, deep-set
eyes rolling about to see whom he can devour, you are as certain that
he too is making for a salon, as that a man with a rod and line on his
shoulder is going to fish. That pretty _soubrette_, with her neat
heels and smart silk apron, who has evidently a few francs tied up in
the corner of the handkerchief which she holds in her hand--do we not
know that she is peering through the window of every trinket-shop to
see where she can descry the most tempting gold ear-rings, for the
purchase of which a quarter's wages are about to be dis-kerchiefed?
We must not overlook, and indeed it would not be easy to do so, that
well-defined domestic party of our country-folks who have just turned
into the superb Galerie d'Orléans. Father, mother, and daughters--how
easy to guess their thoughts, and almost their words! The portly
father declares that it would make a capital Exchange: he has not yet
seen La Bourse. He looks up to its noble height--then steps forward a
pace or two, and measures with his eye the space on all sides--then
stops, and perhaps says to the stately lady on his arm, (whose eyes
meanwhile are wandering amidst shawls, gloves, Cologne bottles, and
Sèvres china, first on one side and then on the other,)--"This is not
badly built; it is light and lofty--and the width is very considerable
for so slight-looking a roof; but what is it compared to
Waterloo-bridge!"
Two pretty girls, with bright cheeks, dove-like eyes, and "tresses
like the morn," falling in un-numbered ringlets, so as almost to hide
their curious yet timid glances, precede the parent pair; but, with
pretty well-taught caution, pause when they pause, and step on when
they step on. But they can hardly look at anything; for do they not
know, though their downcast eyes can hardly be said to see it, that
those youths with coal-black hair, favoris and imperials, are spying
at them with their lorgnettes?
Here too, as at the Tuileries, are little pavilions to supply the
insatiable thirst for politics; and here, too, we could distinguish
the melancholy champion of the elder branch of the Bourbons, who is at
least sure to find the consolation of his faithful "Quotidienne," and
the sympathy of "La France." The sour republican stalks up, as usual,
to seize upon the "Réformateur;" while the comfortable doctrinaire
comes forth from the Café Véry, ruminating on the "Journal des
Débats," and the chances of his bargains at Tortoni's or La Bourse.
It was in a walk taken round three sides of the square that we marked
the figures I have mentioned, and many more too numerous to record, on
a day that we had fixed upon to gratify our curiosity by dining--not
at Véry's, or any other far-famed artist's, but tout bonnement at a
restaurant of quarante sous par tête. Having made our tour, we mounted
au second at numéro--I forget what, but it was where we had been
especially recommended to make this coup d'essai. The scene we entered
upon, as we followed a long string of persons who preceded us, was as
amusing as it was new to us all.
I will not say that I should like to dine three days in the week at
the Palais Royal for quarante sous par tête; but I will say, that I
should have been very sorry not to have done it once, and moreover,
that I heartily hope I may do it again.
The dinner was extremely good, and as varied as our fancy chose to
make it, each person having privilege to select three or four plats
from a carte that it would take a day to read deliberately. But the
dinner was certainly to us the least important part of the business.
The novelty of the spectacle, the number of strange-looking people,
and the perfect amenity and good-breeding which seemed to reign among
them all, made us look about us with a degree of interest and
curiosity that almost caused the whole party to forget the ostensible
cause of their visit.
There were many English, chiefly gentlemen, and several Germans with
their wives and daughters; but the majority of the company was French;
and from sundry little circumstances respecting taking the places
reserved for them, and different words of intelligence between
themselves and the waiters, it was evident that many among them were
not chance visitors, but in the daily habit of dining there. What a
singular mode of existence is this, and how utterly inconceivable to
English feelings!... Yet habit, and perhaps prejudice, apart, it is
not difficult to perceive that it has its advantages. In the first
place, there is no management in the world, not even that of Mrs.
Primrose herself, which could enable a man to dine at home, for the
sum of two francs, with the same degree of luxury as to what he eats,
that he does at one of these restaurans. Five hundred persons are
calculated upon as the daily average of company expected; and forty
pounds of ready money in Paris, with the skilful aid of French cooks,
will furnish forth a dinner for this number, and leave some profit
besides. Add to which, the sale of wine is, I believe, considerable.
Some part of the receipts, however, must be withdrawn as interest upon
the capital employed. The quantity of plate is very abundant, not only
in the apparently unlimited supply of forks and spoons, but in
furnishing the multitude of grim-looking silver bowls in which the
_potage_ is served.
On the whole, however, I can better understand the possibility of five
hundred dinners being furnished daily for two francs each, by one of
these innumerable establishments, than I can the marvel of five
hundred people being daily found by each of these to eat them.
Hundreds of these houses exist in Paris, and all of them are
constantly furnished with guests. But this manner of living, so
unnatural to us, seems not only natural, but needful to them. They do
it all so well--so pleasantly! Imagine for a moment the sort of tone
and style such a dining-room would take in London. I do not mean, if
limited to the same price, but set it greatly beyond the proportion:
let us imagine an establishment where males and females should dine at
five shillings a-head--what din, what unsocial, yet vehement
clattering, would inevitably ensue!--not to mention the utter
improbability that such a place, really and _bonâ fide_ open to the
public, should continue a reputable resort for ladies for a week after
its doors were open.
But here, everything was as perfectly respectable and well arranged as
if each little table had been placed with its separate party in a
private room at Mivart's. It is but fair, therefore, that while we hug
ourselves, as we are all apt to do, on the refinement which renders
the exclusive privacy of our own dining-rooms necessary to our
feelings of comfort, we should allow that equal refinement, though of
another kind, must exist among those who, when thrown thus
promiscuously together, still retain and manifest towards each other
the same deference and good-breeding which we require of those whom we
admit to our private circle.
At this restaurant, as everywhere else in Paris, we found it easy
enough to class our _gens_. I feel quite sure that we had around us
many of the employés du gouvernement actuel--several anciens
militaires of Napoleon's--some specimens of the race distinguished by
Louis Dix-huit and Charles Dix--and even, if I do not greatly mistake,
a few relics of the Convention, and of the unfortunate monarch who was
its victim.
But during this hour of rest and enjoyment all differences seem
forgotten; and however discordant may be their feelings, two Frenchmen
cannot be seated near each other at table, without exchanging
numberless civilities, and at last entering into conversation, so well
sustained and so animated, that instead of taking them for strangers
who had never met before, we, in our stately shyness, would be ready
to pronounce that they must be familiar friends.
Whether it be this _causant_, social temper which makes them prefer
thus living in public, or that thus living in public makes them
social, I cannot determine to my own satisfaction; but the one is not
more remarkable and more totally unlike our own manners than the
other, and I really think that no one who has not dined thus in Paris
can have any idea how very wide, in some directions, the line of
demarcation is between the two countries.
I have on former occasions dined with a party at places of much higher
price, where the object was to observe what a very good dinner a very
good cook could produce in Paris. But this experiment offered nothing
to our observation at all approaching in interest and nationality to
the dinner of quarante sous.
In the first place, you are much more likely to meet English than
French society at these costly repasts; and in the second, if you do
encounter at them a genuine native gourmet of la Grande Nation, he
will, upon this occasion, be only doing like ourselves,--that is to
say, giving himself un repas exquis, instead of regaling himself at
home with his family--
"Sur un lièvre flanqué de deux poulets étiques."
But at the humble restaurant of two francs, you have again a new page
of Paris existence to study,--and one which, while it will probably
increase your English relish for your English home, will show you no
unprofitable picture of the amiable social qualities of France. I
think that if we could find a people composed in equal proportions of
the two natures, they would be as near to social perfection as it is
possible to imagine.
The French are almost too amiable to every one they chance to sit
near. The lively smile, the kind empressement, the ready causerie,
would be more flattering did we not know that it was all equally at
the service of the whole world. Whereas we are more than equally wrong
in the other extreme; having the air of suspecting that every human
being who happens to be thrown into contact with us, before we know
his birth, parentage, and education, is something very dangerous, and
to be guarded against with all possible care and precaution. Query--Do
not the Germans furnish something very like this juste milieu?
Having concluded our unexpensive repast with the prescribed tasse de
café noir, we again sallied forth to take the tour of the Palais
Royal, in order to occupy the time till the opening of the Théâtre du
Vaudeville, with which, as we were so very close to it, we determined
to finish the evening.
We returned, as we came, through the noble Galerie d'Orléans, which
was now crowded with the assembled loungers of all the numerous
restaurans. It is a gay and animated scene at any time of the day; but
at this particular hour, just before the theatres open, and just after
the gay people have all refreshed their animal spirits, Paris itself
seems typified by the aspect of the lively, laughing, idle throng
assembled there.
One reason, I believe, why Paris is so much more amusing to a
looker-on than London, is, that it contains so many more people, in
proportion to its population, who have nothing in the world to do but
to divert themselves and others. There are so many more idle men here,
who are contented to live on incomes that with us would be considered
as hardly sufficient to supply a lodging; small rentiers, who prefer
being masters of their own time and amusing themselves with a little,
to working very hard and being very much ennuyés with a great deal of
money. I am not quite sure that this plan answers well when youth is
past--at least for the individuals themselves: it is probable, I
think, that as the strength, and health, and spirits fade away,
something of quieter and more substantial comfort must often be wished
for, when perhaps it is too late to obtain it; but for others--for all
those who form the circle round which the idle man of pleasure skims
thus lightly, he is a never-failing resource. What would become of all
the parties for amusement which take place morning, noon, and night in
Paris, if this race were extinct? Whether they are married or single,
they are equally eligible, equally necessary, equally welcome wherever
pleasure makes the business of the hour. With us, it is only a small
and highly-privileged class who can permit themselves to go wherever
and whenever pleasure beckons; but in France, no lady arranging a
fête, let it be of what kind it may, has need to think twice and
thrice before she can answer the important but tormenting question
of--"But what men can we get?"
The Vaudeville was very full, but we contrived to get a good box au
second, from whence we saw, greatly to our delectation and amusement,
three pretty little pieces,--"Les Gants Jaunes," "Le Premier Amour,"
and "Elle est Folle;" which last was of the larmoyante school, and
much less to my taste than the lively nonsense of the two former; yet
it was admirably well played too. But I always go to a vaudeville with
the intention of laughing; and if this purpose fail, I am
disappointed.
LETTER XLVIII.
Literary Conversation.--Modern Novelists.--Vicomte
d'Arlincourt.--His Portrait.--Châteaubriand.--Bernardin de
Saint Pierre.--Shakspeare.--Sir Walter Scott.--French
familiarity with English Authors.--Miss Mitford.--Miss
Landon.--Parisian passion for Novelty.--Extent of general
Information.
We were last night at a small party where there was neither dancing,
music, cards, nor--(wonderful to say!) politics to amuse or occupy us:
nevertheless, it was one of the most agreeable _soirées_ at which I
have been present in Paris. The conversation was completely on
literary subjects, but totally without the pretension of a literary
society. In fact, it was purely the effect of accident; and it was
just as likely that we might have passed the evening in talking of
pictures, or music, or rocks and rivers, as of books. But Fate decreed
that so it should be; and the consequence was, that we had the
pleasure of hearing three Frenchmen and two Frenchwomen talk for three
hours of the literature of their country. I do not mean to assert that
no other person spoke--but the frais de la conversation were certainly
furnished by the five natives.
One of the gentlemen, and that too the oldest man in company, was more
tolerant towards the present race of French novel-writers than any
person of his age and class that I have yet conversed with; but
nevertheless, his approval went no farther than to declare that he
thought the present mode of following human nature with a microscope
into all the recesses to which passion, and even vice, could lead it,
was calculated to make a better novelist than the fashion which
preceded it, of looking at all things through a magnifying medium, and
of straining and striving, in consequence, to make that appear great,
which was by its nature essentially the reverse.
The Vicomte d'Arlincourt was the author he named to establish the
truth of his proposition: he would not admit him to be an exaggeration
of the school which has passed away, but only the perfection of it.
"I remember," said he, "to have seen at the Louvre, many years ago, a
full-length portrait of this gentleman, which I thought at the time
was as perfect a symbol of what is called in France le style
romantique, as it was well possible to conceive. He was standing erect
on the rocky point of a precipice, with eye inspired, and tablets in
his hand: a foaming torrent rolled its tortured waters at his feet,
whilst he, calm and sublime, looked not 'comme une jeune beauté qu'on
arrache au sommeil,' but very like a young incroyable snatched from a
fashionable salon to meditate upon the wild majesty of nature, with
all the inspiring adjuncts of tempest, wildness, and solitude. He
appeared dressed in an elegant black coat and waistcoat, black silk
stockings, and dancing pumps. It would be lost labour," he continued,
"should I attempt to give you a more just idea of his style of writing
than the composition of this portrait conveys. It is in vain that M.
le Vicomte places himself amidst rocks and cataracts--he is still M.
le Vicomte; and his silk stockings and dancing pumps will remain
visible, spite of all the froth and foam he labours to raise around
him."
"It was not D'Arlincourt, however," said M. de C***, "who has
either the honour or dishonour of having invented this _style
romantique_--but a much greater man: it was Châteaubriand who first
broke through all that was left of classic restraint, and permitted
his imagination to run wild among everything in heaven and earth."
"You cannot, however, accuse him of running this wild race with his
imagination en habit bourgeois," said the third gentleman: "his style
is extravagant, but never ludicrous; Châteaubriand really has, what
D'Arlincourt affected to have, a poetical and abounding fancy, and a
fecundity of imagery which has often betrayed him into bad taste from
its very richness; but there is nothing strained, forced, and
unnatural in his eloquence,--for eloquence it is, though a soberer
imagination and a severer judgment might have kept it within more
reasonable bounds. After all that can be said against his taste,
Châteaubriand is a great man, and his name will live among the
literati of France; but God forbid that any true prophet should
predict the same of his imitators!"
"And God forbid that any true prophet should predict the same of the
school that has succeeded them!" said Madame V***--a delightful
old woman, who wears her own grey hair, and does not waltz. "I have
sometimes laughed and sometimes yawned over the productions of the
_école D'Arlincourt_," she added; "but I invariably turn with disgust
and indignation from those of the domestic style which has succeeded
to it."
"Invariably?" ... said the old gentleman interrogatively.
"Yes, invariably; because, if I see any symptom of talent, I lament
it, and feel alarmed for the possible mischief which may ensue. I can
never wish to see high mental power, which is the last and best gift
of Heaven, perverted so shamelessly."
"Come, come, dear lady," replied the advocate of what Goethe
impressively calls 'la littérature du désespoir,' you must not
overthrow the whole fabric because some portion of it is faulty. The
object of our tale-writers at present is, beyond all doubt, to paint
men as they are: if they succeed, their labours cannot fail of being
interesting--and I should think they might be very useful too."
"Fadaise que tout cela!" exclaimed the old lady eagerly. "Before men
can paint human nature profitably, they must see it as it really is,
my good friend--and not as it appears to these misérables in their
baraques and greniers. We have nothing to do with such scenes as they
paint; and they have nothing to do (God help them!) with literary
labours. Have you got Bernardin de Saint Pierre, ma chère?" said she,
addressing the lady of the house. The little volume was immediately
handed to her from a chiffonnière that stood behind us. "Now this,"
she continued, having found the passage she sought,--"this is what I
conceive to be the legitimate object of literature;" and she read
aloud the following passage:--
"Les lettres sont un secours du Ciel. Ce sont des rayons de cette
sagesse qui gouverne l'univers, que l'homme, inspiré par un art
céleste, a appris à fixer sur la terre.... Elles calment les passions;
elles répriment les vices; elles excitent les vertus par les exemples
augustes des gens de bien qu'elles célèbrent, et dont elles nous
présentent les images toujours honorées."
"Eh bien! a-t-il raison, ce Bernardin?" said she, laying aside her
spectacles and looking round upon us. Every one admired the passage.
"Is this the use your French romancers make of letters?" she
continued, looking triumphantly at their advocate.
"Not exactly," he replied, laughing,--"or at least not always: but I
could show you passages in Michel Raymond...."
"Bah!" exclaimed the old lady, interrupting him; "I will have nothing
to do with his passages. I think it is Chamfort who says, that "un sot
qui a un moment d'esprit, étonne et scandalise comme des chevaux de
fiacre au galop." I don't like such unexpected jerks of
sublimity--they startle more than they please me."
The conversation then rambled on to Shakspeare, and to the
mischief--such was the word--to the mischief his example, and the
passionate admiration expressed for his writings, had done to the
classic purity of French literature. This phrase, however, was not
only cavilled at, but in true French style was laughed to death by the
rest of the party. The word "classic" was declared too rococo for use,
and Shakspeare loudly proclaimed to be only defective as a model
because too mighty to imitate.
I have, however, some faint misgivings as to the perfect sincerity of
this verdict,--and this chiefly because there was but one Frenchman
present who affected to know anything about him excepting through the
medium of translation. Now, notwithstanding that the talent shown by
M. Ducis in the translation of some passages is very considerable, we
all know that Shakspeare may be very nearly as fairly judged from the
Italian "Otello" as the "French Hamlet." The party were however quite
sincere, I am sure, in the feeling they expressed of reverence for the
unequalled bard, founded upon the rank he held in the estimation of
his countrymen; this being, as the clear-headed old lady observed, the
only sure criterion, for foreigners, of the station which he ought to
hold among the poets of the earth.
Then followed some keen enough observations--applicable to any one but
Shakspeare--of the danger there might be, that in mixing tragedy and
comedy together, farce might unfortunately be the result; or, if the
"fusion," as it has been called, of tragedy and comedy into one were
very skilfully performed, the sublime and prodigious monster called
melodrame might be hoped for, as the happiest product that could be
expected.
It being thus civilly settled that our Shakspeare might be as wild as
he chose, but that it would be advisable for other people to take
care how they attempted to follow him, the party next fell into a
review, more individual and particular than I was well able to follow,
or than I can now repeat, of many writers of verses and of novels
that, I was fain to confess, I had never heard of before. One or two
of the novel-writers were declared to be very successful imitators of
the style and manner of Sir Walter Scott: and when this was stated, I
was, to say the truth, by no means sorry to plead total and entire
ignorance of their name and productions; for, having, as I fear,
manifested a little national warmth on the subject of Shakspeare, I
should have been sorry to start off in another tirade concerning Sir
Walter Scott, which I might have found it difficult to avoid, had I
known exactly what it was which they ventured to compare to him.
I do not quite understand how it happens that the Parisians are so
much better acquainted with the generality of our light literature,
than we are with the generality of theirs. This is the more
unaccountable, from the fact so universally known, that for one French
person who reads English, there are at least ten English who read
French. It is, however, impossible to deny that such is the fact. I am
sure I have heard the names of two or three dozen authors, since I
have been here, of whose existence, or of that of their works,
neither I, nor any of my literary friends, I believe, have had the
least knowledge; and yet we have considered ourselves quite _au
courant du jour_ in such matters, having never missed any opportunity
of reading every French book that came in our way, and moreover of
sedulously consulting the Foreign Quarterly. In canvassing this
difference between us, one of the party suggested that it might
perhaps arise from the fact that no work which was popular in England
ever escaped being reprinted on the Continent,--that is to say, either
at Paris or Brussels. Though this is done solely as a sort of
piratical speculation, for the purpose of inducing all the travelling
English to purchase new books for four francs here, instead of giving
thirty shillings for them at home, it is nevertheless a natural
consequence of this manoeuvre, that the names of English books are
familiarly known here even before they have been translated.
Many of our lady authors have the honour apparently of being almost as
well known at Paris as at home. I had the pleasure of hearing Miss
Mitford spoken of with enthusiasm; and one lady told me, that, judging
her from her works, she would rather become acquainted with her than
with any author living.
Miss Landon is also well known and much admired. Madame Tastu told me
she had translated many of her compositions, and thought very highly
of them. In short, English literature and English literati are at
present very hospitably treated in France.
I was last night asked innumerable questions about many books, and
many people, whose _renommée_ I was surprised to find had crossed the
Channel; and having communicated pretty nearly all the information I
possessed upon the subject, I began to question in my turn, and heard
abundance of anecdotes and criticisms, many of them given with all the
sparkling keenness of French satire.
Many of les petits ridicules that we are accustomed to hear quizzed at
home seem to exist in the same manner, and spite of the same light
chastisement, here. The manner, for example, of making a very little
wit and wisdom go a great way, by means of short lines and long stops,
does not appear to be in any degree peculiar to our island. As a
specimen of this, a quotation from a new romance by Madame Girardin
(ci-devant Mademoiselle Delphine Gay) was shown me in a newspaper. I
will copy it for you as it was printed, and I think you will allow
that our neighbours at least equal us in this ingenious department of
literary composition.
"Pensez-vous Qu'Arthur voulût revoir Mademoiselle de Sommery?"
"NON: Au lieu de l'aimer, _Il la détestait_!"
"OUI, Il la détestait!"
* * * * *
I think our passion for novelty is pretty strong; but if the
information which I received last night respecting the same imperious
besoin here was not exaggerated by the playful spirit of the party who
were amusing themselves by describing its influence, we are patient
and tame in our endurance of old "by-gones," in comparison to the
Parisians. They have, indeed, a saying which in few words paints this
craving for novelty, as strongly as I could do, did I torment my
memory to repeat to you every word said by my lively friends last
night:
"Il nous faut du nouveau, n'en fût-il plus au monde."
It is delightful to us to get hold of a new book or a new song--a new
preacher or a new fiddler: it is delightful to us, but to the
Parisians it is indispensable. To meet in society and have nothing new
for the _causette_, would be worse than remaining at home.
"This fond desire, this longing after" fresh materials for the tongue
to work upon, is at least as old as the days of Molière. It was this
which made Madelon address herself with such energy to Mascarille,
assuring him that she should be "obligée de la dernière obligation" if
he would but report to her daily "les choses qu'il faut savoir de
nécessité, et qui sont de l'essence d'un bel esprit;" for, as she
truly observes, "C'est là ce qui vous fait valoir dans les compagnies,
et si l'on ignore ces choses, je ne donnerais pas un clou de tout
l'esprit qu'on peut avoir;"--while her cousin Cathos gives her
testimony to the same truth by this impressive declaration: "Pour moi,
j'aurais toutes les hontes du monde s'il fallait qu'on vînt à me
demander si j'aurais vu quelque chose de nouveau que je n'aurais pas
vu."
I know not how it is that people who appear to pass so few hours of
every day out of sight contrive to know so well everything that has
been written and everything that has been done in all parts of the
world. No one ever appears ignorant on any subject. Is this tact? Or
is it knowledge,--real, genuine, substantial information respecting
all things? I suspect that it is not wholly either the one or the
other; and that many circumstances contribute both to the general
diffusion of information, as well as to the rapid manner of receiving
and the brilliant style of displaying it.
This at least is certain, that whatever they do know is made the very
most of; and though some may suspect that so great display of general
information indicates rather extent than depth of knowledge, none, I
think, can refuse to acknowledge that the manner in which a Frenchman
communicates what he has acquired is particularly amiable, graceful,
and unpedantic.
LETTER XLIX.
Trial by Jury.--Power of the Jury in France.--Comparative
insignificance of that vested in the Judge.--Virtual
Abolition of Capital Punishments.--Flemish Anecdote.
Do not be terrified, my dear friend, and fancy that I am going to
exchange my idle, ambling pace, and my babil de femme, to join the
march of intellect, and indite wisdom. I have no such ambition in my
thoughts; and yet I must retail to you part of a conversation with
which I have just been favoured by an extremely intelligent friend, on
the very manly subject of.... Not political economy;--be tranquil on
that point; the same drowsy dread falls upon me when those two
portentous words sound in my ears with which they seem to have
inspired Coleridge;--not political economy, but _trial by jury_.
M. V***, the gentleman in question, gave me credit, I believe, for
considerably more savoir than I really possess, as to the actual and
precise manner in which this important constitutional right works in
England. My ignorance, however, though it prevented my giving much
information, did not prevent my receiving it; and I repeat our
conversation for the purpose of telling you in what a very singular
manner, according to his account, it appears to work in France.
I must, however, premise that my friend is a stanch Henri-Quintist;
which, though I am sure that in his case it would not produce any
exaggeration in the statement of facts, may nevertheless be fairly
presumed to influence his feelings, and consequently his manner of
stating them.
The circumstance which gave rise to this grave discussion was a recent
judgment passed here upon a very atrocious case of murder. I am not
particularly fond of hanging; nevertheless, I was startled at hearing
that this savage and most ferocious slayer of men was condemned to
imprisonment and travail forcé, instead of death.
"It is very rarely that any one now suffers the extreme penalty of the
law in this country," said M. V***, in reply to my remark on this
sentence.
"Is it since your last revolution," said I, "that the punishment of
death has been commuted for that of imprisonment and labour?"
"No such commutation has taken place as an act of the legislature," he
replied: "it rests solely with the jury whether a murderer be
guillotined, or only imprisoned."
I fancied that I misunderstood him, and repeated his words,--"With the
jury?"
"Oui, madame--absolument."
This statement appeared to me so singular, that I still supposed I
must be blundering, and that the words _le jury_ in France did not
mean the same thing as the word jury in England.
In this, as it subsequently appeared, I was not much mistaken.
Notwithstanding, my informer, who was not only a very intelligent
person, but a lawyer to boot, continued to assure me that trial by
jury was exactly the same in both countries as to principle, though
not as to effect.
"But," said I, "our juries have nothing to do with the sentence passed
on the criminal: their business is to examine into the evidence
brought forward by the witnesses to prove the guilt of the prisoner,
and according to the impression which this leaves on their minds, they
pronounce him 'guilty,' or 'not guilty;' and here their duty ends."
"Yes, yes--I understand that perfectly," replied M. V***; "and it is
precisely the same thing with us;--only, it is not in the nature of a
Frenchman to pronounce a mere dry, short, unspeculating verdict of
'guilty,' or 'not guilty,' without exercising the powers of his
intellect upon the shades of culpability which attach to the acts of
each delinquent."
This impossibility of giving a verdict without _exercising the power
of intellect_ reminded me of an assize story on record in Cornwall,
respecting the sentence pronounced by a jury upon a case in which it
was very satisfactorily proved that a man had murdered his wife, but
where it also appeared from the evidence that the unhappy woman had
not conducted herself remarkably well. The jury retired to consult,
and upon re-entering their box the foreman addressed the court in
these words: "Guilty--but sarved her right, my lord." It was in vain
that the learned judge desired them to amend their verdict, as
containing matter wholly irrelevant to the duty they had to perform;
the intellect of the jurymen was, upon this occasion, in a state of
too great activity to permit their returning any other answer than the
identical "Guilty--but sarved her right." I could hardly restrain a
smile as this anecdote recurred to me; but my friend was too much in
earnest in his explanation for me to interrupt him by an ill-timed
jest, and he continued--
"This frame of mind, which is certainly essentially French, is one
cause, and perhaps the most inveterate one, which makes it impossible
that the trial by jury should ever become the same safe and simple
process with us that it is in England."
"And in what manner does this activity of intellect interfere to
impede the course of justice?" said I.
"Thus," he replied. "Let us suppose the facts of the case proved to
the entire satisfaction of the jury: they make up their minds among
themselves to pronounce a verdict of 'guilty;' but their business is
by no means finished,--they have still to decide how this verdict
shall be delivered to the judge--whether with or without the
declaration that there are circumstances calculated to extenuate the
crime."
"Oh yes! I understand you now," I replied. "You mean, that when there
are extenuating circumstances, the jury assume the privilege of
recommending the criminal to mercy. Our juries do this likewise."
"But not with the same authority," said he, smiling. "With us, the
fate of the culprit is wholly in the power of the jury; for not only
do they decide upon the question of guilty or not guilty, but, by the
use of this word _extenuating_, they can remit by their sole will and
pleasure the capital part of the punishment, let the crime be of what
nature it may. No judge in this country dare sentence a criminal to
capital punishment where the verdict against him has been qualified by
this extenuating clause."
"It should seem then," said I, "that the duty of judge, which is
attended with such awful responsibilities with us, is here little more
than the performance of an official ceremony?"
"It is very nearly such, I assure you."
"And your jurymen, according to a phrase of contempt common among us,
are in fact judge and jury both?"
"Beyond all contradiction they are so," he replied: "and I conceive
that criminal justice is at this time more loosely administered in
France than in any other civilised country in the world. In fact, our
artisans have become, since the revolution of 1830, not only judge and
jury, but legislators also. Different crimes have different
punishments assigned to them by our penal code; but it rarely, or I
might say never, occurs in our days that the punishment inflicted has
any reference to that which is assigned by the law. That guilt may
vary even when the deed done does not, is certain; and it is just and
righteous therefore that a judge, learned in the law of the land, and
chosen by high authority from among his fellows as a man of wisdom and
integrity,--it is quite just and righteous that such a one should have
the power--and a tremendous power it is--of modifying the extent of
the penalty according to his view of the individual case. The charge
too of an English judge is considered to be of immense importance to
the result of every trial. All this is as it should be; but we have
departed most widely from the model we have professed to follow. With
us the judge has no such power--at least not practically: with us a
set of chance-met artisans, ignorant alike of the law of the land and
of the philosophy of punishment, have this tremendous power vested in
them. It matters not how clearly the crime has been proved, and still
less what penalty the law has adjudged to it; the punishment inflicted
is whatever it may please the jury to decide, and none other."
"And what is the effect which this strangely assumed power has
produced on your administration of justice?" said I.
"The virtual abolition of capital punishment," was the reply. "When a
jury," continued M. V***, "delivers a verdict to the judge of
'Guilty, but with extenuating circumstances,' the judge dare not
condemn the criminal to death, though the law of the land assign that
punishment to his offence, and though his own mind is convinced, by
all which has come out upon the trial, that instead of _extenuating
circumstances_, the commission of the crime has been attended with
every possible aggravation of atrocity. Such is the practical effect
of the revolution of 1830 on the administration of criminal justice."
"Does public opinion sanction this strange abuse of the functions of
jurymen?" said I.
"Public opinion cannot sanction it," he replied, "any more than it
could sanction the committal of the crime itself. The one act is, in
fact, as lawless as the other; but the populace have conceived the
idea that capital punishment is an undue exercise of power, and
therefore our rulers fear to exercise it."
This is a strange statement, is it not? The gentleman who made it is,
I am sure, too much a man of honour and integrity to falsify facts;
but it may perhaps be necessary to allow something for the colouring
of party feeling. Whatever the present government does, or permits to
be done, contrary to the system established during the period of the
restoration, is naturally offensive to the feelings of the
legitimatists, and repugnant to their judgments; yet, in this case,
the relaxation of necessary power must so inevitably lead to evil,
that we must, I think, expect to see the reins gathered up, and the
command resumed by the proper functionaries, as soon as the new
government feels itself seated with sufficient firmness to permit the
needful exertion of strength to be put forth with safety.
It is certain that M. V*** supported his statement by reciting so
many strong cases in which the most fearful crimes, substantiated by
the most unbroken chain of evidence, have been reported by the jury to
the judge as having "extenuating circumstances" attached to them, that
it is impossible, while things remain as they are, not to feel that
such a mode of administering justice must make the habit of perjury as
familiar to their jurymen as that of taking their oaths.
This conversation brought to my recollection some strange stories
which I had heard in Belgium apropos of the trial by jury there. If
those stories were correct, they are about as far from comprehending,
or at least from acting upon, our noble, equitable, and well-tried
institution there, as they appear to be here--but from causes
apparently exactly the reverse. There, I am told, it often happens
that the jury can neither read nor write; and that when they are
placed in their box, they are, as might be expected, quite ignorant of
the nature of the duty they are to perform, and often so greatly
embarrassed by it, that they are ready and willing--nay, thankful--to
pronounce as their verdict whatever is dictated to them.
I heard an anecdote of one man--and a thorough honest Fleming he
was--who having been duly empannelled, entered the jury-box, and
having listened attentively to a trial that was before the court,
declared, when called upon for his verdict, that he had not understood
a single word from the beginning to the end of it. The court
endeavoured to explain the leading points of the question; but still
the worthy burgher persisted in declaring that the business was not in
his line, and that he could not comprehend it sufficiently to give any
opinion at all. The attempt at explanation was repeated, but in vain;
and at length the conscientious Fleming paid the fine demanded for
the non-performance of the duty, and was permitted to retire.
In France, on the contrary, it appears that human intellect has gone
on so fast and so far, that no dozen of men can be found simple-minded
enough to say 'yes' or 'no' to a question asked, without insisting
that they must legislate upon it.
In this case, at least, England shows a beautiful specimen of the
_juste milieu_.
LETTER L.
English Pastry-cook's.--French horror of English
Pastry.--Unfortunate experiment upon a Muffin.--The Citizen
King.
We have been on a regular shopping tour this morning; which was
finished by our going into an English pastry-cook's to eat buns. While
thus engaged, we amused ourselves by watching the proceedings of a
French party who entered also for the purpose of making a morning
goûter upon cakes.
They had all of them more or less the air of having fallen upon a
terra incognita, showing many indications of surprise at sight of the
ultra-marine compositions which appeared before them;--but there was a
young man of the party who, it was evident, had made up his mind to
quiz without measure all the foreign dainties that the shop afforded,
evidently considering their introduction as a very unjustifiable
interference with the native manufacture.
"Est-il possible!" said he, with an air of grave and almost indignant
astonishment, as he watched a lady of his party preparing to eat an
English bun,--"Est-il possible that you can prefer these
strange-looking comestibles à la pâtisserie française?"
"Mais goûtez-en," said the lady, presenting a specimen of the same
kind as that she was herself eating: "ils sont excellens."
"No, no! it is enough to look at them!" said her cavalier, almost
shuddering. "There is no lightness, no elegance, no grace in any
single gâteau here."
"Mais goûtez quelque chose," reiterated the lady.
"Vous le voulez absolument!" exclaimed the young man; "quelle
tyrannie! ... and what a proof of obedience I am about to give you!...
Voyons donc!" he continued, approaching a plate on which were piled
some truly English muffins--which, as you know, are of a somewhat
mysterious manufacture, and about as palatable if eaten untoasted as a
slice from a leathern glove. To this _gâteau_, as he supposed it to
be, the unfortunate connoisseur in pâtisserie approached, exclaiming
with rather a theatrical air, "Voilà donc ce que je vais faire pour
vos beaux yeux!"
As he spoke, he took up one of the pale, tough things, and, to our
extreme amusement, attempted to eat it. Any one might be excused for
making a few grimaces on such an occasion,--and a Frenchman's
privilege in this line is well known: but this hardy experimentalist
outdid this privilege;--he was in a perfect agony, and his spittings
and reproachings were so vehement, that friends, strangers,
boutiquier, and all, even down to a little befloured urchin who
entered at the moment with a tray of patties, burst into
uncontrollable laughter, which the unfortunate, to do him justice,
bore with extreme good humour, only making his fair countrywoman
promise that she would never insist upon his eating English
confectionary again.
Had this scene continued a minute longer, I should have missed seeing
what I should have been sorry not to have seen, for I certainly could
not have left the pastry-cook's shop while the young Frenchman's
sufferings lasted. Happily, however, we reached the Boulevard des
Italiens in time to see King Louis-Philippe, en simple bourgeois,
passing on foot just before Les Bains Chinois, but on the opposite
side of the way.
Excepting a small tri-coloured cockade in his hat, he had nothing
whatever in his dress to distinguish him from any other gentleman. He
is a well-looking, portly, middle-aged man, with something of dignity
in his step which, notwithstanding the unpretending citizen-like style
of his promenade, would have drawn attention, and betrayed him as
somebody out of the common way, even without the plain-speaking
_cocarde tricolore_. There were two gentlemen a few paces behind him,
as he passed us, who, I think, stepped up nearer to him afterwards;
but there were no other individuals near who could have been in
attendance upon him. I observed that he was recognised by many, and
some few hats were taken off, particularly by two or three Englishmen
who met him; but his appearance excited little emotion. I was amused,
however, at the nonchalant air with which a young man at some
distance, in full Robespierrian costume, used his lorgnon to peruse
the person of the monarch as long as he remained in sight.
The last king I saw in the streets of Paris was Charles the Tenth
returning from a visit to one of his suburban palaces, escorted and
accompanied in kingly state and style. The contrast in the men and in
the mode was striking, and calculated to awaken lively recollections
of all the events which had occurred to both of them since the last
time that I turned my head to look after a sovereign of France.
My fancy flew to Prague, and to the three generations of French
monarchs stationed there almost as peaceably as if they had taken up
their quarters at St. Denis!
[Illustration: Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.
LE ROI CITOYEN.
London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1835.]
How like a series of conjurer's tricks is their history! Think of
this Charles the Tenth in the flower of his youth and comeliness--the
gallant, gay, and dissolute Comte d'Artois; recall the noble range of
windows belonging to his apartments at Versailles, and imagine him
there radiant in youth and joy--the thoughtless, thriftless cadet of
his royal race--the brother and the guest of the good king who
appeared to reign over a willing people, by every human right, as well
as right divine! Louis Seize was king of France; but the gay Comte
d'Artois reigned sovereign of all the pleasures of Versailles. What
joyous fêtes! ... what brilliant jubilees!... Meanwhile
"Malignant Fate sat by and smiled."
Had he then been told that he should live to be crowned king of
France, and live thus many years afterwards, would he not have thought
that a most brilliant destiny was predicted to him?
Few men, perhaps, have suffered so much from the ceaseless changes of
human events as Charles the Tenth of France. First, in the person of
his eldest brother, dethroned and foully murdered; then in his own
exile, and that of another royal brother; and again, when Fortune
seemed to smile upon his race, and the crown of France was not only
placed upon that brother's head, but appeared fixed in assured
succession on his own princely sons, one of those sons was murdered:
and lastly, having reached the throne himself, and seen this lost son
reviving in his hopeful offspring, comes another stroke of Fate,
unexpected, unprepared for, overwhelming, which hurls him from his
throne, and drives him and his royal race once more to exile and to
civil death.... Has he seen the last of the political earthquakes
which have so shaken his existence? or has his restless star to rise
again? Those who wish most kindly to him cannot wish for this.
But when I turned my thoughts from the dethroned and banished king to
him who stepped on in unguarded but fearless security before me, and
thought too on the vagaries of his destiny, I really felt as if this
earth and all the people on it were little better than so many
children's toys, changing their style and title to serve the sport of
an hour.
It seemed to me at that moment as if all men were classed in their due
order only to be thrown into greater confusion--knocked down but to be
set up again, and so eternally dashed from side to side, so powerless
in themselves, so wholly governed by accidents, that I shrunk,
humbled, from the contemplation of human helplessness, and turned from
gazing on a monarch to meditate on the insignificance of man. How vain
are all the efforts he can make to shape the course of his own
existence! There is, in truth, nothing but trusting to surer wisdom,
and to surer power, which can enable any of us, from the highest to
the lowest, to pass on with tranquil nerves through a world subject to
such terrible convulsions.
LETTER LI.
Parisian Women.--Rousseau's failure in attempting to
describe them.--Their great influence in Society.--Their
grace in Conversation.--Difficulty of growing old.--Do the
ladies of France or those of England manage it best?
There is perhaps no subject connected with Paris which might give
occasion to such curious and inexhaustible observation as the
character, position, and influence of its women. But the theme, though
copious and full of interest, is not without its difficulties; and it
is no small proof of this, that Rousseau, who rarely touched on any
subject without persuading his reader that he was fully master of it,
has nevertheless almost wholly failed on this. In one of the letters
of "La Nouvelle Héloïse," he sketches the characters of a few very
commonplace ladies, whom he abuses unmercifully for their bad taste in
dress, and concludes his abortive attempt at making us acquainted with
the ladies of Paris by acknowledging that they have some goodness of
heart.
This is but a meagre description of this powerful portion of the human
race, and I can hardly imagine a volume that I should read with
greater pleasure than one which should fully supply all its
deficiencies. Do not imagine, however, that I mean to undertake the
task. I am even less capable of it than the sublime misanthrope
himself; for though I am of opinion that it should be an unimpassioned
spectator, and not a lover, who should attempt to paint all the
delicate little atoms of exquisite mosaic-work which constitute _une
Parisienne_, I think it should not be a woman.
All I can do for you on this subject is to recount the observations I
have been myself led to make in the passing glances I have now the
opportunity of giving them, supported by what I have chanced to hear
from better authority than my own: but I am aware that I can do little
more than excite your wish to become better acquainted with them than
it is in my power to make you.
It is impossible to be admitted into French society without
immediately perceiving that the women play a very distinguished part
in it. So, assuredly, do the women of England in their own: yet I
cannot but think that, setting aside all cases of individual
exception, the women of France have more power and more important
influence than the women of England.
I am aware that this is a very bold proposition, and that you may
feel inclined to call me to account for it. But be I right or wrong in
this judgment, it is at least sincere, and herein lies its chief
value; for I am by no means sure that I shall be able to explain very
satisfactorily the grounds on which it is formed.
France has been called "the paradise of women;" and if consideration
and deference be sufficient to constitute a paradise, I think it may
be called so justly. I will not, however, allow that Frenchmen make
better husbands than Englishmen; but I suspect they make politer
husbands--
"Je ne sais pas, pour moi, si chacun me ressemble,
Mais j'entends là-dessous un million de mots:"
and, all pleasantry apart, I am of opinion that this more observant
tone or style, or whatever it may be termed, is very far from
superficial--at least in its effects. I should be greatly surprised to
hear from good authority that a French gentleman had ever been heard
to speak rudely to his wife.
Rousseau says, when he means to be what he himself calls
"_souverainement impertinent_," that "il est convenu qu'un homme ne
refusera rien à aucune femme, fût-ce même la sienne." But it is not
only in refusing her nothing that a French husband shows the
superiority which I attribute to him; I know many English husbands who
are equally indulgent; but, if I mistake not, the general
consideration enjoyed by Frenchwomen has its origin not in the
conjugal indulgence they enjoy, but in the domestic respect
universally shown them. What foundation there may be for the idea
which prevails amongst us, that there is less strictness of morality
among married women in France than in England, I will not attempt to
decide; but, judging from the testimonies of respect shown them by
fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, I cannot but believe that,
spite of travellers' tales, innuendoes, and all the authority of _les
contes moraux_ to boot, there must be much of genuine virtue where
there is so much genuine esteem.
In a recent work on France, to which I have before alluded, a
comparison is instituted between the conversational powers of the sex
in England and in France; and such a picture is drawn of the frivolous
inanity of the author's fair countrywomen, as, were the work
considered as one of much authority in France, must leave the
impression with our neighbours that the ladies of England are _tant
soit peu Agnès_.
Now this judgment is, I think, as little founded in truth as that of
the traveller who accused us all of being brandy-drinkers. It is
indeed impossible to say what effect might have been produced upon the
ladies from whom this description was drawn, by the awful
consciousness that they were conversing with a person of overwhelming
ability. There is such a thing as being "blasted by excess of light;"
but where this unpleasant accident does not occur, I believe that
those who converse with educated Englishwomen will find them capable
of being as intellectual companions as any in the world.
Our countrywomen however, particularly the younger part of them,
labour under a great disadvantage. The majority of them I believe to
be as well, or perhaps better informed than the majority of
Frenchwomen; but, unfortunately, it frequently happens that they are
terrified at the idea of appearing too much so: the terror of being
called learned is in general much more powerful than that of being
classed as ignorant.
Happily for France, there is no _blue_ badge, no stigma of any kind
attached to the female possessors of talent and information. Every
Frenchwoman brings forward with equal readiness and grace all she
knows, all she thinks, and all she feels on every subject that may be
started; whereas with us, the dread of imputed blueism weighs down
many a bright spirit, and sallies of wit and fancy are withheld from
the fear of betraying either the reading or the genius with which many
a fair girl is endued who would rather be thought an idiot than a
BLUE.
This is, however, a very idle fear; and that it is so, a slight
glance upon society would show, if prejudice did not interfere to
blind us. It is possible that here and there a sneer or a shrug may
follow this opprobrious epithet of "blue;" but as the sneer and the
shrug always come from those whose suffrage is of the least importance
in society, their coming at all can hardly be a sufficient reason for
putting on a masquerade habit of ignorance and frivolity.
It is from this cause, if I mistake not, that the conversation of the
Parisian women takes a higher tone than that to which English females
venture to soar. Even politics, that fearful quicksand which engulfs
so many of our social hours, dividing our drawing-rooms into a
committee of men and a coterie of women,--even politics may be handled
by them without danger; for they fearlessly mix with that untoward
subject so much lively persiflage, so much acuteness, and such
unerring tact, that many a knotty point which may have made puzzled
legislators yawn in the Chamber, has been played with in the salon
till it became as intelligible as the light of wit could make it.
No one who is familiar with that delightful portion of French
literature contained in their letters and memoirs, which paint the
manners and the minds of those they treat of with more truth of
graphic effect than any other biography in the world,--no one
acquainted with the aspect of society as it is painted there, but must
be aware that the character of Frenchmen has undergone a great and
important change during the last century. It has become perhaps less
brilliant, but at the same time less frivolous; and if we are obliged
to confess that no star remains above the horizon of the same
magnitude as those which composed the constellation that blazed during
the age of Louis Quatorze and his successor, we must allow also that
it would be difficult to find a minister of state who should now write
to his friend as the Cardinal de Retz did to Boisrobert,--"Je me sauve
à la nage dans ma chambre, au milieu des parfums."
If, however, these same minute records can be wholly trusted, I should
say that no proportionate change has taken place among the women. I
often fancy I can trace the same "genre d'esprit" amongst them with
which Madame du Deffand has made us so well acquainted. Fashions must
change--and their fashions have changed, not merely in dress perhaps,
but in some things which appear to go deeper into character, or at
least into manners; but the essentials are all the same. A petite
maîtresse is a petite maîtresse still; and female wit--female French
wit--continues to be the same dazzling, playful, and powerful thing
that it ever was. I really do not believe that if Madame de Sévigné
herself were permitted to revisit the scene of her earthly brightness,
and to find herself in the midst of a Paris soirée to-morrow, that she
would find any difficulty in joining the conversation of those she
would find there, in the same tone and style that she enjoyed so
keenly in days of yore with Madame de la Fayette, Mademoiselle
Scuderie, or any other sister sparkler of that glorious _via
lactea_--provided indeed that she did not talk politics,--on that
subject she might not perhaps be well understood.
Ladies still write romances, and still write verses. They write
memoirs too, and are moreover quite as keen critics as ever they were;
and if they had not left off giving _petits soupers_, where they
doomed the poets of the day to oblivion or immortality according to
their will, I should say, that in no good gifts either of nature or of
art had they degenerated from their admired great-grandmothers.
It can hardly, I think, be accounted a change in their character, that
where they used to converse respecting a new comedy of Molière, they
now discuss the project of a new law about to be passed in the
Chamber. The reason for this is obvious: there is no longer a Molière,
but there is a Chamber; there are no longer any new comedies greatly
worth talking about, but there are abundance of new laws instead.
In short, though the subjects are changed, they are canvassed in the
same spirit; and however much the marquis may be merged in the
doctrinaire, the ladies at least have not left off being light,
bright, witty, and gay, in order to become advocates for the
"positif," in opposition to the "idéal." They still keep faithful to
their vocation of charming; and I trust they may contrive so far to
combat this growing passion for the "positif" in their countrymen, as
to prevent their turning every salon--as they have already turned the
Boulevards before Tortoni's--into a little Bourse.
I was so much struck by the truth and elegance of "a thought" apropos
to this subject, which I found the other day in turning over the
leaves of a French lady's album, that I transcribed it:--
"Proscrire les arts agréables, et ne vouloir que ceux qui sont
absolument utiles, c'est blâmer la Nature, qui produit les fleurs, les
roses, les jasmins, comme elle produit des fruits."
This sentiment, however, simple and natural as it is, appears in some
danger of being lost sight of while the mind is kept upon such a
forced march as it is at present: but the unnatural oblivion cannot
fall upon France while her women remain what they are. The graces of
life will never be sacrificed by them to the pretended pursuit of
science; nor will a purblind examination of political economy be ever
accepted in Paris as a beautiful specimen of light reading, and a
first-rate effort of female genius.
Yet nowhere are the higher efforts of the female mind more honoured
than in France. The memory of Madame de Staël seems enshrined in every
woman's heart, and the glory she has brought to her country appears to
shed its beams upon every female in it. I have heard, too, the name of
Mrs. Somerville pronounced with admiration and reverence by many who
confessed themselves unable to appreciate, or at least to follow, the
efforts of her extraordinary mind.
In speaking of the women of Paris, however, I must not confine myself
to the higher classes only; for, as we all know but too well, "les
dames de la Halle," or, as they are more familiarly styled, "les
poissardes," have made themselves important personages in the history
of Paris. It is not, however, to the hideous part which they took in
the revolution of Ninety-three that I would allude; the doing so would
be equally disagreeable and unnecessary, for the deeds of Alexander
are hardly better known than their infernal acts;--it is rather to the
singular sort of respect paid to them in less stormy times that I
would call your attention, because we have nothing analogous to it
with us. Upon all great public occasions, such as the accession of a
king, his restoration, or the like, these women are permitted to
approach the throne by a deputation, and kings and queens have
accepted their bouquets and listened to their harangues. The
newspapers in recording these ceremonious visitings never name these
poissardes by any lesser title than "les dames de la Halle;" a phrase
which could only be rendered into English by "the ladies of
Billingsgate."
These ladies have, too, a literature of their own, and have found
troubadours among the beaux-esprits of France to chronicle their
bons-mots and give immortality to their adventures in that singular
species of composition known by the name of "Chansons Grivoises."
When Napoleon returned from Elba, they paid their compliments to him
at the Tuileries, and sang "La Carmagnole" in chorus. One hundred days
after, they repeated the ceremony of a visit to the palace; but this
time the compliment was addressed to Louis Dix-huit, and the _refrain_
of the song with which they favoured him was the famous calembourg so
much in fashion at the time--
"Rendez-nous notre _père de Gand_."
Not only do these "dames" put themselves forward upon all political
occasions, but, if report say true, they have, _parfois_, spite of
their revolutionary ferocity, taken upon themselves to act as
conservators of public morals. When Madame la Comtesse de N***
and her friend Madame T*** appeared in the garden of the
Tuileries with less drapery than they thought decency demanded, les
dames de la Halle armed themselves with whips, and repairing in a body
to the promenade, actually flogged the audacious beauties till they
reached the shelter of their homes.
The influence and authority of these women among the men of their own
rank is said to be very great; and that through all the connexions of
life, as long as his mother lives, whatever be her rank, a Frenchman
repays her early care by affection, deference, and even by obedience.
"Consolez ma pauvre mère!" has been reported in a thousand instances
to have been the last words of French soldiers on the field of battle;
and whenever an aged female is found seated in the chimney-corner, it
is to her footstool that all coaxing petitions, whether for great or
small matters, are always carried.
I heard it gravely disputed the other day, whether the old ladies of
England or the old ladies of France have the most _bonheur en partage_
amongst them. Every one seemed to agree that it was a very difficult
thing for a pretty woman to grow old in any country--that it was
terrible to "devenir chenille après avoir _été_ papillon;" and that
the only effectual way of avoiding this shocking transition was, while
still a few years on the handsome side of forty, to abandon in good
earnest all pretensions to beauty, and claiming fame and name by the
perennial charm of wit alone, to bid defiance to time and wrinkles.
This is certainly the best parachute to which a drooping beauty can
trust herself on either side of the Channel: but for one who can avail
herself of it, there are a thousand who must submit to sink into
eternal oblivion without it; and the question still remains, which
nation best understands the art of submitting to this downfall
gracefully.
There are but two ways of rationally setting about it. The one is, to
jump over the Rubicon at once at sight of the first grey hair, and so
establish yourself betimes on a sofa, with all the comforts of
footstool and elbow-room; the other is, to make a desperate resolution
never to grow old at all. Nous autres Anglaises generally understand
how to do the first with a respectable degree of resignation; and the
French, by means of some invaluable secret which they wisely keep to
themselves, are enabled to approach very nearly to equal success in
the other.
LETTER LII.
La Sainte Chapelle.--Palais de Justice.--Traces of the
Revolution of 1830.--Unworthy use made of La Sainte
Chapelle.--Boileau.--Ancient Records.
A week or two ago we made a vain and unprofitable expedition into the
City for the purpose of seeing "La Sainte Chapelle;" sainte to all
good Catholics from its having been built by Louis Neuf (St. Louis)
expressly for the purpose of receiving all the ultra-extra-super-holy
relics purchased by St. Louis from Baldwin Emperor of Constantinople,
and almost equally sainte to us heretics from having been the scene of
Boileau's poem.
Great was our disappointment at being assured, by several flitting
officials to whom we addressed ourselves in and about Le Palais de
Justice, that admission was not to be obtained--that workmen were
employed upon it, and I know not what besides; all, however, tending
to prove that a long, lingering look at its beautiful exterior was all
we had to hope for.
In proportion to this disappointment was the pleasure with which I
received an offer from a new acquaintance to conduct us over the
Palais de Justice, and into the sacred precints of La Sainte Chapelle,
which in fact makes a part of it. My accidental introduction to M.
J***, who has not only shown us this, but many other things which
we should probably never have seen but for his kindness, has been one
of the most agreeable circumstances which have occurred to me in
Paris. I have seldom met a man so "rempli de toutes sortes
d'intelligences" as is this new Parisian acquaintance; and certainly
never received from any stranger so much amiable attention, shown in
so profitable a manner. I really believe he has a passe-partout for
everything that is most interesting and least easy of access in Paris;
and as he holds a high judicial situation, the Palais de Justice was
of course open to him even to its remotest recesses: and of all the
sight-seeing mornings I remember to have passed, the one which showed
me this interesting edifice, with the commentary of our
deeply-informed and most agreeable companion, was decidedly one of the
most pleasant. There is but one drawback to the pleasure of having met
such a man--and this is the fear that in losing sight of Paris we may
lose sight of him also.
The Palais de Justice is from its extent alone a very noble building;
but its high antiquity, and its connexion with so many points and
periods of history, render it one of the most interesting buildings
imaginable. We entered all the courts, some of which appeared to be in
full activity. They are in general large and handsome. The portrait of
Napoleon was replaced in one of them during the Three Days, and there
it still remains: the old chancellor d'Auguesseau hangs opposite to
him, being one of the few pictures permitted to retain their places.
The vacant spaces, and in some instances the traces of violence with
which others have been removed, indicate plainly enough that this
venerable edifice was not held very sacred by the patriots of 1830.
The capricious fury of the sovereign people during this reign of
confusion, if not of terror, has left vestiges in almost every part of
the building. The very interesting bas relief which I remember on the
pedestal of the fine statue of Malesherbes, the intrepid defender of
Louis Seize, has been torn away; and the _brute_ masonry which it has
left displayed, is as striking and appropriate a memento of the
spoilers, as the graphic group they displaced was of the scene it
represented. M. J*** told me the sculpture was not destroyed,
and would probably be replaced. I heartily hope, for the honour of
Frenchmen, that this may happen: but if it should not, I trust that,
for the sake of historic effect, the statue and its mutilated
pedestal will remain as they are--both the one and the other mark an
epoch in the history of France.
But it was in the obscurer parts of the building that I found the most
interest. In order to take a short cut to some point to which our kind
guide wished to lead us, we were twisted through one of the old--the
very old towers of this venerable structure. It had been, I think they
said, the kitchen of St. Louis himself; and the walls, as seen by the
enormous thickness pierced for the windows, are substantial enough to
endure another six hundred years at least.
In one of the numerous rooms which we entered, we saw an extremely
curious old picture, seized in the time of Louis Quinze from the
Jesuits, as containing proof of their treasonable disrespect for
kings: and certainly there is not wanting evidence of the fact; very
speaking portraits of Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth are to be
found most unequivocally on their way to the infernal regions. The
whole performance is one of the most interesting specimens of
Jesuitical ingenuity extant.
Having fully indulged our curiosity in the palace, we proceeded to the
chapel. It is exquisitely beautiful, and so perfect in its delicate
proportions, that the eye is satisfied, and dwells with full
contentment on the whole for many minutes before the judgment is at
leisure to examine and criticise the different parts of it. But even
when this first effect is over, the perfect elegance of this
diminutive structure still rests upon the mind, producing a degree of
admiration which seems disproportioned to its tiny dimensions.
It was built for a shrine in which to preserve relics; and Pierre de
Montreuil, its able architect, appears to have sought rather to render
it worthy by its richness and its grace to become the casket for those
holy treasures, than to give it the dignity of a church. That
beautiful miniature cathedral, St. George's Chapel at Windsor, is an
enormous edifice compared to this; but less light, less lofty in its
proportions--in short, less enchanting in its general effect, than the
lovely bijou of St. Louis.
Of all the cruel profanations I have ever witnessed, that of turning
this exquisite chef-d'oeuvre into a chest for old records is the
most unpardonable: as if Paris could not furnish four walls and a roof
for this purpose, without converting this precious _châsse_ to it! It
is indeed a pitiful economy; and were I the Archbishop of Paris, I
would besiege the Tuileries with petitions that these hideous presses
might be removed; and if it might not be restored to the use of the
church, that we might at least say of it--
---- "la Sainte Chapelle
Conservait du vieux tems l'oisiveté fidèle."
This would at least be better than seeing it converted into a cupboard
of ease to the overflowing records of the Palais de Justice. The
length of this pretty reliquaire exactly equals its height, which is
divided by a gallery into a lower and upper church, resembling in some
degree as to its arrangement the much older structure at
Aix-la-Chapelle,--the high minster there being represented by the
Sainte Couronne here.
As we stood in the midst of the floor of the church, M. J***
pointed to a certain spot--
"Et bientôt LE LUTRIN se fait voir à nos yeux."
He placed me to stand where that offensive mass of timber stood of
yore; and I could not help thinking that if the poor chantre hated the
sight of it as much as I did that of the ignoble cases containing the
old parchments, he was exceedingly right in doing his utmost to make
it disappear.
Boileau lies buried here. The spot must have been chosen in
consequence of the connexion he had established in the minds of all
men between himself and its holy precincts. But it was surely the most
lively and light-hearted connexion that ever was hallowed by so solemn
a result. One might fairly steal or parody Vanburgh's epitaph for
him--
"Rise graceful o'er him, roof! for he
Raised many a graceful verse to thee."
The preservation of the beautiful painted glass of the windows through
the two revolutions which (both of them) were so busy in labours of
metamorphosis and destruction in the immediate neighbourhood, not to
mention all the ordinary chances against the safety of so frail a
treasure during so many years, is little short of miraculous; and,
considering the extraordinary sanctity of the place, it is probably so
interpreted by _les fidèles_.
A remarkable proof of the reverence in which this little shrine was
held, in consequence, I presume, of the relics it contained, may be
found in the dignified style of its establishment. Kings and popes
seem to have felt a holy rivalry as to which should most distinguish
it by gifts and privileges. The wealth of its functionaries appears
greatly to have exceeded the bounds of Christian moderation; and their
pride of place was sustained, notwithstanding the _petitesse_ of their
dominions, by titles and prerogatives such as no _chapelains_ ever had
before. The chief dignitary of the establishment had the title of
archichapelain; and, in 1379, Pope Clement VII. permitted him to wear
a mitre, and to pronounce his benediction on the people when they were
assembled during any of the processions which took place within the
enclosure of the palace. Not only, indeed, did this arch-chaplain take
the title of prelate, but in some public acts he is styled "Le Pape
de la Sainte Chapelle." In return for all these riches and honours,
four out of the seven priests attached to the establishment were
obliged to pass the night in the chapel, for the purpose of watching
the relics. Nevertheless, it appears that, in the year 1575, a portion
of the _vraie croix_ was stolen in the night between the 19th and 20th
of May. The thief, however, was strongly suspected to be no less a
personage than King Henry III. himself; who, being sorely distressed
for money, and knowing from old experience that a traffic in relics
was a right royal traffic, bethought him of a means of extracting a
little Venetian gold from this true cross, by leaving it in pawn with
the Republic of Venice. At any rate, this much-esteemed fragment
disappeared from the Sainte Chapelle, and a piece of the holy rood was
left _en gage_ with the Venetians by Henry III.
I have transcribed, for your satisfaction, the list I find in Dulaure
of the most sacred of the articles for the reception of which this
chapel was erected:--
Du sang de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.
Les drapeaux dont Notre Sauveur fut enveloppé en son
enfance.
Du sang qui miraculeusement a distillé d'une image de Notre
Seigneur, ayant été frappé d'un infidèle.
La chaîne et lien de fer, en manière d'anneau, dont Notre
Seigneur fut lié.
La sainte touaille, ou nappe, en un tableau.
Du lait de la Vierge.
Une partie du suaire dont il fut enseveli.
La verge de Moïse.
Les chefs des Saints Blaise, Clément, et Simon.
Is it not wonderful that the Emperor of Constantinople could consent
to part with such precious treasures for the lucre of gain? I should
like to know what has become of them all.
As late as the year 1770, the annual ceremony of turning out devils on
Good Friday, from persons pretending to be possessed, was performed in
this chapel. The form prescribed was very simple, and always found to
answer perfectly. As soon as it was understood that all the demoniacs
were assembled, _le grand chantre_ appeared, carrying a cross, which,
spite of King Henry's _supercherie_, was declared to enclose in its
inmost recesses a morsel of the _vraie croix_, and in an instant all
the contortions and convulsions ceased, and the possessed became
perfectly calm and tranquil, and relieved from every species of
inconvenience.
Having seen all that this lovely chapel had to show, and particularly
examined the spot where the battle of the books took place, the
passe-partout of M. J*** caused a mysterious-looking little door
in the Sainte Couronne to open for us; and, after a little climbing,
we found ourselves just under the roof of the Palais de Justice. The
enormous space of the _grande salle_ below is here divided into three
galleries, each having its entire length, and one-third of its width.
The manner in which these galleries are constructed is extremely
curious and ingenious, and well deserves a careful examination. I
certainly never found myself in a spot of greater interest than this.
The enormous collection of records which fill these galleries,
arranged as they are in the most exquisite order, is one of the most
marvellous spectacles I ever beheld.
Amidst the archives of so many centuries, any document that may be
wished for, however remote or however minute, is brought forward in an
instant, with as little difficulty as Dr. Dibdin would find in putting
his hand upon the best-known treasure in Lord Spencer's library.
Our kind friend obtained for us the sight of the volume containing all
the original documents respecting the trial of poor Joan of Arc, that
most ill-used of heroines. Vice never braved danger and met death with
such steady, unwavering courage as she displayed. We saw, too, the
fatal warrant which legalised the savage murder of this brave and
innocent fanatic.
Several other death-warrants of distinguished persons were also shown
to us, some of them of great antiquity; but no royal hand had signed
them. This painful duty is performed in France by one of the superior
law-officers of the crown, but never by the hand of majesty.
Another curious trial that was opened for our satisfaction, was that
of the wretched Marquise de Brinvilliers, the famous _empoisonneuse_,
who not only destroyed father, brother, husband, at the instigation of
her lover, but appears to have used her power of compounding fatal
drugs upon many other occasions. The murderous atrocities of this
woman seem to surpass everything on record, except those of Marguérite
de Bourgogne, the inconceivable heroine of the "Tour de Nesle."
I was amused by an anecdote which M. J*** told me of an
Englishman to whom he, some years ago, showed these same curious
papers--among which is the receipt used by Madame de Brinvilliers for
the composition of the poison whose effects plunged Paris in terror.
"Will you do me the favour to let me copy this receipt?" said the
Englishman.
"I think that my privilege does not reach quite so far as that," was
the discreet reply; and but for this, our countryman's love for
chemical science might by this time have spread the knowledge of the
precious secret over the whole earth.
LETTER LIII.
French ideas of England.--Making love.--Precipitate retreat
of a young Frenchman.--Different methods of arranging
Marriages.--English Divorce.--English Restaurans.
It now and then happens, by a lucky chance, that one finds oneself
full gallop in a conversation the most perfectly unreserved, without
having had the slightest idea or intention, when it began, of either
giving or receiving confidence.
This occurred to me a few days ago, while making a morning visit to a
lady whom I had never seen but twice before, and then had not
exchanged a dozen words with her. But, upon this occasion, we found
ourselves very nearly tête-à-tête, and got, I know not how, into a
most unrestrained discussion upon the peculiarities of our respective
countries.
Madame B*** has never been in England, but she assured me that her
curiosity to visit our country is quite as strong as the passion for
investigation which drew Robinson Crusoe from his home to visit
the...."
"Savages," said I, finishing the sentence for her.
"No! no! no!... To visit all that is most curious in the world."
This phrase, "most curious," seemed to me of doubtful meaning, and so
I told her; asking whether it referred to the museums, or the natives.
She seemed doubtful for a moment whether she should be frank or
otherwise; and then, with so pretty and playful a manner as must, I
think, have disarmed the angry nationality of the most thin-skinned
patriot alive, she answered--
"Well then--the natives."
"But we take such good care," I replied, "that you should not want
specimens of the race to examine and make experiments upon, that it
would hardly be worth your while to cross the Channel for the sake of
seeing the natives. We import ourselves in such prodigious quantities,
that I can hardly conceive you should have any curiosity left about
us."
"On the contrary," she replied, "my curiosity is only the more
_piquée_: I have seen so many delightful English persons here, that I
die to see them at home, in the midst of all those singular customs,
which they cannot bring with them, and which we only know by the
imperfect accounts of travellers."
This sounded, I thought, very much as if she were talking of the good
people of Mongo Creek, or Karakoo Bay; but being at least as curious
to know what her notions were concerning the English in their remote
homes, and in the midst of all their "singular customs," as she could
be to become better acquainted with them, I did my best to make her
tell me all she had heard about us.
"I will tell you," she said, "what I want to see beyond everything
else: I want to see the mode of making love _tout-à-fait à
l'Anglaise_. You know that you are all so polite as to put on our
fashions here in every respect; but a cousin of mine, who was some
years ago attached to our Embassy at London, has described the style
of managing love affairs as so ... so romantic, that it perfectly
enchanted me, and I would give the world to see how it was done
(_comment cela se fait_)."
"Pray tell me how he described it," said I, "and I promise faithfully
to tell you if the picture be correct."
"Oh, that is so kind!... Well then," she continued, colouring a
little, from the idea, as I suppose, that she was going to say
something terribly atrocious, "I will tell you exactly what happened
to him. He had a letter of introduction to a gentleman of great
estate--a member of the chamber of your parliament, who was living
with his family at his chateau in one of the provinces, where my
cousin forwarded the letter to him. A most polite reply was
immediately returned, containing a pressing invitation to my cousin to
come to the chateau without delay, and pass a month with them for the
hunting season. Nothing could be more agreeable than this invitation,
for it offered the best possible opportunity of studying the manners
of the country. Every one can cross from Calais to Dover, and spend
half their year's income in walking or driving through the long wide
streets of London for six weeks; but there are very few, you know, who
obtain an entrée to the chateaux of the noblesse. In short, my cousin
was enchanted, and set off immediately. He arrived just in time to
arrange his toilet before dinner; and when he entered the salon, he
was perfectly dazzled by the exceeding beauty of the three daughters
of his host, who were all _décolletées_, and full-dressed, he says,
exactly as if they were going to some very elegant _bal paré_. There
was no other company, and he felt a little startled at being received
in such a ceremonious style.
The young ladies all performed on the piano-forte and harp, and my
cousin, who is very musical, was in raptures. Had not his admiration
been too equally drawn to each, he assures me that before the end of
that evening he must inevitably have been the conquest of one. The
next morning, the whole family met again at breakfast: the young
ladies were as charming as ever, but still he felt in doubt as to
which he admired most. Whilst he was exerting himself to be as
agreeable as he could, and talking to them all with the timid respect
with which demoiselles are always addressed by Frenchmen, the father
of the family startled and certainly almost alarmed my cousin by
suddenly saying,--"We cannot hunt to-day, mon ami, for I have business
which will keep me at home; but you shall ride into the woods with
Elizabeth: she will show you my pheasants. Get ready, Elizabeth, to
attend Monsieur...!"
Madame B*** stopped short, and looked at me as if expecting that I
should make some observation.
"Well?" said I.
"Well!" she repeated, laughing; "then you really find nothing
extraordinary in this proceeding--nothing out of the common way?"
"In what respect?" said I: "what is it that you suppose was out of the
common way?"
"That question," said she, clasping her hands in an ecstasy at having
made the discovery--"That question puts me more au fait than anything
else you could say to me. It is the strongest possible proof that what
happened to my cousin was in truth nothing more than what is of
every-day occurrence in England."
"What did happen to him?"
"Have I not told you?... The father of the young ladies whom he so
greatly admired, selected one of them and desired my cousin to attend
her on an excursion into the woods. My dear madame ... national
manners vary so strangely.... I beseech you not to suppose that I
imagine that everything may not be exceedingly well arranged
notwithstanding. My cousin is a very distinguished young
man--excellent character--good name--and will have his father's estate
... only the manner is so different...."
"Did your cousin accompany the young lady?" said I.
"No, he did not--he returned to London immediately."
This was said so gravely--so more than gravely--with an air of so much
more meaning than she thought it civil to express, that my gravity and
politeness gave way together, and I laughed most heartily.
My amiable companion, however, did not take it amiss--she only laughed
with me; and when we had recovered our gravity, she said, "So you find
my cousin very ridiculous for throwing up the party?--_un peu timide,
peut-être?_"
"Oh no!" I replied--"only a little hasty."
"Hasty!... Mais que voulez-vous? You do not seem to comprehend his
embarrassment."
"Perhaps not fully; but I assure you his embarrassment would have
ceased altogether, had he trusted himself with the young lady and her
attendant groom: I doubt not that she would have led the way through
one of our beautiful pheasant preserves, which are exceedingly well
worth seeing; but most certainly she would have been greatly
astonished, and much embarrassed in her turn, had your cousin taken it
into his head to make love to her."
"You are in earnest?" said she, looking in my face with an air of
great interest.
"Indeed I am," I replied; "I am very seriously in earnest; and though
I know not the persons of whom we have been speaking, I can venture to
assure you positively, that it was only because no gentleman so well
recommended as your cousin could be suspected of abusing the
confidence reposed in him, that this English father permitted him to
accompany the young lady in her morning ride."
"C'est donc un trait sublime!" she exclaimed: "what noble
confidence--what confiding honour! It is enough to remind one of the
_paladins_ of old."
"I suspect you are quizzing our confiding simplicity," said I; "but,
at any rate, do not suspect me of quizzing you--for I have told you
nothing more than a very simple and certain fact."
"I doubt it not the least in the world," she replied; "but you are
indeed, as I observed at first, superiorly romantic." She appeared to
meditate for a moment, and then added, "Mais dites moi un peu ... is
not this a little inconsistent with the stories we read in the 'novels
of fashionable life' respecting the manner in which husbands are
acquired for the young ladies of England?... You refuse yourselves,
you know, the privilege of disposing of your daughters in marriage
according to the mutual interests of the parties; and therefore, as
young ladies must be married, it follows that some other means must be
resorted to by the parents. All Frenchmen know this, and they may
perhaps for that reason be sometimes too easily induced to imagine
that it is intended to lead them into marriage by captivating their
senses. This is so natural an inference, that you really must forgive
it."
"I forgive it perfectly," I replied; "but as we have agreed not to
_mystify_ each other, it would not be fair to leave you in the belief
that it is the custom, in order to 'acquire' husbands for the young
ladies, that they should be sent on love-making expeditions into the
woods with the premier venu. But what you have said enables me to
understand a passage which I was reading the other day in a French
story, and which puzzled me most exceedingly. It was on the subject of
a young girl who had been forsaken by her lover; and some one,
reproaching him for his conduct, uses, I think, these words: 'Après
l'avoir compromise autant qu'il est possible de compromettre une
jeune miss--ce qui n'est pas une chose absolument facile dans la
bienheureuse Albion....' This puzzled me more than I can express;
because the fact is, that we consider the compromising the reputation
of a young lady as so tremendous a thing, that excepting in novels,
where neither national manners nor natural probabilities are permitted
to check the necessary accumulation of misery on the head of a
heroine, it NEVER occurs; and this, not because nothing can compromise
her, but because nothing that can compromise her is ever permitted,
or, I might almost say, ever attempted. Among the lower orders,
indeed, stories of seduction are but too frequent; but our present
examination of national manners refers only to the middle and higher
classes of society."
Madame B*** listened to me with the most earnest attention; and
after I had ceased speaking, she remained silent, as if meditating on
what she had heard. At length she said, in a tone of much more
seriousness than she had yet used,--"I am quite sure that every word
you say is _parfaitement exact_--your manner persuades me that you are
speaking neither with exaggeration nor in jest: _cependant_ ... I
cannot conceal from you my astonishment at your statement. The
received opinion among us is, that private and concealed infidelities
among married women are probably less frequent in England than in
France--because it seems to be essentially _dans vos moeurs de faire
un grand scandale_ whenever such a circumstance occurs; and this, with
the penalties annexed to it, undoubtedly acts as a prevention. But, on
the other hand, it is universally considered as a fact, that you are
as lenient to the indiscretions of unmarried ladies, as severe to
those of the married ones. Tell me--is there not some truth in this
idea?"
"Not the least in the world, I do assure you. On the contrary, I am
persuaded that in no country is there any race of women from whom such
undeviating purity and propriety of conduct is demanded as from the
unmarried women of England. Slander cannot attach to them, because it
is as well known as that a Jew is not qualified to sit in parliament,
that a single woman suspected of indiscretion immediately dies a civil
death--she sinks out of society, and is no more heard of; and it is
therefore that I have ventured to say, that a compromised reputation
among the unmarried ladies of England NEVER occurs."
"Nous nous sommes singulièrement trompés sur tout cela donc, nous
autres," said Madame B***. "But the single ladies no longer young?"
she continued;--"forgive me ... but is it really supposed that they
pass their entire lives without any indiscretion at all?"
This question was asked in a tone of such utter incredulity as to the
possibility of a reply in the affirmative, that I again lost my
gravity, and laughed heartily; but, after a moment, I assured her very
seriously that such was most undoubtedly the case.
The naïve manner in which she exclaimed in reply, "Est-il possible!"
might have made the fortune of a young actress. There was, however, no
acting in the case; Madame B*** was most perfectly unaffected in her
expression of surprise, and assured me that it would be shared by all
Frenchwomen who should be so fortunate as to find occasion, like
herself, to receive such information from indisputable authority.
"Quant aux hommes," she added, laughing, "je doute fort si vous en
trouverez de si croyans."
We pursued our conversation much farther; but were I to repeat the
whole, you would only find it contained many repetitions of the same
fact--namely, that a very strong persuasion exists in France, among
those who are not personally well acquainted with English manners,
that the mode in which marriages are arranged, rather by the young
people themselves than by their relatives, produces an effect upon the
conduct of our unmarried females which is not only as far as possible
from the truth, but so preposterously so, as never to have entered
into any English head to imagine.
So few opportunities for anything approaching to intimacy between
French and English women arise, that it is not very easy for us to
find out exactly what their real opinion is concerning us. Nothing in
Madame B***'s manner could lead me to suspect that any feeling of
reprobation or contempt mixed itself with her belief respecting the
extraordinary license which she supposed was accorded to unmarried
woman. Nothing could be more indulgent than her tone of commentary on
our _national peculiarities_, as she called them. The only theme which
elicited an expression of harshness from her was the manner in which
divorces were obtained and paid for: "Se faire payer pour une aventure
semblable! ... publier un scandale si ridicule, si offensant pour son
amour-propre--si fortement contre les bonnes moeurs, pour en
recevoir de l'argent, was," she said, "perfectly incomprehensible in a
nation de si braves gens que les Anglais."
I did my best to defend our mode of proceeding in such cases upon the
principles of justice and morality; but French prejudices on this
point are too inveterate to be shaken by any eloquence of mine. We
parted, however, the best friends in the world, and mutually grateful
for the information we had received.
This conversation only furnished one, among several instances, in
which I have been astonished to discover the many popular errors
which are still current in France respecting England. Can we fairly
doubt that, in many cases where we consider ourselves as perfectly
well-informed, we may be quite as much in the dark respecting them? It
is certain that the habit so general among us of flying over to Paris
for a week or two every now and then, must have made a great number of
individuals acquainted with the external aspect of France between
Calais and Paris, and also with all the most conspicuous objects of
the capital itself--its churches and its theatres, its little river
and its great coffee-houses: but it is an extremely small proportion
of these flying travellers who ever enter into any society beyond what
they may encounter in public; and to all such, France can be very
little better known than England is to those who content themselves
with perusing the descriptions we give of ourselves in our novels and
newspapers.
Of the small advance made towards obtaining information by such visits
as these, I have had many opportunities of judging for myself, both
among English and French, but never more satisfactorily than at a
dinner-party at the house of an old widow lady, who certainly
understands our language perfectly, and appears to me to read more
English books, and to be more interested about their authors, than
almost any one I ever met with. She has never crossed the Channel,
however, and has rather an overweening degree of respect for such of
her countrymen as have enjoyed the privilege of looking at us face to
face on our own soil.
The day I dined with her, one of these travelled gentlemen was led up
and presented to me as a person well acquainted with my country. His
name was placed on the cover next to the one destined for me at table,
and it was evidently intended that we should derive our principal
amusement from the conversation of each other. As I never saw him
before or since, as I never expect to see him again, and as I do not
even remember his name, I think I am guilty of no breach of confidence
by repeating to you a few of the ideas upon England which he had
acquired on his travels.
His first remark after we were placed at table was,--"You do not, I
think, use table-napkins in England;--do you not find them rather
embarrassing?" The next was,--"I observed during my stay in England
that it is not the custom to eat soup: I hope, however, that you do
not find it disagreeable to your palate?"... "You have, I think, no
national cuisine?" was the third observation; and upon this
_singularity in our manners_ he was eloquent. "Yet, after all," said
he consolingly, "France is in fact the only country which has one:
Spain is too oily--Italy too spicy. We have sent artists into Germany;
but this cannot be said to constitute _une cuisine nationale_. Pour
dire vrai, however, the rosbif of England is hardly more scientific
than the sun-dried meat of the Tartars. A Frenchman would be starved
in England did he not light upon one of the imported artists,--and,
happily for travellers, this is no longer difficult."
"Did you dine much in private society?" said I.
"No, I did not: my time was too constantly occupied to permit my doing
so."
"We have some very good hotels, however, in London."
"But no tables d'hôte!" he replied with a shrug. "I did very well,
nevertheless; for I never permitted myself to venture anywhere for the
purpose of dining excepting to your celebrated Leicester-square. It is
the most fashionable part of London, I believe; or, at least, the only
fashionable restaurans are to be found there."
I ventured very gently to hint that there were other parts of London
more à-la-mode, and many hotels which had the reputation of a better
cuisine than any which could be found in Leicester-square; but the
observation appeared to displease the traveller, and the belle
harmonie which it was intended should subsist between us was evidently
shaken thereby, for I heard him say in a half-whisper to the person
who sat on the other side of him, and who had been attentively
listening to our discourse,--"Pas exact...."
LETTER LIV.
Mixed Society.--Influence of the English Clergy and their
Families.--Importance of their station in Society.
Though I am still of opinion that French society, properly so
called,--that is to say, the society of the educated ladies and
gentlemen of France,--is the most graceful, animated, and fascinating
in the world; I think, nevertheless, that it is not as perfect as it
might be, were a little more exclusiveness permitted in the formation
of it.
No one can be really well acquainted with good society in this country
without being convinced that there are both men and women to be found
in it who to the best graces add the best virtues of social life; but
it is equally impossible to deny, that admirable as are some
individuals of the circle, they all exercise a degree of toleration to
persons less estimable, which, when some well-authenticated anecdotes
are made known to us, is, to say the least of it, very startling to
the feelings of those who are not to this easy manner either born or
bred.
To look into the hearts of all who form either a Parisian or a London
lady's visiting list, in order to discover of what stuff each
individual be made, would not perhaps be very wise, and is luckily
quite impossible. Nothing at all approaching to such a scrutiny can be
reasonably wished or expected from those who open their doors for the
reception of company; but where society is perfectly well ordered, no
one of either sex, I think, whose outward and visible conduct has
brought upon them the eyes of all and the reprobation of the good,
should be admitted.
That such are admitted much more freely in France than in England,
cannot be denied; and though there are many who conscientiously keep
aloof from such intercourse, and more who mark plainly enough that
there is a distance in spirit even where there is vicinity of person,
still I think it is greatly to be regretted that such a leven of
disunion should ever be suffered to insinuate itself into meetings
which would be so infinitely more agreeable as well as more
respectable without it.
One reason, I doubt not, why there is less exclusiveness and severity
of selection in the forming a circle here is, that there are no
individuals, or rather no class of individuals, in the wide circle
which constitutes what is called _en grand_ the society of Paris, who
could step forward with propriety and say, "_This may not be_."
With us, happily, the case is as yet different. The clergy of England,
their matronly wives and highly-educated daughters, form a distinct
caste, to which there is nothing that answers in the whole range of
continental Europe. In this caste, however, are mingled a portion of
every other; yet it has a dignity and aristocracy of its own: and in
this aristocracy are blended the high blood of the noble, the learning
which has in many instances sufficed to raise to a level with it the
obscure and needy, and the piety which has given station above either
to those whose unspotted lives have marked them out as pre-eminent in
the holy profession they have chosen.
While such men as these mingle freely in society, as they constantly
do in England, and bring with them the females who form their
families, there is little danger that notorious vice should choose to
obtrude itself.
It will hardly be denied, I believe, that many a frail fair one, who
would boldly push her way among ermine and coronets where the mitre
was not, would shrink from parading her doubtful honours where it was:
and it is equally certain, that many a thoughtless, easy, careless
giver of fine parties has been prevented from filling up her
constellation of beauties because "It is impossible to have Lady This,
or Mrs. That, when the bishop and his family are expected."
Nor is this wholesome influence confined to the higher ranks
alone;--the rector of the parish--nay, even his young curate, with a
smooth cheek and almost unrazored chin, will in humbler circles
produce the same effect. In short, wherever an English clergyman or an
English clergyman's family appears, there decency is in presence, and
the canker of known and tolerated vice is not.
Whenever we find ourselves weary of this restraint, and anxious to mix
(unshackled by the silent rebuke of such a presence) with whatever may
be most attractive to the eye or amusing to the spirit, let the stamp
of vice be as notorious upon it as it may, whenever we reach this
state, it will be the right and proper time to pass the Irish Church
Bill.
These meditations have been thrust upon me by the reply I received in
answer to a question which I addressed to a lady of my acquaintance at
a party the other evening.
"Who is that very elegant-looking woman?" said I.
"It is Madame de C***," was the reply. "Have you never met her
before? She is very much in society; one sees her everywhere."
I replied, that I had seen her once or twice before, but had never
learned her name; adding, that it was not only her name I was anxious
to learn, but something about her. She looked like a personage, a
heroine, a sybil: in short, it was one of those heads and busts that
one seems to have the same right to stare at, as at a fine picture or
statue; they appear a part of the decorations, only they excite a
little more interest and curiosity.
"Can you not tell me something of her character?" said I: "I never saw
so picturesque a figure; I could fancy that the spirit of Titian had
presided at her toilet."
"It was only the spirit of coquetry, I suspect," answered my friend
with a smile. "But if you are so anxious to know her, I can give you
her character and history in very few words:--she is rich, high-born,
intellectual, political, and unchaste."
I do not think I started; I should be shocked to believe myself so
unfit for a salon as to testify surprise thus openly at anything; but
my friend looked at me and laughed.
"You are astonished at seeing her here? But I have told you that you
may expect to meet her everywhere; except, indeed, chez moi, and at a
few exceedingly rococo houses besides."
As the lady I was talking to happened to be an Englishwoman, though
for many years a resident in Paris, I ventured to hint the surprise I
felt that a person known to be what she described Madame de C***
should be so universally received in good society.
"It is very true," she replied: "it is surprising, and more so to me
perhaps than to you, because I know thoroughly well the irreproachable
character and genuine worth of many who receive her. I consider this,"
she continued, "as one of the most singular traits in Parisian
society. If, as many travellers have most falsely insinuated, the
women of Paris were generally corrupt and licentious, there would be
nothing extraordinary in it: but it is not so. Where neither the
husband, the relatives, the servants, nor any one else, has any wish
or intention of discovering or exposing the frailty of a wife, it is
certainly impossible to say that it may not often exist without being
either known or suspected: but with this, general society cannot
interfere; and those whose temper or habits of mind lead them to
suspect evil wherever it is possible that it may be concealed, may
often lose the pleasure of friendship founded on esteem, solely
because it is possible that some hidden faults may render their
neighbour unworthy of it. That such tempers are not often to be found
in France, is certainly no proof of the depravity of national manners;
but where notorious irregularity of conduct has brought a woman fairly
before the bar of public opinion, it does appear to me very
extraordinary that such a person as our hostess, and very many others
equally irreproachable, should receive her."
"I presume," said I, "that Madame de C*** is not the only person
towards whom this remarkable species of tolerance is exercised?"
"Certainly not. There are many others whose _liaisons_ are as well
known as hers, who are also admitted into the best society. But
observe--I know no instance where such are permitted to enter within
the narrower circle of intimate domestic friendship. No one in Paris
seems to think that they have any right to examine into the private
history of all the _élégantes_ who fill its salons; but I believe they
take as good care to know the _friends_ whom they admit to the
intimacy of their private hours as we do. There, however, this species
of decorum ends; and they would no more turn back from entering a room
where they saw Madame de C***, than a London lady would drive
away from the opera because she saw the carriage of Lady ---- at the
door."
"There is no parallel, however, between the cases," said I.
"No, certainly," she replied; "but it is not the less certain that the
Parisians appear to think otherwise."
Now it appears evident to me, that all this arises much less from
general licentiousness of morals than from general easiness of temper.
SANS SOUCI is the darling device of the whole nation: and how can this
be adhered to, if they set about the very arduous task of driving out
of society all those who do not deserve to be in it? But while feeling
sincerely persuaded, as I really do, that this difference in the
degree of moral toleration practised by the two countries does not
arise from any depravity in the French character, I cannot but think
that our mode of proceeding in this respect is infinitely better. It
is more conducive, not only to virtue, but to agreeable and
unrestrained intercourse; and for this reason, if for no other, it is
deeply our interest to uphold with all possible reverence and dignity
that class whose presence is of itself sufficient to guarantee at
least the reputation of propriety, in every circle in which they
appear.
Though not very german to Paris and the Parisians, which I promised
should make the subjects of my letters as long as I remained among
them, I cannot help observing how utterly this most important
influence would be destroyed in the higher circles--which will ever
form the model of those below them--if the riches, rank, and worldly
honours of this class are wrested from them. It is indeed very certain
that a clergyman, whether bishop, priest, or deacon, may perform the
duty of a minister in the desk, at the altar, or in the pulpit, though
he has to walk home afterwards to an humble dwelling and an humble
meal: he may perform this duty well, and to the entire satisfaction of
the rich and great, though his poverty may prevent him from ever
taking his place among them; but he may not--he can not, while such is
the station allotted him, produce that effect on society, and exert
that influence on the morals of the people, which he would do were his
temporal place and power such as to exalt him in the eyes even of the
most worldly.
Amidst all the varieties of cant to which it is the destiny of the
present age to listen, there is none which I endure with so little
patience as that which preaches the "_humility of the church_." Were
there the shadow of reason or logic in the arguments for the
degradation of the clergy drawn from the Scriptures, they must go the
length of showing that, in order to follow the example of the great
Master, they must all belong to the class of carpenters and fishermen.
Could we imagine another revelation of the Divinity accorded to man,
it would be natural enough to conceive that the rich gift of direct
inspiration should be again given to those who had neither learning,
knowledge, pride, nor power of any kind, to combat or resist, to
explain or to weaken, the communication which it was their duty
simply to record and spread abroad. But the eternal word of God once
delivered, does it follow that those who are carefully instructed in
all the various learning which can assist in giving strength and
authority to the propagation of it should alone, of all the sons of
men, be for ever doomed to the lower walks of social life in order to
imitate the humility of the Saviour of the world?
I know not if there be more nonsense or blasphemy in this. The taking
the office of preaching his own blessed will to man was an act of
humility in God; but the taking upon themselves to instruct their
fellow-men in the law thus solemnly left us, is a great assumption of
dignity in men,--and where the offices it imposes are well performed,
it becomes one of the first duties of the believers in the doctrine
they have made it their calling to expound, to honour them with such
honour as mortals can understand and value. If any one be found who
does not perform the duties of this high calling in the best manner
which his ability enables him to do, let him be degraded as he
deserves; but while he holds it, let him not be denied the dignity of
state and station to which all his fellow-citizens in their different
walks aspire, in order forsooth to _keep him humble_! Humble
indeed--yea, humbled to the dust, will our long-venerated church and
its insulted ministers be, if its destiny and their fortune be left
at the mercy of those who have lately undertaken to legislate for
them. I often feel a sort of vapourish, vague uncertainty of
disbelief, as I read the records of what has been passing in the House
of Commons on this subject. I cannot _realise_ it, as the Americans
say, that the majority of the English parliament should consent to be
led blind-fold upon such a point as this, by a set of low-born,
ignorant, bullying papists. I hope, when I return to England, I shall
awake and find that it is not so.
And now forgive me for this long digression: I will write to you
to-morrow upon something as essentially French as possible, to make up
for it.
LETTER LV.
Le Grand Opéra.--Its enormous Expense.--Its Fashion.--Its
acknowledged Dulness.--'La Juive'.--Its heavy Music.--Its
exceeding Splendour.--Beautiful management of the
Scenery.--National Music.
Can I better keep the promise I gave you yesterday than by writing you
a letter of and concerning le grand opéra? Is there anything in the
world so perfectly French as this? Something like their pretty opéra
comique may exist elsewhere; we have our comic opera, and Italy has
her buffa; the opéra Italien, too, may be rather more than rivalled at
the Haymarket: but where out of Paris are we to look for anything like
the Académie Royale de Musique? ... le grand opéra? ... l'opéra par
excellence?--I may safely answer, nowhere.
It is an institution of which the expenses are so enormous, that
though it is more constantly and fully attended perhaps than any other
theatre in the world, it could not be sustained without the aid of
funds supplied by the government. The extraordinary partiality for
this theatre seems to have existed among the higher classes, without
any intermission from change of fashion, occasional inferiority of the
performances, or any other cause, from the time of Louis Quatorze to
the present. That immortal monarch, whose whim was power, and whose
word was law, granted a patent privilege to this establishment in
favour of the musical Abbé Perrin, but speedily revoked it, to bestow
one more ample still on Lulli. In this latter act, it is ordained that
"_tous gentilshommes et demoiselles puissent chanter aux dites pièces
et représentations de notre dite Académie Royale sans que pour ça ils
soient censés déroger au dit titre de noblesse et à leurs
priviléges_."
This was a droll device to exalt this pet plaything of the fashionable
world above all others. Voltaire fell into the mode like the rest of
the fine folks, and thus expressed his sensibility to its
attractions:--
"Il faut se rendre à ce palais magique,
Où les beaux vers, la danse, la musique,
L'art de charmer les yeux par les couleurs,
L'art plus heureux de séduire les coeurs,
De cent plaisirs font un plaisir unique."
But the most incomprehensible part of the business is, that with all
this enthusiasm, which certainly rather goes on increasing than
diminishing, every one declares that he is _ennuyé à la mort_ at le
grand opéra.
I do not mean that their being ennuyés is incomprehensible--Heaven
knows that I understand that perfectly: but why, when this is avowed,
they should continue to persecute themselves by going there two or
three times in every week, I cannot comprehend.
If attendance at the opera were here, as it is with us, a sort of
criterion of the love of music and _other fine arts_, it would be much
less difficult to understand: but this is far from being the case, as
both the Italian and the comic operas have more perfect orchestras.
The style and manner of singing, too, are what no genuine lover of
music could ever be brought to tolerate. When the remembrance of a
German or Italian opera comes across one while listening to the dry,
heavy recitative of the Academy, it produces a feeling of impatience
difficult to conceive by those who have never experienced it.
If, however, instead of being taken in by the name of opera, and
expecting the musical treat which that name seems to promise, we go to
this magnificent theatre for the purpose of seeing the most superb and
the best-fancied decorations in the world, we shall at least not be
disappointed, though before the end of the entertainment we may
probably become heartily weary of gazing at and admiring the dazzling
pageant. I told you just now what Voltaire said of the opera, either
when he was particularly enchanted by some reigning star--the adorable
Sophie Arnould perhaps--or else when he chose to be particularly
à-la-mode: but he seems more soberly in earnest, I think, when he says
afterwards, "L'opéra n'est qu'un rendezvous publique, où l'on
s'assemble à certains jours, sans trop savoir pourquoi: c'est une
maison où tout le monde va, quoiqu'on pense mal du maître, et qu'il
soit assez ennuyeux."
That little phrase, "où tout le monde va," contains, I suspect after
all, the only true solution of the mystery. "Man is a gregarious
animal," say the philosophers; and it is therefore only in conformity
to this well-known law of his nature that hes and shes flock by
thousands to be pent up together, in defiance of most _triste musique_
and a stifling atmosphere, within the walls of this beautiful
puppet-show.
That it is beautiful, I am at this moment particularly willing to
avouch, as we have just been regaling ourselves, or rather our eyes,
with as gorgeous a spectacle there as it ever entered into the heart
of a carpenter to _étaler_ on the stage of a theatre. This splendid
show is known by the name of "La Juive;" but it should rather have
been called "Le Cardinal," for a personage of no less dignity is
decidedly its hero. M. Halévy is the composer, and M. Scribe the
author of the "paroles."
M. Scribe stands so high as a dramatic composer, that I suppose he
may sport a little with his fame without running much risk of doing it
an injury: but as the Académie Royale has the right of drawing upon
the Treasury for its necessities, it is to be hoped that the author of
"Bertrand et Raton" is well paid for lending his name to the pegs on
which ermine and velvet, feathers and flowers, cardinals' hats and
emperors' mantles, are hung up to view for the amusement of all who
may be curious in such matters. I suspect, however, that the
composition of this piece did not cost the poet many sleepless nights:
perhaps he remembered that excellent axiom of the Barbier de
Seville,--"Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante;" and
under this sentence I think such verses as the following, which
strongly remind one of the famous Lilliputian ode in the Bath Guide,
may fairly enough be condemned to music.
"Fille chère
Près d'un père
Viens mourir;
Et pardonne
Quand il donne
La couronne
Du martyr!
Plus de plainte--
Vaine crainte
Est éteinte
En mon coeur;
Saint délire!
Dieu m'inspire,
Et j'expire
Vainqueur."
Unhappily, however, the music is at least as worthless as the rhymes.
There is one passage, nevertheless, that is singularly impressive and
beautiful. This is the chorus at the opening of the second act, where
a party of Jews assembled to eat the passover chant a grace in these
words:--
"Oh! Dieu de nos pères!
Toi qui nous éclaires,
Parmi nous descends!"
&c. &c. &c.
This is very fine, but perhaps it approaches rather too closely to the
"Dieu d'Israël" in Méhul's opera of "Joseph" to be greatly vaunted on
the score of originality.
Yet, with all these "points of 'vantage" at which it may be hostilely
attacked, "La Juive" draws thousands to gaze at its splendour every
time it is performed. Twice we attempted to get in without having
secured places, and were told on both occasions that there was not
even standing-room for gentlemen.
Among its attractions are two which are alike new to me as belonging
to an opera: one is the performance of the "Te Deum laudamus," and the
other the entrance of Franconi's troop of horse.
But, after all, it was clear enough that, whatever may have been the
original object of this institution, with its nursery academies of
music and dancing, its royal patronage and legalised extravagance,
its present glory rests almost wholly on the talents of the Taglioni
family, and with the sundry MM. décorateurs who have imagined and
arranged the getting up this extraordinary specimen of scenic
magnificence, as well as the many others of the same kind which have
preceded it.
I have seen many very fine shows of the kind in London, but certainly
never anything that could at all be compared with this. Individual
scenes--as, for instance, that of the masqued ball in "Gustavus"--may
equal, by the effect of the first coup-d'oeil, any scene in "La
Juive"; but it is the extraordinary propriety and perfection of all
the accessaries which make this part of the performance worthy of a
critical study from the beginning to the end of it. I remember reading
in some history of Paris, that it was the fashion to be so _précieuse_
as to the correctness of the costumes of the French opera, that the
manager could not venture to bring out "Les Trois Sultanes" without
sending to Constantinople to obtain the dresses. A very considerable
portion of the same spirit has evidently been at work to render the
appearance of a large detachment of the court of Rome and the whole
court of the Emperor Sigismund _comme il faut_ upon the scene.
But, with all a woman's weakness at my heart in favour of velvet,
satin, gold tissue, and ermine, I cannot but confess that these
things, important as they are, appear but secondary aids in the
magical scenic effects of "La Juive." The arrangement and management
of the scenery were to me perfectly new. The coulisses have vanished,
side scenes are no more,--and, what is more important still, these
admirable mechanists have found the way of throwing across the stage
those accidental masses of shadow by aid of which Nature produces her
most brilliant effects; so that, instead of the aching eyes having to
gaze upon a blaze of reflected light, relieved only by an occasional
dip of the foot-lights and a sudden paling of gas in order to enact
night, they are now enchanted and beguiled by exactly such a mixture
of light and shade as an able painter would give to a picture.
How this is effected, Heaven knows! There are, I am very sure, more
things at present above, about, and underneath the opera stage, than
are dreamed of in any philosophy, excepting that of a Parisian
carpenter. In the first scene of the "Juive," a very noble-looking
church rears its sombre front exactly in the centre of the stage,
throwing as fine, rich, deep a shadow on one side of it as Notre Dame
herself could do. In another scene, half the stage appears to be sunk
below the level of the eye, and is totally lost sight of, a low
parapet wall marking the boundary of the seeming river.
Our box was excellently situated, and by no means distant from the
stage; yet we often found it impossible to determine at what point, in
different directions, the boards ended and the scenery began. The
arrangement of the groups too, not merely in combinations of grace and
beauty, but in such bold, easy, and picturesque variety, that one
might fancy Murillo had made the sketches for them, was another source
of wonder and admiration; and had all these pretty sights been shown
us in the course of two acts instead of five, I am sure we should have
gone home quite delighted and in the highest possible good-humour. But
five acts of raree-show is too much; and accordingly we yawned, and
talked of Grétry, Méhul, Nicolo, and I know not whom beside;--in
short, became as splenetic and pedantic as possible.
We indulged ourselves occasionally in this unamiable mood by
communicating our feelings to each other, in a whisper however which
could not go beyond our own box, and with the less restraint because
we felt sure that the one stranger gentleman who shared it with us
could not understand our language. But herein we egregiously deceived
ourselves: though in appearance he was _Français jusqu'aux ongles_, we
soon found out that he could speak English as well as any of us; and,
with much real politeness, he had the good-nature to let us know this
before we had uttered anything too profoundly John Bullish to be
forgiven.
Fortunately, too, it appeared that our judgments accorded as well as
if we had all been born in the same parish. He lamented the decadence
of music in this, which ought to be its especial theatre; but spoke
with enthusiasm of the Théâtre Italien, and its great superiority in
science over every other in Paris. This theatre, to my great vexation,
is now closed; but I well remember that such too was my judgment of it
some seven years ago.
The English and the French are generally classed together as having
neither one nor the other any really national music of their own. We
have both of us, however, some sweet and perfectly original airs,
which will endure as long as the modulations of sound are permitted to
enchant our mortal ears. Nevertheless, I am not going to appeal
against a sentence too often repeated not to be universally received
as truth. But, notwithstanding this absence of any distinct school of
national music, it is impossible to doubt that the people of both
countries are fondly attached to the science. More sacrifices are made
by both to obtain good music than the happy German and Italian people
would ever dream of making. Nor would it, I think, be fair to argue,
from the present style of the performances at the Académie, that the
love of music is on the decline here. The unbounded expense bestowed
upon decorations, and the pomp and splendour of effect which results
from it, are quite enough to attract and dazzle the eyes of a more
"thinking people" than the Parisians; and the unprecedented perfection
to which the mechanists have brought the delusion of still-life seems
to permit a relaxation in the efforts of the manager to obtain
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