. ' m^ r~ I VI "II' 'fj/&V " THE AMERICAN IN PARIS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. 1. ' ,^.c LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1838. ^d3 '^cj, t c T. C. Savill, Printer, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross. PREFACE. * # # # * You have no sooner a o'uinea in London than you have none. In addition to the ways and means I pointed out in my last, gather together the letters I wrote you from Paris, and offer them to the book- sellers. There are enough, if you have preserved them, for two volumes. I had partly the inten- tion, in writing these letters, to dress them up one day into some kind of shape for the Public. I am not certain they are fit to be seen in their present dishabille— but leave that to the pur- chaser. A pretty woman shp-shod is a pretty woman still, and she is not so much improved as you think by her court dress. Tell the Public I do not mean them for great things : I ivii055o3 IV PREFACE. am no critic, no politician, no political econo- mist ; but only, as Shakspeare would say, *' a snapper up of inconsiderate trifles." Under this title I have the honour to be, with the most perfect consideration, the Public's very obedient, humble servant. CONTENTS. LETTER I. Havre — Description of the Town — The Mapseller — Man- ners of the People — Law of Inheritance — State of Agri- culture — Town and Country Poverty — Foreign Trade — The Custom House, a School for Perjury — System of Passports — The French Diligence — Rouen — The Cathe- dral — Joan of Arc . p. 1 — 24 LETTER IL Paris — Street Cries — St. Roch — The Boulevards — Parisian Lodgings — Manner of Living — The Grand Opera — ■ Taglioni — The Public Gardens — The Guinguettes — Dancing, the characteristic amusement of the French — Sunday Dances — Dancing defended, from classical au- thority p. 25 — 53 LETTER IIL The Boulevards — Boulevard Madelaine — Boulevard des Capucines — Boulevard Italien — Monsieur Careme — Splendid Cafes — The Baths — Boulevard Montmartre — The Shoe-black— The Chiffonnier— The Gratteur— The Commissionnaire — Boulevard du Temple — Scene at VI CONTENTS. •the Ambigu Comique — Sir Sydney Smith — Monsieur de Paris — The Cafe Turc — The Fountains — Recollections of the Bastille— The Halle aux Bles— The Bicetre— Boulevard du Mont Parnasse p. 54 — 92 LETTER IV. The Palais Royal — French courtesy — RueVivienne — Plea- sures of walking in the streets — Cafes in the Palais Royal — Mille Colonnes — Very's — French dinners — Past His- tory of the Palais Royal — Galerie d'Orleans — Gambling — The unhappy Colton — Hells of the Palais Royal — Prince Puckler Muskau — Lord Brougham — The King and Queen p. 93 — 125 LETTER V. The Tuileries— The Gardens— The Statues— The Cabinets de Lecture — The King's Band — Regulations of the Gar- dens — Yankee modesty — The English Parks — Proper estimate of riches — Policy of cultivating a taste for inno- cent pleasures — Advantages of gardens — Should be made ornamental — Cause of the French Revolution — Mr. Burke's notion of the English Parks — Climate of France p. 126—143 LETTER VI. The Three Glorious Days — The plump little Widow — Marriage of fifteen young Girls — Shrines of the Mar- tyrs — Louis Philippe — Dukes of Orleans and Nemours — The National Guards — Fieschi — The Infernal Ma- chine — Marshal Mortier and twelve persons killed — Dismissal of the Troops — The Queen and her Daugh- ters — Disturbed state of France — The Chamber of Deputies — Elements of support to the present Dynasty — Private character of the King — The Daily Journals — The Chamber of Peers — Bonaparte . . p. 144 — 165 CONTENTS. Vll LETTER VII, The Garden of Plants— The Omnibus— The Museum of Natural History— American Birds— The Naturalist- Study of Entomology— The Botanic Garden— Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy— The Menagerie— The Giraffe —Notions of America— The Cedar of Lebanon— Effects of French Cookery— French Gastronomy— Goose Liver Pie— Mode of Procuring the Repletion of the Liver p. 166—186 LETTER VIII. Burial of the victims — St. Cloud — The Chateau — The Cicerone— The Chevalier d'Industrie— Grave of Mrs. Jordan— The Bois de Boulogne— Amusements on Fete Days— Place Louis XV.— The King at the Tuileries— The American Address — His Majesty's Reply— The Princess Amelia— The Queen and her Daughters— The Dukes of Orleans and Nemours— Madame Adelaide- Splendour of Ancient Courts— Manner of governing the French— William the Fourth— Exhibition of the Stu- dents at the University p. 187— 209 LETTER IX. Tour of Paris— The Seine— The Garden of Plants— The Animals— Island of St. Louis-The Halle aux Vins— The Police— Palais de Justice— The Morgue— Number of suicides— M. Perriu— The Hotel de ViUe-Place de Greve- The Pont Neuf— Quai des Augustins— The Institute— Isabelle de Baviere— The Bains Vigiers— The Pont des Arts— The Washerwomen's Fete— Swim- ing-schools for both sexes— The Chamber of Deputies —Place de la Revolution— Obelisk of Luxor— Hospital of the Invalids— Ecole Militaire— The Champ de Mars -Talleymnd p. 210-250 yill CONTENTS. LETTER X. Faubourg St. Germain — Quartier Latin — The Book-stalis — Phrenologists — Dupuytren's Room — Medical Stu- dents — Lodgings — Bill at the Sorbonne — French Cookery — A Gentleman's Boarding-house — The Loco- motive Cook — Fruit — The Pension — The Landlady — Pleasures of being duped — Smile of a French Landlady — The Boarding-house — Amiable Ladies — ^The Luxem- bourg Gardens — The Grisettes — Their naivete and sim- plicity — Americans sent to Paris — Parisian Morals — Advantages in visiting Old Countries — American So- ciety in Paris p. 251—284 LETTER XI. The Observatory — The Astronomers — Val de Grace — Anne of Austria — Hospice des Enfans Trouv^s — Rows of Cradles — Sisters of Charity — Vincent de Paul — Mai- sons d'Accouchement — Place St. Jaques — The Cata- combs—Skull of Ninon de I'Enclos— The Poet Gilbert — Julian's Bath — Hotel de Cluny — Ancient Furniture — Francis the First's Bed — Charlotte Corday — Danton — Marat — Robespierre — Rue des Postes — Convents of former Times — Faubourg St. Marceau . p. 285—302 THE AMEEICAX IN PAEIS. LETTER I. Havre — Description of the Town — The Mapseller — Man- ners of the People — Law of Inheritance — State of Agri- culture — Town and Country Poverty — Foreign Trade — The Custom House, a School for Perjurj- — System of Passports — The French Diligence — Rouen — The Cathe- dral — Joan of Arc. June 30th, 1835. I HAVE half a mind to describe this town to you. It has twenty thousand inhabitants, is at the mouth of the Seine, and twenty-four hours from Paris. The houses are hig;h, and mostly of black slate, and patched often till nothing is seen but the patches, and mushrooms, and other vegetables, grow through the cracks. Villages in America have an air of youth and freshness harmonising with their dimensions. Small VOL. I. B PICTURE OF HAVRE. things should never look old. This town pre- sents you with the ungracious image of a wrinkled and gray-headed baby. The streets^ except one, have no side walks; they are paved with rough stone, and are without gutters and common sewers ; the march of intellect not hav- ing arrived at these luxuries. The exception is the '' Rue de Paris ;" it has '' trottoirs" a theatre, a pubUc square, a market-house, a library with six thousand volumes, and a church very richly furnished, the organ presented by Cardinal Richeheu. I have been to the church this morning, to pay the Virgin Mary the pound of candles I owed, for my preservation at sea. The prettiest improvement I have seen (and it is no miracle for a town of so much commercial importance) is a dock, cut in from the bay along the channel of an old creek, which contains three or four hundred ships, a goodly number of which wear the American flag ; it runs through the midst of the town, and brings the vessels into a pleasant sociability with the houses. When the tide is high, these vessels ride in their own element ; when low, you see a whole fleet wal- lowing in the mud ; and passengers, to get to sea, have to wait the complaisance of both wind and tide often a whole week. THE SUBURBS. S But step out through the Rue de Paris, a httle to the north, and you will see a compensation for all this ugliness. It is a hill, running boldly up to the water's edge, whose south side, several hundred feet high, is smothered with houses, which seem to be scrambling up the acclivity to get a look at the town ; and the entire summit is covered with beautiful villas, and gardens rich with trees and shrubbery, and hedges, which at this season are a most luxurious orna- ment. Many American families, having grown rich here by commerce, are perched magnifi- cently upon this hill. The view from the top is charming ! The old town, in its motley livery of houses, ships, and fortifications, spreads itself out at your feet; on the west, there is an open view of the channel, and all the pretty images of a commercial port, such as vessels in the near and distant prospect, coming into harbour and going out upon their voyages ; and on the south, and beyond the bay into which the Seine flows, is a fine romantic country of field and woodland, which runs gradually up, undulating like the sea, till it meets the blue sky. It is charming, too, in the night; for as soon as Mercury has hung out his lamps above, these Havrians light up theirs in the town, and set up a little opposi- b2 4 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. tion to the heavens ; and there you are between two firmaments, which of a fine evening is a fantastic and gorgeous spectacle. This is the Havre. It is the first thing I ever described, and I am out of breath. And now the customs and manners. I have had dealings with hackney-coachmen, porters, pedlars, and pickpockets, and have found them eminently qualified in their several departments. In strolling last evening through the streets, going only to frank a letter at the post office, I remarked a person crying maps by a wall side. He walked up and down with arms folded, and had a grave and respectable face: — '' A trente sons seulement ! Cest incroyahle ! A trente sous !" I wished to look after a place in Nor- mandy, called Helleville ; the very place where Guiscard and, that other choicest of all ladies' heroes, Tancred were born. Only think of Tancred being born in the department of Cou- tance, and being nothing but a Frenchman ; and only think, too, of the possibility of taking a piece of gold out of a man's waistcoat pocket at mid-day, the owner being wide awake, and in full enjoyment of his senses. I had no sooner made my wants known to this polite auctioneer than, with a civiUte toute Francaisey he placed ' THE MAPSELLER. O the map before my eyes — that is, between the eyes and the waistcoat pocket, and himself just behind the left shoulder, and assisted me in the search — " Hell— Hell— Hell ^Hellevillel—le voila, monsieur P' He then resumed his walk and looked out for new customers; and I, with a return of his bow and smile, and a grateful sense of his politeness, took leave, and pursued my way contentedly, "not missing what was stolen," to the post-office. Here I took out my letter, had it stamped, and put my hand compla- cently in my pocket, and then went home very much diso-usted with the French nation. To be robbed at the Havre brings no excuse for one's wit or understanding : in Paris, it is what one expects from the civihzation of the capital. The porters, coachmen, draymen, boatmen^ and such like, about the Havre, are wrangling and noisy to excess. They burst out into a fury every few minutes, but it always terminates in- nocently. It reminds one of our militia mus- ketry : there is a preliminary, and then a gene- ral explosion, and then a few scattering cartridges, and all ends in smoke. They seldom resort to duelling, and boxing is considered vulgar; and as for oaths, they make no sort of figure in French. In the article of swearing, we are O COMMON POLITENESS. ahead, I believe, of all other nations. In their common intercourse, however, these people are much more respectful than we are to their bet- ters and to one another. Mr. Boots, for no other reason than bringing your shoes in well polished, insists on your '^ pardon for having deranged you ;" and the beggar takes leave of his fellow-beggar with his '' respects to madam." But these respects, I have heard, do not bear the test of any twopenny interest. There is no civi- lity that stands against sixpence. This common world is more social, and in appearance more joyous, than with us. It hud- dles together in public places, with wonderful conversation and merriment, till a late hour of the night; and what a quantity of green old age ! grandmothers of sixty with their hair en papiUofe, are playing hide and go- seek with twenty-five. After all, what signifies the de- gree of poverty or age, if one is happy ? Ano- ther remarkable thing is, the respect paid to property. Benches on the public squares are handed down to posterity with no other marks than the natural wear and tear of sitting on them ; vegetables grow by the way-side untrod- den, and gardens and fields offer their fruits without hedge or fence, or any visible protec- SECURITY OF PROPERTY. 7 tion. I have talked these matters over with a Frenchman, who says, that it is the last genera- tion only that lives at this rate, and that the present one dies oflP at a very reasonable age. The truth I believe is, that we, in our country, keep old persons inside the house; we wrap them up and lay them on the shelf, and ennui and neglect, no doubt, abridge a little their duration. As for the security of property, he ascribes it entirely to a certain shepherdly swain, very com- mon here, who wears red breeches, and is coiffed in a cocked hat, with one of the cocks exactly over his nose, called a Garde Champetre, who watches day and night over the safety of the fields. A curiosity of the place is the peasant women, whom you will see mixed fantastically with the citizens in the market, and flockino^ in and out in great numbers at the town gate. Labour and the sun have worn all the feminine charms out of their faces, and they have mounted up over these ugly faces starched and white caps two stories high, in which they encounter all sorts of weather ; they are seated on little asses, a large basket at each side, in which they carry vegetables to market, and carry back manure for the crops of the next year. The American 8 THE ANTIQUITIES. intercourse is so quickened by railroads and steamboats, that the characteristics of town and country are almost effaced ; here they wear yet their distinct liveries. And now the antiquities. I visited, this morning, a trumpery old palace of Charles V. ; also a round tower, built, they say, by that great tower builder, Julius Csesar ; and returning through a solitary alley, I stumbled accidentally upon a monument of more precious memory, the birthplace of the author of Paul and Virginia. It is a scrubby old hut, with a bit of marble in front containing his name and day of nativity. Genius seems to have but mean notions of the dignity of birth ; Pindar was born in the slough and vapours of Boeotia, and St. Pierre in this filthy alley of the Havre. And now the politics. The children here are apportioned equally, and cannot be disinherited. All the father can dispose of by will, is a half, third, or fourth, of the estate, according as he has one, two, or more heirs. This kind of succession cuts up the land into small patches, and thus brings poverty on both town and country. Families being without capital to im- prove their agricultural resources, have but little to spare to the town, and can, therefore. LAW OF INHERITANCE. 9 buy but little of its stores and manufactures ; and, from inability to supply the raw materials and provisions cheap, buy this little at an en- hanced price. In this way the two parties mutually beggar each other. Besides, under this system of minute divisions, the farming po- pulation incfeases enormously, poverty increas- ing in the same ratio. Two-thirds of the French are already farmers ; and in England, where farming is in so much greater perfection, the ratio is one-third. This law, too, in rendering the children independent of the father, destroys his authority and his check upon their conduct ; it weakens the motives to exertion, which arise from fear of want or pros- pects of future good, and is consequently unfa- vourable to intellect and morals. The English system makes one son only a fool, the French besots the whole family. A redundant popula- tion is the great curse of all these old countries, and under this system of subdivision, a nation, unless the blessings of war or the plague inter- vene, becomes as multitudinous as the Chinese, eating dogs, and cats, and potatoes, and hutting with cows and pigs; a plough, as in Ireland, becoming a joint stock possession, and a horse belondns: to a whole neio-hbourhood. DO ~ B 3 10 STATE OF AGRICULTURE. The French, in spite of the Moscows and Waterloos, have added between five and six millions to their population of 1789. Agricul- ture, to be sure, was improved by the Revolu- tion, by the divisions amongst the peasanti*y of the national domains and confiscated property of the nobles, by the abolition of tithes and game laws, and by bringing the waste lands into culti- vation ; but this condition is, or must soon be, on the reverse. In America, the abundance of idle and cheap land prevents this calamity for the present. I have travelled a few miles in the country, and have squeezed what sense I could out of the peasants. I find that, in all branches of husbandry, a labourer here performs a fourth less work daily than in America ; and in plough- ing and reaping, nearly a third. The French implements, too, are clumsy and bungling ; oxen are yoked by the horns, harrows have wooden teeth, and the plough, mostly of wood, scratches up the earth instead of turning a furrow. Another great evil in French politics is, the centralization of every thing in the metropolis. In our country, each borough or township is an independent community, and manages its concerns with scarce a sense of any foreign superintendence. An individual recommends CENTRALIZATION. 11 himself to favour first in his village, then in his county, next in his state, and finally in the United States; and none gUmmer in the last sphere who have not shone in the first. Here this condition is reversed — there is a converging of all the rays into one general focus. Paris is the centre, and there is none but delegated authority any where else. So the French pro- vinces are out at the heels and elbowSj and Paris wears its elegant and fashionable ward- robe. Your Pottsville has a hundred miles of railroad, whilst the Havre transports the whole trade of the capital by a two-wheeled operation she calls the '* roidagei" and her boats upon the channel carrying on the intercourse between the two greatest cities of the world, are about equal to yours, in which you cross over into Jersey to eat creams with mother Heyle. A third reason of village and country poverty is, the neglect of machinery, by which produc- tion may be increased with a diminution of labour. Not a railroad has yet shewn its nose in this place, though it is the outlet to the foreign trade of one third of the French territory, including the capital, with its almost a million of inhabitants. They are cleaning their great dock to-day with a hundred or two of men armed 12 NEGLECT OF MACHINERY. with spades, whilst a machine is doing the same work upon the Delaware with three or four negroes. The economists of the French school reason thus : If this clumsy apparatus is super- seded, our workmen will be out of employ ; besides, it is known that the increase of con- sumers always keeps pace with the increase of production, and you end where you began. — But you increase also your strength. Yes, and the difficulties of government. — You give life to a greater number of human beings. And little obligations have they for the gift, if they are to run the risk of being corrupted in this world and punished in the next ; and the means of corruption are greater in a crowded than a thin population ; greater amongst an idle and luxurious, than a simple and laborious people. The American public was more happy and virtuous with its three millions than with its ten millions and its railroads. If this is all true, then the country which has least fertility of soil, and least skill in the arts of agriculture, is the most favoured by Providence ; and the best system of economy is that which teaches us to procure the least possible produce with the greatest possible labour. The best employment, too, for the labourers, would be to plant cucum- CAUSE OF POVERTY. 13 bers in summer, and extract the sunbeams out of them, to keep themselves warm in winter. I like the system which teaches us to increase the sum of human comforts. I think it is better to live in an improved country, with clean streets and neat dwellings, than to have the same means of living with a destitution of such conveniences. I like even to starve with decent accommo- dations. A fourth great cause of poverty is, the re- striction which these nations have imposed upon their mutual intercourse, and the produce of each other's industry. There is a total dis- agreement between natural reason and the cus- tom of all countries on this subject. Nature, by giving us a diversity of soils, climates, and products, has pointed out the right objects of industry, and laid all nations under obligations of dependence and intimacy upon each other ; and there is a p:eneral strugofle amono-st all to counteract this benevolent design. France, for example, has a natural fitness for wines, and the land producing this wine is unsuited to any other culture ; yet she has so managed as to keep her wine trade stationary for the last fifty years. England buys her wine, of inferior quality, from Portugal and Spain, and carries 14 FOREIGN TRADE. ^ on a greater trade with the Chinese, her Anti- podes, than with France, her next-door neigh- bour. All proclaim the benefits of foreign trade, and all legislate directly to get rid of their foreign customers. In what more direct way- could France prevent the sale of her wines to Russia, Sweden, and England, than by refusing their coal, iron, woollen manufactures, and other products, for which they have a natural ad- vantage in return ? But the great struggle of all is to become in- dependent ; and yet the very word implies the extinction of all foreign commerce. The great- est of all national blessings is assuredly that very dependence we are so eager to avoid. We cannot become dependent upon a foreign nation without laying it, at the same time, under a similar dependence. But in case of a war? This is the very way to make a war impossible. Men do not war against their own interests. We are dependent upon Lyons for her silks, and her petitions are now pouring in daily against the impending war with America ; and many think they will go nigh to prevent it. Would not this war be more remote if the de- pendence were increased ? If I wished to pre- vent all future wars with France and Eno:land, THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 15 1 would begin by building a railroad from Paris to London, and removins; their commercial re- strictions. Each country would then improve to the uttermost that industry to which it is most fitted. Intimacies, too, would be im- proved, prejudices effaced, and they would be- come, at length, so dependent upon each other, that even should a mad or silly government in- volve them in a war, their mutual interests would force them to discontinue it. Of all methods of g-athering^ taxes, that of the Custom-house seems to me the worst. What an expensive apparatus of buildings ! what a fleet of vessels ! what an army of spies ! what courts of admiralty ! and what an array of new crimes upon the statute book ! A custom-house is a school for perjury and other vices, and where the first lessons are made easy for beginners. There is nothino- one robs with so little com- punction as one's country. It is, at the worst, only robbing thirty millions of people. A sin loses its criminality by diffusion, and may be so expanded as to be no sin at all. All the functions of a custom-house are in their nature odious and vexatious. The first injunction is, to refuse the traveller, wearied of the sea, the common rites of hospitality on setting 16 PASSPORTS. his foot upon the land, to ransack even honest women by impudent police officers, and subject honourable men to a scrutiny practised else- where only upon thieves. I piqued a French- man on board our ship on the venality, which I had heard of, of the French ports. He replied, that he had been in the American trade for ten years, and accompanied each of his cargoes to our ports, for the express purpose of not paying the duties. Why, nothing is more easy. ^' There is an officer who examines ; we know each other ; he knocks off the top of the boxes, rummages the calico with great fuss and ceremony, and the silks and jewellery sleep quiet at the bottom. Whoever," he says, " pays more than ten per cent, of his duties in any country, is unac- quainted with his business." There is another item in European policy — the requirement of passports — the cost, the de- lays and vexatious ceremony attending it. This has incurred abundant reprehension, especially from American travellers ; and there certainly is no other use in such a regulation than that a set of the most despicable creatures that creep upon the earth may get a living by it. But when one is used, for a lono^ time, to see thinsrs done in a certain way, one does not conceive the THE HOTELS. 17 possibility of their being done in any other way. When I informed an inteUigent Frenchman, of forty years, that even a stranger did not carry a passport about with him in America, and that we dispensed with all this array of poUce officers, and spies, and other such impediments to tra- veUing and the intercourse of nations, he in- ferred°that there could be no personal security. That alone, he said, would deter him from re- siding in the United States. When I cited again°st him the example of England, he re- niained incredulous, and required the confir- mation of a better authority. Don't you imagine that I am going to treat you hereafter to so vulgar a thing as poUtics. Events have not yet thickened upon my obser- vation, and I am obliged to make use of all my resources. If I could afford to send you blank paper all the way across the Atlantic, I would have omitted these last pages— hand them over to your husband. The living here is about equal in the quality of food and price to your best houses of Philadelphia. The hotels are shabby in comparison with ours ; the one I lodge in has not been washed since the year of the world 1656 ; but the cookery and service are altogether in favour of the French. A break- 18 THE FRENCH DILIGENCE. fast is two francs, a dinner three, and a cham- ber two. You may count your daily expenses at a dollar and a half in the best houses. The Havre is our first acquaintance on the continent, and its history cannot be without some interest, especially to ladies who are just sighing to go to Paris. Adieu. Rouerij July Zrdy 1835. What a curiosity of ugliness is a French diligence. It exceeds in this quality even our American stages. But beauty is sacrificed to convenience : it carries three tons of passengers and luggage, with a speed of seven miles an hour. The coupe, in front, has three seats, the interieur^ six, and the rotonde as many in the rear, the price decreasing in the same direction — from the whole, to about the half of our American prices. There are also three seats aloft. These divisions are invisible to each other, and represent the world outside — the rich, the middling, and the poor. If you feel very aristocratic, you take the whole coxipe to your- self, or yourself and lady, and you can be as private as you please. Each seat is numbered, and the traveller has his number on the way-bill ROAD TO ROUEN. 19 and in his pocket. A conducteur superintends lug- gage, &c., and is paid extra. The team has three horses abreast in front, and two in the rear, and upon one of the latter is mounted a postiUion. This personage deserves a particular notice. He is immersed to his middle in a huge pair of boots, making each leg the diameter of his body; and his body, too, is squeezed into a narrow coat, which being buttoned to the chin, props his woeful countenance towards the fir- mament, so that he corresponds exactly with Ovid's description of a man, or rather, he looks like the letter Y upside down. Cracking a whip he does not regard as an acquirement, but a virtue. He can crack several tunes ; and, in a calm night, serenades a whole village. The road to Rouen, in the dihgence, has nothing in it agreeable. The land has the or- dinary crops, but it is a wide waste of cul- tivation, without hedges, or barns, or cottages. The only relief is now and then a comfortless village, or a solitary and neglected chateau. You swallow a mouthful of dust at each breath, and you are disgusted at all the stopping-places by the wailing voices of beggars, old men and women recommending themselves by decre- pitude, and children by rags and nakedness. 20 BIRTH-PLACE OF RACINE. The children often run before the diligence for a quarter of a mile in quest of the charitable sous. I soon got out of change, and then rea- soned myself into a fit of uncharitableness. They may be unworthy, and I shall encourage vice ; besides, charity only increases the breed. What I give to these vagabonds I take from somebody else. I should otherwise lay it out in some ar- ticle of trade, and if all do so, we shall only make a new set of beggars by relieving the old — reduce the industrious to mendicity by en- couraging the idlers. Moreover, I can't help all, and I won't help any, or, if I do help any, I will give to my own countrymen, and not to these ragamuffin Frenchmen. In this way, you get along without much affecting the tran- quillity of your conscience. jNIy advice is, that you come by the Seine and the steamboat. It is a passage of only eight hours, and every one says it will delight you with its beautiful and romantic scenery. I suppose you know this is the birth-place of Racine and Fontenelle. It deserves a passing notice on their account, as also on its own. The residence of those truculent old Norman dukes who made the world shake with fear, and gave sovereigns to some of the best nations ROUEX. 21 of Europe, cannot be an indifferent spot upon the globe. Indeed, we may trace to it many of our own institutions, as well as a good part of our language. Our terms of law, the very cries of our courts in Schuylkill county, are imported from this Old Normandy, of which Rouen is the capital. It is a fantastic old town, with earthen- ware tiles, and enclosed between two moun- tains, having a mixture ^f art and nature, which bring each other out finely into relief. One is delighted to see town in the country, and country in the town. Here is a large factory, or hotel, and there a set of gray and tawny-looking hovels, like a village of the Puttawattemies. The peasants are seen amongst the tops and chimneys of the houses, cultivating their fields on the sides, and upon the summits, of the hills, which are arrayed in tufts of woodland, hedo-es, and pasturage ; and all the avenues leading to the town are beautifully overshaded with chest- nuts and elms. The Seine, too, has its fairy islands and weeping willows on its banks, and winds along through the middle of the town ; and now and then a steamboat comes up the valley, with a puffing and fuss that would have made stare even the iron features of old Rollo. One can see such a town but once, and no one 22 THE CATHEDRAL. can see it so well as he who has been used to the fresh and glaring villages of our country. Rouen has ninety thousand inhabitants, a library of four thousand volumes, a gallery of paintings, and manufactures of all sorts of cahco and other cotton stuffs ; also of velvets, shawls, linen, and bombasins. More than half the population is engaged directly in these manufactures. My advice is, that you sleep here one night instead of in the diligence, in running post to Paris ; and in your evening's walk, I invite you to step out and see Napoleon's bridge, which has, in the centre of it, a fine statue of Corneille. I went to see that famous piece of venerable antiquity, the Cathedral. You have its picture in all the " Penny Magazines." Our guide, who knows it by heart, told us his tale as fol- lows : — *' Gentlemen, this is the tomb of Rollo, first duke of Normandy; no horse could carrv him ; had to walk on foot; died 917. Gentle- men, this is William Longsword, his son and successor ; was on the point of taking the frock to be a monk, but was basely assassinated by Arnaud, Count of Flanders." (And the devil a monk was he.) *• Gentlemen, this is Pierre de Breze, Grand Seneschal of Anjou and Nor- mandy ; fell in the battle of Montilherry, 1467 ; RICHARD CCEUR DE LION. 23 and this is John, Duke of Bedford, Viceroy of Normandy, who died in 1438. In this tomb, gentlemen (come a little nearer) — in this tomb is deposited the heart of Richard Coeur de Lion ! (a tremor ran through our bones.) His heart is in this tomb, his brains are in Poictiers, and the other parts of him in Kent, in Great Britain. The man who took out his brains died of it. This is the last man Richard killed, and he had killed more than one." ' Here our Cicerone ran down, and his features, just now so animated, were suddenly collapsed, the natural effect of inspiration. We looked then at the great bell, and the organs, and the statues of saints, most of them mutilated in the Revolution. One, without a nose, they told us was St. Dunstan; the Devil and the Jacobins having retaliated. There is a headless trunk, too, they might very well pass for St. Denis. One of the remarkable features of this church is the painting on glass, repre- senting scriptural scenes, of which the colours seem to have grown more vivid by time, though time has destroyed the secret of their composi- tion. The architecture is Gothic, and the grand- est specimen of this order in France. Its im- mense fluted columns, near a hundred feet high 24 JOAN OF ARC. and ten or twelve in diameter — its images of Christ and the Virgin, and the pictures of the apostles and saints, are both sublime and beau- tiful. The lightning has thought it worthy of a visit, and has overturned one of its huge towers. Poor Joan of Arc ! Here is her monument in the midst of the market square, where she was . burnt. It is a pedestal of twenty feet, sur- mounted by her statue. Alongside of this trophy of French and English barbarism, in- stead of blushing for shame, they shew you, for sixpence, the room in which she was imprisoned. It is damp, and has only glimmerings of light, and is altogether a horrid remnant of antiquity. Farewell to Rouen. PARIS. 26 LETTER ir. Paris— Street Cries— St. Roch— The Boulevards— Parisian Lodgings— Manner of Living— The Grand Opera— Taglioni— The Public Gardens— The Guingnettes— Dancing, the characteristic amusement of the French — Sunday Dances — Dancing defended, from classical au- thority. Paris, July 4th, 1835. When one has travelled all night in a French diligence in the dog-days, and is set down next morning in the ''Place Notre Dame des Vic- toires/' three thousand miles from one's home — oh dear ! one has much less pleasure in the aspect of the great city than one expected. Voild Paris ! said the '' conducteur/' announc- ing our approach ; each one half opening his eyes, and then closing them suddenly. Four gentlemen and two ladies in a diligence, bob- bing their heads at each other about six of the morning ; the hour in which sleep creeps so agreeably upon one's senses, is an interesting VOL. I. c 26 AREIVAL IN PARIS. spectacle. It was cruel to be interrupted in so tender an interview. Voilci Paris! was echoed a second time, so we awoke and looked out, ex- cept a lady, who reposed gently upon my left shoulder, who had seen Paris a thousand times, and had never slept with four gentlemen perhaps in her life. She lay still, I attentive not to awake her, until the ill-omened raven croaked a third time. Paris ! A French gentleman now did the honours of the city to us strangers. '^That, sir, is the 'Invalids;' see how the morning rays glitter from its gilded dome. And this, which peers so proudly over the Barriere de I'Etoile, is the grand Triumphal Arch of iS"apoleon ;" and he read over the trophies — Marengo ! Jena ! Austerlitz I praised the sculpture and has reliefs, and burst out into a great many tropes about French victories. We now passed down through the Champs Elybtesy rolled along the beautiful Rue Rivoli, and arrived fast asleep upon the Place hotre Dame des Victoires. i advise you to sleep at St. Germains, where the steamboat will leave you, and come to Paris next morning with the imagination fresh for the enjoyment. To be wide awake improves wonderfully one's capacity for admiration. NO TIME FOR REFLECTION. 27 I stood and looked about, and I felt the spirit of manhood die away within me; and every other spirit, even curiosity. I would rather have seen one of your haycocks than the queen. But, fortunately, here is no time for reflection. You are immediately surrounded by a score of individuals, who greet you with hats in their hands and with great officiousness, offering you all at once their services. Some are exceedingly anxious you should lodge in their hotels : La plus jolie location de tout Paris — des chambres de toute heautt! and others are dying to carry vour luggage ; others again are eager to sell you their wares, and thrust a bit of soap, or a cane, or a pair of spectacles, in your face sud- denly. I mistook this for an attempt at assassi- nation. Next, I had to bow to my toes for a lodging. With the address of three hotels, a mile apart, I had to pick one out of the street: I advise you not to run about town till your porter's charges are of greater amount than the value of vour luggage, but to put yourself and vour trunks in a hack, and you will have at least a ride for your money ; besides, the driver is limited in his charges, and the porter is a dis- cretioiu and discretion is one cf the dearest of the French virtues. c2 28 THE HOUSES. Who do you think I had for a fellow tra- veller? Your old acqaintance , who has lost his wife, and travels to dissipate his grief. He has not left off saying good things. He remarked that it was a bad day to go into Paris — the 4th of July ; there would be such a crowd. Recollecting with what jubilee we cele- brate this day at New York, he imagined how much greater must be the confusion at Paris. He feared we should have our brains knocked out by the mob. You can't think what an ad- vantag;e it is for one having but little of this com- moditv of brains, to travel into foreion countries; one grows into the reputation of a wit by not being understood. I do not mean to be arro- gant in saying I am better versed, at least in our foreign relations, than my companion, and yet I w^as noticed on the way only as being of his suite, which I ascribe entirely to my capa- city to express myself in a known tongue. As he did not speak French, I was mistaken for the interpreter to some foreign ambassador. Paris is a wilderness of tall, scraggy, and dingy houses, of irregular heights and sizes, starting out impudently into the street, or retir- ing modestly, and without symmetry, a palace often the counterpart of a pig-sty, and a cathe- THE STREETS. 29 dral next neighbour to a hen-roost. The streets run ziff-zag^, and abut aaiainst each other as if they did not know which way to run. They are paved with cubical stones of eight and ten inches, convex on the upper surface Hke the shell of a terrapin ; few have room for side- walks, and where not bounded by stores, they are dark as they were under king Pepin. Some of them seem to be water-tight. St. Anne, my first acquaintance, is yet clammy with mud after a week's drought, and early in the morning when she gets up, she is filthy to a degree that is indecent. The etymology of Paris is mud ; the etymology of tbe Bourbons is mud, and mud to the last note of time v.ill be, Paris and the Bourbons. As for the noise of the streets, I need not at- tempt to describe it. What idea can ears, used only to the ordinary and human noises, conceive of this unceasing racket — this rattling of the cabs and other vehicles over the rough stones, this rumbling of the omnibusses. For the street cries — one mig-ht have relief from them bv a tile and hand-saw. First the prima donna of the fish-market opens the morning : Carpes toutes fraiches ; voild des carpes f And then stand out 30 STREET CRIES. of the way for the glazier: Au vitriere! qua- vering down the chromatic to the lowest flat upon the scale. Next the ironmonger, with his rasps, and files, and augers, which no human ears could withstand, but that his notes are hap- pily mellowed by the seller of old clothes, Marchand de drap ! in a monotone so low and spondaic, and so loud, as to make Lablache die of envy. About nine is full chorus, headed by the old women and their proclamations : Hor- rible attentat contre la vie dii roi Louis Philippe — et la petite chienne de Madame la Marquise — egaree a dix heures — L^ Arch eve que de Paris — L.e Sieur Lacenaire — Louis Philippe, le Procts 7nonstre — et tout cela pour quatre sous ! being set loose all at the same time, tuned to different keys. All things of this earth seek, at one time or another, repose — all but the noise of Paris. The waves of the sea are sometimes still, but the chaos of these streets is perpetual from generation to generation ; it is the noise that never dies. Many new comers have been its victims. In time, however — such is the complaisance of human nature — we become re- conciled even to this never-endino- hubbub. It becomes even necessary, it is said, to one's com- ST. ROCH. 31 forts. There are persons here who get a night- mare in a place of tranquillity, and can sleep only upon the Boulevards. Paris and I, are yet on ceremonious terms. I venture upon her acquaintance as one who walks upon ice ; it is the boy's first lesson of skating. I am not much versed in towns any way ; and this one is ahead of my experience. In my case, one is ignorant and afraid to ask information. I did venture this morning to ask what General that was— a fat, decent-looking gentleman, in silk stockings, and accoutred in regimentals ? That General, sir/is Prince Tal- leyrand's lacquey. Soon after, I inquired what house was that barn of a place ? That house, sir, is the Louvre. So I must feel the ground under me. Yesterday, being Sunday, (which I found out by the almanac,) I went to St. Roch's. 1 had the luck to hit upon the fashionable church; but the preacher was the god of dulness. The world, he says, is growing worse and worse ; our roguish ancestors begot us bigger rogues, about to produce a worse set of rogues than ourselves. «' The antichrist is already come." If he had said the antichrist of wit, anybody would have believed him: and yet this is the very pulpit from which the Bossuets and Bourdaloues used 32 THE TUJLERIES, to preach. The church was filled almost en- tirely with women. One might think that none go to heaven in this country but the fair sex. The worshippers seem intent enough upon their devotions ; but the wide avenues at the sides are filled with a crowd of idle, curious, and dis- orderly spectators. Give me a French church : one walks in here booted and spurred, looks at the pretty women and the pictures, whistles a tune if one chooses, and then walks out again. They have not spoilt the architectural beauty of St. Roch's by pews and galleries. The walls are adorned splendidly with paintings; and here and there are groups of statuary ; and the altar, being finely gilt and illuminated, looks mag- nificently. When I build a church I will deco- rate it somewhat in this manner. It is crood to imitate nature as much as one can, in all things ; and she has set us the example in this. She has adorned her great temple, the world, with green fields and fragrant flowers, and its superb dome, the firmament, with stars. I walked into the Tuileries after church, where I saw^ a great number of naked statues and pretty women. The pretty women were not naked. I sat down awhile by the goddess of wisdom. And this is the sum of my adventures. THE BOULEVARDS. 33 Oh, no ! I ventured also a walk last nioht upon the Boulevards, about twilis^ht. How adorable is the Madelaine ! While starins; at this church, (for staring is the only expression of countenance one pretends to, the first week in Paris,) a little girl — but not a little graceful and pretty — presented me a bouquet. But, my dear, I have no change. ^* Mais, quest ce que ceia fait V and she turned it about with her taper fingers, and fixed it and unfixed it, though there were but two leaves and a rosebud, and then arranged it in a buttonhole, shewing all the while her pearly teeth and laughing black eyes. She had the finesse to gain admiration for her charms without seemino; to court it. We now walked on a few steps, when we met other women, of a richer attire, and of very easy, unembarrassed manners, who also said very obliging things to us, walking along side. There is a kind of men in Xew England who cannot be beaten out of the dignity of a walk, who would rather die than be seen runnino-, which is perhaps the reason they won the battle of Bunker's Hill. Now, if you would represent to yourself something very comical, you must imagine my companion, straight-laced in his gravity, escorted by one of these sultanas of the c 3 34 SULTANAS OF THE BOULEVARDS. Boulevards, all betawdried, and rustling in her silks — Mon petit cauri — Mon "petit ami! — Venez done ! At last, turning suddenly upon her with a look and air of menace and expostulation, he invoked her in a most solemn manner to depart ; though she understood not a word of the exor- cism, she obeyed instantly, the gesture and tone beino- sio-nificant enoush, and she went off as evil spirits do usually in such cases, murmuring, > */ Ponrquoi me tenir doiic a causer, ce diabte , . y* 'ahomme ? il m' a fait perdre au moins deux mes- sieurs." We now descended by the Rue St. Anne to- wards our lodgings, talking as we went to pre- vent thinking ; for we are both very tender- hearted so far from home — he of his Yankee wife, how industrious, how economical, and how she has resigned all the intercourse and plea- sures of the world to teach the little children their catechism and their astronomy ; and I, of our dear little wives of Schuylkill, so amiable, so cheerful, tempering their duties with amuse- ments, and not forgetting the claims of society — when suddenly we observed, in a dark corner, reached only by a few rays of a distant lamp, a queer old woman, seated, her knees and chin too^ether, and recking herself on a chair. She PARISIAN LODGINGS. 35 /^ -. rose up in the face of my companion, who knows not a word of French, with ap immense gabble : '' Des demoiselles tres distihguees l—jolies comme desangesr and instantly we were hemmed round with a fluttering troop of the angels ; but we escaped into the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, and locked our doors for the night. Please direct your letters to this house, No. 64, Rue St. Anne. Hotel des Ambassadeurs, July 6th. 1835. I must tell you how one lodges in Paris. A hotel is a huge edifice, mostly in the form of a parallelogram, and built around a paved court- yard, which serves as a landing for carriages as well as for persons on foot, and leads up to the apartments by one or more staircases. In the centre of the front wall, is a wide door (a porte cochere) opening from the street, and just inside a lodge (a concierge) and a porter, who watches night and day over the concerns of the esta- blishment. This porter is an important indi- vidual, and holds about the same place in a Paris hotel, that Cerberus holds— (I leave you a place for the rhyme.) He is usually a great rogue, a spy of the government, and a shoe- 36 PARISIAN LODGINGS. maker; he cobbles the holes he makes in vour boots, while his wife darns those she makes in your stockings. He is always a bad enemy and a useful friend, and you purchase his good will by money and condescensions, as a first minis- ter's. He lets you rooms, he attends them, receives parcels, letters, messages, runs errands, answers your visits, and fines you a shillino; if you stay out after twelve ; and his relation with many lodgers enables him to give you these services, 1 am ashamed to tell you how cheap. By proper attentions also to his wife, there will come to your bed every morning, at the hour you appoint, a cup of coffee or tea, and the entertainment of the lady's conversation while you sip it. Each story of a hotel is divided into apartments and rooms — that is, accommo- dations for vv'hole families or individuals; dis- tinction, and, of course, price, decreasing up- wards ; for example, he who lives a story lower down thinks himself above you, and you in return consider him overhead below you. A third story in the Rue Castiglione or Rivoli, is equal in rank to a second story anywhere else. The porter's lodge is a little niche, about eight feet square. It pays no rent, but receives a salary, usually of sixty dollars a year, from the proprietor. Our porter is a man of several THE PORTER. 37 talents. He tunes pianos for ten sous, and plays at the '* Petit Lazare" of a night for two francs. Indeed, his whole family plays ; his grandmother plays the" Mother of the Gracchi." He takes care, too, of his wife's father ; but he dresses him up as a Pair de France, or a Doge, and makes a good deal out of him also. Besides, he has a dog which he expects soon to play the ^^Cliien de Montargis/' he is studying ; and a magpie, which plays already in the " Pie Voleuse," It is by these several industries that he is enabled to clean my boots once a day, take care of my room, and do all the domestic services required by a bachelor, at six francs a month ; and he has grown into good circum- stances. But, alas ! impartial fate knocks at the Porter's Lodge, as at the gates of the Louvre. He had an only son, who, in playing Collin last winter — a shepherd's part m a vaudeville — had to wear a pair of white muslin breeches in the middle of the inclement season, and he took cold, and died of di fluxion de poitrine ! The mother wept in telling this story ; and then some one coming in, she smiled. One is usually a little shy of these hotels at first sight, especially if one comes from the Broad Mountain. You take hold of an un- 38 MONSIEUR SMIT. wieldy knocker, you lift it up cautiously, and open flies the door six inches ; you then push yourself through, and look about with a kind of a suspicious and sheepish look, and j^ou see no one. At length you discover an individual, who will not seem to take the least notice of you till you intrude rather far; — then he will accost you : Que demandez-xous, Monsieur ?— I wish to see Mr. Smith ? Monsieur ? — Mon- sieur, il rie demeure pas ici.— Que tu es bete T exclaims the wife, c'est Monsieur Smit. Oui, oui, oui — au quatrieme, Monsieur, au dessus de V entresol; and with this information, of which you understand not a syllable, you proceed up stairs, and there you ring all the bells to the garret; but no one knows Mr. Smith. Why don't you say Mr. Smit ? The houses here are by no means simple and uniform, as with us. The American houses are built, as ladies are dressed, all one way. First there is a pair of rival saloons, which give them- selves the air of parlours : and then there is a dining room, and corresponding chambers above to the third or fourth story ; and an entry runs through the middle or alongside a mile or two without stopping, at the farthest end of which is the kitchen ; so that one always stands upon INVISIBLE DOORS. 39 the marble of the front door in December, until Kitty has travelled this distance to let one in. How many dinners have I seen frozen in their own sauces, how many lovers chilled, by this refrigeratory process ? Here, if you just look at the knocker, the door, as if by some invisible hand, flies open ; and when you descend, if you say ** Cordon," just as Ali Baba said " Sesame," the door opens, and delivers you to the street. The houses, too, have private rooms, and secret doors, and intricate passages ; and one can never be said to be at home in one's own house. I should like to see any one find the way to a lady's boudoir. A thief designing to rob, has to study beforehand the topography of each house, with- out which, he can no more unravel it than the Apocalypse. There are closets, too, and doors, in many of the rooms, unseen by the naked eye. If a gentleman is likely to be intruded on by the bailiff, he sinks into the earth; and a lady, if surprised in her dishabille, or any such emer- genc}^ just disappears into the wall. No private dwellings are known in Paris. A style, which gives entire famiUes and individuals, at a price that would procure them very mean separate lodoings, the air of living in a great castie : and they escape by it all that emulation 40 HABIT OF CLIMBING. about houses, and door servants, and street dis- play, which brings so much fuss and expense in our cities. I have seen houses a little straitened that were obliged to give Csesar a coat to go to the door, another to bring in dinner, and another to curry the horses. To climb up to the second or third story is, to be sure, inconvenient ; but once there, your climbing ends. Parlours, bed- rooms, kitchen, and all the rest, are on the same level. In America, you have the dinner in the cellar, and the cook in the garret ; and nothing but ups and downs the whole day. Moreover, climbing is a disposition of our nature. " In our proper motion we ascend." See with what avidity we climb when we are boys ; and we climb when we are old, because it reminds us of our boyhood. I have no doubt that the daily habit of climbing, too, has a good moral influ- ence ; it gives one dispositions to rise in the world. I ought to remark here, that persons in honest circumstances do not have kitchens in their own houses. It is in favour of the French style not a little, that it improves the quality at least of one class of lodgers. Mean houses degrade men^s habits, and lower their opinions of living. As for me, I like this Paris way, but I don't know why. MANNER OF LIVING. 41 I like to see myself under the same roof with my neighbours. One of them is a pretty woman, with the prettiest little foot imaginable; and onlv think of meeting this little foot, with which one has no personal acquaintance, three or four times a-day on the staircase ! Indeed, the soli- tude of a private dwelling begins to seem quite distressing. To be always with people one knows ! it paralyzes activity, breeds selfishness, and other disagreeable qualities. Solitary life has its vices, too, as well as any other. On the other hand, a community of living- expands one's benevolent affections, begets hos- pitality, mutual forbearance, politeness, respect for public opinion, and keeps cross husbands from beating their wives, and vice versa. If Xantippe had lived in a French hotel, she would not have kept throwing things out of the window upon her husband's head. The domestic virtues are, to be sure, well enough in their way ; but they are dull, and unless kept in countenance by good company, they go too soon to bed. Indeed, that word '^ home," so sacred in the mouths of Englishmen, often means little else than dozinsT in an arm-chair, listenins; to the squeaking of children, or dying of the vapours ; at all events, the English are the people of the 42 FRENCH CLEANLINESS. world most inclined to leave these sanctities of home. Here they are by hundreds, running in quest of happiness all about Europe. But to return. My object, in setting out, was to shew you, as nearly as possible, my manner of living in the street of St. Anne. I have a chamhre de garcon au second; this means, a bachelor's room in the third story. As com- panions, I have General Kellerman, and a naked Mars over the chimney {not Mademoiselle), and a little Bonaparte about three inches long ; and on a round table, with a marble cover, there is an old Rabelais and a Seneca's Maxims, with manuscript notes on the margin, and a Bible open at Jeremiah. The floor is a kind of brick pavement, upon which a servant performs a series of rubbings, every morning, with a brush attached to his right foot, which gives it a slip- pery and mahogany surface. We have a livery stable also in the yard, and several persons lodge here for the benefit of the smell, it being good against consumption. Of the staircase I say nothing now, as I intend some day to write a treatise upon French Staircases. This one has not been washed ever, unless by some accident, such as Noah's flood. Indeed, the less one says of French cleanliness in the way of houses the FRENCH SERVANTS. 43 better. Our landlady appears no more delighted with a clean floor than an antiquary would be with a scoured shield ; and there is none of the middling hotels of Paris that presumes to be better than this. I ought to remark here, that servants do not run about from one garret to another as they do in America. A French servant is transmitted to posterity. Our coach- man says he has been in this family several hundred years. When one cannot travel in the highway of life with a fashionable equipage, it is pleasant to steal along its secret path unnoticed. A great man is so jostled by the throng that either he cannot think at all, or, in gathering its silly admiration, so occupied with intrigues and mere personal vanities that the good qualities of his understanding are perverted, and he loses at length his taste for innocent enjoyments. But, travelling in this sober, unambitious way, one may gather flowers by the road side ; one has leisure for the contemplation of useful and ao;reeable thingrs : and is not obhoed to follow absurd fashion, or keep up troublesome appear- ances ; and one can get into low company when one pleases, without being suspected. Now I can wander '^ on my short-tailed nag" all over 44 UNRESTRAINED WANDERINGS. the country ; I can get sometimes into a coucou and ride out to St. Germains, or stroll uncon- cerned through the markets, and ask the price of fruits ; of cassolettes, muscats, and jargonelles, and of grapes ; and I can eat a bunch or two upon the pavement, just fresh from Fontain- bieau : and do a great many innocent things which persons of distinction dare not do. This is the life of those who lodge at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs. Here are two sheets filled, with what meao-re events ! and how much below the dignity of history ! I console myself that trifles, like domestic anecdotes, are often the most charac- teristic. I will be your Bos well to the city of Paris. But Boswell had to retail the sense of an individual, and I the nonsense of the multi- tude, and my own. However, I wish these letters to be preserved from the flames, if you can, frivolous as they are : I have partly a design to manufacture some sort of a book out of them on my return home. I intend them as notes upon the field of battle — like Caesar's Commentaries, with the exception of the wit. THE GRAND OPERA. 45 July 7th. I went with ray Yankee companion last night to the Grand Opera ; and, at the risk of being enormously long, I am going to add a postscript ; for it is a wet day, and I have no better way to beguile the lazy twenty-four hours. They admit the spectators to a French theatre in files of two between high railings, and under the grim and bearded authority of the police, which prevents crowding and disorder ; and whoever wishes to go in, not having a seat provided, '« makes tail," as they call it, by entering the file in the rear. A number of speculators also stand in the ranks at an early hour, and sell out their places at an advance to the more tardy, so that you have always this resort to obtain a good enough seat. In approaching the house, persons will offer you tickets, with great importunity, in the streets. With one of these, which, by cheapening a little, I got at double price, I procured admission to the pit. V analyse de la Piece ; voild le programme ! These are two phrases — meaning only the ana- lysis and bill of the play, at two sous — which you will hear croaked with the most obstre- perous discord through the house, in the inter- vals of the performance, to bring out Monsieur 46 THE GRAND OPERA. Aiiber, and Scribe, and the Donnas. It is pro- bably for the same reason the owls are permitted to sing in the night, to bring out the night- ingales. The opera last night was '^ Robert le Diable," — void V analyse de la piece. There was the representation of a grave-yard and a resurrection ; and the ghosts, at least two hundred, flocked out of the ground in white frocks and silk stockings, and they squeaked and gibbered all over the stage. Then they asked one another out to dance, and performed the most fashionable ballets of their country, certainly in a manner very creditable to the other world. And while these waltzed and quadrilled, another set were entertaining them- selves with elegant and fashionable amusements, some were turning summersets upon a new grave ; others playing at whist upon a tomb- stone, and others again were jumping the rope over a winding-sheet ; when suddenly, they all gave a screech and skulked into their graves ; there was a flutter through the house, the music announcing some great event, and at length, amidst a burst of acclamations. Mademoiselle Taglioni stood upon the margin of the scene. She seemed to have alighted there from some other sphere. TAGLIONI. 47 I expected to be little pleased with this lady, I had heard such frequent praises of her accom- plishments ; but was disappointed. Her ex- ceeding beauty surpasses the most excessive eulogy. Her dance is the whole rhetoric of pantomime; its movements, pauses, and atti- 'tudes, in their purest Attic simplicity, chastity, and urbanity. She has a power over the feelings which you will be unwilling to con- cede to her art. She will make your heart beat with joy ; she will make you weep by the sole eloquence of her limbs. What inimitable grace ! In all she attempts, you will love her, and best in that which she attempts last. If she stands still, you will wish her a statue that she may stand still always ; or if she moves, you will wish her a wave of the sea that she may do nothing but— ^^ move still, still so, and own no other function." To me, she appeared last night to have filled up entirely the illusion of the play— to have shuffled off this gross and clumsy humanity, and to belong to some more airy and spiritual world. But my companion, who is a professor, and a little ecclesiastical, and bred in that most un- dancing country, New England, was scandalized at the whole performance. He is of the old 48 TAGLIONI. school, and has ancient notions of the stage, and does not approve this modern way of " hold- ing the mirror up to nature."' He was displeased especially at the scantiness of the lady's ward- robe. I was born farther south, and could better bear it. The art of dressing, as I have read in the history of Holland and other places, has been carried often bv the ladies to a blameable excess of quantity ; so much so, that a great wit said in his day, a woman was *' the least part of herself." Taglioni's sins, it is true, do not lie on this side of the category ; she produced last evening nothing but herself — Mademoiselle Taglioni in the abstract. Ovid would not have complained of her. Her lower limbs wore a light silk, imitating nature with undistinguish- able nicety ; and her bosom a thin guaze, which just relieved the eye, as you have seen a fine fleecy cloud hang upon the dazzling sun. But there is no gentleman out of New England who would not have grieved to see her spoilt by villainous mantua-makers. She did not, more- over, exceed what the courtesy of nations has permitted, and what is necessary to the proper exhibition of her art. They call this French opera, the Acadhnie AMERICAN DANCING. 49 Roy ale de Musiquey " also, the *• Fran- cais, in contradistinction with the '^ Italien," finally, the '^ Grand Opera :" this latter name because it has a greater quantity of thunder and lightning, of pasteboard seas, of paper snow-storms, and dragons that spit fire : also a gorgeousness of wardrobe and scenery not equalled upon any theatre in Europe. It is certain, its " corps de ballet'' can outdance all the world put together. !Mercy I how deficient we are in our country in these elegant accomplishments. In many things we are still in our infancy, — in dancing we are not yet born. We have, it is true, our '* balanceSy" and '^ chasses/' and back-to-backs, and our women do throw a oreat deal of soul into their little feet — as on a '^birth-night," or an " Eighth of January," or the like ; — but the Grand Opera, the Opera Francais, the Academic Royale de ]Musique ! ah, ma foi, c'est Id une autre affaire ! — You have read, and so has evervbodv, of the ^'dancing^ Greeks ;" of Thes- pis, so described by Herodotus, who used to dance on his head, his feet all the while dano-linor in the air; of the '' Gaditanian girls," so sung by Anacreon ; of Hylas, who danced before Augustus ; of the ^' dancing Dervishes," who ^ VOL. I. D 50 THE GRAND OPERA. danced their relioion like our Shakers : of the pantomimic dances, described by Raynal ; and the Turkish Ulemas, by the "sweet Lady Mary Montague," (quere ^* sweet?") and finally, every one has heard of the " Age of Voltaire, the King of Prussia, and Vestris/' — well, all this is out- danced by Taglioni and the Grand Opera. This opera has seats for two thousand spec- tators, besides an immense saloon (two hundred feet by fifty) where a great number of fashion- ables, to relieve their ears from the noise of the singing, promenade themselves magnificently during the whole evening, under the Hght of brilliant lustres ; and where the walls, wain- scotted with mirrors, multiply their numbers and charms to infinity. — May I not as well con- tinue dancing through the rest of this page ? Dancing, you know, is a characteristic amuse- ment of the French ; and you may suppose they have accommodations to gratify their taste to its fullest extent. There are elegant rotundas for dancing in nearly all the public gardens, as at ^'Tivoli,'' " Waxhal d'Ete," and the '^Chau- miere de Mont Parnasse." Besides, there are '' Guinguettes" at every Barriere; and in the " Villaoe Fetes," which endure the whole sum- mer, dancing is the chief amusement; and THE GUINGUETTES. 5*1 public ball-rooQis are distributed through every quarter of Paris, suited to every one's rank and fortune. The best society of Paris go to the balls of Ranelagh, Auteuil, and St. Cloud. The theatres, too, are converted into ball-rooms, especially for the masquerades, from the be- ginning to the end of the Carnival. I hired a cabriolet and driver the other night, and went with a lady from New Orleans to see the most famous of the ^' Guinguettes." Here all the little world seemed to me completely and rea- sonably happy,behaving with all the decency, and dancing with almost the grace, of high life. We visited half a dozen, paying only ten sous at each for admission. I must not tell you it was Sunday night : it is so difficult to keep Sunday all alone, and without any one to help you. The clergy find a great deal of trouble to keep it themselves here, there is so little encouragement. On Sun- day only, these places are seen to advantage. I am very far from approving of dancing on this day, if one can help it ; but I have no doubt that in a city like Paris the dancers are more taken from the tavern and gin-shops than from the churches. I do not approve, either, of the ab- solute denunciation this elegant amusement incurs from many of our religious classes in D 2 52 ANTIQUITY OF DANCING. America. If human virtues are put up at too high a price, no one will bid for them. Not a word is said against dancing in the Old or New Testament, and a great deal in favour. Miriam danced, you know how prettily; and David danced. To be sure, the manner of his dancing was not quite so commendable, accord- ino- to the fashion of our climates. In the New Testament, to give enjoyment to the dance, the water was changed into wine. If you will ac- cept classical authority I will give you pedantry par dessus la ttte. The Greeks ascribed to dancing a celestial origin, and they admitted it even amongst the accomplishments and amuse- ments of their divinities. The Graces are re- presented almost always in the attitude of dancing; and Apollo, the most amiable of the gods, and the god of wisdom, too, is called by Pindar the ''dancer." Indeed, I could shew you, if I pleased, that Jupiter himself sometimes took part in a cotillon, and on one occasion danced a gavot. There, it is proved to you from an ancient Greek poet. I could shew you, too, that Epaminondas, amongst his rare qualities, is praised by Corne- TAGLIONT. 53 lius Xepos for his skill in dancing ; and that Themistocles, in an evening party at ^Athens, passed for a clown, for refusing to take a share in a dance. But it is so foppish to quote Greek, and to be talking to women about the ancients. Don't you say that dancing is not a natural inclination, or I will set all the savages on vou of the Rocky Mountains, and I don't know how many of the dumb animals — especially the bears, who, even on the South-Sea Islands, where they could not have any relations with the Acadtmie Royale de Musiqiie, yet always express their extreme joy (Captain Cook says) by this agreeable agitation of limbs. And if you won't believe all this, I will take vou to see a Xegro holiday on the -Mississippi. Xow, this is enough about dancing ; it is very late, and I must dance otf to bed. It is necessary to be as much in love with dancing as I am to preach so pedantically about it as I have in this postscript. Its enormous length, when you have seen Mademoiselle Tao-- lioni, needs no apology. When you do see her, take care her legs don't get into your head ; thev kept capering in mine all last night. 54 THE BOULEVARDS. LETTER III. The Boulevards — Boulevard Madelaine — Boulevard des Capucines — Boulevard Italien — Monsieur Careme — Splendid Cafes — The Baths — Boulevard Montmartre — The Shoe-black— The Chiffonnier— The Gratteur— The Commissionnaire — Boulevard du Temple — Scene at the Ambigii Comique — Sir Sydney Smith — Monsieur de Paris — The Cafe Tare — The Fountains — Recollections of the Bastille — The Halle aux Bles — The Bicetre — Boulevard du ^Mont Pamasse. Paris, July, 1835. The main street of Paris, and one of the most remarkable streets in the whole world, is the Boulevard. It runs from near the centre to- wards the east, and coils around the circumfer- ence of the city. Its adjacent houses are large, black, and irregular in height, resembhng at a distance, battlements, or turretted castles. Its course is zig-zag, and each section has a differ- ent name, and different pursuits ; so that it presents ^'ou a new face and character, a new DESTRUCTION- OF TREES. 55 and picturesque scene, at every quarter of a mile. This does not please, at first sight, an eye formed upon our Quaker simplicity of Philadelphia, but is approved by the general taste. Our Broadways, and Chestnut streets, and Regent- streets, are exhausted at a single view; the Boulevard entertains all day. Its side-w^alks are delightfully wide, and overshadowed with elms. Before the visit of the allies, it had eio-ht miles of trees, — a kind of ornament that is held in better esteem in European than in American cities. Our ancestors took a dislike to trees, from having so much grubbing at their orio-inal forests, and their enmity has been infused into the blood. To cut down a tree is now a passion become hereditary, and I have often spent whole days in its gratuitous indulgence. A squatter of the back woods becrins bv fellino- the trees mdiscrirainately: and he is most ho- noured, as those first Germans we read of in Caesar, who has made the widest devastation around his dwelling. Your Pottsville, which ten years ago was a forest, has to-day not a fig- leaf to cover its nakedness. Here is a gentleman just going to Philadel- phia, who will hand you this letter ; I send also 56 THE FLOWER GIRL. a map of Paris, that I may have your company on such rambles as I may chance to take through the capital. To day I invite you to a walk upon the Boulevards. On the west end is the Madelaine, in full view of the street. While the other monuments of Paris are " dim with the mist of years," this stands, like a new^dressed bride, in white and o-lovvino: marble ; its architecture fresh from the age of Pericles. This church became pagan in the Revolution ; it was for a while the " Temple of Glory," and has returned to the true catholic faith. Three mornings of the week, you will find at its feet half an acre in urns, baskets, and hedges, of all that nature has prettiest in her magazine of flowers; delighting the eye by their tasteful combination of colours, and embalming the air with their fragrance. I am sorry you are not a gentleman, I could describe to you so feelingly the flower-girl — her fichu too narrow by an inch; her frock rumpled and disordered, which seems hung upon her by the graces. Her laughing eyes emulate the diamond ; and love has pressed his two fingers upon her brunette cheeks. This is the Boulevard Madelaine. On the south side, a sad looking garden occupies its whole length. I asked of a Frenchman M. THIERS. 57 whose it was ; he says " it is the Minister of Strange Affairs/' It is the hotel of ^Monsieur Thiers, who wrote a book about the Revohition and a " Treatise upon Wigs," and is now minister des affaires ttrangeres, I do not like him, this Mr. Thiers, and I don't care to tell you the reason. I experienced yesterday some impudence and pertness from one of the clerks of his office ; and these underlings you know represent usually the qualifications of their mas- ters in such particulars. To leave Paris for London requires your passport to be signed at the police office, at the American and Eno-Hsh ambassadors', and at the French minister's. At the first office you are set down with a motley crew upon a bench, and there you sit, like one of those virtues in front of the "Palais Bourbon," often an hour or two, until your name is called ; and when it is called you don't recognise it, and you keep sitting on, unless you take some one along with you to trans- late it for you. There is not anything in nature so unlike itself as one's name Frenchified — even a monosyllable. As for " John," it changes gen- ders altogether, and becomes " Jean.'' To the last three offices you pay the valedictory compli- ment of thirty francs, and get their impudence d3 58 THE MARCHAND DES CHIENS. into the bargain. You will always find persons about your lodgings, called ^^ facteurs" (they should be called benefactors,) who will do all this for you, for a small consideration, much better than you can do it yourself. You are now on the Boulevard des Capucines, It is raised about thirty feet, and the houses for a quarter of a mile are left in the valley. The garret and Miss Annette are alone above ground ; all the high life here is below stairs. On the right side, you see apparently one of the happiest of human beings, the " marchand des chiens," who sells little dogs and parrots. " A six francs ma caniche /" — '* Margot a dix francs!" he cries, with a gentle voice, half afraid some one might hear him ; he has become at- tached to his animals, and feels a sorrow to part with them. He feels as you for your chickens you have fed every day, when you must kill them for dinner. Poor little Azor, and Zemire ! Only think of seeing them no more ! He sells them a few francs cheaper, when the purchaser is rich and likely to treat them well. The French, especially the women, dote upon dogs beyond the example of all other nations, and yet have the nastiest race of curs upon the earth. A dog, they say, loves his master the BOULEVARD ITALIEN. 59 more he is a vao-abond, and the French in return love their dogs the more they are shabby. What would I give for a few of those eloquent bow wows which resound in the night from an American barn-yard, and which protect so se- curely one's little wife from the thieves and the lovers, while the husband is wandering in fo- reign lands. Take off your hat ; this is one of the choice and pre-eminent spots of the French capital ; the very seat almost of the pleasures and amuse- ments of Europe ; it is the Boulevard Italien, It is here that orentlemen and ladies assemble of an evening to discuss the immense importance of a good dinner, when the labours of the day have closed, and not a care intrudes to distract the mind from the crreat business of deglutition and digestion. Men make splendid reputations here which live after them by the invention of a single soup. It is here they make the sauces in which one mioht eat his own orrandfather. This place was respected by the Holy Alliance ; and Lord Wellington, in 1815, pitched his marquee upon the Boulevard Italien. It is in vain to expect perfection in an art unless we honour those who exercise its func- tions. Monsieur Careme, (whom I mention 60 MONSIEUU DE CAREME. for the sake of honour, and who lives close by here in the Rue Lafitte,) now cook to the Baron Rothschild and ex-cook to the Prince of Wales, is one of the most considerable persons of this age ; holding a high gentlemanly rank, and living in an enviable condition of opulence and splendour. He keeps his carriage, takes his airings of an evening, has his country seat, and his box at the opera ; and has, indeed, every attribute requisite to make a gentleman in any country. The number of officers attached to his staff is greater than that of any general of the present regime ; his assistant roaster has a salary above our President of the United States. It is by this honourable recompence of merit that^ through all the vicissitudes of her various for- tunes, France has still maintained unimpaired her great prerogative of teaching the nations how to cook. Monsieur de Careme is worthy a particular notice. He had an ancestor who was " chef de cuisine," of the Vatican, and invented a soupe maigre for his Holiness ; and another who was cook to the Autocratrix of all the Russias. How talents do run in some families ! Himself, having served his apprenticeship under an eminent artist of the Boulevard Italien, he IMPORTANCE OF COOKERY. 61 invented a sauce piqua?ite, when quite a young man ; and by a regular cultivation of his fine natural powers, he has reached a degree of perfection in his art which has long since set envy and rivalship at defiance. The truth is, that a great cook is as rare a miracle as a great poet. It is well known that Claude Lorraine could not succeed in pastry with all his genius. " Et Balzac et Malherbe si fameux en bon mots, En cuisine peut-etre n'aurait ete que des sots." To whom, think you, does the British nation owe those Attic suppers, those feasts of the gods, which so surprised the Allied Monarchs, and brought so much glory upon his late ma- jesty? To Monsieur de Careme. And to whom do you think the Baron Rothschild owes those clear and unclouded faculties with which he out-financiers all Europe and America? Certes, to Monsieur de Careme. All the Baron has to do is to dine ; digestion is done by his cook. Careme has refused invitations to nearly every European court : and it was only upon the most urgent solicitations that he consented to reside eight months at Carlton House, — a portion of his life upon which he looks back with much 62 EVE>'1NG PROMENADE. displeasure and repentance, and the remnant of his days he designs to consecrate, with the greater zeal on this account, to the honour and interests of his native country. He is now pre- paring a digest of his art, after the manner of the Code Napoleon; and eminent critics, to whom he has communicated his work, pro- nounce it excellent, both for its literary and cuUnary merits. To this Boulevard also the sw^eetmeat part of the creation resort about twilight to their creams and lemonades and eau sucree. They seat themselves upon both margins of the trottoir upon chairs, leaving an interval between, for the successive waves of pedestrians, who are also attracted hither by the fashion and elegance of the place. How charming, of a summer evening:, to sit you down here upon one chair and put your feet upon another, and look whole hours away upon this little world ; or to walk up and down and eye the double row of belles seated amidst the splendour of the gas-lamps. In this o-roup are examples of nearly all that is extant of the human species. I have seen a Bedouin of the Mer Rouge stumble upon a D-reat ambassador from the Neva ; and a ^Nlan- darin of the Loo-koo run foul of an ex-school- TORTONl's. 63 master of the Mobontongo. If any one is missino' from your mines of Shamokeii, come hither, and you will find him seated on a straw- bottomed chair on the Boulevard Italien. These splended cafes are multiplied by mir- rors, and being open, or separated only by panels of glass, appear to form but a single tableau with the street, and those outside and in seem parts of the same company. I recom- mend you the Cafe de Paris, the Cafe Hardi, the Cafe Veron, if you wish to mix with the fashionable and merry world ; if with the busi- ness world, with the great bankers, the million- aires, the noblesse de la Bourse, who smooth their cares with fat dinners and good wines, where else in the world should you go but to Tortoni^s ? There are not two Tortonis upon the earth. A dinner you may get at the Rocher Cancale, — but a breakfast ! — it is to be had no where in all Europe out of Tortoni's. The ladies of high and fashionable life stop here before the door, and are served by liveried waiters elegantly in their barouches; they cannot think of venturing in, there are so many more gentlemen outside. You will see here, both in and out, the most egregious cockneys of Europe, the beau Brummels and the beau Nashes, the 64 MUSTACHIOS. "Flashes/' and " Full-Swells" of London town, and, in elegant apposition, the Parisian exquisites. Was there ever anything so beautiful ! — No, cT hoimeiir ! His boots are of Evrat, his coat Staub, vest Moreau, gloves and cravat Walker, and hat Bandoni ; and Mrs. Frederic is his washerwoman ! You will please give the supe- riority to the French. To make an elegant fop is more than the barber's business ; nature her- self must have a finger in the composition. Besides, if a man is born a fool, he is a greater fool in Paris than elsewhere, there are such opportunities for acquirement. These are the French people. Don't you hate to see so many ninnies in mustachios ? If I had not the great Marlborough, and Bona- parte, and Apollo, on my side, all three unwhiskered, I would go home in the next packet. The moment one has made one's debut here in the world of beards, one is a man, and there is no manhood, founded on any other pre- tensions, that can dispense with this main quali- fication. It is the one eminent criterion of all merit ; it is a diploma; a bill of credit as current as in the days Albuquerque ; it is promotion in the army, in the diplomacy, even in the church ; you cannot be a saint without this grisly recom- PARISIAN BATHS. 65 mendation. One loves the women, just because they have no beards on their faces. Otherwise — a la barbe pres — the French are well enough. It is the same kind of population, nearly, that one meets by the gross in New York, and everywhere else. 1^ looked about for Monsieur Dablancour, but could see nothing of him. In a foreign country a man is always a caricature of himself. The French are here in their own element, and swim in it naturally. One is always awkward from the very sense of not knowing foreign customs ; and always ri- diculous abroad because everything is ridiculous which departs from common and inveterate habit, and nothing is ridiculous which conforms with it. In a nation of apes, it is becoming to be an ape. If you place a man of sense in a company of fools, it is the man of sense w'ho is embarrassed and looks foolish. If one travelled into Timbuctoo, I presume one would feel very foolish for being white. But this is not all that is worth your attention on the Boulevard Italien. If you love baths of oriental luxury, here are the Bains Chinoises just opposite. Personal cleanliness is the French virtue par excellence. Bathing in other countries is a luxury, in France a necessity. Hot baths 66 MEDICATED BATHS. as good as yours at Swaim's are at fifteen sous. The Bains Vigiers at twenty sous a bath made their proprietor a count. You can have baths here simple and compound, inodorous and aro- matic, with cold or warm, or clarified or Seine water; and you have them with naked floors and ungarnished walls, and with all the luxury of tapestry and lounges ; baths double and single, with and without attendance, with a whole skin, or flayed alive with friction. And besides these baths ordinary and extraordinary — Russian, Turkish, and Chinese — you have baths specific against all human infirmities; baths alkalic, sulphurous, fumigatory, oleaginous, and anti- phlogistic. All the mineral waters of Europe pour themselves at your feet in the middle of Paris. Spa, Seltzer, Barege, Aix-la-chapelle, and Ginsnack ; manufactured, every one of them, in the street of the University, Gros CailloUf No. 21. And this is not all ; there is the " ambulatory bath,'' which walks to your bedside, and, embracing you, walks out again, at thirty sous. '' C'est un vrai pays de Cocagne que ce Paris" And if you love gew-gaws, gingumbobs, and pretty shop-girls, why here they are at the Bazaar. The French take care, as no other PRETTY SHOP-WOMEN. 67 people, to furnish such places with pretty women, and they turn their influence, as women, to the account of the shop. The English, I have heard, put all their deformities into their bazaars, that customers, they say, may attend to the other merchandise. The French wav is the more sensible. I have been ruined already several times by the same shop-girl, caressing and caressino* each of one's fino-ers, as she tries on a pair of gloves one does not want. Or if you love the fine arts, where are all the print-shops of Paris? Why here. You can buy here Calypsos and Cleopatras all naked, with little French faces ; and Scipios and Caesars, and other marshals of the empire, from any price down to three sous a piece. Finally, if you love the best pates in this world, we will just step over into the Passage Panorama to jMadame Felix's. Sweet Passage Panorama ! How often have I walked up and down beneath thy crystal roof as the dusky evening came on, with arms folded, and in the narcotic influence of a choice Havannah, forgotten all, all but that a yawning gulf lies between me and my friends and native country ! Give a sou to this little Savoyard with the smiling face, who sweeps the crossings. '^ Ahy 68 ARTICLES OF MERCHANDIZE* Madame, regardez dans voire petite poche si vous navez pas un petit sou a me donner /" How can you refuse him ! If you do, he will make you just the same thankful bow, in the best forms of French courtesy. We are now on the Boulevard Montmartre. Here are cashmeres and silks from Arabia ; me- rinos veritable barbe de Pacha, chalys, mousse- line Thibet, Pondicherry, unis et broche, and pocket handkerchiefs at two sous. Ah, come along ! And here are six pairs of ladies' legs, shewino; at the window the silk stockin2;s. How gracefully gartered ! And from above, how the white curtain falls down modestly in front al- most to the knee. Don't be in such a hurry ! they are twice as natural as livino- legs ! And here are dolls brevetted by the king, and mil- liners a prixjixe, at a fixed price : and here is M. D utosq,f abricant de sac en papier, manufac- turer of Uttle paper-bags-to-put-sugar-in to his majesty; and Madame Raggi, who lets out Ve- nuses and other o;oddesses to the drawino-- schools, at two sous an hour. And look at this shop of women's ready-made articles. Here one can be dressed cap-a-pie for four francs and eleven centimes (three quarters of a dollar)* frock, petticoat, fichu, bonnet, stockings and THE MODERN" SHOPKEEPER. 69 chemise ! A student, also, can buy here a library in the street from a quarter of a mile of books, at six sous a volume. I have just bought Rousseau in calf, octavo, at ten sous ! Since the last Revolution, commerce has taken a new spirit ; the bourgeois blood has got uppermost. The greatest barons now are the Rothschilds, and the greatest ministers the Lafittes. The style, too, has risen to the level of the new bureau-cratic nobility. The shop- keeper of these times is at your service, a cornmer- canty his "boutique'' is a magazin, his '• con- toir" his hureauy and his '* pratique" his cUentelle. Even the signs, as you see, speak a magnificent language. It is the '^ Magazin du Doge de Venise,'' or '' Magazin du Zodiaque — des Vepres Siciliennes,'' or *' Grand Magazin de NouveaufeJ' And if the Doge of Venice is *' selling out cheap," the language is of course worthy of a Doge — it is *^ au rabais par cessation de com- merce,'^ The Bourse is now a monument of the capital, and disputes rank with [the Louvre. The "petit Marquis'' is the banker's son, and the marshals of the empire are sold *' second hand'' in the frippery market. I intended to write you m English, but the French creeps on in spite of me. 70 MORNING WALKS. This is one of the prettiest of the Boulevards, and you will see here a great many fine women eti promenade of a.morning about twelve. When a French lady walks out, she always takes on one side her caniche by a string, and at the other, sometimes, her beau without a string. In either way she monopolizes the whole street, and you are continually getting between her and the puppy? very much to your inconvenience ; for if you offend the dog the mistress is, of course, implacable, and you will very likely have to meet her gallant in the Forest of Bondy the next morning. But you can turn this evil some- times to advantage. If you see, for instance, a pretty woman alone, with her curly companion, you can just walk on, "commercing with the skies" till the lady gets one side of you and the dog the other ; this will give you the opportunity of beo-ging her pardon, of patting and stroking the dog a little,— it may break the ice towards an acquaintance, or, if the place be convenient to fall, you had better let her trip you up, and then she will be very sorry. If you think it is a little thing to get a pretty woman's pity on your side, you are very much mistaken. Let me introduce you to this shoe-black. He has, as you see, a little box, a brush or two in it, THE SHOE-BLACK. 71 and blacking, and a fixture on the top for a foot ; this is his Jo?id de boutique^ his stock in trade. He brushes off the mud to the soles of your feet, and shews you your own features in your boots for three sous. This one has just dissolved an ancient firm; and his advertisement, which he calls a ^^ prospectus," standing here so prim upon a board, announces the event. The part- nership is dissolved, but the whole '' personnel" he says, of the establishment remains with the present proprietor; and M. Badaraque, ex- partner, has also the honour to inform us, that he has transported the ^' appareil de son etab- lissement" to the *' Place de la Bourse, une des plus jolies locations de la ville." The "Z)e- crotteur en chef at the Palais Royal, and other places of fashion, has his assistants, and serves a dozen or two of customers at a time. He has a shop furnished with cloth-covered benches in amphitheatre, as at the Chamber of Deputies, with a long horizontal iron support for the foot, and pictures are hung around the walls. ^' On dit, monsieur, cpie c'est d'apres Teniers — celuiy monsieur ? c'est d'apres VandykeJ^ And there are newspapers and reviews : so that to polish a gentleman's boots and his understanding are parts of the same process. 72 THE CHIFFONNIER. There is a variety of other little trades and industries, which derive their chief means of life from the wants and luxuries of this street, which I may as well call to your notice en passant: I mean trades that are ^' tout Pari- sieniies ; that is to say, unknown in any other country than Paris. You will see an individual moving about, at all hours of the night,silent and active, and seeing the smallest bit of paper in the dark where you can see nothing, and, with a hook in the end of a stick, picking it up, and pitching it with amazing dexterity into a basket tied to his left shoulder ; with a cat-like walk, being everyvvhere and nowhere at the same time, stirring up the rubbish of every nook and gutter of the street, under your very nose — this is the chiffonnier. He is a very important individual. He is in matter what Pythogoras was in mind ; and his transformations are scarcely less curious than those of the Samian suge. The beau, by his pains, peruses once again his dicky, or cravat, of a morning, in the " iV/a- gaziu des Modes/' whilst the politician has his breeches reproduced in the ''^ Journal des De- bats f and many a fine lady pours out her soul upon a billet-doux that once was the dishclout. The chiffonnier stands at the head of the little THE GRATTEUR. 73 trades, and is looked up to with envy by the others. He has two coats, and wears on holidays a chain and quizzing-glass, and washes his hands with pdte cVamand. He rises, too, like the Paris gentry, when the chickens roost: and when the lark cheers the morning, goes to bed. All the city is divided into districts, and let out to these chiffonniers by the hour ; to one, from ten to eleven, and from eleven to twelve to another, and so on through the night : so that several get a living and consideration from the same district. This individual does justice to the literaiy compositions of the day: he crams into his ch'tffotmerie indiscriminately the last Vaudeville, the last sermon of the Archbishop, and the last eloge of the Academy. Just below him is the Gratteur. This artist scratches the live-long day between the stones of the pavement for old nails from horses' shoes, and other bits of iron— always in hopes of a bit of silver, and even, perhaps, a bit of gold : more happy in his hope than a hundred others in the possession. He has a store in the Faubouro-s, where he deposits his ferruginous treasure. His wife keeps this store, and is a '' Marcha?ide de Fer.*' He maintains a family, like another man ; one or two of his sons he brings up to scratch for VOL. I. E 74 THE COMMISSIONNAIRE. a living, and the other he sends to college ; and he has a lot " in perpetuity" in Pere la Chaise. His rank is, however, inferior to the Chiffoyinier, who will not give him his daughter in marriage, and he don't ask him to his soirees. In all places of much resort you will see an individual, broad-shouldered and whiskered, looking very affable and officious, especially upon strangers, mostly about grocer-stores and street corners. Let me introduce you to him, also. He wants to carry your letters, and run errands for you from one end of Paris to the other. He will carry, also, your wood to your room, a billet-doux to your mistress, and your boots to the cobbler's, and, for a modest com- pensation, perform any service that one person may require of another; also, as you see, a very important individual. Indeed, he holds amongst men nearly the same place that Mercury holds amongst the gods. About his neck he wears a brass medal, polished bright as honour — at once his badge of office and pledge of fidehty. If you seem to doubt his honesty, he points to his medal, and holds up his head ; that's enough. If only the Peers could point to their decorations with the same confidence ! For instance, if you walk out in the bright day, not being a Parisian, THE MISSIONARY. 75 you are of course overtaken by the rain ; for a Paris sunshine and shower are as close to- gether as a babe's smiles and tears ; and then you just step into a ^^ Cabinet de lecture,'' and you have not read half the worth of your sou, when your coat has embraced you, and your umbrella is between you and the merciless heavens. This is the commissionnaire. I should have noticed among the little industries the " Broker of theatrical pleasures ;" he sells the pass A, who retires early, to B, who goes in late ; and the Clacqueur, who for two or three francs a night applauds or hisses the new plays. But we must get on with our journey. Here on the Boulevard Poissoniiiere, or near it, resides Mr. , of New Jersey ; he has been sent over (hapless errand !) to convert these French people to Christianity. He is a very clever man ; and we will ask if he is yet alive. The journals of this morning say three or four missionaries have been eat up by the Sumatras. This is the famous Arch of Triumph of the Porte St. Denis. It compliments Louis XIV. on his passage of the Rhine in 1672, and is the counterpart of the Napoleon Arch at the Bar- riere de TEtoile. It is seventy-two feet high, E 2 76 BOULEVARD DU TEMPLE. and has at each side an obehsk, supported by a lion, and decorated with trophies. That fat Dutch woman at the left base stands for Hol- land ; and that vigorous, muscular-looking man on the right, is deputy to the Rhine ; and that overhead on horseback, is great " baby Louis." We have now left the fashionable world at our heels — this is the Boulevard du Te^nple. This Boulevard, a few years ago, was a delight- ful and romantic walk of an evening; but noise and business have now violated all the secret retreats of Paris, one after another, and there is no spot left of the great capital in which you can hear your own voice. There were here, before the Revolution, five theatres; and the lists of fame are crowded with the theatrical celebrities which drew the homage of the whole city to this street. This is the only spot in the world that has furnished clowns for posterity; Baron and Le Kain are hardly more fresh in the memory of man than Galimafre and Bobeche. This was the theatre of their triumphs. It was here, too, that the world came to see a living skeleton of eight pounds, and his wife of eight hundred,— that men, to the great astonishment of our ancestors, swallowed carving knives and boiling oil, — that turkeys danced quadrilles, and UNADULTERATED FRENCHMEN. 77 fleas drove their coaches and six ; and it was here that Mademoiselle Rose stood on her head on a candlestick. There are yet six theatres here : but the street once so adorned with oar- dens, and equipap^es, and fashionable ladies, and an infinity of other attractions, is now, alas ! built up with gaunt houses, and differs scarcely from the other Boulevards. The simplicity of orio-inal manners is, how- ever, wonderfully preserved in this district. The more fashionable parts are so filled with strangers — with parasite plants, that you can scarcely distinguish the indicvetious population. This is the true classical and traditional dis- trict — the only place in which vou can find unadulterated Frenchmen. The inhabitant of this quarter has rather more than a French share of ew6o//j9o//^^, and aims at dignity, and his whiskers leave a part of his chin uncovered ; his clothes are large and fine in texture ; he carries an umbrella, and, on fete days,«a cane, to give him an important air and keep off the dogs. If it rains, he takes a fiacre ; he keeps by him his certificate of marriage and " extrait de bateme" and has not got over the prejudice of beino; born in lawful wedlock. His wife is pretty, but not handsome : her features are 78 THE AMBIGU COMIQUE. regular, and face plump — indeed, she is plump all over. He loves his wife by instinct. She keeps his books, and he asks her advice in all his business; she suckles his children, and gives him tisane when h&is sick. I saw this individual and his wife together a few evenings ago at the Ambigu Comique, I sometimes go to this theatre, and the Gaitt and the Cirque Olympiqiie. A vicious student was tempted every now and then to pinch Madame behind. She bore it impatiently, indeed, but silently, for some time. QiCest-ce que tu as ? — Qu'as tu done J ma femme ?" At last she com- municated to her husband the fact. He imme- diately grew a foot taller upon his seat; and then he looked at the young man from head to foot with one of those looks which mean so much more than words. Not wishing, however, to disturb the play, he contained himself, only riggling on his seat, and eyeing him occasionally, to the end of the act ; and then he got up. Quoiy monsieur y said he, vous avez Vimpertinence de pincer les f esses de 7nadame V and then thrusting his tongue into the lower lip, he put on an expression, such as you will never meet outside the Boulevard du Temple. You would go a mile any time barefooted to see it. ^' I MARKET FOR FRIPPERY. 79 would have you to know, sir, that I am a rentier^ (a freeholder) que je poT/e rente a la ville de Paris ; that I am called Grigou, monsieur; and that I hve in the Rue d'Angouleme, No. 22 ;" and he sat down. The little wife now tried to appease him, which made him the more pug- nacious; she reminded him he was the father of a family, had children, and, finally, that he had a wife; and then she sat up close by him, and then she came over to the other side, just in front of me, for security. — The bourgeois of this district lives in a larger house than he could f^et for the same rent in any other part of Paris ; he is usually independent in his circumstances, and has a certain a plomb, or confidence in himself, and a liberty in all his movements, which give a full relief to his natural feelings and traits of character. Some distance towards the right, you will find the great market of frippery — one of the curi- osities of this district. Every old thing upon the earth is sold there for new. There are 1800 shops. Nothing was ever so restored from rag- gedness to apparent green youth and integrity as an old coat in the hands of these Israelites, unless it be the conscience of those who sell. A garment that has served at least two generations. 80 KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. and been worn last by a beggar, you will buy in this market for new in spite of your teeth. It is a good study of human nature to see here how far the human face may be modified by its pursuits and meditations. This building in the Rue du Temple^ with the superb portico and Ionic columns, and two colossal statues in front, is one of great historical importance ; and ladies who love knights would not pardon me for passing it unnoticed. The ancient edifice was built seven hundred years ago, and was occupied by one of the most powerful orders of Christianity — the Knights Templars. Here it was that PhiHp le Bel tor- tured and burnt alive these soldier monks, seiz- ins^ their treasures, and bestowino^ their other possessions upon his new favourites, the Knights of Malta. Who has not heard of the war-cry of Beauseanti which chilled the blood of the Saracens on the plains of Syria, and has since made many a woman tremble in her slippers at midnio^ht? This was his lodo-ino-. Heavens ! how wide you open your eyes ! — yes, here lodged the Knio^hts of the Red Cross, and Richard Cceur de Lion used to put up in this temple in going to the Holy Land. It became national property in the Revolution, and was given at the SJR SYDNEY SMITH. 81 Restoration (1814) to the Priricesse de Coride, who established the present " Convent of the Temple." The ladies who now occupy it are called the Dames Benedictines, and, like the other nuns, of whom there are at present more than twenty orders in France, they devote them- selves to education, and other benevolent em- ployments. It was in this old building that Louis XVI. and his queen were imprisoned in 1792. The kino^ was taken out from here the 20th of January, 1793, to the scaffold ; the queen about eleven months after; and Madame Ehzabeth, his sister, in the following year; leaving his daughter here alone at thirteen years of age. Sir Sydney Smith was confined in the same room in 1798. Bonaparte, in 1811, demolished the old edifice to the last stone — from what motive? — and in 1812 it was fenced round, and the grass grew upon the guilty place. The re- litrious ladies who now reside here, are purifying it by prayers and other acts of devotion. .1 propos of Sydney Smith ; I met him at an even- ino- party lately. He looks like the history of the last half century. He is a venerable old man, and very sociable with the young girls, who were climbing his knees, and hanging about E 3 82 MONSIEUR DE PARIS. his neck, and getting his name albummed in their little books to carry to America. I will now shew you a house in this street. (Rue des Marais du Temple, No. 31,) a house that, once seen, will never depart from your memory. Its closed doors and windows, as if no one lived there ; its iron railing, without en- trance, and the interstices condemned with wood, in front ; and the slit in the centre of the door to receive the correspondence of its horrible master, who sits within as a spider in its web, you will see all the rest of your life. It is the house of Monsieur de Paris. Oh, dear ! and who is Monsieur de Paris ? He is a civil magis- trate, and belongs to the executive department. No one living, is perhaps, so great a terror to evil doers as this Monsieur de Paris. " Mori- sieur^' you must recollect, has its particular and its o-eneral meanings. Monsieur means any body ; un monsieur is a gentleman of some breedino' and education ; La maison de monsieur is the family of the king's eldest son ; Monsieur de Meaux means the Archbishop ; and Monsieur de Paris means the Hangman ! He is also called the *' Executeur de la haute justice/' or '* Executeur des hautes auvres," and vulgarly, the Bourreau. This is his Hotel. The name of HIS TWO DAUGHTERS. 83 the present incumbent is Mr. Henry Sanson. His family consists of a son, a person of mild and gentle manners, who is now serving his apprenticeship to the business under his eminent parent ; and two daughters. The elder, about fifteen, is remarkable for beauty and accom- plishments. The father is rich, his salary being above that of the President of the Royal Court, and he has spared no expense in the education of the girls. They will be sumptuously en- dowed. The two ends of society are affected some- times in nearly the same way. A princess, being obliged to select her husband from her own rank and rehgion, runs the hazard of a perpetual virginity ; and Mademoiselle de Paris experiences exactly the same inconvenience ; she can marry but a hangman. There is no one of all Europe who has performed the same eminent functions as Mr. Henry Sanson, or to whom, without loss of dignity, he can offer the hand of his fair daughter. Ye lords and gentlemen, if you think you have all the pride to yourselves, you are mistaken, the hangman has his share, like another man. Mr. Sanson has appropriated one or two rooms of this building to a museum of ancient 84 THE MARQUIS DE LALY. instruments used in judicial torture — Luke's iron bed, Havaillac's boots, and such like relics ; and is quite a dilettanti in this department of science. We expect a course of gratuitous lec- tures, as at the " Musee des Arts et Metiers/' when the season begins. Amongst other objects, you will see the sword with which was beheaded the Marquis de Laly, I am going to tell you an anecdote I have read of this too famous exe- cution, which is curious. About the year 1750, in the middle of the night, three young men of the high class of nobiUty, after breaking windows, and the heads of street passengers, and beating the guard, (which was the privilege of the higher classes in those times,) strolling down the Faubourg St. Martin, laughing and talking, and well fuddled with champagne, arrived at the door of this house. They heard the sound of instruments, and music so lively, seemed to indicate a hearty bourgeois dance. How fortunate ! they could now pass the night pleasantly. One of them knocked, and a polite well-dressed person opened. A young lord explained the motive of their visit, and was refused. '' You are wrong/' said the nobleman ; " we are of the court, and do you honour in sharing your amusements." THE CAFE TURC. 85 " I am obliged, nevertheless, to refuse," replied the stranger ; neither of you know the person you are addressing, or you would be as anxious to withdraw, as now to be admitted." '^ Excel- lent, upon honour ! and who the devil are you ?" " The executioner of Paris." " Ha, ha ! what you ? you the gentleman who breaks limbs, cuts oif heads, and tortures poor devils so agree- ably?" " Such indeed are the duties of my office; I leave, however, the details you speak of to my deputies, and it is only when a lord like either of you is subject to the penalties of the law, that I do execution on him with my own hands." The individual who held this dialogue with the executioner was the Marquis de Laly. Twenty years after, he died by the hands of this man, upon whose office he was now exercising his raillery. One of the ornaments of this Boulevard is the Cafe Turcj fitted up with a furuiture of two hundred thousand francs. It would do honour to the Italien. What a display of belles and beaux, about seven of an evening, through its spacious rooms, and gardens, and galleries ! — one lends his ear to the concert; another, retired in a grotto at the side of his bo?uie amie, drinks large draughts of love : and another drinks eau 86 THE FOUNTAINS. sucree. And here is the largest elephant upon the earth, which bears the same relation to all other elephants that the Trojan horse did to all other horses. This monster was to be cast in bronze, and surmounted by a tower, forming a figure of about eighty feet in height. That which you see here is only the model, in plaster of Paris. The stair-way leads up through one of the legs, six and a quarter feet in the ancle. There were to be twenty-four has reliefs in marble, representing the arts and sci- ences ; and the bronze was to be obtained from the fusion of the cannon captured by the impe- rial army in Spain. Louis Philippe, who is charged with the public works begun by Bona- parte, will be puzzled to finish this elephant. Paris contains one hundred and eighty-nine great fountains, of which, about twenty are of beautiful architecture, adorned with sculpture and statuary, and enlivened by jets deaui, and form a principal ornament of the city. This elephant was intended to add one to the number. That, so imposing and picturesque, which we just now passed, on the Boulevard du Temple, is called the Chateau, The building with the jet on the top forms a cone. The water falls from its summit into vases, which overflow in BOULEVARD DU TEMPLE. 87 cascades that tumble down from story to story into a large basin at the base, where eight lions of bronze spout torrents in jets d'eaux from their mouths. Its cost was one hundred thousand francs. It would be too long to particularise the others. On one, you will see Leda caressing her swan, Cupid lurking on the watch ; on another, Tantalus gaping in vain for the liquid, which passes by his lips into the pail of the waterman ; on another, Hygeia giving drink to a fatigued soldier ; and, on another. Charity suckling one of her children, wrapping another from the cold in the folds of her frock, and quenching the parched lips of a third with the pure stream. I have just bought you a clock representing the " Fountain of the Innocents,'' with all its waters in motion. It was the Duchess de Berri's, and is of delicate work- manship. Please to have the proper respect for its dignity, and indulgence for its frailty. I will send it by the next Packet. The turning of wickets, the gingling of keys, and grating of bolts, were the sounds heard here forty-six years ago. What recollections rise out of the ground to meet you at every step as you tread upon this unhallowed spot. One hears 88 THE BASTILLE. almost the chains clank, and the prisoner groan in his cell ! It was here, where the charcoal now floats so peacefully on the lake, and where the boatman sings his absent mistress so joy- ously, that stood, in horrid majesty — " With many a foul and midnight murder fed," the ''high altar and castle of Despotism," the Bastille f Where are now the damp and secret cells, the sombre corridors, and the grim counte- nances of the gaolers, and where the mob of 1789, and the mad passions that levelled its towers and battlements ? Quiet as the Seine that sleeps upon its dungeons ! The present substitutes for the Bastille are, the Depot at the Prefecture of Police; St. Pe/«^ie for state crimes, and La Force for civil; the Coticiergerie for those awaiting trial, and the Salpetriere for those awaiting the execution of their sentence. Bonaparte has built here an immense granary, containing always corn enough for the consump- tion of the capital for two months. This, with the Halle aux bUs in the centre of the city, supplies the whole population. Paris has six hundred bakers, who are obliged to keep always in this o-ranary one hundred thousand sacks of flour, worth thirty shillings sterling per sack; and THE BASTILLE. 89 therefore it is called the Gretiier de Reserve. Here lived the witty and profligate Beaumar- chais ; his castle is rased ; all but Figaro are dead. You have in sight the Hospital of the Quinze-vingts, which contains three hundred blind, who have twenty- four sous a day each for a living, with the produce of their industry, which is wonderfully ingenious. Xow we have passed the Garden of Plants, and the Bridge of Austerlitz. For this latter favour we owe some- thing to the Russians, who saved this bridge from its bad name and Blucher's gunpowder. That upon the hill is the Salpetritre, the In- sane Hospital for women. What a huge pile ! One to put the sane ones in would not be half the size. This front on the boulevard is six hun- dred feet. The building in the rear is of similar dimensions, and the Rotonde between, with the octagon dome, is the chapel. It contains now four thousand five hundred poor, aged above seventy ; one thousand five hundred crazy ; all women. I went in on Sunday. What im- mense conversation ! There is a similar insti- tution for the other sex, called the Bicetre. Paris has twenty hospitals, affording thirty thousand beds, and classed by the several diseases and infirmities. It has no poor-houses. 90 THE HOSPITAL FOR WIDOWERS. but each of its twelve arrondissemejits, or muni- cipal divisions, has a '^Bureau de Bieyifaisance" which distributes provisions to the indigent, and provides labour for the idle: and there is a plenty of benevolent societies, with specific ob- jects. Nor do they want customers, for the number of paupers are near fifty thousand. I forgot to tell you there is a hospital here {the Hospice des MSnages) for widowers. What an object of charity is a man without a wife ! They have made, however, the terms hard ; one has to stay married twenty years to be admitted. The institution is under the care of the sisters of Charitv. This of Val de Grace is for the mihtaiT, and that of the Rue d'Enfer for the foundlings ; not an unnatural association, but emblematic of the two chief concerns of the capital — killing off the people by war, and making up the loss by adul- tery. And this is the Rue St. Jaques, one of the classical streets of the city. The great rogues pay their last visit to this end of it, and the great men to the other : if you kill ten thou- sand of your fellow creatures you go to the Pan- theon at the west end, if one only, you come here to the Place St. Jaques, now the seat of the guillotine and the public executions. At length PARISIAN INEBRIETY. 91 we are on the Boulevard du Mont Parnasse, at the end of our journey. Yet could you not get a drop of helicon here, though perishing with thirst. All one can offer you is a little sour Burgundy, which is cheaper than inside the wall. This is the reason why you see all this rabble, five hundred at a view, carousing and dancing in their sabots, drinking and caressing, tour-a-tour, the necks of their bottles and their belles ; it is the reason why thousands are crowding here to drink who are not dry, and Paris is losing daily her sober reputation, and learning to get drunk like her neiohbours. The bad system of the ports, is in France trans- ferred to all the petty towns. A couple of ser- geants, musketted and whiskered, walk with grim dignity at each side of the gates. They stop and examine all vehicles, public and private, and all such persons as carry in provisions to the market, forcing them to pay an octroi, or duty, to the city of Paris, which prevents those rogues, the poor people, from getting a dinner untaxed. They even stop sometimes the foot passengers ; especially those notorious smugglers, the women. If any one chance to be half gone, she is not al- lowed to go any farther, unless she produce a certificate from the parish priest, or some equally 92 LYNCH LAW. good authority. Quantities of lace and silks have passed in under such pretexts. The best commentary I know upon the wisdom of this policy is the Boulevard du Mont Parnasse. When Paris was surrounded by this wall, fifty years ago, the people murmured and made a riot, and hung up several of the ring-leaders, on the same principles of law recently laid down by our chief justice Lynch. They entered suits, too, against the city, to put her in the Bastille ; but a compromise ended the strife, and the wall was built. Here is a line from an old book re- lating to these times — " Les murs raurant Paris rendent Paris murmurant." I could not think of descending from Parnassus without a line of poetry. THE PALAIS ROYAL. 93 LETTER IV. The Palais Royal — French courtesy — Rue Vivienne — Plea- sures of walking in the streets— Cafes in the Palais Royal — Mille Colonnes — Very's — French dinners — Past His- tory of the Palais Royal — Galerie d'Orleans — Gambling — The unhappy Colton — Hells of the Palais Royal — Prince Puckler Muskau — Lord Brougham — The Kino- and Queen. Paris, July, 1835. You wish to see the Palais Royal? Then you must step from the Boulevard Italien a quarter of a mile to the south-west. If you hate Philadelphia sameness and symmetry, you will be gratified here to your heart's content. In Paris there are ten hundred and eighty streets, besides lanes and alleys, all recommending themselves by the most charming irregularities. That which you will now pass through, the '* Rue Vivienne,'' is among the most bustling; it is a leading avenue, is alive with business, and has preten- sions far above its capacity. I must tell you a 94 FRENCH COURTESY. word about the etiquette of these streets before you set out. If a lady meets a gentleman upon the little side walk, which French courtesy calls a ^' trot- toir," it is the lady always who trots into the mud. The French women seem used to this submis- sion, and yield to it instinctively ; and, indeed, all who feel their weakness, as children and old men, being subject to the same necessity, shew the same resignation. Also, if a number of gentlemen are coteried, even across the broad walk of the Boulevards, the lady walks round, not to incommode them ; and it is not expected of a French gentleman in a public place or vehicle that he should give his seat to any one, of whatever age, sex, or condition, or that he should deviate from his straight line on the street for anything less than an omnibus. The French have been a polite people, and they con- tinue to trade on the credit of their ancestors. What is curious to observe, is the complaisance with which human nature follows a general ex- ample. A Russian wife, when the husband neoflects to beat her for a montli or two, is alarmed at his indifference, and I have remarked that the French women are the warmest de- fenders of this French incivility. DANGERS OF THE STREETS. 95 Recollect, that as soon as you put your little foot upon this Rue Vivienne, fifty waggons, a wedding coach, and three funerals, with I don't know how many malle-postesj cabs, coucous, and bell-eared diligences — all but the Jiacres, with their gaunt and fleshless horses, which plead inability — will set themselves to run over you, without the smallest respect for your Greek nose, your inky brows, and black eyes. The danger is imminent, and it wont do to have your two feet in one sock. I have written home to your mother, to have prayers performed in the churches for women's husbands sojourning in Paris. And by escaping from one danger, you are sure to run full butt against another. Scylla and Charybdis, too, are so close together, that the " prudent middle" is precisely the course that no prudent lady will think of pursuing. To make it worse, the natives will have not the least sympathy in your dangers : they have been used to get run over themselves from time imme- morial, and when we staring Yankees come over to see the " Tooleries and the Penny Royal," they are not aware that any allowance is to be made for our ignorance. Besides, the driver knows a stranger as far as he can see him, and takes aim accordingly ; he gets twenty-five 96 GRACEFUL WALKING. francs for his bodv at the Moro;ue. It is known, that secret companies for *' running over people" exist all over Paris, and that the drivers are the principal stockholders. The truth is, that it is reckoned amongst the natural deaths of the place, and two hundred and fifty are marked upon the bills of the last year. Under the old reg/me, when the nobility put out a greater train of vehicles, and had a kind of monopoly of run- ning over the common people, I have heard it was still worse. Then, if any one walked about the streets unmashed for twenty years, he was entitled to the cross of St. Louis. I have escaped till now, but I set it down entirely to the efficacy of your innocent prayers, which have reversed the fates in my favour. Your best wav is to watch and imitate the address of the native women. Here they are now, in front of my window, sprinkled over the whole street, in their white stockings and pru- nellas, and in the very filthiest of the French weather, without a spot to their garters. The little things just pull up all the petticoats in the world more than half leg, and then tip-toe they step from the convex surface of one paving stone to another, with a dexterity and grace that go to one's heart. PLEASURES OF WALKING. 97 A lady must expect, also, other embarrass- ments here, to which the delicate pusillanimity of the sex is i/et but slightly exposed in our country, besides the cat and nine kittens that she must jump over, and the defunct lap-dogs that lie putrid in the gutters. The truth is, that these streets are very often (I ask pardon of Madame de Rambouillet and other good authorities) so in deshabille, they are not fit to be seen. A Parisian lady, therefore (and she is to be imitated also in this), when she ventures out on foot, is sharp-sighted as a lynx, and blind as an owl ; she has eyes to see and not to see, and she runs the gauntlet through the midst of all these slippery and perilous obstructions in as careless a good humour as you upon the smooth trottoirs of your Chestnut and Broadways. It is true, the ladies of the Iiaut ion do not much exercise their ambulatory functions — their ^'vertu caminante" — upon these unsavoury pro- menades. A French gentleman, who has resided a week and a half at New York (just long enough to know the manners and customs of a country), told me this very morning, that you American ladies stare in the streets at the oentlemen, he ventured to say, '^even to immodesty ;" and I VOL. I. F 98 CLEANLINESS OF STREETS. have heard other foreigners make similar re- marks, I presume without a proper attention to thepecuhar circumstances of the different coun- tries. In a Philadelphia street, a lady can give herself up tp her thoughts, and her soul has the free use of its wings. She can get into a romance, or a reverie ; she can study her lesson, or read a love-letter, and she can stare at a French gentleman, without the least appre- hension of danger. Our streets are clean and decent, and are excellent places of parade ; and gentlemen and ladies go out expressly on fine eveninors to stare at one another. Indeed, Chestnut-street is so trim and neat that some- times one is almost obliged, like Diogenes, to spit in somebody's face not to soil its prettiness. Not so in Paris ; you are here quite at your ease in all such matters. A French lady, therefore, — and very properly, — sees no one in the street, not even her husband. To get her to look at you, you are obliged to take hold of her, shake her, and turn her about three or four times. But when once upon the Boulevard Italien of an evening, or upon the broad walk of the ele- gant Tuileries, when she has no longer need of the faculties of her eyes, and ears, and nose too, to anticipate and obviate danger — ah, ma foi ! BOULEVARD ITALIEN. 99 her diamond eyes are no more chary of their amorous glances than the hazle and bugle eyes of Chestnut or Broadway of theirs. I tried to per- suade this French gentleman, — who is a baron, has a bel air, and large mustachios, — that this happened only to him. I told him (and it is true, too,) of others, who could not get the dear little girls of New York to look at them suffi- ciently. But I must shew you the Palais Royal. It is a third less than your Washington Square. Its trees are in two regular rows along each margin. In the centre is an inclosure, containing a shrubbery and flowers ; and also an Apollo and a Diana in bronze, and a jet d^eau that separates in the air, and falls in a ^'jfteur de lis" — the only emblem of royalty that de- ceived the Revolution and the Jacobins ; and a lake, where the little fishes *^ wave their wino-s of gold." There is no access to vehicles, or street noise, to disturb the quiet of this fairy retreat. It is in the centre, too, of the city, in the vicinity of all the other chief places of diversion ; and here all the world meets after dinner to take coffee, to smoke, and concert measures for the rest of the evening. You will see them creeping in from the neighbouring f2 100 THE PALAIS EOYAL. streets, as you have seen the ants into a sugar- house. If you wish to know where is the centre of the earth, it is the Palais Royal. Ask a stranger, when he arrives, " whither will you go first?" he will answer, ''to the Palais Royal ;" or ask a Frenchman, on the top of Caucasus, " where shall I meet you again V he will give you reiidez-vous at the Palais Royal ; and no spot, they say, on the earth, has wit- nessed so many tender recognitions. Just do you ask Mademoiselle Celeste, at !New York, ^* where did you get that superb robe de cham- href' and, I will lay you six to one, she will say, " at the Palais Royal.'' l^^t us sit down beneath these pretty elms. Those upper rooms, which you see so adorned with Ionic columns, with galleries, and vases, and little Virtues, and other ornaments in sculpture — those are not his majesty's apart- ments ; not the salles des marechaux , nor the salle du trbne, nor the chamhre a couche?' de la reuie ; they are the cafts and restaurants of the Palais Royal. And those multitudes you see circulating; about the g-alleries, and lookint^: down from the windows — those are not the royal family, nor the garde du corps, nor the THE CITIZEN KING. 101 '' hundred Swiss," nor the chambellans, the ecui/ersj the aumofiiers, the maitres de ctrt- monies, the introducteurs des ambassadeurs, nor the historiographers, nor even the chauf-cire, nor the capitai?ies des levrettes— they are the cooks, and the gargons, in their white aprons, of the cafes and restaurants ; the only order that has suffered no loss of dignity or corrup- tion of blood by the Revolution ; the veritable noblesse of these times, the ''cordons bleus'' of the order of the oridiron. Louis Philippe, our citizen king, and pro- prietor of this garden, gets thirty-two thousand francs annually from letting out these chairs. Sit you down. It being after dinner, I will treat you to a regale ; which is, a cup of pure coffee, with a small glass of liqueur, eau de vie, or rum, or quirsh. You can take them separate or together; in the latter case, it is called ''gloria;'' or you may put your cognac into a cup, with a large lump of sugar in the middle, and set it on fire, to destroy the effects of the alcohol upon your nerves. See how the area of the garden is already covered with its smokino-, drmking, and pron^nading community; and how the smoke, as if loth to quit us, still lino-ers, until the whole atmosphere is narcotic with its 102 THE CAFES AND RESTAURANTS. incense. At a later hour, we shall find in the Rotunda, at the north end, and upon tables under these trees, ices in pyramids, and orgeat, and eau sucree, and all the other luxurious refresh- ments. Those two oriental pavilions, with the gilded roofs, in front of the Rotonde, will dis- tribute newspapers to the studious, and the whole garden will buzz with conversation and merriment, until the long twilight has . faded into night. Of the inside of the cafes and restaurants I must give you a few particulars. In each, there is a woman of choice beauty, mounted on a kind of throne. She is present always, and may be considered as one of the fixtures of the shop. When you enter any of these cafes, you will see, / standing here and there through the room, an individual in a white apron ; he has mustachios ; he holds a cofFee-pot in his left hand, and lean- ing gracefully over the right, reads his favourite journal — this is the waiter ! When you have cried three times '* Gar§on !" the lady at the bureau will vibrate a little bell, and bring you instantly this waiter from his studies. If you are a very decent-looking man, she will let you cry only twice ; and if you have an embroidered waistcoat, and look like a lord, and have THE BELLE LIMONADIERE. 103 whiskers, she will not let you cry at all. The chair occupied by this she-secretary, at the Mille Colonnes, cost ten thousand francs ; and she who sat, some years ago, upon that of the ^' cafe des Aveugles," the '* belle Limotiadiere," charmed all who had eyes, and amongst the rest, a brother of the greatest emperor in the world. There are above a thousand of these cafes in Paris, and several of the most sumptuous over- look the gardens of the Palais Royal. Ceres has unlocked her richest treasures here, and has poured them out with a prodigality that is un- known elsewhere. Fish, of fresh and salt water ; rare wines, of home and foreign production ; and as for the confectionaries, sucreries, fruiteries, and charcuiteries — the senses are bewildered by the infinite variety. And the artists here have a higher niche in the temple of Fame than even those of the Boulevard Italien. Monsieur Very supplied the allied monarch s at three thousand francs per day. The '' Purveyor of Fish" to his Majesty, who is of this school, is salaried a thousand dollars above our chief justice of the Union ; and Monsieur Dodat, who is immortal for making sausages and the " Passage Vera- 104 THE KITCHEN CABINET. Dodatf^ has at Pire la Chaise a monument towering like that of Cheops. This is the true " Kitchen Cabinet," to which ours is no more to be compared than the dish water to the dinner. Very is in the kitchen what the Emperor was in the camp; he is the Napoleon of gastronomy. All flesh is nothing in his sight. Why, he will transform you a rabbit to a hare, or an eel to a lamprey, as easily as you a Jackson-man to a Whig ; and he turns cocks into capons, and vice versa, by the simple artifice of a sauce. You indeed condense the sense of a whole community into the single head of a senator, or a President; and he just as easily a whole flock of geese into a single goose. You, it is true, possess the wonderful art, all know in what excellence, of puffing a man up beyond the natural measure of his merits, and just so Monsieur Very will puff you a goose's liver, however unmathematical it may seem, beyond the size of the whole animal. Now, in the midst of all this skill and pro- fusion, «' the devil's in it if you cannot dine ;" yet have I perislied myself several times of hunger in the very midst of this Palais Royal. It is not enough that a table be loaded with its THE BILL OF FARE. 105 dishes, there must be science, to call them by their names, and taste, to discriminate their uses. What can you do with an Iroquois from the ** Sharp Mountain," who does not know that sauce for a gander is not sauce for a goose. Unless vou have studied the nomenclature, which is about equal to a first course of anatomy, you are no more fit to enjoy a dinner at Very's than Tantalus in his lake. For example, the gar^on w^U present you a bill of fare as big as your prayer-book ; you open it ; the first page pre- sents you thirty soups, (classically, po^oges,) and there you are to choose between a ^^ purey' a " consommej' "a la JuUe?i, a la Beauvais, a la Bonne Femmey' &c. &c. I prefer the " con- sommey' and I will tell you how it is made. It is a piece of choice beef and capon boiled many hours over a slow fire to a jelly, and the juices concentrated, and^ served without any extra- neous mixture. The '^ JwZ/c;?," is a pot pourri of all that is edible or potable in the list of human aliments. It is a soup, for which, if rightly made, an epicure would give away his birth-right; it was invented, not by Julian the Apostate, but by Monsieur Julien, of the Palais Royal. The fluids being settled, you will turn then to F 3 106 CHEAP DINNERS. the following page for the solids : '^ Papillottes deLevreaud" '^ filet a la NapoUtaiue" " vol-aii- venf^ " scolope de saumo7i," '' auf au miroir,^' *^ riz saute a la gldce^^ " pique aux truffles" &c. &c. Alas, my poor roasting and frying coun- trymen ! There is not a day but I see some poor Yankee scratching his head in despair over this crabbed vocabulary of French dishes. Your best way in this emergency is to call the gargon, and leave all to him, and sit still like a good child, and take what is given to you. I have known many a one to run all over Paris for a beef-steak, and when he has got it, it was a horse's rump. My advice is, that no one come to Paris to dine in mean houses on cheap dinners, where you will eat cats for hares, and have snails and chalk for your cream, and the jelly of the *' consomme,'^ from the barber's. You are no more sure of the inroredients of a dish under the disguises of a French cookery, than of men's sentiments from their faces or pro- fessions. You can get, to begin with, olives, and eggs, boiled and poached, all that remains of old simplicity, if you know how to ask for them ; if not, carry the shells about with you in your pocket. We will dine to-morrow at the '^ Mille Co- THE MILLES COLONNES. 107 lonnes.^' Ladies often step into this cafe to be reflected ; you can see here all your faces, and behind and before you, as conveniently as Janus. One always enters this threshold with reverence : it has dined the Holy Alhance. Besides the usual officers and attendants, you will some- times see here a little man, grave, distrait, and meditative ;^do not disturb him ; he is, perhaps, busy about the projtt of some new sauce. He will start oEf abruptly sometimes, and leave you in the middle of a phrase ,• it is not incivility, he has just conceived a dish, and is going out to execute it, or write it upon his tablets. Never ask for him in the mornings before one — " il compose.'' The French are not copyists in cookery, any more than in fashions. They are inventors, and this keeps the imagination on the rack. You will remark, that people always excel in those things in which they invent, and are always mediocre in those things in which they imitate. After your potage, which you must eat'spar- ingly, and without bread, (for bread will sa- tiate, and spoil the rest of your dinner,) you will take a little *' vin ordinaire," or pure Bur- gundy, waiting for your first course ; and you will just cast a look over the official part of the 108 RULES FOR DINING. Moniteur, for there is no knowing when one may be made a Peer of France ; and on re- ceiving one dish, always command the next. After the dessert you will read the news all round ; the Messager, Gazette, Constitutionnel, Dehats, Quotidie/ifie, ISlationalj and the Chari- vari ; and after coffee, you may amuse yourself at checkers, domino, or improve your morals by a game of chess. In looking about the room, you will see a great number of guests, perhaps a hundred, not in stalls, as in our eating-houses and the stables, but seated at white marble tables, in an open and elegant saloon ; the walls tapestried with mirrors. If it be a serious gentleman, reading de- liberately the newspaper over his dessert, care- less or contemptuous of what is going on around him, and drinking his bottle of champagne alone — that is an Englishman, l{Q.partie carre, that is, a couple of ladies and their cavaliers, dining with much noise and claret, observing a succession and analogy of dishes, swallowing their wine drop by drop, as I read your letters, fearing lest it should come too soon to an end, and prolonging expressly the enjoyments of the repast — these are French people ; or if you see a couple of lads, hurried and impatient, and AMERICAN STYLE OF DINNER. 109 rating^ the waiters in no gentle terms, *' D — n your eves, why don't you bring in the dinner? and take away that broth, and your black bottle; who the devil wants your vinegar, and your dishwater, and your bibs too ? And bring us, if you can, a whole chicken's leg at once, and not at seven different times," — these are from the "■ Far West," and a week old in Paris. How should these little snacks of a French table not seem egreo-iouslv mean to an Ameri- can, who is used to dine in fifteen minutes, even on a holiday, and to see a whole hog barbacued ? The French dine to gratify, we to appease, appe- tite ; we demolish a dinner, and they eat it. The guests who frequent these cafes are regular or flying visiters ; some are accidental, others occasional, dining by agreement to enjoy each other's company : others again are families, who dine out for a change, or to give a respite to their servants : and others live here, a kind of stereotype customers altogether: and these houses serve, in addition to their province of eating and drinking, as places of conference, or clubs ; it is here that men communicate on political sub- jects, that news is circulated, and public opi- nion formed ; and that kings are expelled, and others are set up on their thrones. 110 STORES OF JEWELLERY. On a rancre with the restaurants, and over them, you will see lodged many of the fine arts ; painters, engravers, dentists, barbers, and beau- tiful sultanas, look out from the highest windows upon these fair dominions, to which the severity of French morals has forbidden them access. In the lower rooms, on a level with the area of the garden, and peeping through the colonnade, west and east, are riches almost immeasurable, in exquisite and fashionable apparel for both sexes, and in jewellery, trinkets, and perfumery. This trade, which in other cities is pedling and huckstering, assumes here the dignity of a great commercial interest, and its productions are reckoned at upwards of a hundred miUions of francs. The stores themselves are so little, and yet so pretty, that I have thoughts of sending you one of them over by the packet. Their ar- rangements are changed every hour, so as to keep up a continuous emotion and a series of agreeable excitements, and so as to present you a new set of temptations twelve times a day. Everything that human industry, sharpened by necessity or competition, can effect — every- thing which can excite an appetite, can heighten a beauty, or hide a deformity, is here. I begin to love art almost as well as nature : I begin to WORKS OF ART. Ill love mother Eve in her fig-leaves, as well as in her unaproned innocence. After all, what is nature to us without art ? Education is art. Indeed, rightly considered, art itself is nature ; she has but left a part of her work unfinished to urge the industry and whet the ingenuity of man. In these stores, everything is sacrificed to the shop ; there is no accommodation for the household gods. Persons with their families are not allowed to inhabit here. A man hoards space as a miser hoards money. It is a quali- fication indispensable in a clerk to be of a slender capacity. You would think you were in Lilliput, served by the fairies. The shop- girls, especially, are of such exquisite exility of figure, you can almost take one of them between your thumb and finger, and set her on the counter. In our country, we have nothing yet to shew in the way of great works of art. We have na- ture, indeed, wild and beautiful, but without historic associations; tradition is dumb, and the *' memory of man" runs back to the Eden of our race. It is a mighty advantage these old coun- tries have over us ; their reminiscences, their traditions, and their antiquities. What would be the Tower but for humpback Richard and 112 THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. the babes; or, what Hounslow Heath but for the ghosts of those who have been murdered there? And in these countries, which have no beginning, they can supply the vacant space into which authentic history does not venture^ by legends and romances ; and no matter how obscure may be one of their mountains and lakes, they can Jie it into a reputation. Some thino;s are beautiful from their accessories alone ; as lords are sometimes lords only from their equipages. What is there beautiful in a ruin? We have plains as desolate as Babylor, and no one looks at them. The Palais Royal, however magnificent as a bazaar, has still higher and better merits. It is the history of some of the most remarkable per- sonao-es and events of the last two ages. Some day,' when we have a ticket from the ^' Intendant de sa Majesitj" I will shew you them all ; and first, that very celebrated old fop the Cardinal de Richelieu, who used to strut, with his train of a monarch, through this very garden and these very halls. You shall see the very theatre upon which he represented his woeful tragedies ; his flatterers crowding around with wonderful gri- mace, and Corneille's muse cowering her timid wings in silence. As you are a lady, and love THE cardinal's CHAPEL. 113 trinkets, I will shew you, if it yet exists, that great miracle of massive gold and diamonds, the Cardinal's Chapel ; the two candlesticks, valued at a hundred thousand livres ; the cross, twenty- two inches high, and of pure gold ; the Christ of the same metal, and the crown and drapery all glittering in diamonds. And you shall see the prayer-book, too, encased in lamina of gold ; in the centre the cardinal holding up the globe, and from the four corners four angels placing a crown upon his head. If you like, I will shew you also that other smooth-faced rogue, scarcely his inferior in political ability, the Cardinal Ma- zarin, who put the king's money in his pocket, and stinted his little majesty in shirts. And if you love more cardinals, I will shew you yet another, more witty, and not less profligate and debauched, than the other two, the Cardinal de Retz. When we read his memoirs too-ether, little did we foresee that one day we should look into the very chambers in which he held his nightly councils, with his fellow conspirators, plotting his rabble Revolution of the Fronde. You shall see also Turenne and the great Conde. That gentleman gathering maxims — maxims of life at the court of Mazarin ! — that is M. le due de Rochefoucauld; and I will in- 114 DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. troduce you to Madame de Motteville, and other famous wits and beauties of those times. In the room just opposite, where one dines upon soup, three courses, and a dessert, at forty sous, I will shew you the little '* Grand Monarque'' in his cradle. The dear little thing ! It was here the great man first began; it was here he crept, I presume very unwiUingly, to school ; here he began to seek the bubble reputation, and to sigh at the feet — worthy a better devotion — of the «' humble violet," Madame la ValHere. Just over head, Doctor Franklin used to sup with the Duke of Orleans and his family ; and here Madame de Genlis gave lessons to the little Louis Philippe, causing his most Christian Majesty to walk fifteen miles a day in shoes with leaden soles. The Spartans did better, who, to make their kings hardy and robust, had them flogged daily at the shrine of some pagan goddess. In one of these rooms, the mob Republic held for awhile its meetings; and in this very garden, the tri-coloured cockade was adopted, at a great meeting in 1789, as the re- volutionary emblem. On the south end is a gal- lery of paintings, they say very splendid. It was plundered in the Revolution, and since re- stored by the present proprietor, the King. If THE GARDENS. 115 any one steals a picture or a book in Paris, and can prove quiet possession for a certain time, it is a vested right, and the owner is obliged to buy back his goods from the thief. I sometimes walk in this garden with the scholars and the bonnes, of a morning, but it is disagreeable ; it is not yet aired, and has a stale stupefactive smell from the preceding night's banquet. It is by degrees ventilated, and life begins to flow into it about ten. Then the readers of news begin to gravitate around Mon- sieur Perussault's pavilion. There is a dial here which announces, with a loud detonation, twelve; and as the'important hour approaches, every one having a watch takes it out, and looks up with compressed lips, and waits in uno obtutu until Apollo has fired off his cannon ; then quick he twirls about the hands, and replaces it com- placently in his fob, and walks away very happy to have the official hour in his pocket. You will see also a few badauds, who always arrive just afterwards, and stand the same way, looking up for half an hour or so, till informed that the time has already gone off. It is of a hot summer evening, that this garden is unrivalled in beauty. You swim in a glare of light ; the gas flashes from under the arcades ; 116 THE EX PROFESSOR. lamps innumerable shine through the interior and look down from five hundred windows above. It is not night, it is " but the daylight sick/' It is haunted by its company, and is full of life to the latest hours, and revelry holds her gam- bols here, when Paris everywhere over the im- mense city is lulled into its midnight slumbers. When summer has turned round upon its axis, and the first chills of autumn frighten joy from her court, she retires then to her last hold, the '- Galerie d'Orkmis." This delightful prome- nade extends across the south end of the garden ; it is three hundred feet long by thirty wide; its roof is of glass and its pavement of tesselaled marble ; it is bounded on both sides by stores, and cafes, and reading rooms, eighteen feet square, renting annually at four thousand francs each. It is kept warm enough for its company in winter, and is a fashionable resort during that season. It is a pleasant walk also in the twilight of a summer evening. I know an ex-professor, by dining with him at the same ordinary, and we walk often under the crystal vaults of this gallery, and reason whole evenings away — now we stop, and then walk on, and then take snuff, and then make a whole round arm in arm, in great gravity and GAMBLING HOUSES. 117 silence ; at other times, being seated at a marble table, we calmly unfold the intricate mazes of the human mind and systems of human policy : and then we take coffee, \\ith a little olass of quirsh. Last night we reasoned warmly upon the nature of slavery till I got mad, and whilst I sipped and read the newspaper, he amused himself with a drawing (for he is skilled in this art), which he presented me. It was a Liberty, of a healthy and robust complexion, her foot upon a negro slave. The negro sympathies have waxed very warm in this country. Four of the houses just over us are conse- crated to gambling. They are frequented, how- ever, by rather the lower class and rabble of the profession. They who have some regard to reputation go to Frascati's, tothe Rue Richelieu ; the more select to the " Cercle^" or to the " Club Anglais'' upon the Boulevard, and the Rue de Grammont ; and the '^ Jockey Club" receives the dandies and flash gentlemen of the turf. The three last are of English origin, and the " Club Ajiglais" is in the best English style. It receives only the hi^h functionaries of the state, princes of the blood, ambassadors, and other eminent persons, and even these are not admitted to pick one another's pockets here, 118 PUBLIC GAMING HOUSES. unless known to be of good moral character. Games of hazard are prohibited, and the bets correspondent to the dignity of the company. The ^^ Cerc/e," also, is frequented by the upper sort of folk ; it is tres distingue ; and the eating and service are of no common rate. The public gambling houses here are autho- rized by government, and pay for their charter annually six and a half millions of francs. The government has not thouo-ht it fit that the black- legs and courtezans should worship in the same temple. The ladies have therefore been turned out, poor things ! to get a living as they can on the Boulevards and elsewhere, and the sfamblers have the Palais Royal all to themselves. But why do not '^ the Chambers," extend this system of financial economy to other moral offences, as stealing, drunkenness, and adul- tery ? I would charter them every one, and enrich the state. If we can succeed in makino- a vice respectable, it is no vice at all : and why should not a proper protection of government and general custom render gambling or any vice as respectable as thieving or infanticide was at Sparta ; or as duelling and privateering are amongst the modern civilized nations ? The matter is now under discussion, but there THE REV. C. COLTON. 119 are members of both houses who oppose these doctrines ; they say that the government by such licences becomes accessory to the crimes of its subjects, and that bad passions, already rank enough in human nature, should not be made a direct object of education ; moreover, they find it awkward that legislators, after having given the whole community a public licence to pick one another's pockets, should stand up in the national tribune and talk about honesty. There are persons who have absurd prejudices. But to be serious ; indeed, I am very well disposed to such a feeling; I have just fallen accidentally upon the story, which every one knows, of the unhappy Colton. He wrote books in recommendation of virtue, and critiques in reprobation of vice, with admirable talent. He was a clergyman by profession, and yet became a victim to this detestable passion. He subsisted by play several years amongst these dens of the Palais Royal, and at length falling into irre- trievable misery, ended his life here by suicide. One feels a sadness of heart in looking upon the scene of so horrible an occurrence ; one owes a tear to the errors of genius, to the weakness of our common humanity. 120 THE UNIVERSAL PASSION. Gambling seems to be the universal passion ; the two extremes of human society are equally- subject to it. The savage of the Columbia River gambles his rifle and his squaw, and like any gentleman of the '^ Cercle," commits suicide in his despair. Billiards, cards, Faro, and other games of hazard, are to be found at every hundred steps, in every street and alley of Paris; haunted by black-legs in waiting for your purse ; and there is scarce a private ball or soiree, even to those of the court, in which immense sums are not lost and won by gambling. The shuffling of cards or rattling of dice is a part of the music of every Parisian saloon, and many fathers of families of the first rank oet a livino- by it. To know how much better it is in London, one has only to read the London books. And how much better is it in America? To know this, you have only to visit our Virginia Springs and other places of fashionable resort. You will hear there the instruments of gambling at every hour of the night; and you will see tables, covered with the infamous gold, set out in the shad^ during the day; and you will see seated around these tables those who make the laws for " the only Republic upon the earth," the mem- bers of the American Congress — with the same HELLS OF THE PALAIS ROYAL. 121 solemn gravity as if holding counsel upon the destinies of the nation. I have seen the highest officer of the House of Representatives step from the loo-table to the Speaker's chair ! The vices of -the higher orders have this to aggravate their enormity, that the lower world is formed and encouraged by their example. Gambling in Virginia is a penitentiary offence. I have visited these ^* Hells" of the Palais Royal. Their numbers are 113, 129, and 154 on the eastern gallery, and number 36 on the western ; and from the look of the company, I presume one could get here very soon all the acquirements by which a man may be put in the way of being hanged. Bars are placed before the windows, by the humanity of the government, to prevent his Majesty's subjects and others from throwing away their precious lives in their fits of despair. That tall and robust, and stern-looking man, between fifty and sixty, in an old tattered great coat, and walking in the gait of a conspirator, is Chodruc Duclos. He was once the friend of Count Peyronnet, as they say; he lavished his fortune on him, and fought his duels. The Count became minister and Duclos poor; he claimed his protection, and was rejected by the VOL. I. G 122 PEEP INTO A FASHIONABLE SALOON. ungrateful minister. He now walks here daily at the same hour, like some mysterious, un- earthly being. He never speaks ; and the last smile has died upon his lips. I have a mind to tell you a queer anecdote of myself, which will fill the rest of this page without much changing the subject. In a walk through the Rue Richelieu, a few evenings ago, with a wag of an Englishman, a fellow-lodger, he proposed to gratify me with a peep into one of the evening rendez-vous, as he said, of the nobility. I entered with becoming reverence through a hall, where servants in livery attended, taking our hats and canes, with a princely cere- mony, and bringing us refreshments. Tables in the several rooms were covered with gold, at which gentlemen and ladies were playing, and others were looking on intently and silently. Around, some were coteried in corners, others were strolling in groups, or pairs, through the rooms ; and others again were rambling carelessly through the walks of an adjacent garden of flowers and shrubbery, illuminated, or were seated in secret conversation amongst its arbours. *' That gentleman," said my companion, ^' on the right, with the Adonis neck, with myrrhed LORD BROUGHAM. 123 and glossy ringlets, is the Prince Puckler Muskau." And when I had looked at him sufficiently — " That gentleman on the left in conversation with Don — Don — Don — I foro-et his name — that is Prince Carrimanico, of Rome : and that just in front is the Baron BlowminossofF, from Petersburgh." I stared, particularly at ray Lord Brougham, w'ho had just come over to make a tour upon the continent for his health. He was attenuated by sickness and the cares of business, but I could discern distinctly the 2:reat traits of his character — the lowerins: indignation on his brow, the bitter curl and sarcasm on his lip, and the impetuous and overwhelming energy which distinguishes this great statesman, upon his strongly^narked features; and if I had not been informed his name, I should have marked him out at once as some eminent per- sonage ; and from a certain abrupt and fidgety manner, a hasty scratch at the back of his head, accompanied with two or three twitches of the nose, I should have suspected him for nobody else than the greatest statesman and orator of Europe — my Lord Brougham. Among the ladies, also, several were highly distinguished. There were ^Madame la Contesse de Trotteville, and her beautiful cousin Made- g2 124 FRASCATl's. moiselle Trottini. from Naples, with several of the French nobility ; and there was the Countess of Crumple, and a fat lady, Madame Von Swel- leraburs:, and others of the Dutch and Eno;lish gentry. I fancied that a Duchess on my left (I forget her name) had a haughty and super- cilious air, as if she felt the dignity of her blood, and the length of her genealogy. She seemed as if not pleased that everybody should be in- troduced, and wished someplace more exclusive. But there was one vouns; and beautiful creature — but so beautiful that I could not with all my efforts keep my eyes off her — whom I observed more than once reciprocated my inquisitive looks. I felt flattered at being the object of her atten- tion. The elegant creature ! thought I ; what a simplicity and sweetness of expression ! and how strange, that, brought up amidst the art and refinement of a court, she should retain all the innocence of the dove upon her countenance. In the midst of this admiration, and when I had just got myself almost bowed to by another countess, my companion let in the light upon the magic lantern. " These," said he, " are women of the town, and these are gamblers and pick- pockets, who come hither to Monsieur Frascati's to rob and ruin one another." I give you this THE KING AND QUEEN. ^ 25 for your private ear; if you tell it, mercy on me, I shall never hear the last of it. I shall be sung all over the village. There are persons there of half my years who would have detected such company at once. As I was going away, Miss Emmeline, Miss Adelaide, and Madame Rosalie, gave me their cards. I saw this morning the Queen and the Kings most excellent Majesty. They passed through the Champs Elysees to their country habitation at Neuilly. The equipage was a plain carriage with six horses, a postillion on a front and rear horse ; two other carriages and four, and guards. To see a king for the first time is an event. Ai'nt you mad ? — you who never saw anything over there bigger than his most unchristian Majesty Black Hawk, and Higglewiggin his squaw. — I have now come to the interesting part of this letter. I am, yours. 126 THE TUILERIES. LETTER V. The Tuileries— The Gardens— The Statues— The Cabinets de Lecture — The King's Band — Regulations of the Gar- dens — Yankee modesty — The English Parks — Proper estimate of riches — Policy of cultivating a taste for inno- cent pleasures — Advantages of gardens — Should be made ornamental — Cause of the French Revolution — Mr. Burke's notion of the English Parks — Climate of France. Paris, July 24th, 1835. I AM going now to escort you to the Tuileries, for which you must scramble through a few filthy lanes a quarter of a mile towards the south-west. Who would live in this rank old Paris if it were not for its gardens ? This garden is in the midst of the city, and contains near a hundred acres of ground. It has the Seine on the south side ; the Palace of the Tuileries on the east ; and on the north, the beautiful houses of the Rue Rivoli, the street intervening; and on the west, the Place Louis XV. between it and THE GARDENS. 127 the Champs Elysees. The whole is enclosed with an iron railing tipped with gold near the Palace, and terraces, having a double row of tile trees are raised along the north and south sides. A beautiful parterre is spread out in front of the Palace, of oranges, red-rosed laurels, and other shrubs, with a reservoir, jets d'eauXy vases, and statues. The chief walks also have orange-trees on both margins during the summer, and one of these, as wide as Chestnut-street, runs from the centre pavilion of the palace through the middle of the garden, and continuing up through the Champs Elysees to the Barriere de VEtoile, ter- minates in a full view of the great triumphal arch of Napoleon. In the interior are plots of woodland, and chairs, upon which, at two sous the sitting, you may repose or read in the shade, and little cabinets, which offer you for a sou your choice of the newspapers. The area is of hard earth and gravel, relieved here and there by enclo- sures of verdure; and on the west end, an octa- gonal lake is inhabited by swans, and fishes, and river gods, and a fountain is jetting its silvery streams in the air. This is the garden of the Tuile- ries. The whole surface is sprinkled with hea- then mythology. Hercules strangles the Hydra, Theseus deals blows to the Minotaur, Prome- 128 NUMEROUS STATUES. theus sits sullen on his rock, and Antinous is mad to see his own gardens outdone, and the Pius ^neas, little Jule by the hand, bears off his aged parent upon his shoulders. Venus, too, looks beautiful on the back of a tortoise, and Ceres is beautiful, her head coiffed in the latest fashion with sheaves of wheat. On the side next the palace, you will see a knife-grinder, whom everybody admires, and sta- tues of ancient heroes and statesmen majestic oi their pedestals, — Pericles, Cincinnatus, Scipio, Caesar, and Spartacus. You may imagine what life these images, set out alone and in groups through the garden, give to the perspective. The whole scene is as beautiful as my descrip- tion of it is detestable. The French are justly proud of this garden, and are every year in- creasing the quantity of its statuary : it will be- come at length one of the splendid galleries of the capital ; its silent lessons improving the public taste in the arts and elegances of life ; how much better than the lessons of the schools ! I like to see, in spite of English authority, a good deal of art in a city garden : a rude and uncivi- lized field seems to me no more appropriate there than a savage and unpolished community. In this garden, there is no drinking, ik) smok- BEAUTIFUL WALKS. 129 ing, no long faces waiting the preliminary soups, or turning up of noses over the relics of a de- parted dinner. It is a spot sacred to the elegant and intellectual enjoyments. The great walks are filled every fine evening with a full stream of fashionable company, and that near the Rue Rivoli has always a hedge of ladies extending along each margin, the third of a mile. In another section, a thousand or two of children are engaged in their infantine sports, and their array of nurses are gathering also a share of the health and amusements. Here are the nrost graceful little mothers, and children, and nurses, in the world ; I will send you over one of each, some of these days, for a pattern. How dehghtful to walk of an early morning amidst this silent congregation of statues of emi- nent men, of heroes, and mythological deities. I often rise with the first dawn for the sole luxury of this enjoyment. Very early, the Cabinet de Lecture opens its treasures to the anxious politicians, who sit retired here and there through the shady elms. One, with a doctrinal air, spreads open the '* Journal des Debats;" he reads, ruminates, ponders, and now and then writes down an idea on his tablets ; another pours out his whole spirit G 3 130 THE LONELY STRANGER. through his tangled hair and grisly mustachios, devouring the " National'" he rises sometimes, clenches his two fists, and sits down again ; and a third, in a neat and venerable garb, a snuff- coloured coat and tie-wig, his handkerchief and snuff-box at his side (from the Faubourg St. Germain), lays dehberately upon his lap the '• Quotidienfie." And here and there you will see a diligent school boy preparing his college recitations ; perusing his Ovid at the side of a Daphne and Apollo, or by a group of Dryades skulking behind an oak, or of ^N^aiades plunging into a fountain. You will see one individual upon the southern terrace, his hands clasped, walking lonely, or standing still, his eyes stretched towards the west, till a tear steals down his cheeks. He is a stranger, and a thousand leagues of ocean yawn between him and his native country ! I love this terrace of all things; it has a look towards home. When I receive your letters, I come here to read them ; and when a pretty woman honours me with her company, why we come hither together, and in this shady bower, I tell her of our squaw wives and the little pappooses, until the sun fades away in the west. THE king's band. 131 All day long, this elegant saloon has its so- ciety, and a lady can walk in it, unaccompanied, when and whither she pleases. Every day is fashionable, but some more than others, and from four till six are the fashionable hours. The crowd by degrees thickens, the several groups are formed, and towards four the pano- rama is complete. This is the time that one stands gaping at the long file of ladies upon each side of the wdde walk, or that one strolls up and down eyeing them along the intervening- avenue, or airs or fans one's idle minutes upon the terrace overlooking^ this scene of enchant- raent. I never venture in here, without saying that part of the Lord's prayer about temptation, which I used to leave out in the Coal Reo^ion. At length, the day is subdued, and the long glimmering twilight, peculiar to these northern climates, wanes away gently into night. Then the king's band strikes up its concert from the front of the palace, and then you will see the gravelled walk leading to the steps of the royal residence, and the transversal alley, filled with ten thousand listeners, bound in the spell of Rossini and Mozart for an hour : an hour, too, in which the air has a more balmy fragrance, and the music a more delicious harmony. 132 A SCENE OF ENCHANTMENT. Innumerable lights, in the meantime, shine out from the palace windows, and the Rue Rivoli, and glimmer through the tufted trees of the garden. The plantation of elms has also, at this hour, its little enchantments. Lovers, using the sweet opportunities of the night, and seated apart from the crowd, breathe their soft whisperings into each other's ears, in a better music than the king's ; and you can see visions of men and women just flit by you now and then in the doubtful light, and fade away into the thin air. But I am venturing upon the poetical point of my description, which I had better leave to your fancy. Alas, I squandered away all my poetry last week upon the Palais Royal, and have left myself nothing but mere prose to describe to you the exquisite and in- comparable Tuileries. The regulations of this garden are simple. The world is admitted, if trim and dressed decently, with the morning dawn, and is dis- persed about nine in the evening by the beat- ing of a drum. One is not permitted to enter with anything of a large bundle. The Minister of Finance was stopped the other day ; he was attempting to enter with the budget for this year! The rules are enforced by an individual THE MODEST YANKEE. 133 accoutred in a beard, mustachios, red breeches and a carabine, who walks gravely up and down at the entrance of each gate. The statues (Lucretiaand all) are exposed in a state of the most unsophisticated nakedness. If mother Eve should come back, she would find things here just as she left them, with the exception of the aprons. This to us green Americans, at our arrival, is a subject of great scandal. I had with me a modest Yankee (please excuse the tautology) on my first visit here, and we stumbled first on a Diana, which was passable, for she apologized, manibus passis, for her deshabille as well as she could ; then a Hercules ; and at length we fell in with a Venus just leaving her bath. '* Come," said he, in- terrupting my curiosity, and drawing me aside, " let us go out, I don't think this is a decent place." You must not imagine, however, my dear, that you Americans are essentially more modest than we French *#*### Things of every day's occurrence are never a subject of remark ; and if our first mother had not begun these modesties of the toilette, the world might have gone on, as in her time, and no one would have taken notice of it". '. Americans (I presume I may mention it to their credit) are 134 SQUARES OF PHILADELPHIA. more easily reconciled to the customs of foreign nations than any other people ; they are more plastic, and easily fitted to every condition of life. Talk to any one of your acquaintance, of a community of lodging in her mansion in Chestnut-street, and she will have a fit of hysterics at least, and six months after, you will find her climbing up a long Parisian stair- case as long; as Jacob's ladder, in common with half a dozen of families, and delighted with her apartments. An Enghsh or Frenchman in foreign countries can no more chanoe his habits than the ^^thiop his skin. I may as well go on gardening through the whole of this letter. Our little squares and squaroids of Philadelphia have their little ad- vantages. I do not mean to disparage them, but from want of extent they are not susceptible of any elegant improvement, nor do they fur- nish a promiscuous multitude with the necessary accommodations ; they lose, therefore, their rank in society, and become unfashionable. All your pretty squarets — and I believe those of New York too — could be put into the Tuile- ries alone. I have not yet seen the English Parks, but report says they would swallow up our whole TRUE ESTIMATE OF RICHES. 135 city. And I have known even these little spots of ours to be looked at with a suspicious eye. I have heard men calculate the value of the houses and other things which might be built upon them. The ^' Independence Square" is worth a thousand dollars a foot, every inch of it ; why don't the New Yorkquois sell their " Battery" alongside the sea, which is big enough without it? Ohj the magnificent wharves, and oh, the warehouses and hotels, that might grow upon it. Besides, who but the caterpillars enter it, and even they will be starved out shortly. With all its breezes from the sea, its port more beau- tiful than IN'aples, its fleets laden with India, Persia, and Arabia, a fashionable woman will not look throuo;h the fence. Railroads and spinning-jennies are, to be sure, excellent things ; but they lead us too much to measure value by its capacity to sup- ply some physical necessity, and to forget that the moral condition of man has also its wants. If riches only were necessary to the prosperity of a nation, I should to-day, perhaps, instead of the Boulevards, be strolling through the fashion- able streets of Babylon. If a painting, or a statue, by perpetuating the memory of virtuous and religious men, and the glorious events of 136 TASTE FOR GARDENS. history, has the power of elevating the mind and inspiring it with emulous feelings, as Scipio Africanus and other great men used to testify ; if it has the power of improving taste, which is improving virtue, or affording pleasure, which is a part of our natural wants, or even of employ- ing time innocently, which might be otherwise employed wickedly — perhaps in getting drunk at the tavern — why then, a statue, or a painting, is not only more ornamental, but as useful as a steam-engine or a spimiing-jenny. The Scythian who preferred the neighing of a horse to a fine air of Timotheus, no doubt was a good Scythian ; but we are not, in our present relations with the world, to remain long in a state of Scythian simplicity, and it is worth while to consider what is about to be the condi- tion of a people, who have grown luxurious, consequently vicious, without the refinements and distractions of the fine arts and liberal amusements. Utility, with all her arithmetic, very often miscalculates. By keeping vacant spaces open in the midst of a town, an equiva- lent value is given to other localities. A garden would bring many, who now waste their time in travelling into airy situations, to the neighbour- hood of the Exchange and other places of busi- SOCIAL PLEASURES. 137 ness, and it would drive many out from such places who may as well be anywhere else ; whose time, at least, is of less value. Since human nature will have her diversion, the business of the statesman is to amuse her innocently ; that is, to multiply pleasures which are cheap and accessible to all — pleasures which are healthy, and especially those which are public. Men never take bad habits under the eye of the world ; but secret amusements are sedentary, unhealthy, and all lead to disre- putable and dangerous excesses. Every one knows the social disposition of our race ; it is a disposition founded upon both our good and bad passions — upon our love of kindred, and other loves, upon a sense of weakness and depen- dence, — and curiosity, vanity, and even malevo- lence, find their gratification in social intercourse. It is therefore the duty of statesmen to study that our crowds and meetings of pleasure, which they cannot prevent, should not be in gin-shops and taverns. Let us have gardens, then, and other public places, where we may see our friends, and parade our vanities, if you will, before the eyes of the world. Did you ever know any one who was not delighted with a garden ? What are the 138 AIRY STREETS AND NEAT HOUSES. best descriptions of the best poets ? Their o-ardens. It is the orioinal taste, it is transmit- ted from Paradise, and is almost the only gra- tification of the rich that does not cloy in the possession. I know an English gentleman here who has worn out all the pleasures that money can buy at twenty-eight ; he is peevish, ill- natured, and insupportable ; we sometimes walk together into the Luxembourg, where he sud- denly brightens up, and is agreeable, and as happy for a while as if he was no lord. To know the advantages of these places to the poor, one must visit the close alleys, crowded courts, and over-peopled habitations, of an over- grown city ; where vices and diseases are fester- ing in secret in the heart of the community. Why send missionaries to the South Seas, while their infected districts are unreclaimed ? or why talk of popular religion, and morals, and educa- tion ? The people who would employ about half the care and expense in preventing a disposition to vice, that they now employ in correcting it, would be the people the most happy and inno- cent of the earth. The best specifics I can con- ceive against the vagabond population of a city, are gardens, airy streets, and neat houses. Men's habits of life are degraded always to the ADVANTAGES OF GARDENS. 139 meanness of their lodgings; if we build '^ beg- gar's nests," we must expect beggars to breed in them. Gardens sive a taste for out-door exercises, and thereby promote health and physical deve- lopement ; and they aid in keeping up the energy of a nation, which city life, in depriving the women and children of air and exercise, tends perpetually to destroy. To the children, they give not only habits of health, cheerfulness, and gracefulness, but an emulation of neatness and good manners, which they would surely not acquire under the sober stimulus of home and the nursery ; to the nurses, too, they impart a valuable share of the same benefits. Finally, by gardens and other embellishments of a city, we induce strangers to reside there. About fifty thousand Eng-lish are now residents in France, and their necessary expenditure is rated at half a million of pounds sterling annually. It is per- haps no exaggeration to say, that no property pays so abundant a revenue to a city as its gar- dens. What is it that produces to a city the same reputation ? Who speaks of Madrid with- out its Prado, of London without its Parks ? And why should Paris be the choice residence of Europe, but for its galleries and public gar- 140 MANNERS OF THE LOWER CLASSES. dens, its Tuileries, its Palais Royal, its Luxem- bourg^, its Tivoli, its Champs Elysees, and Bois de Boulogne ? But to make gardens is not enough ; you must cultivate the public taste for them. For this, it is necessary that they be made orna- mental, kept by a vigilant police, and that fashionable women should frequent them. The French women have a better sense of their ad- vantages than to suffer their fine gardens to become vulgar. They have, to be sure, days and hours that are more genteel than others ; but they are to be seen there every day, and there is room for all classes without incommod- ing each other. Even the poorer classes will not frequent a garden that only poor devils visit. They are flattered to be seen within the sphere of good company, and are encouraged to appear there with becoming decency. It is not to be denied that the poorer people of Paris are decent in their manners and dress, and graceful beyond the example of all other nations. In what morg serviceable manner can a lady of fortune benefit her country and humanity, than by improving the manners and elevating the character of the lower classes ? She is taking care of her own interests in taking care of the poor. It was the CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION. J41 pride of the French nobility, and not the Jaco- bins, that set loose the many-headed tyranny of their revolution : it was not Robespierre, but Louis XIV. and Louis XV., who put the axe to the throat of their unhappy successors. Much intercourse of mind or society is not, indeed, to be expected between two classes of a different education and fortune ; nor can it be desired by either; but there is nothing in our code of morals or religion which can justify the one in treating the other with unkindness or incivility. True dignity has no need to stand on the defensive. A lady, who has little of this quality, will always be most afraid to com- promise it by vulgar associations; it is right to be economical of what one has but little. The contempt of the rabble, of which we hear so much, is three-fourths of it parade and affectation. She who abroad hanss the common world with so much scorn upon her nose, lives at home, under the same roof, almost at the same table, with the veriest rabble of the whole community, her own servants and slaves. Why should we abandon the Tuileries more than the Boulevards, and why the Washington-square more than Chestnut-street, because the common people walk in it ? I have written upon this 142 MR. Burke's opinion. subject more at length, and more earnestly, than perhaps I ought, from the mortification, the almost indignation, I feel, after witnessing the utility and ornament of gardens in other countries, at the immense defect occasioned by their stupid omission, in the face of European experience, in the beauty and comfort of our American cities. But, without more scolding, let us see how far the evil may admit of a remedy. Mr. Burke, in pleading for the English Parks, which the Utilitarians of the day proposed to sacrifice to some temporary convenience or miserly policy, called them the " lungs of the city," and suppli- cated the government not to obstruct the public health in one of its most vital and necessary functions. The question here is with our Phila- delphia, which never had any other lungs than the grave-yards to supply these respiratory or- gans. I propose that some one of your old bachelors, as rich as Girard, shall die, as soon as he can be conveniently be spared, and leave us a second legacy, to be appropriated as follov.'s : to buy two lots of fifty acres each upon the west bank of the Schuylkill ; ( they ought to be in the centre of the city, but time will place them there;) the one for the parade of equipages, dis- A FRENCH SUMMER. 143 play of horsemanship, and military training, and for the games and ceremonies of our public festivals ; the other to be sacred to the arts, and to refined and intellectual pleasures. I know of no benefaction by which he could impose upon his posterity so sacred a debt of gratitude ; there is none, surely, which should confer upon its author so lasting and glorious a reputation. I have not a word of news, only that my health has improved, very much to the credit of this French climate ; you would think it was Sparticus who had stepped from his pedestal in the Tuileries. The French summer is delight- ful; only think of reading at three in the morning without a candle, and stepping about in the dayhght till ten o'clock at night. Adieu. 144 THE GLORIOUS DAYS. LETTER VI. The Three Glorious Days — The plump little Widow — Marriage of fifteen young Girls — Shrines of the Mar- tyrs — Louis Philippe — Dukes of Orleans and Nemours — The National Guards — Fieschi — The Infernal Ma- chine — Marshal Mortier and twelve persons killed — Dismissal of the Troops — ^The Queen and her Daugh- ters — Disturbed state of France — The Chamber of Deputies — Elements of support to the present Dynasty — Private character of the King — The Daily Journals — The Chamber of Peers — Bonaparte. Paris, August Ut, 1835. The Parisians have set apart three days an- nually, to commemorate their Revolution of 1830— the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July ; they call them the " Three Glorious Days." On the 27th are showers of sermons all over town in the churches, and fastings over good dinners in the cafes. Pious visits, too, are paid to the graves of those who had the glory of being killed on the original '' three days," who are called " the martyrs," and are buried on or near GKAVES OF THE MARTYRS. 145 the spot upon which they were killed. The military parade is the 28th, and the gala, or jubilee day, is the 29th. As the time approaches, the town is big with visiters, and all is noise and preparation. Yew trees are planted by the graves of the '' martyrs," where the dogs and other obscene animals, the rest of the year, wallow ; and willows are set a-weeping several days before. Theatres are erected at the same time, and orchestras and platforms for the buffoons ; and the illumina- tions, which they keep ready made from year to year, are brought out upon the Champs Ely- sees. Every evening the whole of Paris comes out to see these works, and says, this is for the mournino; of the 27th, and this is for the dancinof of the 29th. On the present occasion a rain had turned the streets into mud ; but the French turn out on their fete days, mud or no mud, and in numbers far exceeding our notions of arithmetic. The ^7th arrived, and every street and avenue poured their waves into the Boulevards and Champs Ely sees, as so many rivers their waters to the ocean. A plump little widow of our hotel offered to guide my inexperience in the crowd, which I accepted. I took her for her VOL. I. H 146 PRETTY ANCLES. skill in the town, and she for my manhood, as a blind person takes a lame one for the use of his eyes. I should have profited by her ser- vices, but she was no sooner in the street, than she ran off in a hurry, each of her little feet doing its uttermost to get before the other, and kept me running after her all day long ; — you have sometimes seen a colt running after its mother, now falling* behind, and now catching; up with her ; and there were just in front of me, I verily believe, five thousand French women, each exhibiting a pair of pretty ancles. A stranger has a great many things to see that are no curiosities to the natives. Never take a native with you as a guide, but always some one who knows no more than yourself. On these muddy occasions, a French woman just places her hand upon the right hip, gather- ing up her lower gear on the nether side to the level of the knee, and then whips along, totally regardless of that part of the world that is behind her; as in a chariot race you see the charioteer bending over the lash, and striving after the one just before him, not caring a straw for those he has passed by. You might have seen my guide and me, at one time walking slowly and solemnly in a file of sisters of charity, and AN INTERESTING CEREMONY, 147 then looking down upon an awful procession from a gallery of the Boulevards; next you might have seen us behind a bottle of " vin ordinaire," at the cafe Turc, and then seated snugly together at the church of St. Roch. Here we witnessed an interesting ceremony — a marriage. Fifteen young girls, and the same number of young men, children of the martyrs, were intermarried. They are apportioned by the government; and the marrying is to con- tinue till the whole stock is married off — as encouragement to new ^' martyrs." We stayed one hour here, and had a great deal of innocent squeezing, with prayers and sacred music, and then we went home and had our dinner. After this repast, I sallied out again, under the aegis of my same guide, who now led me" through long and intricate passages, and through thickets of men and women, all getting along in the slime of each other's tracks towards the Hotel de Ville. Here, in the midst of an immense crowd, w^ere the shrines of tlie martyrs, and over them a chapel of crape, with all the other mournful emblems. The relatives of the deceased were hanging up chaplets, and reve- rend men were saying prayers, and sprinkling holy water upon the grave?. h2 148 THE NATIONAL GUARD. July 28th. This day was given to the general parade. More than a hundred thousand of the National Guard was arrayed upon the Boulevards ; and the side walks were choaked up, and running over with the crowd, which was pushed back now and then, in great fright and confusion, by the gens d'armes, and the tails of the horses ; and all the rest of Paris looked on from the windows, balconies, and roofs of the adjoining houses — I as much noticed, as a leaf of the Alleghany, upon a verandah of the Boulevard du Temple. Great was the noise, and long and patient the expectation. At length, there was a sudden flusterino; and bustle amono- the mul- titude, and I sat up closer to Madame Dodu — it was the King ! He was accompanied by the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Nemours, his sons, and passed along the line, followed by officers on horseback, very grim. He was re- ceived with not very ardent acclamations. Com- pared to '^ General Jackson's visit,'' it was a fifth-rate thing. Not a bird, though many flew over us, fell dead. But how shall I describe to you the magnifi- cence of the pomp ? since in our country there is no object of comparison. How should we — EXHIBITION OF HUMAN STRENGTH. 149 we, who can hardly contain the Washington Grays, or Blues — which is it ? with Johnson's band, and the twenty little boys who run after them — how should we be able to conceive of a regular infantry of more than a hundred thou- sand men, with their ten thousand drums, and trumpets, and clarions, and accoutred in uni- form, and trained to the last grace and dexterity of discipline ? But, alas ! what avails to indi- vidual power this exhibition of human strength, since we see its haughtiest pretensions, every day, the sport of some ignominious chance ? Achilles, they say, was killed by the most ef- feminate roue of all Troy ; and his great descen- dant, Pyrrhus, by an old woman, who lived "gz/ troisieme," and pitched. Heaven knows what, upon his head through her window. What signifies the strength of Hercules, if it may be outwrestled by a vapour ? — It is vexatious, too, to see how much events are under the control of accident, and how little Providence seems to trouble itself about them ; and to think how vain a thino; is that boast of the world — human wisdom ! I knew a man, who missed his for- tune, and was ruined by his prudence ; and another, who saved his house from being burnt by his foolishness ! Who has not heard of no 150 THE INFERNAL MACHINE. less an Emperor than Bonaparte being saved by some vanity of his wife ? — the infernal machine blowing up, she fixing her tournure, or some- thing in her chamber, and he fretting at the delay, and churning his spite through his teeth ? Why, I have read of a lady who saved her life by staying at home at loo, on a Sunday, instead of going to prayers, where the church fell in, and killed the whole congregation. Yet, with all this experience, men still continue to be haughty of their strength, self-sufficient of their wisdom, and to throw Providence in each other's teeth when anything happens. But this morality is interrupting the thread of my story. As the king and his escort ap- proached the east end of the Boulevards, a deadly machine, prepared by a man named Fieschi, (infernal machine maker to his Ma- jesty,) was discharged from the window of a small wine store, and made havoc of the crowd ; the king, with his two sons, by a special Provi- dence, standing unhurt amidst the slaughter — not a hair was singed, not a garment was rent ! — He continued to the end of the line, and returned over the scene of the murder. His cool and un- daunted countenance gave a favourable opinion of his courage ; and his danger, accompanied FIESCHI. 151 by such cruel circumstances, has turned the sympathies of a great many in his favour, who cared not a straw for him yesterday. Of the twelve persons killed, Marshal Mortier, Duke of Treviso, is the most distinguished. Eighteen persons were wounded. I was so near as to smell the gunpowder, which was quite near enough for a foreigner. 1 have since visited the battle ground — what an atrocious spectacle ! The author of this murder is a Corsican, who has served a long time his apprenticeship to vil- lainy in the French army. I have seen his ma- chine : it is composed of a series of gun-barrels, and is a bungling contrivance. The French, with all their experience, don't shine in this kind of manufacture. It would seem a most con- temptible thing in the eyes of a Kentucky rifle- man. This fellow's fame, however, is assured ; he will stand conspicuous in the catalogue of regicide villains. The others have all aimed at a single bird, but he at the whole flock. One is almost tempted to regret that Ravaillac's boots are out of fashion. He attempted to escape through a back window, but the bursting of one of his guns disabled him. His head is fractured and mangled ; they expect, however, that, by the care of his physician, he may get well enough to be hanged. 152 THE ROYAL FAMILY. The last scene, the dismissal of the troops, was in the Place Vendome, where I procured a convenient view of the ceremony. I must not forget, that in this place I lost my faithful guide, who had borne the fatigues and adventures of the day with me. Whether she had wandered from the way, or wearied had sat down, or had stopped to garter up her stockings, is uncertain — certain it is that she was lost here in the crowd, nee post oculis est reddita nostris. On the west of the great column, the statue of Bonaparte all the while peering over him, sat the kino^ on horseback, saluting^ the brigades as they passed by. His three sons attended him, and some of his generals and foreign ambas- sadors ; and the queen and her daughters, and Madame Adelaide, the sister, and such like fine people, were on a gallery overhead, fanned by the national flags. As the queen descended, there was a shout from the multitude more animated than any during the whole day. The king sat here several hours, and received the affection of his troops bareheaded, bow following bow in perpetual succession, and each bow ac- companied by a smile — ^just such a smile as one is obliged to put on when one meets an amiable and pretty woman whom one loves, in a fit of the cholic. PEATH OF MARSHAL MORTIER. 153 All Paris was so overwhelmed with grief for the death of General Mortier, and the " narrow escape of the king," that it blighted entirely the immense enjoyment we had expected for this day — the last and best of the " three glorious days." Ball-rooms and theatres were erected with extraordinary preparation all over the Champs Elystes, and the fireworks were designed to be the most brilliant ever exhibited in Europe. Multitudes had come from distant countries to see them. I say nothing of the private losses and disappointments ; of the booths and fixtures put up and now to be removed, and the con- sequent ruin of individuals ; or of the sugar- plums, candies, gingerbread-nuts, barley-sugar, and all the rancid butter of Paris bought up to make short cakes — all broken up by this one man : and the full cup of pleasure dashed from our very lips to the ground. We were to have such an infinite feast, too, furnished by the go- vernment. As for me, I was delighted a whole week in advance, and now — I am very sorry. Under the Empire, and before, and long after, it was a common part of a great festival here to have thrown to the people bread and meat, and wine, and to set them to scramble for H 3 154 SCRAMBLES TOR FOOD. the possession, as they do ravens, or hounds in a kennelj or the beasts at the Menagerie. To put the half-starved population up as an amuse- ment for their better- fed neighbours; to pelt them with pound loaves and little pies ; to set a hurricane of sausages to rain over their heads ; and to see the hungry clowns gape with enor- mous mouths, and scramble for these eatables, and to see the officers, — facetious fellows, em- ployed to heave out these provisions, — deceive the expectant mouths by feints and tricks, by throwing sometimes a loaf of leather, or of cork, to leap from one skull to another — what infinite amusement ! One of the benefits of the last Revolution was to put an end to this dishonour of the French nation. This is all I have to say of the '* three glorious days." I must trust to- morrow to furnish me something for this blank space. /Good night. Rue St. Anne, August 2nd. Louis Philippe has had nothing but trouble with these French people ever since he undertook their government. He has about the same enjoyment of his royalty, as one sea-sick, has of the majesty of the ocean. He is lampooned in TURBULENCE OF THE FRENCH. 165 the newspapers, caricatured in the print-shops, hawked about town, placarded upon the walls of every street, and gibbeted upon every gate- way and lamp-post of the city. In 1831, a revolt was suppressed by Marshal Soult at Lyons; another was got up in the same place in 1834, in which there were six days' fighting, six thousand slain, and eighteen hundred crammed into the prisons. In Paris, there were three days' skirmishing at the Cloister St. Merri, in which were five hundred arrests in one night; and one hundred and fifty are on trial (the " Proces Monstre,'' so much talked of,) in the Chamber of Peers; and now we have, super- added, this affair of Fieschi, with great expecta- tions for the future. The foreigners here are full of ill-bodinojs, and I hear nothing but revolutions in every rustling- leap. We shall have our brains knocked out by the mob some one of these days. It rains nothing but Damiens and Ravaillacs, and Jacques Clements, all over town. Every one is prophetic ; and I am going, after the general example, to cast the king's horoscope quietly in my corner, and calculate for you his chances. It will be a pretty thing if I can't eke out a letter from so important an event, and the only 156 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. one of any kind that has happened since I have been in Paris. The main strength of the government is the Chamber of Deputies, uhich is chosen by less than two hundred thousand electors. It repre- sents, then, not the mass of the people, who are thirty-two millions, but property, which has a natural interest in peace and quietude upon any reasonable terms. Besides, the voters being di- vided into small electoral colleges, are tangible, and easily bribed by offices and local interests ; and the members of the Chamber, also, are al- lowed to hold other offices, and are very eager to possess them ; and if the king does not bind both these parties about his neck, he has less policy than the world gives him credit for. He has, with his ministry, one hundred and fifty thousand of these bribes at his disposal. So, also, has he a large majority of this Chamber in his favour. Freeholders paying less than two hun- dred francs annual tax are not entitled to a vote. These are murmuring and struggling for an ex- tension of suffi^age, but this they do not ex- pect from a change, and are therefore in favour of the present dynasty. This class, from the great division of property in the Revolution, is by far the most numerous. THE SAVINGS BANKS. 157 Not niore than fifteen hundred landed proprietors of the kingdom have a revenue above twelve thousand pounds. The king has also his means of popularity with the poorer classes, amono-st which I may mention the *' Savings Banks," es- tablished on the responsibility of the govern- ment ; one hundred of these are in Paris alone. They not only encourage the economy, industry, and orderly habits of the lower classes, but bind them by the strongest of all interests to the oo- vernment. For the active support of this power, there is a national guard of eight hundred thou- sand men, all proprietors, and having interests to hazard in a revolution. There is an immense res^ulararmy of near five hundred thousand men, and disaffection in this body would indeed be dangerous: but who is the master spirit, who can hope, of a force so dispersed, and with a con- tinual change of position and officers, to concert a general plan of revolt ? Finally, the chief learning and talent of the nation is on the side of the kino;. In his councils you find such men as Thiers, Guizot, Rover Collard, Villemain, Barrante, Keratry, and a number of others of the same caste, who were the main instruments in settincr up the present government, and have of course a personal interest in its support. 158 STABILITY OF THE GOVERNMENT. The elements of the opposition are the liberals in favour of a constitutional monarchy, with an extension of suffrage and other popular rights, unwilling to endure under their present rulers what they resisted under their predecessors: se- condly, the republicans^ downright enemies of all sorts of monarchy, and in favour of an elective government, as that of the United States ; this party is numerous, but without any concentra- tion of strength ; and finally, the Carlists, the partisans of the ancient monarchy, and its legiti- mate sovereigns. These parties all abut against each other, and have scarce a common interest ; and I do not see from what quarter any one of them can set up a rival dangerous to the exist- ing authority. The present king has industry and capacity in a high degree, and he exerts both diligently in improving the condition of the people. He favours agriculture, commerce, and the arts of peace; he thrives by his own wit, as well as by the silliness of his predecessors. New streets and houses are rising up to bless him all over Paris. The nation was dragooned into Louis XVIII. and Charles X. by foreign bayonets ; Louis Philippe is its own free choice. He took part also in the Revolution, and cannot be feared as the partisan of anti-revolutionary doctrines ; the PACIFIC POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 159 peasants need not dread under his reign a resti- tution of the spoils of the nobility. He is also exemplary in private life ; he rises early and looks after his business, knocks up his boys and packs them off to school with the other urchins of the city, and thinks there is no royal way to mathematics. For his pacific pohcy alone he deserves to go to heaven. It cannot be doubtful, that war is one of the most ao^orravated miseries that can afflict our wretched human nature this side the grave. For the essential cause of their revolutions and national calamities, the French need not reason beyond a simple statistical view of their wars for the last five centuries. They had, in this period, thirty-five years of civil, and forty of religious wars ; and of foreign wars, seventy-six on, and one hundred and seventy-six oflP, the French ter- ritory ; and their great battles are one hundred and eighty-four. One does not comprehend why the judgments of heaven should not fall upon a nation which consumes a half nearly of its existence in carrying on offensive wars. And, moreover (a new virtue in a French king), Louis Phihppe keeps no left-handed wives — no *' Belles Feronieres," no " Gabrielle d'Etrees," or '* Ma- dame Lavallieres ;" he sticks to his rib of Sicily, 160 PRESENT TONE OF FEELING. with whom he has nine children living, all in a fresh and vigorous health. Why then seek to kill a king recomniendable by so many excel- lent quaUties? Attempts at regicide are not always proofs of disloyalty in a nation. A great number of desperate men, mostly the refuse of the army, have been turned loose upon the community, and these, in disposing of their own worthless lives, seek that of the king, in order to die gloriously upon the Place St. Jaques. I have no doubt that the majority of the nation desire ardently his safety. France has tried alternatelv the two extremes of human government, or rather miso-overnment. She has rushed from an unlimited monarchy to a crazy democracy, and back into a military des- potism. She has tilted the vessel on one side, then run to the other, and at length is taking her station in the middle. The general temper of the public mind now favours a moderate o-overnment, and this is wisdom bought at so dear a rate, that it would be underrating the common sense of the nation to suppose it will be lightly regarded. Here is a copy of each of the Paris news- papers. You will see something of the spirit in which they are conducted, and one of the chief THE JOURNALS. 161 engines by which the nation is governed. There is certainly no country in which a newspaper has so great an influence, and none in which the editor is so considerable a man, as in Paris. The Constitutionnel opposes and defends all parties, and is pleased and displeased with all systems of government. It courts the favour of the " Petite Bourgeoisie," the shopkeepers, who are always restless and displeased, but their interests require a quiet pursuit of business. This is the most gossiping gazette of them all, and gossips very agreeably. The Journal des Debats represents the *' haute Bourgeoisie,'' the rich industrial classes, whose great interests are, order and security of property, and the maintenance of peace with foreign countries. The ^' Partie Doctrinaire y' the chief supporters of this paper, are a kind of genteel liberals, holding the balance between confirmed royalists and democrats, and ultra liberals. They have supported their doctrines with a great display of scholastic learning, which has given them their appellation of '' Doctrinaires." Their leaders are mostly from the schools, as Royer Collard, Guizot, and Villemain, Keratry and Barrante. This paper has a leaning towards a vigorous monarchy and 162 THE JOURNALS. the Orleans dynasty ; it is now doing what it can in its moderate way to discredit the repub- hcanisni of the United States. The Gazette de France and the Quotidienne are opposed directly to the present government, and in favour of the legitimate monarchy in the person of Henry V. The former advocates royalty with extended suffrage, the increase of power in the provinces, and decrease of the influence of the capital ; the latter insists upon the re-establishment, in ilsfuUest extent, of the ancient monarchy. The Xational asserts republicanism outright, on the system of the United States. It is con- ducted with spirit and ability, at present, by M. Carrel. In assumingr his office he announced himself in his address as follows': — " La re- sponsibilite du 2\atio7ial pese en entier des ce jour sur ma seule tete ; si quelquun s'ouhlidt e?t invective au sujet de cette feuille^ il trouverait a qui parler.*' With this the paper called the Tribune, edited also with ability, co-operates. The Moniteur reports the speeches of the Chambers, and official documents, and is the ostensible organ of the government. The Temps, the Courier, the Messager, and Journal du Commerce, all advocate reform on constitutional CORRESPONDENTS AND EDITORS. 163 principles. There are smaller papers, too, con- ducted with ability. These, with Galignani, and some other English prints, make up the newsmongerie of Paris, The price of Galignani and the principal French papers is twenty- dollars a year, and their number of regular subscribers about 20,000. In Paris they are generally read by the hour, and transferred from one individual to another, and disposed of in the evening to the public establishments, or sent off to the country. In this manner, they are read by an immense number of persons daily. The price of advertising in the best papers is about thirty sous per line. The first men of the nation are amongst the constant contributors to these papers, both as correspondents and editors. The editorial corps around each, discuss the leading topics, and form a board to admit or reject communications. These have their daily meetings with the func- tionaries of the state, and their correspondents in every foreign country. Argus, with his hun- dred eyes, and Briareus, with his hundred hands, preside over the preparation of the daily meal. In our country, where the same man caters, cooks, and does the honours, it would be unfair to make any comparison of ability. There 164 CHAMBER OF PEERS. is one point, however, in which there is no good reason why we should allow the French or any other people the superiority : it is, the decency of language in which animated debates are con- ducted. To be eloquent, or even vituperative, it is not necessary to be abusive, or transgress the rules of good breeding ; polish neither dulls the edge nor enervates the vigour of the weapon. The existence of agencies between the owners and readers of newspapers is an immense gain to the liberty of the press. There can be very little freedom of opinion where the editor and proprietor, as in the United States, stand in immediate relation with their patrons. In speaking of the powers of the government, I have said nothing of the Chamber of Peers. It is but a feather in either scale. It wants the hereditary influence and great estates necessary to command popular respect. The title of Peer is for life only, and is the reward of prescribed services in all the chief employments of the state. It is a cheap dignity, which pleases grown-up children, and consists of a ribbon in the button-hole. I have said nothing, either, of Bonapartism, which has gasped its last. The most violent enmities against the Emperor seem to have ESTIMATE OF NAPOLEON. 165 burnt out. No danger is now apprehended either from his family or his partisans, and the mind is open to a full sense of the glory he has conferred upon the nation ; and there is mixed up with admiration of his talents, a sentiment of affection, from the recollection of his great re- verses of fortune and his patient sufferings. I have heard all parties speak of him with great respect and praise. It is a good policy of the present government to have taken into favour all his plans for the improvement of the country, and to have placed him in his citizen's coat, and cocked hat, stripped of its military plumes, upon his column. When I write politics to ladies, Apollo keeps twitching me all the while by the ear; but I thought any other subject to-day would be im- pertinent. Yet why should ladies be ignorant of what enters so largely into the conversation of society, and makes so important a part of the learninij of their children? I am meditatinor a journey to Rome, and expect to set out next week with a gentleman of Kentucky. His Holiness, I presume, will be delighted to see some one all the way from the Sharp Mountain. Direct your letters as usual. Very tenderly, yours. 166 THE GARDEN OF PLANTS. LETTER VII. The Garden of Plants— The Omnibus— The Museum of Natural History — American Birds — The Naturalist — Study of Entomology — The Botanic Garden — Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy — The Menagerie— The Giraffe — Notions of America — The Cedar of Lebanon — Effects of French Cookery — French Gastronomy — Goose Liver Pie — Mode of Procuring the Repletion of the Liver. Paris, August 14th, 1835. Here is an Englishman, who has interrupted me at the very outset of this letter, and says 1 must dine with him at the " Garden of Plants." He is a kind of public informer, and does the honours of Paris to us raw Yankees, just come over. He has on his left arm, a basket of pro- visions, a couple of claret-bottles exhibiting their slender necks over the margin of the basket, and on his right a lady, his sister, who is to accompany us. She is exceedingly pretty, with a complexion of drifted snow, and a rosi- ness of cheeks. I have no comparison, only ITS EXTENT. 167 strawberries and cream. She is not slow, neither, as English women generally, to shew her parts of speech. " Sir, it is as deUghtful and romantic a little spot as there is in the whole city. Only two centuries ago it was an open field, and the physician of Louis XIII. laid it out as a botanical garden ; it now covers eighty- four acres, partly with wood. Wood is so de- lightful at this hot season. And there is now a botanic garden, besides immense conservatories; also, a splendid gallery of anatomy, of botany, and a menagerie ; a library, too, of natural history, and laboratories, and an amphitheatre, in which there are annually thirteen courses of lectures. And then there is the School of Drawing and Painting, of Natural History, all gratuitous. We will just step into an omnibus on the Boulevards, and for six sous we shall be set down at the very gate. Oh, it is quite near, only two steps." I resign myself to the lady. The excursion will perhaps furnish me, what I have great need of, a subject for this letter. Parisian civility never allows one place to be far from another. The French women, if the place should be at any considerable distance, cannot for their little souls tell you. It is always " two steps," and under this temptation of *' two steps" 168 PARISIAN DRIVERS. you are often seduced into a walk of several miles. If there is any one virtue in Paris more developed than another, it is that of shewing strangers the way. A French lady asked me the way to-day, in the street, and though I did not know it, I ran all about shewing her, out of gratitude. The strangers who reside here soon fall, by imitation, into the same kind of civility. The Garden of Plants is distant from my lodg- inor about three miles. Adieu till to-morrow. August 15th. The driver of a cab takes his seat at the side of his customer, and is therefore very civil, amiable, talkative, and a great rogue. The coachman, on the contrary, is a straight-up, selfish, and sulky brute, who has no complais- ance for any one born of a woman ; he is not even a rogue, for beingr seated outside, he has no communication with the passengers. He gives you back your purse if you drop it in his coach ; he is the type of the omnibus-driver. You have your choice of the '' Citadine," which does not stop for way-passengers, but at its sta- tions at half a mile; or the omnibus, which picks you up anywhere on the way. It sets off PLEASURES OF AN OMNIBUS. 169 always at the minute, not waiting for a load ; and then you have a " correspondence ;" that is, you have a ticket from the conducteur at the end of one course, which gives you a passage, without additional charge, for the next. You go all round the world for six sous. You change your omnibus three times from the Barriere du Trone to the Barriere de VEtoile, which are at the east and west extremities of the city. In Paris, everybody rides in an omnibus. The Chamber of Peers rides in an omnibus. I often go out in the one the king; used to ride in before he got up in the world. I rode this morn- ing between a grisette with a bandbox and a knight with a decoration. Some of the plea- santest evenings I have spent here were in an omnibus, wedged in between the easy embon- point of a healthy pair of Frenchwomen. If you get into melancholy, an omnibus is the best remedy you can imagine. Whether it is the queer shaking over the rough pavement I can- not say, but you have always an irresistible in- clination to laugh. It is so laughable to see your face bobbing into the face of somebody else ; it is so interesting, too, to know what one's neighbours may be thinking about one: and then the strange people, and the strange ren- VOL. I. I 170 THE BACK SEAT. contres. I often give six sous just for the comic effect of an omnibus. Precipitate jolts against a neighbour one never saw, as the ponderous vehicle rolls over the stones, gives agitation to the blood and brains, and sets one a thinking. And not the least part of the amusement is the getting in, especially if all the places but the back seat are filled. This back seat is always the last to have a tenant. It is a circular board of about six inches in diameter at the very farthest end, and to reach it you have to run the gauntlet between two rows of knees al- most in contact; you set out, the omnibus set- ting out at the same time, and you get along sitting on a lady's lap, now on this side, and now on that, until you arrive at your destina- tion ; and there you are set up on a kind of pivot to be stared at by seventeen pair of black eyes, ranged along the two sides of the om- nibus. The only evil I know of these vehicles is, that the seat being occupied by seven fat gentlemen, it may leave only six inches of space to a lady of two feet in diameter, so that she comes out compressed to such a degree as to require a whole day of the enlarging and tightening capa- cities of Madame Palmyre to get her back to COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL HISTORY. 171 her shapes ; a worse evil is, that you often take an interest in a fellow-traveller, from whom you are in a few minutes to be separated, perhaps for ever. We arrived at the garden just time enough before our repast to expatiate lightly upon its beauties. We visited first the Museum of Natural History, which occupies two stories of a building three hundred feet long. On the first floor are six rooms of geological and minera- logical collections ; on the second, are quadru- peds, birds, insects, and all the family of the apes — two hundred specimens — and groups of crystals, porphyry, native gold and silver, rough and cut diamonds. Overlookinor this whole animal creation is a beautiful statue of Venus Urania — hominum divumque voluptas! In one apartment is a group of six thousand birds, in all their gay and glittering plumage ; and there are busts about the room, in bronze, of Linnseus, Fourcroy, Petit, Winslow, Tournefort, and Dau- benton. Our American birds here have all got to be members of the Academy. You can know them only by their feathers. There would be no objection to call our noisy and stupid whip- poor-will, *' caprimulgus vociferus," but what do i2 172 A NATURALIST. you think of calling our plain and simple Caro- lina wren, 'Uroo^lodvtus ludovicianus !" The insects have a room also to themselves, very snug and beautiful, in cases, and sparkhng like 2:ems in all their variety of vivid and fan- tastic colours. We met here a naturalist, an acquaintance, who has lived the chief part of his life among spiders' legs, and he explained to us the properties of the insects. He conversed upon their tenacity of life. He shewed us a mite that had lived three months glazed to a bit of orlass, and a beetle which had been above three years without eating, and seemed not par- ticular how long it lived ; a spider, also, which had been kept one year on the same abstemious regimen, and yet was going on living as usual. Are you not ashamed, you miserable mortals, to be outlived by a beetle ? He shewed us, also, flies and spiders sepulchred in amber, perhaps since the days of Xinus — how much better pre- served than the mummied ladies and gentlemen ■who have been handed down to us from the same antiquity. This professor has been so long in the world of insects that he has taken a distaste to bio^ things. I baited him with a whale and an elephant, but he would not bite. I knew once STUDY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 173 a botanist in America who had turned entirely into a flower, and I accompanied an entomolo- gist of this kind to the brow of one of those cliffs which frown over the floods of the Susque- hanna, where one could not read Milton, and there he turned up rotten logs for grubs and snails for his museum. It seems that even the study of nature, when confined to its minute particles, does not tend to enlarge or elevate the mind. I have observed that the practice even of hunting little birds, or fishing for minnows, gives little thoughts and appetites; so, to harpoon whales, chase deer, bears, w^olves, and panthers, gives a disdain of what is trifling, and raises the mind to vast and perilous enterprises. The study of entomology? I mean the exclusive study, leaves, I presume, to the artist, about as big a soul as the beetle, " or the wood-louse That folds itself in itself for a house." There is a building apart also for the " Bo- tanic Garden." It has an herbal of twenty- five thousand species of plants. You will see here a very pretty collection of the mushrooms in wax — it is delightful to see the whole family together. The Cabinet of " Comparative Ana- 174 SCHOOL OF NATURE. tomy" has also separate lodgings. It contains skeletons of all animals compared with man and with one another, about twelve thousand pre- parations. It is a population of anatomies; it looks like Nature's laboratory, or like the begin- nings of creation, about the second or third day. Here are all the races which claim kindred with us, Tartar, Chinese, New Zealander, Negro, Hottentot, and several of our Indian tribes. Here is a lady wrapped in perpetual virginity and handed-down to us from Sesostris, and the mummy of somebody's majesty, that, divested of its wrappings, weighs eight pounds, that used to " walk about in Thebes' streets three thousand years ago." We descanted much upon this wonderful school of nature — upon the varieties, analogies, and differences of the animal creation. *' How strano-e that the Chinese should wear their cues on the top in that way !" said the lady. " How differently from us Europeans!" said the gentle- man. '^ Only look at this dear little fish !" ** Sister, don't you think it is time to dine ?" — And so we left the anatomical preparations for this more grateful preparation, the dinner. The great genius of this place, the Baron Cuvier, is defunct. He has now a place, for GARDEN OF PLANTS. 175 aught I know, among his own collections. Alas, the skeleton of a Baron ! how undis- tinguishable in a Cabinet of Comparative Ana- tomy ! In roaming about, we examined superficially the garden, the largest part of which is occu- pied by the menagerie, — this is not the reason it is called the " Garden of Plants." There are seventeen different inclosures, and in each a committee of the several races of animals; in one are the huge and pacific, as the elephants and bisons ; in another, the domestic, as goats, sheep, and deer. The camels are turning;; a machine to supply water — they who were born to dis- pense with this element. In one you will see the wild and ferocious beasts and their dens, as bears, tigers, hyenas, and wolves; and there is another containing the vultures, eagles, &c. The monkies are a beautiful family, about two hundred in number — their expression such as becomes sisters. The remainder of the garden also is divided into various apartments; one is a botanic garden, with six thousand five hundred species of plants; another is a collection of different soils and manures ; another contains a specimen of every kind of hedge, fence, or ditch ; another every culinary vegetable used for 176 THE GIRAFFE. the food of man ; and another is a piece of water appropriated to aquatic plants. The whole establishment contains five hun- dred and twenty-six thousand species of plants, minerals, and animals. In the hot-houses and conservatories are ten thousand different species of vegetables. In the midst of the birds you see the eagle; of the quadrupeds, his shaggy ma- jesty, the king of the beasts ; and I observed that sober cacique, the llama, reclining amongst his native trees. The most extraordinary of these animals (though nothing is extraordinary in Paris for a long time) is the giraffe. On her arrival, the professors and high dignitaries of the state went out to meet her at many days' journey from the capital, and deputations from all the departments. She was attended by grooms and footmen, and ^' gentlemen of the bed-chamber," from her native country ; and an African cow supplied her with African milk. An antelope and three goats followed in an open barouche. She was formally invited to visit the Archbishop at his country seat near Lyons, but refused ; whereupon his eminence, yielding to her claims of respect, went out to meet her, and was upset, his coach taking fright at the strange animal; et voild son arisiocratie par terre ! CURIOSITY OF THE PUBLIC. 177 A military escort also proceeded from Paris, with members of the Institute and other learned bodies, which met her at Fontainebleau ; and her entrance to the garden was a triumphal proces- sion. The curiosity of the public had now risen to its height, {and there is no place where it can rise high-er than in Paris.) From ten to twenty thousand persons poured into this garden daily. Fresh portraits by eminent artists, and bulletins of everything she did remarkable, were published weekly. All the bonnets, and shoes, and gloves, and gowns — every species of apparel — was made *' a la giraffe;" quadrilles were danced ^' a la giraffe i" -cafe-aU'Iait was made " a la giraffe.'^ She has large black eyes, and pretty eye-lashes, and the m.outh is very expressive. In philo- sophy, she is a Pythagorean, and eats maize and barley, and is very fond of roses; in religion, she is a Saint Simonian. She takes an airing every morning in the park in fine weather, and wears flannel next her skin in winter. Our guide now mounted up, we following, by a spiral walk, to the summit of a hill, where there is a fine panoramic view of the city. In the centre of the spire is a little open kiosk, where we found seats, and a girl entertained us with choice sights through a telescope, at two sous I 3 178 AMERICAN RIOTS. a look. At length, after several little searches for a convenient place, we sat ourselves down underneath a hospitable tree, which, from its solemn and venerable aspect, and from my bibli- cal recollections alone, I knew to be the cedar of Lebanon. Here our dinner was spread upon the earth. At the bottom of the hill is a dairy, which supplied milk, honey, eggs, fruit, and coffee, with the services of the dairy-maid ; and, like our great ancestor, being seated amidst crea- tion, we partook with grateful hearts our excel- lent repast, the enjoyment being enhanced by occasional conversation. " How I should like to pay a visit to your country \" '* It would give us great pleasure, madam, if you would come over." " And I also. The truth is, I have a hearty contempt for these d — d monkey French people ! I can't tell why I ever came amongst them." " How long have you been here, sir ?" " Twenty years. But what terrible accounts are coming over about your riots ! — why, you hang people up there, I see, without a trial !" ^^ No ; we try them after they are hung !" " Oh dear ! I should never be able to sleep quiet in my bed !" INTERCHANGE OF SENTIMENT. 179 *^ The fact is, a republic won't do." *^ Oh dear no ; why cousin writes us from New York that he is coming back ; and he says if things go on so, Europeans will leave off emi- grating; that will be bad, won't it? (Do let me help you to a little tongue.) But perhaps things will go better ; America's so young yet, isn't she t x\nd then your temperance societies are doing a deal of s^ood ; I read about them this mornino-. I am very particular about temperance ; (you have nothing in your glass !) and then what Fanny Kembie says about the bugs — " *' Yes, and the fleas and mosquitoes too ! Why it seems to me you can't have need of any other kind of^ea-bottomy." •' Oh fie, brother ! — I declare I hke the Ame- ricans very much ; they are so good natured- Only look at that dear little hen ! Have you any muffled hens in your country — any ban- tams ?" Thus a whole hour rolled by unheeded in this delightful interchano;e of sentiment ; and the universe was created in vain for any notice we took of it till the end of the dinner. I now turned up my eyes upon the hospitable branches which had afforded us protection during this repast. The verdure of this tree is perpetual, and its 180 THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. branches, which are fashioned like the sioose- quill, are spread out horizontally to cover an immense space. It pushes them from the trunk gradually upwards, and their outward extremity is bent gently towards the earth, so that the shelter is complete, the rain running down the trunk or from the tip of these branches. You would easily know it was intended as a shelter. From its connexion with sacred history, its venerable appearance, and extraordinary quali- ties, it is the most remarkable tree that grows upon the earth, ^nd there is scarce any relic of the Holy Land more sacred. It is sung by Isaiah and Solomon : " Justus florebit sicut cedrus Libani." " The glory of Lebanon, the beauty of Carmel, and the abundance of Sharon." It does not suffer the presence of any other tree, nor does the smallest blade of grass pre- sume to vegetate in its presence. It served to build the splendid temples of David and Solo- mon ; also Diana's Temple at Ephesus, Apollo's at Utica ; and the rich citizens of Babylon em- ployed it in the construction of their private dwellings. Its wood is the least corruptible substance of the vegetable world. In the temple at Utica, it has been found pure and ORNAMENTAL GARDENS. 181 sound after two thousand years. Its saw-dust was one of the ingredients used to embalm the dead in Egypt, and an oil was extracted from it for the preservation of books. Its gum, too, is a specific for several diseases. Since this cedar lives in cold climates, and in unholy as well as holy lands, why does not some one in- duce it to come and live amongst us ? This was brought to the garden by Jussieu in 1 734. It is a pity such gardens as these are not the growth of republics. What an ornament to a city ! At the same time, what a sublime and pathetic lesson of rehgious and virtuous sen- timent ! What more can all the records, and commentaries, and polemics of theology teach us than this? My next visit here shall be alone. Alone, I could have fancied mvself a patriarch, reclining under this tree. These camels on their tread-mill I could have turned into caravans, rich with spices of Arabia. I could have seen Laban's flock in these buffaloes of the Missouri, and Rachel herself in the dairy- maid. If you take a woman with you, you must neglect the whole three kingdoms for her, and she will awake you in your most agreeable dreams ; whilst you are admiring the order and beauty which reigns throughout creation, she 182 A traveller's dinner. will stick you down to a muffled hen, or a johnny- jump-up ; and while you are seated at the side of Jacob, or of some winged angel, she will make you admire the '' goldfinches, the chaf- finches, the bullfinches, and the greenfinches/' # * * ^^Q yj[\i jjQ^ adjourn from the '* King's Garden" to my apartments in the Rue St. Anne, where I must leave you, yoa know how reluctantly, till to-morrow. I am invited out by Mr. P , one of the bravest men of the world, from the Mississippi, who is just going home, and in the grief of separation has called his friends around him at the Hotel des Princes, to dine. I must trust to the events of a new day to fill this remaining sheet. Rue St» Anne, August 15t/i. 1 have not the courage to describe our gor- geous banquet ; I have an excessive head-ache. Though I eat of nothing but the soup, and the fish, and game, and of the roasts, and ragouts, and side dishes, and then the dessert, — drank scarcely anything but burgundy, medoc, and champagne, and some coffee, and liqueur, yet I feel quite ill this morning. If one should die of the stomach-ache by eating a gooseberry pie, I SCIENCE OF FRENCH COOKERY. 183 wonder if it is suicide ? However, if you want to eat the best dinners in the world, I recom- mend you to the Hotel des Princes, and the ac- quaintance of Mr. P. of the Mississippi. It is very much to be feared that in cookery, especially the transcendant branches, we shall long remain inferior to these refined French people. We have no class of persons who de- vote their whole minds to the art, and there is nothing to bring talents out into exercise and improvement. If any one does by force of nature get '• out of the frying pan," who is ther« to appreciate his skill ? He Uves, like Bacon, in advance of his age, and even runs the risk of dying of hunger in the midst of his own dishes. Besides, in America, in cooking, as all things else, we weaken our genius by expansion. The chief cook in this *' Hotel of the Princes" has spent a long life upon a single dish, and by this speciahty, has not only ripened his talent unto perfection but has brought a general reputation to the house — as you have seen persons, by practising a single virtue, get up a name for all the rest. The English, too, are mere dabblers in this science. A French artist, to prepare and improve his palate, takes physic every morning ; whereas an Enghshman never sees 184 CRUELTY TO THE GOOSE. the necessity of taking medicine unless he is sick, {" que lorsqu'il est malade!") his palate becomes indurated {^^ aussi insensible que le con- science d^un vieuxjuge.") In this country, if a dish miss, or is underdone, do you believe that the cook survives it ? No ! he despises the igno- minious boon of life without reputation — he dies ! The death of Vatel is certainly one of the most pathetic, as well as most heroic events, recorded in history. No epicure can read it without tears. — " Voire bo?ite," he said to the Prince, who sought to console him, " Voire bonte nincMve! — je sais . . je sais que le roti a manque a deux tables!'' He then retired to his room — I cannot go on. I refer you to Madame de Sevigne, who has given a full account of the man's tragical end. I do not, however, approve of French gastro- nomy in everything. The cruelty exercised upon the goose is most barbarous. They recol- lect that a goose once brought ruin upon their ancestors in the Capitol, and they have no humanity for geese ever since. They formerly nailed the wretch by the feet to a plank, then crammed it, and deprived it of water, and ex- posed it to a hot fire (oil ellepassait une vie assez malheureuse) until the hver became nearly as GOOSE LIVER PIE. 185 large as the goose, which, being larded with truffles, and covered with a broad paste, bore the name of the inventor w^th distinction through the whole earth. A " Pate defoie gras" used to be a monopoly of diplomatic dinners, and it is known that a great national congress always assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle on account of the number of geese resident in that city ; but they have now spread everywhere, from the Palais Royal to the very cabins of the Alleghany. I saw the whole villas^e of Pottsville havino- an indio^estion of one that was brought in there last year. Pray do not touch them unless with the veritable brand upon the crust; some make them of gum elastic- When genuine, they are wholesome, they are intelligential. I am glad to see that humanity, in the general march of civilization, has inter- fered in behalf of the p-oose. It is now enclosed immoveably in a box, where it is crammed with maize and poppy oil, and other succulent food, and its eyes put out, so that it may give the whole of its powers to digestion — as that old Greek philosopher, who put out his eyes to give the whole mind to reflection — and a dropsical repletion of the liver being produced 186 REPLETION OF THE LIVER. by the atony of the absorbents, the liver (the only part of a goose that is now of any account in Europe) is ready for the market. I received this information over a slice of goose-liver pie yesterday, from our host, and I was anxious to write it down, while yet fresh in memory. A single idea, you see, may be inflated, by nearly the same process as one of these livers, and made to cover a whole page. I have room only to say, I am entirely yours. THE VICTIMS OF JULY. 187 LETTER VIII. Burial of the victims -- St. Cloud — The Chateau— The Cicerone— The Chevalier d'lndusU'ie— Grave of Mrs. Jordan— The Bois de Boulogne— Amusements on Fete Days— Place Louis XV.— The King at the Tuileries— The American Address — His Majesty's Reply— The Princess Amelia— The Queen and her Daughters— The Dukes of Orleans and Nemours— Madame Adelaide- Splendour of Ancient Courts— Manner of governing the French— William the Fourth— Exhibition of the 'stu- dents at the University. Pqris, August 24th, 1835. I BELIEVE I have not described to you the burial of the '« victims/'— which is no great mat- ter, since you will see it all in the newspapers. I fell in, the other day, with an immense crowd passing in a long file through the door of a' church, and became one of its number. Here was a furnace, or chambre ardetite, as they call it, mto which a concealed flame threw a red and lurid light, and exhibited the corpses of those 188 MARSHAL MORTIER's COFFIN. who were murdered. From this place they were brought out, and carried about the streets in the most gorgeous of all funeral processions. It would have done credit to the best times of Babylon. No people of the world can get up a theatric display of this kind so prettily as the French ; and on this occasion they outdid them- selves. The day was appointed, four days ahead, when the general grief was to explode, and it did explode exactly as the Prefecture of Police had predicted. We all ran about the streets the whole day, and cried, '^ long live" Louis Philippe, and General Mortier — who was killed ! The Duke's coffin was carried in front, by six horses, in all the solemnity of crape. The spokes of the wheels were silvered, and the rims glittered with a more precious metal. Over- head were flags, — I presume, taken from the enemy, — and groups of emblematic figures : France, with her tresses loose and streaming, and the Departments, all dressed in black frocks, mopping their eyes, and pouring out their little souls over the coffin. The others of the train, seven or eight, followed at lono; intervals, arraved in nearly the same style, more or less elegant, according to the dignity of the corpses carried ia CHAPEL OF THE INVALIDS. 189 them. In the midst was a chariot, as rich as the others in decoration, and forming a splendid contrast; of dazzling white : and young girls, in raiment whiter than the sno^ following in a long train, chanted hymns to their departed sister. This procession had everything but funeral solemnity. I had expected muffled drums and dead marches, and all but the bell- clappers silent over the face of Paris. The music, on the contrary, was thrillingr and mili- tary ; and all the emblems, but the crape and coffin, would have served as well for an elegant jubilee. The last scene — the entrance into the Chapel of the Invalids, and the ceremony there — was the most solemn. The church was huno- in its blackest mourning weeds, and priests, in a long row, said masses upon the dead, holding black torches in their hands. The floor opened, and the deceased were laid by the side of each other in a vault, which closed its marble jaws. All Paris spent the day in the procession, and in the evening went to the Opera Comique. But I don't like funerals ; I will write of some- thing else. I will tell you of my first excursion to the country. Every one who loves eating, and drinking, and dancing, went out yesterday to 190 FETE AT ST. CLOUD. the fete at St. Cloud — c^est si jolie, une fete de village! and I went along. The situation of this village is very picturesque, on the banks of the Seine, and ^mmands a delightful prospect of the city and Svirons of Paris. If St. Cloud would not take it ill, I should like to stay here a month. There are the sweetest little hills, and glades, and cascades imaginable, — not, in- deed, beautiful and poetical as your wild and native scenery of Pottsville ; one does not wan- der by the mountain torrent, nor by the clear stream, such as gushes from the flanks of your craggy hills, nor by the *^ Tumbling Run" that winds its course through the intricate valley till it mingles and murmurs no more in the wizard Schuylkill ; nor does one stray through forests of fragrant honeysuckles, or gather the wild flower from the solitary rock ; but it is sweet, also, to see the little fishes cut with their golden oars the silvery lake, and to walk upon the fresh-mown turf, and scent the odour from the neighbouring hedge ; the rose and woodbine, too, are sweet, when nourished by the agricul- tural ingenuity and care of man. All that kind of beauty which the fertile earth can receive from the hand of a skilful cultivator is possessed by these little hills of FAVOURED RETREAT OF BONAPARTE. 191 St. Cloud in its most adorable perfection. I have listened here to the music of the bees, and in the calm and balmy evening to the last sere- nade of the thrush retirino; to its rest. One forgets, in hearing this language of his native country, that he is wandering in a foreign land ! St. Cloud has, also, an interest in its historical recollections. It was burnt once by the Eng- lish ; it was besieged and taken by Conde, in the religious wars ; and Henry III. was assassi- nated here, by Jacques Clement. It was the fa- vourite residence of Bonaparte. If he resided any where (for ambition has no home,) it was at St. Cloud. It was here he put himself at the head of the government, overthrowing the Directory, in 1799. The neighbourhood is adorned with maonificent villas. The French do not, like the English, plunge from the bustle and animation of their city into a lifeless solitude, or carry a multitude of guests with them to their country seats, to eat them out of house and home, as an antidote to the vapours. They select the vici- nity of some frequented spot, as St. Cloud or Versailles, and secure the pleasures of society to their summer residences. I believe it is well for one who wishes to make the best of life, in all its circumstances, to study the French. I am 192 THE CHATEAU. glad that, in imitating England in many things (as we ought), we have not copied her absurd whim of living in the country at Christmas. The Chateau at St. Cloud is an irregular buildino- ; it has on its principal front four Corin- thian columns ; and Justice, and Prudence, and a naked Truth, and some other hieroglyphic ladies, are lookino- down from the balustrade. I had myself conducted through its apartments ; the salle de compagnie — d'audietice — de toilety and the Queen's bed-chamber. Only to think, here she used to sleep, the little queeny I They have made her bed just two feet high, lest she might fall out and break her majesty's neck in the night. The King's apartments are in a similar range. The salon de Diane is fine, with the tapestry of the gobelins, and the grand salon with Sevres' China vases. Its crimson velvet hans^ings cost twenty thousand dollars, and its four candelabra six thousand. The galerie d'Apollon has paintings by the best masters. I admired all these things excessively. Every one knows the genealogy of admira- tion. They certainly exceed very far our usual republican notions of magnificence. Thou most unclassical Blucher ! Why the fellow slept here, booted and spurred, in the Emperor's bed, THE CICERONE. 193 and kennelled his hounds upon the sofas — both with an equal sense I presume, of the sumptu- ousness of their lodgings. If, at least, he had put his hounds into Diana's saloon, the stupid Goth, he might have had some credit for his wit — he can have none for his brutality. I was puzzled about the reward to be given to our Cicerone. To have all this service for nothing was unreasonable: and to offer money to a man with a cocked hat, and black velvet breeches — it was a painful feeling. I was in a situation exactly the reverse of Alexander the Great towards his schoolmaster. — What was enough for such a respectable gentleman to receive, was too much for me to give. I con- sulted a French lady ; for French ladies know every thing, and they don't knock you down when you ask them a question. — She told me a franc would be as much as he would expect. Think of giving a franc for an hour's service, to as good a looking gentleman as General Wash- ington ! Coming out from the Castle, I wandered through the Park, which contains some hundred acres, diversified with hills and valleys, and presenting from an eminence a delightful view of the surrounding country, including Paris. VOL. I. K 194 THE CHEVALIER d'iNDUSTRIE. On this spot is a ^^ Lantern of Demosthenes," copied from the monument of that name at Athens. A great part of the park is a pubhc promenade, and is chiefly remarkable for its jets d^eaux\ which on a fete day throw up the water sportively in the air, and for its numerous cascades, one of which is one hundred and twenty-five feet above the level of the basin. I next went with a guide into the '^ Petit Pare/' made for Marie Antoinette. She bought this chateau (one of her sins) just before the Kevo- lution. This park is beautiful, with bowers, oroves, pieces of water, statuary, and every imacrinable embellishment. In wanderino; about here, I got acquainted with a nobleman. He is of that order of knighthood which the French call '' Chevahers d'Industrie." — '^ This, sir, I think, is by Pigale, and this Cupid by Depautre. Look especially at this Venus by Coustan." — ^' Point du tout, monsieury I make it a duty as you are a stranger." He liked the Americans excessively. — ^' To be the countryman of Franklin, c'est un titre /" I seldom ever met a more polite and accomplished gentleman, and fashionable. I had a purse, containing in silver twenty francs, which, being incommodious to a waistcoat, I had put into an outside coat pocket. MRS. JORDAN. 195 Late in the evening, you might have seen me returning homewards on foot, (the distance two leao'ues.) not havins; wherewith to hire a coach, and no money at my lodgings. If the devil had not been invented, I should have found him out on this occasion. The verdure of this country is more fresh than ours under the dog star. There is a hazy atmos- phere, which intercepts the rays of the sun and mitigates the heat. I don't say a word here in favour of our summer cUmate from conscientious scruples. Indeed I have gained such a victory over my patriotism that I never find fault with these foreigners for having anything better than we have it ourselves ; nor do I take any merit to myself because the Mississippi is two miles wide, or because the Niagara falls with such sublimity into Lake Ontario. I was introduced by a mere accident to a Scotch lady of this village, who prevailed on my modestv to dine with her. She is a lady of experience and great affability, who has resided here and in Paris, eleven years. She is on a furlouojh from her husband, an Enolishman. She shewed me the cathedral, the cemetery, and the grave of one who won princes by her smile, Mrs. Jordan. She asks a repetition of the visit, k2 196 THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE. and is too amiable and accomplished to be refused. She is at least forty-five — in the " am- bush of her younger days" the invitation would not have been safe for the visiter. On my return I walked through the Bois de Boulogne, where you and romantic Mary have so often assisted at a duel. It was in the glim- merings of the twilight, and now and then looking through a vista of the tangled forest, I could see distinctly, a ghost pulling a trigger at another ghost, or pushing carte and tierce at his ribs. This forest flanks the west side of the Faubouro"s of Paris, and contains seventeen hundred acres of ground; in some parts an open wood, in others an intricate and impenetrable thicket. It is the fashionable drive for those who have coaches in the morning, and a solitary enough walk for one who has no coach of an evening. Young girls always find saddled at the east end a number of donkeys, upon which they take a wholesome exercise, and acquire the elements of equitation at three sous a ride. Some who have '^ witched the world with noble horsemanship," have begun upon these little asses. I had the light only of the gentle moonbeam to direct my footsteps through the latter part of FRANCONl's. 197 this forest ; and I walked speedily, recollecting I should not be the first man who was murdered here by a great many. I feared to meet some rogue ignorant that I was robbed already, so I went whistling along, (for men who have money don't whistle,) till I arrived at the Champs Elysees — its lamps sparkling like the starry firmament. An hour sooner I should have found it alive with all sorts of equipages ; with all the lan- daus, tilburys, and other private vehicles, and footmen glittering in golden coats, with feathers waving on their empty heads, whilst the edges of the road would have been fringed with ten thousand pedestrians on their evening w^alks. Now there were a few only in attendance upon Franconi's, or the concert. In the former of these places they exhibit melodramas, and equestrian feats, in which the riding ladies only outstrip what we see in our own country. In the latter there is a band of near a hundred mu- sicians, who charm all the world at twenty sous a piece, playing the fashionable airs from six till nine every evening. Innumerable cafes around pour out the fragrant nectar to their guests. For an image of this place you need not read Virgil's sixth book, or refer to any of your 198 THE CHAMPS ELYSEES classical associations. Fancy only, without a single inequality, a horizontal plain of an hundred or more acres, or rather a barren moor, a ball-alley, a baked and turfless common, or any most trodden spot upon the earth, and that is the French Elysium. Not a blade of grass, or shrub, or flower, dares grow upon its surface. The trees are straining and trying to grow but cannot. Yet it is precisely to this barren field that all the world comes, especially on fete days, to be perfectly delighted. It is surrounded by the city, and has an air of country in town. It is a kind of republican turn-out, where one may go as one pleases, without toilet or any trouble- some respect to etiquette. It is a refuge always at hand from an uncomfortable home — from a scold or a creditor ; it cures husbands of their wives, old bachelors of the vapours, and some- times lovers of their sweethearts. On Sundays and holidays you will find here, of foolishness, all that you have ever seen, all that you have ever fancied, and if there is anything of this kind you have never seen or fancied, it is here. Besides the concert, and the circus, and fresco dances, here are all the jugglers and their tricks, mountebanks and their medicines, clowns and their fooleries, all the family of the punches, AND ITS AMUSEMENTS. 199 and all the apes in regimentals : not countino- the voltigeurs without legs, and the blind girls, who see to walk over eggs without breaking them. You may have a stage if you love to play harlequin, or a greasy pole if you wish to climb for a prize at the top of it. You may sit down on a swing like a water wheel, which will toss you fifty feet in the air, where you may run from yourself and after yourself by the hour : or on another, which will whirl you about hori- zontally on hobby horses till you become invisi- ble. If thirsty, you may have an ice cream : if studious, a chair and a newspaper ; and it nervous, a shock of electricity worth two sous. Moreover, you can buy cakes reeking^ hot that were baked a week ago, and a stick of barley- sugar, only a little sucked by the woman's baby, at half its value. On the outskirts, towards night, you may find also an opportunity of exercising your charity, and other benevolent affections. One poor woman is getting a living here by the dropsy, and another by nine orphan children, and such like advantages ; another >has lost the use of her Itrabs and is running about with a certificate. In coming out by the side next the city you are 200 ADDRESS TO THE KING. at once upon the Place Louis XV,, where you will see on their pedestals two superb and restive coursers, which tread on air, held in with diffi- culty by their two marble grooms. We are again upon St. Anne's-street, and under the protection of her sainted wings I repose till to- morrow, bidding you an affectionate good night. August 25th. I called a few days ago upon the king. We Yankees went to congratulate his Majesty for not beins: killed on the 28th. We were over- whelmed with sympathy — and the staircase which leads up to the royal apartments is very beautiful, and has two Ionic columns just on the summit. You first enter through a room of white and plain ground, then through a second, hung round with awful field marshals, and then you go through a room very large, and splendid with lustres, and other elegant furniture, which conducts into a fourth with a throne and velvet canopy. The king was very grateful, at least he made a great many bows, and we too were very grateful to Providence for more than a couple of hours. There was the queen, and the two little princesses — but I will write this so that THE PwOYAL FAMILY. 201 by embroidering it a little you may put it in the newspapers. The Chamber of Peers and Deputies, and other functionaries of the State, were pouring in to place at the foot of the throne the expression of their lovaltv. This killino; of the kine has turned out very much to his advantage. There was nothing anywhere but laudatory speeches and protestations of affection — foreigners from all the countries of Europe uniting in sympathy with the natives. So we got ashamed of our- selves, we Americans, and held a meeting in the Rue Rivoli, where we got up a procession too, and waited upon his Majesty for the purpose above stated, and were received into the pre- sence — the royal family being ranged around the room to get a sio^ht of us. ]Modesty forbids me to speak of the very eloquent manner in which we pronounced our address; to which the king made a very ap- propriate reply. ^^ Gentlemen, you can better guess,'' said he, " than I can express to you, the gratification," Sec. — I missed all the rest bv lookino; at the Princess Amelia's most beautiful of all faces, except the conclusion, which was as follows : — '' And I am happy to embrace this occasion of expressing to you all, and k3 202 THE AMERICAN CONSUL. through you to your countrymen, the deep gratitude I have ever felt for the kindness and hospitahty I experienced in America, during my misfortunes." The king spoke in Enghsh, and with an affectionate and animated ex- pression, and we were pleased all to pieces. So was Louis Phihppe, and so was Marie Amelie, princess of the two Sicilies, his wife ; and so was Marie - Christi?ie - Caroline - Adelaide - Francoise - Leopoldi/ie, and Marie-Clernentine'Caroliiie- Leopoldi?ie-Clotilde, her two daughters, and the rest of the family. A note from the king's aide-de-camp required the presence of our consul at the head of the deputation, which our consul refused. He did not choose, he said, to see the Republic make a fool of herself, running about town, and tossing up her cap, because the king was not killed, and he would not go. '' Then," said the king (a demur being made by his officers,) *' I will receive the Americans as they received me, without fuss or ceremony." So we got in without anv head, but not without a long- at- tendance in the ante-chamber, very inconvenient to our legs. — How we strolled about during; this time, looking over the nick-nacks, and how some of us took out our handkerchiefs and DESCRIPTION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 203 knocked the dust off our boots in the salle des marechauXj and how we reclined upon the royal cushions, and set one leg to ride impatiently on the other, I leave to be described by Major Downing, who was one of our party. I will bring up the rear of this paragraph, with an anecdote, which will make you laugh. One of our deputation had brought along a chubby little son of his, about sixteen. He returned, (for he had gone ahead to explore.) and said in a soft voice, — ^- Tommy, you can go in to the Throne, but don't go too near." And then Tommy set off with velvet steps, and ap- proached, as you have seen timid old ladies to a blunderbuss, — he feared it might go off. The king is a bluff old man, with more firm- ness of character, sense, and activity, than is indicated by his plump and rubicund features. The queen has a very unexceptionable face ; her features are prominent, and have a sensible benevolent expression — a face not of the French cut, but such as you often meet amongst the best New England faces. ■ Any gentleman would like to have such a woman for his mother. The eldest daug-hter is married to the Kino^ of Belgium ; the second and third are grown up to manhoodj but not yet married. They would 204 DUKES OF ORLEANS AND NEMOURS, be thought pretty girls even by your village beaux, and with your ladies, except two or three (how many are you ?) they would be '' stuck up things, no prettier than their neigh- bours." The Duke of Orleans is a handsome young man, and so spare and delicate as almost to call into question his mother's reputation. He assumes more dignitv of manner than is natural to a Frenchman at his age; he is not awkward, but a little stiif ; his smile seems compulsory, and more akin to the lips than the heart. Any body else would have laughed out on this occa- sion. He has been with the army in Africa, and has returned moderately covered with laurels. The Duke of Nemours is just strug- gling into manhood, and is shaving to get a beard as assiduously as his father to get rid of it. He also has fought valiantly somewhere — I believe in Holland. Among the ladies there is one who pleases me exceedingly; it is Madame Adelaide, the king's sister. She has little beauty, but a most affable and happy expression of countenance. She was a pupil of Madame Genlis, who used to call her " cette belle et hoiine Priucesse.'' She was married secretly to General Athelin, her brother's MADAME ADELAIDE. 205 secretary, during their residence in England. She revealed this marriage, with great fear of his displeasure, to her brother, after his acces- sion to the throne, throwing herself on her knees. — After some pause, he said, embracing her tenderly, — " Domestic happiness is the mam thing after all ; and now that he is the king's brother-in-law, we must make him a duke." Madame Adelaide is now in the Indian summer of her charms. One who knows royalty only from the old books, necessarily looks about for that motley gentleman, the king's fool. The city of Troyes used to have a monopoly of supplying this article ; but the other towns, I have heard, grew jealous of the privilege, and they have them now from all parts of the kingdom. Seriously, the splendour of ancient courts has faded away wonderfully in every respect. When Sully went to England, says the history, he was attended by two hundred gentlemen, and three hundred guns saluted him at the Tower. The pomp and luxury of drawing-rooms and levees were then most o;oro;eous. The eye was dazzled with the glittering dis- play ; nothing but yeomen of the guards with halberds, and wearing hats of rich velvet, plumed 206 ANCIENT REGAL SPLENDOUR. like the peacock, with wreaths and rosettes in their shoes ; and functionaries of the law, in black gowns, and full wigs; and bishops, and other church dignitaries, in aprons of black silk; and there were knights of the garter, the lord steward, the lord chancellor, and the Lord knows who And the same grandeur and briUiancy in the French courts — chamhellans, and ecwjers, and aumoniersy all the way down to the chaiif-cirej and keeper of the royal hounds; and one swam in a sea of gems and plumes, and sweet and honied ladies. Republicanism has set her irreverend foot upon all this regal splendour. I wish I had come over a hundred years ago. The king's salary before the Revolution, though provisions were at half their present rate, was thirty millions ; that of Charles X. was twenty-five ; and the present king's is only twelve milHons, with one million to the Duke of Orleans. / and Louis Philippe do not agree altogether about the manner in which the French people ouo'ht to be oroverned. The censorship of the press, the espionage, the violation of private correspondence, the jail and the gibbet, will not arrest the hand of the regicide. I have read in a journal to-day, that 2,746 persons have already been imprisoned for having censured the acts of POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 207 the present government, in the ])erson of the king. The devil will get his Most Christian Majesty if he goes on at this rate. Why don't he learn that the strength of kings, in these days, is in their weakness ? Why don't he set up M. Thiers, and thenM. Guizot, and then M. Thiers again, as they do in England ? Look at King WiUiam — does any body shoot him? and yet he rides out with four cream-coloured horses, with blue eyes, every day, and sometimes he walks into the Hungerford Market, and asks the price of shrimps. Louis plays a principal part in all his measures, even his high-handed measures. If he makes himself a target, he must expect to be shot at. In the beginning of his reion, he played the liberal too loosely. " Why talk of censorship ?" said he — " il ny aura plus de delits de la presse." — " I am but a bridoe to arrive at the Republic." With his present acts, this language is in almost ludicrous contrast'. He is a Jacobin turned king, say his enemies; and we must expect he will run the career of all renegades. I have not described his disasters and dano-ers in a lamentable tone, because I don't choose to affect a sympathy I do not feel. He had a quiet and delightful habitation at Neuilly ; and since 208 REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS. he has not preferred it to this '* bare-picked bone of Majesty," at the Tuileries, let him abide the consequences. However, I shall be one of those who will deplore his loss, from the good will I bear the French people, for I have not the least doubt that, with twenty years' possession of the throne, he will bring them, in all that con- stitutes real comfort and rational liberty, to a degree of prosperity unknown to their history. Remember, I am talking French, not Ameri- can politics. To infer from the example of America, that the institutions of a Republic may be introduced into these old governments of Europe, requires yet the '^^ experiment" of another century. If we can retain our demo- racy when our back woodlands are filled up, when New York and Philadelphia have become a London and Paris; when the land shall be covered with its multitudes, struggling for a scanty living, with passions excited by luxurious habits and appetites ; — if we can then maintain our universal suffrage and our liberty, it will be fair and reasonable enough in us to set ourselves up for the imitation of others. Liberty, as far as we yet know her, is not fitted to the condition of these populous and luxurious countries. Her household gods are of clay, and her dweUing, UNIVERSITY EXHIBITION. 209 where the icy gales of Alleghany sing through the crevices of her hut. I have spent a day at the exhibition of the students of the University, which was conducted with great pomp. There was a concour for prizes, and speeches in the learned languages ; nothing but clarissimi2LXidieruditissuni,Th\QT?,d,udi Guizots. Don't you love modern Latin I I read, the other day, an ode to '^ Hannae Moree," and I intend to write one some of these days to Miss Kittse J. Nellse, of Pine Hill. A propos ! what is doing at the Girard College ? when are they to choose the professors ? and who are the trustees I I must be recommended roi(n. av^poTzoKn (xsyocXoKn. Please tell Mr. S I confide to him my in- terests, as a good catholic does his soul to the priest, without meddling himself in the matter. Good night. 210 TOUR OF PAKIS. LETTER IX. Tour of Paris — The Seine — The Garden of PIa«ts — The Animals — Island of St. Louis — The Halle aux Vins — The Police — Palais de Justice — The Morgue — Number of suicides — M. Perriri — The Hotel de Ville — Place de Greve — The Pont Neuf — Quai des Augustins — The Institute — Isabeau de Bavifere — The Bains Vigiers — The Pont des Arts — The Washerwomen's Fete — Swim- ing schools for both sexes — The Chamber of Deputies — Place de la Revolution — Obelisk of Luxor — Hospital of the Invalids — Ecole Militaire — The Champ de Mars — Talleyrand. September 14^/?, 1835. After the nonsense of my last letter, I almost despair of putting you in a humour to enjoy the serious matter likely to be contained in this. I have just returned from an excursion on foot from the one end to the other of Paris, making, as a sensible traveller ought to do, remarks upon the customs, institutions, and monuments of the place, and here I am with a sheet of double post THE SEINE. 211 to write you down these remarks. I would call it a classical tour, but I have some doubts whe- ther walkino' in a straio;ht line is a tour, and therefore I have called it simply a journal. I had for my companion the Seine — he was soino; for sea-bathing; to the Havre. His destina- tion thence no more known than ours, when we float into eternity. Some little wave may, how- everj roll till it reach the banks of the Delaware — and who knows, that lifted into vapour by the sun, it may not spread in rains upon the Broad Mountain, and at last delight your tea-tables at Pine Hill. I therefore send you a kiss, and in recommending the river to your notice, I must make you acquainted with his history. Most rivers except the Seine, and perhaps the Nile, have a high and noble descent ; this, as I have read in a French author, runs out of a hole in the ground, in the flat and dirty country of the Cote d'or ; it was contained once in a monk's kitchen near Dijon, and began the world, like Russian Kate, by washing the dishes. At Paris it is called, by the polite French, the^ez^ue royale. Any stream in this country which is able to run down a hill is called a river, — tliis, of course, is a royal river. It receives a pretty large share of its bigness from the Marne and Yonne, and some 212 THE BRIDGE OF AUSTERLITZ. other streams, (for rivers, like great men, are not only great of their own merits, but by appro- priating that of others) and is itself again lost in the great ocean. It is the most beneficent river on the Continent — it distributes water, one of the elements of life, to near a million of people, and it grives some to the milkwoman who furnishes me with cafe-au-lait in the Faubourg St. Ger- main (where voii will direct vour letters from this date.) It is received in its debut into Paris magnificentlv, the Garden of Plants beino- on the left, and the g;reat avenue of the Bastille and the elephant on its right, and overhead, five tri- umphal arches, which were erected for its recep- tion by Bonaparte, sustaining the superb bridge of Austerlitz. And here commences my journal. At twelve I left the Garden of Plants, with only a peep through the railings. One cannot CTO inside here without stumblino- a2:ainst all creation. The whole of the three kingdoms — animal, vegetable, and mineral — are gathered into this garden from the four corners of the earth, as they were when Adam baptised them. I observed a great number of plants grov.ing out of the ground as fast as they could, and little posts standing prim and stiflP along side of them, to tell you their names in apothecaries' Latin — THE AMERICAN ACACIA. 213 I mean their modern names — those they got at the great christening have been entirely lost, and Monsieur de BufFon and some others have been obh^ed to hunt them new ones out of the die- tionary. I did d;o in a little, and stood alonoside of an American acacia, conceiting for a moment I was on my native earth again, and so I was, for the tree was transplanted from the Susquehanna, and the soil was brought with it. It would not otherwise grow out of its native country. Alas, do you expect that one's affections, so much more delicate, will not pine and wither away where there is not a particle of their native aliment to support them ! I looked a long time upon a cedar of Lebanon ; it stands like a pa- triarch in the midst of his family, its broad branches expanded hospitably, inviting the tra- veller to repose. Along the skirts of the garden one sees lions, and tigers, and jackals, and an elephant — a prisoner from ]\Ioscara, lately burnt by the Grand Army. Several elephants fought and bled for their country on that occasion, and this is one of them. xA.nd finally, I saw what you never have seen in America, a giraffe, a sort of quadruped imitation of an ostrich, its head twenty feet in the air: and there were a great 214 THE ACADEMY OF NATURE. number of children and their dear httle mammas giving it gingerbread. Deers also were stalking through the park — but in docility and sleekness how inferior to ours of the Mohanoy ! and se- veral bears were chained to posts, but not a whit less bearish, nor better licked, though brought up in Paris, than ours of the Sharp Mountain. I could not help looking compassionately at a buffalo, who stood thoughtful and melancholy under an American poplar; his head hanging down, and gazing upon the earth. He had perhaps left a wife and children, and the rest of the family, on the banks of the Missouri ! Wherever the eye strayed, new objects of inte- rest were developed. Goats afar off were hang- ing upon cliffs, as high as a man's head ; and sheep from foreign countries (poor things !) were bleating through valleys — six feet wide ! All the parrots in the world were here prating ; and whole nations of monkies, imitating the specta- tors. Nothing in all this Academy of Nature seemed to draw such general admiration as these monkies and these parrots. What a con- course of observers ! It is so strange in Paris to hear words articulated without meaning, and see grimaces that have no communication with the heart ! ISLANDS OF ST. MARTIN AND ST. LOUIS. 215 Just in leaving the Garden, the Seine has lent some of its water to St. Martin, to make an island — saints not beino; able to make islands without this accommodation. This island of St. Martin is covered, during summer, with hu2:e piles of wood, ingeniously arrano;ed into pyramids and conic sections. Some of the piles are built into dwellings, and let out for the warm season; so you can procure here a very snuor little summer retreat, and burn your house to warm your toes in the winter. I ought to tell you (for acute travellers never let anything of this kind slip), that wood is here two sous a pound. That old woman, the government, is very expensive in her way of living, and the moment she finds any article of first necessity, as salt or fuel. Sec, she claps a tax upon it. Besides, all that money which your railroad fanatics about Schuylkill lay out in contriv- ances to carry your coal to market, she lays out in new frocks — and this is the reason wood is two cents a pound. A little onward, I stepped upon the quiet and peaceful island of St. Louis — quiet ! and yet it is inhabited by nearly all the lawyers of Paris. St. Louis is the only saint that has not left off doing miracles. The noisy arts will not 216 THE HALLE AUX VINS. venture on it, though four bridges have been made for their accommodation. It reminds one of that world of Ovid's, where everything went off to Heaven except justice. — Astrcea ultima. Like all other places of Paris, this island has its curiosities and monuments. You will find here the ancient Hotel de Mimes, its ceilings painted by Lebrun and Le Sueur, now a lumber-house for soldiers and their iron beds ; and if you give a franc to the cicerone (the porter and his wife) you can get him to tell you that Bonaparte was hid here for two days after the battle of Water- loo. He will shew you, if you seem to doubt, the very paillasse upon which the Emperor, whilst the Allies were marching into Paris, slept. You will find here, also, some imperishable ruins of Lebrun and Le Sueur, in the once famous Hotel de Bretonvillieis, now venerable for its dirt, as well as its antiquity. I admired awhile the Halle aux Vi?is, one of the curiosities of the left bank, enclosed on three sides by a wall, and on the side of the Seine, by an iron railing 889 yards. It con- tains 800,000 casks of wine and spirits, from which are drawn annually, for the use of Paris, twenty millions of gallons. France, by a cun- ning legislation, prevents this natural produce l'isle de la cite. 217 of her soil escaping from the country, by laying a prohibitory duty upon the industry of other na- tions, which would enable them to purchase it ; so we have the whole drinking of it to ourselves, and we oblige John Bull to stick to his inflam- matory Port and Madeira. L'isle de la Cite comes next ; the last, but not the least, remarkable of the three sister islands, called the Island of the Cite, because once all Paris was here, and there was no Paris any- where else. Antony used to quaff old Falernian on this island with Caesar, and run after the grisette girls and milliners, whilst they sent Labienus to look after Dumnorix; and here in a later age came the gay and gartered earls: knights in full panoply; fashionable belles in rustling silks, and the winds brought delicate perfumes on their wings. At present no Arabic incense is wasted upon the air of this island. Filth has set up her tavern here, and keeps the dirtiest house of all Paris, But in the midst of this beggary of comfort and decency, are o-lo- rious monuments which the rust of ages has not yet consumed ; the Hotel Dieu, Palais de Jus- tice, and Prcefecturate of Police ; and I had like to have forgotten that majestic old pile, with fretted roofs and towers pinnacled in the VOL. I. L 218 NOTRE DAME- clouds, with Gothic windows, and grizly saints painted on them, " So old, as if she had for ever stood, So strong as if she would for ever stand," whose bells at this moment are tolUng aver the dead, the venerable, the time-honoured Notre Dame de Paris. This old lady is the queen of the cite Her corner-stone was laid by Pope Alexander III. upon the ruins of an old Roman temple of Jupiter, in 1163. So you see she is a very reverend old lady. Her bell is eight feet in diameter, and requires sixteen men to set its clapper in motion. On entering the church, the work of so many generations, in contemplat- ino' its size, the immense heisiht of its dome and roofs, and the huge pillars which sustain them, with the happy disposition and harmony of all these masses, one is seized with a very sudden reverence and a very modest sense of one's own littleness ; and yet a minute before one looked upon the glorious sun, and walked under *' this most excellent canopy" almost without astonish- ment. You will see here, at all hours of the day, persons devoutly at their beads, intent on their ■ THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 219 prayer books, or kneeling at the cross. Except on days of parade, you will see almost six women to one man ; and these rather old. Wo- men must love something. When the day of their terrestrial affections has faded, their loves become celestial. When they can't love anything else, why they love God. " Aime Dieu, Sainte Thtrese, c'est toujours aimer." The Emperor Julian stayed a winter on this island, at which time the river washed (not the Emperor*) but the base of the walls of the city ; and Paris was accessible only by two wooden bridges. He called it his Luietia Tr,v (piKr,y Asi^xsnav, his beloved city of mud. The Palais de Justice, or Lit de Justice, as the French appropriately call it, (for the old lady does sometimes take a nap) is a next door neighbour. This palace lodged, long ago, the old Roman Praefects ; the kings of the first race, the counts of Paris under the second ; and twelve kinoes of the third. * We learn from tradition that Julian never washed hands or face, or suffered any kind of ablution, unless, per- haps, at his christening. In a word, he was a very dirty emperor. Is it not strange that his " Baths" should be the only monument remaining of him in Paris ? I presume they are named ironically, or from the old rule of non lavando. l2 .220 THE HOTEL DIEU. The great Hotel Dieu> or Hospital, counts all the years between iis and king Pepin, about twelve hundred. It is a manly, solid, and ma- jestic building ; its facade is adorned with Doric columns, and beneath the entablature are Force, Prudence? and Justice, and several other virtues " stupified in stone." But I will give you a more particular account of it, as well as of the right worshipful Notre Dame, and the Palace, when I write my book about Churches, Hospitals, and the courts of Justice. I will only remark now, that I visited this great Hos- pital a few days ago, and that I saw in it a thousand beds, and a poor devil stretched out on each bed, waiting his turn to be despatched ; that the doctor came along about six, and pre- scribed a bouillon et un lavement to them all round ; a hundred or two of students following after, of whom about a dozen could approach the beds, and when symptoms were examined, and legs cut off, or some such surgical operation performed, the others listened. But it would be ungrateful in me to pass without a special notice the Prcufecturate of Police. If I now lodge in the Rue D'Enfer^ No. — , looking down upon the garden of the Luxembourg, and having my conduct registered THE POLICE. 221 once a week in the king's books ; if I have per- mission to abide in Paris ; and, above all, if ever I shall have the permission to go out of it; whither am I to refer these inestimable privi- leges, but to the never-sleeping eye of the Prse- fecturate of Police ? But the merits of this institution are founded upon a much wider scheme of benefits ; for which I am going to look into my Guide to Paris. It ^' discourages pauperism" by sending most of the beggars out of Paris, to besiege the Dili- gence on the highways : and gives aid to dead people by fishing them out of the Seine, at twenty-five francs a piece, into the Moroue. It protects personal safety by entering private houses in the night, and commits all persons taken in the ^d^ct {flagrant delit ;) it preserves public decency by removing courtezans from the Palais Royal to the Boulevards, and other convenient places ; and protects his Most Christian Majesty by seizing upon *' Infernal Machines," just after the explosion. In a word, this^ Prsefecturate of the Police, with only five hundred thousand troops of the line, and the National Guard, encourages all sorts of public morals at the rate of seven hundred mil- lions of francs per annum, besides protectino- 222 THE MORGUE. commerce by taking gentlemen's cigars out of their pockets at Havre. Towards the south and west of the Island, you will see a little building distinguished from its dingy neighbours by its gentility and freshness. It stands retired by the river side, modestly, giving a picturesque appearance to the whole prospect, and a relief to the giant monuments which I have just described. This building is the Morgue. If any gentleman, having lost his money at Frascati's — or his health and his money too at the pretty Flora's — or if any melancholy stranger lodging in the Rue D'Enfer, absent from his native home and the sweet affections of his friends, should find life insupportable, (there are no disappointed lovers in this country,) he will lie in state the next morning at the Morgue. Upon a black marble table he will be stretched out, and his clothes, bloody or wet, will be hung over him, and there he will be kept (except in August, when he won't keep) for three whole days and as many nights ; and if no one claims him, why then the King of the French sells him for ten francs to the doctors ; and his clothes, after six months, belong to Francois, the steward, who has them altered for NUMBER OF SUICIDES. 223 his dear little children, or sells them for second- hand finery in the market. One of these suicides, as I have read in the Revue de Paris, was claimed the other day by his affectionate uncle as follows : — A youth wrote to his uncle that he had lost at gambling certain sums entrusted to him, in his province, to pay a debt in Paris, and that he was unwilling: to sur- vive the disgrace. The uncle recognised him, and buried him with becoming ceremony at Pere la Chaise. In returning home pensively from this solemn duty, the youth rushed into his uncle's arms, and they hugged and kissed, and hugged each other, to the astonishment of the spectators. It is so agreeable to see one's nephews, after one has buried them, jump about one's neck ! The annual number, of persons who commit suicide in all France, I have seen stated at two thousand. Those who came to the Morgue in 1822 were 260. Is it not strange that the French character, so flexible and fruitful of resources in all circumstances of fortune, should be subject to this excess ? And that they should kill themselves, too, for the most absurd and frivolous causes. One, as I have read in the journals, from disgust at putting on his breeches 224 NUMEROUS VISITORS. in the cold winter mornings; and two lately (Ecousse and Lebrun) because a farce they had written did not succeed at the play-house. The authors chose to incur the same penalty in the other world that was inflicted on their vaudeville in this. And these Catos of Utica are brought here to the Morgue, The greater part are caught in the Seine, by a net stretched across the river at St. Cloud. Formerly twenty-five francs were given for a man saved, and twenty if drowned ; and the roo;ues cheated the government of its humanity by getting up a company, who saved each other. The sum is now reversed, so that they always allow one time, and even assist one a little some- times, for the additional five francs. The building, by the advance of civilization, has required, this season, to be repaired, and a new story is added. Multitudes, male and female, are seen going in and out at every hour of the day. You can step in on your way as you go to the flower market, which is just opposite. There is a lady at the bureau, who attends the sale and recognition of the corpses in her father's absence, and who plays the piano, and excels in several of the ornamental branches. She was crowned at the last distribution of M. PERRIN. 225 prizes, and is the daughter of the keeper, M. Perrin. He has four other daughters, who also give the same promise of accomplishment. Their morals do not run the same risk as most other children's, of being spoilt by a bad inter- course from without. Indeed, they are so little used to associate abroad, that, getting into a neighbour's the other day, they asked their playmates, running about through the house, ^^ Where does your papa keep his dead people .^" Innocent little creatures ! M. Perrin is a man of excellent instruction himself, and entertains his visitors with conversations literary and sci- entific, and he writes a fine round text hand. When a new corpse arrives, he puts himself at his desk, and with a graceful flourish enters it on the book; and when not claimed at the end of three days he writes down in German text, " inconnu ;" if known, *' connit.'" The ex- hibition room is, since its enlargement, sufficient for the ordinary wants of society ; but on emer- gencies, as on the *' three glorious days," and the like, they are obliged to accommodate a part of the corpses elsewhere. They have been seen strewed, on these occasions, over the gar- den : and Miss Perrin has to take some in her room. Alas I that no state of life should be l3 226 PLACE DE GEEVE. exempt from its miseries I You who think to have propitiated fortune by the humility of your condition, come hither and contemplate M. Per- rin. Only a few years ago, when quietly en- gaged in his official duties, his own wife came in with the other customers. He was struck with horror; and he went to his bureau and wrote down " connuJ' The notorious Hotel de Ville is well placed in a group with these obscene images. It is the seat of the administration of justice for all Paris, a grey and grief- worn castle, with the Place de Greve by the side of it. There it stands by the great thermometer of Monsieur Chevalier, where the French people come twice a day to see if they ought to shiver or sweat. There is not a more abominable place in all Paris than this Place de Greve. It holds about the same rank in the citv that the hanoman does in the com- munity. There flowed the blood of the fero- cious Republic, of the grim Empire, and the aveno-incr Restoration. Lallv's ghost haunts the guilty place. Cartouche was burnt there, and the horrible Marchioness Brinvilliers ; Darnien and Ravaillac were tortured there. The beau- tiful Princess de Lamballe was assassinated there, and the martyrs of 1830 buried there. THE PONT NEUF. 227 To complete your horror, there is yet the lamp post, the revolutionary gibbet, and the window through which Robespierre leaped out and broke — if I w-ere not writing to a lady I would say — his d d neck. No accusing spirit would fly to Heaven's chancery with the oath. I began to breathe as I stepped upon the Pont Neiif. The atmosphere brightened, the prospect suddenly opened, and the noble river exhibited its twenty bridges, and its banks, tur- retted, towered, and castellated, as far as the eye could pierce. There is a romantic interest in the very name of this bridge, as in the " Bridge of Sio-hs," thoug-h not a g-reat deal richer in architecture than yours of Fair Mount. And what is the reason ? Why is the Rialto more noble than vour Exchanoe of Dock-street ? You see Pierre and Jaffier, and the Jew, stand- ing on it. The Pont Neufho-S arched the Seine these two hundred years and more. It was once the centre of gaiety, and fashion, and busi- ness. Here were displayed the barbaric luxury of Marie de Medicis, and the pompous Riche- lieu ; glittering equipages paraded here in their evenino; airings, and fair ladies in masks — better disguised in their own faces — crowded here to the midnight routes of the Carnival. 228 THE BIBLIOPOLIST. A company in 1709 had an exclusive privi- lege of a depot of umbrellas at each end, that ladies and gentlemen paying a sou might cross without injury to their complexions. The fine arts, formerly natives of this place, have since emigrated to the Palais Royal — ripcB ulterioris amantes — and despair now comes hither at mid- night — and the horrid suicide, by the silent statue of the great Henry, plunges into eter- nity. On the left is the Quai des Augustins, where the patient bibliopolist sits over his odd volumes, and where the cheapest of all human commodi- ties is human wit. A black and ancient build- ing gives an imposing front to the Quai Coriti ; it is the Hotel des Mormaies. Commerce, Pru- dence, and several other allegorical grand- mothers are lookino^ down from the balustrade. Next to it, (for the Muses, too, love the mint,) with a horse-shoe kind of face, is the Royal ^' Institut de France.'' This court has supreme jurisdiction in the French republic of letters ; it regulates the public judgment in matters of science, fine arts, language, and literary compo- sition ; it proposes questions, and rewards the least stupid, if discovered, with a premium, and gives its approbation of ingenious inventors ; THE INSTITUTE. 229 who, like Fulton, do not die of hunger in wait- ing for it. You may attend the sittings of the Academie dea Sciences, which are public, on Mondays. You will meet Pascal and Moliere in the ante- chamber—as far as they dared venture in their lives. The members you will see in front of broad tables in the interior, and the president eminent above the rest, who ever and anon will ring a little bell by way of keeping less noise ; the spectators, with busts of Sully, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Descartes, sitting gravely, tier over tier, around the extremities of the room. The secretary will then run over a programme of the subjects, not without frequent thiklings of the admonitory bell; at the end of which, debates will probably arise on general subjects, or matters of form. For example, M. Arago will call in question the veracity of that eminent man, M. Herschel, of New York, and his sele- nelogical discoveries: which have a great credit here, because no one sees the moon for the fogs, and you may tell as many lies about her as you please. Afterwards, a little man of solemn mien, being seated upon a chair, will read you, alasi one of his own compositions. He will talk of 230 ISA-BEAU DE BAVIERE. nothing but the geognosie des couches atmosphe- riques ; the isomorphism of the mineralogical substances, and the '' Asyntotes of the Para- bola" for an hour. You will then have an epi- sode from Baron Larrey (no one listening) upon a bag of dry bones, displayed, a la Jehoshaphat, upon a wide table ; followed by another reader, and then by another, to the end of the sitting. You will think the empire of dulness has come upon the earth. The Institute was once the College des Quatre Nations, and was founded by Mazarin upon the ruins of the famous Tour de Nesle. I need not tell you the history of this tower. Who does not know all about Queen Isabeau de Baviere ? — of her window from the heights of the tower, from which she overlooked the Seine, before the baths of Count Vigier (what made him a ccmnt?) were invented. She w^as a great ad- mirer of the fine forms of the human figure. Her ill-treatment of her lovers — her sewing them up, to prevent their telling tales, in sacks, and then tossing them before day-light into the river, was, to say the least of it, very wrong ! In crossing the Pont des Arts, towards mid- night, I have often heard something very like the voices of lamentation and violence. Some- PONT DES ARTS. 231 times, I thought I could hear distinctly Isabeau ! in the murmuring of the waters. All the world runs to the Bains Vigiers, which are anchored alonor this Quai, to bathe, at four sous ; but the water is exceedingly foul. It is here the Seine, " ^^ ith disemboguing streams, Rolls the large tribute of its dead dogs." And what is worst, when done bathing here, you have no place to go to wash yourself. The Potit des Arts is a light and airy bridge, from the door of the Institute to the Quai du Louvre: upon which no equipages are admit- ted. The Arts use their legs—cruribus non cur- ribus utuniur. Between this and the " Pont Royal," (a bridge of solid iron,) the antiquarians have got together for sale all the curious re- mains of the last century, Chineseries, Sevreries and chimney pieces of Madame Pompadour. Next IS the Quai Voltaire, in the east corner of which is the last earthly habitation of the illus- trious individual whose name it bears. The apartment in which he died ^ has been kept shut for the last forty years, and has been lately thrown open. On the opposite side you see stretched out, 232 THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW. hu^e in length, the heavy and monotonous Louvre, which, with the Tuileries adjoining, is, they say, the most spacious and beautiful pa- lace in the world. I have not experienced what the artists call a perception of its beauties. There is a little pet corner, the eastern colon- nade raised by Louis XIV., which is called the great triumph of French architecture. It con- sists of a long series of apartments, decorated with superb columns, with sculpture and mo- saics, and a profusion of gilding, and fanciful ornaments.* From the middle gallery it was that Charles IX., one summer's evening, amused himself shooting Hugonots, flying the St. Bar- tholomew, with his arquebuss. Xero was a mere fiddler to this fellow. This is the gallery of Philip Augustus, so full of romance. It was from here that Charles X. "cut and ran," and Louis Philippe quietly sat down on his stool. See how the Palais des Beaux Arts is peppered with the Swiss bullets ! * Louis, by a royal edict, ordered that no other building should be constructed in Paris until this %vork was com- pleted, under a penalty of imprisonment and ten thousand francs fine. It was something in those days to be a king. One has now to ask the Deputies everything, even to gilding the ceilings of the Madelaine. THE WASHER WO. MExN. 233 The edge of the river, for half a mile, is em- broidered with washerwomen; and baths, and boats of charcoal, cover its whole surface. One cannot drown oneself here, but at the risk of knocking out one's brains. One of the curio- sities of this place, is they^^e des Blayichisseuses, celebrated a few days ago. The whole surface of the river was covered with dances ; floors being strewed upon the boats, and the boats, adorned with flags and streamers, rowing about, and filled with elegant washerwomen, just from the froth, like so many Venuses — now dis- solving in a waltz, now fluttering in a quadrille. You ought to have seen how they chose out, the most beautiful of these washerwomen — the queen of the suds — and rowed her in a tri- umphal gondola through the stream, with music that untwisted all the chains of harmony. " Not Cleopatra, on her galley's deck, Display'd so much of leg, or more of neck." This array of washing-boats relieves the French from that confusion and misery of the American kitchen, the " washing-day ;" but to give us the water to drink, after all this scouring of foul linen, is not so polite. I have bought a filter of charcoal, which, they say, 234 SWIMMING SCHOOLS. will intercept, at least, the petticoats and other such articles as I mio;ht have swallowed. The Seine here suffers the same want as one of his brother rivers, sung by the poets : — "The River Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash the city of Cologne ; But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine, Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine." Just opposite this Quai, I observed " Schools of Natation," for both sexes, kept entirely separate. An admonition is placed over the ladies' school to this effect, in large letters ; besides, it is hermetically secured against any impertinent intrusion, by a piece of linen. The ladies, however, were put to their last shifts, last summer, in maintaining this establishment. Such rigid notions do some persons here enter- tain of female decorum ! But opposition has now died away ; and the reports about gentle- men of the ''other house" becomins; love-sick, from swimming in the waters from the ladies' bath, have been proved malicious : for the gentlemen's house is farther up the stream, " et ^ar consequence.^' The truth is, that a lady has as much right, and, unfortunately, in these ship-wrecking times. PROCESS OF INSTRUCTION. 235 as much necessity often, to swim as a gentle- man ; and it is ascertained that, with the same chance, the woman is the better swimmer of the two. (I have this from the lady who keeps the bureau.) Her head is always above the water. All of them, and especially those who have the vapours, can swim without cork. The process of instruction is easy. All that the swimming master has to do, is just to thrust the little creatures into a pair of gum-elastic trousers, and a cravat inflated, and then pitch them in, one after another — only taking care not to put on the trousers without the cravat. I w^ill finish this paragraph, already too long, by an anecdote. It will shew you that ladies who swim cannot use too much circumspection, — I mean, by circumspection, looking up, as well as round about them. The ever-vigilant police about the Tuileries had observed a vouno- o-en- tleman very busy with tools, at an opposite garret window, for whole weeks together. Some- times till the latest hour of the night his lamp was seen glimmering at the said window. At length, by the dint of looking, and looking, they discovered something like an ^^ Infernal Machine," placed directly towards the apart- 236 THE TELESCOPE MAKER. ment of the king and queen, and the bed- chamber of the dear little princesses and Ma- dame Adelaide. It was just after the July review, and General Mortier's disaster ; and suspicion lay all night wide awake. What needs many words? They burst into the room — the " Garde Municipale," and the '* police centrale" the '^ po??ipiers,^' and the ^' sapeurs," and the Serjeants clad in blue, with buttons to their arms, and swords to their sides, and coifed in chapeaux, three feet in diameter — breaking down all opposition of doors, and dragged forth the terrified young man. The tongues of all Paris were now set loose, as usual, and proclamations were read through the streets de V horrible assassinat tente contre la vie du roif et de la famille royale, &c. &-c., and all that for four sous ! It was even said, that he had made important revelations to the Minis- ter of the Interior ; and that some of the most distinguished Carlists were implicated in his guilt. At length, he was brought up before the Chamber of Peers, with his machine ; where it was examined, and discovered to be — what do you think ? — a telescope ! The young man alleged that he was getting* it up for astrono- THE GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES. 237 mical purposes ; but the president, a shrewd man about machines, observed that its obhquity was in an opposite direction to the stars. The Seine flows gently by the side of the Tuileries, both from the pleasure it has had in bathing the royal family, and the delight of listening to the king's band, which plays here every evening ; and from this onwards, the right bank is occupied by the gardens of the Tuileries and the Champs Elysees. If you wish to know^ how much more beautiful than the gardens of Armida is this garden of the Tuileries, I refer you to my former letters ; especially to that one which I wrote you when I had just fallen from the clouds. I admired, then, everything with sensibility, and a good many things with ecstacy. Somebody has said, that every one who is born, is as much a first man as Adam ; which I do not quite believe. He came into the midst of a creation, which rushed, with the freshness of novelty, upon his senses, and was not introduced to him by gradual acquaintance. How many things did this first man see in Eden which you and I could never have seen in it; and which he himself had never seen in it if he had been put out to nurse, or had been brought UD at the '* College Rolin." How often 238 THE MARQUIS DE MILRAYE. have I since wandered through this garden with- out even glancing at the white and snowy bosom of the Queen of Love ; how often walked upon this goodly terrace, strolling all the while, the pretty Miss Smith at one arm, and thy incom- parable self at the other, by the wizard Schuyl- kill, or the silent woods of the IMohontongo. Opposite this garden, on the Quai d'Orsay^ is the Hotel, not finished, of the Minister of the Interior, the most enormous building of all Paris. It has turned all the houses near it into huts. That, just under its huge flanks, with a meek and prostrate aspect, as if making an apology for intruding into the presence of its prodigious neighbour — that is the Hotel of the Legion of Honour. Alas, what signifies it to have bullied all Europe for half a century ! Close by is a little chateau, formerly of the Marquis de Milraye, which I notice only to tell you an anecdote of his wife. The prince Philip came to Paris and died very suddenly, under Louis XIV. He was a great roue and libertine, and some one moralizing, expressed, before the Marchioness, doubts about his salvation. *« Je vous assure/' said she, very seriously, " qu'd des (Tens de cette qualite-ld, Dieu y regarde hien a deux foispour les autres." Which proves that ladies THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 239 bred in high life don't think that kings may be condemned like you and I. The next object of importance, and the object of most importance in all Paris, is the Chamber of Deputies. I wished to go in, but four churlish and bearded men disputed me this privilege. I sat down, therefore, upon the steps, having Jus- tice, Temperance, and Prudence, and another elderly lady, on each side of me ; and I consoled myself, and said — " In this House the Virtues are shut out of doors." I had also in the same group, Sully, Hopital, Daguesseau, and Colbert, ^yhat super- human fioures I And I had in front the Bridoe of Concord, upon which are placed twelve statues in marble, also of the colossal breed. A deputy, as he waddles through the midst of them, seems no bigger than Lemuel Gulliver, just arrived at Brobdignag. Four, are of men distinguished in war — Conde, who looks ridiculously grim, and Turenne, Duguesclin, and Bayard; and four eminent statesmen — Suger, Richelieu, Sully, Colbert ; and four men famous on the sea — Tour-, ville, Suffren, Duquesne, and uho was the other? He whose name would shame an epic poem, or the Paris Directory, Duguay-Trouin. I took 240 A FAIR VISITANT. off my hat to SufFren, for he helped us with our Independence. On the back ground of this Palace is a de- lightful woodland, where the members often seek refreshment from the fatigues of business in the open air. Here you will see a Lycurgus seated apart, and ruminating upon the fate of empires ; and there a pair of Solons, unfolding the mazes of human policy, straying arm in arm . through its solitary gravel walks. M. Q , a member of this Chamber, and sometimes minister, was seen walking here assiduously during the last summer evenings ; and often, when the twi- licrht had just faded into night, a beautiful fe- male figure was seen walking with him. It did not seem to be of mortal race, but a spirit rather of some brighter sphere which had consented awhile to walk upon this earth with Monsieur Q — ^— . It was, however, the wife of Monsieur O , another member of this Chamber. One essential difference you may remark be- tween Numa Pompilius and Deputy Q , is, that the one met ladies in the woods for the makincy of laws, and the other for the breakino- of them. Monsieur O , informed of the fact, took a signal revenge upon the seducer of PLACE DE LA REVOLUTIOX. 241 his wife. And what do you think it was ? He called him out, to be sure, and blew out his brains. Not a bit of it. He waylaid him, then, and despatched him secretly? Much less. I will tell you what he did. He took INTonsieur Q 's wife in exchange. In telling this tale, which I had on pretty good authority, I do not mean to say — Heaven preserve me ! — that there are not honest wives in Paris. " II en est jusqu'a trois que je pouirais nommer," I have now before me one of the most ex*e- crable spots upon this earth — which all the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten — the '* Place de la Revolution '*'=* — where the Queen of France suffered death with her husband, to propitiate the horrible Republic. I saw once my mother in agitation, upon reading a news- paper — sobbing and even weeping aloud ; — she read (and set me to weeping too) the account of this execution of the Queen. It is the farthest remembrance of my life, and I am now standino- on the spot — on the very spot on which this deed was perpetrated — which made women weep in their huts beyond the Alleghany ! * It is called also the Place de la Concord, and the Place Louis XV. VOL. I. M 242 MARIE ANTOINETTE. With the manifold faults of this Queen, one cannot, at the age of sober reason, look upon the place of her execution, and think over her hapless fate, without feeling all that one has of human nature melting into compassion. She was a woman whom anything of a gentleman would love, with all her faults. IMoreover, no one expects queens, in the intoxication of their for- tune, to behave like sober people. Not even the sound and temperate head of Caesar preserved its prudence in this kind of prosperity. The guillotine was erected permanently in the centre of this Place, and was fed with cart-loads at a time. The m.ost illustrious of its victims were, the Queen, Louis XVI., his sister Mademoiselle Elizabeth, and the father of the present king. The grass does not grow upon the guilty Place, and the Seine flows quickly by it. If vou wish to have the finest view of all Paris — the finest perhaps of all Europe, of a similar kind — you must stand upon the centre of this Place; and you must hurry, as the Obelisk of Luxor has just arrived from Egypt, and will occupy it shortly. Towards the east, you have spread out before you the gardens of the Tuileries, bordered by the noble colonnade of the Rue Rivoli and the Seine ; — towards the FINE VIEW OF PARIS. 243 west, the Champs Elysees, and the broad walk leading gently up to Napoleon's arch, which stands proudly on the summit, and '* helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale." On the north, you have in full view, through the Rue Royale, the superb Madelaine, on the side of its most brilliant sculpture ; and in symmetry with it, the noble front of the Palais Bourbon on the south. On fine evenings, and days of parade, you will see from the Arch to the Palace, about two miles, a moving column of human beings upon the side walks ; and innumerable equi- pages, with horses proud of their trappings, and lackeys of their feathers, meeting and crossing each other upon the intervening roads ; and upon the area of the Tuileries, all that which animated life has most amiable and beautiful. You will see, amidst the parterres of flowers, and groups of oranges, and its marble divinities, swans swimming upon the silvery lakes ; multi- tudes of children at their sports, and everywhere ladies and their cavaliers, in all the colours of the toilette, sitting or standing, or sauntering about, and appearing through the trees, upon the distant terraces, as if walking upon the air. All this will present you a rich and variegated M 2 244 OBELISK OF THE LUXOR. tableau, of which prose like mine can give you no reasonable perception. The great obelisk which is to stand here, is now lying upon the adjacent wharf. It is seventy-two feet high, and is to be raised higher, by a pedestal of twenty feet. It is a single block of granite, with four faces, and each face has almost an equal share of the mas^nificent pros- pect I have just tried to describe. It tapers towards the top, and its sides, older than the alphabet, are embossed with a variety of curious ^mages. Birds are singing, rustics labouring, or playing on their pipes, sheep are bleating, and lambs skipping. A slave is on his knees, and a Theban gentleman recumbent in his fauteuil ; and one is at his wine, — he who '^ hob-a- nobbed with Pharoah, glass to glass, 3,000 years ago." — The men are in caps, a third their size: and the women in low hoods, like a chan- cellor's wig. Little did the miner think who dug it from the quarry, little did the sculptor think, as he carved these images on it, and how little did Sesostris think, in reading over his history of Paris, that it would, one day, make the tour of Europe, and establish itself here in the Place de Cleopatra's needle. 245 la Concorde. An expensive and wearisome journey it has had of it. It is nine years since it stepped from its pedestal at Luxor. It was a good notion of Charles X., but not original. The Emperor Constantius brought one, the largest ever known, (150 feet high,) to Rome. Two magnificent ones, set up by the Doge Ziana, adorn the Piazzetta of St. Mark's, brought from some island of the Archipelago. The French army at Alexandria, in 1801, had two young ones on their way to Paris, which fell, poor things ! into the rapacious hands of the British Museum. And now the English, jealous of this Luxorique magnificence, are going to bring over Cleopatra's needle, to be up with them ; and we are going to put some- thing in our Washington Square: and then the French, some of these days, will bring over the Pyramids. At the corner of the Rue Royale you will see two palaces, one the depot of fine furniture and jewels, the other of the armour of the crown. Here are shields that were burnished for Cressy and Agincourt. Here is the armour of Francis when made prisoner at Pavia, of Henry when mortally wounded by Montgomery ; complete sets of armour of Godfrey de Bouillon and Joan 246 ANCIENT REGALIA. of Arc, the sword of King Cassimer, and that of the holy father Paul V. Spiders are now weaving their webs in casques that went to Jerusalem. The diamonds of the crown de- posited here before the Revolution in rubies, topaz, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, &c., were 7432 in number, amongst which were the famous jewels called the Sanci and the Begent, so notorious in the history of jewels ; the latter has figured about the world in the king's hats, and j^apoleon's sword. An antiquarian would find extreme delight in this room ; as for me I scarce know which is Mambrino's helmet and which the barber's basin. , I had no sooner quitted the deputies than I found myself under the great Hosjntal of the In- valids, whose lofty and gilded dome was blazing in the setting sun. Napoleon put up this gilding to amuse gossiping Paris in his Russian defeats; as Alcibiades, to divert Athens from his worse tricks, cut off his dog's tail ; and as Miss Kitty, to withdraw a more dangerous weapon from the baby's hand, gives it a rattle. 3800 soldiers are now lodged in this Hospital, or rather, pieces of soldiers ; for one has an arm at Moscow, another a leg at Algiers, needing no nourish- ment from the state. Here is one whose lower HOSPITAL OF THE INVALIDS. 247 limbs were both lost at the taking of Paris. He seems very happy. He saves the shoemaker's, hosier's, and half the tailor's bill. He is fat, too, and healthy, for he has the same rations as if he were all there. If I were expert at logic, I would prove to you that this piece of an indi- vidual might partly eat himself up, his legs being buried in the suburbs, and he dining on the potatoes which grow there ; and I could prove, if I was put to it, that with a proper assistance from cork, he might be running about town with his legs in his cheeks. There are two sorts of historians, — one, of those who confine themselves to a simple narrative of facts and descriptions; the other, searching after causes and effects, and accorapanying>the nar- rative with moral reflections. I belong^ to the latter class. This Hospital was planned by the great Henry; the great Louis built it; and it was furnished with lodgers by the great Napoleon. It has all the air of a hospital ; long ranges of rooms and chilling corridors; and this reunion of mutilated beings is a horrid spectacle ! They lead a kind of inactive, lounging, alms- house existence. How much better had the munificence of government given to each his 248 THE SPLENDID CHAPEL. allowance, with the privilege of remaining with his friends and relations, than to be thus cut off from all the charities and consolations of do- mestic life, and without the last, best conso- lation of afflicted humanity — a woman. The dome is magnificent with paintings, gild- ings, carvings, and such Uke decorations. The chapel, the most splendid part, is tapestried with flags taken in war from the enemy. What an emblem in a Christian church ! There are several hundreds yet remaining, notwithstand- ing the great numbers burnt, to save them from their owners, the allies. "There are some here from all countries," said my guide, growing a foot taller. " Those are from Africa ; those from Belgium ; and those three from England.'' When I asked him to shew me those from America, he replied, with a shrug — '' Cela viendra, monsieur," The immense plain to the west of the Invalids and in front of the Ecole Militaire, is the Champ de Mars, the rendezvous of horses fleet in the race, and cavalry to be trained for the battle. I am quite vexed that I have not space to tell you of the great Revolutionary fete which was once celebrated in this very place ; how the ladies of the first rank volunteered and worked TALLEYRAND. 249 with their own dear little hands to put up the scaffoldins:: and how the king; was brouo;ht out here with his white and venerable locks and an- of a martyr, and the queen, her eyes swollen with weeping ; their last appearance but one ! before the people. And it would be very gra- tifying to take a look at that good old revo- lutionary patriarch, Talleyrand. How he offi- ciated at the immense ceremony, at the head of two hundred priests, all habited in immaculate white surplices, and all adorned with tri-coloured scarfs, and then how the holy man blessed the new standards of France, and consecrated the eighty-three banners of the Departments. I wish to write all this, but winged time will not wait upon my desires ; besides, this letter is already the longest that was ever written ; it has as many curiosities, too, as the shield of Achilles. The bridge just opposite is the Pont de Jena. The allies were about to destroy it on account of its name, and put gunpowder under it, but Louis the Eig-hteenth would not allow it. Le jour ou vousferez sauter le Pont de Jena, je me mette dessus ! and Blucher was moved. This bridge is the end of my letter and journey ; finis chartceque viceque. The cholera, the deuce take it, has got into 250 THE CHOLERA. Italy, and I shall perhaps lose altogether the opportunity of a visit to that country. I shall not kiss the feet of his Holiness, nor see the Rialto, nor the Bridge of Sighs ; nor Venice and her gondolas, nor look upon the venerable palace of her Doges. Alas, I shall not linger at Virgil's tomb ! nor swim in the Tiber, nor taste one drop of thy pure fountain, Egeria ! nor thine, Fons Blandusice splendidior vitreo. THE QUARTIER LATIN. 251 LETTER X. Faubourg St. Germain — Quartier Latin — The Book-stalls — Phrenologists — Dupuytren's Room — Medical Stu- dents — Lodgings — BillattheSorbonne — French Cookery — A Gentleman's Boarding-house — The Locomotive Cook — Fruit — The Pension — The Landlady — Pleasure m being duped — Smile of a French Landlady — The Boarding-house — Amiable Ladies — The Luxembourg Gardens — The Grisettes — Their naivete and simplicity — Americans sent to Paris — Parisian Morals — Advan- tages in visiting Old Countries — American Society in Paris. Paris, November 24thj 1835. Nearly all who 4ove to woo the silent muses are assembled in this region, the Faubourg St. Germain. Here are the libraries bending under their ponderous loads, and here are the schools and colleges, and all the establishments devoted to science and letters; for which reason, no doubt, it is dignified by the name of the Quar- tier Lati?i. When the west of the river was yet 252 MARCH OF INTELLECT. overspread with its forests, this quarter was covered with houses, and adorned with a palace and amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a " Field of Mars" for the parade of the Roman troops, where Julius Ceesar used to make them shoulder their firelocks. But now, thouo;h it contains a fourth of the population of the town, and retains its literary character, so far has luxury got ahead of philo- sophy, that it has no greater dignity of name than the ^' Faubourgs." It stands apart as if the city of some other people. Some few, in- deed, from the fashionable districts, in a desperate Captain Ross kind of expedition, do sometimes come over here, and have got back safe, but havincr found nothino; but books and such things of little interest, it remains unex- plored. The population has become new by retaining its old customs. By standing still it shews the " march of intellect" through the rest of the city. Here you see yet that venerable old man who wears a cue and powder, and buckles his shoes, and calls his shop a boutique ; who gar- ters up his stockings over the knees, goes to bed at eight, and snutfs the candle with his fingers ; and you see everywhere the innumerable people, THE BOOK SHOP. 953 clattering through the muddy and narrow lanes in their sabots. Poverty not being able to o-et lodgings in the Rue Rivoli, the Palais Royal, and, though she tried hard, in the Boulevards, has been obliged, on account of the cheap rents, to come over here and to strike up a sort of partnership with science, and they now carry on various kinds of industry, under the firm of Miser e et Compagnie, In the central section of this Latin country, the staple is the bookshop. Everywhere you will see the little store embossed with its innu- merable volumes inside and out, on the ceihngs, on the floor, and on screens throughout the room, leaving just a little space for a little bookseller ; and stalls are covered with the same article in the open air, in all those positions where, in other towns, you find mutton and fat beef. When you see a long file of Institutes and Bartholos wrapped in their yellow parch- ment, you are near the Temple of Themis— the Ecole des Lois, When you see in descending St. Jaques, a morose, surly, bibliomaniacal little man, en- trenched behind a Homer, a Horace, and a Euclid's Elements, that is the College de France: and when you stumble over a pile of the Mar- 254 ANATOMICAL APPEARANCES. tyrs, it is the Sorbonne ; and as you approach the Ecole Medeciney five hundred Bichats and Richerands beckon you to its threshold. Be- sides, you will see ladies and gentlemen looking out froQi the neic^hbourino; windows, and recom- mending; themselves in their various anatomical appearances ; en squeUette, or half dissected, or turned wrong side out. There is a shop, too, of phrenological skulls, and a lady w^ho will ex- plain you the bumps : and if you like, you can get yourself felt for a franc or two, and she will tell you where is your Philo-pro — what do you call it ? She told me our intellectual qualities were placed in front, and the sensual in the back part of the skull, very happily, because the former could look out ahead, and keep the latter in order. And next door is a shop of all the wax preparations of human forms and diseases, and here is another lady who wall point you out their resemblances with originals, who will ana- lyse you a man into all his component parts, and put him up again ; and she puts up, also, " mag- nificent skeletons" and mannikins for foreign countries. Now and then you will see arrive a cart, which pours out a dozen, or so, of naked men and women, as you do a cord of wood, upon the dupuytren's room. 255 pavement, which are distributed into the dis- secting rooms, after the ladies and gentlemen standing about have sufficiently entertained themselves with the spectacle. And just step into " Dupuytren's Room," and you will see ail the human diseases, arranged beautifully in families ; here is the plague, , and there is the cholera morbus ; here is the gout, and there is the palsy staring you in the face ; and there are whole cabinets of sprained ankles, broken legs, dislocated shoulders, and cracked skulls. In a word, every thing is literary in this quarter. One evening you are invited to a party for squaring the circle, another for finding out the longitude; and another: — ^' My dear sir, come this evening, we have just got in a subject. The autopsis will begin at six." The medical students are about four thousand ; those of lav/ and theology about the same num- ber; and many a one lodges, eats, and clothes himself, and keeps his sweetheart, all for twelve dollars per month. With the exception of the last, I am living a kind of student's life. I have a room twenty feet square, overlooking, from the second story, the beautiful garden of the Luxembourg, and the great gate opening from the Uue cTEnfer. This is my parlour during 256 THE CAFE AU LAIT. the day, and a cabinet having a bed, and open- ing into it, converts the two into a bed-chamber for the night ; and the price, including services, is eight dollars per month. I find at ten, a small table covered with white porcelain, and a very neat little Frenchwoman comes smiling in with a cofFee-pot in one hand, and a pitcher of boiling milk in the other, and pours me out with her rosy fingers a large cup of the best cafe au lait in the world, and sits down herself, and descants fluently on the manners and customs of the capital, and im- proves my facilities in French. If you wish bad coffee, it is not to be had in this country. The accompaniments are two eggs, or some equivalent relish, a piece of fresh butter, and a small loaf of bread — all this for eighteen sous, (a sou is a twentieth less than our cent.) I dine out wherever I may chance to be, and according to the voracity or temperance of my appetite, from one and a half to five francs, at six o'clock. A French dinner comes at the most sociable hour, when the cares and labours of the day are past, and the mind can give itself up entirely to its enjoyments, or its repose. I have dined sometimes at the illustrious DINNER AT THE SORBONNE. 257 Flicoteau's on the Place Sorbonne, with the medical students, and have looked upon the rooms once occupied by J. Jaques Rousseau, and upon the very dial on which he could not teach Therese, his grisette wife, to count the hours. I have dined, too, at Viot's, with the law students, and have taken coffee with Mo- liere, and Fontenelle, and Voltaire, at the Pro- cope. The following is a bill at the Sorbonne. A service of Soup, 3 Sous, Vegetables, 3 '' Meat, 6 " Fish, 6 " Bread, 2 " 20 You have also, which serves at once for vine- gar and wine, a half bottle of claret, at six sous ; and a dessert, a bunch of grapes or three cher- ries, for two ; or of sweetmeats, a most delicate portion — one of those infinitesimals of a dose, such as the Horaceopathists administer in despe- rate cases. Yet this — if a dish were only what it professes to be on its face, the soup, not the rinsings of the dishcloth, the fricassee not poached upon the swill-tub, — this would still be supportable — if a macaroni were only a maca- roni; which in a cheap Paris fare, I understand, 258 FRENCH COOKERY. is not to be presumed. In sober sadness, this is very bad. We have a right to expect that a thing which calls itself a hare, should not be a cat. But, alas.! it is the end of all human refinement, that hypocrisy should take the place of truth. You can discern no better the component parts of a French dish in a French cookery, than you can a virtue in a condiment of French afFabiUty. But It is an homage which a horse's rump renders to a beefsteak. At my last dinner here, I had two little ribs held together in indis- soluble matrimony of mutton. I tried to divorce them, but to no purpose, till the perspi- ration began to flow abundantly. I called the '* garcon," and exhibited to him their tough- ness.—" Cependant, Monsieur, le mouton etait magjiijique!" I offered him five francs if he would sit down and eat it ; he refused. He had perhaps a mother or some poor relation depend- ing; on him ; I did not insist. M. FHcoteau belongs to the romantic school. I prefer the classical. I need hardly say that the French students, who dine here, have an unhealthy and shrivelled appearance — you re- collect the last run of the shad on the Juniatta. It is the very spot on which the Sorbonne used MEDICAL STUDENTS. 259 to Starve its monks, and M. Flicoteau, for his own sake, keeps starving people here ever since ? Sixteen sous is a student's ordinary dinner. His common allowance for clothing, and other ex- penses by the year^ is three hundred dollars. He eats for a hundred, lodges for fifty, and has the remainder for his wardrobe and amuse- ments. The students of medicine are mostly poor and laborious, and being obliged to follow their filthy occupation of dissecting, are negli- gent of dress and manners. The disciples of the law are more from the richer classes, have idle time, keep better company, and have an air plus distincrue. The doctors of law in all countries take rank above medicine. The question of precedence, I recollect, was determined by the Duke of Mantua's fool, who observed that the "rogue always walks ahead of the executioner." The- ology, alas ! hides her head in a peaceful corner of the Sorbonne, where once she domineered, and be^s to be unnoticed in her humble and abject fortunes. A student of Divinity eats a soup maigrey a riz-au-Iait, flanked by a dessert of sour grapes. His meals would take him to Heaven, if he had no other merits. The other resorts of eating, besides the re- 260 RESORTS OF EATING. stauraiits, are as follow : the Gargotte, the Cuisine Bourgeoises and, of a higher grade, the Pension Bourgeoise. In the Gargotte you don't get partridges. Your dinner costs seven sous. You have a little meat, dry and somewhat stringy, veal or mutton, whichever Monsieur pleases. Whether it died the natural way, or a violent death by the hands of the butcher, it is impossible to know. You have, besides,, a thick soup, a loaf of bread three feet long, standing in the corner by the broom, and fried potatoes ; also, water and the servant girl a discretion. At seventeen sous, you have all the aforesaid delicacies, with a table cloth into the bargain ; and at twenty, the luxurious addition of a napkin, and a fork of Algiers metal. This is the Gargotte. When you have got to twenty-five sous, you are in the Cuisine Bouro-eoise. Here vour ^' convert," consists of a spoon, a fork, a knife, a napkin, a glass, and a small bottle, called a carafFon ; your plate is changed — already a step towards civilization ; and vou have a cucumber a foot long, radishes a little withered, asparagus just getting to seed, and salt and pepper, artistly arranged; and a horse's rump cooked into a beefsteak, and washed down with " veritable FRENCH ECONOMY. 261 macon'' — that is, the best sort of logwood alcoholised. Yoa have, also, a little dessert here of sour grapes, wrinkled apricots, or green fi^s, which are exhibited for sale, at the window, between meals. The flaps of mutton and the drumsticks of turkeys, which you get so tender, have been served up, once or twice, at the Hotel Ordinary; but they are preferred much to the orio-inal dishes. One likes sometimes better Ephraim's gleanings, than Abiezer's vintage. The French have a knack of letting nothing go to loss. ^^ hy they make more of a dead horse or cow than others of the living ones. They do not even waste the putrid offals of the butcheries; they sell the maggots to feed chickens. But when you pay forty sous, that's quite another aflfair. You are now in the monde gourmande. Spinage has butter in it; custards have sugar in them: soup is called potage : — everything now has an honest name ; bouilli is hauf a la mode; fried potatoes ^ow;7ie de terre a la maitre d'hotel; and a baked cat is, lapin saute a restragon. This is the gentleman's boardino-- house. I mean by gentleman, a youth, who has just come over from England or America; to the 262 SUCCESSION OF DISHES. lectures, or a French clerk of the corps hureau- cratique, or an apprentice philosopher, who calls himself a '-man of letters." It is one of the advantages of this place, that you are not often oppressed by the intelligence and gravity of your convives, and have a chance of shining. It is in the power of any man to have wit, if he but knows how to select his company. In this pension, the dishes succeed one another, and are ^ not crammed, as on our tables, rotifricandeau, salade, vol au vent — all into the same service, to distract and pall the appetite, or get cold waiting^ on each other. The coquetry of a French kitchen keeps alive expectation, and enhances enjoyment by surprise. You have here, too, the advantage of a male cook; the kitchen prefers the mas- culine to the feminine, like the grammars : and, besides, you have the tranquillity of a private house. If you ask a dish at Fhcoteau's, the waiter bawls it down to the kitchen, and as they are continually asking, he is continually bawl- ing. At the end of the feast, you will see, standino- before you, a tumbler full of tooth- picks, one of which you will keep fumbling in your mouth the whole afternoon, as an evidence you have dined : and especially if you have not THE LOCOMOTIVE COOK. 263 dined — for then you must keep up appearances ; — some grease their mouths with a candle, and then you think they have been eating pate de foie gras. I am sorry to have forgotten the locomotive cook ; I mean a woman with an appareil de cuisine about her neck, having meat and fish hung, by hooks, on both her haunches, and sausages, or fish, or potatoes, hissing in a frying- pan ; and diffusing, for twenty yards around, a most appetising flavour. She haunts, usually, the Pont Neuf and its vicinity, and looks like gastronomy personified. She will give you, for four sous, of potatoes, with yesterday's gazette, and, reclining under the parapet of the Quai — the king perhaps, all the while, envying you from the heights of the Louvre — you eat a more wholesome dinner at ten sous, than at the Place Sorbonne at twenty-four. All the common world of Paris buys its pro- visions second-hand. The farmer arrives about two in the morning — he sells out to the huck- sters, and these latter to the public, mixing in the leavings of the preceding day, a rotten egg with a fresh one, 8cc. A patient old woman, having nothing else to do, speculates over a bushel of potatoes, or a botte of onions, twice 264 PRICE OF BREAD. twenty-four hours ; and your milk woman, perha ps, never saw a cow ; cows are expensive in slops and provender, and snails and plaster of Paris are to be had almost for nothing. The French eat greater quantities of bread than their neighbours — and why at a cheaper rate ? — The price is fixed, bv the police, every fortnight, and its average is two-and-a-half cents — sixty per cent, lower than in London ; and how much lower than with us ? 450 millions of lbs. are consumed in Paris annually ; each man eating twelve dollars' worth. If you establish a Frenchman's ex- pense at 100, you will find 19 parts for bread, 22 for meat, 27 for wine and spirits. Peaches, and apples, and melons, are not to be spoken of, in comparison with ours ; but cherries, plums, and especially pears, are in great variety and abundance; aTid the fine grapes of Fontainebleau are eight cents per pound. In England, they have all the fruits of the Indies in the noblemen's hot-houses .: but who can buy them? There are men there who have the conscience to pay £150 for the fruits of a breakfast. ^' The strawberries at my Lady Stormont's, last Saturday, cost £150," says Hannah ]More. But I must bridle in my muse : she is gettino- a fit of statistics. SOLITUDE OF A POPULOUS CITY. 265 If a o-entleman comes to Paris in the do^ days, when his countrymen are spread over Europe, at watering places, and elsewhere, and when every soul of a Frenchman is out of town — if he is used to love his friends at home, and be loved by them, and to see them gather around him in the evenings — let him not set a foot in that unnatural thing, a bachelor's apartment in a furnished hotel, to live alone, to eat alone, and to sleep alone ! If he does, let him take leave of his wife and children, and settle his affairs. iS'or let him seek company at the Tavern Ordinary ; here the guest arrives just at the hour, hangs up his hat, sits down in his usual place, crosses his legs, runs his fingers through his hair, dines, and then disappears, all the year round, without farther acquaintance. But let him look out a " Pension," havino- an ami able landlady, or, which is the same, amiable lodgers. He will become domicihated here after some time, and find some relief from one of the trying situations of life. You know nothins: vet, happily, of the solitude, the desolation, of a populous city to a stranger. How often did I wish, during the first three months, for a cot by the side of some hoar hill of the Mahonoy. VOL. I. N 266 FAMILY REUNIONS. Go to a " Pension," especially if you are a sucking child, like me, in the ways of the world : and the lady of the house, usually a pretty woman, will feel it enjoined upon her humanity to counsel and protect you, and comfort you, or she will manage an acquaint- ance between you and some countess or baroness, who lodges with her, or at some neighbour's. I live now with a most spiritual little crea- ture ; she tells me so many obliging lies, and no offensive truths, which I take to be the per- fection of politeness in a landlady ; and she admits me to her private parties — little family «' reunions" — where I play at loto with Madame Thomas, and her three amiable daughters, just for a little cider, or cakes, or chestnuts, to keep up the spirit of the play ; and then we have a song, a solo on the violin, or harp, and then a dance ; and, finally, we play at little games, which inflict kisses, embraces, and other such penalties. French people are always so merry ; whatever be the amusement, they never let conversation flasf, and I don't see any reason why it should. One, for example, begins to talk of Paris, then the Passage Panorama, then of Mrs. Alexander's fine cakes, and then the pretty girl that sits behind the counter, and then of pretty girls that PLEASURES OF SOCIETY. 267 sit anywhere ; and so one just lets oneself run with the association of ideas, or one makes a digression from the main story, and returns or not, just as one pleases. A Frenchman is always a mimic, an actor, and all that nonsense which we suffer to go to waste in our country, he eco- nomises for the enjoyment of society. I am settled down in the family ; I am adopted ; the lady gives me, to be sure, now and then '• a chance," as she calls it, of a ticket in a lottery (" the only one left") of some distin- guished lady now reduced, or some lady who has had three children, where one never draws anything: or ^' a chance" of conducting her and a pretty cousin of hers, who has taken a fancy to me, to the play, who adores the inno- cency of American manners, and hates the dis- sipation of the French. Have you never felt the pleasure of let- ting yourself be duped ? Have you never felt the pleasure of letting your little bark float down the stream when you knew the port lay the other way. I look upon all this as a cheap return for the kindnesses I have so much need of; I am anxious to be cheated, and the truth is, if you do not let a French landlady cheat you now and then, she will drop your acquaint- n2 268 THE FRENCH LANDLADY. ance. iN'ever dispute any small items over- charged in her monthly bill, or she that was smooth as the ermine, will be suddenly bristled as the porcupine; and why, for the sake of limiting some petty encroachment upon your purse, should you turn the bright heaven of her pretty face into a hurricane? Your actions should always leave a suspicion that you are rich, and then you are sure she will anticipate every want and wish you may have with the liveliest affection ; she will be all ra- vishment at your successes : she wull be in an abyss of chagrin at your disappointments. Helas ! oh, mon Dieu ! and if you cry, she w^U crv with vou ! We love monev well enough in America, but we do not feel such touches of human kindness, and cannot work ourselves up into such fits of amiability for those who have it. I do not say it is hypocrisy ; a French woman really does love you if you have a long purse; and if you have not (I do not say it is hypocrisy neither) she really does hate you. A great advantage to a French landlady is the sweetness and variety of her smile — a quality in which French women excel universally.. Our Madam Gibou keeps her little artillery at play during the whole of the dinner time, and has THE LANGUAGE OF SMILES. 269 brought her smile under such a discipline as to suit it exactly to the passion to be represented, or the dignity of the person with whom she exchanges looks. You can tell any one who is in arrears as it" you were her private secretary, or the wealth and liberality of a guest better than his banker, by her smile. If it be a surly knave who counts the pennies with her, the little thing is strangled in its birth ; and if one who owes his meals, it miscarries altogether ; and for a mere visiter she lets off one worth onlv three francs and a half: but if a favourite, who never looks into the parti- culars of her bill, and takes her lottery tickets, then you will see the whole heaven of her face in a blaze, and it does not expire suddenly, but like the fine twilight of a summer evening, dies away gently on her lips. Sometimes I have seen one flash out like a squib, and leave you at once in the dark ; it had lit on the wrong person ; and at other times I have seen one struo^o-lino; Ions: for its life : I have watched it while it was gasping its last ; she has a way, too, of knocking a smile on the head ; I observed one at dinner to-day, from the very height and bloom of health fall down and die without a kick. 270 MANNER OF GAINING ATTENTIONS. It is Strange (that I may praise myself) — but I have a share of attentions in this httle circle even greater than they who are amiable. If I say not a word, I am witty, and I am excessively agreeable by sitting still. " The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails." My unacquaintance with life and wicked- ness puts me in immediate rapport with women, and removes many of the little obstacles which suspicious etiquette has set up between the sexes. Ladies, they say, never blush when talkino; to a bhnd man. While a man of address is sailing about and about a woman, as Captain Ross hunting the North-west passage, I am looked upon either as a ship in distress and claiming a generous sym- pathy and protection, or a prize which belongs to the wreckers, and am towed at once into har- bour. Sometimes, indeed, my ignorance of Paris and its ways is taken for affectation, and they suspect me for behaving as great ambassadors do, who affect simplicity to hide their diplomatic rogueries ; but he cannot long pass himself for a rogue who is really honest. It is perhaps a mere complexion of physiognomy. I see, every day, faces which remind one of those doors which have written on them, " No admission," THE BOARDING HOUSE. 271 and others, " Walk in without knocking.'' It is certain that what we call dignity, however ad- mired on parade, is not a good social quality. '^ Dignitas et amor'" — I forget what Ovid says about it. And women, too, are more familiar and easy of access to modesty of rank. Jupiter, you know, when he made love to Antiope, with all his rays about him, was rejected, and he suc- ceeded afterwards as a satyr. I knew a pretty American woman once, who, gartering up her stockings in the garden, was reminded, that the gardener was looking. '^ Well ! he is only a working man," she replied, and went on with the exhibition ; she would have been frightened to death if it had been a lord. I make these re- marks because other travellers would be likelv to leave them out, and because it is good to know how to live to advantage in all the various circumstances of life. In recommending you a French boarding- house, it is my duty at the same- time to warn you of some of its dangers, which are as fol- lows : Your landlady will be in arrears for her rent 200 francs, and will confide to you her embarrassment. Having a rigid, inexorable proprietaire, and getting into an emergency, she 272 AN EMBARRASSING SITUATION. will at length ask you, with many blushes and amiable scruples, the loan of the said money ; and her gratitude, poor thing ! at the very ex- pectation of getting it, will overcome her so, she will offer you, her arms about your neck, her pretty self, as security for the debt. This is not all ; the baroness (her husband being absent at Moscow, or anywhere else.) will invite you to a supper. She will live in a fine parlour, chamber adjoining, and will enter- tain you with sprightly and sensible conver- sation, and all the delicacies of the table, until the stars have climbed half way up the heavens ; and you will find yourself tete-d-tele with a lady at midnight, the third bottle of champagne sparkling on the board. — I am glad I did not leave my virtue in America : I should have had such need of it in this country ! Indeed, if it had been anybody else, not softened by the ex- perience of nine lustrums ; not fortified like me by other affections — if it had been anybody else in the world, he would have been ruined by Madame la Baronne. iS'or when you have re- sisted Russia, have vou won all the victories. On a fine summer's morning, when all is joyous and good-humoured, your landlady will present you the following cards, with notes and expla- GARDEN OF THE LUXEMBOURG. 273 nations. '' This is from the belle Gabrielle. She assists her uncle in the store, and is quite disheartened with her business. Uncles are such cross things ! This is from one of my acquaintances, Flora — oh, beautiful au possible ! She paints birds and other objects for the print shops, but she finds the confinement injurious to her health. You must call and see them, especially Flora, she has such a variety of talent besides painting; and she will give you the most convincing proofs of good character and connexions. Gabrielle also is very pretty, but she is a young and innocent creature, and her education, especially her music, not so far advanced." The garden of the Luxembourg comes next. It contains near a hundred acres, and lies in the midst of this classical district. It is not so gaily ornamented as the Tuileries, but is rich in pic- turesque and rural scenery. It has, indeed, two very beautiful ornaments. At the north end, the noble edifice, constructed by Marie de Medicis, the palace of the Luxembourg, which contains a gallery of paintings, the chamber of Peers, and other curiosities ; and the Obser- vatory, a stately building, is in symmetry with this palace on the south. N 3 274 VETERANS OF THE WAR. In the interior there are groves of trees and grass plots surrounded by flower-beds ; and numerous statues, most of which have seen better days ; ranges of trees, and an octagonal piece of water inhabited by two swans, which are now swimming about in graceful solemnity, adorn the parterre in front of the palace. All these objects I have in view of my windows. The garden has altogether an air of philosophy very grateful to men of studious dispositions. Many persons are seated about, in reading or conversation, or strolling with books through its groves, and squads of students are now and then traversing it to their college recitations. On benches overlooking the parterre is seated, all day long, the veteran of the war, the old soldier, in his regimentals, his sword as a com- panion laid beside him on the bench ; he finds a repose here for his old age amidst the recreations of childhood ; and five or six hundred little men in red breeches, whose profession it is to have their brains knocked out for their country at six- pence a day, are drilled here every morning early, to keep step and to handle their firelocks. There is one corner in which there is a fountain sur- mounted by a nymph, and which has a gloomy and tufted wood, and an appearance of sanctity, LOVERS WALKS. 275 which makes it respected by the common world, and by the sun. One man only is seen walking there at a time, the rest retiring out of respect for his devotions. For a week past it has been frequented daily by a poet. He recites with appropriate action his verses, heedless of the profane crowd. He ap- pears pleased with his compositions, and smiles often, no doubt in anticipation of their immor- tality. I often sit an hour of an evening at my window, and look down upon the stream of people which flows in and out, and the sentinel who walks up and down by the gate ridiculously grim. I love to read the views and dispositions of men in their faces. I witness some pleasant fln-tations, too, under the adjacent lime trees, and many gratified and disappointed assigna- tions. Now, a lady wrapped in her cloak walks up and down the most secret avenue, upon the anxious watch ; the lover comes at length, and she hastens to his embraces, and they vanish : and next in his turn a gentleman walks sentinel, until his lady comes, or, impatient and disap- pointed, goes off in a rage, or night covers him with her sable mantle.— Were I not bound by so many endearing affections of kindred and 276 THE GRISETTES. friendship to my native country, there is not one spot upon the earth I would prefer to the sweet tranquilHty of this delicious retirement. When you visit the Luxembourg you will see multitudes every where of bouncing; demoiselles, with nymph-looking faces, caps without bonnets, and baskets in their hands, traversino; the grar- den from all quarters, running briskly to their work in the morning, and strolling slowly home- wards towards eveninn; — These are the sf'isettes. They are very pretty, and have the laudable little custom of falling deeply in love with one. They are common enough all over Paris, but in this classical region they are as the leaves in Vallambrosa. They are in the train of the muses, and love the groves of the Academy. A grisette, in this Latin Quarter, is a branch of education. If a student is ill, his faithful grisette nurses him and cures him • if he is destitute, she works for him ; and if he falls into irretrievable misfortune, she dies with him. Thus a mutual dependence endears them to each other; he defends her with his life, and, sure of his protection, she feels her consequence, and struts in her new starched cap the reigning monarch of the Luxembourg. A grisette never obtrudes her acquaintance, THEIR INGENIOUS ARTIFICES. 2// but question her and you will find her circum- stantially communicative. Such information as she possesses, and a great deal more, she will retail to you with a naivete and simplicity, you would swear she was brought up amongst your innocent lambs and turtle-doves of the Sha- moken. She is the most ingenious imitation of an innocent woman in the world ; and never was language employed more happily for the concealment of thought (I ask pardon of Prince Talleyrand) than in the mouth of a grisette. The Devil is called the father of lies (I ask pardon again of the Prince), but there is not one of these little imps but can outdo her papa in this particular. When sent with goods 'from shopkeepers to their customers — the common practice of this place — she will lie and wrestle for her patron, and perjure herself like a Greek; when accused, she will listen to reproaches, insults, even abuse, as long as there is any point of defence, with the resignation of Saint Michael ; and there is no trick of the stage, no artifice of rhetoric, re- commended by Cicero, that she leaves out in her pleadings ; if at last overcome — why, she surrenders. She remains awhile mute, and then sets her- 278 POLICY OF SENDING YOUTHS TO PARIS. self to look sorry with all her might ; at last she bursts into tears, with sighs and sobs, until she disarms you. '^ Well, let me see what you have got." She will now wipe away gracefully the briny drops with the corner of her apron, brighten up again, shew you her goods again, and cheat you once more by way of reparation for her former rogueries. There is a modiste, lodged in the adjoining room, from New Orleans, who entertains about twenty of these every morning at her levee. I make sometimes one of the group, and from this opportunity, and from the lady's information, I am thus learned about grisettes. It is important for one's mamma to know whether it is a good or bad fashion that, so com- mon now-a-days, of sending a young gentleman, just stepping from youth into manhood, to Eu- rope, especially to Paris. I will venture some remarks for your information, though I have no very settled opinion on the subject. I know several Americans engaged here, some in medical and scientific schools, and some in painting and other arts, who appear to me to be exceedingly diligent, and to make as profitable a use of their time as they would anywhere else. I know some who mix pleasure with business, and a little folly AMERICANS IN PARIS. 279 with their wisdom ; and some (you will please to put me in this class) who do not taste dissipa- tion with their " extremest lips.'' But I know some also, who, under pretext of law and medicine, study mischief only, and return home worse, if possible, than when they came out. I know one now, who, having too much health, overruns his revenues occasionally, and draws upon home for a doctor's and apothe- cary's bill ; and another poor devil who has gone to Mont Piete with his last trinket. There came one from the Mississippi lately, who being very young and rich, and unmarried, set up a kind of seraglio, and died of love yesterday ; they are burying him to-day at Pere la Chaise. I know one also, who has lived here nine years, who reads Voltaire, keeps a French cook, and his principles are as French as his stomach : and another who entertains the French noblesse with fetes and soirees, to the tune of a hundred thousand per annum ; from his stable, thirty-six horses, full bred, better than many of his Ma- jesty's subjects, come prancing out on days of jubilee upon the Boulevards. If a young man's morals should get out of order at home, Paris is not exactly the place I would send him to be cured. It is true, if drunk- 280 PARISIAN MORALS. enness be the complaint, it is not a vice of the place : and, if curable at all, which I do not be- lieve, Paris, from its common use of light wines, and variety of amusements, is perhaps the best place to make the attempt. It is certainly not the most dangerous place for falling into this vice. If he be fond of gambUng, here it is a genteel accomplishment, and brought out under the patronage of the government. And to keep a mistress is not only not disgraceful in French society, but is always mentioned to one's credit. It is a part of a gentleman's equipage, and adds to his gentility ; for it impUes that he possesses that most considerable merit that a gentleman can aspire to in this country, and most others — money. *' II a la phisjolie rnaitresse de Paris /" you cannot say anything more complimentary if it were of the prime minister, and it would scarce be an injurious imputation if said of one's father confessor. If you send, then, your son to Paris, am I un- charitable in surmising that he may sometimes use the privilege of the place ? It is, indeed, a question for philosophy to determine (and not for me), which of the two may be the less inju- rious to his health and morals — the gross inter- course he is exposed to in some other towns, or VICES OF THE CAPITAL, 281 the more refined gallantries of the French capital. If you can preserve him, by religious and other influences, from either, as well as from the dan- gers of an ascetic and solitary abstinence — for solitude has its vices as well as dissipation — so much the better. He will be a better husband, a better citizen, and a better man. But let me tell you that to educate a young man of fortune and leisure, to live through a youth of honesty, has become excessively diffi- cult, even in the chaste nunnery of your ** Two Hills ;" and to expect that, with money and ad- dress, he will live entirely honest in Paris, where women of good quality are thrown in his face — women of art, beauty, and refined educa- tion — is to attribute virtues to human nature she is in no way entitled to in any country. He may have some trouble with his conscience, per- haps, the first month or two, but by degrees, he will become reconciled, and get along well enough. If he comes over with some refinement of taste, and moral inclinations and habits, or only on a transient visit, he will be secure from all the dangers (except, perhaps, gambling) to which I have alluded ; he will live only in American society, which is quite as good and pure here as at home ; he will have no 282 VISITING OLD COUNTRIES. acquaintance with the natives, but of that class in which a gentleman's morals run less risk of temptation than even from the vulgar intercourse of American towns. All that part of a city like Paris, that comes into relation with strangers, and lives by de- ceiving and plundering them, is of course gross and corrupt ; yet I do not know any community in which the honesty of a gentleman is so safe from contamination. It is certainly of much value in the life of an American o;entleman to visit these old countries, if it were only to form a just estimate of his own, which he is continually liable to mistake, and always to overrate without objects of com- parison ; nimium se cBstimet necesse estj qui se nemini comparat" He will always think him- self v\ ise who sees nobody wiser ; and to know the customs and institutions of foreign countries, which one cannot know well without residing there, is certainly the complement of a good education. The American society at Paris, taken alto- o-ether, is of a good composition. It consists of several hundred persons, of families of fortune, and young men of liberal instruction. Here are lords of cotton from Carolina, and of sugar- AMERICAN SOCIETY IN PARIS. 283 cane from the Mississippi, millionaires from all the Canadas, and pursers from all the navies ; and their social qualities, from a sense of mutual dependence or partnership in absence, or some such causes, are more active abroad than at home. The benevolent affections act in a contrary way from gravitation ; they increase as the square of the distance from the centre. The plain fact is, that Americans in Paris are hospitable in a very high degree ; they have no fear of being dogged with company, and have leisure here, which they have nowhere else, to be amiable ; the new comer, too, is more tender and thankful, and has a higher relish of hos- pitality and kindness ; and the general example of the place has its effect on their animal spirits. They form a little republic apart, and when a stranger arrives, he finds himself at home ; he finds himself also under the censorial inspection of a public opinion, a salutary restraint, not always the luck of those who travel into foreign countries. One thing only is to be blamed : it becomes every day more the fashion for the elite of our cities to settle themselves here perma- nently. We cannot but deplore this exportation of the precious metals, since our country is drained of what the supply is not too abundant. 284 THE LATIN QUARTER. They who have resided here a few years, having fortune and leisure, do not choose, as I per- ceive, to reside anywhere else. It is now midnio-ht, and more. I have said so much in this letter about grisettes, that I shall have a nisht-mare of them before morn- ing. This " Latin Quarter," is one of the most instructing volumes of Paris, but all I can do is just to open you here and there some of its pages, and shew you the pictures. Pictures in this country, recollect, are more a decouvert than in America. Please to make the allowance. Good nioht I c3 THE OBSERVATORY. 285 LETTER XI. The Observatory — The Astronomers — Val de Grace — Anne of Austria — Hospice des Enfans Trouves — Rows of Cra- dles — Sisters of Charity — Vincent de Paul — Maisons d'Accouchement — Place St. Jaques — The Catacombs — Skull of Ninon de TEnclos — The Poet Gilbert — Ju- lian's Bath — Hotel de Cluny — Ancient Furniture — Francis the First's Bed — Charlotte Corday — Danton — Marat — Robespierre — Rue des Postes — Convents of former times — Faubourg St. Marceau. Paris, Oct. 25tfi. I ROSE this morning, and refreshed myself from the repose of the night, by running boy- ishly up the broad and elegant walk which leads to the south end of the garden, to the Observa- tory, the place where they make almanacks ; I went in and saw great piles of astronomical books and instruments, an anemometer to mea- sure the winds, and another affair baptised also in Greek, to measure the rain; also, a thing in the cellar, which, in this Latin quarter, they 286 MARSHAL NEY. call an '^ acoustic phenome?io7i." By this you can talk aloud all day to any individual standing in a particular place, and not another of the company will be anything the wiser for it. There are a number of men here, w^hom they call astronomers, who, while we are asleep, look after the stars, and observe what is going on in the moon ; and who go to bed with Venus and the heavenly bodies towards morning. There is an old woman here in a little stall, upon the broad and paved place in front of the Observatory, who sells tobacco and butter, be- sides vaudevilles and epic poems, who shewed me, what do you think ? — the very stone upon which Marshal Ney stood to be shot. '* There stood the wretches that shot him. Yes, sir, I saw him murdered, and I never wish to see the like again." Just east, I visited another remarkable build- ing, which young girls read about in their ro- mances, called Val de Grace. This church, built by Anne of Austria, was called Val de Grace. If you wish to see the prettiest fresco paintings of all Paris, you must go in here and look up at the dome ; the chapels, too, are full of virgins and dirty httle angels. She came here in 1624, and laid the corner-stone VAL DE GRACE. 287 with her own httle hands. She bestowed some special privileges upon the monastery, amongst others the right of burying in this church the hearts of all the defunct princesses, beginning with herself; and at the Revo- lution, *^ one counted even to twenty-six royal hearts." The convent of Val de Grace is now turned into a military hospital, and greasy sol- diers are stabled where once lived and breathed the pretty nuns you read of in your novels. Just in the neighbourhood is the Hospice des Enfans Trouves, to which I paid a hasty visit. If a child takes it into its head to be born out of lawful wedlock, which now and then occurs, it is carried to this hospital for nourishment and education. The average number admitted here, is 6,000 annually, 16^ per day. They are re- ceived day and night, and no questions asked. All you have to do is, to place the little human being in a box, communicating with an apart- ment in the interior, which, on ringing a bell, is taken in, and gets on afterwards well enough, often better than we who think ourselves legiti- mate. It sucks no diseases from its mother's milk; and from its father's example novices; and it has a good many virtues incident to its condition. It has amongst these a great reve- 288 ROWS OF CRADLES. rence for old ag:e, not knowing but that every old gentleman it meets might be its papa. On entering this hospital you will see two long rows of cradles running over with babies, and a group of sisters, in gowns of black serge, making and mending up the baby wardrobe, or extending to the little destitute creatures the offices of maternity ; and indeed they take such care of them, as almost to discourage poor people from having legitimate children alto- gether. But what praise can be equal to the merits of these Sisters of Charity ? You see them wherever suffering humanity needs their assistance ; their devotion has no parallel in the history of the world. They are very often, too, of rich and distinguished families; women who leave all the enjoyments of gay society to pursue these humble and laborious duties, to practise, in these silent walls, pru- dence, patience, fortitude, and all those domestic virtues and peaceful moralities which, in this naughty world of ours, obtain neither admira- tion nor distinction. Think only of relinquish- ing fashion, and rank, and pleasure, to be granny to an almshouse ! This hospital was founded by one of the most respectable saints of all Paris, Vincent de Paul. VINCENT DE PAUL. 289 His statue is placed in the vestibule. It would do your heart good to see the babies go down on their bits of knees every evening, and bless the memory of this saint. A cradle used to be hung up as a sign to draw customers here, but the reputation of the house is now made, and it is taken down. Formerly the ringing of a bell, too, or the wailings of the infant, the mother giving it a pinch, was enough to announce a new comer, but lately so many dead children have been put in the box to avoid j;he expense of burying them that they have been obliged to stop up the hole. I am sorry for this ; it was so convenient. You just put in a baby as you put a letter in the post-office; now you are obliged to carry it into a room inside, where the names, dress, the words, and behaviour of those who bring it, as also its death, are entered in a register; this register is kept a profound secret; never revealed to any one, unless one pays twenty francs. I visited the school-rooms, where those of proper age are taught to read and write. They seem very merry and happy ; and, having no communication with the world, are uncon- scious of any inferiority of birth. When very young or sickly they are put out to nurse in the country, and at twelve are appren- VOL. I. o 290 ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN. ticed to a trade. The sisters will point you out a mother who has placed her infant here, and got herself employed as child's nurse to the hospital to give it nourishment and care. I forgot to mention that mothers are not allowed to see their babies, or receive their bodies if they die ; they are reserved for the improvement of anatomical science. A useful appendage to this establishment are the numerous Maisons d' Accouchement, distri- buted everywhere over the city, in which per- sons find accommodations, as secretly as they please, and at all prices, to suit their circum- stances. The evils of all these establishments are manifest: the good is, the prevention of in- fanticide, often of suicide, and of the perjuries innumerable, and impositions practised in some other countries. I doubt whether a city like Paris could safely adopt any other system. The tables of the last year's births stand thus: — seventeen thousand one hundred and twenty- nine legitimate ; nine thousand seven hundred and twenty-one illegitimate. So you see that every second man you meet in Paris wants but a trifle of being no bastard. Expense, above a million and a half of francs. Here is the Place St. Jaqiies ; the place of THE CATACOMBS. 291 public execution. It is the present station of the guillotine, which has already made several spots of the city classical. And here is appro- priately the Barriere d'Enfer. These barriers are found at all the great issues from the city through the walls. They are amongst the curiosities of Paris ; often beautiful with sculp- ture, and other ornaments. Whilst I was surveying this district, in my usual solitary way, I met two gentlemen and a lady, acquaintances, who were descending into the catacombs, whose opening is just here, and I went down with them. This nether world bears upon its vaults three fourths of the Quartier St. Germain, with its superincumbent mass of churches and palaces. The light of Heaven is shut out, and so deep a silence reigns in its recesses, that one hears his own footsteps walking after him, and is so vast that several visitors, straying away a hvf years ago, have not yet returned. The bones of fifty generations are emptied here from ancient grave yards of Paris, now only known to history. What a hideous deformity of skulls ! After entering half a mile we saw various construc- tions, all made out of these remnants of morta- lity ; sepulchral monuments, an entire church, o2 292 NINON DE l'eNCLOS. with its pulpit, confessional, altars, tombs, and coffins ; and the victims of several Revolutionary massacres, are laid out here chronologically. How unjacobinical they look ! On entering, you are confronted with the fol- lowing inscription ; '^ Arrete, c'est id V empire de la Mort I" and various other inscriptions are put up in the dead languages, and names often written upon skulls, to designate their owners. *' Fix your eyes here," said the lady ; '^ this is the skull of Ninon de I'Enclos," with verses. " L'indulgente et sage Nature A forme Tame de Ninon De la Volupte d'Epicure, Et de la vertu de Caton." And this is her skull! Every one knows her history, but I will tell you a little of it over again. I will give you a list of her court. Mo- liere, to begin with, and Corneille ; Scarron, St. Evermond, Chapelle, Desmarets, Mignard, Chateauneuf, Chaulieu, Conde, Vendome, Vil- leroi, Villars, D'Etree, La Rochefoucauld, Choi- seul, Sevigne and Fontenelle. She was honoured with the confidence of Madame Scarron, and the homage, through her ambassadors, of the Queen of Sweden. She made conquests at sixty, one at seventy, and died at ninety. Her VISIT TO HER CHATEAU. 293 own son, the Chevalier de Villars, fell in love with her at fifty, and fell upon his sword when she revealed to him the secret of his birth. The Chevalier de Gourville confided to her twenty- thousand crow^ns, when driven to exile, and a like sum to the Grand Penetencier ; the priest denied the deposit, and the courtezan restored it, unasked. I visited, a month ago, her chateau, and saw the rooms in which she used to sive her famous suppers ** a tons les Despreaux, et tons les Ma- cines." And this is her skull ! While my doctor companions were turning it about, and explain- ing the bumps — how big was her ideality, how developed her amativeness, I turned her about in my mind, until I had turned her into shapes again — into that incomparable beauty and grace, which no rival was able to equal, and which sensuahty itself was not able to degrade. I hung back the lips upon those grinning teeth, I gave her her smile again, her wit, and her eloquence. I assisted at her little court of Cyprus, in the Rue de Tournelle, where philo- sophers came to gather wisdom, and courtiers grace, from her conversation ; I assisted at her toilette, and witnessed the hopes, the jealousies, the agonies, and ecstacies of her lovers. And 294 A COUPLE OF GHOSTS. SO we took leave of the exquisite Ninon's skull — if it was her's. The poet Gilbert, who died of want, has here an apartment to himself, which he had not above ground. It is inscribed with his own mournful epitaph, " Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive, J'apparus un jour, et je meurs. Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, ou lentementj 'arrive, Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs !" I could not help contradicting him, for the life of me. In the very interior of the cavern are collec- tions of water which have classical names. Here is the Styx just under the Ecole Medecine, and the River Lethe flows hard by the Institute. We came at length to a cabinet of skulls, ar- ranged upon shelves, some for phrenology, and some for pathology, exhibiting in classes the several diseases, which our doctors explained with circumstantiality to their sybil conductor; rows of tees, of fingers, and jaws, and legs which used to cut pigeon-wings, and pirouettes, alas ! how gracefully. In the mean time I saw a couple of ghosts (I supposed them to be Cuvier, and Dr. Gall) skulking away as soon as they caught a glimpse Julian's baths. 295 of our tapers, and I saw a great many other things, not interesting to people above ground. We began now to be apprehensive of taking cold, and being sent hither to enrich these cabi- nets; and so we deposited at the door our golden branch, and having mounted a straight stair- way one hundred feet, were purified in the open air. The two doctors now left me their Eurydice, and she and I, being inspired alike with the spirit of sight-seeing, went a few hundred yards westward, and saw Julian's Baths, Though he is said to have been little addicted to bathing, here are his baths, the only relic of his sojourn in Paris. This old building is an oblong, with very thick walls, which are crumbling to decay. One of them is entirely dilapidated. The vaults, rising forty-two feet above the soil, and furnaces under ground, and parts of the bathing rooms, are exposed to view, in all the naked majesty of a ruin ; a ruin, too, of fifteen centuries. This is but a single hall of an immense palace — the Palais des Thermes — which once covered the present site of the University. It was the scene of licentious revellings and crime, " latehra scelerum, Venerisque accommoda furtis/^ after- wards of the theological disputes of the Sor- 296 THE ANTIQUARY. bonne, and now of the quiet lectures of the University ; and Virgin Mary's are now made out of the old Venuses. I am a goose of an antiquary ; all I could see was Mrs. JuUan, jumping into her bath, and coming dribbling out again ; but my companion was very different. She had a taste for putting- her nose into every musty corner, and cracking off pieces of a batli, and the Roman mortar, of which posterity has lost the secret, to put in her cabinet. She has over-run all Europe, and has now got, she says, near a ton of antiquities. She has a stone from Kenilworth, and a birch from Virgil's tomb, plenty of mosaics from the Coliseum, and of " auld nick-nackets " from Stirling castle. She has promised me a leaf from Tasso's lemon tree, and one from Rous- seau's rose bush, also a twig of William Tell's tree of liberty, and Shakspeare's mulberry, and a little chip of Dr. Johnson's cedar at Streatham. And nearly all our travelling Yankee ladies are bringing over a similar collection ; after a while . the commonest thing in the world will be a curiosity. Close in this neighbourhood is the Hotel de Cluny, to which we also paid a visit — I having a ticket from Mr. Sommerand, the proprietor. ANCIENT FURNITURE. 297 In this hotel used to lodge Roman generals and emperors, and the first French kings. A suite of seven or eight rooms is crammed with furniture, the remains of the last age ; some of it magni- ficently decayed; commodes, chests, boxes, second-hand tooth brushes, as good as new, and other national relics. Nothing contemporary enters here ; there was nothing, but the lady who accompanied me, under a hundred years old. First we entered the dining room, and saw a knight in full armour placed by a table ; and the ghost of a maho- gany sideboard at the opposite end — without date, and there is no knowing whether it was made before or since the flood — with its knives and spoons, and earthenware tea-cups, of the same antiquity: next, a bed chamber hung in gilt leather — whose do you think ? Why Francis the First's, with all the implements thereunto belonging. An entire suit of steel armour, cap-a-pie, re- poses upon the bed, with a visor of the knight's, which had gained victories in jousts and tourna- ments ; also an old coat out at the elbows, worn last, I presume, by his footman. Every little rag of his is preserved here. Here, too, are 298 BED OF FRANCIS THE FIRST. girdles and bracelets, caskets and other valu- ables, and a necklace with its pedigree labelled on a bit of parchment; the Belle Feronieres', I suppose. Here is the very glass he looked into, with a Venus holding a garland in front, and a cross and altar behind, by way of symmetry ; and here are the very spurs (I held them in my hand) which he wore at Pavia : finally, the very bed, the very sheets, his ^Majesty slept in. This bed was hawked about all Paris in the Revolution — at last it was sold by auction in the public streets, a dix francs seulement, and was knocked down to Monsieur Sommerand — Francis the First's bed and comfortable, and his little pillow, about as big as a sausage. I was much gratified with this collection, which is certainly unique in the world ; and you are not hurried through by a Cicerone, but by the com- plaisance of M. Sommerand you can rummage and ransack things at your leisure. In the other rooms are vases and caskets, and precious cabinets, a spinette of Marie de Medicis, and other furniture of noble dames ; one gets tired of looking at their trinkets ; and in other rooms are castings, and inlayings, and carvings, and so forth. CHARLOTTE CORDAY. 299 I now took Madame under my arm, and de- scending through one of the thousand and eighty streets of Paris into the JRue de VEcole Medecine, deposited her at her home. You should never pass into this street without stopping awhile to contemplate a very memorable dwelling in it — that in which Charlotte Corday assassinated Marat. One owes to this generous maid and disinterested martyr to humanity, a tribute in approaching its threshold. The house is also otherwise remarkable. Danton used to call here of a mornins: from the bottom of the stairs upon Marat, and then they went arm in arm to the Convention ; and Collot d'Herbois, the actor — what memorable names ! — and Chabot the Capucin,Legendre the butcher, Chaumette the Atheist, and St. Just and Robespierre, used to hold here their nightly councils. It would puzzle Beelzebub to get up such another club. Under the outer door-way are remaining the letters * =* or D * *, a part of the inscription effaced, *^ Liberty, Indivisibility, OR Death !" I now dined and traversed leisurely the Place du Pantheon homewards, passing through the Rue de VEstrapade into the Rue des Posies, 300 CONVENTS. once famous for its convents. This is to a pious man, and one who lives a little back into the past, a holy region ; it is consecrated by re- ligious recollections beyond all the other spots of Paris. Here in this single '' Rue des Posies,'* was the old '* Convent des Dames de St. Augns- tin,'' — " des Dames St. Thomas/' — " des Dames Ursulinesj" — ^' des Dames de la Visitation T' — " de r Adoration Perpetuelley' — '^ diL St. Sacre- ment.^' Alas, how many pretty women, born to fulfil a better destiny, are mewed up in perpetual youth, within those dismal cloisters ! Here, too, were the convents of the ^^ Filles de VImmacultc Con- ception" — " de la St. Providence/' and finally *' les Filles de Bonne Volonte." It is the very re- gion of repentant lovers, of heart-sick maids, and all the friars and holy nuns of the romances. Towards the close of a summer's evening, one's fancy sees nothing here but visions and spectres. You will descend, in spite of your reason, with Madame Radcliffe, into the subter- ranean chambers of the convent, and into the solitary prisons, where you will see poor Elena and her iron table, her dead lantern, her black bread, her cruche of water, and her crucifix : FAUBOURG ST. MARCEAU. 301 and you will see the wretch Schedoni bare the bosom of the sleeping maid, hanging over the dao-crer. It is his own miniature ! — his own daughter ! And then you will walk through the long row of silent monks and smoky tapers, in the funeral of a broken-hearted sister, the sullen bell of the chapel giving news that a soul has fled. The even in 2: was still and solemn : and the sun just descending on your side of the globe ; and lured by the novelty of the place, I travelled slowly onwards through a narrow lane to the Faubourg St. Marceau. This street is different from all that I have seen in Paris ,* it is perhaps different from any- thing that is to be seen upon the earth. The houses are so immensely high that not a ray even in the brightest mid-day reaches the pave- ment, which is covered with a slimy mud. The darkened and grated windows give to the houses, the look of so many prisons. A chilling damp and horrid gloom invest you around ; you feel stifled for want of air. Now and then, the whine of a dog, or the wailing of a beggar, in- terrupts the silence, and sometimes a sister of charity, wrapped in her hood and mantle, passes 302 GLOOMY STREET. quick from one house to another. I went out of this street wiUingly, as it was growing more horrible by the coming night, into the purer atmosphere of the Seine. And thus ended my adventures for tl^e day. END OF VOL. I. T. C, Savill, Printer, 107, St. Martin's Lane. THE AMERICAN J IX PARIS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1838. LONDON : PRINTED BY STEWART AND MVRRAY, OLD BAII.EY. CONTENTS. LETTER XII. Mass at St. Roch for Admiral de Rigny. — The Abbe La- cordaire at Notre Dame. — State of the French Church. — St. Genevieve. — St. Etienne du Mont. — The Ameri- can child at Prayers. — St. Medard. — Its Miracles. — Chapelle de St. Nicholas. — The Madelaine. — Notre Dame. — St. Denis. — St. Sulpice. — The Church Service. — Celibacy of the Clergy. — American Churches. — Man- ner of keeping Sunday p. 1 — 30 LETTER XIII. Pbre la Chaise.— Funeral of Bellini. — Grave-Merchants. — Description of the Cemetery. — Graves of the Rich and the Poor. — The Fete des Morts. — Tomb of Abelard and Heloise. — Remarkable personages buried there. — The IV COJfTENTS. Aristocracy of the Grave. — Monument of Foy. — Inscrip- tion. — Graveyards in Cities and Towns. — French regu- lations for the inhumation of the dead . . p. 31 — 71 LETTER XIV. The Louvre. — Patronage of the Fine Arts. — The Luxem- bourg. — The Palais des Beaux Arts. — The Sevres Por- celain. — The Gobelins. — Manners of the common People in Paris. — A fair Cicerone. — Her remarks on Painting. — The French, Flemish, and Italian Schools. — English Patronage of Art. — The New National Gallery. — Sir Christopher Wren. — A tender Adieu . . p. 72 — 98 LETTER XV. The Schools. — State of Literature. — Minister of Public Instruction. — Education in France. — Prussian System. — Parochial Schools. — Normal Schools. — Institutions of Paris. — Public Libraries. — Machinery of French Justice. — The Judges. — Eloquence of the Bar. — Medicine. — Corporations of Learning. — Their Evils. — The French Institute. — Pretended New System of Instruction. — Professors of Paris p. 99 — 138 LETTER XVI. Ladies' Boarding Schools. — Names of Professors in the Prospectus. — System of Education. — American Schools. — Preference for Science. — High Intellectual Acquire- CONTENTS. V ments not approved. — Learned Women. — American Girls. — Comparison of French and American Society. — The care to preserve Female Beauty. — Expression of the Mouth. — Dress of American Women. — Notions of the Maternal Character. — Studies in Ladies' Schools. — Literary Associations. — Societe Geographique. — French Lady Authors. — Living Writers. — Chateaubriand — Beranger — Lamartine — "\'ictor Hugo — Casimir de la Vigne — Alfred de ^^igny — Guizot — Thiers — Thierry Segur — Lacretelle — Sismondi .... p. 139 — 163 LETTER XVII. The Theatres. — Mademoiselle Mars. — Theatre Royal. — Italien. — Grisi. — Academie Royal de Musique. — Tag- lioni. — Miss Fanny Elsler. — The Varietes. — The Odeon. — Mademoiselle George. — Hamlet. — Republi- can Spirit of the Age. — Character of the French Stage. — Machinery of the Drama. — Tlie Claqueurs. — Supply of New Pieces. — The Vaudevillists. — M. Scribe. — The Diorama. — Concerts. — Music. ... p. 164 — 187 LETTER XVIII. Parisian habits. — The Chaussee d'Ajitin. — Season of Bon- bons. — Jour de I'An. — Commencement of the Season. — The Carnival. — Reception at the Tuileries. — Lad^ Gran- ville. — The Ptoyal Family. — Court Ceremonies. — Ball at the Hotel de ^"ille. — French Beauty. — A Bal de VI CONTENTS. Charite. — Lord Canterbury. — Bulwer. — Sir Sydney Smith.— The Court Balls.— Splendid Scene.— The Prin- cess Amelia. — Comparison between Country and City Life p. 188—210 LETTER XIX. Execution of Fieschi. — The French House of Commons. — French Eloquence. — Thiers. — Guizot. — Berryer. — Abuse of America. — The Chamber of Peers. — Interior of the Madelaine. — Bribery. — False Oaths. — The Middle Classes. — America and England. — Opinions of Ame- rica. — English Travellers in America. — Mrs. Trollope. — Captain Basil Hall. — Miss Fanny Kemble. — Test of good breeding in America. — American feelings towards England. — Their mutual Interests . . p. 211 — 234 LETTER XX. The Dancmg Fever. — The Grand Masquerade. — Fooleries of the Carnival. — Mardi Gras. — Splendid Equipages. — Masquerades. — An Adventure. — Educated Women. — The Menus-Plaisirs. — A Fancy Ball. — Porte St. Martiru — The Masked Balls. — Descente de la Courtille. — End of the Carnival. — Birth-Day of Washington p. 235 — 252 LETTER XXL Evening Parties at the Duchess d'Abrantes. — Mode of Admission. — The Weather. — Suicides. — Madame le CONTENTS. Vll Norman the Sibyl. — Parisian Reunions. — Manners of Frenchwomen. — American Soirees. — Furniture. — Hints on Etiquette. — Manners in Parisian High Life. — Con- versation. — Dress. — Qualifications for an Exquisite. — Smoking.— Rules for Dinner .... p. 253—283 LETTER XXII. The Lap-Dog. — The Dame Blanche. — The Beauty in a Gallery, — The Lingere. — Madame Frederic. — Fete de Longchamps. — Parisian Fashions. — Holy Concerts. — Pretty Women. — Empire of Fashion. — Reign of Beauty. —The Fashionable Lady p. 284—303 LETTER XXIII. Return of Spring. — A New Venus. — The Artesian Well. — 3Iontmartre. — Donjon of Vincennes. — St. Ouen. — St. Germain. — The Pretender. — Machine de Marli. — Ver- sailles. — The Water-works. — The Swiss Garden. — Trianon. — Races at Chantilly. — Stables of the Great Conde. — Lodgings in a French Village. — A Domestic Occurrence. — The Boots. — The Alarm. — The Bugs. — Extract from Pepys. — Delights of Chantilly .-^Unlucky Days. — Solitude in a Crowd. — ;The Cure. — The King's Birth-day.— The Concert.— Tlie Fire-works.— The Illu- minations. — The Buffoons. — Punch. — The Eating De- partment.— The Mat de Cocagne ... p. 304—340 THE AMERICAN IN PARIS. LETTER XII. Mass at St. Roch for Admiral de Rigny. — The Abbe La- cordaire at Notre Dame. — State of the French Church. — St. Genevieve. — St. Etienne du Mont. — The Ameri- can child at Prayers. — St. Medard. — Its Miracles. — Chapelle de St. Nicholas. — The Madelaine. — Notre Dame. — St. Denis. — St. Sulpice. — The Church Service. — Celibacy of the Clergy. — American Churches. — Man- ner of keeping Sunday. Paris, November 14th, 1835. I ATTENDED yesterday amass said at St.Roch's for the soul of the Admiral de Rigny, who was famous, you know, for much fighting at sea and land, especially at Navarino, and for much talk- ing^ in the Chamber of Peers about the American Indemnity. He was never chary about dying, he said, but he thought it unlucky to be snatched away just when he was wanted to chastise ^' Old VOL. II. B -6 FRENCH ORATORY. Hickory" for his impudent Message. By-tlie- bye, all the world is talking of war here by the hour, with great fluency and ignorance. News- papers and conversation are full of abuse. They send out privateers by five hundreds, and take our ships as kites catch chickens. Worst of all, they don't leave an American alive, and they kill us all off without losing a man. — The Ad- miral's hearse was rich with the spoils of van- quished enemies, and was escorted by ten thou- sand French heroes to Pere la Chaise, with thrilling music from all the military bands, and with a pomp and circumstance suitable to the dignity of so great a personage. I went this morning with every body to Notre Dame, to hear the celebrated Abbe Lacordaire preach. He was too eloquent ! Oratory in this country, at least in the pulpit, has her trumpet always at full blast, and announces the smallest little news with the emphasis of a miracle. Her tiethod is to run up to the top of the voice and tnen pour out her whole spirit, as your Metho- dists on Guinea Hill, until human nature is exhausted, and then to take a drink and begin again. I will set you a French sermon, if you please, to the gamut, and you may play it on the piano. STATE OF RELIGION. J You must know, that the Parisian young men having; aained orreat credit at the last Revolu- tion, (and they were not oppressed with modesty before that event,) now give the tone to society. The device of the nation is " Young France." It is young France that measures merit and deals out reputation ; so it is not strange that they should set up this Abbe for a Bossuet or a Bourdaloue ; any more than that an eye un- practised in painting should set up a tawdry piece of daubing above the chaste and excel- lent compositions of genius. It is true, there is not a class of young men in any country more earnest in the pursuit of letters, than these French ; but youth is not the age of good taste, and is not the age that ought to govern public sentiment in any department of life. In old France, the church being rich and honourable, was filled by persons well educated and retined by good society. For a long time, there has been no permanent public esteem to encourage talent among the clergy, or restrain them from vices deo:radino; to their order. Re- ligion, which had nearly perished in the Revolu- tion, had but a feeble health under the Empire ; and Louis XVIII. and Charles so favoured the priesthood, especially the Jesuits, and at the B 2 4 THE ROYAL FAMILY ATTEND CHURCH. same time so mis-governed the nation, that they had ao-ain brought it to its last crasp at the accession of Louis Philippe. There was a time when even admission to the Duchess de Berri's balls required one to go to the commu- nion and take the sacrament. The present king has fallen in with the popular sentiment, and is gradually changing this sentiment to the side of the clergy, showing in this, as in most things else, the ability of a good statesman. He sends his own family to church, and it beo^ins to be fashionable to be seen there. Not indeed from any reverence for religion. Things venerable in this country have had their day, and, as far as religion is concerned, the bump of veneration is worn out of the human skull. But the world rushes to Notre Dame in the morning, and to the Opera in the evening, and to both, for the same purpose; for the crowd, for the music and dramatic effect, for the emotion, for the fashion. I had a student with me this morning ; a young gentleman, who has just made his debut in the world of beards, and judging from his conversation, it would take a fifty-parson power at least to get him to heaven ; but he was enthusiastic in ad- NOTRE DAME. O miration of the sermon. Let the Abbe Lacor- daire preach when he will, Xotre Dame is mobbed with worshippers. I believe I shall take advantage of my un- usual seriousness, as it is Sunday, to tell you all I know about such divine things as French churches. Almost every saint in the Almanack has acquired the honours of at least one. There are forty-five of Roman, one of Greek, and two of Independent French Catholics ; and the churches for Protestant service, are three French, and two English, besides a svna2;02:ue ; and there are several places of worship in private houses and palaces. All the Catholic churches are decorated with the most costly furniture ; with saints, virgins, and angels in statuary and painting by the best masters. Why, the gold and silver expended in this old church of IVotre Dame upon Virgin Mark's alone, would make a railroad to the Havre. One of the most beautiful of these churches and my next neighbour too, is St. Genevieve, now called the Pantheon, once the " abode of Gods whose shrines no longer burn." It is now the national sepulchre for great men. It 6 ST. GENEVIEVE. is two hundred and fifty feet high, and overtops majestically all Paris. It was designed to rival the Great St. Paul's of London. On one of the cupolas of the dome, which is surrounded by a colonnade of Corinthian pillars, is painted the apotheosis of St. Genevieve. Her saintship is in the costume of a shepherdess, breathing all peace, all happiness, all immor- tality. Nothing of earth is in her composition. Beside her, is Louis XVIIL and Uttle winged angels. They are very busy — the angels — in scattering flowers about the saint. Above her, is Louis XVL and his queen, as elegant as she was upon the threshold of Versailles, and Louis XVn. all surrounded by celestial glory. Before her, are the persons the most illustrious of each race ; Clovis, who looks very savage ; St. Clo- tilde, very pretty ; Charlemagne, very heroic ; and St. Louis and Queen Margarite who look very pious. They are now effacing these figures for something more suitable to the occasion. The floor of this temple, incrusted with vari- ous-coloured marble, is very remarkable, and very beautiful. It is exclusively occupied by Voltaire and Rousseau, at opposite extremities.* * Who would have thought that these two champions of Infidelity, who were refused Christian burial, would MODERN HEROES. / Why did they not lay them at the side of each other, that we might all learn how vain are the jealousies, the petty competitions and animosi- ties of men so soon to come to this appointed and unavoidable term of all human contentions. These are the only two who are buried above ground. It was once the custom of these old countries to multiply a man by burying him piecemeal, his heart at Rouen and his legs in Kent, because the world was then on short allowance of heroes ; but modern times have reversed this practice; and Bonaparte has laid up together a whole batch of them in the basement of this church, for eternity, as you lay up potatoes in your cellar for winter. Here are the names graven over- head in a catalogue, on the marble, of men famous for giving counsel to the Emperor (who never took any) in the senate, and of men who gained a great deal of celebrity by having their brains knocked out on the fields of Austerlitz and INIarengo. When Marat was deified by the Convention, one day, have assigned to their remains, the first church of France, and one of the first in Christendom, as their mausoleum. I wonder if Jean Jaques, in his prophetic visions, foresaw this? 8 A DEVOTIONAL SCENE. he was interred here in 1793, and in 1794 he was disinterred and undeified, and then thrown into his native element, the common sewer, in the Rue Montmartre — to purify him. I have often sat an hour in a beautiful Httle temple adjoining this, called St. Etiemie dii Mont. Its architecture is original and pretty, and it is rich in statuary and paintings. The pulpit is a splendid piece of workmanship, sup- ported by a figure of Samson kneeling upon a dead lion ; allegorical figures are hovering over, and an archangel, with two trumpets, is assem- bling the faithful. The painted glass, too, is brilliant with colours glowing as the rainbow. In a morning walk, I have often found an excuse for returning this way. A few persons, mostly women, are seen kneelino; through the church, upon the marble, before the altar, silently — you hear but the little whispering prayers fluttering towards Heaven — the tranquillity of early morn- ing is so favourable to devotion. It feels like giving to Heaven the first offerings of one's heart. I have often sat here on the fine summer evenings, too, when the twilight shed its gray and glimmering rays through the windows upon the statues of the venerable saints and martyrs, .J ' and listened to the voices as they swelled in the THE PRAYER OF INFANCY. y sacred anthem, and then fell, with the departing day, into silence. It seemed to me the very romance of rehgion. One feels more the in- fluence of such feelings when wandering alone in a foreign country. In visiting a boarding-school of this quarter? a few days ago, I entered a room where the children were praying before retiring to bed ; I observed one with his hands clasped, and pour- ing out his little soul with the fervency of a saint — an American child, of eight years, from New York — T took him in my arms at the end of his prayer, saying : " Voiis aimez done Men, h bon DieaV — '* Ahl oui/' he replied, with a most eloquent expression, '' on aime bien le bon Dieu quand on est loin de ses parens." — It is so natural to lay hold of heaven, when cut off from one's home and earthly affections. If I had the amiable society of your " Two Hills," and the other comforts and consolations of the village, I should not be hovering so piously about this little church of St. Etienne du Mont. The great Pascal, in spite of the Jesuits' noses, is buried here ; and an old tower, in the neighbourhood, recals the memory of the re- nowned Abbey of St. Genevieve. I have visit- ed, several times, the library of this institu- 10 MODERN MIRACLES. tion, and paid my respects to its one hundred and fifty thousand volumes, and thirty thousand manuscripts. This, like all the other places of Paris, where they keep books, is filled con- stantly with readers, and, like every other insti- tution of the kind, is open gratuitously to the public. I spoke of Val de Grace in my last letter. A little to the east of it, and of not less historical importance, is the church of St. Medard ; to which I stretched, also, one of my solitary walks, and took a seat among the worshippers. Faint hymns, chanted at a distance, as the still even- ing comes on, have lured many a wandering sinner from the wickedness of the world. This is the church 'so famous for its miracles, called the ** convulsions,'' which once filled the whole city with alarm ; and were not discontinued, until the archbishop had placed a strong mili- tary guard around the tomb of father Paris. You know the placard put up by some wag on this occasion : " De par le roi, defense a Dieu, De fairs miracle en ce lieu." The young girls used to have fits at this tomb, which gave them comical twitchings of EFFECTS OF SUPERSTITION. 11 the nerves. Some would bark all night long at the door of their chambers, and others leap about like frogs all day. Sister Rose supped the air with a spoon, as your babies do pap, and lived on it forty days ; another swallowed a New Testament, bound in calf. Some had them- selves hung, others crucified, and one, called Sister Rachel, when nailed to a cross, said she was quite happy — ** qu'elle faisait dodo." In their holy meetings, they beat, trampled, punc- tured, crucified, and burnt one another, without the least sentiment of pain. All this was done at St. Medard, under Louis XV., and attested by ten thousand witnesses. Large packages of the earth were exported to work miracles, in the provinces and foreign countries. One of these miracles is told in a song of the Duchesse de Maine. " Un decrotteur a la royale, Du talon gauche estropie, Obtint par grace special e, D'etre boiteux de I'autre pied." Some of these fanatics were found, forty years afterwards, in the dungeons of the Bastile, at its destruction in 1789. There is one point in religion, in which there 12 ENCHANTING MUSIC. are no heretics out of Scotland — the music. The choir of voices, which assisted the organs in this church, seemed to be almost divine. One feminine voice, singing occasionally alone, had all the powers of enchantment ; swelHng sometimes into a strain of almost religious frenzy, and then melting softly away till there was nothing between it and silence; and just in front of me, and in full view, sat a handsome woman, wrapped entirely in her devotional enjoy- ments, who seemed placed there expressly to give effect to the music ; her shoulders, arms, and features, all moved in exact unison with its harmony. I wish you could have seen her beautiful countenance as she presented it to the firmament; her sainted smile which beamed out and waned away upon her lips ; the devout expression of her eyes, how illuminated as the music rose, how languishing in its dying notes ; how she expired, and then came to life again ! I do not hope to see again on the earth a more vivid picture of religious rapture. Devotion, 1 believe, exalts a woman's beauty to its highest perfection ; there is no picture so beautiful as the Madonna, and, if I were a woman, I would be religious, if for no other motive, just from vanity. No one doubts that HOLY RELICS. 13 the human countenance is modified by the feel- ings cherished in the heart, and she who che- rishes the mild and benevolent Christian affec- tions, cannot be otherwise than very pretty. If there are any ugly women in the world, it is be- cause they have not been brought up religiously. I sat thinking all this over, till night came on, and I felt one or two of sister Rose's twitch- ings. I am going to tell you next of the Chapelle de St. Nicholas ; which you will find intrenched under the Palais de Justice. This is the " Sainte Chapelle,'' made famous by the Lutrin of Boileau. It is the most classical, as well as the most holy of the churches of Paris. It was built by St. Louis. It was here he stowed away the relics he brought from the Holy Land. The " real crown " was one of them, which he bought for eighty thousand dollars, and which, walking barefooted, and bareheaded, and pre- ceded by all the prelates and dignitaries of the kingdom, in solemn procession, he deposited in this shrine. There were, besides, Moses' rod and a great many other such miracles, which the Emperor of Constantinople manufactured, they say, expressly for his use. And, also, a great variety of presents from popes, cardinals. 14 SEPULCHRE OF BOILEAU. and other holy men, of less equivocal value. A light was burnt here, as in the Temple of Vesta, and a priest waked and watched over them at all hours of the night. They are now — what remains from the sacrilegious and pilfer- ing fingers of the Revolution — in the sacristy of Notre Dame ; and their place is supplied by old musty records of the Palais de Justice ; law- yers' declarations, and nasty crim. con. cases — even to the receipt of the Marchioness de Brin- villiers for making the poison she tried so effectually upon her father, husband, and bro- ther. Boileau is buried in this chapel, made immortal by his verses. For architectural effect, the Madelaine has an unquestionable superiority over all the churches of Paris. It has the advantage of a very fa- vourable site; terminating with one flank, the view from the Boulevards, and fronting the Rue Rovale, and Place Louis XV. It is mounted on a basement of eight feet, ascended on its entire perimeter by thirty steps. It is a parallelogram of three hundred and twenty-six, by one hundred and thirty feet, surrounded in double peristyle, by fifty-two Corinthian co- lumns sixty feet high. On the south pediment, is represented in bas-relief, the Day of Judg- THE MADELAINE. 15 ment; the figures of sixteen feet. In the mid- dle is Christ, and at his feet Madelaine, a sup- phant. The rest of the oroup, is of angels, and alleg^orical vices and virtues ; coverino; a trian- ovular surface of one hundred and eighteen feet in length, and twenty- two in height. The interior is a rich and variegated picture. The eye is dazzled at the glittering aspect of its gilding and fanciful decorations ; its Ionic and Corinthian pillars. On each flank are three chapels to be adorned with painting, and at the extremity is the choir in the shape of a demi- cylinder, with Ionic pilasters which extend along the two aisles. It was begun in the year of our Independence; it was the ^'Temple of Glory " in the Revolution, and has got back to its relioious destination. It has neither dome nor spire, nor any of the usual emblems of a Christian church, except the sculpture ; so that in the event of another Revolution, it may be converted into an Exchange or Bank, or the temple of some Pagan divinity, or a Mosque, without much expense of alteration. The good lady, Notre Dame, is the largest of the Parisian churches. The adjoining houses squat down in her presence and seem to worship her ; and she is not only admirable for her beauty and 16 INTERIOR or NOTRE DAME. richness, but for her sense. She has the history of eight centuries in her nave. She has the whole of the Old and New Testament in pic- tures on her walls, or in groups of statuary, in her chapels. When you sit down under the arched vaults, one hundred and twenty feet over your head, and amidst these massive columns, you see flitting about your imagination, such personages as Queen Fredegonda; or if you please, you can see the pretty Marchioness de Gourville confessing, instead of her sins, her tender loves for the Archbishop of Paris. You can live back into those times wHen Henry IV. was d d, and Ravaillac, being anointed and prayed over, in bad Latin, went to heaven. The light is let in upon her dread abodes by one hundred and thirteen windows, each bor- dered with a band of painted glass. There are three circular ones painted in the thirteenth cen- tury which are not matched, for the delicacy of the stone-work, and brilliancy of the colours, by any thing of modern art. The choir is paved with precious marble, and enclosed by a railing of polished iron; in the centre of it, is an eagle in gilt brass seven feet high, and three and a half from wing to wing, which serves as a reading desk. Its wainscot- THE FAMOUS OLD BELL. 17 ing is sculptured with scriptural pieces, and a great many sins in the shape of toads and lizards are carved upon it. It terminates near the sanctuary with two archiepiscopal chairs of great beauty. The other day, in chmbing up through one of the towers, froai which there is a splendid panoramic vie^v of the city, two hundred and four feet in the air, I fell in with that famous old bell, Emanuel, whose clapper alone weighs nine hundred and seventy-six pounds. Clappers of this kind do not speak on ordinary occasions. This one announces in a very hoarse and solemn voice, only the approach of some great festival, or an extraordinary event. On July 27th, five years ago, it pealed at midnight, and all night long, the awful tocsin of revolt; and upon these two tow^ers, the tricoloured fla^ floated triumph- ant on the 29th. It was to this church that the world used to come in their g-ala dresses to thank Providence for all those victories which are carved on the great triumphal column ; every time a bulletin came in from Italy and Germany announcing the event, and when a new prince ascended the throne. They came here to thank God for Louis XVIII. then for Charles, and then for 18 THE FASHIONABLE CHURCH. Louis Philippe. Providence is always sure of its thanks in this church, whichever side is uppermost. In Paris, the meanest hovels are striving which shall be nearest the church. Notre Dame is a venerable and noble lady, with a brood of filthy and ragged children about her. We have the same ungracious image often in America. In Philadelphia, there is but a step from St. Stephens' to the Stews. This is chiefly caused by the vicinity of grave yards ; a senseless arrangement, which has happily grown out of fashion in this country. It is deplorable that we should patronize every silly practice that Europe is shaking off. The fashionable church, of all the churches, is St. Roch's, of which I have spoken in a former letter. To this, the old lady queen, and the little queenies, and all the prettiest women of Paris, come to be blessed every Sunday. A fine woman is a hymn to the Deity, said some old philosopher. If you wish to see a great number of these hymns, praising most eloquently the workmanship of their divine Author, come to St. Roch's about twelve. A priest told me there was more merit in saving a pretty woman than an ugly one, on account of CATHEDRAL OF ST. DENIS. 19 the enormity of her temptations ; an ugly one goes to heaven of herself. The skill of the musician makes the only distinction between the hallelujahs of St. Roch's, and the addios of the Italien. While on the chapter of churches, I must not forget the Cathedral of St. Denis, a few miles out of town, the burial place of the French kingrs. The villa2:e, which was built on ac- count of the church, and its monastery, and the number of pilgrims that resorted there, is now as filthy and stupid as suburban villages always are. About ten thousand persons are doing penance by living there ; enough to take them to heaven without any other effort. In 1436 it was taken and rifled by the English, who frightened the nuns desperately, and carried off their most precious things. A bit of the iron crrate or gridiron on which St. Francis was burnt, and the prophet Isaiah's bones, with not a few of the little nuns themselves, were amongst the articles stolen. The cathedral is gothic and magnificent. On the first floor, you will see the tomb of Dagobert, the founder ; a splendid mausoleum of Francis I., in white marble, and opposite, the tomb of Louis XII., surmounted by the naked figures of the king and his con 20 DESTRUCTION OF THE CEMETERY. sort in a recumbent posture, and the tomb of Henry de Valois, with the images of Henry IL, and Queen Catharine de JNIedicis. In the centre of the basement, is a vault of octagonal shape, which contains the ashes of the monarchs all in a lump. " Dead but sceptered sovereigns, Who rule our spirits in their urns." These verses have lost their meaning : but the little urn saith " more than a thousand homi- lies." Around the circumference are cenotaphs, upon which the several kings repose in marble at the side of their marble wives. Two un- anointed men were admitted amongst them ; Duguesclin and Turenne. Bonaparte removed thelatter to the Invalids, and Duguesclin waslost entirely in the Revolution. The convention is- sued a decree for the total destruction of this royal cemetery in 1793. The first graves examined were those of Henry IV., and Marshal Turenne. Both these heroes were as fresh, as the day they were killed, while all those who had died in the natural way, were in a state of dissolution. The kings were transferred to a vulgar grave, with the grass only of the field for a monument; REPAIRED BY LOUIS XVII. 21 the ghosts of the mighty Bourbons were turned loose to range upon the commons : the lead too was stripped from the cathedral to shoot the enemies of the Republic. The church was re- paired by Xapoleon, who destined it to be the burial place of *' the Emperors." Diisaliter visum. Fortune provided him a much more remarkable grave. Future ages will no doubt go on a pil- grimage to St. Helena ; here he would have mingled with the rabble dust of the French kinoes. The farther reparation of the church was re- served for the piety of Louis XVIII. I walked out to St. Denis as the saint did once himself, except that he carried his head under his arm. Returning home, as I was no saint, I o-ot into a coucoii at the side of some queer old peasant women and heard their conversation. I am sorry the dignity of my subject does not allow me to report it to you in this letter. Many others of these churches seem to me very entertaining, but I must postpone them to another time; with only a respectful look upon the great St. Sulpice in front of my window, whose huge towers are staring me reproachfully in the face ; and I must say a word in parting with the subject of the Chapelle Expiatoire of the 22 THE CHAPELLE EXPIATOIRE. Madelaine. This chapel is placed over the ground in which reposed for twenty-two years the bodies of Louis XVI., and Marie Antoinette. The interior is in form of a cross. In the centre, is the altar, exactly over the spot in which the royal bodies were found, and in he lateral branches are their statues. The entrance through an alley of yew trees, sycamores and cypresses, gives it the air and solemnity of an antique tomb. It is the most mournful spot of all Paris. On the Sunday mornings, mass is said here with great solemnity; and early every day you will see a few persons kneeling in silent worship by the altar, or in solitary corners through the church. The duties of the Catholic churches are ad- ministered by an Archbishop with an annual salary of 5,000 dollars ; three vicars general, 800 dollars, and between two and three hun- dred priests at 300 dollars each. The grand Rabbin has 1200 ; the little Rabbins from one to four hundred, and a protestant clergyman has from two to six hundred dollars. So you see, the French patronize all sorts of religions, and Moses and St. Peter come in alike for their share of the church funds. But what a change of circumstances! The church revenue of France CHURCH CEREMONIES. 23 was, before the Revolution, twenty-seven millions of dollars ; at present it is six millions. The clergy of old France exceeded four hundred thou- sand; of young France," they are rated at thirty thousand ! In the service of a French Catholic church, there are officers in a military costume ; there are processions and pageantry, and loud and impassioned music. Every thing is prepared for vehement impressions, for theatric effect. I should like a religion intermediate between this Catholic vivacity and our Presbyterian dulness. Whoever believes that any association of men can be held together without forms and cere- monies has much yet to learn of the nature of his species, and whoever would dispense with even the forms which are ridiculous in society, would be himself the most ridiculous man in it. Still, some regard is to be had in this to the popular sentiment and spirit of the age. There is certainly much absurd and trumpery ceremony kept up in this church, designed for- merly for a mass of ignorant people, when the general sense of the world and the infidel pro- pensities of the French have got far a-head of it. That Louis XVIII. should go all the way to Rheims and be greased with some drops saved 24 AGE OF BIGOTRY GONE BY. from the Jacobins, of that same oil or '* holy cream" brought by a dove from heaven to anoint king Pepin, was presuming too far upon the stupidity of the times. Surely the age of such nonsense and bigotry has gone by. The elevating the host and processions through the church, are neither solemn nor dignified, and what position has so little dignity as that of the priest kneeling at the sltar, with a little boy holding up the tail of his surplice in the face of the congregation? In these times of popular education, every body reads and reasons, and general learning, by cheap publications, is brought within every one's reach. The common man, who is fed by twopenny knowledge, is almost as learned upon common affairs, as the gentleman who feasts upon his guinea a volume ; so that a ceremony that was very solemn in the last age, may be very notable for its absurdity in this. Not half a century ago, a doctor of medicine did not visit a patient in this city unless his head was first wrapped in a huge wig — perruque a trois mari- eaux ; and if he forgot his cane with the golden head he turned back for it, though his patient in the mean time should die. A ring too, with a diamond on his finger, and laced ruffles, were CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 25 indispensable to his practice. In condemning this Catholic flnmmerv, I do not ojo into the opposite Presbyterian extreme, and proscribe what is lational and sensible, the music, the painting^s, and statuary. There is no more occa- sion in these times to take measures against idolatry than ao-ainst witchcraft ; and why de- prive our churches of what gratifies the senses innocently, excites devotional feelings, and im- proves the taste and understanding ? But to keep a religion now in favour with the world, requires unexceptionable virtue on the part of those who administer its duties ; and the celibacy of the priesthood seems to me directly adverse to such a requirement. It is not likely, that human nature will be controlled in one of her strongest impulses with impunity. When I see these rosy and smart looking priests, who haunt the churches, and reflect uppn the pen- chant of the women for holy men, I cannot help wishing, for the sake of the catholic re- ligion, that they were married. I would not %o bail for any one of them under the merit of St, Anthony. The intrigues and libertinism of the French and Italian clergy are matters of authentic history. There was a time when a cardinal's VOL II. c 26 AMERICAN CHURCHES. hat depended on the patronage of the candidate's mistresses. The Cardinals de Retz, Ri;:helieu, Mazarin and Dubois were the notorious roues of the day. I see here every where a set of jovial-looking monks, with their caps over the right eye, who would drink your health in the sacristy. Besides, when the cares of men are limited to themselves, they lose some of the best qualities of the human heart; they become selfish. I never knew an old maid, a bachelor, or even a married woman without children, who was not an insupportable egoist, unless the affections nourished by matrimony were supplied from other sources ; and the concern men have for their children brings out their religious as well as their social qualities into continual exer- cise. Not only the strongest defence against immorality, but the foundation of every public virtue is laid in the domestic affections. The Athenians would not allow any one to vote who had not a child ; if I were pope, I would not permit any one to preach who had not a wife, and I would take one myself to set them the good example. I am sorry the interior arrangements of our American churches, both cathoHc and protestant, are so opposed to architectural beauty. The THE ADVANTAGES OF PEWS. 27 pew has an air of habitation ; it has the com- fort, it has the sacredness of home. FamiUes, accustomed to see each other, the year round, grow into acquaintance ; and, even without the intercourse of words, experience the joy of a friendly meeting. The humble man, also, has the satisfaction, one day in seven, of seeing himself in company with those of better fortunes, on something like terms of equality. When one gets the apostles and all the saints on one's side, one rises almost to the dignity of any body. A great man, too, can, in a church, associate a little with his inferiors without compromising his importance : all which is lost in this random and desultory way of sitting about upon chairs, as in the French churches. A great evil of our American churches is, their great respectability, or exclusiveness. Here, being of a large size, and paid by government, the church is open to all the citizens, with an equal right and equal chance of accommodation. In ours, the dearness of pew-rent, especially in the Episcopal and Presbyterian, turns poverty out of doors. Poor people have a sense of shame ; and I know many a one who, because he cannot go to church decently, will not go at all. This is an evil we must bear, to avoid the c 2 28 RELIGIOUS OPINIO^'S. greater one of a church estabhshment. We suffer disadvantages, also, from want of religi- ous uniformity. A thin settled community, which is just able to support one clergyman, starves three or four, or dispenses altogether with their services. A first-rate Methodist w^ould rather not go to church at all, than take part m the litany ; and what good Presbyterian would not rather be d — d, ten times over, than be seen at a mass ? In a diversity of sects, also, we are given to dogmatise too much, and define articles of faith; to follow the letter rather than the spirit of religion. The French catholic be- lieves (if he believes any thing) in the power of absolution, in the real presence, and in the infal- libility of the pope; without inquiry into the absurdity of such belief, we dogmatise and doubt and reason ourselves into infidelity; and, though we can see no essential difference in the prayers and sermons of our different clergymen, we cling to our own, as indispensable to our salvation. Our clergy, too, of the same denomination, are often falling into schisms, in v.hich they too often show jealousy, malice, and other bad passions, which brings religion itself into dis- repute. Are these things worse than the abuses OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 29 and corruptions of undivided church establish- ments? The manner of keeping Sunday is a subject of general censure amongst our American visi- tors at Paris. There is no visible difference between this day and the others, except that the gardens and public walks, the churches in the morning, and the ball-rooms and theatres in the evening, are more than usually crowded. In London, the bells toll on the Sunday most solemnly ; the theatres and dancing rooms are silent, and all the shops (but the gin-shop) shut; yet the poor get drunk, and the equipages of the gentry parade their magnificence in Hyde Park, of a Sunday afternoon. " How do you spend your Sundays,'* said a Frenchman, condoling with another, " in Ame- rica?" He replied : ^' Monsieur, je prends mtde- cine." A Frenchman has a tormentins: load of animal spirits that cannot live without employ- ment : he has no idea of happiness in a calm; and it is not likely that he will remain etuli- manche chez-lui during the twelve hours of the day, or that his Sunday evenings would be better employed than in the theatre and ball- room. This is my opinion ; but 1 have great doubts 30 FRE^•CH MODE OF KEEPING SUNDAY, whether a man ought to have an opinion of his own, when it does not correspond with that of others, who are notoriously wiser than himself. I cannot easily persuade myself, that nature has intended the whole of this life to be ^iven up to a preparation for the next, else had she not given us all these means of enjoyment, all these "delicacies of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits and flowers, walks and the melody of birds." — Now this is enough about French churches. PERE LA CHAISE. 31 LETTER XIII. P^re la Chaise. — Funeral of Bellini. — Grave-Merchants. Description of the Cemetery. — Graves of the Rich and the Poor. — The Fete des Morts. — Tomb of Ahelardand Heloise. — Remarkable personages buried there. — The Aristocracy of the Grave. — Monument of Foy. — In- scription. — Grave yards in Cities and Towns. — French regulations for the inhumation of the dead, Paris, October 29th, 1835. I TOOK advantage of a beautiful day, which peeped out yesterday, to pay my respects to Pere la Chaise, and I am going to give you some account of this celebrated city of the dead. But what can I say ? I feel scarce wit enough to talk about the weather, and I am going to tell you of that which all the world has described so beautifully. I know not the reason, but I have even less sense and imagina- tion than usual, since I am in Paris. If it were not for Madame de Sevigne, and a few 32 FUNERAL OF BELLI>^I. Other such characters, I would lay the blame upon the heavy, unthinking and hazy influences of these northern climates. I followed the funeral of BeUini, the composer, author of Pirati, Puritani, and other first-rate operas. Is it not a pity to die with so much talent at twenty-nine, when so many fools live out their four-score? I do not recollect any thing that old Methusaleh said or did, with his nine hun- dred years ; and he could not have made such an opera as Puritani, if he had lived as niany more. He was accompanied (Bellini, I mean) by the music of all Paris ; and the music of the spheres must have played, this day, a sweeter harmony. The mass of Cherubini, so appropriate to the occasion, and so much better than the arch- bishop's prayers, was forbidden by the arch- bishop, because it had feminine voices in it ; and his worship would not have the chapel of the Invalids, all hung over so beautifully with bloody flags, profaned by musical women ; not even by the exquisite Grisi. So we had the 39th Psalm. Don't you think the spirit of the composer must have winced ? But the march, w4th full band, along the Boulevards for several miles, and the end of the ceremony TOMBS AT PERE LA CHAISE. 33 at Pere la Chaise, were imposing. Speeches were pronounced in Italian and French by good orators ; and, among the listeners, some of us were queens and princesses. The breezes whis- pered though the pines, and a thunder storm, as if expressly, came over the sun, and played bass in the clouds, and the clouds themselves wept as the grave closed upon Bellini. — I went to the Invalids, with a pretty English woman, one of his scholars, who wailed his loss incon- solably, and who, for certain, was in love with him. Women, you know, always fall in love with their music masters ; IMary Queen of Scots, and the orettv Mrs. Thrale into the baro-ain. This cemetery of Pere la Chaise, thirty years ago, had fourteen tombs ; it counts, in the pre- sent year, fifty thousand. Hundreds of archi- tects, and sculptors, and statuaries, besides mul- titudes of labourers, find here a new source of occupation, and improvement in the arts ; so that a goodly part of the present generation gets its living by the death of its predecessors. Here is a whole street of marble yards, which manufactures tombs for domestic and foreis;n commerce, near a mile long ; and mighty heaps of bronze, granite and marble, exquisitely chiselled, recommending themselves to the notice c 5 34 MERCHANDISE OF THE GRAVE. of the public. Tombstones, urns, bronze gates, iron railings, crosses, pillars, pyramids, statues and all the furnitureof the grave, are laid out, and exhibited here, as the merchandise of the shops and bazaars of the latest and newest fashions — *' Grand Magazin a la General Foy — a V Ahe- lard et Heloisey" kc. ; as in the city, " Grand Magazin du Doge de Venise," and by trying to under-bury one another, they have reduced funeral expenses in every branch to their mini- mum ; — there is, perhaps, no place in the world where one can die, and be buried so moderately, as in Paris. Here is one selling^ out at first cost, to close a concern ; and another's whole stock of tombs is brought to the hammer, by the death of the proprietor. These grave-merchants used to follow the funeral processions, in swarms, to the verge of the tomb, offering to the mourners bills and ad- vertisements, and specimens of their industry, but this emulation has been lately forbidden, by an order of police. These people have got, by professional habit, to think, like the philo- sophers, that the principal business of man, upon this earth, is to die. The staple of con- versation is, the grave ; and there is as much pedantry here about the dead people, as in the UNPROMISING STATE OF TEADE. 35 Latin Quarter there is about the dead languages. — *' When do you think you can pay me that bill of marble, M. Grigou ?" — '' Ah, sir ! business is very slack just now ; and the season, you see, is almost over. M. Barbeau, I have been twenty years in the trade, and never saw such times. It really seems as if people had left off dying. But, if business becomes brisk, as we expect, towards Christmas, I will pay you off then ; if not, you will have to wait till next August. When the cholera was here Helas ! I fear we shall never see such times again." — "Eh bien, patience, M. Grigou, we must hope for the best." They have here, too, a kind of Exchange^ where they meet to see the state of the market — to see the newest fashions or inventions of urns and crosses, and other sepulchral images, and to read over the bills of mortality, as else- where one reads the price current. The joy of a death is, of course, proportionate to the worth, fashion and distinction of the individual who has died. When General Mortier was killed, on the 28th, stock rose one and a quarter. — "Well ! what is there to-day ?" — " Nothing I— and gettino^ worse and worse ! — but what can one expect else under such a detestable govern- 36 GATE OF THE CEMETERY. ment ? You remember how it was under the Restoration. Then we had such persons as Marshal Suchet, and Madame Demidoff to bury ; now we bury nothing but the canaille. Even under Charles, we had some few nobles left, who could pav for a snug mausoleum ; but what is a French nobleman now? — a poor, half-cut gentleman, with a ribbon in his button- hole, which he calls a decoration, and without money to pay the grave digger or the sexton. Ah! M. Grigou, things must haVe a change !" The gate of the cemetery, which terminates the view at the end of this street, is surmounted by statuary, and is magnificent, like that of some preat prince. It is always besieged by equi- pages, and vehicles of every kind, of the visiters, who are coming and going at all hours— all ex- cept one — his equipage goes home empty ! Around this entrance is a srreat crowd of women, all over smiles, who offer you wreaths, chaplets, and crosses of orange blossom, ama- ranth, and other ever-green, very prettily inter- woven, and they get a living by this little trade. As you ascend the hill, you see groups of visiters, noisy and talkative, who on entering are suddenly silent, struck with the awfulness ^ VISIT TO THE TOMBS. 37 of the place. A kind of death-chill runs through the blood. But after a closer view the mind becomes serene, and even roams with a delightful curiosity amongst the tombs. Nearly all the ground is covered with small pines, and with fern, woodbines, and jessamines twisted into tufted thickets. There is quite a deficiency of cypress and willow, and hem- lock: the veoetation is o-enerallv stinted in its growth, and looks forlorn enough indeed. Monuments of brightest marble and exquisite sculpture dazzle the eye on all sides ; and there are smooth and gravelled walks, terraces, and flowery banks, paths winding along the hill- side, and little scenery of every variety ; and nature has borrowed so many ornaments from art, and wears them with so lively a grace, that one is disposed rather to admiration than to melancholy musings ; one would think that Hymen and Cupid and not Death walked through her hills and valleys. This city, like living cities, has its fashiona- ble and rabble districts ; its Broadways and Chestnut streets, its Southwark, and Northern Liberties. On the summits and flanks of all the hills, or apart, and half hidden in groves of pines, are mausoleums rich with Egyptian, 38 CHARACTER OF FRENCH INSCRIPTIONS. Grecian, and raodern luxury. It seems as if the dead, the business of Ufe being done, had retired here to their magnificent villas. Only think of your scraggy grave-yards of Philadelphia — enough to disgust one with dying. Distin- guished and learned dust is collected here from all nations, and virtues are puffed and adver- tised in all human languages. Whatever one may think of the French people alive, one can- not hope to meet any where a better set of dead people. Here are none but faithful hus- bands and incorruptible wives, and you would think it had rained patriots. As for great gene- rals, they seem to come up in the parsley-bed as they did in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Surely Pere la Chaise still exercises his office of abso- lution on these grounds. At the foot of the hill are immense multitudes of dead in a level and open field, assorted in rows, as the vegetables in the Garden of Plants. These are the working people of the other world. They have no shelter of marble, or of shrubbery, or of cypress ; no weeping willow hangs its branches upon the little hill of earth, but a small black board, shaped into a cross, and standing up prim at the head of each one, re- veals his humble name and merits. You see THE BURIAL PLACE OF THE JEWS. 39 the hearse arrive here with a few attendants on foot. A priest in an old rusty gown, a boy in a frock no longer white, and an officer under a cocked hat, attend. These form a little proces- sion from the hearse : the priest mutters an epitome of the service, and sprinkles the holy water upon the grave ; he, the grave-digger, and the driver betraying not the slightest emotion in the performance of these duties ; and the whole escort disappears suddenly and silently. Beyond this, is a field of a still humbler lot, where anything is buried ; this they call the Fosses communs. They who have no money, consequently no friends, are buried here. It is a yawning excavation, into which one cannot look without horror. The corpse is carried down a long stairway, and placed without dis- tinction of age or sex in a row alons^side the corpse which preceded it; and the name of the individual is no more heard — upon the earth. He was perhaps a suicide, or a victim of some accident or murder, a stranger without a friend, or a labourer without a home. No priest attends here. — One other piece of earth, retired from the rest, has a special designation. It is the only religious distinction of the cemetery ; the burial place of the Jews. " Beneath her palm, here sad Judea weeps." 40 FUNERALS OF THE I?ICH. The graves of the rich are mostly held in perpetuity ; those of the poor are disposable anew at the end of every six years ; the first lessee having always the right of pre-emption. There is a chapel on the highest spot of the cemetery, and from its threshold the priest has a naked view of all Paris. He has spread out before him his whole stock in trade, and sees his customers winding up the hill; of which every, day furnishes him its contingent. If for the district of the poor, he performs the service, as I have described, by his depu- ties. But when you see the portals of the marble palace open between the Corinthian columns, and winged angels, chiselled from the marble of Genoa, and the priest kneeling in deep devo- tion before the altar, all of gold ; you will see at the same time the whole street leading up to the Barriere d'Aulney filled with an immense cor- tege of gorgeous equipages, all of crape; and you will see in the first carriages persons in deep distress, mopping their eyes, all swollen with grief. Keep in your tears, they are not the least vexed. On the contrary, they cry with a great deal of pleasure. They are crying by the month, and getting their living by it. This custom of THE FETE DES MORTS. 41 crying by deputy was practised by the Romans, and is common to all the refined nations of modern Europe ; and it is known that hired weepers can wail and cry a great deal better than they who are really grieved; they have a greater quantity of salt water, and have given it the habit of running out by the eyes. The coffin descends from the hearse, glittering with the precious metals, and whilst music wakes around, or speeches are pronounced in eloquent grief, or masses chanted in classic Latin, it is conveyed with pomp into its vault, and laid up for eternity upon its shelf. There is a person here, who keeps a register of the names of the deceased, and is a kind of chief clerk to the Fates. There is one day of the year when all Paris comes hither dressed in white robes, ten thou- sand at a time, to do honour to the dead. It looks as if the sheeted dead themselves had risen from the earth. This is called the Fete des Moris. Each one brings a garland or crown, and hangs it over a friend or relative; and the whole city bends before the graves of General Foy, Manuel, and Benjamin Constant. Indeed every day of the year that the weather will per- mit, the cemetery is crowded, either with stran- 42 TOMB OF ABELARD AND HELOISE gers led by curiosity, or with friends busied in trimming the foliage or flowers, or hanging funeral wreaths upon the monuments. This may be partly vanity, but vanity is a very good quality, if rightly directed, and a great many excellent virtues may be grafted on it. As for myself, I have always found it exceedingly diffi- cult to practise several of the virtues when no one was looking on. I observed, on entering, a gothic monument, and under its dome, two figures of persons re- cumbent at the side of each other, who were not always of marble. I will not tell you their names. If they had gone quietly with their marriage articles to St. Sulpice, and to bed, and distributed the wedding cake the next day to their cousins of St. Germain, I should not now have the pleasure of musing upon this lit- tle gothic chapel ; we should have been de- prived of one of the best love-tales that ever was, and some of the best verses in our English language, and Nouvelle Heloise into the bargain. Unsuccessful wooing, you see, has its uses. What would you gentle shepherdesses have done without Petrarch's sonnets, without Virgil's fourth book, and Sappho's little ditty, Enghshed by Philips. BROUGHT FROM CHALONS. 43 The Republic brought this pair of lovers from Chalons to Paris, where they have been knocked about, till the}^ have become as common as any pair of students and grisettes of the Luxem- bourg, (the barbarians !) instead of embowering them in the shady wood at a distance from the road, by the side of a murmuring and romantic stream, where the traveller might alight from his horse, just at setting sun, and give his undis- turbed and undivided feelings to their hapless fates. Here they are, the unfortunates, along- side of any body, who has died in lawful wed- lock, and their history, as if no one knew it, written upon their tomb, in fine round text, with their names. The children are learning to spell on it: a, b, ah ; e by itself e; 1, a, r, d, lard. — I am now writing from the spot, perhaps the very spot in which their hearts beat so high in love, and sank so deep in despair — in the v'ery spot, for all 1 know, in the very chamber — where she '' hung upon his lips, and drank delicious poison from his eye!" — where now, alas, no loves are disappointed, and where there is no drinking of any thing stronger or sweeter than a little vin ordinaire after one's potage. On leaving this fairy spot, I wandered along a hundred little footpaths, and read over a 44 COSTLY MOXL'MEXTS. thousand crabbed names, which carried no sig- nification to tlie mind, of a thousand pohte nothings, who had put on their breeches in the morning and taken themofFatnight,andwhohave monuments in Pere la Chaise for such merits — to Monsieur Doda, who made excellent pates de foies gras ; besides, he made the Papage T ero- Doda, and he has the mausoleum of a prince, splendid with festoons, I believe of sausages, on the pediment ; and a Monsieur Sebastian, who made shoes for the Duchesse de Beni's dear little feet, has one still more magnificent, — this is the man who made the slipper '' dans un mo- ment d' enthousiasme ;" and lastly a coiffeur — inexorable fate ! " Sensible et genereux, dont le coeur gouta Tivresse Du bonheur, du genie.". . . .and so forth. An obelisk of Carrara marble, forty feet high, was about to rise upon the tomb of M. Boulard, " Upholsterer." He had journeyed himself to Genoa and chosen the marble, and a foundation trench forty feet deep had been dug,and 400,000 francs devoted to the monument ; but his heirs have thought proper to depart from the inten- tions of the testator, and have buried him m a chapel at St. INIande which he had built himself at the cost of a million of francs. The site of REMARKABLE PERSONAGES. 45 his grave here is occupied by the pyramidal monument, with two lateral staircases of fifteen or twenty steps descending to its base, of a rich Portuguese family, Dios Santos. A Frenchman, who enjoys life so well, is, of all creatures, the least concerned at leavmg it. He selects his marble of the finest tints ; and has often his coffin made and grave du,«: in ad- vance. I noticed several open graves, w'hich seemed to me yawning for their victims. They dig a oood many a-head, so as to have them on hand, like ready-made coats (without the sleeves) at the mercer's. If a Frenchman buries his wife, he erects her a tomb and one (blanc) for himself, at the side of her. Then frolics out life in wine and good dinners, and has his tomb at P^re la Chaise as his box at the opera. He buries his wife too the more splendidly, having a half in- terest in the concern. I found myself at length upon astreetcrowded with most remarkable personages ; but so many, that I must put you off as Homer did with his ships. Here was Franfois iSeufihatel, a minis- ter of the Interior, and author in prose and rhyme, who sung, tour cl tour, ]Marie Antoinette and the Republic, who loved Napoleon and the Empire, and rejoiced at the Restoration. In his 46 L'ANJUINAIS. vicinity was Reg/iaud St. Jean d'Angehj, who used to put off his brass for gold, his words for wisdom, and sometimes, in America, his travel- lino^ mistress for his wife. " Le meme jour a vu finir Ses maux, son exil, et sa vie !" And here too was the stern and philanthropic Lanjuinaisj who conjured up a devil he could not lay, in the revolution ; and the great jurist Cainbactres — under Louis XVI. a squire of Montpelier, under the Convention, Citizen Cam- baceres ; Colleague of Bonaparte in the consu- late, and President, Duke, Prince, and Marshal of the Empire under Napoleon. The sword sometimes vields to the orown, and the laurel to the tos^a. He died with all the decorations of Europe about his neck. I would have graven the Code Napoleon upon his tomb. Eemember to crive him the credit for dissuadino; the execu- tion of the Duke d'Enghein, the Russian and Spanish campaigns, and the continuation of the war after Dresden. But he never put his honours to the hazard of dissuading any thing very strenuously ; like Piso, the Roman, he never differed long in opinion with a ^' man who had ten legions." Do let me introduce vou to Monsieur Denon; MONSIEUR DENON. 47 he loved the ladies so, and what is more, the ladies loved him ; he first taught us to read hieroglyphics, and brought us news out of Egypt about Pharoah and the Ptolemies, and he brought over that great '' Zodiac of Den- dera" in the king's library ; — and to M. Messier, who did not know there was a Revolution in France, being very busy about the revolution of the stars. While his wife was dying, he asked a few minutes' absence to look after a comet. He died himself in looking through a telescope, and his friends had but one eye to close on that occasion. Not a word to Chenier, the Jacobin poet; the world has not yet made up its mind about his merits ; nor to Parny, whose poetry is good enough to deserve your contempt, pure and unqualified. A lyre hangs upon the tomb of Grttry, and a globe in flames upon Madame Blanc hard. If I had time, I would inveigh here against the audacity of woman. She kills tyrants, commits suicide, and goes up in balloons. She leaves us nothing, unless going to war, and scarcely that, to characterize our manhood. A Roman Emperor was obliged to forbid her, by an edict, the profession of the gladiators. — I must not pass unnoticed M. Finte, who passed 48 HAQY AND SICARD. his life, and with some success, in teaching crazy folks to be reasonable — those in the -mad-house. And those two brothers, not less worthy than the best, they who gave eyes to the blind and ears to the dumb, Ha'uij and Sicard ; — they must not be forgotten ; and here is a poor poet (ex- cuse the tautology) who is buried as decently as if he had made sausages. I will conclude this part of my catalogue, already as long as Lloyd's or Homer's, with a Scotch cousin of mine, Mr. Justice. He left his wife, young, amiable, and beautiful as she was, in Edinburgh, for the pleasures of Paris ; which pleasures brought him in time to the prison of St. Pelagic. His wife (I will inquire after her health when I go to Scotland) flew to his rescue. She could not procure his enlargement on ac- count of the greatness of his debts, but she stayed with him in the prison, attended him in his illness, and consoled him, and reformed him in his dying moments. She has placed here a modest tomb upon his grave. If you hear any one speak ill of a woman, have him taken out and fifty lashes given him on my account. I will settle all the costs and da- mages at the Common Pleas. We are now upon the summit. This site is REFLECTIONS ON MORTALITY. 49 unrivalled in beauty. Montroye, Sevres, Meu- don, Mount Calvary, and St. Cloud, are spread before us in the distant prospect. The eye, too, rests upon the green fields and flowery pastures of Montreuil, and forests of Vincennes ; and at our feet is that great miracle of the world, Paris ; its gilded towers, domes, and palaces, glittering in the sun ; and the frequent hearse is bringing up its daily contribution of the inhabitants. It is near the close of a fine day of autumn. The yellow leaf detached from its branch, comes lingering and flutters towards the earth, and is trodden upon by the passers by; others on the same branch are yet green, or tinged with the blio:ht of the first frosts. That Xerxes, in contemplating his multitudi- nous legions, should weep over the prospect of their mortality, he being on the very errand of killing men, seems to me a notable absurdity ; but that I, who leave them to die just as they please, should weep a little, in a place so favour- able to such emotions, would be reasonable enough. While I stood here yesterday and looked down upon this hive of human beings ; listened to the hum of its many voices, and saw the silent earth open to receive all this life and animation : when I looked upon the many graves VOL. II. D 50 THE ARISTOCRACY OF THE GRAVE. of my own countrymen here, and reflected that to-morrow — to-morrow, far from my friends and native country, I might become one of the num- ber ! Why, I would have wept outright, if my manhood had not interfered, After all, such feelings were perhaps more remarkable in Xer- xes; and Herodotus was right to give him, and not me, credit with posterity. Common pas- sions in common men are not subjects of history ; but that the " king of kings," who challenged mountains, and fettered oceans, and led myriads to slaughter, should yet have his lucid intervals of humanity — this is a matter worthy of record. This is the choice spot of the cemetery. It is the spot distinguished for the best society. It is covered with the richest array of tombs, and all the arts of statuary, sculpture and architec- ture have employed their best skill upon its embellishment. It is the aristocracy of the grave. Here are the Peeresses, the Princesses, and Hioh Mig-htinesses. The rich house of Ormesson, Montausin and Montmorency, and *' all the blood of all the How^ards," are upon this Hill. '* Ici repose tres haute, et tres puissanie dame, Ejnma Cogla?i, Duchesse de Castries;" and here is the proud mausoleum of Russian Kate's superb noblewoman, Madame Demidoff; which, MONUMENT OF FOY. 51 although in bad taste, deserves, for its richness, whole days of admiration to itself. Not one of the cleverest of the Parisians is a match for this fur-clad damsel of the Neva. Here, too, is Joseph, the money changer, and other men of arithmetic ; the Barings and the Rothschilds of Pere la Chaise, with winged goddesses perched upon their tombs where ought to be Multiplica- tion Tables. And finally ministers and great marshals of France, all who have not been ashamed to come to the term of life according to the due course of mortality, are buried here. Here with images of their living features, upon pyramids that pierce the skies, — " Heroes in animated marble frown, And legislators seem to think in stone." I thought of Washington by the way-side. I thought of Franklin at the corner of Arch and Fifth — in the midst of a city so improved and adorned by his genius, so honoured by his virtues, with no sculpture but the letters of his name, no mausoleum but the grave-digger's cell. The monument of Foy is reared by the grati- tude of the city of Paris, with almost barbaric magnificence; *' kings for such a tomb would wish to die." They have sculptured upon its fagade the principal military events of his life d2 52 MONUMENTS OF GREAT MEN. His statue has a majestic and noble air such as becomes the great Deputy, whose eloquence was hghtning, and whose tongue was armed with thunder. The countenance is solemn, and the arm outstretched as if to announce some awful admonition. Other great men, also, have monuments here, pre-eminent in splendour. Kellerman, whose name recals the republican victories of Valmy and Jemappes ; Suchetj the oldest of the mar- shals; his ornaments are Rivoli, Zurich, Genoa, Esling. Two winged Victories hold a crown over the head of Lefebwe, and a serpent, the symbol of immortality twines around his sword ; his trophies are Montmirail, Dantzig, the Pas- sage of the Rhine; and next Jourdan, Serrurier, Davoust, and choicer than all, the great Duke of Tarento, the Prince of Eckmuhl, the rapa- cious Massena. How silent ! not a footstep is heard of all those who rushed to the battle. These military men outdo by far, in the splen- dour of their monuments, all the other classes. — Ceres and Bacchus, on account of the pure, universal and durable benefits they had con- ferred upon mankind, were raised to the rank of supreme divinities, says Plutarch, but Hercules, and Theseus, and the other heroes were placed TRADE OF GLORY SPOILED, 53 only in the rank of demi-gods, because their services were transitory, and intermixed with the evils of war. The French have reversed this wisdom of the Greeks in Pere la Chaise. But, indeed, if they would snatch a little of their fame from the oblivious grave, there is scarce any other way left ; they have so spoilt the trade of glory, by competition. Why, Bonaparte used to send, of these heroes, whole bulletins to Paris weekly; and in Great Britain there are no longer ale-houses, and signposts to hang them upon; Smiths, Auchmuties,Aber- crombies, and Wellingtons ; — memory has a surfeit of their names. Human veneration is not infinite, and it is expanded till, like the circle upon the stream, it terminates in naught. They who lived before Agamemnon will soon have as good a chance as their successors ; Werter will be as good a hero as Cato, and the Red Rover as Lord Nelson. In the early ages, when events were rare, and men had scarce any thing to do but live their nine hundred years, heroes had some chance to be preserved. They could transmit even their mummied bodies to posterity ; but with us, loaded as we are with all this biography, all this history, besides what science and letters ,54 TOMB OF NEY. are daily imposing upon us — with us, who come here to Pere la Chaise at threescore, to expect such advantage is unreasonable. The truth is, we cannot get along under the accumulated load, and we must sacrifice a part for the safety of the rest of the crew. We must heave a few Massenas and Lord Wellingtons overboard. Ought I not to say a word in this paraj^raph of the unfortunate Key? He is buried here, like his fellow martyr, Labedoyere, at the feet of the Suchets. A single cypress is all that grows over the *' bravest of the brave !" Read ; " p' git h Marechal Net/, Due d^ Elchmgeriy Prince de la Moscowa: Decede ! * * * le 7 Decern- her, 1815. I humbly take my leave of the Rivolis, and the Wagrams. Here is a most beautiful tomb of a lady sur- mounted by an image of Silence, her finger on her lip. Does it intimate the lady could keep a secret ? Oh, no, it admonishes other ladies to hold their tono-ues. This one is all French. " Ici repose Georgina, Jille de Mademoiselle Mars." She adds, Gardez vos larmes pour sa mere. Whoever loves Thalia, and the Graces will not disobey the admonition. And now let me introduce you to Bouffieur, the fieur des chevaliers; to -De//7/e, who went down to pos- CELEBRATED NAMES. 55 terity behind Virgil and Milton ; and to Ber- jiardin de St. Pierre, of whom one forgets to re- member only Paul and the delicious Virginia. Here, too, is Laplace, allotted his six feet like the rest. Eheu ! Quid prodest ? and Fourcroy, undergoing one of his own experiments. Iq the centre of all these is Moliere himself. They should have left room beside him for Miss Mars, his best commentary — if, in spite of time, she should chance ever to die. Here, too, is Talma, and Mademoiselle Raucourt im- mortal for feigning others' passions, and Lafon taifie, for telling other people's tales. He has no occasion to think any thing new, who can dress others' thoughts to such advantage. I observed also a few learned ladies, Madame Guizot,Dufresnoy,andaboveall,]Madame Co^^zVi. Are you not sorry she died at twenty-eight, when so many fools never die at all. It is plain, Providence does not trouble itself about what we call human greatness ; or genius would not perish thus in its infancy, and so many glorious and manly enterprises would not die in the hatchinor. Virgril would have lived till the completion of his ^'Eneid ; Apeiles would have put the finishing hand upon his Venus. 1 regret that I must pass wath only a nod of re- 56 GRAVES OF THE POOR. cognition, Palissot, Mercier, Millevoye, Guin- guene, David the painter, and even the elegant, the witty, and profligate Beauraarchais. Who can pass without a sigh the grave of Lavallette? His head was stripped of its hair, and pre- pared for the guillotine, when he was saved by his wife. Her agitation, and excessive terror lest he should be retaken, affected her brain, and she went mad. Her madness is of a calm and melancholy kind ; she sits whole hours in meditation, and has not spoken a word these several years. She is lodged in a maison de saute near Paris. I strolled awhile amongst the *^ temporary cessions," the graves of the poor. There are no trees here, nor artificial tombs. A border of box- wood, and sometimes a wire wicker work, with a wooden cross, is all their decoration. I read the inscriptions upon the crosses. Pierre Robin Age de 67 ans Unes des victimes du 28 Juillet, 1830. By the side in the same wicker enclosure : Ici repose une victime inconnUj du 28 JuUiet, 1830. A little tri-coloured flag was waving between them. THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART. 57 The following is of a mother, upon a child of four years : — Pres de mourir, elle nous disait: Ne pleure pas, Papa; ne pleure pas mamma; je me sens mieux, Et elle mourut ! Of a son : Passant, donne une larme a ma mere, en passant a la tienne. Of a wife : Elle vecut bien, elle aima bien, elle mourut bien. Of an old woman of 81 ; Une jour on dirade moi, ce qu'on a dit des autres; Marie Anne Palet est morte, et Ton n'en parlera plus. This one is pretty : Pauvre Marie, A 29 Ans ! There is a still prettier one of the same kind at New York. '' My Mother." The simple language of the heart succeeds better in epitaphs than the " lettered Muse ;" for grief at the dissolution of natural ties is usually more intense amongst the poor than the rich; this is notoriously manifest in the funeral ceremonies of Pere la Chaise. How indeed should any lady not rejoice when her lord is dead, if she looks well in black ? and my young lord who has popped into an estate and title, how should he be sorry ? One ought not, however. 58 THE WEEPING EYE. to blame the rich for exhibiting the signs of woe even where the reahty is deficient. The affecta- tion of a virtue is better than the neglect of it ; but I would not have it carried to a ridiculous excess. I have heard of a French nobleman here, a M. Brumoi, who, at his mother's death, put his park into mourning; he craped his deer; put black fish in his ponds ; and brought from Paris several barrels of ink to supply his jets d'eaux. And every one has read of the Danish count, who had his statue placed by the grave of his wife upon a spring, causing the water to spurt through one of the eyes. This statue exists yet near Copenhagen, and is called the " Weeping Eye." — You will often see, amongst the poor of Pere la Chaise, a half-grown girl kneeling by the fresh earth after the convoy has departed, or a mother lingering over the grave of her child. I ascended the hill again by the east side. Only think of walking upon the very earth con- secrated so often by the pious footsteps of Madame de Maintenon. It was here she poured out her little peccadillos into the bosom of Pere la Chaise. She brought him out from his ob- scurity of schoolmaster of Lyons, and raised him to the dignity of confessor (some say rival) to CHARACTER OF P£RE LA CHAISE. 59 the king. This father was of extraordinary personal beauty, and pohshed manners. When he had stepped into the graces of the king, he used the royal favour to enrich himself and his order. His style of living was magnificent, his equipages gorgeous, and in his costly banquets he rivalled the most sumptuous monaichs. To gain admission to his soirees was a favour soli- cited by princes. He was crafty, wily, subtle, and eloquent, says Duclos, and he alarmed or soothed the conscience of the kino; as best suited his interests. *^ He surprises his Majesty," says Madame de Maintenon, "into the most bound- less liberality, by the mere force of his elo- quence." The king pronounced himself, the eloge of his confessor at his death in 1709. *' He was always," says his Majesty, '' of a for- giving temper." On the site of these tombs, were once his pleasure grounds, and here the proud Jesuit often stood and looked down upon the court and city at his feet. The ruins of his elegant sum- mer palace have perished, but a part of his orchard still remains. I walked up through a low valley, once the channel of a stream that had supplied the water pots, the cascades, and fountains of this reverend father. It is a ro- 60 GRAVES OF THE ENGLISH. mantic spot, but barren of trees and shrubbery. I would plant here the drooping willow, the cypress of hoary gray; and I would teach the jay bird, in its plumage of crape, to build here its nest ; and, while ambition climbs the summit of the hill, the tender poets and the unfortunate lovers should come to be buried in this melan- choly valley. It is an advantage of eternity, that one may squander as much as one pleases of it without diminishing the capital. I found that the sun of our world was descending fast upon the roofs of St. Cloud, and I was obliged to run over an acre or two of graves with only a general stare. I hurried about in search of several I had heard distinguished for their splendour, but in vain. There should be a *' directory" to tell us where the dead people live. I stumbled at last upon a whole plot of English, coteried apart near the wall side ; General Murray ; Cochran, brother of the admiral ; Caroline Sydney Smith, my lady Campbell, Captain O 'Conner, and other august personages. Their tombs are very genteel. An Englishman always seems to me (foolishly perhaps) a greater man than a French- man, and a Roman than a Greek, with the same degree of merit. The one, I believe, makes his CHARACTER OF ENGLISHMEN. 61 wisdom pass for more, the other for less than it is worth. The great polish of the human cha- racter diminishes its solidity. Lord Chesterfield would have been a greater man if he had been more an Englishman. Lord Bacon and Shakspeare both say, that a certain reserve of speech and manner adds to the general opinion of one's merits. The French- man wastes, and the Englishman husbands his greatness ; the latter hides his little passions, and does small things by deputy. Like ]Moses, he retires into the mountain, and bids Aaron "speak unto the children of Israel." But the truth is, there is an illusion in my mind at present about all that is English; I have been so long over head and ears in French people. I read over these Enorlish graves as a studious school-boy his lesson. Whilst perusing this page of the great volume, I came with astonishment, not expecting such a rencontre, upon the names of several of our own countrymen, and even of our own townsmen. Of Philadelphia were William Temple Franklin, Adam Seybert,our old congressman and chemist, Samuel Rawlston and Jacob Girard Koch ; he who used to '^breakfast with the Houris and quaff nectar with Jove at noon." His great 62 GRAVES OF AMERICA>-S. regret, they say, in dying, was an apprehension that there might not be good dinners in the other world. There is here an eloquent and simple tomb upon the grave of Miss Butler, who was cut off in the expectation of unusual ac- complishments and in the roseate freshness of her youth. " Rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses, L^espace d'un matin." I remarked, also, the names of K. M. Smith, New York, Harriet Lewis, T^ew London, Frances Morrison, Kentucky, Francina Wilder, and Mrs. Otis of Boston. A cypress is planted by the grave of Dr. Campbell of Tennessee, and some fresh garlands are hung upon its branches. Who is he who has won these pious attentions from the hands of strangers ? I am now writing from the inkstand which once belonged to him, and which I w'ill put with my relics. I am lodging in his room, and with the person who attended his fatal illness. She gave me his biography as follows : "He was always good, always polite, and every one loved him ;" and then she burst into tears. The last grave I looked upon, I will now read to you : ^'Died, March 1st, 1832, Frances Anne, GRAVE-YARDS IN CITIES. 63 Countess Colonna de Walewski, dauc^hterof the late John Bulkeley, Esq., of Lisbon, widow of the late General Humphreys, of the United States, minister in Spain and Portugal." — I could write a romance at the foot of this monu- ment. I lino;ered here until the last o-linimer- ings of day faded, and night covered all but the bleak and snowy marble, I then descended the hill, and with many a solenni reflection, reached my solitary lodge in the Faubourg St. Germain. Let us reason awhile about the srave. The custom of locating grave yards in cities and towns, so universal in America, has been dis- continued in nearly all these old countries of Europe. France has set the excellent example, which has been followed through the continent, and the large towns of England — London, Liverpool, Manchester, Cheltenham, and several others — and all the world acknowledges its necessity. Such a measure was not adopted here until the agency of burying grounds in corrupting the air and producing disease, was proved by numerous examples and experiments. An account of these, contained in several hundred pages, was published by Maset, secre- tary to the Academy of Dijon, the one-twen- tieth part of which would fill with terror all those 64 NECESSITY FOR CEMETERIES NEAR TOWNS. who live in dangerous contiguity with a city grave-yard. It is high time your towns in America should give this subject a serious at- tention. Your grave-yards are multiplying in number and extent prodigiously in the midst of communities which are likely, in a few years, to be numerously increased. Your Pottsville, which is about eight years old, has already six grave-yards, whose population nearly equals that of the village. All those who die upon the railroads, mines, and canals, for twenty miles around, have themselves carried in and buried in town — as if to be convenient to market. A citizen of Potts- ville does consent sometimes to reside in the country during his lifetime, but he does not think it genteel to pass his eternity out of town ; and your miner soothes himself with the conso- lation that though he has many toils and perils in life, he will one day come out of the ground to be buried in Pottsville. It is in their infancy that such evils ought to be averted. They are more easily prevented than cured. And there are enough of other considerations besides health to urge the importance of the subject. Every body knows the indecent irreverence and general inattention with which grave-yards ANCIENT PRACTICE OF INTERMENT. 65 are regarded in towns and cities. In many of them monuments are defaced and scribbled on, and the place even desecrated sometimes by the obscenity and brutal violation of visitors. To prevent this, they are often enclosed by high walls and rendered invisible. If the object were to forget one's ancestors there could not be a better contrivance. It is worth while to squander away the best parts of a city to bring one's deceased parents into oblivion or con- tempt ! That this is the case cannot be denied. The citizen, the clergyman, the grave-digger, and the sexton, are all affected by the bones of their ancestors alike. Who first brought this system of vampyrisra into use ? It was at least modern. At Baby- lon they buried the dead in the valley of .... look into your Bible ; and the valley of Jehoshaphat, I believe, was out of town. The interment of the dead within the precincts of the city was prohibited at Rome by law. The Greeks had the same regulation, and forbade expressly that the temples of the gods should be profaned by the sepulture of the. dead. The Achaeans buried only one man in town, Aratus — look into your Plutarch. If they had governed our city councils they would have 66 AGAINST INTERMENT IN CHURCH-YARDS. buried us all out of town, except " Benjamin Franklin, and Deborah his wife/' The first Christians followed the Pagans and Jews in this, and foralono^ time s^raves were not allowed to encroach upon the sanctuary of the church. But some pious and popular bishop having died in the course of time, I presume they bu- ried him with his church, as they bury an Indian with his canoe; and then another and another, or perhaps some fat and lazy priest wished to have his dead family about him for the convenience of praying upon them. Who is going all the way to Pere la Chaise ? So he could just step out in his gown and slippers and dismiss the poor soul to purgatory, and then step back again to his snupe a la Julien. And then came avarice to sanction this conveni- ence. We can heap generation upon genera- tion and sell a church-yard over and over again to eternity. Make me chief burgess of Pottsville, and I will provide a choice piece of ground overlook- ing the village, and apart from the living habi- tations — on a single plot, and with separate apartments for the several denominations ; and this I will cultivate tastefully with trees and shrubbery, and lay it out with agreeable walks. HONOURS DUE TO EMINENT CITIZENS. 67 I will make the dead an ornament, instead of a nuisance and deformity to the living ; and I will bind your erratic population to the soil, by the decency with which I will bury their fathers and mothers ; and by improving the kindred affections, I will improve, at the same time, the moral and religrious feelino-s of the community. I will carve out, from one of your rugged hills, a decent and solitary" retreat, where we may sometimes escape from the business, the anxie- ties and frivolities of life, and where we may peruse the last sad page of our own history, upon the silent and solemn annals of the grave. In a place of decent appearance, and of pub- lic resort and ample space, we have the means (which we have not in our shabby and con- tracted grave-yards of the towns) of paying honour to the memory of an eminent citizen, or public benefactor ; a duty in which we are negligent beyond the example of all other nations ; and emulating the princely splendour of Europe in other things, we cannot excuse our- selves upon the republicanism and simplicity of our tastes, in this. Are the virtues of a great man so graven upon our memories, that he needs no other memorial ? And are we all so virtuous, 68 REGULATIONS FOR INHUMATION. ourselves and our children, as to need no excite- ments to emulation ? — To do honour to those who have performed eminent service to the com- munity, is as well a commendable policy, as it is an act of justice and gratitude. It produces, in generous minds, a rivalship of honourable actions. It makes one good deed the parent of a numerous offspring. It is the seed of virtue — the grain of corn that rewards the cultivator with a full and ripened ear. On the other hand, neglect, the cold neglect that is practised in our country, freezes the cur- rent of public spirit ; and the people, who are guilty of it, need not complain that they are barren of generous actions, or that they, who have been fortunate in acquiring wealth, should choose to spend it rather upon selfish and tran- sitory interests, than upon schemes of permanent public utility. Even our savages pay respectful honours to the dead, and a luxury of grave-yards is of all antiquity ; it has even the most ancient scriptural authority in favour of it. — ^' Thou art a mighty prince, in the choicest oi our sepulchres bury thy dead." — (Genesis). I will now put an end to this long letter, with a few of the French regulations for the inhuma- tion of the dead of cities and towns. FUNERALS CONDUCTED BY A COMPANY. 69 All cemeteries are required to be located with- out the towns, avoiding low, wet, or confined situations. On an elevated site, the foetid em- anations are dispersed by the winds. The dead bodies are to be covered with, at least, four feet of earth, and placed in such a manner that there may be four feet of interval between each, and two feet at the head and foot — about fifty-two square feet for each corpse. It is known, from experiment, that animal decomposition requires about four years, and the grave-yard is to be made four times greater than appears neces- sary for the number of persons to be interred in it. The graves are disposed of in perpetuity, or in temporary cessions of six years ; the former at twenty-five dollars per metre, of three feet ; two metres are required for a grave ; and the latter at ten dollars. These are disposable anew at the end of the term — the first occupant having the " refusal." From the extent of the grounds, this has not yet been required. But Death has nearly filled up the whole space, and is looking out for additions to his estate. A miser, who lives next door to him, taking advantage of his necessity, asks, for three-quarters of an acre, twelve thousand dollars! 70 BURYING OF THE POOR. All the funerals are in the hands of a company, who have their office, keep a registry of the dead, and attend to all their wants. Com- panies having no souls, the French fulfil the scriptures, and '^ let the dead bury the dead." Having its stock of carriages, grave-diggers, weepers, and all such things on hand, the com- pany is enabled, they say, to bury cheaper than the individuals themselves. It has, besides, a fixed price for the rich, which enables it to eat an annual dinner, and to bury the poor for nothing. The dinner is, no doubt good, but the burying of the poor, as all things else which are done for nothing in Paris, is performed in a niggardly and heartless manner. If you make any such provision for your new grave-yard of Pottsville, let it honour the hand that confers it. Give the poor man his priest, and apply to a life, perhaps, of unmerited sorrows — a little extreme unction. The leaves, nipt by the first frosts, are already strewed thick upon the Luxembourg ; and your hills are, no doubt, putting on their variegated hues of the autumn. My advice is, that you dissolve the cold, by putting largely of the an- thracite upon your grate ; that you bring out your old wine, and be joyful, while your knees MOXT LOUIS. 71 are green — see where Pere la Chaise stands beckoning from the heights of Mont-Louis. — I give my comphments to the girls, and say you sweet, good night. 72 THE LOUVRE. LETTER XIV. The Louvre. — Patronage of the Fine Arts. — The Luxem- bourg. — The Palais des Beaux Arts. — The Sevres Por- celain. — The Gobelins. — Manners of the common People in Paris. — A fair Cicerone. — Her remarks on Painting. — The Frenchj Flemish, and Italian Schools. — English Patronage of Art. — The New National Gallery. — Sir Christopher Wren. — A tender Adieu. Paris, Nov. 14th, 1835. I HAVE passed the morning in the Louvre, and have nothing in my head but galleries and pictures ; and you must expect nothing else through the whole of this letter. You may dread a long letter too, for you know, the less one is conversant with a subject the more one is likely to reason upon it. In the Louvre, the pictures occupy both walls of a room, thirty feet wide by a quarter of a mile long, and consist of about twelve hundred pieces of native and MUSEUMS IN PARIS. 73 foreign artists. In the same building also is the Musee des Antiques containing 736 statues, with bronzes and precious vases ; also the Musee des Desseifis, with 25,000 engravings ; the Musee de la Marine, with models of vessels ; and the Musee Egyptien, with collections of Egyptian, Roman and Grecian antiquities. An exhibition too is held here, from the first of March till INIay every year, of the works of living artists, painters, sculptors, engravers, architects, and lithographers. Paris, in patronising the fine arts, has taken the lead of all the cities of Europe. The government spends annually large sums, and extensive purchases are made by the royal family, and wealthy individuals. They do not hoard their pictures in private houses, as in England, but place them, as in ancient Greece, in the public collections. They improve, there- fore, the public taste and embelhsh their city. It is one of the means by which they entice amongst them rich foreigners, who always pay back with usurious interest the money spent for their entertainment. There is, besides, a public gallery in the palace of the Luxembourg, which contains collec- tions of paintings and sculpture of living French VOL. II. E 74 PALAIS DES BEAUX ARTS. artists since 1825. The other museums are those of Natural History at the Garden of Plants, and the Musee d' Artilleries containing all kinds of military weapons, used by the French from the remotest periods of their his- tory; also the ^'Conservatory of Arts and Trades,'^ where models of every French inven- tion, from a doll-baby to an orrery and steam- engine, have been preserved — the greatest museum of gimcracks, they say, in the world. This gives two courses of gratuitous lectures under distinguished professors, and has a free school in which young men are taught the arts. To these you may add the ^' Palais des Beaux Arts,'' begun in 1820, and now near its com- pletion, which is destined to be one of the splendid miracles of Paris. The "Gallery of Architecture,^' which is already rich, is to be increased with copies of the choice sculpture, statuary, and architecture of all the world, so that students will have no longer to run after the orio;inals into foreign countries. There are two manufacturing establishments here with galleries of their produce, which have dignity enough to be mentioned even with the Louvre ; the Sevres Porcelain, and the weaving of the Gobelins. In the gallery of the porcelain, SEVRES PORCELAIN. 75 some of the specimens are inconceivable. There was scarcely less difference between mother Eve and the clay that made her than there is between the original materials, and one of these exquisite vases. Gold blushes to see itself outdone by the rude earth at the tables of the Rothschilds and other lords. Plate of the precious metals is mean in comparison. Porcelain has fragility in its favour. The best mine, which sleeps between the Broad and Sharp IMountains would scarce buy you a dinner-set. I priced you breakfast plates at 2,000 francs each, and a table to set them on at 30,000 ; and a vase with American scenery, as if Iris herself had painted it, 35,000. But why, after all, put this exquisite art upon matter so destructible, and upon objects destined to mean services ? Why bake Vandykes upon your cream jugs, and RafFaelles and Angelos on your wash-basin, and the Lord knows what else? There are things which admit of orna- ment only to a certain extent. At the Gobelins the most intricate groups of paintings are interwoven in the carpets and tapestry, of churches and palaces. The great Peter superintending the battle at Pultawa, the Duke d'Epernon carrying off the queen, and St. Stephen pouring out his soul towards Heaven £2 76 THE GOBELINS TAPESTRY. are all under the shuttle or starting into life, from the woof and chain of a weaver's web. And here is Marie de Medicis, and two other ladies, just out of the loom. The most effeminate tints, the nicest features, have a glow and delicacy eq\ialled but by the best paintings u}Don canvass. Only think ! the charms of the divinest female; her arched eye-brows, her lips, like the opening flower, gently parted, as if going to speak ; her graceful smile, which steals away the senses, and all the heaven of her features, may be ex- pressed in wool. Here are carpets to be trodden on only by queens, and to be purchased only with queens' revenues. One of the cheapest is 8,000 dollars. Two hundred years have been employed upon a single piece. All that you have read about the *' weaving of the Dardan Dames," of the webs of Penelope and other ladies, is nothing but mythology. Here is a Bonaparte in the plague of Egypt, so natural and so animate, of such questionable shapes and features, one is almost ready to exclaim with Hamlet, " Be thou a spirit" — (the temptation to a pun is not quite so bad as the offence.) You are tempted almost to speak to him, so full is he of expression and vitality. The workmen of the Gobelins require THE GALLERIES. 77 six years' apprenticeship, and twenty years to become proficients. Under the ancient govern- ment they were locked up for life, like old Daedalus, wnth in the walls, and no one is now permitted to buy or sell without an order of the king-. A dyeing establishment is kept up under an able chemist, expressly to supply this factory with colours. The doors of all the French galleries are opened on certain days of the week to every body, and a special favour of every day is ex- tended to strangers. Minerva, like the others of her sex in Paris, cares not to be rumpled a little by the crowd, or stared at by the vulgar. The rich are refined always sufficiently for their own will and resources; but in the condition of the poor man — his poverty, the contempt which foUow^s poverty, every thing tends to debase- ment. It is surely then wise in a government to devise such institutions, and encourasre such modes and fashions as may ennoble the motives, refine the tastes, and employ innocently the idle hours of the poor ; and since one member of a community cannot be badly affected without injury to the rest, it is the proper business of the rich to second such measures of policy. It is certain that no city in the w^orld contains so 78 REMARKS O.V FREXCH many violent principles of corruption as Paris, and it is equally certain that the common people have an air of neatness and decency, not equalled by the same class in any other country. As for grace, it is here (and it is no where else) a mere bour- geois and plebeian quality. The distinction too is as remarkable in conversation as in manners. There is not a milliner or shop-girl at fifteen sous a-day, whose head is not a little museum of pic- tures ; she will converse with you too of the Malibrans, and Taglionis, and Scribes, with nearly the same sense and the same phraseology as the Journal des Spectacles. But the French- man seeks his recreation in the dance, the theatre, in the pure air of his gardens, and in these galleries of statues and paintincrs, whilst the Englishman skulks into his gin-shop. So one can walk into these galleries on the public days, and not see, that there is in man a natural attraction for the aits which exalt and refine his nature. We follow our mother country in many things, and we follow her especially in her whims and her vices. She shuts out the public from her pictures, and then complains that there is no public taste. And she imports her Lelys and Godfrey Knellers from abroad. We have a gallery in Philadelphia, and though there is but AND ENGLISH TASTES. 79 one picture in it, the admission to this one picture is a shilling sterling. It is the " Last Supper ;" and we have puffed in all the newspapers the religious impressions which it inspires (for a shilling.) I ask pardon of the " Academy of Fine Arts ;" it also has pictures, which are visited by fashionable people once a-year, ad- mission twenty-five cents. The ancients set more value upon this silent kind of instruction than we moderns. A Spartan mother rocked her baby in a shield, and she dressed the household gods in armour, that her little Leonidas micrht have the image of war before his eyes, even in his prayers. She even commenced this course of education before the child's birth. For she took care to have bucklers and helmets, and portraits of Castor and Pollux, and other heroes, hung around her chamber, and to have some martial air played over her couch of a morning, that she might not, by pusillanimous dreams, spoil her child. The '*' city councils" too of that country, employed certain grave old men, good for nothing else, to inspect the public morals, and especially to take care that the recreations of the youth should be public. In a word, they thought it better, by such impressions and such vigilance, to antici- 80 INFLUENCE OF THE FINE ARTS. pate the dispositions of men to be bad, than to build " Houses of Refuge," and " Penitentiaries" to correct them. We prefer to connive at the opportunity of sin, till men ha?e become rogues, and then hang them. But, to take the example of a people nearer our own manners, there can be no doubt that the excellent specimens of the Fine Arts, exhibited daily to the Athenians in the embel- lishment of their city, with the pomp of their games and festivals, gave them that exquisite taste, that grace of movement, language, dress and manner, in which they had an acknowledged superiority over all other people in the world. To enter the Louvre this morning, I used the stranger's privilege; and unfolding my passport, a lady, with so much the air of a lady, as to be sure of meeting no repulse, taking my arm, said, ^*Sir, I will ask. the favour of going in with you. I will be your wife two minutes," and we went in together. A Frenchwoman says and does thin«3rs sometimes at which our American honour grows very indignant, yet does she say and do no harm. In conversing with this woman, I did not doubt *^ two minutes" of her beino: of the best breeding and education. She had resided at Florence, and a long time at Rome, and had THE LOUVRE. 81 exactly that kind of information which the ne- cessities of my condition required. I entreated her of course not to be divorced at the end of the '* minutes." She has wit and learning, and is eloquent to the very ends of her fingers. Her personal beauty, too, is of no common order, but just threatening to fade; the period at which woman, to my taste, is much more interesting than with the full blown charms of seventeen summers in her face. She has then the interest of a possession which soon may escape ; she has maturity of intelligence, of feeling and ex- pression, to which the brilliancy of youthful beauty is as the tinsel to the pure gold. The Louvre has nine divisions, bounded each by an arch resting on four Corinthian columns, and pilasters of beautiful marble, having bases and capitals of bronze-gilt; and between them are mirrors, and splendid ancient and modern vases and busts. Three of these parts are as- signed to the French, three to the German, Flemish, and Dutch, and as many to the Italian and Spanish masters. I walked with my amiable virtuosa up and down this enchant- ing gallery for an hour; gathering wisdom, not being allowed to gather any thing else^ from her lips. EO 82 THE FRENCH SCHOOL. And we conversed, not of politics, or the town scandal, but of what it imported me more to know, of Florence, and of the treasures of that city of the arts — of Florence, the birth-place of Dante, of Galileo, of Machiavelli, of Michael Angelo ; and we conversed of those two great patrons of Florentine learning, Cosmo and Lorenzo de Medici, — how the arts revived under their care, and flourished under their munifi- cent protection, and how much more one man often does towards the glory and honour of a country, than ten thousand of his neighbours. And so we walked, and then stood still, and looked up, to the great fatigue of our legs, a contingency which the French foreseeing, had provided against by placing sofas along each side the room, and in front of the finest paint- ings ; so down we sat opposite the *' French School." Here I put the lady back to her rudiments, and I am going to give you a tincture of her re- marks. Before coming to this country I had seen neither statues nor pictures. I had seen only Miss " Liberty," on the bow of an East Indiaman, and a General Washington or two, hospitably inviting one to put up for the night. In a word I had studied only in that great National THE FRENCH SCHOOL. 83 Gallery of ours, the sign-posts. So the less I say of my own wit upon this subject, the better. " To improve your taste, sir, in painting, it is not the best way to dissipate your attention upon all this variety. Select a few pieces of the best and study these alone, for an hour a day, until by comparison you can distinguish their beauties, with the style and character of each master. You will then be able to read with satisfaction through the rest of the great volume; you will know what to receive, what to reject, and how to economise your time and at- tention. Here are the French masters. It was under Louis XIV., and with Poussin, this school began. The great number of pictures at this time brought to Paris and exhibited publicly gave a general taste for the art ; and we have attained since a very eminent distinc- tion, without, however, reaching the great masters of the Flemish and Italian schools. We have all the dry particulars of excellence, such as the labour of copying the fine classical models may produce. All schools, under the authority of a master, lead off from nature, to imitation— to a mean practice of mere copying-, which fetters and debases genius. " How much better to have open galleries, as 84 THE FRENCH SCHOOL. the ancient Greeks, untrammelled ; where the mind may follow its own impulses, and recom- mend itself at once to the great tribunal, before which all human excellence must come at last for its recompense and fame. Hogarth, Rey- nolds, Wilson, and West, were all eminent be- fore the birth of the Royal Academy, and who does not know that Reynolds would have been more eminent still, if he had not been thrust into its Presidency? Raphael never read a treatise or heard a lecture on his art. All the great painters under Leo X. were of no school; they were fostered by individuals and the public, and all the efforts of the academy of St. Luke have not been able to continue the race. When painting shows her face in your country, be wise, and do not cramp her natural move- ments by the trammels of an academy. " In this French school you must admire the life, the movement, the variety of Lebrun ; the serene and noble expression, the correct, yet grand and heroic style of the classical Poussin; and him, whose landscapes, and tableaux con- tend for superiority, Claude Lorraine; especially the trees, suns, moons, and lightning of his beautiful landscapes; the fine sea pieces too, and landscapes of Vernet ; and Lemoine, immortal THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 85 for his Hercules. This last died of melancholy from the neglect of his patron and the envy of iiis rivals. The next time we meet, I shall hear you all day praise the grace and sentiment of Le Sueur, and the more animated grace of Miguard; you will have adored his cupola of Val-de-Grace, and his virgins, too, and above all his St. Cecilia, celebrated so magnificently by Moliere. " See what a different world ! — The phlegma- tic and laborious Hollander. This is nature, as it is in Amsterdam, fat, Dutch nature; wrought out to a neat and prudish perfection, to be ac- complished only by Dutch patience, admirable in animals, fruits, flowers, insects, night-scenes, vessels, machines, and all the objects of com- merce and arts; admirable, too, in perspective ; its clara obscura is magic, it paints the very light of heaven ; the shades in nature's self are not better blended. Don't you love this shop; this peasant's kitchen; and the gro- tesque dresses, and comic expression of these figures ? All, as you see, in this school have the same face ; the artist has no idea of a con- nection between faces and minds. Scipio is a Dutch burgomaster. " Here are Alexander and Diogenes ; either in 86 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. the tub will do for the philosopher ; both are Dutchmen. But what harmony of colours; what living carnations ; what relief; what truth and character! — these are Rembrandt's, and even these want spirit and dignity. Let us sit down here and take a long look at Riibe?is, the Titian, the Raphael of the Low Countries — of the singular beauty of his heads, his light and easy pencil ; the life, harmony and truth of all his compositions. The whole world goes to Anvers, alone, to see the works of this extra- ordinary genius ; to see his " Crucifixion,'* you would go any where ; you can hear his thief scream upon the cross. And here is JordaenSy almost his equal, and the por- traits, never, to be surpassed, of Vandyke, Here, too, the inimitable village fetes, and gro- tesque peasantry, and soldiers of Teniers ; the landscapes and farms, and cattle of Potter ; and Van-der-meer's sheep, as natural as those which feed upon the down. — These last, of nearly the same character, are the Germans, Durer, Holbein, and Kneller. '* And now the divine Italy. The noble Flo- rentines; Michael Angela and Vinci at their head ; — the fruitful, the lively, the imaginative, the graceful, the majestic, and every other ex- LOMBARD AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 87 cellence combined. If you love the arts you will live always in Florence. There is nothing here of Angelo, but this is the Joconde of Vinci, the most finished portrait in the world. " Next is Lombardy, and her fine forms and expression; her masterly composition, and colours, so sweetly blended ; all the best quali- ties of " excelling nature " are in this school formed by Correggio, who received, they say, his pencil from the Graces. His drapery seems agitated by the winds. And who are these others, who divide equally with him the admiration of the world ? you cannot remove your eyes from their charming figures — it is Permessaji and the Caracas, severe and correct ; and he who ex- cels them all three in some of the principal fea- tures of the art, he who paints nature in her defects, and with irresistible force and truth, Caravaggio ; and next Guido, who paints her majesty and graces; and Albaiio, in her win- ning, and poetic enchantments ; and Domeni- chino, whose obstinate genius dragged him to the very heights of Parnassus, in spite of the predictions of his masters. " In the Roman School, founded upon the antique models, you will have an inexhaustible source of enjoyment. Who does not love Ra- 88 SALVATOR ROSA. phael ; his works are as well known as Virgil's. Who can admire enough the natural expression and attitude of his figures, and his composition, simple and sublime. Here are Titian s lively portraits, and landscapes, never to be sur- passed in force and boldness of colouring. And here is the fruitful, and lively, and dignified Paid Veronese, with his brilliant, various and magnificent draperies. His " Marriage of Cana," is one of the chef-d'oeuvres of Italy. And here are tableaux and landscapes by the wild fancy of Salvator Rosa, excelling in savage nature ; who paints the arid plain and carnage of the battle as no one else. In America, he would have painted your Mississippi, where its mighty flood rolls through the silent wilder- ness, or your War Dance ; or the Hut of the Woodman, where the panther looks through his window, and the rattlesnake coils upon his pil- low, or the savage upon his lonely cliff; while surveying the firmament, he reads God's Holy Scriptures in the skies. " Of this the composition is perfect ; the passions are violent, but natural, and without disagreeable distortion, and the drapery even beyond ideal perfection. — The figures have less majesty than Michael Angelo's, and are more FEMALE LOVELINESS. 89 within our common nature. — His women, as you see, are too plump, and his children too grave, whose is it ? " And this exquisite woman! with no sins of her ancestors in her face, and none of their diseases and deformities in her limbs ; with all the sweet sensibiHties, as the colours of the rainbow, in her expression — Who is she? — Who orathered these fugitive charms into her features, and who this divine grace about her limbs, to play upon her tapering arms, and neck and bosom, as the soft moonlight upon the stream? Who made her? * * ^' All these eminent beauties, and this dove-like innocence to be thrown away, as the fragrance of the wild rose upon a desert ; no taste to value ; no * * u # * To be sure, her unforbidden husband ! * # * This other figure of the same canvass you will no doubt easily recognise. * * '^ It is no wonder ; it is a bad likeness. It should have less of the terrific attributes. Cloven feet and horns are the stupid imagina- tions of the monks. Without the temptations to sin what exercise or opportunity is there in virtue? What becomes of human greatness — of honesty, piety, charity, continence and all 90 ENGLISH PATRONAGE. that props up the dignity of our race? — To be well painted he should have nothing of a supernatural being ; he should have human passions to enlist human sympathies. He should be a gentleman ; a gentleman too in his most seducing and fascinating form. With such a nature only he can sustain the func- tions assigned to him by Providence, especially amongst women ; and to corrupt the world you must begin by them. " There is here, as you see, no Ecole Britan- nique. The English have given us nothing in return for our Claudes and Poussins. Yet England does not yield to any nation of Europe, in the munificence of her patronage. One of her dukes pays for a picture of West's 3,000 guineas; another buys "Murillo's " at half a million in a year. Walpole's collection at Houghton was valued at 200,000 pounds ster- ling. And she has not only invited the arts from foreign countries, by sumptuous presents, but has pensioned them, given them degrees in the universities, knighted them, and married them with her proudest nobility. Some pretend that she wants the lively and quick sensibilities necessary to success in this art ; that she raises ART ENCOURAGED BY RELIGION. 91 paintings, as the fruit of the Indies, not natural to her climate. But the climate of Rubens, Vandyke and Rembrandt is quite as Boeotian as that of Great Britain. Who ever heard of the sensibilities of the Hollander? The atmo- sphere, which nourished a Milton, would not have smothered a Raphael, or a Michael Angelo; nor would Salvator Rosa have withered, where Shakspeare ' warbled his native wood-notes wild.' '* One of the great stimulants to excellence has been wanting in England altogether, and is now weakened throughout Europe — the wealth, the influence, the enthusiasm of the Catholic Religion. This spirit which, like the mythology of the Greeks, put a God in every niche of the Temple ; which produced the Angelos and Rubens, and breathed inspiration into the artist and spectator, is quenched. Your Presbyterian prejudices of the impres- sions produced by paintings, as well as by architecture and music, are now obsolete. Idolatry is to be feared only among a savage or very ignorant people. We have got beyond these limits ; and a picture of the Saviour or the Virgin can have no worse effect now in a 92 SPANISH SCHOOL. church, than the picture of a father or mother in the habitation of their children. '^England will havea school of paintings, when she will have public galleries and a public taste, when the artist shall hold the reins of his imagination in his own hands, and shall paint, not for private recompense, but public fame, and not for the Duke of Sutherland, but the nation. In portraits, where vanity supplies a public taste, England excels; and the engraver, who ministers to the common pride, and sup- plies the furniture of the parlour, and the lady's Annual, succeeds as no where else. Vandyke, who painted the " Descent from the Cross," in his own country, painted in Eng- land only portraits ; as affording him a better remuneration than his exertions on historical subjects. " These seven pieces every one admires for their mellow colourino;, and for their bold and vigorous expression — they are of the Spaniard Murillo. With these, I beg leave to close my lecture, and to thank you for your amiable and patient attention." Now this is the end of the Louvre — Are you not glad ? — To designate by single epithets persons, who have a hundred qualities, is too TABLEAU OF PARIS. 93 absurd ; but to seem to know something about paintings, is so very genteel ! As you cross the Potit des ArtSy you will see, placed in its centre, a bench to accommodate wearied travellers. You may now fancy me seated — lono; enouo:h, at least, to fill the rest of this page — upon this bench. The breezes here fan you with their little wings, and the land- scape is covered with delightful images. Tlie Seine flows under your feet so smooth, you can count the stars on its surface. It is arched by seventeen sumptuous bridges, many of them in si^ht: and the dwellings of luxurious men, and the temples of the Divinity, vie with each other in magnificence, upon its banks, and the steeples stand tip-toe upon the neighbouring hills. " The correspondence of the architecture is not accidental. You must look at Paris as a picture, and examine the composition, as well as the execution of the parts. Its monuments are not only beautiful in themselves, but are made, as you see, to harmonise with each other. The Louvre, the Institute, the Arch of Xeuilly, the Tuileries and its gardens, the Madelaine, the Palais Bourbon, the Seine and all its tur- retted castles — all are but parts of the same 94 PALAIS DES BEAUX ARTS. tableau. In this respect Paris, so inferior to London in wealth, and to Rome in situation, is yet more beautiful than either. St. Paul's har- monises with nothing — Westminster Abbey, also, is lost in its individuaUty. The " New Gallery" occupies one of the best situations in Europe, only cumbering the ground, which the taste of a better age might have employed to the ornament of the city. London monuments are built as at Thebes, au son du Tambour; they are built for the job; and ours for the honour of Paris and posterity. The Madelaine, yet under the architect, was begun sixty years ago; St. 'Paul's was built by the same architect, and the same mason. Sir Christopher Wren was em- ployed upon it, at two hundred a-year, and had a suit at law for a few half-pence, which stood unpaid upon his bill. "This ' Palais des Beaux Arts' is now the Palace of the Institute. As it stands at the head of our fine arts, as well as letters, I may as w^ell tell you the little I know of its organi- zation. It is the old Academie Fraufaise^ ex- panded from forty to several hundred members. They are separated into four divisions ; having only the hall and library in common ; and their common funds are managed by a joint com- ACADEMIES OF ART. 95 mittee froQi each ; and they have a united meeting yearly, on the 1st of iNIay. The va- cancies are filled by ballot of the members, with the approbation of the king. Each member re- ceives an annual salary of 1500 francs, except honorary members, who are contented with the honours. " The * Academie des Beaux Arts' distributes prizes in painting, sculpture, architecture, en- graving, and musical composition ; and the suc- cessful candidates pursue their studies at Rome at the expense of the state. The ' Academie des Belles Lettres' gives also a prize of 1500 francs, and medals for the best memoir on French antiquities. The * Academie des Sci- ences' awards a prize of 3000 francs, on a sub- ject given, and smaller prizes upon specific branches of science ; and finally, the Academie Fraricaise, upon a proposed subject, pays a prize of 1500 francs, and some of smaller amount. One called the ' Montyon Prize,' for some act of virtue in the common class of society." Here my fair cicerone slipped through my fingers — not indeed without an effort on my part to hold her fast. I threatened her not to survive. 96 ROMANCE. " Yes, do ; and you can put in for the Mon- tyon prize of this year. We are just under the tower of PhiHp Augustus, so the end like the beginning of our acquaintance will have some- thing of romance. Oh, no, my name would spoil all the interest of the plot ; what is a plot without a mystery?" " A romance beginning with a marriage, has usually a tragical end." *' And so end the best romances — where could you find for the catastrophe a more de- sirable place? — Here stood the Tour de Nesle of tragical memory, and you have in view the Pont Neuf, and there is the Morgue." " It is a pity," said I in a pique, " that nature had not taken some of the pains she has lavished upon .your brains and your beauty, to give to your heart. You see a stranger, never before a traveller, wandering in your country " *' A stranger never before a traveller is not to my taste. Such a traveller's views of human nature are very narrow. He judges of merit alw^ays by some mode or fashion of his own, and sets up his whims as the standard of pro- priety for others. One who has travelled does not think a fellow-creature bad because she POLlTEyESS. 97 may deviate froQi the little etiquette of his native village. He does not think any thing wrong that is not so essentially. If he should meet for example, a lady, an entire stranger, who would ask his arm, to see these fine pic- tures of the Louvre; in the alternative of re- maining out of doors, and should choose, in re- turn for his politeness, to be entertained an hour with his company, he would not infer that she wanted either sense or good breeding ; he would not presume, on such appearances, to treat her with less respect — much less " I dropped the hand I had taken without her leave. She then returned it, and bade me adieu, crossino; the bridg-e and traversing the Quai de La Mormaie, where she disappeared among the nar- row lanes of St.Germain — and there was an end of her. I intended in setting out to oive vou the cream of her conversation, but it turns out to be the skim-milk only, and I have no time for revision. There is nothing so insipid and creamless as the fine things people say to one's self, and espe- cially the fine things one savs in replv. This, with a little package of music, will be handed you by Mr. D , who is going to accompany it all the way himself. The obliging VOL, II. F 98 COMPLIMENTS. man ! Please to give him your thanks; and to his prettiest little wife in the world, a thousand compliments from your very devoted humble servant. LITERATURE. 99 J.ETTER XV. The Schools. — State of Literature. — Minister of Public Instruction. — Education in France. — Prussian System. — Parochial Schools. — Normal Schools. — Institutions of Paris. — Public Libraries. — Machinery of French Justice. — The Judges. — Eloquence of the Bar. — Medicine. — Corporations of Learning. — Their Evils. — The French Institute. — Pretended New System of Instruction. — Professors of Paris. Paris, November 20th, 1835. One of the eminent merits of the French cha- racter is the distinction they bestow upon letters. A literary reputation is, at once, a passport to the first respect in private life, and to the first honours in the state. In Paris it gives the tone, which it does nowhere else, to fashionable society. It is not that Paris loves money less than other cities, but she loves learning more; and that titled rank being curtailed of its natu- F 2 100 ESTIMATION OF LITERARY MEN. ral influence, learning has taken the advance^ and now travels on in the highway to distinction and preferment, without a patron, and without a rival. At the side of him, whose blood has cir- culated through fifty generations, or has stood in the van of as many battles, is the author of a French History, born without a father or mother. Who is Guizot, and who Villemain, Cousin, Collard, Arago, Lamartine, that they should be set up at the head of one of the first nations in Europe ? Newspaper editors, schoolmasters, astronomers, and poets, who have thrust the purpled nobles, and time-honoured patricians from the market of public honours, and have sat down quietly in their seats. The same marks of literary supremacy are seen through every feature of the community. Who was at Madame Recamier's last night? Chateaubriand; and at the Duchesse d'Abrantes? Chateaubriand. — At the Pantheon, the whole nave of the Tem- ple is assigned to two literary men ; and the Prince of Eckmuhl, and such like, are crammed into the cellar. At Pere la Chaise, David wears the cross of St. Louis, by the side of Massena. Moliere is the only author in the world since the Greeks, whose birth-day is a national festival. His statue is crowned on that day at the Theatre PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. ]01 Francais, and his plays are represented, by order of government, upon all the national theatres. We ought then to presume that the literary and scientific institutions of the French should cor- respond with this sentiment in favour of learning ; and so they do. Here are two sheets of large post, which I must try to fill with this subject. I say try^ because I write in obedience to your orders, and in total defiance of inclination. This will be the only letter I have written since I came here, to any of your bearded sex, and I feel already very grave and dull. Not that I think ladies more frivolous than men, or men more stupid than ladies, but it is my humour. I can write to my lady acquaintance without thinking, which I esteem a special favour, during my residence in Paris. — They do not expect me to be wise, and what extravagant notions you may have on this subject I don't know. — If I write you nothing but what you know already, it will not be my fault, for I am unacquainted with the extent of your information, and you have not been specific in your inquiries. The authority which presides over the Public Instruction in France, is personified under the term " University," at the head of which is a 102 EDUCATION IN FRANCE. minister, who has a salary of twenty thousand dollars, and a rank with the other ministers. A *' Central Board" of nine members, has a general superintendence of the studies, and expense of the establishments. The divisions of the king- dom for the " Royal Courts," are the school ■ districts, which are called Academies; these have each a " Governor/* representing the minister, and an " Academical Board,'' the Central Board at Paris ; and each has its estab- lishments, which are the Faculties, the Roval and Communal Colleges, Primary Schools, and Private Institutions. The Instruction is Superior, Secondary, and Primary. The ** Faculties" teach theologfy, law, medi- cine, science, and letters. They confer degrees of Bachelor, Licentiate, and Doctor ; and are thirty-five in number. Three are Medical Faculties, at Paris, iMontpelier and Strasburg: eight are Theological; of the Catholic Religion, six ; of the Protestant, two ; and nine are Fa- culties of Law. There are thirty Royal, three hundred and twenty Communal ; and two Private Colleges ; one hundred and twenty Private Institutions, or Boarding Schools, and one thousand and twenty-five Select Private Schools. The studies of these are Philosophy, PRIMARY AND NORMAL SCHOOLS. 103 Natural History, Elementary Mathematics, Latin, Greek, and modern languages. The Primary Schools embrace only reading, arithmetic, and writing : and the " Primary Su- perior" add history, geography, elements of chemistry, and surveying. Their number about fifty thousand. At Paris there is a " Normal School," for the education of Professors; and throughout the kingdom about sixty for masters of the Primary Schools. The minister is appointed by the king, and the other officers directly, or indirectly by him. There are thirty General Inspectors, two for each academy or district. The " Proviseurs" have a care of the household and conduct of the students, and *' Censors" superintend studies. Teachers are selected at a distance from their own departments, so that no local interests may grow up against the great central authority. Private institutions are forbidden to teach any thing else than grammar, elements of arithmetic, and geometry. Reports from the Academical Boards are examined twice a-week by the Central Board of the University, and the University pre- sents a report every two years, to the Chamber of Deputies. 104 EDUCATION IN FRANCE. Education in France is a universal and unin- fringible monopoly, and has the benefits and evils of such systems. The Central Board esta- blishes uniformity in books, and instruction ; it decides whether you are to teach your son pot- hooks, or straight strokes ; but it impedes also improvement in the school-books, and processes of teaching ; it selects competent instructors, but it represses the exercise of ingenuity by pre- scribing their duties ; it cuts up the Lancasters, the Fellenbergs, and Pestalozzis by the roots. I say nothing of the independence of mind, with- out which there is neither genius, nor virtue, which is repressed by so absolute an authority. It suppresses also imposture in the teachers, but it destroys, too, the spirit of competition which imparts life and vigour to all human employ- ments. It does not suppress the jobbing which arises out of all government projects, or intrigue, or favouritism in the appointment of its officers. This is the system lately engrafted upon the great Prussian plan, which it is the fashion to praise so much about in the world. Time will perhaps reveal its merits ; but this is by no means certain. There are other causes at work for the diffusion of knowledge amongst the peo- ple, and it is so easy to ascribe the merit to the THE PRUSSIAN SYSTEM. 105 Prussians; besides, it is not likely that, once used to receive instruction from their magis- trates, as it were, for nothing, the people should consent to educate themselves at their own cost; or that, seeing for a long time effects produced by a certain machinery, especially so remote from their causes, they should conceive them producible by any other. I have looked at tlie working of this plan in Paris and several of the neis^hbourino; towns, and am sorry that I cannot share in the flatter- ing hopes entertained of its results. Burke lays it down as " one of the finest problems of legis- lation" to know *' what the state ou2;ht to un- dertake to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual discretion." " All governments," he observes, *' fall into the error of legislating too much." I have no good hopes of any system of education under the manage- ment of a government. Nothing is so badly managed as a govern- ment itself all over the world ; and to have as little as possible of it seems to me the perfection of social economy. The rich and middling classes will take care of their own children always, and no one, I presume, will say that F 5 106 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. they will not do it better under the impulse of parental feeling than they who act only from delegated authority. Why do we not put the cultivation of the earth under the management of a company ? A parent, being able, feels as strong a necessity to educate his son as to cultivate his field. To the parent only, who is destitute, and to whom there is but the alterna- tive of a bad system or none ; to him only whose instincts are frozen by necessity, should the sceptre of legislation be extended — extended as medicine to the health, with prudence, and only when the native vioour is irrecoverable by the natural stimulus. You cannot by any human device prevent the division of the poor and rich into different schools ; they do not attempt it even in arbitrary Prussia. And it is better the government, with its broad shoulders, than in- dividuals, should make the distinction. Under a general system the two parties mu- tually prejudice each other. On the one hand, the current of private charity, so fruitful in its na- tural channel, is dried up by it. A community of which the individuals give cheerfully ; one the timber, another the stone, another his personal services, towards a building, will, under a public system, require to be paid for their smallest con- PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS. 107 tributions ; and how many rich legacies have we inherited in Philadelphia, not a dollar of which would have been given under a public system. On the other hand, how many communities through the country, able to support good pri- vate schools, without the intermeddling of the government, have no longer the ability, and are obliged either to send their children abroad, or place them, with a total disregard of their morals and education, in a public school, where sixty scholars are taught by an old gentleman of sixty. It is easy to imagine what sort of schools are those in which the teacher receives, as in New England, twenty, or as in Pennsyl- vania, thirty dollars a month, for this wide dif- fusion of his services. The Scotch have been putting this forty- pound-a-year system to the test these two hundred years in their Parochial Schools, and with the most tender nursing;, their schools are in the same puny and ricketty condition as at their seven months' birth. The Scotch are a persevering people, and if they begin by build- ing a house at the roof, they keep building on even after the inutility of their labours has been demonstrated. So the turkeys in your Schuylkill county, their eggs being removed, 108 IMPOLICY OF GOVERNMENT and stones substituted, continue hatching on as usual. The Yankees, a shrewder people, are beginning to find out that their school system, copied from the Scotch, notwithstanding the care with which they starve their teachers, is actually getting worse every year. I have no objection to the government givins; money, the more, the better, but I have no hesitation in saying that it will serve no useful purpose un- less the relation between parent and teacher is preserved, and the executive department left to their manaoement. In this delicate concern, the arm of the government should be concealed ; her virtues should be busy without noise. If I were the state; if I owned, for example, your community of Pottsville, I would contri- bute all I could towards buildings, apparatus, and libraries, and circulating useful books, and above all towards elevating the character and acquirements of the teachers. I would devise some way, by a succession of honours and pro- fits, to make men teach, as in the army they make them fight. For instance, I would pay a per centage, up to a certain number of pupils, to each school ; and the teacher with ten years' approved services should receive a state di- ploma and the title of professor ; thirty years' SUPERINTENDENCE OVER EDUCATION. 109 services should entitle him to half pay, and I would take care of his wife and children at his decease. I would not encourage universities but for the advanced age of the pupils, and the transcendant branches; so as to give them a higher character, and leave the field of general instruction open to the common teachers, and to a fair and equal competition of abilities. Thus I should find abundant means of emplov- ing all my school funds ; and this without the Inspectors, Censors, Proviseurs, and the other expensive apparatus of the " Bureau Central cle Paris." If any one of the honourable and useful de- partments of a state is filled with an inferior class of men, it shows a defect in the policy of such a state. If I wished to devise some means the most direct, to degrade the character of a teacher, I could not hit upon one more effica- cious than this French and Prussian system. All that the Prussian receives to console his condition of absolute dependence, is two hun- dred dollars per annum ; the highest professor at the gymnasium, receives five hundred. With this "appointment" he must be all school- master, without any alloy of gentleman about him. It is certain that not any of the respect- 110 NORMAL SCHOOLS. able literary circles of Europe will receive this working: man of the Muses into their society. The Prussians are not addicted to commerce; nor do they read newspapers, nor meddle with the state ; their habits are quiet and agricul- tural ; and they care much less about the heads of their children, than that their cabbages may have good heads for sour crout. If not educated by the government, they would, no doubt, re- main ignorant of letters. The Prussian system may, then, be a very good system for Prussia; but it is not, therefore, necessary or applicable to the United States ; — except it be to our Ger- man nests of Pennsylvania ; but these are melting away, and will soon be lost in the gene- ral improvements of the state. A part of this system are the Normal Schools, which we are trying, also, to introduce mto New England. They seem to me of little value, for they can teach but little that is not taught m any other place of education ; besides, under present circumstances, they defeat their own purpose. A good school for educating teachers in America, would, perhaps, be the very best place one could imagine to disqualify men for teaching. 1 know the trustees of the " Girard Colleo-e" think otherwise, and entertain san- NORMAL SCHOOLS. Ijl guine hopes of supplying the whole country with eminent teachers from that institution. I do not see the reasonableness of their hopes; unless we may suppose that the young gentle- men of talent, out of gratitude, will forego the opportunities they may have of wealth and dis- tmction in other professions, to starve them- selves for the benefit of the state of Penn- sylvania. Several writers here express fears that this monopoly of education may be turned to the prejudice of liberty; which I believe to be a vain apprehension. The teachers beino- lay- men, it is certain it will not be turned to the profit of the hierarchy. The French literature, which finds its way into every country of Europe, is a complete code of ridicule of the priesthood and nobihty ; and the more people are taught to read, the more difficult will be the re-establishment of these two orders. Public opinion is but little modified by the books and lectures of the schools; and the minister's authority, however absolute in the University of Paris, will be but little felt, if in contradic- tion with that greater university — the world. The studies of the schools are forced upon un- ripe and unwilling minds; those of society are 112 INSTITUTIONS OF PARIS. voluntary, and introduced as reason is de- veloped. Besides, it is human nature to relish most that which is most prohibited. Xothing eyer brouo;ht the works dangerous to religion more into reputation, than the denunciations of the clero^v. In crimes and errors, one cannot cure the patient, by starving and checking per- spiration. It happens, too, that the French books, which are most replenished with wit and genius, are precisely those which are most ob- noxious. It is true, however unfortunate, that education, hberty, and irreligion are sown here ni the same soil, and grow together under the same cultivation. To preserve the French student from the contagion of principles dan- gerous to the aristocratic and clerical institu- tions, he must be forbidden the whole of the national classics down to Lafontaine's Fables, including the history of his country — I was ofoins: to say, the company of his father and mother, and his schoolmasters. I must now give you an account of the parti- cular institutions of Paris. You have your choice of five royal colleges; " Louis le Grand,'' ^^ Henri IV.," and " St. Louis," which receive boarders and externs; and *' Charlemagne,'' and *' Bourbon," externs only. The average num- ROYAL COLLEGES. 113 ber of pupils for each is about a thousand. The studies are ancient and modern languages, mathematics, chemistry, natural philosophy, natural history, geography, penmanship, and drawing. They are superintended by a " Pro- viseur" and a " Directeur General des Etudes." In August, there is a general competition for prizes, between a few pupils selected from each college, conducted with pomp before the heads of the universities, and other dignitaries of the city. A subject is given, the competitors are locked up, and a council of the university de- cides, and the names of the successful students, and the schools to which they belong, are published in the journals ; which excites a wonderful emulation amongst fifty, and a wonderful jealousy and discontent amongst five hundred ; and many s^et prizes on these days who get nothinoj else all the rest of their lives. The price of boarding and instruction is about 220 dollars per annum. There are besides these, and of the same character, " St. Barbe or HolUuf^ and " Sta?iislaus,'' two private colleges. There are in the city, and under the inspection of the university, 116 academies for gentlemen, and 143 for ladies; and a great number of primary schools, in which about 10,000 child- 114 IXSTITUTIOXs OF PARIS. ren are taught gratuitously or for a small price; the boys by the '* Freres de la Doctrine CJire- tiefuie/' and the girls by the " Sisters of Cha- rity,'' or nearly the half by the •* Frtres Igno- rantins,'" who profess reading and writing only, with the catechism ; any one having: hiofher at- tainraents being disqualified. There are schools also for the blind and dumb. This machinery of schools, or something equi- valent, exists in other countries, but the Pari- sians have two institutions, which they regard as choice and pre-eminent. Science, which is elsewhere immured in the cloisters of the uni- versities, here breathes the wholesome and ven- tilated air of social life. " Wisdom uttereth her voice in the market-place ; she crieth aloud in the streets." These are the " Academie de Paris f' and the " College Royal de France.^' Every branch of human knowledge has here its professors, and the doors of the temple are open to the needy of all nations. In the former, which you will find on the ^* Place Sorbonne,"' are Faculties of Theology with six professors ; of Letters w^ith twelve ; and Science, twelve. It is the theatre upon which Guizot, Cousin, Villemain,and others acquired their professorial celebrity — a noble theatre for the encourage- SCHOOLS OF SCIENCE. 115 raent, exercise, and reward of eminent abilities. The Faculties of Law and ^Medicine are held each in separate buildings. The '' College de France'' has twenty-one professors, who give lectures on all the hisher branches of science and letters; also upon the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, xA.rabic, Persian, Chinese, and Italian lan^uaoes. There is besides a Special Royal school for Oriental Languages, to which the government allows annually 3600 dollars. The salaries of professors in these schools seldom exceed 1200 dollars; a pension is given after twenty years' services. — Besides these, they have the *' Ecole P oly technique y' with three hundred scholars, from sixteen to twenty years : twenty- four at the expense of government ; the charges of the others 200 dollars a-year. In connection with this is the ^^ Ecole des Fonts et Chausies," in which eighty of the pupils are instructed specially in the arts of projecting, and construct- ing roads, canals, &:c. There is a school for Astronomy at the Obser- vatory ; also, a ** School of Mines," with an extensive cabinet and lectures, and a '' School of Pharmacy," with a botanic garden. This gives a diploma and licence to practice to Apothecaries. — There is a gratuitous school of 116 PUBLIC LIBRARIES. Mathematics and Drawing, and one of Drawing for ladies, and two courses of lectures at the Garden of Plants. The Conservatory of Music has four hundred pupils ; twelve at the expense of government ; it gives prizes, and through the year several concerts. There is a Gymnasium too, and a school of Equitation. Mercy ! what a litter of schools. The institutions also for encourao^ement and literary intercourse, are numerous in all the branches of learning. At the head of these is the *• histitut de France.'' Of the others, the most distinguished are the *' Academie de Medi- cine/' and the Geographical, Historical, and Agricultural societies. The Public Libraries are the '' Kino's," con- taining four hundred and fifty thousand volumes, sixty thousand manuscripts, one hundred thou- sand medals, and more than a million of eno:rav- ings; the Library of the Arsenal, one hundred and eighty thousand volumes; of the Pantheon, one hundred and fifty thousand, and thirty thousand manuscripts ; the Mazarine, one hun- dred thousand ; and the City Library forty -eight thousand ; and others, as of the Institute and Sorbonne, to be consulted occasionally. There are near two hundred Reading-Rooms, also Cir- MACHINERY OF FRENCH JUSTICE. 117 culating Libraries in all directions; and news- papers and reviews are a part of tlie furniture of every cafe, and other public house — without saying any thing of the Museums and Institu- tions of the Fine Arts. In the Law School, a degree of Bachelor re- quires two years' attendance on lectures : a Li- centiate three, and " Doctor of Laws," four. Pleading in court is preceded by a decree of Licentiate, three years' study, examination and thesis, and after oath of office a noviciate, or constant attendance on the courts, of three years. The Lawyers are Avocats and Avouts. The latter enjoins twenty-five years of age, cer- tain years of study, a certificate of capacity from the Faculty of Law, and a Clerkship of five years in a Cour Royal. The duties of the Avocat are subordinate. This arrano-ement brinors the inconvenience to the client of acting by two persons ; the want of the best advice in the be- ^innintr, of unity of action and undivided respon- sibility. The advantage is that the Avoue, not being subjected to the details and humbler duties of a suit, takes a higher professional rank and character, and is less subject to undue influences, having no immediate relation with the parties. In admission to the bar, there is no 118 MACHINERY OF FRE>X'H JUSTICE. inquiry about moral character, and the judges are selected immediately from the schools. I will try to give you in two words the machinery of French justice. I go out of my course in reverence for your profession. There is a " Minister of Justice." His office is to pursue and bring to punishment all wrongs done to the state. It is a bad relation, being that of vengeance and not mercy. Our princi- ple is reversed, and the accused is considered guilty until proved innocent. For the whole kingdom there are 27 Royal Courts ; and, corresponding with our Common Pleas, 365 courts, called " Tribunals of the First Instance." To each of the former is attached a ** Procureur General," and under him a '' Procureur du Roi," with a ''Judge d' Instruction," and justices of the peace. — The plaintiff, or a police-officer, applies to a commissary, or mayor, or justice, or Procureur du Roi, and if a criminal action, the accused, who cannot be confined beyond twenty- four hours, is summoned before a '' Ju^e d'ln- structionf^ who questions, and releases, or com- mits him. In the latter case he produces him, of course with all possible proofs of guilt (and to collect these proofs he may detain liim, innocent or not. PROCEEDINGS IN COURT. 119 nine months in prison) — before a Chamber of Council, having three judoes, himself one, to examine whether there is cause of trial ; and next before a Chamber of Accusation, v.hich examines finally, and this concurring, he is tried at the Assizes. A jury of thirty (taxables to 200 francs) are chosen by ballot, of whom the accuser and accused strike off nine. The '* Proaireur GeneraV then opens the trial, states the crime and names the witnesses; and i\i^ ^^ Avocat GeneraV^ appeals to the jury in behalf of the injured community, for justice. The President questions first the prisoner, who if incautious or foolish, may be led, as is the intention, to convict himself, or if expert, as he has the right to question also, he may induce discussions not always to the credit of the magistrate or the majesty of justice. Se- condly, he examines v>'itnesses, the prisoner and counsel cross-examining, and the Avocat Gene- ral then sums up the facts and evidence. Last of all the accused speaks, either by counsel or personally in defence: the court appointing counsel in case of his inability. The Presi- dent then sums up, gives his opinions, the jury declares him guilty or not guilty, and the court determines the punishment. Small offences are 120 JUDGES IN FRANCE. decided before a justice of the peace or a minor court, with liberty of appeal. Civil actions, below 1,000 francs, are tried before a justice of peace and decided finally by a Juge cV In- strnctioit : above that sum there is an appeal to a Royal Court. In the *' Court of Cassation " at Paris, the decision of any criminal or civil case may be re-examined, and if reversed it is referred to another tribunal. If the original decision is confirmed, it is reconsidered by this court, and if unanimous in the former opinion, it is submitted to a third tribunal, whose de- cision concurring with the first, is final. There are courts also expressly for the decision of com- mercial affairs. One at Paris with a president and two judges elected from the most respect- able merchants. The number of judges of the kingdom is 4,000; of justices of the peace 3,000 ; the Avoues of Paris are above 200. The salary of a justice is 2,400 francs, of a Judge of Cassation 15,000; of a President judge 20,000 ; and a Premier President 40,000 ; and the entire expense of justice is above three millions and a half. The judges are habited in black robes of silk, with a crimson sash about the neck and across the breast, with golden tassels. The lawyers i ELOQUENCE OF THE BAR. 121 wear a black gown, and a " toque " or cap. They usually hire this costume for the occa- sion from a stall within the " Palais de Justice.'^ This cap supplies the place of the old wig ; it does more, for the pleader occasionally takes it off and shakes it at the judge, or throws it upon the table in the fury of debate, and then puts it on again. It is certain that gesture was designed by nature to make up the de- ficiencies of language. It is often the more ex- pressive of the two, and whoever omits it or misuses it, must leave imperfect his meanings or the passions he attempts to represent. Ci- cero even sets down mimicry amongst the ac- complishments of an orator. Whoever con- verses in English and French will feel, for some reason, a disposition to much action in the one, and less in the other, in expressing the same feelings, which gives rise to a diversity of taste. But in all such matters there are standard rules in truth and nature which cannot without bad effect be violated. In gesture the English sin by neglect or awkwardness; the French chiefly by extravagance. Rapidity and fre- quency impair dignity, and even gracefulness is acquired somewhat at the expense of strength. A French orator will tear his ruffles when the VOL. II. G 122 SCHOOL OF MEDICIXE. occasion does not warrant it; reservinsf nothino- for a fiercer passion. To tell you he has seen a ghost, and not heard of it, he will apply a fore- finger to the under lids of his two eyes ; and to tell you emphatically that he came on horse- back, he will set two fingers to ride upon a third. While the Englishman *^ on hio^h and noble deeds intent," puts his right hand in his bosom and his left in his breeches pocket. Propriety lies somewhere between these two ex- tremes. There are two choice lawyers at the French bar, at present, Berryer and Charles Dupin; both eminent models of chaste and graceful oratory. This is enough of the limp- ing old Lady Justice. A degree of Doctor of Medicine must be preceded by a degree of Bachelor of Letters and Science, and four courses of lectures, a thesis sustained in public, and five public examina- tions. A vacancy in a professorship is supplied by a " concour^'' that is, the several candidates appear before the Faculty, a subject is given, they retire, and in the prescribed time return with their thesis, which they read and sustain in public, and the choice is settled by a majority of the j udges. The diligence of a French doctor should take him to heaven. He rises in the FRE?s'CH SURGERY. 123 night, and, long before other men have left their pillows, has done a good day's work. He has visited from four to five hundred sick in the hospitals, prescribed for each, made his autopses and other operations, and explained the cases separately and conjointly to his pupils. He has then consultations till ten, breakfasts, and is in his Professor's chair at the hour, visiting his patients and giving audience in the intervals of these duties — and has the rest of the day to himself. In his professorial capacity he wears a cap, a gown and crimson sash. He has given up the wig and gold-headed cane to Moliere. Me- dicine here is divided into strict specialities. One man feels your pulse, and another gives you physic. This exclusive attention to one object, at the same time it impairs the general excel- lence of the profession, has made the French the most expert operators in the world. Civiale in his Lithotritie has no equal amongst living men; Laennec does wonders in Auscultation with his Stethoscope, and Larrey, who has cut off the legs of half Europe, and was knighted by Bonaparte for such merits, has been far ob- scured by the fame of Dupuytren. It is said here commonly by foreigners that G 2 124 VIRULENCE OF PROFESSORS. in the French practice there is a reckless sacri- fice of life and disregard of humanity, by adventurous and needless experiments ; having, at least, no other object than surgical instruc- tion, and that, from neglect or ignorance of treatment after operations, the loss of patients is greater than in any other country. I should suppose, from what I have myself seen, that a millstone, compared to a French surgeon's heart, would be good pap to feed one's children upon. I may remark, also, that the science of medicine seems to me less indebted for its im- provement to the good feelings, than to the pride, jealousy and avarice, and other bad pas- sions of its practitioners. They have, to be sure, the courtesies they cannot well avoid for each other in social intercourse, but their private and professional purpose appears to be to starve each other, to persecute each other to the grave, and dissect each other after death. Broussais whips all the world, and all the world Broussais. A lecture of Lisfranc is a flourish of bludgeons and daggers ; he lashes Velpeau and Roux, even stabs Dupuytren in his winding-sheet^ and has as many lashes in return. It is surprising that the professors of humanity should be precisely those who have the least of that commodity on GOOD MEDICAL EDUCATION. 125 hand. The great disputes, just now, amongst the choice professors, are whether one ought to bleed or not bleed in acute fevers ; — this in the nineteenth century ! and whether one should administer purgatives in typhus and typhoid affections. M. Boulaud and Chaumel, and somebody else, are gaining famous reputations for this *^ new practice," which gained and lost reputa- tions in America forty-six years ago. However, from the facility of dissections, the number of sick in the hospitals, as well as from the emi- nence of the teachers, and cheapness of educa- tion, the School of Medicine of Paris is called very generally the best school of the world. It has at present twenty-three professors, besides honorary professors and assistants, and the number of students is about four thousand five hundred. I have already said a 2:reat deal about these French schools, but I have added another sheet and may as well go on to the end of it. From a bare enumeration, you see that education is here thrown in every one's face as a thing with- out price. If books and instruction constitute learning, the most literary people of this earth are assuredly the Parisians. But there is scarce 126 CORPORATIONS OF LEARNING ; any error to which short-sighted mortals are more subject than referring effects to wrong causes; and I believe a very common application of it is, to attribute a vast number of virtues to our learned institutions which they are not entitled to. I believe we over-rate generally the ad- vantages to be derived from abroad to the pre- judice of personal exertions; a source to which, after all, we must resort for at least three-fourths of our acquirements. Corporations of learning are altogether modern devices, and many nations were eminent in learn- ing before their invention. At the end of the fifteenth century, all science was thought to be shut up in their halls. Only think of ten thousand students in the University of Bolos^na at once ! — and it was not until Lord Bacon and some others had dissipated a little of this error, and taught men to look into nature and experi- ence, and not into the cloisters of the monks, for mental improvement, that any one sought it elsewhere. But many persons are still wedded to the system, and still think that all that is wanting to the discipline of the mind, is the munificence of government in founding Universities ; so some think that building churches is all that is THEIR EVILS. J27 wanting to take one to heaven. There has never been a law-school in Great Britain, and in no country of Europe has there been an equal number of eminent lawyers, and teachers of the law. It is since the Revolution that a law-school exists with any credit in France, and her Hopitals and d'Aguesseaus, and other dis- tinguished lawyers, are anterior to that date. And what did the old French Academy for learning, which the members would not have done, and done better, in their individual capa- cities ? The unaided works of individuals of the same period are as superior to her united labours, as the poetry of Racine or Boileau to her prize poems, or Johnson's Dictionary to the Dictionary of the Academy. When men have been used to see a certain assemblage of objects in connection with learn- ing, to imagine it attainable by any other pro- cess is more difficult perhaps than you imagine. When Doctor Bell attempted to introduce writing upon sand into his school at Calcutta, it was opposed by the patrons of the school as a ridiculous innovation, and not one of the re- gular instructors could be found, who would even aid in making the experiment ; all stuck out for the dignity of pot-hooks and goose- 128 CORPORATIONS OF LEARNING ; quills, and this doctor was forced to train a few of his own pupils to these new functions; which gave him the first idea of his monitorial system of teaching. We perceive daily the in- efficiency of our present systems and practices, but we have been set a-going in a certain direc- tion, and we will not depart from it. It is known that the Athenians were the people of the world, who set the highest value upon learning, and that they had no Universi- ties or Colleges ; and that they obtained a li- terary eminence, which modern nations do not pretend to have equalled, without the instru- mentality of such institutions. The profession of teaching amongst them was left open to the competition of professional ability, and the teacher received no salary from government or any corporation ; except that the academy was assigned to Plato, as the Lyceum to Aristotle, and the Portico to Zeno, in reward of extraor- dinary services. But the teachers of that country were such men as Aristotle, Plato, Isocrates, Lysias, Longinus, and Plutarch, who, be it said with much respect for the Cousins and the Villemains, have had no superiors since their times; and the Lyceum, Academy, and Portico, though private schools, and sustained THEIR EVILS. 129 only by the teachers' merits, and the public patronage, were the noblest institutions of any age or country, not excepting the Sorbonne, and the College de France. The good which these corporate institutions do, seems to me doubtful ; the evil which they do is manifest. I will notice one or two instances; and first, the injury they inflict upon the com- mon or private schools, which covering a greater surface of instruction and communicating the knowledge most useful to mankind, should not hold a second place in the public concern. It is a rule of all countries not to supply the pro- fessorships of colleges from the inferior orders of the profession. In other pursuits, promotion is the reward of actual services ; from lawyers are judges, from sailors admirals, and from cardinals popes; but in teaching, the very fact of being a teacher acts as a disqualification for any higher distinction. But otherwise, the evil is still flag-rant ; for academical honours lie in so narrow a circle, that a small number only can have a hope of reward ; and with the most impartial choice equal merit at least must be unjustly rejected. Such honours are taken from a general stock. It is fencing in part of a common; employing g5 130 CORPORATIONS OF LEARNING. the manure upon one spot, which should ferti- lise the whole field ; or it is worse ; for, in the exact proportion that the professor rises into distinction, the common teacher is degraded. The one advances, while the other is made to retrograde by the same impetus. Thus in all modern nations the least important individual of a community is the schoolmaster. Either his talents are not called out by any high motives to exertion ; or if his ambition should attempt a rivalry with the institution, having its diplomas, titular distinctions, public honours and endowments, and so many things independent of professional ability to sustain it, what chance has he of success ? — That only of the individual who trades against a chartered company: he must expect to be driven from the market. On the other hand the college profes- sor, being without a rival, becomes lazy and inert. Voltaire says, that not one of the French professors, except RoUin, had ever wTitten any thing worthy of remembrance, whilst in Greece, by far the greatest of their distinguished writers had been either public or private instructors. Another signal mischief of these schools is, the multiplying professional aspirants beyond the necessities of the state, and filling the pro- THEIR EVILS. 131 fessions with persons not competent by nature for such pursuits. The ascent to literary and professional honours is exceedingly rugged in all countries, and always crowded to excess with adventurers. The brilUant honours which have attended the fortunes of a few persons here, con- tinually lure others from their useful employ- ments, to try their luck in the great lottery. All are tempted, by a single success, to expect the prize ; and the blanks pass for nothing. As soon as any trader or mechanic has grown com- fortable by his industry, instead of raising his sons to his own useful employment, he resolves that one, at least, shall be a gentleman, and therefore sends, generally, the most lazy and stupid to college. The common event is, that the young gentle- man having acquired, from his college associa- tions, ambitious desires, and habits altogether adverse to ordinary industry, and finding the avenues to success shut ao-ainst his little dili- gence or abilities, is driven to dishonourable ex- pedients for a living ; he turns gambler or drunkard : or, at least, if he does not make gun- powder to kill the " King of the French,"* he '^ A nest of students has lately been detected in this employment. 132 THE FRENCH INSTITUTE, resorts to law, or gospel, or medicine, and gleans the stubble for a miserable subsistence during; a long life, (for poor devils won't die,) or he turns common hack upon the high way of letters, and peddles and hucksters all day, for his meagre provender at night. If you think this a carica- ture, come and live in the " Latin Quarter," and you will find it is a handsome enough likeness. However, I do not mean by all this reason- ino;, that you are to burn the University of Penn- sylvania ; but, that a system which cannot be changed, may be improved. I should like to see it confined to the highest possible range of studies, so that a smaller number of persons may be seduced from the laborious pursuits, and * those common things, the schoolmasters, may have a wider field of duties, and, consequently, a larger share of the public consideration, and the dignity of human nature. It is silly to talk of the prosperity, especially of a literary employ- ment, where honour and profit are not given to those who administer its duties. I know two or three members of the Institute, who will be angry if I should tell you not a word of that ^' bel etablissement.'' I have read somewhere, that Fulton having sued the protec- tion of this Institute in vain, for a whole vear, AND ITS MAL-ADMINISTRATION. 133 was afterwards enabled, by an individual, called William Pitt, to bring his valuable invention into the service of mankind ; which seems to import, that '* forty men" may not have always " de Vesprit comme quatreJ' Such institutions, when established, like the geographical and other societies, for literary intercourse and cor- respondence, are of manifest utility ; but when they assume judicial powers, and accord the world "just as much wit. As Johnson, Fleetwood, Gibber shall think fit ;" standing between the author and the public; or when they become a privileged class, invested with honours, which cannot be attained bv others of equal merit, I am a hardened heretic in all my opinions respecting them. I know, moreover, no scheme of patronage that secures such academical honours to the most worthy. We used to see rejected in the old Academy, such names as Helvetius, Moliere, Arnault and Pascal, and the two Rousseaus ; and such as Sismondi and Beranger, in the present. Beran- ger, the poet, the most original and philosophi- cal, one of the most richly endowed with poetic genius of the present age, " who, under the modest title of * Songs,' makes odes worthy the 134 PROFESSORS OF PARIS. lyre of Pindar, and the lute of Anacreon/' was refused the vacant place of this year, in the Academie des Belles Lettres, and it was given to Mr. Somebody, who writes vaudevilles. Brous- sais, who has left an impress upon his age, by his genius, was rejected in the '^ Academie des Sciences'' for a Monsieur Double — and who knows M. Double? And Lisfranc, to whom surgery owes more than to any living French- man, was excluded for a Monsieur Breschet — and who is M. Breschet? I might as well ask, who, in the '^Academie de Medecine," are Messrs. Bouriat, Chardel, Chereau, Clarion and Cornac."^ The students pass their nine years here upon Latin, as in America, and by nearly the same processes ; that is, the children are drilled as with ys upon the studies of mature age, and improve their memories without much troubling the other faculties. A boy for instance, at ten and twelve years, is made to strain after the beauties of Cicero and Horace, which are conceivable * Racine told the Due de Maine, \vho was anxious for a place at the old Academy, that there was no place vacant ; but there was no member, he said, who would not be glad to die to accommodate him — " gui ne tint a grand honntur de mourir, pour lui en Jaire une" — and Racine said this seriously. NEW SYSTEMS OF INSTRUCTION. 135 only by a well-cultivated manhood ; and in the elementary schools, babies are taught, exactly as in Philadelphia, all the incomprehensible nonsense of the grammars. Any child here can tell you why a verb is *' active, passive, and neuter," and how the action must pass from the agent to the object, to make it ** transitive ;" and they study reading and punctuation on the " Beauties of the Classics," as we do : — ^' vital spark,'' (a comma,) '' Heavenly flame,'' (a semi- colon;)— and the little things are taught to " Hic and Hac," at a public examination to please Mrs. Quickly just as with us. Paris is, also, full of instructors, calling themselves Pro- fessors, who have introduced all the different ways of turning dunces into wits, in six lessons, which are practised so successfully in Philadel- phia ; and they have tapestried every street with their " new systems," under the very nose of the Minister of Public Instruction. In the chamber adjoining mine is a young EngHshman, just arrived, without a knowledge of French, to a course of medical study ; he has taken a master, a venerable and noisy old man, who humbly con- ceives that the whole English nation is stupid, because this youth cannot pronounce vertu. He made, this morning, fifty persevering efforts, each 136 'SEVr SYSTEMS. louder than the last, and still it was verthu. The old gentleman sat afterwards in my room awhile, quite meditative, and at length said, in a very feelino: manner : — '* I believe the Eno^lish nation is fool !" — I know another teacher, an English- man, who retaliates upon the French the vio- lence done his countrymen. He begins by dis- locating a Frenchman's jaws. His ** system" is to commence with the difficulties, and all the rest, he says, is *' down hill." So he has a little book of phrases, " made hard for beginners," as follows : — " / 5'^^{/f Scotch suuff, my luife smtffs Scotch snuffJ" — A lump of red leather, and a red leather lump,^' &c. The scholar, having over- come these preparatory difficulties, takes up Sterne's sentimental journey. It is, he says, as one who learns to run, having put on leaden shoes ; when relieved from the weight he can almost fly. — I verily beheve that the greatest fools, all over the world, are those who commu- nicate knowledge ; as the greatest knaves are usually those who teach men to be honest. — Je lie sais si je m'expliqiie. In the Parisian schools there is at present no corporal punishment. The student used to be flogged in these same Halls till there were no more birches. — Solomon may say what he PROFESSORS OF PARIS. 137 pleases, I will not have my children whipped. The only natural authority for whippino-, is in the parent, and it cannot be safely delegated to another. The discipline here is every where eood. The professors of Paris are men of the world, and mix in its pleasures. They have nothino;in their air of awkward timidity, or haughty arro- gance, or ridiculous pedantry— the faults often of those who live apart from fashionable society. They are as well bred as if there w ere no scholars at all. And they do not set them up here as examples to other men, or make them die, as with us, martyrs to virtue, at the rate of five hundred dollars a-year, and find themselves. — 1 know several of these professors, and one inti- mately; he attends to both the moral and intel- lectual improvement of his pupils, and is most assiduous in his duties. ^Moreover, he has three rooms in different parts of this " Latin Quarter," in one of which he has a very pretty little mis- tress, highly cultivated in music and letters; in another he resides with his books, and has fre- quent conversations with venerable men about the best systems of education ; the third he keeps for occasional adventures. He is much esteemed, and would not be less were I to pub- lish his name. 138 OPINION OF AMERICAN SYSTEMS. My opinion is, that America has little to learn from Europe on the subject of schools ; she wants but a wise and diligent application of the knowledge she already possesses, and which future experience may suggest; she runs at least as much risk of being led astray by European errors, as enlightened by European wisdom. The better scholarship of Europe, is not attribut- able to the better organisation of her schools. I am aware there are opinions and doctrines in this letter which are not orthodox, but you did not ask me to write after other men's opinions, but my own. On education the sen- timents of men are yet unfortunately unsettled, and the field is open for speculation. Witli great respect, I remain your very humble servant. ladies' schools. 139 LETTER XVI. Ladies' Boarding Schools. — Names of Professors in the Prospectus. — System of Education. — American Schools. — Preference for Science. — High Intellectual Acquire- ments not approved. — Learned Women. — American Girls. — Comparison of French and American Society. — The care to preserve Female Beauty. — Expression of the Mouth. — Dress of American Women. — Notions of the Maternal Character. — Studies in Ladies' Schools. — Literary Associations. — Societe Geographique. — French Lady Authors. — Living Writers. — Chateaubriand — Beranger — Lamartine — Victor Hugo — Casimir de la Vigne — Alfred de Vigny — Guizot — Thiers — Thierry Segur — Lacretelle — Sismondi. Paris, December 25th, 1835. I AM going in my usual way to write you what has most engaged my attention during the last week. I have been breaking into ladies' board- ing schools, and turning and twisting about the school-mistresses, and making them explain their plans of education; which they have done 140 ladies' boarding schools. very obligingly, leading me through their dor- mitories, refectories, and school-rooms. The French women are so kind in showing you any thing. In the street, I often chose to lose my- self a mile or two rather than impose upon their good nature. The organization of their schools has nothing; different from the French boardinor schools of Philadelphia. Their elementary branches are the same. Their foreign lan- guages are German, English, and Italian ; and these, with drawing, dancing, and needlework, make up the programme of studies. Most of the schools are in airy situations, with large gardens, having baths, and gymnastic exercises attached. Rewards and punishments are as usual; bulletins of conduct are sent to the parents, and public examinations are made to astonish the grandmothers and bring the schools into notoriety. All the professors are printed up ostenta- tiously in the prospectus. One is '' Danseur de VAcademie Royal de r Opera;" another is " Professeur du chant au Conservatoire ;^ a " Chevalier de la legion d'honneur'^ teaches you your " pot-hooks;" and an " Imtituteur du due de Bordeaux" — " de la Reine de Portugal" S^c, your parts of speech. In the best schools the SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. 141 annual charge for boarding and education, in- cluding the foreign lang-uages, is about two hundred dollars. Dancing and drawing are each tliree, and the piano six dollars per month. A French wonaan is emphatically a social being, and prepares herself for this destination. A philosophical apparatus is no part of the furniture of her school-room ; nor does she rashly study Latin, nor any of the '' inflamma- tory branches." But she makes herself well acquainted with all that is of daily use; her geography, history of France, mythology and the fashionable literature, and tries to be very expert in the ^' use and administration" of this learning ; she talks of books and their authors, especially the drama, of the fine arts, of social etiquette, of dress and fashions, and all such common topics, better than other women. She studies the graces of language, and all the rhetoric of society, as an orator, that of public life. She learns to speak, not with the tongue only, but with the action, gesture, voice, and expression, which may give life and magic to her conversation. You will hear her talk of the "jew du visage,' and she thinks a woman, who has no variety of 142 SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. face, had better have no face at all. I take the liberty of thinking so too ; extending only the rule to the whole woman, body and soul. What is she, after all, without variety? any thino; is better; a fish without seasonino- is better. I had almost said that a woman m.uch oftener palls the appetite of her husband by uniform goodness, than by her caprices and levities. I have found it pleasant, after having a chill, even to have a fever by way of variety. And why should not the eloquence of common life be quite as important as that of the bar, or senate, or pulpit? since it is of daily use, and the other only occasional, and since much more important interests are affected by it. A French woman does not limit her views of education to her maiden years, nor to her do- mestic and nursery duties, not being destined to be imprisoned by her husband, or devoured by her own children ; nor to her marriage settle- ment; for this is the business of her mother; her aim is to prepare the qualifications of womanhood ; and her ambition is not to win the unbearded admiration of boys, for her inter- course is to be with men, competent, from taste and understanding to judge of her acquire- ments^as well as to add something to the polish AMERICAN FEMALE EDUCATION. 143 of her mind, by their manners and conversation. But the taste of gentlemen here, even of the learned, seeks not so much science in a lady as a certain knack in conversation, which may give a good grace to all that she says. In our American schools science has taken precedence every where of letters ; it has not only the principal seats at the universities, but in our best female academies is thouo;ht to be the most exalted and necessary kind of know- ledge. It is so interesting to see a young miss expert at her sines and tangents ; and presiding over a cabinet of minerals. Why, a Xew England lady analyzes the atmosphere and gossips hydraulics at her tea- table. I have been puzzled there upon theories of geology, or meteorology, at a wedding. " Sir, this is a trap formation, — the angle seventeen minutes and three seconds." — I do not mean to depreciate this kind of learning, but I would not make it the principal object of a gentleman's, much less, a lady's education. Calculations of science have little to do with the affections ; they exercise only the mechanism of the under- standing ; and leave the imaginative power — the power which adorns and illustrates by images — unemployed ; and the mind, under a 144 EDUCATION TOO SCIENTIFIC. mathematical trainino;, becomes too systematic for the irreoularity of human affairs. The partiality for science prevails in gentle- men's education, also in Europe. The chief professorships of the colleges are scientific, and in the Institute, the Academy of Sciences, like Aaron's rod, has swallowed up all the rest. But in the female schools such inquiries are post- poned, at least, to the ornamental and agreeable. A French lady is of the romantic school, and thinks the classic too severe for feminine charms. Therefore, all studies which do not supply the materials of daily conversation, and have no im- mediate connection with some purpose of her social existence are rejected from the general plan of female instruction. Acquirements highly intellectual in a lady, are not much approved by the French tutors and others with whom I have conversed. They think them dangerous to her domestic qualities. A Parisian lady living continually in society, having such accomplishments, would become too much the property of the other sex. Besides, such an education, they say, made Madame de Stael a libertine, Madame Centlivre, and two or three more, licentious, and Madame Mon- tague a sloven and something else, and so they LEARNED -WOMEN'. 145 run on. One might ask them in return what it made of iNIesdames Barbauld, Hamilton, Porter, Edgeworth, Hemans, and that good old blue-stockins: saint, Hannah More. It is true that learning is more attractive, and will always be more courted and flattered than even beauty; and in this sense it is dangerous. The Greeks gave IMinerva a shield, and turned Venus loose without one; it was apparently for this reason. Learning in France always studies books and the world together; the "Blue Stocking" is not known here, nor is there any equivalent term in the language. The " Precieuses Ridi- cules'' is of a different character. So at least the learned woman has not to dread this oppro- brious designation, which so terrifies ladies in some other countries. I know one, not of the Tuileries, but the Collieries, who, under the awful apprehension of Blue Stockingism, almost repents of her learning; hides her A^irgil, and disowns her Horace altogether. There are places where ladies think proper to apologise for their virtues, and ask pardon for being in the riorht. A French lady is not afraid to show her posses- sions. She shows her learning, and knows how to show it without affectation. She displays it VOL. II. H 146 COMPARISON BETWEEN FRENCH as she does her pretty foot and ankle ; she does not pull up her clothes expressly for the pur- pose. As for me, I love a learned woman, even in her blue stockings; and without them I love her to idolatry; — I mean a reasonable idolatry, w hich leads to a higher reverence for the Creator from an admiration of his best works. One of the grand purposes of a Frenchwoman, is to seem natural; and, indeed, if a lady is natural, even her singularities add to her perfections, whilst affectation makes even her sense and beauty insipid and ridiculous. I talked with one of these mistresses about you American girls. She says you come too soon into the world, and take too many liberties when in it. This, she thinks, interferes with education, and awakens inclinations and pas- sions which had better sleep until the girls have grown up. She says that tender plants should be kept a long while in the nursery ; that to play well in the concert, one must play well at home, and that the whole of youth is even too little for acquirement. *' These young ladies, you see, are not unhappy from the restraints they undergo ; and they are not less accom- plished I assure you. By coming sooner into society, they would acquire a bad tone, a bad AND AMERICAN GIRLS. 147 manner, a bad air, which a mature age and judoftnent might be unable to correct. In a word, sir, a young lady below eighteen sees enou2:h of the world over her mother's shoul- ders." So talked this impertinent little wo- man. A Frenchwoman has no attentions from so- ciety while a girl, and consequently, no wit till she is married ; exactly the period at which American ladies generally lose theirs. A smile and a few timid glances under the wing of her beautiful mamma, is all the little thing dares venture. But the American girl has the reins of her conduct a good deal in her own hands, and therefore grows prudent; she has her reason and judgment sooner developed. She has all the serpentine wisdom and columbine innocence so recommended in the Scriptures in her looks and actions. I feel, my dear sisters, all the admiration and respect which is due to you, but with my utmost efforts I cannot help falling: a little in love with this innocent indis- cretion of the French. It would have puzzled the evil spirit more to tempt Eve after the fall than before it ; yet I like her in the first state better. Their not coming into the world before the full time, I like also H 2 148 FRENCH WOMEN. t well enough. My tastes are not girlish. The eye indeed reposes with delight upon the green corn, but the ripened ear is better. I know, indeed, all the sweetness which a fine day pours out upon Chesnut-street ; but I like better your mothers. They who give tone to society should have maturity of mind ; they should have refinement of taste, which is a qua- lity of experience and age. As long as college beaux and boarding school misses take the lead, it must be an insipid society in whatever com- munity it may exist. Middle age in this country never loses its sovereignty, nor does old age lose its respect; and this respect, with the enjoyments which accompany it, keeps the world young. It turns the clouds into drapery, and gilds them with its sunshine ; which presents as fine a prospect as the clear and starrv heavens. Even time seems to fall in with the general observance. I know- French women who retain to forty-five and often beyond that age the most agreeable at- tractions of their sex. — Is it not villanous in your Quakerships of Philadelphia to lay us, before we have lived half our time out, upon the shelf? Some of our native tribes, more merci- ful, eat the old folks out of the way. — Don't be PHYSIOGNOMY. ]49 mad ; you will one day be as old as your mothers. An important item here in a lady's studies (and it should be a leading branch of education every where) is her beauty. Sentiment and health being; the two chief ingredients and effi- cient causes of this quality, have each its pro- per degree of cultivation. Every body knows that the expression of the eye, the voice, and the whole physiognomy, is modified by the thoughts or passions habitually entertained in the mind. Every one sees their effects upon the face of the philosopher and the idiot ; upon that of the oenerous man and the nio-o-ard : but how few have considered that not only is this outward and visible expression nothing but the reflection of the mind ; but that the very features are in a material degree modelled by its sensations. Give, for example, any woman a habit of self-complacency, and she will have a little pursed up mouth ; or give her a prying and busy disposition, and you will give her a straight onward nose. What gives the miser a mouth mean and contracted, or the open- hearted man his large mouth, but the habitual series of thou2;hts with which we are conver- 150 INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE sant? Determination stiffens the upper lip, and this is the lip of a resolute man. Peevish women and churls have thin lips ; and good humour, or a generous feeling, or a habit of per- suasion, rounds them into beauty. I have read that it was common amonfrst the rakes about Charles the Second to have " sleepy, half-shut^ sly and meretricious eyes," and that this kind of eye became fashionable at court. So every feature has its class of sensations by u'l^ch it is modified ; and this is not forgotten in the edu- cation of the Parisian young ladies. They take care that, while young and tender, they may cherish honest and amiable feelings, if for no other reason than that they may have an amia- ble expression of countenance — that they may have Greek noses, pouting lips, and the other constituents of beauty. Our climate is noted for three eminent quali- ties, extreme heat and cold, and extreme sud- denness of change. If a lady has bad teeth, or a bad complexion, she blames it conveniently upon the climate ; if her beauty, like a tender flower, fades before noon, it is the climate ; if she has a bad temper or even a snub nose, still it is the climate. But our climate is active and intellectual, especially in winter, and in all sea- ON FEMALE BEAUTY. 151 sons more pure and transparent than these inky skies of Europe. It sustains the infancy of beauty, and why not its maturity? it spares the bud, and why not the opened blossom or the ripened fruit? Our negroes are perfect in teeth, and why not the whites ? — The chief preservative of beauty in any country is health, and there is no place in which this great interest is so little attended to as in America. To be sensible of this, you must visit Europe. You must see the deep-bosomed maids of Eng- land upon the Phce Veiidome, and the Rue Castiglione. There you will see no pinched and mean-lookinor shoulders overlooking the plumpness and round sufficiency of a luxuriant tournure. As for the French women, a constant attention to the quantity and quality of their food is an article of their faith ; and bathing and exercise are as regular as their meals. When children, they play abroad in their gar- dens ; they have their gymnastic exercises in their schools, and their dancing and other social amusements keep up a healthful temper- ament throughout life. Besides, a young lady here does not put her waist in the inquisition. Fashion, usually insane, and an enemy to health, has grown sensible in this j she re- ]52 SMALL AND LARGE WAISTS. gards a very small waist as a defect, and points to the Veuus de Medicis, who stands out boldly in the Tuileries, in vindication and testimony of the human shapes ; and now among ladies of good breeding a waist which cannot dispense with tio;ht lacing; is thoug-ht not worth the man- tua-maker's bill — not worth the squeezing. When I left America, the more a woman looked like an hour-glass, like two funnels or two extin- guishers converging, the more pretty she was con- sidered ; and the waist in esteem by the cockney curiosity of the town, was one you would pinch between thumb and finger; giving her a withered complexion, bloated legs, consumptive lungs and ricketty children. — If this is not reformed, alas the republic ! — A Frenchwoman's beauty, such as it is, lasts her her lifetime, by the care she takes of it. Her limbs are vigorous, her bosom well developed, her colour healthy, and she has a greater moral courage, and is a hundred times better fitted to dashing enterprises, than the women of our cities. The motherly virtues of our women, so eulo- gised by foreigners, are not entitled to unquali- fied praise. There is indeed no country in which maternal care is so assiduous ; but also there is none in which examples of injudicious tender- NOTIONS OF THE MATERNAL CHARACTER. 153 ness are so frequent. If a mother has eight or nine children (the American number) and wears out her life with the cares of nursing them, dies, and leaves them to a step-mother, she is not entitled to any praise but at the expense of her judoment and common sense; and this is one of our daily occurrences in America. — If a mother should squander away upon the infancy of her child, all that health and care which are so necessary to its youth and adolescence, or if by anticipating its wants she destroys its sense of gratitude, and her own authority, and impairs its constitution and temper by indiscreet in- duloences — instead of beingj the most tender, she is the most cruel of all mothers — this hap- pens commonly in all countries, and in none so much as in America. — If a mother should toil thirty years, and kill herself with cares, to pro- cure for her son the glorious privilege of doing nothing, perhaps the means of being a rake and prodigal; she is a stupid mother, and such mothers But I forget I have a reputation all the wav from Mohontongo-street to Adam-street, and I must take care how I lose it. Do you be a good little mother, and economise your health and good looks ; and remember that a u 5 154 PRAISE OF FEMALE EDUCATION. little judicious hard fare and exposure will not injure your children's happiness, and that not the quantity, so much as the quality of your maternal cares is useful and commendable. I do not preach rebellion, but if I were any body's wife, and he should insist on kiUing me off for the benefit of his children, or to get a new wife — I should insist particularly on not being killed. The system of ladies' schools here, is more reasonable than that of their worse halves. There is a better adaptation of studies to the capacity and future destination of the scholars, and to the uses of society ; and being open to a fair competition, and to public patronage only, there is a better management of the de- tails. The o entlemen's colleo-es engross all the higher branches, and give them a specific direction, embracing only three or four of the employ- ments of society, and these are, consequently, so overstocked, as to make success in them no better than a lottery. The community is, there- fore, filled with a multitude of idlers, who fall- ing often into desperate circumstances, either plot some treason against the state, or prow), for a thievish subsistence about the gambhng LADIES IN LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS. 155 houses. — His Most Cliristian Majesty must have as many lives as a cat to escape them. There are also in Paris, a great many literary associations, to which ladies have access ; and this gives the opportunity of a decorous inter- course of the sexes, which serves to elevate both in the eyes of each other. Woman, associated with man in his intellectual, as in his domestic pursuits, assumes the station, which, by nature, as by the rules of every polished and literary society, she is entitled to. These societies fur- nish agreeable entertainments for Sundays, or holidays ; and they have the good effect of in- troducing the Muses, naturally awkward, into company, and making them acquainted a little with the Graces. I attended, a Sunday ago, a meeting of one of these, the — " Societt Polyteclinique,'' in the great saloon of the Hotel de Vi/Je. At the one end was an elevated platform, and mounted upon it a President and the usual ap- paratus of a meeting. Along each side were arranged the readers and orators, and distin- guished guests. After a '' Rapporty' read by the secretary, of the doings of the society, the speakers recited pieces of their own composition — some in rhyme, and many without rhyme or 156 SOCIETE GEOGRAFHIQUE. reason. Some were designed to make us laugh, and others to cry, and we did both with great acclamation. — Music closed the scene; a duo by " Italian Artists," and some one screamed a song on the piano. It is one of the advantages of a large city, that its meetings never want the dignity of a crowd, whatever be the occasion. — The bishop has his at Notre Dame, and punch his at the Champs Elyi^ees. I have been, also, to the " Societe Geogra- phique.'' There were Captain Ross, from the North Pole, and — what remains of him from American bugs and musquitoes — Captain Hall, and Baron Humboldt, and other Barons. An honorary badge of the society was presented to Captain Ross, with warm acclamation. I waited to the very end, for a lecture announced in the bill about — what do you think? — the ^^ Beaux Arts en Amerique.'' — But it was all about ne- gfroes and squaws, and such ** copper fronts as Pocahontas." It gave a history, circumstan- tially, of a great crusade of catguts, got up in Paris, a dozen of years ago, for Brazil, which scraped an acquaintance with Don Pedro, and spread the gamut all over Patagonia. Poly- phemus threw away his pipe, and sang nothing but, '^ Tanti PalpW to his sheep, and the ECOLE ORTHOPEDIQUE. 157 sheep bleated nothing but mamma mia, in reply. — '' Ai)isi, Messieurs, (this is the ending,) cet im- mense progres est du a la Grande Nation, dont nous nous honorons d'etre ane humble partie.''' From the " rapport' of this ** societe/' it seems to be a most valuable institution. The topics are various and useful, and ils researches are carried by correspondence into every corner of the earth. I must say a word of a school I visited this morning called the ^^ Ecole Ortliopedique,'' to correct physical deformities, and slovenly habits. Here all that is gross in human nature is refined, all that is crooked reformed. There are as many branches as at the university. One professor ties strings a foot long about your ankles, lo prevent too much stride, and another " straigh- tens legs for both sexes." Ano;ular knees, and stoop shoulders, and such little freaks, are affairs of a fortnight. I have seen, with my own eyes, a girl whose face, they say, was running one way and her feet the other ; people walking after her were continually treading on her toes, and m less than six months she has been turned round. The highest chair in this school is for teaching ''sitting" — it is occupied by the Pre- sident. There is also a chair for " walking/' 158 FRENCH LADY AUTHORS. and one for '' standing still." In some countries these are thought mere simple operations to be performed by any one who has wherewith to stand or sit upon. Let me now introduce you to the French Lady Authors. The family is so small I shall happily have room for them on the rest of this page. The Dowager on the list is the Duchesse (V Ahrantes, with her Memoirs ; and next her the Princesse de Salm, who wrote an " Opera of Sappho" and *' Poetical Epistles," very good for a Princess ; also a work called Vingt-quatre heures d'uue femme sensible, in which there is a display of rich and brilliant fancy. I never read it. Madame Tastu wrote a volume of little poetry very much loved for its tenderness, and JSlade- iJioiselle Delphine Gay (now ^Madame Girardin) also a volume of miscellaneous poetry, very pretty and delicate, and she is almost a Corinne for extemporising ; last of all, the exquisite Baroness Da Devant (George Sand :) the gayest little woman in all Paris, who has written novels full of genius, and fit almost to stand along side of Aphra Behn'^ and Lady Mary Montague's verses. When they publish an edition, with little stars * * in nsiun Delphini, I will send CHATEAUBRIAND. 159 you a copy. — I shall perhaps have room also for the gentlemen. The patriarch is Chateaubriand. It is idle to talk about him. He sold the copyright of his works for twenty years only at five hundred and fifty thousand francs. Who has not read his Genie du Christianisme, Martyrs, Journey to Jerusalem, Amerique Sauvage, Atala, kc. He has written also *' Memoirs of his own Times," not to be published till his death. Every one is anxious to read them. The oldest of the poets is Beranger. His songs are worthy of Pmdar in boldness and sublimity, and not un- worthy of Anacreon in liveliness and grace. I have only room for four lines: — Napoleon in his glory. dans sa fortune altifere, Se fit un jeu des sceptres, et des lois ; Et de ses pieds on pent voir la poussiere, Empreinte encore sur le bandeau des rois. At his death ; II dort enfin, ce boulet invincible Qui fracassa vingt trones a la fois ! Another special favourite, the poet of romance and melancholy, is Lamartine. He has written " Meditations ;'' also La Mart de Socrate, and 160 LAMARTIXE. — VICTOR HUGO. the last canto of '' Childe Harold." Here are eight of his lines.— The " Golfe de Baia." O, de la Liberie vieille et sainte patrie ! Terre autrefois feconde en sublime vertus ! Sous d'indignes Csesars, maintenant asservie, Ton empire est tombe ! tes heroes ne sont plus ! Mais dans ton sein I'ame aggrandie, Croit sur leurs raonumens respirer leur genie, Comme on respire, encore dans un temple aboli, La majeste du Dieu dont il etait rempli. He now makes eloquent speeches in the Cham- ber of Deputies. — Politics run away with all the genius, and rob even the schools of their professors. Only think of such a man as Arago prating radicalism in the Chamber of Deputies. The Muses weep over his and Lamartine's infidelity. I have read Victor //wgo lately, and love him and hate him. Like our mocking-bird, he mingjles the notes of the niohtinoale with the cacklino;s of the hen. But I must not abuse him, the ladies all love him so. Only think of " Bug Jargal/' the '' Dernier jour aun Con- damne;'' and above all, *' Notre Dame de Paris;'' and think only of poor little Esmeralda, put so tragically to death on the Place de Greve in spite of her little goat Djali, and her httle shoe. ALFRED DE VIGNY. 161 — I have read his tragedies, Henian, Le Roi s'amuse, and Marie Tudor ; parbleu ! and " Lu- crece Borgia." His poetic works are Les Orieiitales ; a collection of odes; Les Feuilles (TAuiomne, &c. Victor Hugo is yet in the full tide of youth, and so is Casimir de la Vizne. The latter re- presents to-night, at the Theatre Francais, his Don Carlos; he has already reaped much glory from his Vcpres Siciliennes, Paria, Comedienne, and Ecole des Vieillards, and still greater from his Poetic Lamentations, the Messeniennes, which are full of patriotic sentiment, expressed in the richest graces of poetry. Alfred de ^igni/ has written a pretty poem, the Frtgate, and two biblical pieces, Moise, and the Femme Adulttre ; but his great praise is Cinq Mars, one of the best compositions of the French historical romance. — Scribe, Picard, and Duval have written so many vaudevilles, that one has a surfeit of their names. Dumas is a dramatic writer of first-rate merit for these days. His Antony, Therese, Henry V., and Catharine Howard, are all played with success. Jules Janin has a great fund of wit; his Ane Mort, Femme Guillotifite, Chemin de Travers, you can read with the certainty of being pleased. 162 PAUL DE KOCK. I have said nothing of Leclercq, Langon, Balsac, Meremy, and Lacroix, who have all their share of admiration, especially from the fair sex. When the vapours have smothered the sun, and when it rains, as it does always, instead of inhaling charcoal, or leaping from the Pont iS'euf, I go into a '^ cabinet de lecture," and read Paul de Kock. No author livinor can carry one so laughingly through a wet day. If you are fond of the genuine wit of low life, neither Fielding, nor Smollett, nor Pigault Lebrun, will disgust you with Paul de Kock. But here comes the end of my paper, what shall I do with the rest? I will just string them together by the gills. — Give Giiizot credit for a History de la Civilisatioji, a transla- tion of Gibboh, and a score or two of volumes on the English Revolution ; Mhnet and Thiers for a History of the French Revolution, and Bara?ite for his Dukes of Burgundy; ^wnondi for a History of the Italian Republics, of The French, and the Literature of the South ; and Dam, of Venice ; Thierry, of the Conquest of England ; Capejiguey the Reform ; Lacretelle, The 18th Century; Stgur, a Universal History; Michaud, of the Crusades ; Delaure, of Paris : FRENCH HISTORY. 163 Mkhelet, of Rome ; and Precis de V Histoire de France. Cousin has written the ** Philosophy of History ;" Keratri/, ^Metaphysics, and Novels ; and Vilkmavif Melanges de LitteraturCj and M. de la Mennais is praised for his '^ Indifference in matters of Religion." — The French were strangely deficient in history before the present century, not even having furnished a good history of their own country ; they have now supplied their deficiency in this department of letters. — Now with all due respect, and a full sense of the distinction, I place myself at the bottom of this illustrious group. Your obe- dient, humble servant. 164 THE THEATRES. LETTfeR XVII. The Theatres. — Mademoiselle Mars. — Theatre Royal. — Italien. — Grisi. — Academie Royal de Musique. — Tag- lioni. — Miss Fanny Elsler. — The Varietes. • — The Odeon. — Mademoiselle George. — Hamlet. — Republi- can Spirit of the Age. — Character of the French Stage. — Machinery of the Drama. — The Claqueurs. — Supply of New Pieces. — The Vaudevillists. — M. Scribe. — The Diorama. — Concerts. — Music Paris, December, 1835. I WILL treat you this evening to the play. The bill of fare is the Theatre Franr,ais, Opera Fra)ifais, Italien, Opera Comique, Gymnasej Vaudeville, Varietes, Gaite, Ambigu and Palais Royal, with twice as many more which we will reserve for the side dishes and the dessert. The Post has brought me a letter from your mother, of November, which I have just read, MADEMOISELLE MARS. 165 and could not help laughing at the vanity of her fears. My morals indeed ! fortified as they are by the good breeding I had from my Scotch grandmother and Presbyterian catechism. — I went last night to the play, and saw there a great many Sins, which came in their usual shape of pretty women to tempt Saint Anthony. Thev danced about him, and enticed him with voluptuous smiles and looks, and even set themselves at last to turn somersets to over- come his virtue, but he stuck fast to the faith. So do I. — I should like to see all the pretty women of Paris come to tempt me. If it had not been for your mother's letter and St. An- thony, I should not have thought of the theatre this evening^. What say you to the *' Francais " and Mademoiselle Mars? — Mademoiselle Mars! why she was an old thing twenty years ago ; and acts yet all the charms and graces of the most amiable youth. Time flutters by and scarce breathes upon her with his wings ; he is loth to set his mark upon a face which every one loves so. Why, what is younger than her voice ? It is clear as the whistlings of the niohtino^ale, or it is soft and mellow as the 166 THEATRE ROYAL. notes of the wood thrush ; or if she pleases, it is wild as the song of the whip-poor-will, and savage as the scream of the bald-eagle. In o-esture and the dramatic o^races she is no longer subject to rules, but, like Homer, gives rules to ail others of her art. When you have looked upon her divine countenance, so expressive of the seriousness of age, or the vivacity of youth ; when you have listened to her sweet and honied sentences, you will say, what praise can be exaggerated of such an ac- tress ? Moliere could not have had a proper conception of his own genius, not having seen Mademoiselle Mars. What a crowdins; and squeezing we shall have for a place 1 I have bought this privilege often by more than two hours attendance. Lady Mars is more chary of her favours now than in her greenest age. Like the old Sibyl, she sets a higher value upon her remnants than upon the whole piece. This theatre, with its three tiers of boxes and two of galleries, contains 1,500 persons. It is called the ** Theatre RoyalJ' and is very disposed to exercise its royalty despotically. It forbids the representation of tragedy at the other theatres, and has a claim upon every tleve of the Conservatorv ; which claim it does not ITALIEN. 167 fail to assert as often as anv one is likelv to attain celebrity elsewhere; and its x old actors having a monopoly of the choice parts, it pre- vents easily the advancement of the new aspi- rants, and weakens the rivalship of the other houses. Its distinguished actors, besides ]\Iars, are Plessy, Chambaud, Dupont and ^ladame Volnvs ; its favourite writers Delavione and Hugo. — Scribe too being now a member of the Institute and assuming a spirit equal to his new dignity, has abjured the ignoble vaudeville, and writes only five acts. In the vestibule you will see an admirable statue of Voltaire with the " sneering devil " in its marble features. You must go two evenings of the week to the " Italien ; it commences in October. In October, Paris is repeopled with its fashioa- ables, and the weeping country is forsaken. This Opera is crowded for the season with the choicest of Parisian beauty, with all the upper sort of folks, as high as the two Miss Princesses and their mamma the queen. A few evenincrs a^ro I saw an English woman here, prettier than them all : she, who with so much genius writes tales for the New Monthly, and poetry for the annuals — Mrs. Norton. I analysed her elegant features from the pit, and 168 SIGNORA GRISI. wondered how so pretty a woman could write verses. Of all the gratifications of Paris this theatre is surely the most delectable. I went, on her first nighl, to see Signora Grisi, and since this first night, she is Grisi to me. Her meltinsr voice and love-making; fea- tures live in the memory always. Whilst she sings, one is all ear, all sense, and intellect is hushed ; never did the quiet midnight listen to its nightingale so attentively ; and as the last note expires, hrava I brava ! exclaims the incontinent Frenchman, and a thousand bra- vas and bravissimas are repeated through the house; O beneditto ! just breathes the Italian expiring; che gusto! piacer de morire ! and the unbreathing German goes silently home and lives upon her for a week. At the close of the last song, and as the cur- tain threatens to descend, the acclamation bursts into its loudest explosion, and seems for a while inextinguishable ; now every one who has a white handkerchief waves it, and every one who can buy a wreath or a bouquet strews it upon the stage. On Saturdays I steal into the third tier towards heaven, and there drink the divine harmony, as one thirsty drinks the healthful stream ; or sit under a shower of bright eyes in MADAME TAGLIONI. 169 the pit. The present Italian company forms a union of talent (so say the best critics of the world) such as the world has never seen ex- celled. Lablache explodes as the thunder, when it mutters along the flinty ribs of the Tuscarora; Rubini out-sings the spheres, so almost Tarn- buiini, and almost IvanofF. But to thee, black-eyed and languishing Grisi — what are they to thee! " Ye common people of the skies, What are ye when the sun doth rise?" At the risk of surfeiting you with sweetmeats, I will take you next to the grand opera — the Academie Royale de Musique, where the best music is Taglioni. If you have read in your Virgil of that namesake of yours, who made no impression on the dust, nor bent the light corn or blade of grass as she walked upon it; if you have seen a ghost curtseying along the flank of the Sharp Mountain, and leaving no trace of its airy feet upon the winnowed snows, then you can imagine Taglioni upon the scene of the grand opera, as she flits along the boards, with just gravitation enough to detain her upon the earth. But why absent in the very season of her triumphs ? — You must content yourself with her nearest representative, Miss Fanny Elsler — VOL. II. I I'O FANNY ELSLtR. second only in grace, but second to none in any thing else. I will describe you her performance. She will curtsey to her middle, and then rise in a pirouette two yards high. This is her preliminary step. She will then set off, and skip over the whole area of the sta2:e, liohting: on it only oc- casionallv, tryinsc her limbs, and, as it were, provoking the dance from afar, and will present herself to the spectators in all the variety of human shapes and appearances. One while you will see her, '' many twinkling feet" sus- pended in the air, then twirling herself around till her face and hips will seem on the same side of her : at last, (and this is the epic strain of the performance, and, therefore, the last), she will poise herself upon the extremity of the left toe, and bring the right gradually up to the level of the eye (the house will hold its breath !) and then she will give herself a rotary movement, conimum^'ii in crescendo till she becomes invisi- ble. You can no more count her legs, than the spokes of a rail waggon carrying the President's Message. — This is Fanny Elsler. The descrip- tion will seem bombast only to those who have not seen her, and to those who have, it will seem tame and inadequate. This letter has a great VARIETis. 171 Struggle between p.ose and poetry; it is like one who is set upon a gallop against his will, gets out of breath, and comes panting in at the end of the course. I should have kept Mars, Grisi, and Taglioni to make an impression in the end — but you can begin with the last pao-e, as oirls do the new novel. I was last week induced by an acquaintance to go to the Varietes. It is a merry theatre, said he — *' il provoque le rire.'' This is a kind of provocation I have had frequent need of since I came to Paris. If you think there is no place for melancholy amono;st these unsighing French people, you are mistaken. I have sat in this Bastille of a hotel, grave as a bust of Seneca, for a whole week, till all the Paris blue devils and so I went to the Varietes, and saw Frederic Lemaitre in his own " Robert Macaire," and, above all, the delightful Jemiy Vertpres, and was not disappointed. The French have a quick and lively observa- tion, and can dress up a simple anecdote, or vaudeville, or a fancy-shop at the Palais Royal, with a prettiness no other nation need attempt to rival. There is a general good humour, too, about a French audience, which exhibits as much as the play. — There were several notable scenes in some of the pieces, which would be i2 172 MADEMOISELLE GEORGE. worth telling vou, if I bad time. If vou are not frightened at little licenses, this is a deliohtful theatre. You will see here Achard, who both sings and acts true comedy ; and Tatisez, who " looks broad nonsense with a stare." Brutus would have liked to have such a face when he played the fool at Rome ; and, above all, you will see that exquisite rogue, Madame Dejaret. I went to my next neighbour, the Odton, not long ago, where I saw \tro7i, V Empereur , et Madame sa mere, and Monsieur Britannicus. Mademoiselle George, once the delight of the capital and its emperor, is yet a well-timbered and hale old woman. She has, in her favour, the dignity of fat, and looks devil enough for Agrippina. — But the French wear the sock more gracefully than the buskin. Their tragic Muse is sublime always, and therefore always ridiculous. She puts on a quil inounit kind of face, and carries it about through the whole five acts. She calls the dogs always with the same voice, as when she sees the game. But tragedy, it seems, is in her decrepitude all over the world ; the sublime is worn out of our nature : all we can do, now-a-days, is to be beautiful. Miss George, with a little help fiom Anais and Borval, has been lugging the FRENCHIFYING FOREIGN AUTHORS. 173 old cripple about Paris, for several years, oq her own back. Decent comedy has nearly the same service, but with more vigour, from Made- moiselle Mars. I have got over just in time to see the fag end of the two Goddesses. The sterling old plays of Corneille and Cre- billon, which recommended dignity and energy of character, are played no more — even upon their native scene, the Theatre Fran§ais. It is not even bon ton to speak much of them, it is provincial and almost vulgar; if played at all, it is only to revive, a little, the dying em- bers of Miss George. — I have seen played other tragedies, and one notably called " Hamlet. * I was lured by the name. It is so pleasant to meet an old friend in a foreign country ! But, alas ! it was not " Hamlet the Dane,'' but Monsieur Hamlet, of the Theatre Frangais When the French get hold of a foreign author, as Shakspeare or Goethe, they civilise him a little — frenchify him. It is not to be expected that he should have all the polish and all the graces, as if he was brought up in Paris. They chasten the music, too, in the same manner ; and M. Hertz, Musard, and Co. spend whole lives in adapting (as they call it) Rossini, Mozart, and other foreigners, to French ears. 174 EMINENT ACTORS AND ACTRESSES. But in these light productions, the vaude- villes which are played at the *' Gaiete " and '' Varietes," and such theatres, and which are the fashion of the day, the acting and compo- sition are both perfect. Ligier, Bouffe, Armand, and Pontier, and the ladies Anais, Vertpres, and Fay, are no common-rate mimics. And there are many others of nearly the same merit, seemingly all made expressly for their several parts, in this great farce of human littleness. Who was that new comer (a Yankee) who said, '' They wanted to make me believe the actors on the stage were living people, but I wasn't such a novice as they took me for?" It has not been a Parisian theatre that this incredul- ous man visited. I ought to conduct you, but have not time, to some of the other theatres — to the Porte St. Martin, where Mademoiselle George looks " Liicrece Borgia;" to the " Gymnase," which smells of the counting-house, and Scribe's plays, and where BoufFe plays, as no one else can play, his *' Gamin de Paris ;" and especi- ally to the "Vaudeville,'^ to see the elegant Bro- ha?if the lovely Targueil, the sprightly Mayer, and tender Thenard, the scape-grace Madame Taigny, and the inimitable old woman Guille- IXFLUEXCE OF THE STAGE. 175 min, and Lafont and Arnal—ov to the '' Opera Comique,'' where you would hear those two mocking-birds Mesdame Damoreau and Lavas- ^eur; and finally to Franconrs, where vou would see Madame Something else, on her head on horseback, and Auriol on^his slack rope— the rest is stupid. I have seen them all ; even the Funambules and the Marionettes; I have seen .Aladame Saqui's httle show, for six pence; and I have cried over a melo-drama, at the " Petit Lazari/' for four sous. ^ If one comes to Paris, one ought to see Paris. This you cannot do in the domestic circle— the stranger is not admitted there. And certainly not in public places, for the world no more goes thither, in its natural expression and opinions, than the fashionable lady in her natural shapes. You must look at it in its looking glass. A stage, patronised by twenty-five thousand spectators,' every night, cannot be a very unfaithful repre- sentation. The dignity of human greatness ; the hioh- born, hereditary authority, and lowly reverence, which produced strong contrasts of passion with refined and elegant manners, have with- ered away under the Republican spirit of the age. Kings and lords, and heroes are no more 176 REPUBLICAN SPIRIT OF THE AGE. held in veneration than Pagan Gods ; not so much ; for these at least are poetical. And from our universal reading and the easy inter- course which follows, a o-reat man can scarce be got up any more in the world ; we are all as intimate, with the imperfections of a hero as his valet de chambre. And the mock majesty of the stage has lost its respect at the same time. Dufresne used to say, " Sirrah, the hour " — to his hair dresser ; who replied, " My lord, T know not." Mademoiselle Clairon kept her train, and equipage, and her femme de chambre addressed her as a queen. The patro- nage of a splendid court then excited a spirit of emulation amono; the actors, and 2:ave them a sense of their dignity, which was sustained by the public feeling. To-day the tragic hero lives with the common herd undistinguished ; he is not even refused Christian burial when he dies. The world has been used, too, these fifty years to gross sensu- ality and crime beyond the example of all former times, and human sympathy has been staled by custom; matrimonial jealousy, which held the wolf's bane and daoger, is now either comic or insipid ; a Pheedra excites no disgust, an (Edipus inspires no horror. The passions. CHARACTER OF THE FRE>XH STAGE. 177 which sustained the deep tragic interest, are quenched ; or they have become prurient and emasculate, and require to be tickled by a vau- deville. Farce has usurped the stage, and the dwarfish imp limps, where tragedy dragged her flowing robes upon the scene. The French, who, before their Revolution, declaimed against the murders of the Enolish drama, now out-kill all ages and countries. Rapes and massacres have been the staple of their lower plays for many years, and are not uncommon in the best. This taste is on the de- cline. — The intrigues and amours of young girls in Parisian society — are almost impossible. Dana'e was not so guarded in her tower, as the unwedded females in Paris. The loves of mar- ried women are therefore the common plots of the French plays, as well as of French novels, and they are publicly applauded, as in the or- dinary and natural course of society. — In our cities, the stage, ill attended, and not sustained by original compositions, must be a faithless mirror; but I have no doubt that in Paris it represents the general features correctly. Each of the French theatres has its ransfe of pieces assigned, and cannot compete with, or injure another. Four of the principal ones, the I 5 178 GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE OF THEATRES. Italian and French Opera, Theatre Frangais, and Opera Comique, pay neither rent nor li- cense, but have two hundred and sixty thousand dollars annually from government. This sum is contributed from the five and a half millions derived from the gambling houses. They make the devil pay his own debts. The Opera alone has two hundred thousand francs. And we expect in America to support two or three, and bring all our performers and fiddlers from Europe, on the taste of the com- munity ! A single singer may make her for- tune in our cities, but a company must perish. The annual receipts from all the Parisian The- atres are about one and a half million of dollars. The author retains the control of his pieces, and receives from the theatres of the capital and provinces, a share of every night^s performance during life, with a post obit of ten years. Scribe's revenue from this source is above twenty-five thousand dollars. A five-act piece pays the author at the '^ Theatre FranQais " one twelfth. There is a great deal of machinery about the French drama, which is but little known m countries less advanced in the art. For example, each theatre has attached to it a regular troupe THE CLACQUEURS. 179 of applauders. These were originally got up for occasions, but in course of time they have become as an integral part of the corps drama- tique ; — they are called Clacqueurs, ( Anglice Clappers.) Their art requires a regular ap- prenticeship, as the other branches of a histri- onic education, though not a branch at the *' Repertoire." A person of good capacity may make himself master of it in two or three months. They who have taken lessons in Clacking under the professors, can clap louder than ordi- nary people, and they know where to clap, which is something. They can shew also a great deal more enthusiasm than if they were really de- lighted ; — as they who cry at funerals can cry better than persons who are really grieved. On my first visits here, I could not help remarking how much more feelino; was a French than an American audience. The Theatre Francais went off in a crash every now and then, which one could hear to the Boulevards; and I could see no great reason for the explosion. On nights of deep tragedy they bring out also the female Clacqueurs, These are taught, one to sob, another to feign to wipe away a tear, and another to scream when a pistol goes off, and they are 180 E>GAGEME>T OF CLACQUEURS BY distributed in different parts of the house, if you see any lady fainting on these occasions, don't pick her up, she is getting her living by it. No piece succeeds, or actor either, unless these salaried critics are employed. If neglected, they turn out among the hisses. Even Talma had to pay to this High Chancery his regular tribute. In some of the houses there are two rival companies, and the player is obliged to bribe both, or the rival pack will rise up and bark against him. The actor has his regular interviews with the chief officer, and they agree beforehand upon what parts are to be applauded, with the quality and quantity of the applause. " At this passage," says Mars, '^ you must applaud gently, at this a little louder, and at this moderately" — Cependant Madame, a beau senti- ment like this " Quoi ! Cependent Mon- sieur. — It is forty years, sir, since I have been playing in this house, and no one has dared to say to me, ' Cependant .'' I tell you, you are to keep your ardour to the end of the scene. I have no notion of being blown up to heaven in the middle of a passion, and left dangling two feet in the air at the end of it. Here is the place you are to applaud ; here you may give a AUTHORS AND ACTORS. igl clap and a brava ; and here, (mark well this point,) at this finale I must have the whole strength of your company." " Give me your hand, M. Gigolard ; here are fifty francs, and a little present for your wife. And, recollect, I must have this evening my Grand Entrk; I have been absent these'three months, and my return requires that attention." A Grand Entree is where the actress has a burst of acclamation just at her entrance, which is kept up afterwards louder and louder; she bows, and they applaud, and there must be a great conflict between joy and gratitude until she has ex- hausted a clap worth about ten francs.— These Clacqueurs are, on all ordinary occasions, arbiters of the fate of a play or the actor ; it is only at a new piece, and a very full house, that they are obliged to consult a little the impressions of the audience. The Parisians require to be fed continually upon new pieces, and are seldom contented with less than three of an evening, as the epicure prefers several courses, and does not throw away a good appetite upon a single dish. This has given vogue to their short and piquante pieces the vaudevilles, and produces them several hundred new ones each season, and the manu- 182 PARTNERSHIP IN VAUDEVILLES. facture of these pieces has become a regular business on a large scale. A prime vaudevillist does not pretend to furnish his pieces single handed ; he has his partners, his clerks, and his understrappers. These last are a kind of circumforaneous wits, who frequent public places, and run all over town in search of plots and ideas, or some do- mestic scandal of dramatic interest, and they have their regular cafes or places of rendezvous, where they work to each other's hands. If you have come just green from the country, and entering a cafe, see a number of grave and lean persons seated about at tables, seeming entire strangers to one another, and saying not a word about Louis Philipe, or the *' Proces Monstre," this is a cafe of the vaudevillists. They hunt particularly after persons who arrive with some originality from the Provinces. In cities men are nearly all cast in the same mould ; mixing continually together, there is little departure from the fashionable opinions and expressions. — You will see each one with a newspaper, a pen- cil, and a bit of paper, reading and commenting. You will see a smile sometimes crossing the serious features of the divine man, and now and then he will start — he has harpooned an idea. GETTI^-G UP OF A VAUDEVILLE. 183 Soon after you enter, one will make your ac- quaintance, especially if you have a comic face. He will treat you to rum and coffee, he will offer you the journal, point out to you the amusing subjects, and set you talking. And you will be delighted, and you will say, not without reason, the Parisians are called the politest people upon the earth. They will not let you go until they have sucked the last drop of your blood, noted down your clownish looks, and airs, copied your features, and robbed you of your very name. At last they will make you mad; for they must see you under the influence of different passions; and if you are impudent they will kick you out of doors. When you are gone, they will very likely quarrel over your spoils — about the rio-ht of ownership; and when the dispute is com- promised, the most needy will traffic you away for a consideration. One will sell one of vour bon mots for a lemonade; and another one of your sheepish looks for a riz-au-lait or some more expensive dish according to its dramatic interest and novelty. Some of these men keep regular offices, and sell out plots and counter- plots and bon-mots, as brokers do mortcrao;es and bills of exchange. Others brino- their 184 THE TIVOLI, AND EXHIBITIONS. rough materials to the great manufactory under which they are employed, and receive from Monsieur Scribe or some other master work- man, their pay or an interest in the piece pro- portionate to the value of the contribution. I know of one who has been living upon the eio-hth of a vaudeville for several years; and another, who is getting along tolerably on a piece of a joke; being a partner with three or four others. But you must not be running always to the theatre, there are other amusements which claim a share of your attention. At the Tkoli you will find concerts, balls, and fire-works ; and you may take an airing every fine evening in a balloon. You have only to ride up to the Barriere de Clichy, or it will stop for you at your garret-window. Besides, you have to see the Panoramas, Cosmoramas, Neoramas, Geo- ramas, and the Dioramas. The Diorama is amongst the prettiest things in Paris. But how to describe it ? — You find yourself seated in an immense church, into which you have passed through a dark entry ; and whilst you are contemplating its august architecture, twilight comes on imperceptibly, and you see suddenly around you a full congre- THE DIORAMA. 185 gation, seated, or standing and kneeling, and very intent on their prayers; all which with a little briorhter li^ht were invisible. You are then regaled with solemn church music, and assist at the vespers. It is all enchantment. You forget it is day. The voices of men and virgins die away in the distant space, like the voices of unearthly beings. The light returns gradually, the worshippers fade away into air, and you are seated as at first in the silent and lonely cathedral. You now enter another room, and a vast pro- spect of beautiful Swiss scenery is opened upon your view, bounded only by the horizon. Be- fore you is a lake, and flocks and herds feed- ing, and all the glowing images of a country life. How still the atmosphere, and a little hazy and melancholy, as in our Indian summer; you can almost fancy the wood-pigeon's moan. In the mean time a storm is brewing beyond the distant mountains ; you see the gleams of the liorhtnino:, and hear the muttering; of the thunder. At leng-th the storm g-athers thick around you ; the end of a mountain is detached from its base, and the avalanche covers the lake, the flocks, inhabitants, and huts, and you are seated amidst the desolation. You are not 186 MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS. conscious of the presence of any painting ; all is nature and reality. A few words of the musical entertainment will fill up the measure of this sinful letter. There is a rotunda in the Champs Elysees de- voted to concerts every evening from six till nine, throughout the summer season. Here are played the fashionable airs and concertos, and all the chef — d'ceuvres of Italian and German masters. The little quavers play sometimes softly among the leaves of the trees, and now and then pour down like a deluge crash upon your ears. There are sixty musicians ; and for all this ravishment a gentleman pays twenty sous, and a lady half-price. In the winter season the whole of this music and more takes refuge at Musard's, a central part of the city. Here is a large room fitted up brilliantly with lustres and mirrors, with a gallery over-head, and a room adjoining for refreshments. The orchestra is in the centre surrounded by seats for the audience. There are seats also around the extremities, and be- tween is a v/ide promenade filled up every evening with visitors all the way from Peru and Pegu; and with any quantity of Parisian FRENCH MUSIC. 187 fashionables, who come hither to squeeze and quizz one another, and see the music. Only think of all this refreshment of the ears, and eyes, this gratification and improvement of the taste at twenty sous a night ! There is a similar establishment in another section of the citv ; and these with the concerts of the Con- servatory, private concerts, and operas, make up the musical entertainments of Paris. The French are not, naturally, a very musical people. After all their fuss about a royal " Acadtmie de Musique,'' and their twenty or thirty pupils at the expense of government, and sent for the improvement of their voices to Rome, they have produced little music. Their Boieldieu and Auber are the only composers who can take seats (and this at some distance) with the Rossinis, Mozarts, and Webers. Their great pianists, Hertz and Kalkbrenner, are Ger- mans ; Beriot, the greatest violin, is a Belgian ; Lafont only is French. Their natural music, •the Troubadour and the rest, has been so wailed in the nursery, and so screamed on the theatre, that the world is sick of it. A man advertised for a servant lately, who could not sing " Robiti du Bois," 188 PARISIAN HABITS. LETTER XVIII. Parisian habits. — The Chaussee d'Antin. — Season of Bon- bons. — Jour de I'An. — Commencement of the Season. — The Carnival. — Reception at the Tuileries. — Lady Gran- ville. — The Royal Family. — Court Ceremonies. — Ball at the Hotel de Ville. — French Beauty. — A Bal de Charite. — Lord Canterbury. — Bulwer. — Sir Sydney Smith. — The Court Balls. — Splendid Scene. — The Prin- cess Amelia. — Comparison between Country and City Life. Paris, January 2oth, 1836- As your husband has gallantly allowed me the exclusive pleasure of writing to you this week, I am going to use the privilege in giving you his biography for the year 1836. For a wife to judge of her husband's conduct frona her hus- band's letters, is absolute folly. — He rises at day-break, which occurs in this country, at this season, about nine; he m^kes his toilet PARISIAN HABITS. 189 with Parisian nicety, breakfasts at eleven, and then attends his consultations, till three. After this hour he runs upon errands. Paris covers eight thousand five hundred square acres, and he has business at both ends of it ; I have to run after him, just as a man's shadow would, if people in this country had shadows, a league to the east, and then a league to the west, only because he don't know a Frenchman calls his mother a mare, and a horse a shovel. As he and his partner do not comprehend each other, and he cannot communicate with the world out of doors, YOU may imaujine I have orot ravself into a business. And here are all nations of the earth to be interpreted, and all sexes; French, Spaniards, Itahans, Poles, and modern Greeks. '' God's life, my lords, I have had to rub up my Latin." One might as well have been interpreter at Babel. We dine at six, and have all the rest of the day to ourselves. — Then comes smoking of Turkish tobacco in a long pipe, then a cup of good coffee and the little glass of quirsh ; and then conversations — conversations, not about burning Moscara, and the Bedouin brothers; or whether beet sugar should be taxed ; but that which it imports more our happiness to know. 190 GOOD COFFEE. what vintage is the wine, and whether we are to pass the evening at the Italien,or Grand Opera. Our host, who is a French gentleman, a man of the world, and refined in learning, adds the perfume of his wit to the little minutes as they go flut- tering by. A propos of good coffee, I will tell you how to make it. Make it very strong, and then pour out with your right hand half a cup, and with your left the milk, foaming and smoking like Vesuvius upon it; it is reduced thus to a proper consist- ency and complexion, retaining its heat. Strange! that so simple a process should not have super- seded the premeditated dishwater of our Ameri- can cities. This is the cafe au lait of the break- fast; the coffee of the dinner is without milk. At length conversation flags, and we sit each in a " Fauteuilf'' recumbent, and looking silently upon the Turkish vapour as it ascends to the upper region of the room, till it has obscured the atmosphere in clouds as dark as science metaphysic ; and then we sweeten ourselves with open air and evening recreations — " Vive Henri Quatre ! vive ce roi vaillant !" And so we stroll, arm in arm, through the Boulevards to the ** Rue Favart," and there FASHIONABLE QUARTERS. 191 drink down Grisi until the unwelcome mid- night sends us to our pillows. This repairs us from the cares of the day, and raises us up fresh and vegetated to the duties of to- morrow. I must not forget to tell you, we live now in the Rue ^euve des Maturms, a little east of the Boulevards. I was quite disdainful of this unclassic ground after so long an abode among the Muses ; but this street is more than classic, it runs right-angled into the aristocratic Chaussee d'Antin ; is full of honour and high fare, and ennobled by some of the best Parisian blood. Your husband — I suppose by living; here, has crot into the bel air of the French. ([ forgot to put a dash under his name.) He has his share of Favoris, and mustachios, and a coat from Barde's that would win the ear of a countess. Barde makes coats for ''crowned heads," and takes measures at Moscow ; — and he never ties his cravat — (I mean your husband) — ^just in front, but always a quarter of an inch or so to the left; nor sends a lady a red rose, when white roses are in the fashion ; and though he speaks nothing yet of the French jargon, he makes Paris agreeable to every one. Folks, to be liked in this country, are obliged to be amiable — a 192 SEASON OF BON-BONS. violent effort sometimes for me. In this respect we have an advantage at home, where poor peo- ple only are required to have wit, and twenty thousand a-year may be as big a fool as it pleases. This is the season of bon-bons. I think I see you, and little Jack and Sail, parading your littleness upon the Boulevards — which I pre- sume you will do this time next year. Here is the whole animal creation in paste, and all the fine arts in sucre (Targe. You can buy an epi- gram in dough, and a pun in soda-biscuit; a ''Constitutional Charter" all in jumbles ; and a '' Revolution of July" just out of the frying-pan. Or,if you love American history, here is a United States' frigate, two inches long, and a belly-gut conmiodore bombarding Paris — (with "shin- plasters") — and the French women and children stretching out their little arms, three quarters of an inch long, towards heaven, and supplicating the mercy of the victors, in molasses candy. You will see also a General Jackson, with the head of a hickory-nut, with a purse, I believe, of " carvaway comfits," and in a great hurry pouring out the ^' twenty-five millions," a king, a queen, and a royal family, all of plaster of Paris. If you step into one of these stores you JOUR DE l'aN. 193 will see a gentleman in mustachips, whom you will mistake for a nobleman, who will ask you " to give yourself the pain to sit down," and he will put you up a paper of bon-bons y and he will send it home for you, and he will accompany you to the door, and he will have " the honour to salute you" — all for four sous.— But I must get on with my biography. We went, the first day of the year, to the Palace, and saw the king and the queen with our own eyes. I must tell you all about it. Paris usually comes to town three months before this. The gentry, and the woodcock, and all the Italian singers come in October, and every thing runs over with the reflux of the natives, and the influx of foreigners. Of the latter, the greater part are English, who, to escape the ignominy of staying in London at this season, or being uneasy on their seats, (I mean their country seats,) come hither to walk in the Rue de la Paix, and sleep in the Rue Castigflione. You will see now and then a knot of American girls, who sun themselves upon the Boulevards, or sit in theTuileries to do mischief with their looks upon bearded Frenchmen. But the gaieties at this season only essay their little wings ; they do not venture beyond the VOL. II. K 194 COMMENCEME>'T OF THE SEAS05. opera and private parties, and a display of black eyes and fashionable equipages at the Bois de Boulogne, until the close of the year. Then all the sluices are set loose. Then magnificent beauty encircles the boxes at the opera, decked in all the gems which the "swart Indian culls from the green sea," and overlooks the gazing deluge of spectators from the pit, and the nut- biown maids of Italy and France wave around the ball-room in all the swimming voluptuous- ness of the w^altz. Grisi warbles more divinely at the Italien, and, at the Grand Opera, more sweetly, Taglioni " Twirls her light limbs, and bares her breasts of snow.'' *^ Due pome acerbe, e pur d'ivorio fatte, Vengono e van, come onda al primo margo, Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte." Harlequin now puts on his fustian mantle, and all Paris, her caps and bells, turning out upon the Boulevards, and men and women run wild through the streets. This is the Carnival, which will continue gathering force as it goes, till the end of February, as a snow-ball upon your Pine-Hill comes down an avalanche into the valley. On Shrove-Tuesday all will be still — operas, balls, concerts, fetes, the racket of the fashionable soiree, and the orgies of the Carnival THE CARNIVAL. 195 will be hushed ; and then the quiet and social parties will employ the rest of the season. My Lord Granville will be " at home" on Monday, and the Duchess de Broglie '' at home" on Saturday ; in a word, every one that can afford it will be ^' at home" one evenino- in the week, receivino; and entertainino- with gaiety and simplicity his friends, until the dog- star shall send again the idle world to its shady retreats of ^Montmorency and St. Cloud. The first drawing-room or ** reception" at court, on the New Year's night gives the watch-word, and announces that the season of mirth has begun. This is followed by the regular court- balls, and balls ministerial and diplomatic; and the balls of the bankers and other opulent in- dividuals bring up the rear. We put ourselves in a black suit, in silk stockings and pumps, with a little, military tinsel, under the arm ; stepped into a itemise (a remise is a public carriage disguised as a private one) and in a few minutes stood upon the broad steps of the Tuileries ; from which we were conducted up into the rooms, with no more ceremony than writing our names upon a registry in the hall. — The English and French books say that we Americans have a ^reat k2 l96 RECEPTION AT THE TUILERIES. penchant for kings, and that we run after no- bility and titles more than becomes republicans. Whether this be true or not, and whether it is really an inclination of human nature that, like other passions, will have its way, I do not stop to inquire ; with me I declare it to be mere cu- riosity; I had the same when a mere child, for a puppet show, without wishing to be '' Punch" or " Judy." But here I am moralis- ing again when I should be telhng you of the " Reception." You must imagine a long suite of rooms, and the edses all round embroidered with ladies, strung together like pearls — ladies dressed in the excess of the toilet, and many hundred lustres pouring down a blaze of light upon their charms; and the interior of the rooms filled with gentlemen clad in various liveries, mostly military — in all you may reckon about four thousand, including Doctor C. and me. Here was my Lady Granville ambassadress and her Lord ; I love a broad pair of shoulders on a woman — even a little too broad ; and here was the fair Countess of Comar Plotocka. The richest mine that sleeps between your Broad and Sharp Mountains would not buy this lady's neck. I have heard it valued at three COURT CEREMONIES. " ]97 millions. It v.ould make a rail-road from here to Havre. I have half-a-mind to put in here as a note, that we Americans in our citizen coats, and other republican simplicities, make no kind of figure at a court. When one contemplates brother Jonathan by the side of Prince Rousi- mouski, all gorgeous in the furs of the Neva — I can't find any other comparison than that character of arithmetic thev call zero; for he seems of no other use than to give significance to some figure that is next to him. It is strange how much human dignity is improved bv a fashionable wardrobe; I have seen a noble- man spoiled altogether by a few holes in his breeches. The king, the queen, the princes and prin- cesses entered about nine; they passed slowly round the rooms, saluting^ the ladies, savino- a few words to each, with a gentle inclination of the head, and a proportionate jutting out at the head's antipodes : — the latter part of the com- pliment intended for us gentlemen. At the end of this fatiguing ceremony the roval family retired, bowing to us all in the lump. — I forgot to say, that being apart in a corner, as a modest maid who sits alone, the queen in passincr 198 COURT CEREMO^'IES. dropped me a curtsey for myself. When her Majesty bowed to the whole multitude the honour was wasted by diffusion. To have one all to one's self was very gratifying. They now posted themselves in a room at the south end of the company, accessible by two doors, through one of which orentlemen were admitted Indian file, and introduced personally to the king, the king standing on the right, the queen on the left of the room, and the little queens in the middle. It was an imposing ceremony; and this was the manner of the introduction. For example, the Doctor, entering, gave his name and nation to the Aid-de-Camp, who pronounced it aloud ; the king then prit la parole, et un verre d'eau suoee, de la manitre suivante: '^ You are from Philadelphia, I am glad to see you." — And then the Doctor, vvho had studied his speech in the ante-chamber, replied, " Yes." — After this he bowed a little to the queen, and walked out with an imperturbable gravity at the left door, as I had just done before him. We then went home, and told people we had spoken to the kino;. — This is a Reception at the Tuileries. To crive you an account of the other charmins; fetes we have seen this month, will require BALL AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE. 199 another sheet. — The hour is late, I bid you good night. January 26th. The first fete of which we partook was a great ball given at the Hotel de Ville, to relieve the poor of the " Quartier St. Germain." Here, as every place else, where there is a chance of an innocent squeezing, there was a crowd. There were two thousand souls, all dancing in the same room ; and the ladies, whom I include in the article of souls, were dressed dans I'excts de la belle coiffure. The Queen and Madame Adelaide, and other such like fine people, who were announced in the newspapers, hoaxed us by not coming. However, we danced all the poor out of the hospitals. We put on our rust- ling silks that the grisettes might get a blanket for their shivering babies, and our dear little prunellas, that they might have a pair of sabots, and a little bit of wool about their feet in the Faubourg St. Germain. Charity affects people in different ways. In Philadelphia it gives one a chill, or it sends one with a long face to pray at St. Stephens' ; here, to " cut pigeon wing" at the Hotel de Ville. — The bill of fare was only ices, lemonades and eau sucree — no liquors. 200 DANCING. A Frenchman is always fuddled enough with his own animal spirits, and needs no rum. In all French parties in high life there is little ceremony about eating and drinking ; it is economical to be well bred. Dancing is per- formed in the same monotonous dull way as in America. The *' pirouettes and entrechats'' are a monopoly of the Opera Francais. English gravity was always afraid of being caught cut- tino; a caper, and John Bull leads his lady throui^^h a dance as if conductinoj her to her pew. The fashion of now-a-days is anj^ thing English, especially English whims and non- sense. ''They are not dancing, but only walk- ing in their sleep," is a bon tnot of his Majesty, who is not much addicted to wit —better if he were : Fieschi would never have thought of kil- ling him. But they are better walkers than we are. They are better dressed, too, though with less cost. In our country the same dress suits all ladies of the same size, being always made alter the last doll that came over by the packet, only a little more fashionable. And so we are " Laced From the full bosom to the slender waist, Fine by degrees and beautifully less." And some of us " Gaunt all at once and hideously little** FASHIONS IN DRESS. 201 In Paris, a mantua-maker is o. bel esprit, and does not follow rigidly but studies to soften a little the tyranny and caprices of fashion, and she knows the value of the natural appearances in the constitution of beauty. The fashions have, to be sure, their general feature, but the shades of differences are infinite. The woman and the frock, though not indissolubly united, seem made for each other. The French lead fashion ; we follow it : their genius is brought out by invention ; ours quenched by imitation. I looked on upon this ball with all the gaze of young astonishment. Staring is an expression of countenance you will never see among savages and well-bred people; I am somewhere between the two. Your husband dived into the crowd, to try to discover some pearl of French beauty ; inef- fectually. One is at a loss, he says, for a temp- tation. He is so anatomical ! he would like better Helen's skeleton than Helen herself. We don't see the same thing in a woman by a great deal — or in anything else. Travellers don't see the same things in Paris. Baron Rothschild and Sir Humphrey saw not the same thing in a guinea; and how many things did not Phidias see in his Venus, which neither you nor I will ever see in it. 202 FRENCH BEAUTY. The French women are nearer ugliness than beauty ; but what women in the world can so dispense with beauty ? Their cavaliers are hand- somer, yet the exquisite creatures are loved just the same. I wonder if the peacock loves less his hen for the inferiority of her plumage, or she him the more for the elegance of his? The principal charm of a woman is not in the fea- tui^s ; a lesson useful to be learnt. A turn-up nose once overturned the Harem, so says Mar- montelle ; Madame Cottin was an ugly thing, and yet killed two of her lovers; there are on record the examples of two women with only an eye each, who made the conquest of a king ; La Valliere supplanted all her rivals, with a crooked foot. Ninon was not handsome, but who knows not the number of her victims ? Self-flattery and the flatteries of admirers spoil pretty women, till at last, like sovereigns, they receive your homage as a tribute that is due, and enjoins no acknowledgment, and thereby they counteract the influence of their charms. — '^ But as I was saying — Pray, my dear, what was I saying V — I will think of it to-morrow. January 27th. I cannot aflTord to give you all these sweet- BAL DE CHARITE. 203 meats at a single meal ; I must serve you up a small portion for the dessert of each day. Ball the second. This was one of the most splendid and fashionable of the season ; also a hal de charite — given at the theatre Ventadour a few nights ago. A great number of Carlist nobles having lost their pensions and places, by the disaster of Charles X., have become poor, and this was to comfort them with a little cash. The parterre and stage formed an area for the dancing, and an array of mirrors at the furthest end doubled to the eye its dimensions, and the number of the dancers. It was a vast surface waving; like the sea gently troubled ; and the boxes, filled with ladies, exhibited the usual display of snowy necks, and glittering ornaments overhead. The saloon and lobbies too, adorned with little groves of shrubbery, had their full share of the multi- tude. Here was the late Speaker of the Com- mons, Sutton, now better named for a ball-room, my Lord Canterbury, and my Lady Canterbury; and here was Bulwer, brother of Bulwer; and Sir Sydney Smith and other knights from afar ; and all the hel air of the Paris fashionables ; not the old swarm of St. Germain, the Condes and Turennes, the Rochefoucaulds, Montau- 204 DISTINGUISHED COMPANY. siers, Beauvilliersand Moiitespans ; but all that Paris has now the most eles^ant and aristo- cratic. Here was Maaame la Duchesse de Guiche, and 'who can be more beautiful? And the Duchesse de Plaisance, airy and light as Tag- lioni ; and the prettiest of all Belgian ambassa- dresses, Madame le Hon — coiffe a ravir. And the night went round in the dance, or in circu- latins through the room, or in sitting: retired upon couches among the oranges and laurels, where sage philosophy looked on, and beauty bound the willing listeners in its spell. The music was loud and most exhilarating. In some parts of the house were all the comforts of elbowings, shufflings, crammings and squeez- ings, and on the outside all the racket that was possible of screaming women, and wrangling coachmen, from miles of carriages through every avenue. Some were arriving towards morning, and others have not arrived yet. This is the ball of the Ventadour. We reached home just as Aurora was open- ing her curtains with her rosy fingers, and we crept into bed. The tickets were at twenty francs ; ices, eau d'orgeat, and eau sucrte, were the amount of refreshments. COURT BALLS. 205 I have just room for a word of the Court Bails ; and they are so much prettier than any thing else in the world, I am glad they come in last to your notice. They are held at the king's palace, the Tuileries ; where a long suite of rooms are opened into one, and filled with a stream of light so thick and transparent, that the men and women seem to swim in it as fish in their liquid element. Between three and four thousand persons are exposed to a single coup-d'oeil ; the men gorgeously attired in their court-dresses ; the women in all the sweetness of the toilet. It is impossible to look in here without re- cognising at once the justice of Parisian claims upon the empire of fashion. Here is the throne and sceptre of the many-coloured goddess; and here from every corner of the earth her courtiers come to do her homaoe. The king, on entering, repeats nearly the same ceremony as at his " Reception" of the new year ; others of the royal family follow his ex- ample. A pair of cavaliers at length lead out the two princesses, and the ball begins through the whole area of the rooms. To see so many persons, elegantly and richly attired at once entangled in the dance; crossing. 206 WALTZING. pursuing and overtaking each other ; now at rest, DOW in movement ; and seeming to have no other movement than that communicated by the music ; and to see a hundred couples whirhng around in the waltz, with airy feet that seem scarce to kiss the slippery boards ; first flushed and palpitating ; then wearying by degrees and retiring, to the last pair, to the last one — and she the most healthful, graceful and beautiful of the choir, her partner's arm sus- tainino; her taper waist, foot against foot, knee against knee, in simultaneous movement, turns and turns, till nature at length overcome, she languishes, she faints, she dies ! — A scene of such excitement and brilliancy, you will easily excuse my modesty for not attempting to de- scribe. As an episode to the dancing, there is a sup- per in the Salle de Diane, where you have a chance of seeing how royal people eat ; with a remote chance of eating something yourself. A thousand or more ladies sit down, and are served upon the precious metals, or more precious porcelain; the king and princes stand- ing at the place of honour, and a file of mili- tary-looking gentlemen dressed richly, along the flanks of the table. What a spectacle ! ROYAL SUPPER. 207 Ladies eating out of gold, and kings to wait upon them. I sat opposite the royal ladies, and looked particularly at the little Princess Amelia, with her pouting lip "as if some bee had stungf it lately." She just tasted a little of the roast beef, and the fish, and the capon, and other delicacies of the season ; and then a bit of plum- pudding, and some grapes, and peaches, and apricots, and strawberries ; and then she sipped a glass of port, and when her glass was out, my Lord Granville with great presence of mind filled her another ; and then she finished off with a little burgundy, champagne, hermitage, Frontignac, bucella, and old hock — all which she drank with her own dear little lips. These delicate creatures do almost every thing else by deputy, but eating and drinking. After the ladies, we gentlemen were admitted en masse, with not a little scrambling ; which was the objectionable part of the fete. I was hungry enough to have sold my birthright, but did not taste of any thing ; it required not only physical strength, but effrontery, and I have been labouring under the oppression of mo- desty all my life. Have you ever been to a dinner at the — *' White House ?" that's like 208 COMPARISON BETWEEN the finale of the king's supper in the Salle de Diane. In my greener days, I saw the dance in my native Tuscarora, and went to see it twenty miles of a night upon a fleet horse, my partner behind, twining around my waist her *' mar- riageable arms." I have now seen the balls of the French court, which are called the most splendid in the world. The difference of dress, of graces, and such particulars, how vastly in favour of the Tuileries ! — but as far as I can re- collect and judge from the outward signs, the enjoyment was as vastly on the side of the Tuscarora. • — Beauty is of every clime, as of every condition. I have seen Alcina's foot upon the floors of the Ventadour, and upon a rock of the Juniatta, and all the varieties of human expression through all the ranges of human society. I have seen the humble violet upon the hill top, and the saucy lily in the valley. As for the pure and rapturous admiration of beauty and female accomplish- ment — alas, I fear it is not the growth of the libertine capital. — I am persuaded, that to have lived much in the country, conversant with natural objects, and subject to the privations of a country life, is essential to the perfection of COUNTRY AND CITY LIFE. 209 the human character, and of human enjoy- ments. In a city, the pursuits are frivolous; they narrow the mind, and are pernicious to its most deho-htful faculty — the imagination. The passions are developed there too early, and worn out by use. — The Tiiilerie-s, hohted with Us tapers, and "ghttering with the golden coats," is beautiful : the ladies' bright eyes, and the pure gems that sparkle upon their snowy necks too are beautiful. But I have been at Moon's Drawing Room upon your "Two Hills," and have gathered its pure lioht from your piny leaves; the stars and heavenly bodies looking on in their court dresses. To walk in the Rue Rivoli as the sun de- scends towards the west is delightful, and in the Tuileries amidst its marble deities, or upon the broad eastern terrace, which overlooks its two rows of fashionable belles. — But I have walked in the lone valleys of the Shamoken, and have seen the Xaiads plunge into their fountains ; I have walked upon the Sharp Mountain top, exhilarated with its pure air and liberty, raised above the grovelling species, and held communion with the ano-els — this is more delightful still. Numa communed with his Egeria in the sacred grove; Minos with his 210 PARIS BALLS. Nymph under the low-browed rock, and Moses retired to the mountain to converse with the Almighty. The pleasures of a city life stale upon the appetite by use ; the delights of the country life '■'■ bring to their sweetness no satiety." I had intended to put you up the whole of the Paris Balls in this letter, but the Masque- rades remain for another occasion. My time has run out ; the last grain of sand is in the dial. Good night. EXECUTIO^' OF FIESCHI. 211 LETTER XIX. Execution of Fieschi. — The French House of Commons. -^French Eloquence. — Thiers. — Guizot. — Berryer.- Abuse of America. — The Chamber of Peers. — Interior of Madelaine. — Bribery. — False Oaths. — The ^Middle Classes. — America and England. — Opinions of Ame- rica. — English Travellers m America. — Mrs. TroUope. — Captain Basil Hall.— Miss Fanny Kemble.— Test of good breeding in America. — American feelings towards England. — Their mutual Interests. Paris, February, 1836. The great state criminal Fieschi was executed yesterday morning on the Place St. Jaques, with his two accomplices, Maury and Pepin. He did not care a straw for mere dvins:, but he did not like the style of appearing barefooted before so large and respectable a company. He made a speech with as much dignity as could be expected, and quoted Cicero. This fellow has been for a while the hero of the ao-e : 212 EXECUTION OF FIESCHI. none of the French generals can bear a compa- rison with him ; and the dramatic interest given to his trial will no doubt produce a good crop of rivals. His behaviour was ostentatious, but in- trepid to the last. He was none of your sneak- ins: scoundrels, who are half honest through fear of the gallows. His mistress, Nina Lasave, is showing herself (what is of her, for she is less by an eye) upon the Place de la Bourse, and five thousand at a time are crowding to see her at twenty-five cents each. Signor Fieschi has not only acquired distinction for himself, but imparted a tincture of this quality to all that he has touched. Nina's fortune is made; I wonder if this sympathy for the mistress of an atrocious murderer would be felt any where out of Paris? i went to see her with the rest. I was cTuilty (no easy matter in Paris), of an act of uncommon foolishness, in 2;oing to see this execution. The French way is so eleo;ant and classic — it is none of your vulgar hangings on a gibbet, with a fellow creeping like a spider up the gallows, or the chopping off a head upon a block, as a butcher does a pig's. The guillo- tine is itself a piece of ingenious mechanism, and the executioner a gentleman; he wears white o-loves, and is called '^Monsieur de Paris." So, CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 213 I v\ent with other amateurs, and I have seen nothing but men without heads ever since. For a change, I went this morning to the Chamber of Deputies. Don't you want to know somethino; of this orreat council of the nation? I shall be glad if you do, for I have nothing else of sufficient dignity to come after this paragraph. This is the French House of Commons. It has been in session these two months, and holds its meetings in one of the great architectural monuments of the capital, the Palais Bourbon. At its entrance, you will see four colossal statues upon curule seats. Sully, Colbert, Hopital and d'Aguesseau. The chamber is lighted from above, and is semi-circular, having at the centre a tribune just in front of the President's Chair, and over-head the reporters. The members are ranged according to their parties, on seats rising in amphitheatre. On the very left, or extreme gauche, are the Liberals ; and on the right, or extreme droits are the extreme Royalists ; the hues of each party softening gradually, and blend- uig as they recede fiom the extremes. On a gallery overhead are the spectators of both sexes. The reading of speeches, which is common, and mounting the Tribune, even for a short 214 M. THIERS. remark, are precautions taken against eloquence. I have heard that attempts are often made by several persons to speak at once, or to pre- occupy the tribune to the great disturbance of order. Persons are seen discoursing, gene- rally with great animation, during the orator's speech. When there is a little too much noise the president taps with his paper-knife on the desk, and when a little more, he rings a bell ; when this fails, he puts on his hat. The con- stant assent or dissent expressed at nearly every sentence, seems to me to touch upon the ridicu- lous — it drives all one's classic notions of a senate out of one's head. It is, perhaps, a ne- cessary safeguard against being talked to death by some stupid and loquacious member, as hap- pens occasionally in other countries. The great man of the chamber is, at present,* Thiers, Minister of the Interior. He is seldom at a loss for sense, and never for words; but neither his face nor his manner has any thing of eloquence. He is merely a facetious talker, and is nearly as expert at a hon mot, as the old Prince Talleyrand himself — a kind of merit that makes its fortune more readily at Paris than else- where. He is said also to emulate the great diplomatist in the flexibility of his politics,* M. GUIZOT. 215 havino; the same skill of beingr ahvavs of the Strong party, without compromising his prin- ciples. In society he is a good actor, and plays with grave diplomatists, or with little girls of fifteen, and pleases both. Xot the least essential of his qualifications, is a revenue of two or three hun- dred thousand livres, which he has had the dis- cretion to make, the gossiping world says, from his position of minister, by gamblino- in the stocks. That censorial tribunal, which is called public opinion, and which forces a man in the United States sometimes to be honest against his will, is scarce known in this country. Indeed, I have not seen that any vice renders a man pub- licly infamous here, except it be giving bad dinners. On the other hand, they have one virtue, which I believe does not exist in the same degree amongst the statesmen of other countries — they are not so barefaced as to commend one another's honesty. Every body cries up parts, and poor honesty has not a rag to her back. Guizot, who is also minister of something, made a speech ethical and pedagogical, about educa- tion. He is the opposite of Thiers, of a st^rn and inflexible nature, and has an air of solemnity 216 M. BERRYER. ia his face ; you would think he had just arrived from the Holy Land. He decomposes and ana- lyses till he is blinded in the smoke of his own furnace. He is the great type of the " Doctri- naires." Though he does not throw his wisdom in every one's face, he has few equals in facility. After translatino; Gibbon, and vvritino; several volumes ontheEno-lish Revolution, he mav well claim some praise for this quality. He has been for several years a leader ; but I have heard he is lately, for I know not which of his virtues, of less influence in the House. He and the Doc- trinaires have the odium of the rigid censorships set up a few months since against the Press. The other grreatest men are De Broorlie, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Barrot, xMauouin, and Dupin the President. The last is ranked amongst the most eloquent of the French speakers. 1 have not heard him in any thing but the ringing of the bell. But the great orna- ment of French eloquence, at the bar, and in the tribune, is Berryer. He has an exceed- ingly happy physiognomy; a broad and high brow, shaded with jet black hair; a bland and persuasive expression of the mouth, and his voice is grave and impressive. The French generally impair the strength and dignity of ABUSE OF AMERICA. 217 their oratory by too much action ; Berryer in this is economical and prudent. Though leader en chef o{ the Legitimists, he defended strenu- ously Cambron and Marshal Ney. He spoke also against the American Indemnity, and gave us very little reason to be satisfied with his eloquence. I must tell you that the great staple of con- versation here at present, is abuse of America, and that every thing looks warlike. — I heard a member of the Deputies say : '^ There are not ten men in the chamber who believe in the justice of your claims; we have been inveigled into the acknowledgment by our king, and bullied into it by your President." If you know any nice computer of national honesty you had better get him to tell you the differ- ence between the notorious rogue who robs his neighbours, and the four hundred and fifty-nine rogues who refuse to make restitution of the robbery. This chamber is composed of men all above the middle age — none being eligible below thirty. They have a venerable and decent appearance, and for learning, I believe they do not suffer in comparison with any of the legislative assem- blies of Europe. They are chosen from thirty VOL. II. L 218 CHAMBER OF PEERS. millions of people, by two hundred and fifty thousand electors, while the English House of Commons is selected by near a million of elec- tors, from twenty-five millions. Their hours of sitting are from one to five o'clock. Spectators are admitted on the written order of a member. We had a little spurt to-day upon rail-roads, and steam-boats ; in which M. Thiers said there was in the United States a reckless dis- regard of human life ; {a prolonged sensation !) and George Lafayette, his American partialities getting the better of his judgment, got up and defended our humanity. He gave himself as an example of the possibility of descending the Mississippi without being blown up — but no- body believed him ; {grand mouvement dissen- tient !) Since on the subject of Chambers, why not pay a visit to the " Chamber of Peers." For this you must ascend the Seine to the Pont Neuf, and half a mile thence towards the south will bring you to the Palace of Luxembourg, the place of its sittings. I wished a few days ago to see the interior of Madelaine, into which there is no admission ; " not for the queen," said the door-keeper; but after a little fuss about honesty, and receiving BKIBERY. 219 thirty sous, he permitted me to go in. In tra- versing the Luxembourg the same day, as I went whistUng along, innocent of thought, I fell upon the ice against the statue of a goddess. In returning to my senses, I found a pair of fair arms about my neck ; it was not the Queen of Love, who had stepped from her pedestal, but a servant maid, who did me this service, she said, by order of her mistress ; and the incorruptible little wench refused, either for love or money, to tell me her mistress's name. I attemped a few days after to enter the Chamber of Peers, and was refused by the door-keeper ; but, on placing in his hands a few francs, he furnished me the necessary passport. — What is the reason we find in no country the same fidelity from the public servants as from those in private life ?j This anecdote is to introduce you with pro- per ceremony to the Peers. The etiquette of great houses always requires the guests to be detained a reasonable time in the ante-chamber. But since I am on the subject of bribery and corruption — your agent here, Mr. R., told me in excuse for high commissions, he had to hire witnesses to prove the decease of heirs ; this he mentioned as a common business transaction. l2 220 PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG. — *' And did you succeed ?" " Oh, yes, we killed them all off," was his reply. I have seen also in Philadelphia an Irish labourer, taken at random from the street, who swore before a magistrate, a false oath, for a bribe of five dollars. ^'ovv if this bribery is so easy in all the worlds, old and new, ask your husband, if you please, who makes laws, whether it ought not to suggest to the statesman, the impropriety of exactino; oaths at all; which do not make the honest man more faithful, and certainly make the dishonest more corrupt. The Peers have their chamber in the second story of this Palace. It is a semicircle on a diameter of eighty feet. A beautiful row of Corinthian pillars of veined stucco sustains the vault, upon which Le Sueur has painted the usual number of Virtues, civil and military ; and be- tween these pillars are statues of the most famous ancient orators and statesmen ; Solon, Aristides, Scipio, Demosthenes, Cicero, Ca- millus, Cincinnatus, Cato of Utica, Phocion, and Leonidas. The disposition of the chairs and benches is the same as in the Chamber of Deputies. It is tapestried with blue velvet, wainscotted with looking-glasses, and a beauti- THE PEERS. 221 ful lustre descending in the centre produces the light of five hundred tapers. It is a rich and elegant chamber — a kind of boudoir of the French nobility. The staircase ^vhich leads to it is the most magnificent, they say, of all Europe. — The Peers are either dukes, marquises, counts, viscounts, or barons, and except the members of the royal family, and princes of the blood, are titled only for life. They sit at the same time as the Deputies, under the Presidency of the Chancellor of France. Their concurrence is necessary to all laws, and they try all cases of state crimes and high treasons. They have had a long time on hand Fieschi and the never ending '^ Proces Monstre." To set apart a few hundred individuals from the great herd, and give them the highest op- portunities of improvement and polish, would furnish, one might suppose, at least a pretty ornament to a nation. However, it turns out that, in a high degree of fortune men do not submit to the labour necessary to intellectual improvement, and that they are exposed to more vicious temptations; that they have less dread of public opinion, and are spoilt in temper, by indulgences. In a word, we know 222 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. that human nature does not bear a very high degree of refinement. As the taste may be rude and uncultivated, so it may be excessively delicate ; and fasti- diousness is almost as disagreeable as gross- ness. But inequalities are an ordinance of nature in society, as much as in the structure of the globe we inhabit; nor can we level the hills, or so raise the valleys that the hills will lose their eminence. The three great classes, besides the other reasons for their existence, may, for aught I know, be necessary to the im- provement, and well-being of each other ; the upper communicating emulation and refine- ment to that immediately below, and the lower furnishing nerve and industry to that imme- diately above. " Wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, Neighboured by fruits of baser quality.'* However this may be, it is certain that the middle class is the most sound and respectable of every community ; and this is the class which is now ascendant in France. The Chamber of Peers is hardly noticed in the ma- chinery of the government. This is partly ow- ing to the democratic spirit transmitted from FRENCH NOBILITY. 223 the Revolution, but chiefly to the want of he- reditary titles and estates. A lordship, with- out money, is a weight about the neck of its owner. Shabby peasants look well enough, but one has no patience with ordinary people of quality. Nobility holds the same relation to society, as poetry to prose ; it does not suffer mediocrity. The too indiscriminate and com-s mon use of the French titles, has done much, also, to their discredit. " On ne porte plus qu' etoiles ; On les prodigue par boisseaux, Au pekins comme aux genereaux, Jusqu' aux marchands de toiles." M. Decaze made, during his ministry, as many as sixty nobles in a week. These gentlemen do not, themselves, seem to entertain a very high sense of their rank. I have heard of more than one hiding his decoration, to cheapen a piece of goods : as the Italian landlord, who passes him- self for the waiter, to have the quelque chose a boire. I do not mean you to infer from this, that to be a nobleman it is necessary to be bom so. Nothing is so easy as to make any man think himself better than others ; the facility 224 AMERICA AND ENGLAND. even increases in proportion as he is ignorant. The footman advances his pretensions with a simple change of his livery — by stepping only from an earl's coach to a duke's. A girl will change her opinions of herself, from neat's leather to prunella, and become prouder and nobler from cotton to silk stockings; but nothing can make -any one noble who lacks the sense of superiority ; in other words, who lacks money. I must gossip a little to fill the rest of this blank paper. I dined with an American, this evening, at the Palais Royal, where he and a young Englishman, whom we met there, talked of the merits and demerits of their several countries, until their patriotism grew outra- geous. My rule is, to waive all discussions in which passion and prejudice have the mastery of reason. As far as Paris is concerned, and the travelling English whom I know here, America is yet undiscovered, and this ignorance, to us who think we have strutted into great histori- cal importance, is sometimes quite offensive. To make it worse, they suppose that we cannot possibly know much of Europe, or indeed of any thing — how should we, being born so far OPINIONS OF AMERICA. 225 from Paris ?— and they began by teaching us the elements. A very complaisant man of the university told me over, the other day, the Rape of the Sabines, with all its circumstances; and a French lady, of good literary pretensions and wealth, has paraded me more than once to amuse her company, by '' talking American " — ^' Quel accent extraordmaire ! cela ne resserji- hie a rien en Europe:'—'' Ah ! you are from Boston," said another; "I am glad, perhaps you know my brother; he lives in Peru." The common people have a kind of in- distinct notion, that all Americans are neoroes — and as negro sympathies are now uppermost in Europe, we gain nothing by their disappoint- ment. — The English know more ; but their in- formation, as far as I have yet observed, is altogether strained through Madame Trollope and Basil Hall, and the other caricaturists. In what manner have the English travelled in our country? An author, intent on makino- a book, comes over, and tells a lie ; and the next who comes over steals it, and passes it for his own ; and, at last, it is holy writ. I read, twenty years ago, in English travels, that we gentlemen, at the taverns, clean our L 5 226 BASIL HALL MISS KEMBLE. teeth with the same brush. This has been re- peated, I presume, by Captains Hall and Ha- milton, (for I have met it in all their predeces- sors,) and is now told positively for the last time, by Miss Fanny Kemble. — A propos, I saw Captain Hall, the other night, at the Geo- graphical Society; he is a big man, and I did not flog him. As for Miss Kemble, she has such a pretty face, and so much genius, she may just tell as many Ues as she pleases. One prefers to go wrong with her, than right with many a one else. I read her book aboard ship, and was pleased and entertained with it. Indeed, 1 would go any time, ten miles barefooted only to see a book that speaks what it thinks ; —above all, to see a woman of genius, who writes after her own impressions, and sends her thoughts uncorrected by dunces to press. But is it not a spite that we, who have been so lied upon by the English, should have amongst them a most extensive reputation for lying ? It will be a worse spite if we deserve it. We certainly use more licentiously than they do that pretty figure of rhetoric, they call amplification. But from the httle knowledge they possess of our country I suspect one may ENGLISH TRAVELLERS IN AMERICA. 227 acquire amongst them a notorious reputation for lying by only telling the truth. Lonor ao;o there travelled to the south, an ass, who talked to the king of the beasts, of the len2:th of davs and nig-hts, of the con^ela- tion of rains into snows, of the Aurora Borea- lis, and skating on the ice, until he destroyed entirely all credit for veracity, and w^as at last whipped out of the country for an impostor. It is our business to profit by this long-eared experience. When you come to Paris, don't forgot to tell them the Mississippi sends its compliments to the Seine, and if you find in London that the horses trot twelve miles an hour, don't you say that ours trot fifteen. It is laid down by seve- ral of the casuists that a man is not to tell truth merely, but to consider what may be acceptable as such to his audience. To make the current value of words in Enor- land the absolute test of orood breedino- Iq America, appears to me scarce reasonable. Something indeed is due to age, prescription, and to estabhsh fame in letters ; but I do not see why we should not begin to use modestly our own weights and measures \ to pass our gold and silver even in an English market — if 228 AMERICAN FEELINGS the currency there happens to be brass ; and I do not see why one may not have a hon-ton ?ii Philadelphia, or Xew York, without speaking the fashionable jargon of St. James's. Language is variable from year to year, and we are too far distant to take the hue and air of an English court. Herodotus spoke in Ionic, Xenophon in Attic, (and Ionia was a colony of Attica) and Plutarch in .Eolic, and were all three good Greeks. They did not despise one another because the one said roiGiy and the other TwcjL. "■ I have known several of your countrymen," said Mr. John Bull, ^' very clever men, but not one who had the language of the best society.'' ''Our misfortune is, sir, not to have a lan- guage of our own. The Henriadeand the Mes- siah are, in France and Germany, titles of dis- tinction. To be something in America, one must out-write Shakspeare and Milton. And how are we to have original views and tastes, if our habits of thought, and proprieties of lan- guage, are to be settled in a foreign country ? It is to be hoped the time will come when in the United States one may be sick without going to sea, and raised in Kentucky without being a horse or a head of cabbage.— And pray, sir, TOWARDS ENGLAND. 229 what is there in the language of a well-educated American so distinguishable?" '* I should know you by your first six words. For example, you say sir too often, and you use it to your equals, where an Englishman would omit it. And I should know you by your many cant phrases, and by your singularity of habits — by your easy familiarity with strangers, &c." " As I know you by your drinking your champagne alone, of which you find no exam- ple in America." ** And by your boasting of the future instead of the past. — * The time will come.' — An Eng- lishman says—* The time has come.'" '* And which is the more honourable boast, for one who is nothino; himself?" " There is this difference ; we are sure of our ancestors, and we are not sure of our pos- terity." "There is another; our ancestors send us down manv a rogue to dishonour us, and we are never disgraced by our posterity. Besides, sir, it is quite natural the old should boast of what they have done, and the young of what they will do. Nestor was a more prolix and disagreeable boaster than Achilles. Moreover, sir, there is no great arrogance in predicting 230 AMERICAN FEELINGS the Strength of manhood from the vigour of youth." '^ But why should not we claim in posterity at least an equal chance ?" **Why not? It is certainly not your mo- desty that prevents it.'* "But without speaking of Shakspeare or Milton, what apology?" " Whoever heard of a child apologising for not being as big as a man ? We have, sir, our Franklins and Washingtons for the past ; our Clays, Calhoun's, and Websters for the present. And now, set our fifty years against your five hundred ; and our ten millions, and a rude continent, against your twenty-five mil- lions, and your cultivated island, and what rea- son, sir, have we to be humbled by the com- parison ?" *' What could you do more grateful to a pa- rent, than prove to her the worthiness of her children? We should rejoice that their merits were still greater." " We have imparted as much honour, sir, as we have received from the connection — or re- lationship, if you please." '^ Oh, if you wish to disown the kindred, agreed with all my heart." TOWARDS ENGLAND. 231 " Yes, sir, there is nearly as much Dutch and Irish in the breed at present, as English." " A kind of hybrid breed of Irish filth and Dutch stupidity." " It is known, sir, that the race is im- proved of all animals, by crossing the breed." **Your remark is too general. It is known that a horse and an ass produce nothing better than a mule. — In your crossing system, too, I remark you have left out the negroes. — A pro- pos of negroes — we have given liberty to ours, and you hold yours in bondage." " Your slave proprietors have not given this liberty ; the inhabitants of Great Britain have not given liberty to slaves, of which they were individually the proprietors; nor has the Parlia- ment set loose three millions of negroes in the midst of her white population — so the case is not apposite." ** Well, shall we end the argument, or shall I tell you of your riots and your Lynch law — and all this vice in your republic of fifty years, where we ought yet to expect the innocence of youth." " At your pleasure, sir — we expect nothing from England but injustice, in this as in every other respect. After poisoning us with the sen- suality of her romances, and the bilhngsgate of 232 ENGLA>"D AND AMERICA; newspapers, she is quite amazed that the child has not the sweet lisp, the ruddy complexion, and the graceful wildness of the infant. After filling our cities with pickpockets, she calls us dishonest ; with drunkards, and she calls us in- temperate ; and with disorderly Irish, and then she tells all the world we are riotous ; she has covered our land with negroes, and now she stigmatizes us for keeping slaves !" ** England has this advantage over you; she does not grow angry, when told of her faults. You are so thin skinned in America, you do not bear the least touch of the curry-comb without wincing." " England, sir, is surly, proud and phlegmatic, and thinks every one mad who is not as cold- blooded as herself. To be done, sir, America did not crouch to the British Lion when an infant, will she do it now that she is grown to maturity ? — She stands abreast with Great Britain in the estimation of the world, and to sustain this dignity she wears her sword " ** A sword is a very bad criterion of merit ; why, a highway robber could prove his right to your purse by the same argument " My Yankee friend now walked about the room, and upset a chair and picked it up again, THEIR MUTUAL INTERESTS. 233 and then hummed a tune to show he was not mad. In the meantime, the EngUshman had poured out dehberately three glasses — *' Come," said he, " I will be corrected by an American, at least in one particular ; I will not drink my champagne alone when I can find two honest countrymen to share it with — we will drink America and England !" ** England and America !" replied my com- panion with some reluctance. Before parting, the disputants both agreed that their countries had a mutual interest to cherish good feelings, and to rejoice at each other's prosperity ; both agreed that England now reaped a better profit from our Independ- ence than she could have done from our colonial subjection; and that America, by the service she derived from English commerce, science, and letters, and from English industiy in mak- ing her canals, working her mines, and improv- ing her manufactures, was much more than overpaid for any injuries she had a right to complain of in asserting and maintaining her liberty. A cup of coffee now poured its balm upon our national jealousies, and we parted with an 234 FIRE AT NEW YORK. invitation to visit our Englishman, who is a student of the Temple, in London. The packets are in — and have brought several fresh personages from America, notwithstanding the season. They have arrived just in time to have the last snufF of the carnival. The fire at New York is horrible, but not astonishino;. Our shingled roofs are more com- bustible than any thing I know of — unless per- haps it be gunpowder. There has been but one fire in Paris during the last year. What you say about the wind blowing off your night-cap in your sleep, I take to be my- thology; it means to threaten that if Doctor and I stay away in this manner, Boreas, or -^olus, or some of the gods will be coming to bed to you. — But think only of the vapours, the mud and slough of Paris, and then look out upon your pines, clad in all the snowy mag- nificence of winter. I can almost see old Hyems with his grisly chin, grinning from the flanks of the Sharp Mountain. My advice is that you dissipate the ice, with mirth, and bright fires and old wine ; and that you leave other things to the gods — and give my love to your mother. THE CARXIVAL. 235 LETTER XX. The Dancing fever. — The Grand Masquerade. — Fooleries of the Carnival. — Mardi Gras. — Splendid Equipages. — Masquerades. — An Adventure — Educated Women The Menus-Plaisirs. — A Fancy Ball. — Porte St. Martin. — The Masked Balls. — Descente de la Courtille.— End of the Carnival. — Birth-Day of Washington. Paris, February, 1836. There has been raging, the whole of this month, a disease which prevails here, usually about this season of the year — a kind of intermitting fever. It affects the whole city with a violent agitation of limbs, and often drives the features entirely out of the human countenance. You can't re- cognise your most intimate friends. The fit comes on exactly at midnight, and then the whole of Paris rushes out of doors, like an in- surrection. Men of the most sober habits, but ten minutes 236 GRAND MASQUERADE. before — men and women, who all day long were in the entire possession of their senses — the mo- ment it strikes twelve, pour out like a deluge upon the streets ; some scrambling into cabrio- lets, and others running through the mud up to, I don't know where, until they get together in the theatre, or some great town-hall, and there they dance the whole night long, as if their legs had taken leave of their senses. Towards morn- ing, they get into a kind of paroxysm — not a galloping consumption, but a gaUopade — which being over, they recover, and go quietly to bed, and the fit does not return till the next mid- night. The doctor was seized with this disorder yesterday, at the usual hour, and I never saw any more of him till this morning. After a little sleep, he feels much calmer, and it is thought he will recover. But I am getting alarmed about myself; the disease is catching. — In a word, I am going to-night, exactly at twelve, to the Grand INIasquerade, at the Grand Opera; and I am, this minute, going to embel- lish myself for the occasion. I have two days between me and the packets ; and, conse- quently, time enough for my correspondence. Good night. FOOLERIES OF THE CARNIVAL. 237 What a silly old world this is ! Nothing can be farther from my wishes, than to say any thing rude of your dear French people; but, 'pon honour, they are the greatest fools I have seen in ray life, and I have seen a good many. If you don't believe me, you have but to say so ; and then I will take you to the mad-house, , and prove to you that all the world is reason- able. The Boulevards have been runninor over with the mob these three days ; and the gal- leries, and windows, and roofs of the adjacent houses are bending under their multitudes; cavalcades, the most fantastic, are passing up one side of the street, and returning by the other for several miles, from the earliest to the latest sun ; while the margin, and middle, and all the interstices are filled vvith a nation of buffoons, trying, each one, by some ridiculous figure, attitude, or action, to outshine his neigh- bour in foolery : and all are as intent upon this, as if pursuing some main purpose of their existence. There goes the archbishop, with a pig by the tail; and there a nun on the back of an ass, her heels kicking its sides most ridiculously, without increasing its speed ; and there a two- years' baby, in breeches and silk hose, is giving 238 MARDI GRAS. pap to its papa, a great Irish giant of a man, seven feet or more, in a slobbered bib. I saw, yesterday, a dozen, male and female, carried along upon a platform, leisurely eating their soup out of — what do you think? — If any thing can beggar description alogether 'tis a Carnival. On the last day, the Mardi gras, there is an extraordinary exhibition of sumptuous equi- pages. An American Colonel keeps immense stables, inferior only to the great Condes, for these occasions. He has thirty-six horses, all of the noblest blood, and on this last day, out he comes, with my Lord S , who lives also in great circumstances, in elegant rivalry. His and my lord's faces are well known upon the Boulevards — ^* Delia is not better known to our dogs." The Colonel popped out yesterday, seventeen carriages-and-four, and knocked all the other showmen upon the head. He is praised this morning in every one of the newspapers. Maskers and harlequins are horrid in day- light, especially in Paris with their gay liveries all besmirched in mire ; they are only tolerable in moonhght and candlelight when half the mummery is concealed. That which delights me most is the " Masquerades," which I will musard's masquerade. 239 now tell you of, though I cannot pretend to de- scribe them in all their pomp and circumstance. The most frequented are those at Musard's, and the most fashionable those at the Grand Opera. In the former, conversation is relieved by dancing, and many of the gentlemen are in masks and fancy costume, and every thing is intended here for vivid impressions. The or- chestra has the extraordinary addition of the toUincr of a bell, and the draD'gino; of a chain, mixed with a full war-whoop of human voices. At this house there is much liberty of action with entire liberty of speech. I saw here one of the finest figures of a womaa I have ever seen, in a cook-maid's dress, and looking as innocent as if she had lived before Adam and Eve. I dialoo'ued with her now and then as she came over to my side in the dance. — " Have you a place ?" " Yes." — " Do vou like your master ?" " Verv much." — " Would'nt change ?" " iS'o." — " How much does he give you ?" " A hundred francs a month." — '' But if I give you five hundred?" " Ah! cest une autre affaire" At the Grand Opera the ladies only are masked and all are in the same dress, so as to be undistinguishable. If they choose to be 240 GRAND OPERA MASQUERADE. known for special purposes they have then their signals. Here they are the aggressors, and sentlemen are not allowed the first word, and no dancing or noise interrupts the interest of the conversation. The women too, are of the best breeding, but on these occasions, they are per- mitted to knock off their fetters, and they in- demnify themselves not a little for the re- straints, which tyrannic fashion imposes upon them under their natural faces. The Bacchanal ladies of the Greeks used to let off the steam of their too great vivacity once a year in the same manner. The Opera con- tains many thousands, and yet on all these masquerades it is filled. The Orchestra is at the nether end, so that the music comes from afar, and its harmony reaches the great saloon so softened that the gentlest lady-whisper falls distinctly upon the ear. The parterre, which is floored, and the immense stage, form an area apart for the more noisy and romping world ; and the boxes overhead have their company. The upper ones of all are close and grilltesj with locks, and keys, and attendants, for persons of retired habits. Several exquisite nymphs exhibit themselves mounted on a platform at the extremity of the AN ADVENTURE. 241 pit, having their innocent alabaster arms, and marble necks and shoulders, naked ; and other charms arp trying to hide themselves modestly behind a light gauze, but do not always succeed. These dispose of various kinds of merchandise by lottery. The hot-houses too pour out their treasures through the lobbies, and amidst the blushing roses and dahlias, gallant gentlemen and ladies whisper their loves in each others' ears, or re- pose about in groves that are full of ravish- ment. -" Jamais les jardins d'Armide, Non, jamais les jardins d'Armide, N'ont vu de tels enchantements !'' A lady, of what beauty I know not, but from a sweet voice and pretty eyes, was pleased to give me here a half hour of her company and chat ; who is she ? She would not tell me her name, nor even her country, but, said in taking leave, " Give my compliments to Miss C , or if you like better her conjugal name, Mrs. G , the only person I know in Philadel- phia." I begged much her name or some feature by which I might hope, in the accidents and re- VOL. II. M 242 LEVITIES OF THE contres of life, to recognise her ; I asked her a single line of poetry, or even a word, and she gave, — the malicious thing ! two French words only, which added nothing to the information I already possessed of her person — she gave me ^' beaux yeux," which I, like a gallant knight, promised to carve upon the highest rock of the Alleghany. She had hke to have carved them some where else herself. A half hour's conversation with this lady would certainly be in the mind of any one, of even less taste than I may modestly pretend to, a very sensible regret at an endless or hopeless separation. Where there are sense and senti- ment, fine eyes, harmony of voice, and elegance of form, it is difficult not to imagine the asso- ciation of every other perfection. I was no sooner forsaken by this amiable lady, than I had the luck to find almost a con- solation for her absence, in another, who was not less remarkable for wit, than for senti- ment, and good sense. This second had all the easy unembarrassed air of a fashionable Frenchwoman ; was exceedingly graceful, and had a shape, that to any lady of my acquain- tance, except one, would be unpardonable. She mystified me, and (not a difficult thing MASQUERADE. 24 o for a woman) made a fool of me. — '* How could you exchange," said she, " the sober Luxem- bourcr, for the frivolous Tuileries, and how the demure philosophy of the Faubourg St. Germain for the gaieties and levities of the Rue Neuve des Madirins ?" — " You sorceress, how can you know where I live, or have lived ?" — '^ In the Luxembourg you had a better look ; and there the angels hovered over you to protect you. I sent you a volume to divert you under the shade from your melancholy, and my servant to pick you up from the ice. — When do you go home to America ? You should have gone long ago, and not be running about Europe getting vagabond habits in this manner ; you have now been absent eight months." I offered her at last the New World for her name. *^ You are not the first of your profession who has offered worlds that did not belong to him. # # * I cannot, I am afraid of your rattle- snakes." "One encounters greater dangers daily in the midst of Paris." ''The ladies?" '* They resemble snakes only in the power of charming." M 2 244 SENTIMENTAL CONVERSATION. '^ I have seen gentlemen, sometimes, bit by them." " Yes, both young and rich. — What an im- pertinent question ! — For the beauty you shall judge for yourself; and I will not place you in the unpleasant predicament of Paris ; you will incur no displeasure of Minerva or Juno in giving me the prize." She then removed her mask, under the light of a brillant lamp, and discovered, not only the prettiest face I have seen in Eurpoe, but the one I was most anxious to see — the face of my quondam " wife of two minutes/' whom I had once met at the Louvre, and of whom I have spoken in a former letter. ; I would give you more of her conversation ; but who, but a simpleton relates dialogues with himself? Besides, what fop is there who writes a play, or a novel, or a letter of travels, who does not promulgate some foolish adventure of his, at a masquerade ? ^ ^ * *< You cannot either in propriety or humanity leave me without your name or address." '^ D' accord y — the name or the address?" I foolishly chose the latter ; and she gave me her residence, wit an invitation to visit her at her No. in the Via di Sajicto Spirito^ Florence. EDUCATED \VOMEN. 245 ■'■'One might as well have an eel by the tail." " Better have an eel by the tail than a wolf by the ears;" with this proverb she dropped into the great ocean, and all was smooth again. This woman, notwithstanding my immense pru- dence, was near pinching me by the heart. Love was just chirping, but Duty breathed her cold breath upon him — and he remained un- hatched. I know of nothing that communicates half so much enjoyment to human life, as an educated woman. I mean one who joins social accom- plishment, to literary instruction. Her conver- sation, " More glad to me than to a miser money is," And a woman, I believe, is nowhere so admir- able in wit, as under cover of a mask. She then expresses her own thoughts ; the rein and curb are removed from h^r imagination, which expatiates more wildly from its previous re- straints. Nor are her triumphs merely intellectual, though not shared with feature or complexion, for in such cases the fancy outruns even the most vivid reality. Pliny thought Apelles had 246 LADIES IN MASQUES. improved his Venus by leaving her unfinished ; for the spectator would bring out beauties from the unformed marble, beyond the skill even of the divine artist. There is besides, the emotion, the excite- ment of curiosity, of mystery, of adventure, and the interest of a first meeting and conversation, not cooled by a gradual acquaintance, which lend many new attractions to a woman, and which orive a charm to the amusement of the masquerade, to which few minds can be insen- sible. But why have not our Solons allowed you ladies masks in Pennsylvania ? — Because they thought you better disguised in your own faces. No such thing ; they thought them dangerous to your morals. Ladies think, like partridges. if their heads are hid, all is safe ; but our legis- lators, who were wise and provident, looked out for a better security. I have myself found one or two of the Chris- tian virtues at a masquerade, very inconvenient, to say the least of them. Such amusements add but little to the immoralities of these old and refined communities ; but the later the day the better to introduce them into a new country, — especially into the cloisters of your too inno- PALAIS ROYAL. 247 cent Hills. The folly, the nonsense, the wicked- ness of the world is far beyond the conception of you shepherdesses. I placed myself last night under the escort of persons well versed in all the menus-plaisirs of the town, and passed the night out to see human nature in a part of her great book, which I had not yet perused. I followed the two biggest rogues of Paris for information, as one follows the pigs to get truffles. The Palais Royal had our first visit. Here were both sexes in their fancy dresses and masks, and here was the dance in all its wan- tonness ; " Motus doceri gaudet lonicos Matura Virgo ;" not gross absolutely, but indecency could not easily conceal herself under a thinner covering. Ladies do not venture here for the world, unless sometimes for mere curiosity, and well masked, as the Pagan deities used to travel about in mortal disguises to see the iniquities of men. Xear this place we descended into an im- mense room under ground. Here were trulls in visors, and scavengers in lily-tinctured cravats. It was the rabble in its court dresses. At the 248 PORTE ST. MARTIN. farthest end of the room rushed out a savage upon a stage and puffed upon twenty instru- ments; beat furiously a range of drums with his toes, hands, head, heels, &c. to the infinite delight of the merry spectators. Don't think, gentlemen, you have all the fun at the Tuileries. — My companions did not think it safe to abide long in this place. ** We are not concerned for ourselves," said they, "but we are afraid you might be mistaken for a gentleman ;" and we set out for Porte St. Martin. Here we introduced ourselves to the Masked Balls. It was near morning and the common world had danced itself into languors. The dance here is unique ; every motion of the limbs is an eloquent and pathetic language, especially the gallopade. You would go a long way to see a French woman of the Porte St. Martin gallop. The gray hairs, too, of both sexes, dance here. Every here and there we saw an old thing of a woman, whose follies long ago have gone to seed, tricked out in all the magnificence of rib- bons, and kindhng her last efforts in the dance. In the private rooms, many, fagged out by the labours of the week, were strewed about upon chairs and sofas, or upon the floor, either faint and languishing, or wrapped in sleep. One, a DESCENTE DE LA COURTILLE. 249 beautiful woman, lay outstretched, her petti- coats dishevelled, her head upon the crossed- legs of her beau, a half sloven, half fop in silk breeches and a dirty shirt, who slept upright upon a chair ; another supine, her mouth open, snored towards Heaven ; and every where were plenty of legs, arms and bosoms, disdaining any other covering than the sky. — They are glori- ously jolly at the Porte St. Martin, of a Mardi- gras, that's certain. About daylight we arrived at the '* Descente de la Courtille." This is the blackguard ren- dezvous outside the gate so celebrated. All the elite of the Parisian rag-amuffins was here. — '' Stand out of the way, you fellow^ without a shirt." — " Stand out of the way yourself, you sloven. When you die they'll not think it necessary to bury you. You can't smell worse." We got through this crowd with long strug- gles in a close carriage ; for the custom is to bespatter with filth any one appearing in a decent garb. Paris furnishes for her general parades the most genteel rabble in the world, and I was not aware she could rake together such an ungodly multitude for this occasion. I went from the street into some of their re- tired places of revelry. Here many a one had M 5 250 LOW REVELRIES. lost his '^ upright shape," and was sprawling, male and female, about the rooms and entries ; brawny men and weather beaten poissardes, half covered with rags. In the streets were various entertainng sights. One (a sober man by some miracle) was running after his tipsy wife, and as unhappy about her as a hen that has hatched a duck. Another had come to an equilibrium, and was struggling forward, yet standing still, as one in a night-mare, or as a weather-cock taking reso- lutions against the wind ; and another was rendering up to Bacchus an account of the night's debauch. Finally, there was one ad- ministering a kicking to a retreating enemy, which seemed quite a novelty in Paris, and ex- cited great interest. I was o-lad to see that the French, when they do resort to violence, prefer that which alone is founded on principles of humanity. This is the " Descente de la Courtille." It is one of the places where one sees the nearest approach of our race to the lower animals ; it is the connecting link. We returned home at eight, the fashionable hour. To go to bed at night, or rise in the morning, is all out of fashion. The sun was made BIRTH-DAY OF WASHINGTON. 251 for the rabble. . . Carnival means, farewell to flesh, and indeed there will be not much flesh on my bones when it is over. Lent means quiet and rest, and comes very properly immediately after it. It is to-day the birth-day of Washington, and you are no doubt honouring it with wine and mirth and festivity. 1 have paid also my tribute to its sacred memory ; and who knows but this humble respect, in the " Rue Neuve des Matu- rins," is as welcome to his great spirit, which is now above the reach of human vanities, as the pomp of your national festivals. It is purity of heart that makes devotion ac- ceptable in Heaven, and not the magnificence of the worship. I told my two French convives at table (their glasses being filled) it was Wash- ington's fete, and they stood up instinctively and drank to his memory, pronouncing his name only, in looking towards Heaven. — To Heaven he has gone by the general consent of mankind. " Not as Mahomet, for he needed not the fiction of a miracle to make him immortal; nor as Elijah, since recorded time has not pointed out the being upon whom his mantle may descend ; but (in humble imitation) as the Great Architect 252 WASHINGTON. from created universe, to contemplate the stu- pendous monument his wisdom had erected."' After this I may leave the rest of this page blank. I bid you affectionately good night. THE DUCHESS d'aBRANTES. 253 LETTER XXI. Evening Parties at the Duchess d'Abrantes'.- Mode of admission.-The Weather. - Suicides. - Madame le Norman the Sibyl.-Pansian Reunions—Manners of Frenchwomen—American Soirees.-Furniture—Hints on Etiquette—Manners in Parisian High Life.— Con- versation.-Dress.-Qualifications for an Exquisite- Smoking.— Rules for dinner. P^^iS, April loth, 1836. What shall 1 put in this letter? I have not thought of a thing, and here is only a day be- tween me and the mail, and not wit enough m my head to "stop the eye of Helen's needle." I will tell you two words of the Duchess d'Ab- rantes, an old acquaintance of yours, and her evenmg parties to begin with ; and leave the rest to chance. Parties, here, are not very exclusive. The Romans used to allow an invited guest to bring 254 EVENING PARTIES AT a friend along, as his " shadow ;" so it is in Paris, only that you are allowed sometimes two or three shadows, according to your intimacy or favour. It is usual, if you know a friend going to a party, to sue, through his interest, for the privilege of a ticket. It is usual to say, Mr. S. — if you wish to go to M. Thiers' to- morrow night I have a ticket for you. In this way without knowing any thing of the hostess, you are admitted to her saloon. M. Le Baron de B , whose acquaint- ance I owe altogether to my own merits, un- locks the doors of this upper story of the world to me as often as I please to accept his polite- ness, which I do sparingly. The Duchess is the centre of a literary circle which meets re- gularly at her house, once a week, for conversa- tion. They do not eat themselves into a re- putation for polite learning here, as with us. The old lady has come down from the anti- revolutionary times, and is, no doubt, a good sample of the ancient French. And how do these upper sort of folks con- duct a soiree ? Suppose yourself a Duchess, and I will tell you. — Your servants in livery will introduce your guests from the ante-cham- ber, calling out their names ; and they, on en- THE DUCHESS d'aBRANTES. 255 tering, will make you bows and grimaces by the dozen. You also must go through your exer- cise. If a Duke, stand up straight, V a Mar- quis halfway up, if a Count a little way up, if a Baron, just bend a little the hinges of your knees ; and as for a mere gentleman, why any common week-day inclination of the head will suffice. Your servants too will be drilled. —Monsieur le Prince de Tallei/rand I—Th'is must be pro- nounced with a loud and distinct voice, bang- ing open both the folding doors ; and the buzz for a while must cease through the saloon. (vive sensation .')— And the note of dignity must be observed down through the subordinate visitors; till you hear in a soft soprano, on G flat, just audible, Monsieur Gentigolard! Then you will see squeezing in by the door a little ajar, an individual with his cloak by the tip end, and his knees encouraging each other- blinking something like an owl introduced to the da,y-light. {Uger mouvement ct gauche.) It was my luck to be born in a little nook of the backwoods, by the side of a hoar hill of the Tuscarora, where the eagle builds its eyrie, and the wild cat rears its kittens; it was not my choice, but my mother, who had the whole 256 AN INTRODUCTION. arrangement of the matter, would have it so; and I had never seen a Duchess. In coming up the stairs I had to work myself up into a fit of aristocracy. " Mr. John/' said I, " you are a good looking man, and fashionably dressed ; your father was a soldier in the Re- volution — a major at St. Clair's defeat ; be- sides, you are yourself of rather a noble descent, your wife's grandmother was the daughter of James Biakely, admiral ." With these en- couragements I stepped from the Broad Moun- tain into the saloon of the Duchess. However, I was not greatly diverted chez madame la Duchesse, I did not feel any of my faculties much tickled except curiosity, and the flutter of novelty is soon over ; one soon gets used to be surprised. I had a kind of hum-drum talk with an old general, who fought me the Re- volution over again, beginning with the Bastille. I might have been numbered among its victims, but I fortunately thought of a bon-mot of Aris- totle : I wonder any one has ears to hear you, who has legs to run away from you — so I ran home to bed and dreamt of the battle of Waterloo. The French in high life have become a more grave and thinking people than formerly, but I THE WEATHER. 257 believe they cannot substitute any qualities without injury, in the place of their natural levity and cheerfulness. They cannot make themselves more amiable than they were in the reign of Madame du DefFand and Madame Geoffiin. The proportion of ladies in the saloon of the Duchess was quite scanty. This ought to be the case where a woman is the centre of attraction, but it is not to my taste. If I had run foul of a woman this evening, instead of this vieille moustache, I should not have had a night-mare of Lord Wellington. And now, what shall I do with these two sheets, since I have done with the Duchess ?. I will talk about the weather. Hezekiah would have made no kind of figure here with his dial. Mothers feed their children on the fog with a spoon, as you do them on pap. What a Htter of idiots these vapours will breed! I just swim about in them in a kind of unconscious imbecility of intellect. 1 intend to try some, one of these days, if I can count four. As for the streets, one cannot put a foot upon them, without being; splashed half way up to the chin, with every kind of immundicity. No one ever thinks of going into " Jean Jaques Rousseau,'' except in a fit of despair, as 1 do 258 SUICIDES. when I expect your letters. Why, there was a man, who went through the streets a few days ago, to put a letter in the office, and he sunk three leagues in the mud ; he has not been beard of since. The French remedy for such weather is charcoal ; to be asphyxied is a natural death here. A French girl being crossed in love the other day, and killing herself the usual charcoal way, kept a journal of her sensations ; — ^* At twelve, difficulty of respiration and cold sweat; at twelve and a quarter, violent pain in the chest, &c." — Speaking of suicide, here are some curious statistics : — for love, two and a half women to one man ; for reverses of fortune, three men to a woman ; and five men to a woman for baffled ambition. Of the men, the greater number from thirty-five to forty-five; of women, from twenty- live to thirty-five ; and twice as many girls as boys before the age of fifteen — so say Talset's Tables. Two women to a man for love, implies that either men have the greater attractions, or women the greater sensibility — which is it? I will finish this paragraph with an adventure of a few days ago, which comes in apropos enough, talking about charcoal. There lives in the Rue de Tournon an old MADAME LE NORMAX. 259 Sibyl called Madame le Xon?ian, whoQi all per- sons of sense or nonsense, who are curious about the future, visit. She can spell the stars, and she reads the destinies, as I do the Journal des Debats, and she acquired such a fame by pre- dicting the overthrow of Xapoleon, that her house has been literally beset ever since by pe- titioners. You have to bespeak her a week a-head. A great comfort she is to the young gentlemen, whose fathers won't die, and she gives hopes to married ladies, who have old husbands. Well, this prophetic old woman told Doctor C.-he had a wife and two children in a foreign land pining after him, which proves she can see behind as well as before ; and that he would make acquaintance this week with a noble lady —all true ! Then she held my hand, and cast a peering look upon it, and thrice shook her head. Alas ! she saw in my face a great many '* drowning: marks." So you see there is no chance in the world, unless your prayers shall reverse the fates, of my ever getting home. I will tell you why I was induced to go on this expedition to Delphos, for which I am sorry now, for I think, likj Julius Caesar, that the mind of man should be 260 CO^VERSATION. ignorant of its fate — it was to accompany your old acquaintance, — , who has fallen despe- rately in love with a Frenchwoman — Mais, ma cherCf vous nen avez pas Videe ! In fine, he is so in love, that he has serious thoughts of leaving oflf chewing tobacco. It was to gratify him that I went, as he wanted to see the end of this Frenchwoman. And now, with this fortune-teller, and the suicides, the bad weather, and a Virginia doctor, I have got rid of a whole page of blank paper, and, 'pon honour, I had no other motive for calling them to your notice. I will go back to my original text, and try to be sensible. I did wish to decline to-day all that required reflection ; I am also no great professor in this kind of lore, but I find no other subject. — Evening visits and gossipings have now taken place of the tipsy rompings of the carniv^al. The midnight orgies are hushed, and the blazing tapers and glittering gems are quenched until the return of a new year. wSo- C'.ety has put on a light, easy, and decorous garb, which it will wear for the rest of the sea- son ; fashion rigorously forbidding any departure from its chaste simplicity. Conversation is now the main object of social MANNERS OF FRENCHWOMEN. 261 intercourse, and every thing is made to contribute to its enjoyment. It is admitted by those who are best able to judge, that the Paris "Rtwiio?is" of this season, form the very best school that is known of colloquial accomplishment ; and that they have a charm which othernations have not found the secret of communicating to such pas- times. The largest share of this praise is, of course, due to the women. Whether it be the language, better suited than ours to conversa- tion, or a constitutional gaiety, or vanity, which is so much more amiable than pride, I know not ; but a well bred Frenchwoman is certainly the most agreeable creature of which the world has any example. I have often seen between me and the heaven of a fine woman's face in America, an impracti- cable distance-— a bright star in the firmament, which one must be content to worship, without the hope of ever reaching its elevation. I have often been confounded so, in my tenderer years, by the awfulness of American dignity, as to be afraid of my own voice ; and I have often felt in the presence of a lady— as if made by a car- penter. Such a feeling, in the humanity and gentle- ness of French affability, is unknown. You 262 FRENCH GENTLEMEN. breathe freelv, and retain the natural use of your faculties, physical and intellectual. A French- woman's politeness levels every distinction ; the modest man is relieved of his ditfidence, and the humble raised to self-esteem, by her gracious civilities; and a lady of elevated rank always strips herself, before an ordinary mortal, of her rays, that he may approach her without being consumed. Nor does the Frenchwoman lose anything of her dignity in this familiarity; she speaks with kindness, and even affection to her servants, and yet is secure of their respect and obedience. I have come into the opinion that a lady has no occasion to bristle up her crest in defence of her quality, or bring around it the protection of reserve or haughtiness ; and that her honour, unless the garrison is corrupt, is safe in its na- tural defences. — It is not necessary to say that under such good instruction the French gentle- men are also highly polished and amiable. There is not one of them who does not set apart some portion of the twenty-four hours for social amusement, and it is the evening, when the mind is weary of business or study, that most requires such relaxations. In the evening, then, all the world is abroad ; PARISIAN HIGH LIFE. 263 and it is reasonable to suppose that wit must have attained its highest degree of pungency, and style every ingredient of perfection, with such advantages. A Frenchman's ambition is to shine, and he comes armed at all points, ex- actly cap-a-pie for the occasion ; above all, he takes care that the stimulus of ardent liquors, and a heavy indigestible meal at the dinner table, may not for the rest of the day blunt the edge of his vivacity and enjoyment. I have seen a few of these parties, enough to judge of the rest. Each house is '' at home," at least once a-week, and the invitations are general for the season, or occasional, and the regular guests have the privilege of bringing a friend. I went last night to Civiale's, the eminent surgeon's. One room was filled with miscellaneous company, another with gentlemen only, at billiards, 8cc. All was in a buzz of merriment, and without any show of ceremonious restraint — all was " fortuitous elegance, and unstudied grace," and this is one of Johnson's definitions of hap- piness. *^ Come to-morrow night," said C , -" and you will hear one of your countrywomen play; her talent is not second to any lady's of Paris." — Who is she? from Boston. — I have 264 TASTEFUL FURNITURE. said nothing: of the American *' soirees" here, which are nearly as at home, but more lively ; I suppose from the contagious example, and from the natural warmth of a friendly meeting in a foreign country. To a stranger who arrives, they are at once a consolation and an enjoy- ment ; and it is to be hoped that a vicious emu- lation of sumptuousness, every day increasing, may not disturb their frequency and cordiahty. The furniture of fashionable rooms here is more tasteful, and usually more elegant than in our richest houses. The propriety of colours, and the harmony of arrangement, and such thmgs are with many persons the study of a whole life. Richness is the praise of the Eng- lish dames, and chasteness and concinnity of the French. In England where primogeniture preserves property indivisible, a house is furnished from a remote antiquity, and there is encouragement to taste and expense ; but what motive is there to furnish in our country, where Joseph has as much as Reuben, and where the next day after the owner's decease, the furniture encounters the auctioneer's hammer ; and where fashion, too, turns a house wrong side out every six years. Besides, what serves it to put costly HINTS Oy ETIQUETTE. 265 years. Besides, what serves it to put costly sums upon what is destined to be scraped and cut up by one's dozen of spoilt children, or to be carved into notches by one's cousins of Kentucky ? Xow with what shall I fill this immense space which remains ? — Oh, I will give you all the precepts and aphorisms I can think of, of Paris good breeding;. They will be so useful to you in the *' coal region." You may p,ive your arm to a gentleman in public, but don't give him both your arms. Keep on your gloves at church ; take them off when vou fro to bed. Don't lick your plate, but imbibe the sauce with a little bread in the left hand; holding a silver fork in vour right. When vou dine out, vou mav blow your nose with the table-cloth, if they don't give you nap- kins ; otherwise it would be thought improper. Don't use the tail of your frock ; this gives of- fence to refined people, generally speaking. Don't ask for the ankle of a chicken \ ladies say leg now at table without impropriety. When full tilt in the street, bow, and don't curtsey. Just do you try how inconvenient it is to curtsey in the operation of fast walking ; be- sides, your frock gets in the mud. VOL. II. N 266 HINTS ON ETIQUETTE. If you cannot go to the "Trinity" to prayers, don't forget to send your card. If j^ou meet a lady on the Boulevards of Pottsville, or other public promenade, don't salute her, unless she first gives you some token of recognition : if vou meet her in Mann and William's Mine two miles under ground, you may. This invisibility gives a lady a chance of doing in pubhc what she chooses; — of carrying some tripe, or a leg of mutton home to dinner. If you see a lady at her door or window in dis- habille, to salute her is inexcusable. If you espy her straying with a gentleman amongst romantic shades of the wizard Mill Creek, or by the wild cliff which overhangs the TumbHng Run, tapestried with honeysuckles, you must whistle Yankee Doodle, so as to leave her the impression that she is unobserved. If you take a walk on Guinea Hill, and Black Bill uncovers, take off your hat also : if his curvature vertebrale be forty-five degrees, yours must be forty-six; it won't do to be outdone by Cono;o negroes. Never write a catalogue of your linen for the washer-woman. He is a filthy man, who knows the number of his shirts. And get them made at Formin's of the Rue Richelieu. He makes HINTS ON ETIQUETTE, 267 shirts a ravir; see advertisement; *' Une chemise bien faite a tit jusquici un 'phenomhie, ^c." Whatever position you may give your body, his shirts remained unruffled: many a man's skin don't fit half so perfectly. If you meet a lady in public with a strange gentleman, return her salute with your hat in your left hand, and walk on; or if she stop you, bow to the gentleman also, and respect his rio;hts. I walked through the Tuileiies the other day with a lady, and met — I am sorry it was an American, who, intervening, hummed me out of the lady's acquaintance, without noticing me. This is excessively ill-bred, and an insult to the lady. I have not forgotten him, and I don't know that I shall. A Parisian lady possesses greater moral, as well as physical strength than the lady of our cities. In Philadelphia, she cannot, for her little soul, venture out into a public place with- out a life guard, no more than Louis Philippe ; and even then she is shy, and picks her steps, trembling in her knees and heart . — *^ Pa, don't you go that way, there's a man !" Now a Frenchwoman does not care to go out of the way of a man — any more than the French army out of the way of the Bedouins. She just N 2 268 HINTS ON ETIQUETTE. takes hold of her caniche in one hand, and walks out without caring for the king. — Oh my ! and what's a caniche ? — A little curly dog : she holds it by a string, and it walks alonojside of her, and with the protection only of this little shaggy animal she feels herself impreonably fortified against the whole sex. When a gentleman escorts a lady to dinner he must not stick his elbows into her ribs, and hang her to him, as his mantle to a post. Politeness requires him to move exactly two feet and a half behind her, and a little to the left. The o;ait is not a li2:ht matter in feminine graces ; it is, indeed, one of the attributes by which a woman is most adniired. The Pious a.Eneas did not recognise his mother as a god- dess, until she had turned tail to him in this manner; and when Juno said, '^ I walk the queen of Heaven," do you think she had Jupiter by the arm? French etiquette allows a lady every chance of striking out a beauty — even to givin": her the black men at the chess-board to show off her white and tapering fingers. Xever look at your glove when you take it off to shake hands. — You only want to show that Walker made it, or draw attention to the gem that sparkles under it. The grand rule is in brins^ino; out a grace, that the intention be MANNERS IN PARISIAN HIGH LIFE. 269 concealed — besides, your attention is due to the individual to whom you have proffered your civiUties. If you come to Paris, you are to have but one child — babies are going out of fashion. — And you must call it " Emile" (after Rous- seau's) and then put it out to nurse. I intreat you to remember there is no cooing over one's little wife here ; it looks uxorious, which is a great scandal. It is not reputable to either party, implying either that the hus- band is jealous, (and he would rather be hanged,) or that the wife is a disagreeable thing, (and she would rather be crucified,) and cannot get a beau. I have seen ladies here often obliged — not having any thing at hand but their husbands — to forego the pleasure of the finest f^tes and parties. I have often had wives thrown in my face on such occasions. This custom has an exhilarating effect upon social vivacity. There is nothing so stupid in nature as one's husband generally speaking. He has travelled his wife's mind over and over, and what can he have to say ? — and vice versa ; in his neigh- bour's he has a new and unexplored territory ; gind a stranger suggests new attentions, and gives a new tone of feeling. Besides a little 270 MANNERS IN mixture of evil seems necessary with every good. The conjugal feelings are pure, honest and domestic, but like all the benevolent affec- tions, are rather unentertaining, it is known that nothing gives wit so abundantly as a little malice. The Parisian public does not suffer a fine woman to be monopolised ; she has social as well as domestic duties ; and if the husband wants her company, why go abroad with her ? Somebody's lordship once said that a married woman was nothing but an appropriated girl. His lordship had not travelled on the Continent. I know that in your town, where a married couple grow together like Juno's swans, or like those '^ two cherries" in Shakspeare, such a custom must seem abominable. Ladies kiss and don't shake hands in Paris. Gentlemen kiss too, but only on great occasions. I was kissed the other day by a man for the first time. It was one of the most trying situa- tions of my life. I felt like that personage who was strangled by Hercules. — See the picture in the mythology. In Parisian high life, husbands and wives do not lodge conjointly. They visit at New- Years; they send also to inquire about each PARISIAN HIGH LIFE, 271 Other's health, and they meet out occasionally at parties. Even among the less fashionable, they occupy separate chambers, which has this inconvenience, that that great court of Chan- cery, the " Curtain Lectures/' leaves many im- portant cases untried.— -Recollect, however, that the husband meeting the wife accidentally in company, always treats her with marked atten- tions ; he stops at the end of every five words to say '' My dear," and then he needs not speak to her till they meet again at the next party. Ladies here never gossip of one another's demerits, which goes well nigh to make them all honest. Also a lady having " an affair," makes no parade of it. Her lover is the very last person in the community who runs any risk of being suspected; and her gallantries, if known, bring no ridicule upon her husband, or tarnish in the least his reputation among other ladies. In all nature I know of nothino- so un- suspicious as the French husbands. They have got, each one, nearly into the state of that most unbelieving Greek, who doubted of every thine, and at last doubted that he doubted. I will tell you a story which made me laugh this morning. A gentleman called at the Hotel and asked 272 MANNERS IN the porter; '' Where does M. O. V. T. live?" '* Sir, there are three of that name in Paris." '^ I allude to the physician." " They are all three physicians." " I mean the physician to the Royal family." ^* Sir, they are all three." " Que diable ! je veux dire celui qui est cocu. *' Ah, Monsieur, ils le sont tous les troisF' I tell you this only for its pleasantry, and not to hint the frequency of such cases. I have, indeed, heard of one French husband, who was jealous a little while. He flew at his wife's lover with a knife, and perhaps would have killed him, but she rushed between, and seizing his arm, exclaimed: ^^ Arrete,malheureux, tu vas tuer le pere de ies enfans ! " and the knife fell from his paternal hands. In conversation there is a language of pru- dery, and a language of grossness. — These are the extremes, and propriety is somewhere about the middle. Human nature, especially in large cities, does not bear exquisite refinement. To refine, is to be indelicate ; to hide, is to dis- cover. In America, we get, in some places, into the very wantonness of delicacy, and de- cency herself becomes absolutely indecent. There are two sorts of persons afiected in this way; the modest woman just stepping into the PARISIAN HIGH LIFE. 273 world, and the woman, who has been in it too much. The latter *' adds to the bloom of her cheek in exact proportion to the diminution of her modesty." You have acquitted me fully of this charge of prudery in several of your letters — much obliged. I wish I could be as easily absolved from the opposite offence. All I can say in mitigation, is, that living a whole year in Paris, and describing Parisian manners makes it very difficult not to incur such a blame from you Pottsvillians. I may observe, however, that freedoms are often permitted in one person, which may be very blameable in others, de- pending entirely upon the comparative inno- cency of their lives. Is Lafontaine ever taxed with indecency? Yet in words he is a liber- tine without a rival; — and your baby, too, may kick up its heels and do a good many things that would be very unbecoming in its mother. When you come to Paris you may talk of the eloquent preacher and the music at St. Roch with raptures; but recollect you cannot do a more sUly thing than to make any show of religion. Though you may know your Bible by heart, it will be well sometimes to ask, who N 5 274 MANNERS IN Samuel was, or David, or iNIoses, by way of re- commending your good breeding. If a coach stops at your door and brings you an acquaintance up the stairs, you must say in a fret ; ^' Here is that sickenino- things again ; now I shall be teazed with her insipid talk all the morning. Why did they let her in?" — " My dear Caroline I am so rejoiced to see you!" and then you must jump about her neck. — " I w^as so dull, and just wanted your sweet countenance and wit to enliven me." — This is only a little fashionable air, and does not mean any thing. The French profess more violent affection before your face and employ more saucy ridicule behind your back, than any other people; but the mass of kindness and be- nevolence is about as great here as in other countries. — Complimentary phrases are in no country to be taken literally. In Paris, if a man swears he loves you, and will share his last cramb with you, he means of course that you are to pay for it. In taking leave of a lady, see her to your chamber door, and then hold the door a little ajar, and wait until she has turned round and given you the valedictory smile \ then it is an affair finished. You are not to follow to the PARISIAN HIGH LIFE. 275 Street. You rub your lamp, that is, you ring a bell, and a genius appears to conduct her. This leaves her at liberty with respect to her equipage. Nothing is so ill-bred as officious assiduities. Good breeding never makes a fuss ; it takes good care of a lady when her safety and real comfort are concerned, with kindness, but not officiousness. Anticipate all her wants, gratify all her whims, and overload her with superflu- ous civilities, and you make her ungrateful, self- ish, disagreeable. She will regard your ne- glects as offences, and your kindnesses as dues that enjoin no acknowledgment. You know what unhappy, disagreeable things spoiled children are, and in their infantine grace and innocence how amiable ; their mammas may be spoiled in the same way, and when spoiled are equally detestable, Nota bene : the papas may be spoiled too. When you pay a visit, go away rather too soon than too late; leave people always a little hungry of your company ; unless you are of the class of ladies, who " make hungry where most they satisfy." I advise you in your dress not to follow too implicitly the fashions of Europe, and especi- 276 DRESS. ally not to exaggerate, which is so common with imitators. In bowing with the reverence to French fashions, which is becoming in all womankind, have a decent respect to the human shapes and appearances. Why, I have seen bustles or bishops, or what do you call them, put up even in Chestnut-street by some of you, who, under the Ptump Parliament, would have been taken up for a libel. If you are well dressed, no one meeting you will ask who made your frock. One stares at the woman, and the frock is unseen. Do you believe that any one asks Madame la Hon who made her chapeau ; or the pretty Countess de Vaudrueil, or the Duchess de Quiche, who plaited those diamonds, more beautiful than the starry firmament, upon their turbans ; or the Duchess de Plaisance who made her shoe ? No, no, the heart is full of the little foot, and there is no room there for the shoemakers and mantua-makers. Don't do things always the same way. If, for example, you hand a gentleman anything (a bit of anthracite of the " Peacock Vein," or a joint of the railroad) do it with a graceful simplicity. I know an elegant of your village, polished, to be sure, only with coal-dust, who CONVERSATION. 277 always brings his hand inconveniently to his heart as the starting-place, and then sets off in a beautiful hyperbola, and always with a velo- city geometrically progressive. Do you be various ; look sometimes beautiful ; look some- times well, and fore Haven's sake, if you can, look sometimes ugly. She who wears a pretty cap every day, because it is a pretty cap, is " the cap of all the fools.*' In Paris scandal is reduced to a minimum, for two reasons ; first, from the variety of events; — a large city swallows at a meal, what would feed your towns for a whole month: and se- condly, because what we call breaking three or four of the commandments is here no sin. As for elopements there are none ; no occasion to run away. News and coffee are taken usually together, and both must be hot. It is low breeding to talk of anything which happened three days ago ; the news of the last week is the last year's almanack. A Parisian gentleman never speaks but of great events, and those which are just born; nor does he rashly speak of Racine or Corneille, or such like antiquated authors ; it smacks of the Provinces. To be an exquisite, the qualifications are to 278 QUALIFICATIONS FOR AN EXQUISITE. talk of the opera and the races, and play at whist, dine at the Cercle des Etrangers, make a leg, walk in a quadrille, and avoir la plusjolie maitresse de Paris. It also recommends one greatly to have a pale face, and emaciated shanks ; implying a long course of high living ; besides it gives a modish languor to one's air; it is exceedingly genteel. It is understood of course, that one must be a useful man about a woman, and have one's pocket stuffed with her httle conveniences. If she wants a pin, his pincushion is at her service; or a needle, he must have all the numbers from six to a dozen. To be a grentleman of the bon ton. it is neces- sary not to be suspected of any useful employ- ment, or of regulating life by any rule of order or economy ; above all, not to be without some intrio"ue. Three or four persons should always be jealous of one at the same time. With a moderate pair of whiskers and musta- chios, with a little tuft on the inferior lip, and all trimmed like the garden of Versailles, he is a a classic ; but if you see a grisly monster, with the beard of a Scotch boar, and his hair flowing in all its St. Simonian shagginess about his shoulders, and with the sallow complexion of a SMOKING. 279 quateroon, seated by the side of a smooth and elegant female, of an afternoon in the Tuileries, he is of the romantic school — I wonder you women don't set your faces against these beards ! Gentlemen smoke now in Europe every where, but chew and spit nowhere. I have observed that the French Exchangee, where several thou- sand persons daily congregate upon a white marble floor, is always pure from the contamina- tion of spitting. The French are, however, often disagreeable, by spitting in their handkerchiefs. The best model, they say, in such matters, is an Enolish p^entleman. The ancient Persians were a still better. An Enolishman often o-ets into o o good, sometimes bad customs, from a pure anti- gallic opposition, as Lord Burleigh turned out his toes, because Sir Christopher Hatton turned his in. The Frenchman is hyperbolical, and the Eng- lishman not even emphatic ; the one makes loud expressions, the other none ; the one spits in his pocket, and the other refuses to spit at all. However, there is no need of national antipathies to dissuade mankind from chewing tobacco, which is certainly one of the most aggravated 280 RULES FOR DINNER. indecencies that human nature has been guilty of. How it should exist where there are ladies, I do not conceive, and, least of all, do I conceive how it should exist in Philadelphia, the most gynocratic of all cities. But I smell the dinner, and since I am in the way of aphorisms, I will give you a few to eat as a dessert, and to fill the rest of this page. In your cookery, avoid all high seasonings, and coarse flavours, they are vulgar. Cayenne, curry, allspice, and walnut pickles, and all such inflammatory dishes, are banished from the French kitchen entirely. If even the butter has a little crumb of salt in it, it is obliged, like the President's Message, to make an apology for its sauciness. Every thing is served, as far as possible, in its own juices. Even the ladies have left offaromatics and Eau de Cologne only keeps its place upon the toilet. High seasonings for meat are used only as antiseptics. If you ask a company to dinner, either dine out yourself, or conceal your autho- rity, by mixing, as they do in Paris, undistin- guishably with your guests. The guest must feel at his ease. And, take care to observe an- tipathies and affinities in the distribution of the PvULES FOR DIN>'ER. 281 seats. How many sin against this rule. I have known a lawyer put alongside of a judge I The French used to place a gentleman by a lady, and both drank from the same cup, and ate from the same plate; sometimes the gentle- man would put the bite into the lady's mouth. I am sorrv — sometimes I am glad — that this turtle- dove way of eating has gone out of fashion. The table in America presents you the entire meal at a single view — in some houses including the dessert; and while the dishes are lugged fifty yards from the kitchen, and await then the ladies, fixing themselves, what do you think has happened? Why, the jellies are coddled, the drawn-butter has gone into hlajic-mange, the beef gravy to tallow, and the chickens to goose-flesh — in a word, nothing is hot but the butter. It may be laid down as a rule, that no man can dine who sees his dinner. Pray you observe a succession and analogy of dishes. I entreat you at least that the fish may be hot, and that it may not wait an hour for its sauce. And take care that your waiters have a proper ac- quaintance wnth human nature and its wants, and that they be penetrated with a sense of their duties. They must understand congruities. 282 RULES FOR DINNER. and know the desires and appetites of a guest from his countenance. I have seen countries, where if one asks for mutton, he has to ask for turnips also ! I have seen servants in our country, who, all the while you are in agony for a dish, are standing and gap- ing at the ceiling — fellows whom Heliogabalus would have crucified immediately after dinner. A French garcon told me he knew a man's wants — if a gentlemanly eater — by the back of his neck. *' I was puzzled," said he, " the other day by an American — he wanted a glass of milk just after his soup." To remove a plate too soon by officiousness,is a monstrous fault ; and to make a clatter among the dishes is excessively annoying. What a hurly-burly at an American dinner! — At the Rocher Cancale you would think the servants were bearing along the sacred things of Mother Vesta— their feet are muffled, the dishes are of velvet. In barbarous times, a monstrous baron used to bring the dinner into his hall, by ser- vants on horseback. A good housekeeper now, by placing his dining-room and kitchen in con- tiguity, and all accessories at the side of their principals, studies that their services may be almost invisible. — A host of a delicate taste RULES FOR DINNER. 283 never introduces one, but as they do a ghost at a play, where the occasion is indispensable — nodus nisi vindice dignus. These four words of Latin just saved their distance, and I have only room to add — o-ood night. 284 THE LAP-DOG. LETTER XXII. The Lap-dog. — The Dame Blanche. — The Beauty in a Gallery. — The Lingere. — Madame Frederic. — F£te de Longchamps. — Parisian Fashions.; — Holy Concerts. — Pretty Women. — Empire of Fashion. — Reign of Beauty. — The Fashionable Lady. May, 1836. I HAVE just had yours of the 4th of April, and have seen two of Miss Kitty's, very acid. Doctor let one of them fall in the Seine from the Pont Neuf, and it made lemonade to St. Cloud. Poor Miss Kitty! I wish she had such a husband as her mother, who, instead of going to carnivals, and masquerades, and recep- tions, and such places, and giving uneasiness to his wife, stays at home and looks cross all the evening, by the fire-side. — I walked out this mornins: in one of these domestic fits, and kicked a lady's lap-dog in the Tuileries, and THE DAME BLANCHE. 2S5 was called to account for it by a pair of musta- chios like the horns of a centipede, and I got off only by making an apology to the lady and the puppy — (smiling to her and patting the dog a little) which I would not have done under the administration of James ^ladison. This happened just by the statue of Lucretia, who used to stay at home also in the same way of an evening in spinning; it would have been, perhaps, better for both of us to have mixed a little more in the amusements of the town. The fact is, it puzzles the best of us to know how to behave ourselves. One may fall, like the Roman lady into difficulties at home, and another into temptations abroad. But alas, poor Kitty! — Beware of telling her what I am going to relate to you. You know what a thing jealousy is. Doctor has fallen in love with a French woman. To be sure, she is one of the most glorious beauties of Paris, admired by the very first no- bihtv — by the Duke of Orleans, by the Duke of Nemours, and by the Duke of I don't know what else ; and if the truth was known, I be- lieve the kins: himself is fond of her. If vou had only seen her last night at her harp ! — a fine woman is dang^erous in any shape whatever; 286 CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. but when she adds music to her charms — one surrenders at discretion. If you had heard her wild notes, as they thrilled upon the wires, and as her fluttering voice softened and expired upon the hstening ear, you would not yourself have blamed a little infidelity towards one's wife, especially all the way to Paris. I hate to keep you in pain, so I will tell you at once her name. — What makes it a little more unhappy perhaps is, that she is a lady of rather a doubtful reputation ; and be- longs at present to the " Opera Comique:" In fine, if you will absolutely know, it was the " Dame Blanche.'" And now that I am in the chapter of acci- dents, I may as well tell you that your old acquaintance, D. D — , on Saturday night, was found dead — (say nothing of this to his sister, she will be so afflicted) — he was found dead drunk in the Place clu Carrousel; and on Mon- day he got up at six in the morning, and went deliberately into a tippUng-shop in the neigh- bourhood, and ran himself through the body — (being mad at his father for not sending him money) — with a pint of rum. I have now prepared you for a story of a TEMPTATIONS IN PARIS. 287 much more serious import — a story which con- cerns myself. I would not tell it to you but in obedience to my invariable rule of concealing nothing from you. What a place this Paris is! No virtue is under shelter from its temptations. Solomon had a great deal more wisdom than I can pretend to, and he was seduced away by fo- reigners, who, I dare say, were not half so tempting as these French. I was looking out a few days ago to see what kind of weather it was ; — there was not a cloud in the firmament ; but there was a very beauti- ful woman standing in a gallery almost oppo- site ; so I left off looking at the heavens just to look at this woman a little, never supposing any harm would come of it. But nothing is so dangerous as this cross-the-street kind of ac- quaintance. The silent conversation of looks, so much more expressive than words ; the mys- terious conjectures about what each other's thoughts may be, and above all, the obstacle of the intervening space — you know what amorous things obstacles are. If it had not been the wall with the crack in it at Babylon, I dare say Pyramus and Thisbe would not have cared for each other 288 THE BEAUTY AT HER TOILETTE. a French sou. — She kept looking and looking (I mean the woman in the gallery) and now and then I looked back at her. And if I have been looking into the looking-glass, more than usual, and if the tailor has just brought me home an entire new suit, which I could not well afford, it is all owing to her. I wish you could have seen the elegant creature this morning, as I did, at her toilette; as she stood like our first mother combing down to her ankles (the pret- tiest pair but one you ever saw) her long hair, which hung around her as a misty cloud about the full moon. The little shoe soon embraced her foot and the garter her knee; the maid laced up her corsets, giving graceful folds to her jupe, gra- cilitv to her waist, and relief to her tournure ; and incased her fair form in a frock, " soft as the dove's down and as white ;" — her glossy tresses having already received their fittest har- mony from her nimble and tapering fingers. And now she sat at her mirror, and perused her elegant features; she looked joyful, then sad, then cruel, then tender, and brought out each sentiment into its most eloquent and dangerous expression ; she studied a frown and then put on the magic of a smile. — The fine rhetoric of THE BEAUTY. 289 the bosom came next — the rock upon which taste so often is wrecked. Here she meditated and pondered much and inquired of the Graces, how far she mioht adventure — *' how much to the curious eye disclose, how much to fancy leave." I walked with her yesterday, amidst the ele- gant life of the Tuileries, at her return from an airing in the Bois de Boulogne. Unless you see a woman at all her fashionable hours, as well as in all her attitudes and passions, you know nothing of her beauty. She wore a little airy hat, a la Duchesse de la VaUiere, the bird of Paradise waving over her stately brow ; " Suave a guisa va di un bel pavone, Diritta sopra se, come una grua ;" with cock-feathers in weeping willow upon the crown. — I went in the evenino: to the ball with her — parole d'honneur ; in her dress of satin, citron colour, trimmed in gauze volant, and a tunique of the same, with wreaths of roses ; and in her hair a garland of forget-me-not, with gems assorted by Beaudran, and beautiful as the stars upon the azure firmament. In her morning walk, if she condescends ever to walk in the mornings, her mantle is of deep colours. VOL. II. o 290 THE LIN GERE. She ^ears in half dress, a chapeau bibi ; in neghge, her tresses are parted under a capote, and her thin gauze handkerchief zig-zag, is narrow by an inch ; " 'neath which you see Two crisp young ivory apples come and go, Like waves that on the shore beat tenderly, ^Vhen a sweet air is ruffling to and fro/' I send you a copy of her washerwoman's list for the last week. I have seen one of the Queen Elizabeth's somewhere, which began thus : Ehzabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of Eng- land, Ireland and France, Defender of the Faith. Two petticoats, ^'c. This Frenchwoman's is with- out preface as follows : One frock, a Vabri gal- ant ; one ditto, souris effraye ; two ditto, ras- surees; one jupon inexorable ; two ditto, impla- cables ; with other articles too tedious to enu- merate. Apropos. The department of the wash-tub is important, and I may as well give you here its statistics. There is the Bourgeoise, who superintends, and under her in order, the savo- neuse, the empeseuse and refineuse, A plain washerwoman has forty-two sous per day, and a starcher, clear starcher and ironer, three francs. MADAME FREDERIC. 29J There is scarcely any thing in Paris more neat and elesrant than a Litt^cre, Each branch is brought, by a division of labour, to a nice per- fection, which you will see in no other country ; but, to find a single person, who can put a shirt through all its varieties, is nearly impossible. A gentleman's account stands thus : Une che- mise, trois sous; une veste, trois sous; une pan- talon de drap, six sous; un collet, un sou; pair de bas, deux sous. And the washerwoman, when she brings you in your linen, will come in her court dress, and counting your shirts, she will inquire after your health, and as she retires she will- have the "honour to salute you." Madame Frederic is one of the notabilities of Paris, and no one who has a proper respect for clean linen ever speaks to her but with his hat in his hand ; she has a reputation Europeenue, but she refuses to wash any thing under a ministerial shirt — and not even that, if it be worn twice. And now I will proceed to tell you who this elegant woman is, in whom, by this time, you must have taken some interest. She is a Parisian by birth and education, a married woman, and the greatest coquette and most capricious creature of all Paris ; and yet all o2 292 FASHION. Paris — alas, more than all Paris, does nothing but run after her. As for me, I declare with Cicero, " malle me err are cum ilia, quam aliis recte sapereJ' She has a brother too, as much admired by the ladies as she by the gentlemen, and is so ex- quisite in taste and dress, that many doubt whether he himself may not be of the softer gender. I wish I had time to describe to you his wardrobe also. His petite redingote of blue, and his white pa ?it a I oris in contrast with his black vest and azure cravat, for the morning prome- nade; his graceful Polonaise trousers black, and vest white, for the field sports, and his But he is a proud and insolent fellow, and I hate him because he always has an eye upon his sister, and unless you ruin yourself altogether, in expenses for new coats, he won't speak to you. In fine, to keep you no longer in suspense about this elegant couple they are called "The Fashions." Enough of para- bles ; to-morrow I will treat you to matters of fact. To-morrow, May 8th. This old fool, Paris, has turned out again upon the Boulevards, three days of this week, as thick as a Mardi g?^as ; it is called the Jite de Long- FETE DE LONGCHAMPS. 293 diamps, and the object is to determine the fashions for the coming season. The most im- portant decision of this year seems to be the entire suppression of ^' gigot sleeves/' Only think ; they were last year as wide as the British Channel, and now they are to be all at once razeed to the quick. The public, however, does not submit quietly to the curtailment. ]S'othing else indeed but mutton sleeves and the Presi- dent's messao:e is thouo^ht fit for conversation, or discussion in the newspapers, this month past. It is found to be exceedingly diflficult to legislate for the head and shoulders, and lower parts at the same time ; what is a benefit to one section being a prejudice to the other. The waist especially is indignant ; it has been straightened enough and squeezed enough in all conscience ever since it was first invented. It has remonstrated ; and petition after petition has been sent in, signed by all the neighbouring states, threatening to nullify the union, unless these restrictions are taken off. However, by relieving a little the flatness and nakedness of the arm with a row or two of point d'Arigleterre, it is supposed a compromise may be effected. Indeed I have already seen several pairs of these sleeves venturing abroad, and two yesterday 294 FETE DE LOyGCHAMPS. amidst the bravas of the Tuileries. But what a figure is a woman, shrunk into those narrow cir- cumstances above, and so prominent beneath ! she seems scarcely of the same species. She is Horace's mulier formosa superne reversed. Another decree of the Longchamps is to lengrthen the frock still more at the tail ; though longer already than cleanliness or mercy to many a reluctant pair of ankles should have permitted. Ankles are said to be very beautiful in Paris, and they resisted with all their might this inno- vation the last season ; they had enjoyed the privilege of being seen for years, and it was natu- ral they should take some steps to maintain it; but did it avail ? In this you see only another signal example of the despotism of Fashion. Not two years ago a frock was circumcised mid- leg — no one indeed looked at a lady's legs, as a matter of curiosity, much below the knee — and now, unless in a whirlwind or stepping into a coach, not a " peeping ankle" is to be seen upon the whole pave of Paris. Alas, all you can see now-a-days is " The feet, that from each petticoat Like little mice creep in and out." Formerly, the cause of going to Longchamps was to say mass ; now it is a mutton-sleeve. CONVENT OF LONGCHAMPS. 295 This Longchamps was once a Convent, and was founded by St. Louis's sister, Isabellede France, who after her death performed in this place (a pretty good number for a woman) forty miracles. The place therefore became very celebrated ; pilgrims visited it by thousands, and the sick were carried there to be cured, and princesses shut themselves up in it from the temptations of the world. But these nuns were very pretty, and the rakes of Paris went thither on pilgrim- age also ; amongst the rest went Henry the Fourth to court Mademoiselle Catherine de Ver- dun. In the course of time every one heard certain holy concerts spoken of, that were given there on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays of the Holy week, (the days now celebrated.) On which occasions the church was illuminated, embalmed with incense, and the little nuns sang so sweetly, that many pious people thought their songs not of this earth, but hymns that came directly from the celestial choirs : and the crowds that fre- quented Longchamps was immense. Not the inhabitants of Paris only came, but of London and other foreign cities, striving to rival each other in the richness of their dresses, and the magnificence of their equipages. 296 FETE DE LONGCHAMPS. Their emulation went so far at last, that the very wheels ofthechariotswereoften gilt, and the shoes of the horses were also of the precious metals ; and the coachmen and footmen more gold than gold (Kpvcjii) Kpv(TOTepa.) But again libertinism broke into the sacred cloisters, and the concerts were suppressed ; finally the Revolution came, and the convent was demolished ; not a stone was left to testify the miracles of Isabelle de France. But the multitude still continues its annual pilgrimage to Longchamps. In the present fetes there is scarcely any thing which recals the sumptuousness of an- cient times. Coaches indeed are varnished, stirrups are burnished, and lacqueys have a new livery; and here and there an English lord, or an American Colonel blazes out with chariots, postihons, and mounted gens d'armes. The French aristocracy has been so unvar- nished by the Revolution, that twenty thousand a year has got very little chance of being ex- ceedingly magnificent. The procession is an uninterrupted train of vehicles of all sorts in motion the whole length of the Boulevards ; and up through the Champs Elysees to the Bois de Boulogne, a distance of about four miles, and having arrived at a cer- FETE DE LONGCHAMPS. 297 tain spot, the cavalcade wheels about and re- turns in the same manner ; the one side of the way being used for going and the other for coming. The chief concern of the day is, the exhibition of pretty women in open barouches, clad in the splendours and novelties of the sea- son. Mounted beaux, too, on steeds richly caparisoned are exceedingly in favour. The decrees of Longcharaps, like Csesai's, go forth upon the whole earth ; and it is the only tribunal that can claim upon the earth thisexten- sive jurisdiction. A revolution has passed, like a hurricane, over its very throne, and left its autho- rity undisturbed ; and there is no reason to be- lieve that this supreme and universal power will ever pass away. Causes and effects both co- operate to perpetuate its existence. In other countries, men and women, follow fashion, and have consequently little exercise of taste or in- vention ; but the Parisians are by general con- sent inventors ; they are gay, vain and osten- tatious, and from the nature of their commerce, and from the number of strangers who are in- duced to reside amongst them, they will give always to dress and fashion an importance they can have no where else. Let us then re- cognise our leo;itimate sovereigns, and bow o 5 298 COMPARISON BETWEEN FRENCH graciously to their natural and indisputable authority. Let us recognise, too, the wisdom of Providence, which by giving a diversity of products to the earth, and of capacities to the civilised nations, who inhabit it, has bound them by ties of mutual necessity, to live to- gether in peace, and harmony. The savages of our country, who have no such ties, who have but the same pursuits and capacities, have also but one passion, the destruction of each other. To compare the American and French mo- diste, is to compare the mere manual operation, to the imaginative and intelligent exerqise of the mind. A French bonnet maker is not made, she is born ; she meditates, she invents, she conceives a hat — as much as Pindar did a lyric poem. And when she has made you a hat, your only wonder is, whether the hat was made for you, or you were made for the hat. Why, in Philadelphia a hat may be worn by two faces ; here it is a constituent part of the woman it was invented for, and they can- not be separated from each other without in- jury to both. Do you believe that Madame Palmj/re ever makes two frocks alike ? it would be the ruin of the woman's reputation. What kind of feelings must a lady have, coming into AND AMERICAN MODISTES. 299 an assembly, and finding another woman's frock having the same physiognomy as her own ! I have seen more than one in a fit of hysterics from this very occurrence. And do you believe that Simons chapeaux are formed upon the cold precepts of the schools, or Her- bault's bibisl Do you think that Mfchae/'s shoes, or those exquisite bottines of Gelot, or those kid gloves of Boivin are produced with- out enthusiasm? or Batton's flowers or Car-- tiers plumes, without inspiration ? A modiste in America indeed! — why the same woman cuts out a frock and makes it ! The same woman who does the head-work of a bonnet, does the stitchings I In France there is an adaptation of labour to the abilities of the artist ; and a modiste en chef no more thinks of the manipulation of a frock, than Scribe of a vaudeville, or Careme of a dinner. Nor does she suffer her genius to be dissi- pated and wasted upon varieties even the most important. Each branch has its professor, whose whole mind is concentrated upon this one object. Even the invention has its specialities. One adapts colours to complexions, and another studies the proportions of the human form, and Its shapes, and the congruity of dresses with its 300 PARISIAN FASHIONS. various sizes ; how to bring out an attraction more seductive by the sacrifice of one less po- tent ; where to enhance a beauty by a defect ; and how to discover a charm under pretext of conceaUng it ; one is a kind of !^Jinister of the Interior, another of Foreign Affairs. In the manual operations, too, the same series is observed. One folds, another crim- ples, one bastes, another rips ; one spends her days in '' undoing," another in '^ tr^'ing-on," another again grows old in puckering, and so in crisping, pranking, curling, and flouncing — all have their several functions, and all their tasks assorted to their several abilities. At the fete of the Longchamps the eye is dazzled by the splendour, and the attention is distracted by the variety. A fashion, to have vogue, must present itself in a more '^ questionable shape." X pretty woman is therefore selected, who for a season may per- sonate the many-coloured goddess ; she is called durino; her reicrn the 'Olost fashion- able " — not indeed as the kincr is called the " Most Christian," for truly, she is the most fa- shionable — *^ la plus a la mode de Paris.'' The Parisians have a way of getting this fashionable woman up, pretty much as we get EMPIRE OF FASHION. 301 up a great man in the United States. A few of the leaders of fashion, young gentlemen in their first down, having made choice of a fit person, first direct upon her all the rays of their admiration. She is not required to be a duchess, or to have any more beauty or accom- phshments than her neighbours, but she had better be the wife of a rich banker. If she rides out of an afternoon to the Bois de Bou- logne, then will a dozen of these fashionables gather around her barouche; and hats in hand, they will canter alongside ; they will be unable to contain their admiration, and they will set the multitude gaping. Thus m the crowd one stares at the heavens, and another, till at last the world is on the gaze ; and as all see different wonders in the skies, one a whale, another a weasel, and many phantasms and idle visions; so in the heaven of this lady's face, beauties are now struck out that had remained, but for this general regard, for ever undiscovered ; beauties which herself, if possible, had never seen. " As learned critics view In Homer, beauties Homer never knew." The same gallants pursue her to the opera. 302 REIGN OF BEAUTY. and there gather into her box with noise and bustle and assiduities, till they have drawn the whole house upon her, and every glass is pointed ; as in the chase, where the hare stands at bay, and the hunters have but a single aim ; only that here the danger is reversed. So at the concert, and so at the ball, where she is engaged for twenty sets a-head, before half up the stairs ; so every where the same ardour, the same einpressement, the same adora- tion. She is gazetted too in the newspapers, and all her particulars, jetty hair, inky eye- brows, turn-up nose, pouting lips; every thing circumstantially described. Every one knows her, every one loves her, and every one not wishing to pass for a clown, without taste, swears she is adorable. She is in every one's mouth, she is in every one's heart, she is in a word, she is la femme la plus a la mode de Paris. Thus our fashionable lady is turned about in the vortex of dissipation till Spring, and enjoys a flood of frothy adulation beyond the lot of all other monarchs. The spring arrives, and then the summer; and being fashionable, she leaves of course during; the warm months for the Water- ings, or her castle in a distant province, and re- THE FASHIONABLE LADY. 303 turns in the Autumn : and in the Autumn she finds another ^^ Fashionable Lady " in her place. It is scarce to be expected that such violent admiration should be bestowed on the same person for more than a season. She now abdicates and sinks into obscurity, or which is more common, being unable to endure the reverse of fortune, dies of mortification and spite. I send you this by Mr. C , of Philadel- phia, with a single sheet of music, a delightful air from the Puritani — an air which is oraven upon ten thousand hearts. Oh, if you had heard Rubini sing it over the coffin of Bellini at the Invalids ! The sexton wept. It stole upon the ear as if from the spheres— mournful as the wood -pigeon's moan : — " Soft as the mother's lullaby When babies sleep." Learn to sing it in your most plaintive voice. I will love you the more for recalling one of the tenderest scenes of my absence. Good niuht. 304 RETURN OF SPRING. LETTER XXIII. Return of Spring. — A New Venus. — The Artesian Well. — Montmartre — Donjon of Vincennes, — St. Ouen. — St. Germain. — The Pretender. — Machine de Marli. — ^'er- sailles. — The Water-works. — The Swiss Garden. — Trianon. — Races at Chantilly. — Stables of the Great Conde. — Lodgings in a French Village. — A Domestic Occurrence. — The Boots. — The Alarm. — The Bugs. — Extract from Pepys. — Delights of Chantilly. — Unlucky Days. — Solitude in a Crowd. — The Cure. — The King's Birth-day. — The Concert. — The Fire-works. — The Il- luminations. — The Buffoons. — Punch. — The Eating De- partment. — The Mat de Cocagne. Paris, May 6th, 1836. Your letter, of March the 25th, has arrived. I am sorry to hear the north wind has given himself such airs. Here he has been quite reasonable. The lilacs of the Luxembouro: are again in their pride. The gardener is stirring up the loose earth, while May recals the roses A NEW VENUS. 305 with refreshing showers. How delightful to see the Spring thus repairing the desolations of Winter ! Your trees of Pine Hill, which persevere in being green the year round, do not please so much as those which strip off in No- vember, and put on their green and flowery robes in April. Pines are called rightly, the dress of winter and the mourning of summer. What has immutability to do with this earth ? where one tires even with a uniformity of excellence. If I were to make, like Ovid, a golden age, I would say not a word of eternal Spring. How delightful is this morning! The sun has just poured out its first rays upon the dews, and every lilac has a pearl in its ear. They are setting out, in the Palais Royal, a new Venus of the whitest marble. Look at the jade, in the south-east corner, in her impu- dent attitude ; she is stooping, and ungartering a snake from her leg, Pretty, to be sure, if one had a taste for a hieroglyphic woman ; as for me, I like the little thing in its natural attri- butes of flesh and blood, in its straight nose ; lips double dyed ; and overlooking the humid eye of gray, or dark, or blue, and the " darling little foot." They are also setting out chairs for the 306 THE ARTESIAN WELL. Summer, and the gallery of Orleans already weeps its empty halls. These chairs are let at two sous the sitting, and bring money to the private purse of our ^' citizen king." The •^ right of location" is 32,000 francs, and the lessee gets rich by the bargain. This sitting out upon chairs is an ancient custom ; it is the way Frenchwomen take a walk. I have read in Scarron some verses in allusion to it. Tous les jours une chaise Me coute un 6cu, Pour porter a I'aise Votre chien, &c. &c. A poetic husband is out of humour with his wife, whose sedentary habits have become a serious item in the household expenses. As I am about to leave Paris I have taken several flights to the country, to satisfy what yet remains of unsatiated curiosity ; to Fontain- bleau, where I walked upon the footsteps of the Belle Gabrielky and stood upon the spot where the thunder of retributive justice fell upon the head of Napoleon. I stood this morning at nine by the Barriere des Martyrs accompanied by Mr. , of Philadelphia. We went to see an Artesian well they are bor- ing there towards the centre of the earth ; and MONTMARTRE. 307 through which we are to have a short passage to the Indies; and to get a peep of the sun at midnight. It is already nine hundred feet ; the temperature increasing; and they are going to make mother Earth keep us in hot water. She is to heat our baths, warm our houses, make the tea, and spoil your trade in Anth- racite coal ; so says M. Arago, secretary of the Institute, member of the Chamber of Deputies, &c. But I have little taste for wells, except in very hot weather — unless it be those •"' delicate wells Which a sweet smile forms in a lovely cheek." These are ao;reeable in all weathers. We breakfasted in coming along, on the Heights of ^lontmartre, where we surveyed the great village, and stood on a level with its steeples. This was Henry the Fourth's Camp at his taking of Paris ; and lately of the Eng- lish on a similar errand. Here were a great many John Bullish looking children with jovial rubicund faces, running about the hill. They have profited, the little rogues, by the gallantry of their mothers. The French children of the poorer classes have generally a sallow and un- healthy look. 308 DONJOJ^ OF VINCE^'NES. iVext we walked around the " Donjon of Vincennes," its ditches and its towers. It has great titles stuck on its scutcheon. It has im- prisoned the great Conde, Retz, Fouquet, Ven- dome, and Conti ; also in later times, Diderot and Mirabeau : and it contains in its chapel the remains of the Due d'Enghein, who was shot here. It was formerly the residence of kings. Philip Augustus hved here, and St. Louis, and Francis I., and Henry I.V., and Blanche of Castile, and Agnes, called the " Lady of Beauty." Charles IX. died here, and Mazarin, and that wicked creature Isahelle de Baviere. I visited this village last summer in fete-time, and had a dance in the Rotonde de Mars, and excellent music in the Grand salon des Chory- bantes. On this excursion we strolled also into the village of St. Ouen, four and a half miles from Paris. Here is a royal chateau, where Louis XVIII. reposed the second of May 1814, be- fore his solemn entrance into the city. It is a delightful situation, overlooking the Seine, and the old kings as far back as Dagobert had a place here, which Louis XI. gave to the monks of St. Denis, " Afin qu'ils priassent Dieu pour la conservation de sa personne :^' The Pavilion of ST. GERMAIN. 309 Queen Blanche is yet remaining. On the site of the old palace is the elegant mansion of M. Terneaux, whose predecessors were M. and Madame Xecker. One of the curiosities of the place is the cradle, which rocked Madame de Stael. M. Terneaux is a member of the Deputies ; he makes laws and Cashmere shawls — the shawls , equal in tissue and beauty to those of Indus. Every body comes hither to see his Thibet goats and merinoes, and his silos, which are immense excavations in which grain is preserved fresh for many years. \^ e now went two leagues and a half further to St. Germain, and walked upon its elegant Terrace. The Pretender is buried here, and several of the little Pretenders ; and in goino along we looked at the Machine de Mar/i, which desires to be remembered to the Falls of Xiao-ara The water is climbing up an immense hill by dribbles to supply the httle squirting Cupids at Versailles. St. Germain was once the seat of the pleasures and magnificence of the Grand Mo- narch. He left it, because St. Denis, stand- ing upon a high eastern eminence, overtopped his palace, a memento mori amidst the royal 310 MONTMORENCY. cups. Kings do not choose that these tell- tales of mortality shall look in at their win- dows. We then walked in the chestnut groves and ' deep solitudes of Montmorency, till we grew sentimental — till we could almost hear Heloise wail her unhappy lover. We saw a tree that had fallen to the earth, and the vine which had entwined it in its prosperity still clinging to it in its fall ; it had refused to climb any other tree, but died with the trunk that had supported it. We thought of the perfidy and ingratitude of men, and we had serious thoughts of quitting their society and living altogether among trees. We visited the Hermitage and plucked each a leaf from the rose-bush, and sat upon Jean Jacques's chair. We intended to visit Meudon on our return, to laugh at Rabelais, and to fly to the rocks of Vitry to kiss the footsteps of Madame de Sevigne, but did not. I have now given you my journey of a day. I announced to you pompously, by the last boat, my departure for London, and you will be surprised to receive yet a letter from Paris. I stayed chiefly to see the waters " play " at Versailles. It is an amazing spectacle, and every body stays to see it. You must imagine VERSAILLES WATERWORKS. 311 a hundred little Cupids squirting away with all their might, and Diana, Amphitrite, and several other grown-up goddesses doing the same ; and Apollo's horses, which breathe the surge from their nostrils, and Neptune, astride of a whale, which vomits the ocean from its gills ; with.jets-d'eaux innumerable, spouting water, with fantastic figures along the main walks and vistas of the garden. For the grand scene of all, you must imagine a wide avenue the fourth of a mile, and a row of watery trees at each side, and at the closed end a circular lake, with a liquid pillar rising from the centre, and several concentric circles jetting around at different heights, and scatter- ing the drizzly vapour which makes rainbows as it descends. If you have imagined all this, with a temple, and Thetis and her nymphs seated in it, and plenty of cascades, water- spouts, and cataracts pouring down upon them — this is the ^* Play of the waters at Versailles." The multitude of the spectators was hke a forest of the Mahonoy. The women were as thick as CatuUus's kisses. With one of them, whom I knew, 1 walked awhile, in the ** Swiss Garden," with its air of gentihty and modesty. Here the Royal Family used to abdicate their 312 THE SWISS GARDEN. greatness and play one week of the year a pea- sant's life ; and the royal girls romped about the garden in their linsey frocks, and check aprons, and coarse petticoats, and had bonny- clabber for supper. Louis XVI. was a miller, and Maria Antoinette was a dear little dairy- maid ; but — » " More water glides by the mill Than wots the miller of." The mill, and the dairy, and the cottages, and other monuments of these royal Saturnalia, are yet remaining. These were anciently the pas- times of monarchs, who had thirty millions of subjects; and they complain that the judg- ments of Heaven have overtaken them I In strolling along a silent path through the woods, we came unexpectedly into a little re- treat, which so lurked in a corner, that, after a week's stay here, I had not observed it. They call it the ball-room. It is a circle, having an orchestra in the centre, and an area for dancing between it and the circumference ; and here are two rows of columns of coloured marble, united by thirty arches, and beneath each, on the night of ceremony, is a jet-d'eau falling in Jieur de lis, and seeming to sustain lighted TRIANON. 313 lustres, which are suspended by an invisible thread from the arches. It is inclosed by a hedge, and overshaded by branches from the surrounding^ trees. It seems as if made for some king of the elves, or fairy queen, to play her midnight o^ambols in. The great palace of Versailles is a long squat edifice, which inspires no great reverence. It has one magnificent room, two hundred feet by thirty, now converted into a National Museum of pictures. There are two smaller palaces half a mile distant, graceful and elegant, called the great and little Trianon, With the latter is connected, an English garden, in all the pretty disorder of nature, and in open contrast with the o^arden in creneral, which is tricked out in all the embellishments of art. Nature has furnished the raw materials, and of a good quality ; but a tree here is scarcely more like a tree in its natural shapes, than a patt de foie gras is like a goose. The sums ex- pended upon this royal residence are reckoned at near forty millions sterling. The population of the town is twenty-eight thousand. I re- mained here a week last August, and then wrote you a detailed account of its garden and VOL, II. p 314 RACES AT CHANTILLY. palaces, of Marie Antoinette's room, Josephine's room, and all the rooms, and the pictures and the beautiful Cathedral; and, though I may presume from your silence this letter is lost, like so many others, I have no mind to return to the subject. Apropos. I sent you, more than three months ago, written by an amiable Farisieniie, '^ the '* Literary Ladies of Paris." I will leave off writing. I am tired of consuming whole days for Louis Phihppe's post-oflace establishment. With great expectations of pleasure I went to the Races at Chantilly, which are among the events of this week. This town is at ten leagues' distance, and has an elegant view over the Seine, and a fine turf, which was trodden on this occa- sion by the prettiest Httle feet that ever went to Chantilly. And here were the full-blooded coursers, which champed the bit, and pawed the earth, and devoured the road, and made gallant show and promise of their mettle. What a pity you had not been there ! You would have seen Miss Annette outstrip Volante ; you would have been glad the one gained, and the other lost, without caring a pin for either ; and you would have paid for a mutton chop the price STABLES OF THE GREAT CONDE. 315 of the whole sheep ; and, as for a bed, you would have got none, either for love or money. A little slice of hard fare is not. without its advantages to pampered citizens; it works off the bad humours engendered by an idle life • and fits of povert}^, now and then in the country, are grateful and genteel recreations of the rich, and have been praised by the poets. — You would have dreamed of slumbering by the wav- ing pines and soft murmurs of your little Schuylkills, and then of wandering alone in a foreign land, and then sittingr the live-loncy nioht upon a chair, in the stables of the Great Conde ; of having jockeys and grooms for your chamber- maid, and race-horses for your bed curtains. — These stables, if you please, cost thirty millions, and it is an old saying in France, '' que les che- veaux du Prince de Condt, sont mieux logts que les rois d'Ajigleterre." Famous knights used to mount here in full panoply, to carry terrors be- yond the Douro and the Rhine. Alas, that stables should be sometimes the only memorials of one's earthly possessions ! The castle of the Great Prince is demolished ; the '' magnifique maUon de Plaisance," which opened its foldino- doors to a thousand guests, is now with the p 2 316 ROYAL PALACES. house of Priam, and the grass has grown upon its altars : — " Where one seeks for Ilion's walls, The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls." Indeed, castles in general in France, may be written in the catalogue of its ruins. The French nobles and princes are no longer great feudal barons or idlers. The aristocracy of now-a-days has to attend to business — to the Chamber of Peers and Deputies — and to go to market. Even the retreats of monarchy are moss-grown with neglect. The nation murmurs at the ex- pense, and lets its ruins go to wreck for want of repair. The number of royal palaces are a dozen, and their annual expense of keeping, 160,000 dollars. Fontainebleau is content with a yearly visit; and the magnificent Versailles has become a national museum. I looked all about here for the eloquent Bossuet, but he too is so broken up, you scarce find the fragments. His magnificent gardens, jets-d'eaux, and chestnut groves, are the commons of Chantilly— and "Thriving plants, ignoble broomsticks made, Now sweep the alleys they were born to shade." Paris and the neighbouring country poured LODGINGS IN A FRENCH VILLAGE. 317 out upon the plains of Chantilly, this day, such multitudes as never went to Troy. To obtain a vehicle to return in was impossible, and to stay another night at Chantilly was impossible also; but I had to set my foot upon this latter impos- sibility. I was so lucky as to meet Mr. of 2Sew York, and by a long search together we found lodgings for the night ; and what we little thought of finding in a French village, a fat landlady ; but so fat, she is silently taking leave of her knees ; before this reaches you she will have seen them, perhaps, for the last time; and her husband, still more ill favoured, sat by, his lower lip hanging towards the waistband ot his breeches. At the lady's feet was a chubby baby, nearly naked, resembling an unfeathered owl. My companion, a man of address, nursed this brat, and called it tender names to please the mother. One grows so polite in this country; besides what does not one do for a lodo^ino- at Chantilly? Also in the back ground was a female, acting in the double capacity of cham- bermaid and boiuie, who had her share in the general effect. She had been frightened, when young, till her eyes had started out of her head, and had stayed there, staring ever since ; and 318 A DOMESTIC OCCURRENCE. her lips being too short for her teeth, gave her a look of affability without the trouble of smiling. To complete the interest of her physiognomy, she had a long beaky nose with the tip red. She was so ugly, the child would not cry after her. These were the protections, which it pleased Providence to put around our honesty at the races of Chantilly. I describe this family only to introduce with more interest, a domestic occurrence, which I am going to relate, in order to relieve a little the serious details of this letter. — Night already held its middle Course in the heavens, and a lady, our fellow-lodger, tired of waiting the un- timely hours of her husband, had retired for the eyening to her chamber; and there, being re- lieved from the apparel of the day, she took a look under the bed ; a prudent caution, which she always observed, and which she says, her mother had observed before her; — and what do vou think she discovered under the bed? The legs of a man! She fled, and foroe-ttino- the nakedness of her condition, rushed into the hall, where we, in the midst of the , family circle, sat over a mug of French beer, with long pipes, smoking and watching the curling smoke as it ascended gracefully towards THE BOOTS. 319 the ceiling. In the precipitation of her flight she fell over a stool, at full length, upon the floor — exhibiting the incomprehensible mechan- ism of the human figure in all its proportions. It fell to my lot, being nearest, to bring her to, which I did, wrapping her in a cloak, placing her on a couch, and encouraging her to speak- As soon as she had explained, the alarm became general ; pipes were extinguished, and candles lighted, and we proceeded into the suspicious bed-chamber; the *' bonne," with her eyes far- ther out, smiling nevertheless, and the fat madame, and her husband walking on his lip ; one carried the poker, one the boot-jack, and one the flat-iron, and we moved on in close file to the bed-side ; and here we made a halt. I felt, (I will confess it,) my respiration stop ; I stood in the van, being unwillingly placed there by the pride of sustaining American bravery in a foreign country. I thought of my little chil- dren, and then moved aside the curtain, respect- fully. You have, perhaps, seen a man kill a rattle-snake with a short stick. — And after all, what do you think it was? A pair of boots ; — the lady's husband having gone out in his shoes. We retired now to our chambers, where Dr. B. and I were eaten up by bugs ; and there was 320 THE BUGS. a Frenchman in the adjoining room, who passed also a melancholy night ; we presumed from the same cause, for we heard him every now and then say , which is the French for bug. So you see that not Americans alone are subject to these unsavoury afflictions — non soli dant san- guine p anas. Get thee to Chantilly, Mrs. But- ler. Indeed, I have learned from inquiry, and personal experience, too, that this kind of ver- min and some others, creep higher up into good society here, than in the United States. Our better houses, I mean, which keep ser- vants, and pique themselves on their gentility, do not suffer such inmates at all. It is true, that the poorer sort of folks, and even the better sort of country taverns, do not care a straw for all the bugs of Christendom. They look upon them as the natural bleeders, provided for the poor, providentially, and a saving of expense, in cupping, leeching, and other kinds of phlebo- tomy. But these English people, when did they all at once become so clean, that they should turn up their noses so fastidiously at others ? Why, in Queen Elizabeth's time, in Shakspeare's time, in my Lord Bacon's time, in my Lord Coke's time, courtiers used to offend the very DELIGHTS OF CHANTILLY. 321 nose of majesty by coming with dirty feet into the presence. Oh, here is a quotation apro- pos, in Pepys's Journal, which I have just been reading. '' February 12th ; Up, finding the beds good, but lousy.'' IS'ow, this is in Lon- don, and this Pepys, who found the beds so " good," was secretary of the admiralty, only one hundred and fifty years ago. Besides our judges, I guess, don't carry posies in their but- ton holes — (though, it is not because they have not frequent need of them.) These are the delights of Chantilly. If any one should go thither twice, he must be a much greater fool than I am, which I deem impossi- ble. Yet here was the whole habitable earth ; all the peasantry with their baked faces, and caps like your winnowed snows, and all the trim rabble of the towns, the beau monde of the Halles, and all that is richest in beauty, edu- cation, and blood, too, was here — not foro^ettino- my Lord S , who keeps horses for the tinf, and liveries for Longchamps, nor him, so en- viable for his skin and bones, so recom mend- able by his thinness, and who makes himself lighter on a pinch, by holding his breath, who rode Miss Annette, though Volante came up like a storm from the south, victoriously to the p 5 322 UNLUCKY DAYS. stake — Mr. Robinson. Now all these were at the races, and the newspapers have done nothing else for a week than describe their inexpressible enjoyments. The truth is, I set out upon this excursion on one of my unlucky days. I have read of a giant somewhere, who one day swallowed down windmills without choking, and who was suf- focated by a piece of fresh butter the next. Unlucky days are an old woman's superstition. But there is scarce a wise man, who does not tell you some of his days that were nothing but a series of mishaps. In the same manner, good fortune appears to attend some persons in all their enterprises, while others again seem marked for special persecution ; adversity keeps barking at their heels through the whole course of their lives. My grandmother, who brought me up, be- sides being a Presbyterian, was a Scotch- woman ; she believed she was compelled to snufF out the candle by predestination ; and H is not so easy a matter as you think, to get rid of one's grandmother. My silly jaunt to Chan- tilly occurred on one of these days. It was not enough that I should be run against by a diligence, and almost irretrievably smashed ; UNFORTUNATE MISHAP. 323 that I should be crammed into a stable ; be de- stroyed by bugs, and frightened to death by a pair of boots ; the same fortune pursued me on my return home. I hung up my watch by a nail, which had sustained it for six months ; but it was my unlucky day ; it fell, to its en- tire destruction, upon the brick floor. I ga- thered up the fragments, and to close ray win- dow curtains, mounted upon a chair, which tilted ; I fell against an opposite table, which also upset, breaking the marble cover into seve- ral pieces; and there I was, with a broken head, amidst the ruins. I then crawled into bed, where I remained the next day with a fever, and sent for the doctor. 'Now I will conclude this very absurd doc- trine, with a sensible advice; namely, that you never set out to the Races, on any such abo- minable, horse-play, excursions of pleasure, hi a melancholy, or ill-natured mood ; it is the sure precursor of ill-luck ; both because you will extract evil out of every occurrence, and, in your froward temper, you will be continually running into difficulties, which, in good hu- mour, you would either have escaped, or turned to a merry account. If you come to Paris without a soul with 324 SOLITUDE ly paris. you, having been spoiled a little at home with your domestic affections, you will every now and then fall into a fit of melancholy, which the doctors will call a " nostalgia ;" and you will wish the very devil had Paris ; and you will detest all French people, whatever be their merits ; and, to be revenged of them, you will write home to your friends, and you will call the men all rogues, and the women all some- thins: else, and then vou will feel a little bet- ter. I have been in the midst of this wilder- ness of men, as solitary as Robinson Crusoe, in his island. And I know of no kind of soli- tude half so distressful, as the aspect of a large city, especially to tender-hearted gentlemen, who have been brought up in villages. To walk in the midst of multitudes of one's own species, without a sign, or a look, or a smile of recognition, impresses one with a verv humiliating sense of one's own insignificance; besides, one feels the necessity of loving some- body, and of being loved. These feelings will be exceedingly bitter on your first arrival, and your fits of " blue devils " more frequent. My advice is, that you seek the distractions of gen- tlemanly amusements. For this, you must make the acquaintance of some French gentle- ADVANTAGES OF MIXING IN SOCIETY. 325 man, (a French lady is much better,) who is well versed in the genteel world, and she will lead you into such consolations and mischiefs, as your unfortunate situation may require. She must be sufficiently attached to you, to take the trouble to instruct you, and you must take the trouble, by your amiabihty and assiduities, to win this attachment. How much better is this than sitting alone, and kiUing the minutes one by one, in your bachelor's chamber; it is better, though you should gain nothing else from her acquaintance than hanging yourself in her garters. Depend upon it, nature did not intend the whole of this life as a preparation for the next ; else had she not opened to us so many means of enjoyment of the senses here. And, depend upon it, there is a world of dehghtful and gen- teel pleasures in Paris, if one has but the ad- dress to hunt for them. My special advice is, that you do not seek a cure for home-sickness, in excesses ; if in wine, be assured that your spirits will soon pass from the vinous to the acetous fermentation ; if in gambling in Paris, your ruin is accomplished. I repeat, there is but one effectual cure, it is the acquaintance of an amiable and sensible woman, This >vas the 326 woman's society. first remedy for solitude prescribed by Him, who knew best the heart and dispositions of man. Adam, I doubt not, while Eve slept, yet a rib in his bosom, was afflicted often with horae-sick- ness ; and I dare say he was never troubled with it afterwards. Recollect, when I speak of women, I claim the right of being interpreted on the side of mercy. I speak of them with an entire sense of the respect due to the sex ; as a gentleman should, who does not forget that his mother is a woman, his sisters, wife, and daughters are women. When I recommend woman's society, you will please to think of the intercourse of the bee with the flowers ; it gathers its honied treasures, where most rich and succulent, but meditates no injury to the plant by which they are supplied. But I am relapsing into morality; ofood nio'ht. I will fill the rest of this blank to- morrow. May 7th. When I was just ready to go to London, what should have occurred but the king's birth-day ; it fell out exactly on the first of May, and I had to stay to see it ; and I am going now to give you a brief abstract of its entertainments, to finish this letter; it is already long, but re- member it is the last. At half-past five, p.m.. king's birth-day. 327 the king made a bow, and the queen made one of the prettiest curtsies imaginable, from a oal- lery of the Tuileries ; for we had all assembled there to listen to a concert served up, al fresco, in a hail storm. A platform was erected in front of the palace, and several hundred mu- sicians were mounted on it ; but a wintery rain from the north-east, mixed occasionally with snow, poured down the whole afternoon ; and it rained, and rained, as if heaven had no ears for music. A howling storm, now and then, raved through an adagio of INIozart, and Jove descended on the fiddle-strinos. At the end of each piece there was a pailse — not of the rain, but the music — and then came criticisms on all sides. — ^* Oh ! that air of Bel- lini ! said the lady; and then her eyes trotted about the garden. " Exquisite ! said her cava- lier, and took a pinch of snuff. — " Lafond? c'est UTi talent super be. — Injtrieur a Beriot ? dn tout, du tout, it n-y a que Pagga — (Une prise s'il vous plait.) Le Message du President est done arrive. What are they going to determine? — Determine? — To pay. (Dieu, quelle jolie femme !) 0)i nejait que payer dans ce pays-ci,'* " As for the concerts of the Conservatory, I find them stupid beyond sufferance;" — the 328 ENTEIITAINMENT3 GIVEN ON poor musician, in the mean time, turning up his eyes towards heaven, and, with supplicating looks, imploring mercy from the clouds. I did not take off my hat and shout with the rest, when his majesty bowed. I was not quite sure whether the law of nations would justify me in making a bow, until he has paid the " twenty-five millions." However, I said, quietly to myself, '* Vive le roi!'' He is, safis compliment, the most sensible head of a king- that is in Europe; and I wish him, from the good will I bear the French nation, to live out his time. — But I did not let the paltry sum of •' twenty-five miUions " interfere with the re- spect I owed her majesty's curtsey. They have fire-works always ready made here for such occasions ; and keep them by them in a closet. On this birth-day they were more sublime and beautiful, than is common, even in Paris. To look down from the terrace of the Tuileries, upon the immense crowd covered with its umbrellas, moving; and whirlino- about in the twilight, all over the Place Louis XL, and its environs, was a fantastic spectacle, and worth seeing. Have you ever looked at a mil- lion of crabs in vinegar, through a microscope? — We remained, a long time, in expectation. THE king's birth-day. 329 and the mud. What a delightful thing a pub- hc fete is, especially when one is expressly or- dered to be diverted ten days a-head, by ordi- nance of the Police. Suddenly, ten thousand sky-rockets hissed through the air, and exploded in constellations of stars, pale, pink, and vermilion, which dropped down slowly towards the earth. This was the note of preparation. Then went off Mount iEtna, and Vesuvius, and Hecla ; and a Niagara of liquid fire poured down in a cataract, covering up a little Herculaneum and Pompeii : and the whole Pyrotechnie was by degrees un- folded of Sieur Rugraieri, Ino-enieur of Paris. There were bouquets of all the flowers in the field, in their most brilliant and harmonious tints ; and there was a fierce encounter of knights in the air, and lions ready to spring on you ; and there was the devil on a pale horse ; and, all at once, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, as large as life, stood blazing before us ; its huge pillars, its pulpit, its sacrist}^ and a little fiery congregation, who exploded one after another ; a lady went off, and then a gentle- man ; and, last of all, the priest went out at the altar, and suddenly all was night. — The atmo- sphere was sick with saltpetre, and the heavens 330 SPLENDID ILLUMINATIONS. wept tricoloured stars. — This was forty million times prettier than anything you ever saw in your life. In the meantime, the illuminations blazed out throuo'h the town. The Madelaine stood in a basin of glimmering fire, and wore a garland of flaming beads upon her brows ; and a belt of gas-lights, like sparkling diamonds, encircled the queen of streets, the Rue Rivoli ; it was a mile long. The Pantheon too, and the Invalids, and the Arch of Neuilly, afar off, poured their ineffectual fires upon the thick night; and all the orchards of the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, and Champs Elysees, were bending under the load of their golden fruits. — How jealous the moon and stars would have been, if they could have looked out upon the French capital this night. — If we don't get up such f^tes in Ame- rica, it is not because we can't, it is because we don't feel in the humour, it is because in fine, it is because we don't want to I had intended to pass over the recreations of the morning for want of room ; but here is, un- fortunately, room enough. — I generally walk out here, as in America, alone ; for if one takes a companion one is obliged to walk his way ; besides you can t imagine what an effort it is to CHAMPS ELYSEES. 331 be always agreeable. I like sometimes, in a solitary walk, to think you all over ; to stray with you by the Mill Creek and Tumbling Run, or to sit down on your piny eminence and over- ^ look the village, and enjoy your nonsense, which IS enjoyed nowhere else in such perfection. In a word, if alone, I can get into a reverie ; alone, 1 can fight duels, rout armies, save la- dies from ruin, and do things that are imprac- ticable. It was only this morning that I fought the battle of Waterloo over again, and beat Lord Wellington ; and when I take a companion along with me, he puts me out. So I went out this morning alone. I was in rather an ill humour, and I had resolved not to be pleased, or to laugh at anything, much less this buf- foonery of SLJour defete ; — in this mood I ar- rived in the Champs Ely sees. All the world was flowing in here from all quarters, as the little streams into the great ocean ; and the immense plain was fitted up with scaffoldings for various representations, and tents and booths stood in long rows for the sale of all sorts of nick-nacks, and cakes and sweetmeats, and refreshments ; and here were all the marionettes 2iud funambidaires , the buf- 332 THE BUFFOONS. foons, the harlequins and scaramouches, the most famous of Paris ; and the jugglers " Who teach you knacks Of eating flax, And out of their noses Draw ribbons and posies.'* Are men, thought I, intelligent beings ? Is there any essential difference between those who dishonour themselves in representing these fooleries, and those who are entertained by them? And here I stepped into a crowd of persons who were listening to a serious indivi- dual who sat upon a platform ; he held a cat, and discoursed thus: " Voildj Messieurs, nn animal, qui est digne de fixer V attention du pub- lic, II a les oreilles du chat, les pattes d'un chat ; enfin la queue, le poiU la tete, et le corps du chat. Eh bien ! Messieurs, ce n'est pas un chat. — Qu'est ce done que cet animal? — C'est une chatte." At a few steps farther was another individual, who recommended remedies for all diseases ; — ^' Here is my powder, gentlemen, patented by the king ; it cures the ear-ache, the tooth-ache and scabby dogs ; a six sous, Messieurs ! c'est incroyable ! cest pour rien ! a six sous ! — And here, gentlemen, is something worthy to fix the MOUNTEBANKS. 333 attention of the naturalist and man of letters. It is a little black powder, which results from the incineration of a little animal, which does not weigh more than four ounces, and which lays eggs that weigh fifteen pounds. It was with these eggs, gentlemen, that General Lafa- yette nourished his armv in Ecrvpt during^ forty days; here it is — c'est mcroyahhl And now, Messieurs et Mesda?nes, here is my poudre dentifrique which is designed to destroy the tartar of the teeth of both sexes. Tartar, oren- tlemen, is the declared enemy of both. Every thing human is subject to tartar; from the in- nocent virgin to the venerable matron, alljs subject to tartar. Napoleon himself^ at the head of 150,000 men of cavalry, was not exempt from tartar. You see this child, (here he ex- hibited a boy whose teeth were in a * frightful condition,' being painted black.) You see this boy, ^ simple gamin f' he has the teeth neither more nor less black than pitch, and his breath — You may come, gentlemen, and smell for yourselves — Eh bien, Messieurs ; you take ray poudre dentifrique, you just dip your finger into water, spring water, well water, no matter what water, and you just rub lightly, (here he laid the child across his knees, and in the same way 334 ORATION OF PUNXH. as if savvino; a log; of wood, rubbed off the 3 paint, and exhibited him with teeth of ivory to the spectators ;)— Behold, gentlemen, the effect of my poiidre deniifrique, (and here he sold several boxes.) The oldest hero, I believe, of the modern stage is Punch, and I am glad to see that he retains yet his place at these public solemnities. His harangues here are not always a ludicrous or unmeaning prattle, but often critical, satirical, and even treasonable ; and occasionally, he falls under the reprehension of the police. Several punches have been arrested under the late laws. I penetrated an immense crowd, and heard a little deputy of the ^^extrtme gauche'' just end his harangue — 'Hhe greatest king of these times, I don't care who is the other one." We have been trying kings, one after the other, and have never had a tolerable one since King Pepin. Idiots we have had enough, God knows; we have now our Tarquin, whom we have sent to travel for his health in Germany. We have had our Nero too, and our Otho and Vitellius as w^ell as our Csesar ; the Bon Henri, and he was a great rogue, is the only national boast. In fine, gentlemen, we never had any thing of a king down to Louis PhiHppe. My THE EATIXG DEPARTMENT. 335 wife has called three children after him succes- sively ; but when they were born, they all turned out to be girls. "Gentlemen, we have done more for the glory of France under this king in five years, than tinder all the kings who preceded him, in all \"ears. We have guillotined Fieschi, conquered the Bedouins, and paved the Rue }seuve des Angustins; and finally, gentlemen, we have paid off the ^ twenty-five millions' to General Jack- son, and the sword that was half drawn has been thrust back into its scabbard. Gentlemen, when we want to gather cocoa-nuts in the West Indies, we throw stones at the apes on the trees, at which, they getting mad, shower down the nuts in our faces: and this is the way the American General has got the twenty-five miU lions." He bowed, and retired with acclama- tions. This is enough for the Mountebanks and the Punches, and not too much ; for even the tragic Muse, dignified as she now is, in her robe and buskins, took her first lessons from the Harlequins. In the eating department, in the sucrerie and charcuiterie, there was of course a display — gimblettes, gaufres, echaudes, and croquignolles. Their very names give one ideas of eating. Do 336 THE MAT DE COCAGXE. you know how to sell cakes piping hot that were baked eight days ago ? The bottom of your basket is to be a vessel with water in it, reduced by a secret fire into vapour, which pe- netrates up through the crevices of your cakes. How appetising they look, just smoking from the frying-pan ! If I should attempt to tell you the tricks of the jugglers, I should never be done. The prettiest of all these are the lady rope-dancers of Madame Saqui, whom you will see thirty feet in the air, and ten thousand eyes upturned in admiration. The clown beneath holds his cocked hat to catch any one that may fall. The most athletic and dramatic of all these amusements, is the Mat de Cocagne. This is a lonty pole of about eighteen inches diameter at the base, well polished and greased from head to foot, with soft soap, tallow, and other slippery ingredients. To climb up this pole to the top is the eminent exploit, which crowns the victorious adventurer with a rich prize, and gains him the acclamation of ten thousand spectators. The pretenders strip off their upper gear altoge- ther, and roll up their trousers mid-thigh, and thus accoutred, present themselves at the bottom of the mast. - THE MAT DE COCAGNE. 337 ** The first who attempt the ascent look for no honour; their office is to prepare the way, and put things in train for their successors; they rub off the grease from the bottom, the least practicable part of the mast. In every thing the first steps are the most difficult, though seldom the most glorious; and scarcely ever does the same person commence an enterprise and reap the fruits of its accomplishment. They ascend higher by degrees, and the expert climbers now come forth, the heroes of the list ; they who have been accustomed to gain prizes, whose prowess is known, and whose fame is established. These do not expend their strength in the be- ginning; they climb up gently, and patiently, and modestly, and repose from time to time ; and they carry, as is permitted, a little sack at their girdle filled with ashes to neutralise the grease, and render it less slippery. '^ All efforts, however, for a long time prove ineffectual. There seems to be an ultimate point, which no one can scan, the measure and term of human strength ; and to overreach it, is at last deemed impossible. Now and then a pretender essays his awkward limbs, and reaching scarce half-way even to this point, falls back clumsily amidst the hisses and laughter of the specta- VOL. II. Q 338 THE MAT DE COCAGXE. tors ; so in the world empyrical pretension comes out into notoriety for a moment only, to return with ridicule and scorn, to its original obscurity " But the charm is at length broken ; a victo- rious climber has transcended the point at which his predecessors were arrested. Every one now does the same ; such are men ; they waiit but a f)recedent ; as soon as it is proved that a thing is possible, it is no longer difficult. Our clim- ber continues his success, furtlier and further still; he is at a few feet only from the summit, but he is wearied, he relents ; alas, is the prize almost in his grasp to escape from him ! He makes another effort, but of no avail. He does not, how^ever, lose ground ; he reposes. In the meantime, exclamations are heard, of doubt, of success, of encourao-ement. " After a lapse of two or three minutes, which is itself a fatigue, he essays again — it is in vain. He begins even to shrink — he has slipped down- wards a few inches, and recovers his loss by an obstinate struggle (applauses), but it is a su- pernatural effort, and his last. Soon after, a murmur is heard from the crowd, half raillery, half compassion, and the poor adventurer slides down, mortified and exhausted, upon the earth. So a courtier, havino^ planned from his youth, THE MAT DE COCAGNE. 339 his career of ambition, struggles ujd the ladder, lubrick and precipitous, to the top, to the very consummation of his hopes, and then falls back into the rubbish from which he has issued, and they who envied his fortune, now rejoice in his fall. What lessons of philosophy in a o-reasy pole ! What moral reflections in a spectacle so empty to the common world ! What wholesome sermons are here upon the vanity of human hopes, the disappointments of ambition, and the ditficulties of success in the shppery path of fortune and human greatness ! But the defeat of the last adventurer has shown the possibility of success, and prepared the way for his succes- sor, who mounts up, and perches on the summit of the mast, bears off the crown, and descends amidst the shouts and applauses of the multi- tude. It is Americus Vespucius, who bears away from Columbus the recompense of his toils." I have placed commas over a few of the pre- ceding paragraphs, to tell you that they are taken chiefly from a French description, much prettier than any thing I could offer you of my own. And now, farewell, Paris! thou Pandora's box of all good and all evil, farewell ! I ouo-ht q2 RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library / M1055G3 ^^^^ THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY