Paris, Thursday, June 12, 1851.
A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and "Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops, "restaurants," "cafés," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink or spend the evening alone would be a weariness tohim: he reads his newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c. which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18¾ cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a man of wealth, or one who can supporther in luxury and idleness, is the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly designated, involve the idea of demoralization—no man would apply them to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris—that is, they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe. Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this, and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself.
The first object of interest I saw in Paris was theColumn of Napoleonin the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn of the morning of my arrival. This gigantic Column, as is well known, was formed of cannon taken by the Great Captain in the several victories which irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was Emperor of France and virtually of the Continent. His Statue crowns the pyramid; it was pulled down while the Allied Armies occupied Paris, and a resolute attempt was made to prostrate the Column also, but it was too firmly rooted. The Statue was not replaced tillafter the Revolution of 1830. The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the stately Column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should not regard it very highly.
Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting, is theObelisk of Luxor, which for thousands of years had overshadowed the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late Pacha of Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near the Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which impressed me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with mysterious inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four thousand years, yet seem as fresh and clear as though chiseled but yesterday. The removal entire of this bulk of many thousand tuns from Egypt to Paris is one of the most marvelous achievements of human genius, and Paris has for me no single attraction to match the Obelisk of Luxor.
TheTuileriesstrikes me as an irregular mass of buildings with little pretensions to Architectural beauty or effect. It has great capacity, and nothing more. TheLouvreis much finer, yet still not remarkable, but its wealth of Paintings by the Great Masters of all time surprised as well as delighted me. I never saw anything at all comparable to it. But of this another time.
Paris, Monday, June 9, 1851.
Having the evening on my hands, I have spent a good share of it at the Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National institution, but a National trait, and as such I visited it.
The house is very spacious, admirably planned, superblyfitted up, and every way adapted to its purpose; the charges moderate; the audience large and well dressed; the officers and attendants up to their business, and everything orderly and quiet. The play was Scribe's "L'Enfant Prodigue" (The Prodigal Son), which in England they soften into "Azael the Prodigal," but here no such euphemism is requisite, and indeed I doubt that half who witness it suspect that the idea is taken from the Scriptures. The idea, however, is all that is so borrowed. There were no great singers included in the cast for this evening, not even Alboni who remains here, while most of her compeers are in London. I am a poor judge, but I should say the music is not remarkable.
This is a drama of Action and of Spectacle, however, to which the Music is subordinate. Such a medley of drinking and praying, dancing and devotion, idol-worship and Delilah-craft, I had not before encountered. At least three hundred performers were at once on the stage. The dancing-girls engaged were not less than one hundred in number, apparently all between fourteen and eighteen years of age, generally good-looking, and with that aspect of innocence and freshness to which the Stage is so fatal. The most agile and eminent among them was a Miss Plunkett, said to be an American, with a face of considerable beauty and a winning, joyous manner. I should say that half the action of the piece, nearly half the time, and more than half the attention of the audience, were engrossed by these dancing demoiselles.
France is the cradle and home of the Ballet. In other lands it is an exotic, here a natural outgrowth and expression of the National mind. Of the spirit which conceived it, here is the abode and the Opera Français the temple; and here it has exerted its natural and unobstructed influence on the manners and morals of a People. If you would comprehend the Englishman, follow him to his fireside; if a Frenchman, join him at the Opera and contemplate him during the performance of the Ballet.
I am, though no practitioner, a lover of the Dance. Restricted to proper hours and fit associates, I wish it were far more general than it is. Health, grace, muscular energy, even beauty, might be promoted by it. Why the dancing of the Theater should be rendered disgusting, I can not yet comprehend. The "poetry of motion," of harmonious evolutions and the graceful movement of "twinkling feet," I think I appreciate. All these are natural expressions of innocent gaiety and youthful elasticity of spirits, whereof this world sees far too little. I wish there were more of them.
But what grace, what sense, what witchery, there can be, for instance, in a young girl's standing on one great toe and raising the other foot to the altitude of her head, I cannot imagine. As an exhibition of muscular power, it is disagreeable to me, because I know that the capacity for it was acquired by severe and protracted efforts and at the cost of much suffering. Why is it kept on the stage? Admit that it is not lascivious; who will pretend that it is essentially graceful? I was glad to see that the more extravagant distortions were not specially popular with the audience—that nearly all the applause bestowed on those ballet-feats which seem devised only to favor a liberal display of the person came from the little knot of hired "claqueurs" in the center of the pit. If there were many who loved to witness, there were few so shameless as to applaud.
If the Opera is ever to become an element of Social life and enjoyment in New-York, I do trust that it may be such a one as thoughtful men may take their daughters to witness without apprehension or remorse. I do not know whether the Opera we now have is or is not such a one; I knowthisis not. Its entire, palpable, urgent tendency, is "earthly, sensual, devilish." In none was the instinct of Purity ever strengthened by beholding it; in many, it must, in the nature of things, be weakened with eachrepetition of the spectacle. It is no marvel that the French are reputed exceedingly reckless of the sanctions and obligations of Marriage, if this is a part of their State-supported education.
I came away at the close of the third act, leaving two more to be performed. The play is transcendent in spectacle, and has had a very great success here.
Paris, Sunday, June 15, 1851.
I marvel at the obliquity of vision whereby any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic and the restoration of Monarchy. Such prophets must belong essentially to that school which teaches the omnipotence of paper Constitutions and dilates with bristling hair on the appalling possibility that Washington, or Hamilton, or Franklin, might not have been chosen to the Convention which framed our Federal Constitution, and that Constitution consequently have remained unperfected or unadopted. The true view I understand to be that if the Constitution had thus failed to be constructed in '87 or adopted in '88, the necessity for it would still have existed, growing daily more urgent and palpable, so that Convention after Convention would from time to time have been called, and sooner or later a Constitution would have been elaborated and adopted; and the longer this consummation was delayed the stronger and more controlling the Constitution ultimately formed would have been. So with the French Republic. It is simply an expression of the intellectual convictions and social instincts of the French People. You meet it on the Boulevards and in the cafés where the wealthy and luxurious most do congregate; your cabman and boot-black, though perfectly civil and attentive, let you understand, if you have eyes, that they are Republicans; while in the quarters tenantedor frequented only by the Artisan and the Laborer you meet none but devotees of "the Republic Democratic and Social." The contrast between the abject servility of the Poor in London and their manner here cannot be realized without actual observation. A hundred Princes or illustrious Dukes in Paris would not attract as much attention as any one of them would in London. Democracy triumphed in the drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the streets; and all subsequent efforts in behalf of Monarchy here have produced and can produce only a fitful, spasmodic, unnatural life. If three Revolutions within a life-time, all in the same direction, have not impressed this truth conclusively, another and another lesson will be added. The French have great faults of character which imperil the immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate ascendency. Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary caprice, soon past and forgotten. The Nation can never more be other than Republican, though the possessors of power, controlling the Press, the Bureaux, the Assembly and the Army, may fancy that their personal interests would be promoted by a less popular system, and so be seen for a season following strange gods. This delusion and apostacy will speedily pass, leaving only their shame behind.
The immediate peril of the Republic is the Election of May, '52, in view of the arbitrary disfranchisement of nearly one-half the Democratic voters, the manacled condition of the Press, the denial to the People of the Right of Meeting for deliberation and concert, and the betrayal of all the enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distractand scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis Napoleon or Changarnier, there need be no further apprehension.
I hear, as from an official source, that there are now Three Thousand Americans in Paris, most of them residing here for months, if not for years. It gives me pleasure to state that, contrary to what I have often heard of the bearing of our countrymen in Europe, a large majority of these, so far as I may judge from meeting a good many and learning the sentiments of more, are warmly and openly on the side of the Republic and opposed to the machinations of the motley host who seek its overthrow.
The conviction of Charles Hugo, and his sentence to six months' imprisonment, for simply writing a strong Editorial in theEvénementin condemnation of Legal Killing, is making a profound sensation here. I think it will hasten the downfall both of the Guillotine and the "party of Order" which thus assumes the championship of that venerated institution. TheTimes'Paris correspondent, I perceive, takes up the tale of Hugo's article having been calculated to expose the ministers of the law to popular odium, and naively protests against a line of argument by which "those whoexecutethe law are stigmatized asexecutioners." I suppose we must call themexecutorshereafter to obviate the hardship complained of. How singular that those who glory in the deed should shrink indignantly from the name?
American attention will naturally be drawn to the recent debate in the Assembly involving the principle of theHigher Law. The subject was a bill reorganizing the National Guard, with the intent of sifting it as clean as possible of the popular element, and thus rendering it either a nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a "Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its bayonets against the People who should take up arms, in defense of the Republic. No stick thrown into a hornets' nest ever excited such commotion as this remark did in the camp of "Order." In the course of a violent and tumultuous debate, it came out that Gen. Baraguay d'Hilliers, a leader on the side of "Order," refused in 1848 to take the proffered command of the troops fighting on the side of Order in the deplorable street combats of June. This was excused on the ground of his being a Representative as well as a General! The Champions of "Order," having said all they wished and allowed their opponents to say very little, hastily shut down the gate, and refused to permit further discussion. No matter: the truth has been formally proclaimed from the tribune thatNo one has a moral right to do as a soldier that which it would be wrong for him to do as a man—that, no matter what human rulers may decree, every man owes a paramount obedience to the law of God, and cannot excuse his violation of that law by producing an order to do so from any functionary or potentatewhatever. The idea is a fruitful one, and France is now pondering it.
I attended divine worship to-day atNotre Dame, which seems to me not only the finest Church but the most imposing edifice in Paris. The Pantheon may vie with it, perhaps, but it has to my eye a naked and got-up look; it lacks adequate furnishing. Beside these two, nearly all the public buildings of Paris strike me as lacking height in proportion to their superficial dimensions. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a fine front, but seems no taller while more extensive than our New-York City Hall, which notoriously lacks another story. Even the Louvre, with ample space and a rare position, which most of the Paris edifices want, seems deficient in height. But Notre Dame, on the contrary, towers proudly and gracefully, and I have not seen its general effect surpassed. It reminded me of Westminster Abbey, though it is less extensive. As a place of worship it is infinitely superior to the Abbey, which has the damp air and gloom of a dungeon, in each most unlike Notre Dame. I trust no American visits Paris without seeing this noble church, and on the Sabbath if possible.
Since I left London,The Timeshas contained two Editorials on American contributions to the Great Exhibition, which seem to require comment. These articles are deprecatory and apologetic in their general tenor, evincing a consciousness that the previous strictures of the London Press on American Art had pushed disparagement beyond the bounds of policy, and might serve to arouse a spirit in the breasts of the people so invidiously and persistently assailed. So our countryman are now told, in substance, that they are rather clever fellows on the whole, who have only made themselves ridiculous byattempting to do and to be what Nature had forbidden. Nothing but our absurd pretensions could thus have exposed us to the world's laughter. America might be America with credit; she has broken down by undertaking to be Europe also, &c., &c.
"It is theattempt, and not thedeed, confounds me."
But what are the nature and extent of this American audacity? Our countrymen have undertaken to minister to their own wants by the production of certain Wares and Fabrics which they had formerly been content either to do without or to buy from Europe. Being urgently invited to do so, they have sent over some few of these results of their art and skill to a grand exposition of the World's Industry. Even if they were as bad as they are represented, these products should be here; since the object of the Exhibition is not merely to set forth what is best but to compare it with the inferior, and so indicate the readiest mode of improving the latter. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, Persia, have sent hither their wares and fabrics, which hundreds of thousands have examined with eager and gratified interest—an interest as real as that excited by the more perfect rival productions of Western Europe, though of a different kind from that. No one has thought of ridiculing these products of a more primitive industry; all have welcomed and been instructed by them. And so ours would have been treated had they been in fact the wretched affairs which the London Commercial press has represented them. It is precisely because they are quite otherwise that it has been deemed advisable systematically to disparage them—to declare our Pianos "gouty" structures—"mere wood and iron;" our Calicoes beneath the acceptance of a British servant-girl; our Farming Tools half a century behind their British rivals; our Hats "shocking bad," &c., &c.,—all this, in the firstmonths of the Exhibition, while the Jurors appointed to judge and report upon the merits of rival fabrics were making the requisite investigations. Their verdict is thus substantially forestalled, and the millions who visit the Exhibition are invited to look at the American department merely to note the bad taste and incapacity therein displayed, and learn to avoid them.
But the self-constituted arbiters who thus tell the American people that Art is not their province—that they should be content to grow Corn and Cotton, looking to Europe for the satisfaction of their less urgent necessities, their secondary wants—are they impartial advisers? Are they not palpably speaking in the interest of the rival producers of Europe, alarmed by the rapid growth and extension of American Art? Would they have taken so much trouble with us if American taste and skill were really the miserable abortions they represent them?
These indications of paternal care for American Industry, in danger of being warped and misdirected, are not quite novel. An English friend lately invited me to visit him at his house in the neighborhood of Birmingham, holding out as an inducement the opportunity of inspecting the great Iron and Hardware manufactories in that neighborhood. A moment afterward he recollected himself and said, "I am not quite sure that I could procure you admittance to them, because the rule has been thatAmericans were not to be admitted. Gentlemen taking their friends to visit these works were asked, at the door, 'Is your friend an American?' and if the answer was affirmative, he was not allowed to enter—but I think this restriction has been generally abrogated." Here you see, was a compassionate regard for American Industry, in danger of being misled and deluded into unprofitable employments, which neither The Times nor any of its co-laborers has been able to more than humbly imitate.
To my mind, nothing can be more unjust than theintimation that, in attempting to supply her own wants (or some of them) in the domain of Art and Manufacture, America has rushed madly from her sphere and sought to be Europe. She has already taught Europe many things in the sphere of Invention, and is destined to teach her many more; and the fact that her Carriages are condemned as too light and her Pianos as too heavy, her Reaping Machines as "a cross between a treadmill and a flying chariot," &c., &c., by critics very superficially acquainted with their uses, and who have barely glanced at them in passing, proves nothing but the rashness and hostility of their contemners. From such unworthy disparagement I appeal with confidence to the awards of the various Juries appointed by the Royal Commissioners. They are competent; they have made the requisite examinations; they (though nearly all European and a majority of them British) are honorable men, and will render an impartial judgment. That judgment, I firmly believe, will demonstrate that, in proportion to the extent of its contributions, no other country has sent more articles to the Exhibition by which the whole world may be instructed and benefited than our own.
Paris, Monday, June 16, 1851.
France, now the most Democratic, was long the most absolutely governed and the most loyally infatuated among the great Nations of Europe. Her cure of the dust-licking distemper was Homœopathic and somewhat slow, but it seems to be thorough and abiding. Those who talk of the National passion for that bloody phantom Glory—for Battle and Conquest—speak of what was, rather than of what is, and which, even in its palmiest days, was rather apenchantof the Aristocratic caste than a characteristic of the Nation. The Nobles of course loved War, for it was their high road to Royal favor, to station and renown; all the spoils of victory enured to them, while nine-tenths of its calamities fell on the heads of the Peasantry. But, though all France rushed to arms in 1793 to defend the National liberties and soil, yet Napoleon, in the zenith of his power and glory, could only fill the ranks of his legions by the abhorred Conscription. The great body of the People were even then averse to the din of the camp and the clangor of battle: the years of unmixed disaster and bitter humiliation which closed his Military career, served to confirm and deepen their aversion to garments rolled in blood; and I am confident that there is at this moment no Nation in Europe more essentially peaceful than France. Her Millions profoundly sympathise with their brethren of Germany, Italy and Hungary, groaningbeneath the heavy yoke of the Autocrat and his vassals; but they realize that the deliverance of Nations must mainly be wrought out from within, and they would much rather aid the subject Nations to recover their rights by the influence of example and of a Free Press than by casting the sword of Brennus into the scale where their liberties and happiness hang balanced and weighed down by the ambition and pride of their despots. The establishment of the Democratic and Social Republic is the appointed end of war in Europe. It will not erase the boundaries of Nations, but these boundaries will no longer be overshadowed by confronted legions, and they will be freed from the monster nuisance of Passports. Then German, Frank, Briton, Italian, will vie with each other, as now, in Letters, Arts and Products, but no longer in the hideous work of defacing and desecrating the image of God; for Liberty will have enlightened and Fraternity united them, and a permanent Congress of Nations will adjust and dispose of all causes of difference which may from time to time arise.—Freedom, Intelligence and Peace are natural kindred: the ancient Republics were Military and aggressive only because they tolerated and cherished Human Slavery; and it is this which recently fomented hostilities between the two Republics of North America, and now impotently threatens the internal peace of our own. Liberty, if thorough and consistent, always did and must incline to Peace; while Despotism, being founded in and only maintainable by Force, inevitably fosters a martial spirit, organizes Standing Armies, and finds delight and security in War.
These reflections have been recalled by my walks through several of the late Royal (now National) Palaces of France, the most striking monuments which endure of long ages of absolute kingly sway. How many there are of these Palaces I have forgotten or never knew; but I recall the names of the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, theElisée Bourbon, St. Germain, St. Cloud, Versailles, Meudon, and Rambouillet. These do not include the Palais Royal, which was built by the Orleans branch of the Bourbon family, nor any of the spacious edifices erected for the several Ministers of State and for the transaction of public business. The Palaces I have named were all constructed from time to time to serve as residences for the ten to thirty persons recognized as of the blood Royal, who removed from one to the other as convenience or whim may have suggested. They are generally very spacious, probably averaging one to two hundred apartments each, all constructed of the best materials and furnished and adorned with the most lavish disregard of cost. I roughly estimate the cost of these Palaces, if they were now to be built and furnished in this style, at One Hundred Millions of Dollars; but the actual cost, in the ruder infancy of the arts when most of them were erected, was probably much more. Versailles alone cost some Thirty Millions of Dollars at first, while enormous sums have since been expended in perfecting and furnishing it. It would be within the truth to say that France, from the infancy of Louis XIV. to the expulsion of Louis Philippe, has paid more as simple interest on the residences of her monarchs and their families than the United States, with a larger population and with far greater wealth than France has averaged through that period, now pays for the entire cost of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial departments of her Government. All that we have paid our Presidents from Washington inclusive, adding the cost of the Presidential Mansion and all the furniture that has from time to time been put into it, would not build and furnish one wing of a single Royal Palace of France—that of Versailles.
But the point to which I would more especially call attention is that of the unwearied exertions of Royalty to foster and inflame the passion for Military glory. Iwandered for hours through the spacious and innumerable halls of Versailles, in which Art and Nature seem to have been taxed to the utmost to heap up prodigies of splendor. At least one hundred of these rooms would each of itself be deemed a marvel of sumptuous display anywhere else; yet here we passed over floors of the richest Mosaic and through galleries of the finest and most elaborately wrought Marble as if they had been but the roughest pavement or the rudest plaster. The eye is fatigued, the mind bewildered, by an almost endless succession of sumptuous carving, gilding, painting, &c., until the intervention of a naked ante-room or stair-case becomes a positive relief to both. And the ideas everywhere predominant are War and its misnamed Glory. Here are vast, expensive paintings purporting to represent innumerable Sieges and Battles in which the French arms were engaged, many of them so insignificant that the world has wisely forgotten them, yet here preserved to inflame and poison the minds of hot-blooded, unreflecting youth, impelling them to rush into the manufacture of cripples and corpses under the horrible delusion that needless, aimless Slaughter, if perpetrated by wholesale, can really be honorable and glorious. These paintings, as a whole, are of moderate value as works of Art, while their tendency is horrible and their details to me revolting. Carriages shattered and overturned, animals transfixed by spear-thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls and ghastly with coming death, such are the spectacles which the more favored and fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire and enjoy. These battle-pieces have scarcely more Historic than Artistic value, since the names of at least half of them might be transposed and the change be undetected by ninety-nine out of every hundred who see them. Ifallthe French battles were thus displayed, it might be urged with plausibility that these galleries were historicalin their character; but a full half of the story, that which tells of French disaster and discomfiture—is utterly suppressed. The Battles of Ptolemais, of Ivry, of Fontenoy, of Rivoli, of Austerlitz, &c., are here as imposing as paint can make them, but never a whisper of Agincourt, Crecy, Poictiers, Blenheim, or Ramillies, nor yet of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Leipsic, or Waterloo. Even the wretched succession of forays which the French have for the last twenty years been prosecuting in Algerine Africa here shines resplendent, for Vernet has painted, by Louis Philippe's order and at France's cost, a succession of battle-pieces wherein French numbers and science are seen prevailing over Arab barbarism and irregular valor in combats whereof the very names have been wisely forgotten by mankind, though they occurred but yesterday. One of these is much the largest painting I ever saw, and is probably the largest in the world, and it seems to have been got up merely to exhibit one of Louis Philippe's sons in the thickest of the fray. Last of all, we have the "Capture of Abd-el-Kader," as imposing as Vernet could make it, but no whisper of the persistent perfidy wherewith he has been retained for several years in bondage, in violation of the express agreement of his captors. The whole collection is, in its general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit War as always glorious and France as uniformly triumphant. It is by means like these that the business of shattering knee-joints and multiplying orphans is kept in countenance.
Versailles is a striking monument of the selfish profligacy of King-craft and the long-suffering patience of Nations. Hundreds of thousands of laborers' children must have gone hungry to their straw pallets in order that their needy parents might pay the inexorable taxes levied to build this Palace. Yet after all it has stood mainly uninhabited! Its immense extent and unequalled splendor require an immeasurable profusion in its occupant, and theincomes even of kings are not absolutely without limit. So Versailles, with six or eight other Royal Palaces in and around Paris, has generally stood empty, entailing on the country an enormous annual expense for its simple preservation. And now, though France has outgrown Royalty, it knows not what to do with its costly, spacious, glittering shells. A single Palace (Rambouillet) standing furthest from Paris, was converted (under Louis Philippe) into a gigantic storehouse for Wool, while its spacious Parks and Gardens were wisely devoted to the breeding and sustenance of the choicest Merino Sheep. The others mainly stand empty, and how to dispose of them is a National perplexity. Some of them may be converted into Hospitals, Insane Retreats, &c., others into Libraries or Galleries of Art and Science; but Versailles is too far from Paris for aught but a Retreat as aforesaid, and has cost so immense a sum that any use which may be made of it will seem wasteful. I presume it could not be sold as it stands for a tenth of its actual cost. Perhaps it will be best, therefore, to convert all the others into direct uses and preserve this for public inspection as a perpetual memorial of the reckless prodigality and all-devouring pomp of Kings, and as a warning to Nations never again to entrust their destinies to men who, from their very education and the influences surrounding them through life, must be led to consider the Toiling Millions as mainly created to pamper their appetites, to gratify their pride, and to pave with their corpses their road to extended dominion.
St. Cloudis a much smaller but more pleasantly situated, more tastefully furnished and decorated Palace, some miles nearer than Versailles to Paris, and commanding an admirable view of the city. TheLuxembourg, situated in the southern section of the city, is externally a chaste and well-proportioned edifice, containing some fine pictures by living artists, and surrounded by spacious and delightful woods, shrubbery, &c., termed "the Gardens of theLuxembourg." TheTuileries, in the heart of the city, near the Seine, I have not seen internally, and the exterior seems low, straggling, and every way unimposing. Its extent is almost incredible by those who have not seen it—scarcely less than that of Versailles. TheLouvreis the finest structure of all, and most worthily devoted. Its lower story is filled with Sculptures of no considerable merit, but its galleries contain more strikingly good Paintings than I shall ever again see under one roof. I have spent a good part of two days there, and mean to revisit it on my return.
If each American could spend three days on this continent, his love of Country and of Liberty could not fail to be quickened and intensified, if only by an experience of the enormity of the Passport nuisance. It has cost me precious hours already, not to speak of dollars, and is certain to cost many more of each. I have nearly concluded to given up Germany on account of it, while Italy fairly swarms with petty sovereignties and with Yankee Consuls, the former afraid of their own black shadows, the latter intent on their beloved two dollars each from every American traveler. Such is the report I have of them, and I presume the reality is equal to the foreshadowing. It is a shame that Republican France stands far behind Aristocratic Britain in this respect, but I trust the contrast will not endure many more years.
Two Americans who arrived here last week caused some perplexity to their landlord. Every man who lodges a stranger here must see forthwith that he has a Passport in good condition, in default of which said host is liable to a penalty. Now, these Americans, when applied to, produced Passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly designated in his Passport asa "Loafer" the other as a "Rowdy" and they informed him, on application, that, though these professions were highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirming that all was right, applied to an American friend for a translation of the inexplicable professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully enlightened with regard to them.
I am off to-day (I hope) for Lyons and Italy.
Lyons, Tuesday, June 17, 1851.
I came out of Paris through the spaciousBoulevards,[B]which, under various second appellations, stretch eastward from the Madeleine Church nearly to the barrier, and then bend southward, near the beautiful column which marks the site and commemorates the fall of the Bastile, so long the chief dungeon wherein Despotism stifled Remonstrance and tamed the spirit of Freedom. Liberty in France is doomed yet to undergo many trials—nay, is now enduring some of them—but it is not within the compass of probability that another Bastile should ever rear its head there, nor that the absolute power and abject servitude which it fitly symbolized should ever be known there hereafter. Very near it on the south lies the famous Faubourg St. Antoine, inhabited mainly by bold, free-souled working-men, who have repeatedly evinced their choice to die free rather than live slaves, and in whom the same spirit lives and rules to-day. I trust that dire alternative will never again be forced upon them, but if it should be there is no Bastile so impregnable, no despotism so fortified by prescription, and glorious recollections, and the blind devotion of loyalty, as those they have already leveled to the earth.
The Paris Station of the Lyons Railway is at the eastern barrier of the City. I received here another lesson in French Railroad management. I first bought at the office my ticket for Chalons on the Saone, which is the point to which the road is now completed. The distance is 243 miles; the fare (first-class) $7.50. But the display of my ticket did not entitle me to enter the passengers' sitting-room, much less to approach the cars. Though I had cut down my baggage, by two radical retrenchments, to two light carpet-bags, I could not take these with me, nor would they pass without weighing. When weighed, I was required to pay three or four sous (cents) for extra baggage, though there is no stage-route in America on which those bags would not have passed unchallenged and been accounted a very moderate allowance. Now I was permitted to enter the sacred precincts, but my friend, who had spent the morning with me and come to see me off, was inexorably shut out, and I had no choice but to bid him a hasty adieu. Passing the entrance, I was shown into the apartment for first-class passengers, while the second-class were driven into a separate fold and the third-class into another. Thus we waited fifteen minutes, during which I satisfied myself that no other American was going by this train, and but three or four English, and of these the two with whom I scraped an acquaintance were going only to Fontainbleau, a few miles from Paris. They were required to take their places in a portion of the train which was to stop at Fontainbleau, and so we moved off.
The European Railway carriages, so far as I have yet seen them, are more expensive and less convenient than ours. Each is absolutely divided into apartments about the size of a mail-coach, and calculated to hold eight persons. The result is thirty-two seats where an American car of equal length and weight would hold at least fifty, and of the thirty-two passengers, one-half must inevitablyride backward. I believe the second-class cars are more sociable, and mean to make their acquaintance. I should have done it this time, but for my desire to meet some one with whom I could converse, and Americans and Englishmen are apt to cling to the first-class places. My aim was disappointed. My companions were all Frenchmen, and, what was worse, all inveterate smokers. They kept puff-puffing, through the day; first all of them, then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules posted up in the car; but when did a smoker ever care for law or decency? I will endeavor next time to find a seat in a car where women are fellow-passengers, and see whether their presence is respected by the devotees of the noxious weed. I have but a faint hope of it.
The Railroad from Paris to Chalons passes through a generally level region, watered by tributaries of the Seine and of the Saone, with a range of gentle hills skirting the valleys, generally on the right and sometimes on either hand. As in England, the track is never allowed to cross a carriage-road on its own level, but is carried either under or over each. The soil is usually fertile and well cultivated, though not so skillfully and thoroughly as that of England. There are places, however, in which the cultivation could not easily be surpassed, but I should say that the average product would not be more than two-thirds that of England, acre for acre. There are very few fences of any kind, save a slight one inclosing the Railway, beyond which the country stretches away as far as the eye can reach without a visible landmark, the crops of different cultivators fairly touching each other and growing square up to the narrow roads that traverse them. You will see, for instance, first a strip of Grass, perhaps ten rodswide, and running back sixty or eighty rods from the Railroad; then a narrower strip of Wheat; then one of Grape-Vines; then one of Beans; then one of Clover; then Wheat again, then Grass or Oats, and so on. I saw very little Rye; and if there were Potatoes or Indian Corn, they were not up sufficiently high to be distinguished as we sped by them. The work going forward was the later Weeding with the earlier Hay-making, and I saw nearly as many women as men working in the fields. The growing crops were generally kept pretty clear of weeds, and the grass was most faithfully but very slowly cut. I think one Yankee would mow over more ground in a day than two Frenchmen, but he would cut less hay to the acre. Of course, in a country devoid of fences and half covered with small patches of grain, there could not be many cattle: I saw no oxen, very few cows, and not many horses. The hay-carts were generally drawn by asses, or by horses so small as not to be easily distinguished from asses as we whirled rapidly by. The wagons on the roads were generally drawn by small horses. I judge that the people are generally industrious but not remarkably efficient, and that the women do the larger half of the work, house-work included. The hay-carts were wretchedly small, and the implements used looked generally rude and primitive. The dwellings are low, small, steep-roofed cottages, for which a hundred dollars each would be a liberal offer. Of course, I speak of the rural habitations; those in the villages are better, though still mainly small, steep-roofed, poor, and huddled together in the most chaotic confusion. The stalls and pastures for cattle were in the main only visible to the eye of faith; though cattle there must be and are to do the ploughing and hauling. I suspect they are seldom turned loose in summer, and that there is not a cow to every third cottage. I think I did not see a yoke of oxen throughout the day's ride of 243 miles.
I was again agreeably disappointed in the abundance ofTrees. Wood seems to be the peasants' sole reliance for fuel, and trees are planted beside the roads, the streams, the ditches, and often in rows or patches on some arable portion of the peasants' narrow domain. This planting is mainly confined to two varieties—the Lombardy Poplar and what I took to be the Pollard, a species of Willow which displays very little foliage, and is usually trimmed up so as to have but a mere armful of leaves and branches at the top of a trunk thirty to fifty feet high, and six to twelve inches through. The Lombardy Poplar is in like manner preferred, as giving a large amount of trunk to little shade, the limbs rarely extending three feet from the trunk, while the growth is rapid. Such are the means employed to procure fuel and timber with the least possible abstraction of soil from the uses of cultivation. There are some side-hills so rocky and sterile as to defy human industry, and these are given up to brush-wood, which I presume is cut occasionally and bound into faggots for fuel. Some of it may straggle up, if permitted, into trees, but I saw little that would fairly justify the designation of Forest. Of Fruit-trees, save in the villages, there is a deplorable scarcity throughout.
We passed through few villages and no town of note butDijon, the capital of ancient Burgundy, where its Parliament was held and where its Dukes reigned and were buried. Their palace still stands, though they have passed away. Dijon is 200 miles from Paris, and has 25,000 inhabitants, with manufactures of Cotton, Woolen and Silk. Here and henceforth the Vine is more extensively cultivated than further Northward.
We reachedChalonson the Saone (there is another Chalons on the Marne) before 9 P. M. or in about ten hours from Paris. Here a steamboat was ready to take us forthwith to Lyons, but French management was too much for us. Our baggage was all taken from the car outside and carried piece by piece into the dépôt, where it wasvery carefully arranged in order according to the numbers affixed to the several trunks, &c., in Paris. This consumed the better part of half an hour, though half as many Yankees as were fussing over it would have had it all distributed to the owners inside of ten minutes. Then the holders of the first three or four numbers were let into the baggage-room, and when they were disposed of as many more were let in, and so on. Each, as soon as he had secured his baggage, was hustled into an omnibus destined for the boat. I was among the first to get seated, but ours was the last omnibus to start, and when the attempt was made, the carriage was overloaded and wouldn't start! At last it was set in motion, but stopped twice or thrice to let off passengers and baggage at hotels, then to collect fare, and at last, when we had got within a few rods of the landing, we were cheered with the information that "Le bateau est parti!" The French may have been better than this, but its purport was unmistakable—the boat was gone, and we were done. I had of course seen this trick played before, but never so clumsily. There was no help for us, however, and the amount of useless execration emitted was rather moderate than otherwise. Our charioteers had taken good care to obtain their pay for carrying us some time before, and we suffered ourselves to be taken to our predestined hotel in a frame of mind approaching Christian resignation. In fact, when I had been shown up to a nice bed-room, with clean sheets and (for France) a fair supply of water, and had taken time to reflect that there is no accommodation for sleeping on any of these European river-boats, I was rather glad we had been swindled than otherwise. So I am still. But you may travel the same route in a hurry; so look out!
We rose at 4 and made for the boat, determined not to be caught twice in the same town. At five we bade good-bye to Chalons-sur-Saone (a pleasant town of 13,000 people), under a lowering sky which soon blessed the earthwith rain—a dubious blessing to a hundred people on a steamboat with no deck above the guards and scarcely room enough below for the female passengers. However, the rain soon ceased and the sky gradually cleared, so that since 9 o'clock the day has been sunny and delightful.
The distance from Chalons to Lyons by the Saone is some 90 miles. The river is about the size of the Connecticut from Greenfield to Hartford, but is sluggish throughout, with very low banks until the last ten or fifteen miles. After an intervale of half a mile to two miles, the land rises gently on the right to an altitude of some two to five hundred feet, the slope covered and checkered the whole distance with vineyards, meadows, woods, &c. The Poplar and the Pollard are still planted, but the scale of cultivation is larger and the houses much better than between Paris and Dijon. The intervale (mainly in meadow) is much wider on the left bank, the swell beyond it being in some places scarcely visible. The scenery is greatly admired here, and as a whole may be termed pretty, but cannot compare with that of the Hudson or Connecticut in boldness or grandeur. There are some craggy hill-sides in the distance, but I have not yet seen an indisputable mountain in France, though I have passed nearly through it in a mainly southerly course for over five hundred miles.
As we approach Lyons, the hills on either side come nearer and finally shut in the river between two steep acclivities, from which much building-stone has been quarried. Elsewhere, these hill-sides are covered with tasteful country residences of the retired or wealthy Lyonnais, surrounded by gardens, arbors, shrubbery, &c. The general effect is good. At last, houses and quays begin to line and bridges to span the river, and we halt beside one of the quays and are in Lyons.