"Take off the roseFrom the fair forehead of an innocent love,And set a blister there;"
"Take off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And set a blister there;"
Horror is his handmaid; and "thousands of liveriedmonsterslackey him," to furnish the portraits with which it is the occupation of his life to disgust the world.
Can there, think you, be a stronger proof of a diseased intellect among thedécousupart of the world, than that they not only admire this man's hideous extravagances, but that they actually believe him to be ... at least they say so ... a second Shakspeare!... A Shakspeare!
To chastise as he deserves an author who may be said to defy mankind by the libels he has put forth on the whole race, requires a stouter and a keener weapon than any a woman can wield; but when they prate of Shakspeare, I feel that it is our turn to speak. How much ofgratitude and love does every woman owe to him! He, who has entered deeper into her heart than ever mortal did before or since his day, how has he painted her?—As Portia, Juliet, Constance, Hermione;—as Cordelia, Volumnia, Isabella, Desdemona, Imogene!
Then turn and see for what we have to thank our modern painter. Who are his heroines?—Lucrèce Borgia, Marion de Lorme, Blanche, Maguelonne, with I know not how many more of the same stamp; besides his novel heroine, whom Mr. Henry Lytton Bulwer calls "the most delicate female ever drawn by the pen of romance"—The Esmeralda! ... whose sole accomplishments are dancing and singing in the streets, and who ... delicate creature! ... being caught up by a horseman in a midnight brawl, throws her arms round his neck, swears he is very handsome, and thenceforward shows the delicate tenderness of her nature, by pertinaciously doting upon him, without any other return or encouragement whatever than an insulting caress bestowed upon her one night when he was drunk ... "delicate female!"
But this is all too bad to dwell upon. It is, however, in my estimation a positive duty, when mentioning the works of Victor Hugo, to record a protest against their tone and tendency; and it is also a duty to correct, as far as one can, the erroneous impression existing in England respecting his reputation in France.
Whenever his name is mentioned in England, his success is cited as a proof of the depraved state, moral and intellectual, of the French people. And such it would be, were his success and reputation such as his partisans represent them to be. But, in point of fact, the manner in which he is judged by his own countrymen is the strongest possible evidence that neither a powerful fancy, a commanding diction, nor an imagination teeming with images of intense passion, can suffice to ensure an author any exalted reputation in France at the present day if he outrages good feeling and good taste.
Should any doubt the correctness of this statement, I can only refer them to the source from whence I derived the information on which it is founded,—I can only refer them to France herself. There is one fact, however, which may be ascertained without crossing the Channel;—namely, that when one of their reviews found occasion to introduce an article upon the modern drama, the editors acquitted themselves of the task by translating the whole of the able article upon that subject which appeared about a year and a half ago in the Quarterly, acknowledging to what source they were indebted for it.
Were the name and the labours of Victor Hugo confined to his own country, it would now be high time that I should release you from him; but it is an English critic who has said, that he hasheaved the ground from under the feet of Racine; and you must indulge me for a few minutes, while I endeavour to bring the two parties together before you. In doing this, I will be generous; for I will introduce M. Hugo in "Le Roi s'amuse," which, from the circumstance (the happiest, I was assured, that ever befel the author) of its being withdrawn by authority from the Théâtre Français, has become infinitely more celebrated than any other he has written.
It may be remarked by the way, that a few more such acts of decent watchfulness over the morals and manners of the people may redeem the country from the stigma it now bears of being the most licentious in its theatre and its press in the world.
The first glorious moment of being forbidden at the Français appears almost to have turned the lucky author's brain. His preface to "Le Roi s'amuse," among many other symptoms of insanity has the following:—
"Le premier mouvement de l'auteur fut de douter.... L'acte était arbitraire au point d'être incroyable.... L'auteur ne pouvait croire à tant d'insolence et de folie.... Le ministre avait en effet, de son droit divin de ministre, intimé l'ordre.... Le ministre lui avait pris sa pièce, lui avait pris son droit, lui avait pris sa chose. Il ne restait plus qu'à le mettre, lui poëte, à la Bastille.... Est-ce qu'il y a eu en effet quelque chosequ'on a appelé la révolution de Juillet?... Que peut être le motif d'une pareille mesure?... Il parait que nos faiseurs de censure se prétendent scandalisés dans leur morale par 'Le Roi s'amuse;' le nom seul du poëte inculpé aurait dû être une suffisante réfutation (!!!)... Cette pièce a révolté la pudeur des gendarmes; la brigade Léotaud y était, et l'a trouvé obscène; le bureau des mœurs s'est voilé la face; M. Vidocq a rougi.... Holà, mes maîtres! Silence sur ce point!... Depuis quand n'est-il plus permis à un roi de courtiser sur la scène une servante d'auberge?... Mener un roi dans un mauvais lieu, cela ne serait pas même nouveau non plus.... L'auteur veut l'art chaste, et non l'art prude.... Il est profondement triste de voir comment se termine la révolution de Juillet...."
Then follows aprécisof the extravagant and hateful plot, in which the heroine is, as usual, "une fille séduite et perdue;" and he sums it up thus pompously:—"Au fond d'un des ouvrages de l'auteur il y a la fatalité—au fond de celui-ci il y a la providence."
I wish much that some one would collect and publish in a separate volume all M. Victor Hugo's prefaces; I would purchase it instantly, and it would be a fund of almost inexhaustible amusement. He assumes a tone in them which, all things considered, is perhaps unequalled in the history of literature. In another part of theone from which I have given the above extracts, he says—
"Vraiment, le pouvoir qui s'attaque à nous n'aura pas gagné grand' chose à ce que nous, hommes d'art, nous quittions notre tâche consciencieuse, tranquille, sincère, profonde; notre tâche sainte...." What on earth, if it be not insanity, could have put it into Mr. Hugo's head that the manufacturing of his obscene dramas was "une tâche sainte"?
The principal characters in "Le Roi s'amuse" are François Premier; Triboulet, his pander and buffoon; Blanche, the daughter of Triboulet, "la fille séduite," and heroine of the piece; and Maguelonne, another Esmeralda.
The interest lies in the contrast between Triboulet pander and Triboulet père. He is himself the most corrupt and infamous of men; and because he is humpbacked, makes it both his pastime and his business to lead the king his master into every species of debauchery: but he shuts up his daughter to preserve her purity; and the poet has put forth all his strength in describing the worship which Triboulet père pays to the virtue which he passes his life as Triboulet pander in destroying.
Of course, the king falls in love with Blanche, and she with him; and Triboulet pander is made to assist in carrying her off in the dark, under the belief that she was the wife of a nobleman to whom also his majesty the king was making love.
When Triboulet père and pander finds out what he has done, he falls into a terrible agony: and here again is atour de force, to show how pathetically such a father can address such a daughter.
He resolves to murder the king, and informs his daughter, who is passionately attached to her royal seducer, of his intention. She objects, but is at length brought to consent by being made to peep through a hole in the wall, and seeing his majesty King Francis engaged in making love to Maguelonne.
This part of the plot is brought out shortly and pithily.
BLANCHE (peeping through the hole in the wall).Et cette femme! ... est-elle affrontée! ... oh!...TRIBOULET.Tais-toi;Pas de pleurs. Laisse-moi te venger!BLANCHE.Hélas!—Faites—Tout ce que vous voudrez.TRIBOULET.Merci!
BLANCHE (peeping through the hole in the wall).
Et cette femme! ... est-elle affrontée! ... oh!...
TRIBOULET.
Tais-toi;
Pas de pleurs. Laisse-moi te venger!
BLANCHE.
Hélas!—Faites—
Tout ce que vous voudrez.
TRIBOULET.
Merci!
Thismerci, observe, is not said ironically, but gravely and gratefully. Having arranged this part of the business, he gives his daughter instructions as to what she is to do with herself, in the following sublime verses:—
TRIBOULET.Écoute. Va chez moi, prends-y des habits d'homme,Un cheval, de l'argent, n'importe quelle somme;Et pars, sans t'arrêter un instant en chemin,Pour Evreux, où j'irai te joindre après-demain.—Tu sais ce coffre auprès du portrait de ta mère;L'habit est là,—je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire.
TRIBOULET.
Écoute. Va chez moi, prends-y des habits d'homme,Un cheval, de l'argent, n'importe quelle somme;Et pars, sans t'arrêter un instant en chemin,Pour Evreux, où j'irai te joindre après-demain.—Tu sais ce coffre auprès du portrait de ta mère;L'habit est là,—je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire.
Having dismissed his daughter, he settles with a gipsy-man named Saltabadil, who is the brother of Maguelonne, all the details of the murder, which is to be performed in their house, a small cabaret at which the foul weather and the fair Maguelonne induce the royal rake to pass the night. Triboulet leaves them an old sack in which they are to pack up the body, and promises to return at midnight, that he may himself see it thrown into the Seine.
Blanche meanwhile departs; but feeling some compunctious visitings about the proposed murder of her lover, returns, and again applying her ear to the hole in the wall, finds that his majesty is gone to bed in the garret, and that the brother and sister are consulting about his death. Maguelonne, a very "delicate female," objects too; she admires his beauty, and proposes that his life shall be spared if any stranger happens to arrive whose body may serve to fill the sack. Blanche, in a fit of heroic tenderness, determines to be that stranger; exclaiming,
"Eh bien! ... mourons pour lui!"
"Eh bien! ... mourons pour lui!"
But before she knocks at the door, she kneels down to say her prayers, particularly for forgiveness to all her enemies. Here are the verses, making part of those which have overthrown Racine:—
BLANCHE.Oh! Dieu, vers qui je vais,Je pardonne à tous ceux qui m'ont été mauvais:Mon père et vous, mon Dieu! pardonnez-leurs de mêmeAu roi François Premier, que je plains et que j'aime.
BLANCHE.
Oh! Dieu, vers qui je vais,Je pardonne à tous ceux qui m'ont été mauvais:Mon père et vous, mon Dieu! pardonnez-leurs de mêmeAu roi François Premier, que je plains et que j'aime.
She knocks, the door opens, she is stabbed and consigned to the sack. Her father arrives immediately after as by appointment, receives the sack, and prepares to drag it towards the river, handling it with revengeful ecstasy, and exclaiming—
Maintenant, monde, regarde-moi:Ceci, c'est un bouffon; et ceci, c'est un roi.
Maintenant, monde, regarde-moi:Ceci, c'est un bouffon; et ceci, c'est un roi.
At this triumphant moment he hears the voice of the king, singing as he walks away from the dwelling of Maguelonne.
TRIBOULET.Mais qui donc m'a-t-il mis à sa place, le traître!
TRIBOULET.
Mais qui donc m'a-t-il mis à sa place, le traître!
He cuts open the sack; and a flash of lightning very melodramatically enables him to recognise his daughter, who revives, to die in his arms.
This is beyond doubt what may be called "a tragic situation;" and I confess it does seem very hard-hearted to laugh at it: but thepasthat divides the sublime from the ridiculous is not distinctly seen, and there is something vulgar and ludicrous, both in the position and language of the parties, which quite destroys the pathetic effect.
It must be remembered that she is dressed in the "habit d'homme" of which her father says so poetically—
Je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire.
Je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire.
Observe, too, that she is still in the sack; the stage directions being, "Le bas du corps, qui est resté vêtu, est caché dans le sac."
BLANCHE.Où suis-je?TRIBOULET.Blanche! que t'a-t-on fait? Quel mystère infernal!Je crains en te touchant de te faire du mal...Ah! la cloche du bac est là sur la muraille:Ma pauvre enfant, peux-tu m'attendre un peu, que j'ailleChercher de l'eau....
BLANCHE.
Où suis-je?
TRIBOULET.
Blanche! que t'a-t-on fait? Quel mystère infernal!Je crains en te touchant de te faire du mal...Ah! la cloche du bac est là sur la muraille:Ma pauvre enfant, peux-tu m'attendre un peu, que j'ailleChercher de l'eau....
A surgeon arrives, and having examined her wound, says,
Elle est morte.Elle a dans le flanc gauche une plaie assez forte:Le sang a dû causer la mort en l'étouffant.TRIBOULET.J'ai tué mon enfant! J'ai tué mon enfant!(Il tombe sur le pavé.)
Elle est morte.Elle a dans le flanc gauche une plaie assez forte:Le sang a dû causer la mort en l'étouffant.
TRIBOULET.
J'ai tué mon enfant! J'ai tué mon enfant!
(Il tombe sur le pavé.)
FIN.
All this is very shocking; but it is not tragedy,—and it is not poetry. Yet it is what we are told has heaved the earth from under Racine!
After such a sentence as this, it must be, I know,rococoto name him; but yet I would say, in his own words,
D'adorateurs zélés à peine un petit nombreOse des premiers temps nous retracer quelque ombre;Le reste....Se fait initier à ces honteux mystères,Et blasphème le nom qu'ont invoqué leurs pères.
D'adorateurs zélés à peine un petit nombre
Ose des premiers temps nous retracer quelque ombre;
Le reste....
Se fait initier à ces honteux mystères,
Et blasphème le nom qu'ont invoqué leurs pères.
As I profess myself of thepetit nombre, you must let me recall to your memory some of the fragments of that noble edifice which Racine raised over him, and which, as they say, has now perished under the mighty power of Victor Hugo. It will not be lost time to do this; for look where you will among the splendid material of this uprooted temple, and you will find no morsel that is not precious; nothing that is not designed, chiseled, and finished by the hand of a master.
Racine has not produced dramas from ordinary life; it was not his object to do so, nor is it the end he has attained. It is the tragedy of heroes and demi-gods that he has given us, and not of cut-purses, buffoons, and street-walkers.
If the language of Racine be poetry, that of M. Hugo is not; and wherever the one is admired, the other must of necessity be valueless. It would be endless to attempt giving citations to prove the grace, the dignity, the majestic flow of Racine's verse; but let your eye run over "Iphigénie," for instance,—there also the loss of a daughter forms the tragic interest,—and compare such verses as those I have quoted above with any that you can find in Racine.
Hear the royal mother, for example, describe the scene that awaits her:
Un prêtre environné d'une foule cruellePortera sur ma fille une main criminelle,Déchirera son sein, et d'un œil curieuxDans son cœur palpitant consultera les dieux;—Et moi—qui l'amenai triomphante, adorée,Je m'en retournerai, seule, et désespérée.
Un prêtre environné d'une foule cruelle
Portera sur ma fille une main criminelle,
Déchirera son sein, et d'un œil curieux
Dans son cœur palpitant consultera les dieux;
—Et moi—qui l'amenai triomphante, adorée,
Je m'en retournerai, seule, et désespérée.
Surely this is of a better fabric than—
Tu sais ce coffre auprès du portrait de ta mère;L'habit est là,—je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire.
Tu sais ce coffre auprès du portrait de ta mère;
L'habit est là,—je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire.
I have little doubt but that the inspired author, when this noble phrase, "exprès fait faire," suggested itself, felt ready to exclaim, in the words of Philaminte and Bélise—
Ah! que cet "exprès fait" est d'un goût admirable!C'est à mon sentiment un endroit impayable;J'entends là-dessous un million de mots.——Il est vrai qu'il dit plus de choses qu'il n'est gros.
Ah! que cet "exprès fait" est d'un goût admirable!
C'est à mon sentiment un endroit impayable;
J'entends là-dessous un million de mots.—
—Il est vrai qu'il dit plus de choses qu'il n'est gros.
But to take the matter seriously, let us examine a little the ground upon which this school of dramatic writers found their claim to superiority over their classic predecessors. Is it not that they declare themselves to be more true to nature? And how do they support this claim? Were you to read through every play that M. Hugo has written—(and may you long be preserved from so great annoyance!)—I doubt if you would find a single personage with whom you could sympathise, or a single sentiment or opinionthat you would feel true to the nature within you.
It would be much less difficult, I conceive, so strongly to excite the imagination by the majestic eloquence of Racine's verses as to make you conscious of fellow-feeling with his sublime personages, than to debase your very heart and soul so thoroughly as to enable you to fancy that you have anything in common with the corrupt creations of Victor Hugo.
But even were it otherwise—were the scenes imagined by this new Shakspeare more like the real villany of human nature than those of the noble writer he is said to have set aside, I should still deny that this furnished any good reason for bringing such scenes upon the stage. Why should we make a pastime of looking upon vulgar vice? Why should the lowest passions of our nature be for ever brought out in parade before us?
"It is not and it cannot be for good."
The same reasoning might lead us to turn from the cultured garden, its marble terraces, its velvet lawns, its flowers and fruits of every clime, that we might take our pleasure in a bog—and for all consolation be told, when we slip and flounder about in its loathsome slime, that it is more natural.
I have written you a most unmerciful letter,and it is quite time that I should quit the theme, for I get angry—angry that I have no power to express in words all I feel on this subject. Would that for one short hour or so I had the pen which wrote the "Dunciad!"—I would use it—heartily—and then take my leave by saying,
"Rentre dans le néant, dont je t'ai fait sortir."
Versailles.—St. Cloud.
The Château de Versailles, that marvellouschef-d'œuvreof the splendid taste and unbounded extravagance of Louis le Grand, is shut up, and has been so for the last eighteen months. This is a great disappointment to such of our party as have never seen its interminable chambers and their gorgeous decorations. The reason assigned for this unwonted exclusion of the public is, that the whole of this enormous pile is filled with workmen; not, however, for the purpose of restoring it as a palace for the king, but of preparing it as a sort of universal museum for the nation. The buildings are in fact too extensive for a palace; and splendid as it is, I can easily believe no king of modern days would wish to inhabit it. I have sometimes wondered that Napoleon did not take a fancy to its vastness; but, I believe, he had no great taste in the upholstering line, and preferred converting his millions into the sinews of war, to the possession of all the carving and gilding in the world.
If this projected museum, however, should bemontéwith science, judgment and taste, and on the usual scale of French magnificence, it will be turning the costly whim ofle Grand Monarqueto excellent account.
The works which are going on there, were mentioned at a party the other evening, when some one stated that it was the intention of the King to convert one portion of the building into a gallery of national history, that should contain pictures of all the victories which France had ever won.
The remark made in reply amused me much, it was so very French.—"Ma foi!... Mais cette galerie-là doit être bien longue—et assez ennuyeuse pour les étrangers."
Though the château was closed to us, we did not therefore give up our purposed expedition to Versailles: every object there is interesting, not only from its splendour, but from the recollections it revives of scenes with whose history we are all familiar. Not only the horrors of the last century, but all the regal glories of the preceding one, are so well known to everybody, that there must have been a prodigious deal of gossip handed down to us from France, or we never could feel so much better acquainted with events which have passed at Versailles than with any scenes that have occurred at an equal distance of time at Windsor.
But so it is; and the English go there notmerely as strangers visiting a palace in a foreign land, but as pilgrims to the shrine of the princes and poets who have left their memory there, and with whose names and histories they are as familiar as if they belonged to us.
The day we passed among the royal spectres that never fail to haunt one at this palace of recollections, was a mixture of sunshine and showers, and our meditations seemed to partake of the vicissitude.
It is said that the great Louis reared this stupendous dwelling in which to pass the gilded hours of his idleness, because from St. Germain's he could see the plain of St. Denis, over which his funeral array was to pass, and the spire that marked the spot where his too precious dust was to be laid. Happy was it for him that the scutcheoned sepulchre of St. Denis was the most distant and most gloomy point to which his prophetic glance could reach! Could the great king have looked a little farther, and dreamed of the scenes which were destined to follow this dreaded passage to his royal tomb, how would he have blessed the fate which permitted him to pass into it so peacefully!
It is quite wonderful to see how much of the elaborate decoration and fine finishing of this sumptuous place remains uninjured after being visited by the most ferocious mob that ever collected together. Had they been less intent on thesavage object of their mission, it is probable that they would have sated their insane rage in destroying the palace itself, and the costly decorations of its singular gardens. Though far inferior in all ways either to the gardens of the Elector of Hesse Cassel at Wilhelmshöhe, or to those of the Grand Duke of Baden at Schwetzingen, those of Versailles are still highly interesting from many causes, and have so much of majesty and pomp about them, that one cannot look upon them without feeling that only the kings of the earth could ever have had a master's right to take their pleasure therein.
Before we entered upon the orderly confusion of groves, statues, temples, and water-works through which it is necessary to be led, we made our grey-headed guide lead us round and about every part of the building while we listened to his string of interesting old stories about Louis Seize, and Marie Antoinette, and Monsieur, and le Comte d'Artois, (for he seemed to have forgotten that they had borne any other titles than those he remembered in his youth,) all of whom seemed to retain exactly the same place in his imagination that they had occupied some fifty years ago, when he was assistant to the keeper of theorangerie. He boasted, with a vanity as fresh as if it had been newly born, of the honours of that near approach to royalty which he had formerly enjoyed; recounted how the Queen calledone of the orange-trees her own, because she fancied its blossoms sweeter than all the rest; and how from such a broad-leafed double-blossoming myrtle he had daily gathered abouquetfor her majesty, which was laid upon her toilet exactly at two o'clock. This old man knew every orange-tree, its birth and history, as well as a shepherd knows his flock. The venerable father of the band dates his existence from the reign of François Premier, and truly he enjoys a green old age. The one surnamed Louis le Grand, who was twin brother, as he said, to that mighty monarch, looks like a youth beside it—and you are told that it has not yet attained its full growth.
Oh! could those orange-trees but speak! could they recount to us the scenes they have witnessed; could they describe to us all the beauties over whom they have shed their fragrant flowers—all the heroes, statesmen, poets, and princes who have stepped in courtly paces beneath their shade; what a world of witty wickedness, of solemn warning, and of sad reflection, we should have!
But though the orange-trees were mute, our old man talked enough for them all. He was a faithful servant to the oldrégime: and indeed it should seem that there is something in the air of Versailles favourable alike to orange-trees and loyalty; for never did I hear, while wandering amidst their aristocratic perfume, one word that was not of sound orthodox legitimate loyalty to the race forwhose service they have for so many hundred years lived and bloomed. And still they blossom on, unscathed by revolution, unblighted though an usurper called them his;—happier in this than many of those who were once privileged to parade their dignity beneath their royal shade. The old servitors still move among these venerable vegetable grandees with the ceremonious air of courtiers, offering obsequious service, if not to the king himself, at least to his cousin-germans; and I am persuaded there is not one of these old serving-men, who wander about Versailles like ghosts revisiting the scenes of former happiness, who would not more humbly pull off his hat to François Premier or Louis le Grand in the greenhouse, than to any monarch of a younger race.
Napoleon has left less trace of himself and his giant power at Versailles than anywhere else; and the naïads and hamadryads still lift their sculptured heads with such an eternity of stately grace, as makes one feel the evanescent nature of the interlude that was played among them during the empire. It is of the old race of Bourbon that the whole region is redolent. "There," said our old guide, "is the range of chambers that was occupied by the Queen ... those were the King's apartments ... there were the royal children ... there Monsieur ... and there the Comte d'Artois."
Then we were led round to the fatal balconywhich overhangs the entrance. It was there that the fallen Marie Antoinette stood, her young son in her arms, and the doomed King her husband beside her, when she looked down upon the demons drunk with blood, who sought her life. I had heard all this hateful, but o'er-true history, more than once before on the same spot, and shortening the frightful detail, I hastened to leave it, though I believe the good old man would willingly have spent hours in dwelling upon it.
The day had been named as one on which the great waters were to play. But, little as Nature has to do with this pretty exhibition, she interfered on this occasion to prevent it. There was no water. The dry winter would, they told us, probably render it impossible to play them during the whole summer.
Here was another disappointment; but we bore it heroically, and after examining and much admiring the numberless allegories which people the grounds, and to the creation of which, a poet must have been as necessary as a sculptor, we adjourned to the Trianons, there to meditate on all the ceaseless vicissitudes of female influence from Maintenon to Josephine. It is but a sad review, but it may serve well to reconcile the majority of womankind to the tranquil dreaminess of obscurity.
The next thing to be done was dining—and most wretchedly done it was: but we foundsomething to laugh at, nevertheless; for when the wine brought to us was found too bad to drink, and we ordered better, no less than four bottles were presented to us in succession, each one increasing in price, but being precisely of the same quality. When we charged the black-eyed daughter of the house with the fact, she said with perfect good-humour, but nowise denying it, that she was very sorry they had no better. When the bill was brought, the same damsel civilly hoped that we should not think ten sous (half-a-franc) too much to pay for having opened so many bottles. Now, as three of them were firmly corked, and carefully sealed besides, we paid our ten sous without any complaining.
The looking at a fête at St. Cloud made part of the business of the day; but in order to get there, we were obliged to mount into one of those indescribable vehicles by which the gaybourgeoisieof Paris are conveyed from palace to palace, and fromguinguettetoguinguette. We had dismissed our comfortablecitadine, being assured that we should have no difficulty in finding another. In this, however, we were disappointed, the proportion of company appearing greatly to exceed that of the carriages which were to convey them, and we considered ourselves fortunate in securing places in an equipage which we should have scorned indignantly when we quitted Paris in the morning.
The whimsical gaiety of the crowd, all hurrying one way, was very amusing; all anxious to reach St. Cloud before the promised half-hour's display of water-works were over; all testifying, by look, gesture, voice, and words, that light effervescence of animal spirits so essentially characteristic of the country, and all forming a moving panorama so gay and so bright as almost to make one giddy by looking at it.
Some among the capricious variety of vehicles were drawn by five or six horses. These were in truth nothing but gaily-painted waggons, hung on rude springs, with a flat awning over them. In several I counted twenty persons; but there were some few among them in which one or perhaps two seats were still vacant—and then the rapturous glee of the party was excited to the utmost by the efforts of the driver, as gay as themselves, to obtain customers to fill the vacancies.
Every individual overtaken on the road was invited by the most clamorous outcries to occupy the vacant seats. "St. Cloud! St. Cloud! St. Cloud!" shouted by the driver and re-echoed by all his company, rang in the startled ears of all they passed; and if a traveller soberly journeying in the contrary direction was met, the invitation was uttered with tenfold vehemence, accompanied by shouts of laughter; which, far from offending the party who provoked it, was invariably answered withequal frolic and fun. But when upon one occasion a carriage posting almost at full gallop towards Versailles was encountered, the ecstasy of mirth with which it was greeted exceeds description. "St. Cloud! St. Cloud! St. Cloud!—Tournez donc, messieurs—tournez à St. Cloud!" The shouts and vociferations were enough to frighten all the horses in the world excepting French ones; and they must be so thoroughly broken to the endurance of din, that there is little danger of their starting at it. I could have almost fancied that upon this occasion they took part in it; for they shook their ropes and their tassels, snorted and tossed, very much as if they enjoyed the fun.
After all, we, and many hundred others, arrived too late for the show, the supply of water failing even before the promised half-hour had elapsed. The gardens, however, were extremely full, and all the world looked as gay and as well-pleased as if nothing had gone wrong.
I wonder if these people ever grow old,—that is, old as we do, sitting in the chimney-corner, and dreaming no more of fêtes than of playing at blind-man's-buff. I have certainly seen here, as elsewhere, men, and women too, grey-headed, and wrinkled enough to be as solemn as the most venerable judge upon the bench; but I never saw any that did not seem ready to hop, skip, jump, waltz, and make love.
History of the Vicomte de B——. His opinions.—State of France.—Expediency.
I have had a curious conversation this morning with an old gentleman whom I believed to be a thorough legitimate, but who turns out, as you will see, something else—I hardly know what to call it—doctrinaireI suppose it must be, yet it is not quite that either.
But before I give you his opinions, let me present himself. M. le Vicomte de B—— is a person that I am very sure you would be happy to know anywhere. His residence is not in Paris, but at a château that he describes as the most profound retirement imaginable; yet it is not more than thirty leagues from Paris. He is a widower, and his only child is a daughter, who has been some years married.
The history of this gentleman, given as he gave it himself, was deeply interesting. It was told with much feeling, some wit, and no prolixity. Were I, however, to attempt to repeat it to you in the same manner, it would become long andtedious, and in every way as unlike as possible to what it was as it came fresh from the living fountain.
In brief, then, I will tell you that he was the younger son of an old and noble house, and, for seven years, page to Louis Seize. He must have been strikingly handsome; and young as he was at the time of the first revolution, he seems already to have found the court a very agreeable residence. He had held a commission in the army about two years, when his father, and his only brother, his elder by ten years, were obliged to leave the country, to save their lives.
The family was not a wealthy one, and great sacrifices were necessary to enable them to live in England. What remained became eventually the property of our friend, both father and brother having died in exile. With this remnant of fortune he married, not very prudently; and having lost his wife and disposed of his daughter in marriage, he is now living in his large dilapidated château, with one female servant, and an old man as major-domo, valet, and cook, who served with him in La Vendée, and who, by his description, must be a perfect Corporal Trim.
I would give a good deal to be able to accept the invitation I have received to pay him a visit at his castle. I think I should find just such aménageas that which Scott so beautifully describes in one of his prefaces. But the wish isvain, such an excursion being quite impossible; so I must do without the castle, and content myself with the long morning visits that its agreeable owner is so kind as to make us.
I have seen him frequently, and listened with great interest to his little history; but it was only this morning that the conversation took a speculative turn. I was quite persuaded, but certainly from my own preconceived notions only, and not from anything I have heard him say, that M. de B—— was a devoted legitimate. An old noble—page to Louis Seize—a royalist soldier in La Vendée,—how could I think otherwise? Yet he talked to me as ... you shall hear.
Our conversation began by his asking me if I was conscious of much material change in Paris since I last visited it.
I replied, that I certainly saw some, but perhaps suspected more.
"I dare say you do," said he; "it is what your nation is very apt to do: but take my advice,—believe what you see, and nothing else."
"But what one can see in the course of a month or two is so little, and I hear so much."
"That is true; but do you not find that what you hear from one person is often contradicted by another?"
"Constantly," I replied.
"Then what can you do at last but judge by what you see?"
"Why, it appears to me that the better plan would be to listen to all parties, and let my balancing belief incline to the testimony that has most weight."
"Then be careful that this weight be not false. There are some who will tell you that the national feeling which for so many centuries has kept France together as a powerful and predominating people is loosened, melted, and gone;—that though there are Frenchmen left, there is no longer a French people."
"To any who told me so," I replied, "I would say, that the division they complained of, arose not so much from any change in the French character, as from the false position in which many were unhappily placed at the present moment. Men's hearts are divided because they are diversely drawn aside from a common centre."
"And you would say truly," said he; "but others will tell you, that regenerated France will soon dictate laws to the whole earth; that her flag will become the flag of all people—her government their government; and that their tottering monarchies will soon crumble into dust, to become part and parcel of her glorious republic."
"And to these I should say, that they appeared to be in a very heavy slumber, and that the sooner they could wake out of it and shake off their feverish dreams, the better it would be for them."
"But what would your inference be as to the state of the country from such reports as these?"
"I should think that, as usual, truth lay between. I should neither believe that France was so united as to constitute a single-minded giant, nor so divided as to have become a mass of unconnected atoms, or a race of pigmies."
"You know," he continued, "that the fashionable phrase for describing our condition at present is, that we are ina state of transition,—from butterflies to grubs, or from grubs to butterflies, I know not which; but to me it seems that the transition is over,—and it is high time that it should be so. The country has known neither rest nor peace for nearly half a century; and powerful as she has been and still is, she must at last fall a prey to whoever may think it worth their while to despoil her, unless she stops short while it is yet time, and strengthens herself by a little seasonable repose."
"But how is this repose to be obtained?" said I. "Some of you wish to have one king, some another, and some to have no king at all. This is not a condition in which a country is very likely to find repose."
"Not if each faction be of equal power, or sufficiently so to persevere in struggling for the mastery. Our only hope lies in the belief that there is no such equality. Let him who has seized the helm keep it: if he be an able helmsman,he will keep us in smooth water;—and it is no longer time for us to ask how he got his commission; let us be thankful that he happens to be of the same lineage as those to whose charge we have for so many ages committed the safety of our bark."
I believe my countenance expressed my astonishment; for the old gentleman smiled and said,
"Do I frighten you with my revolutionary principles?"
"Indeed, you surprise me a little," I replied: "I should have thought that the rights of a legitimate monarch would have been in your opinion indefeasible."
"Where is the law, my good lady, that may control necessity?... I speak not of my own feelings, or of those of the few who were born like myself in another era. Very terrible convulsions have passed over France, and perhaps threaten the rest of Europe. I have for many years stood apart and watched the storm; and I am quite sure, and find much comfort in the assurance, that the crimes and passions of men cannot change the nature of things. They may produce much misery, they may disturb and confuse the peaceful current of events; but man still remains as he was, and will seek his safety and his good, where he has ever found them—under the shelter of power."
"There, indeed, I quite agree with you. Butsurely the more lawful and right the power is, the more likely it must be to remain tranquil and undisputed in its influence."
"France has no longer the choice," said he, interrupting me abruptly. "I speak but as a looker-on; my political race is ended; I have more than once sworn allegiance to the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, and certainly nothing would tempt me to hold office or take oath under any other. But do you think it would be the duty of a Frenchman who has three grandsons native to the soil of France,—do you really think it the duty of such a one to invoke civil war upon the land of his fathers, and remembering only his king, to forget his country? I will not tell you, that if I could wake to-morrow morning and find a fifth Henry peacefully seated on the throne of his fathers, I might not rejoice; particularly if I were sure that he would be as likely to keep the naughty boys of Paris in order as I think his cousin Philippe is. Were there profit in wishing, I would wish for France a government so strong as should effectually prevent her from destroying herself; and that government should have at its head a king whose right to reign had come to him, not by force of arms, but by the will of God in lawful succession. But when we mortals have a wish, we may be thankful if the half of it be granted;—and, in truth, I think that I have the first and better half ofmine to rejoice in. There is a stout and sturdy strength in the government of King Philippe, which gives good hope that France may recover under its protection from her sins and her sorrows, and again become the glory of her children."
So saying, M. de B—— rose to leave me, and putting out his hand in the English fashion, added, "I am afraid you do not like me so well as you did.... I am no longer a true and loyal knight in your estimation ... but something, perhaps, very like a rebel and a traitor?... Is it not so?"
I hardly knew how to answer him. He certainly had lost a good deal of that poetical elevation of character with which I had invested him; yet there was a mixture of honesty and honour in his frankness that I could not help esteeming. I thanked him very sincerely for the openness with which he had spoken, but confessed that I had not quite made up my mind to think that expediency was the right rule for human actions. It certainly was not the noblest, and therefore I was willing to believe that it was not the best.
"I must go," said he, looking at his watch, "for it is my hour of dining, or I think I could dispute with you a little upon your wordexpediency. Whatever is really expedient for us to do—that is, whatever is best for us in the situation in which we are actually placed, isreally right. Adieu!—I shall present myself again ere long; and if you admit me, I shall be thankful."
So saying, he departed,—leaving us all, I believe, a little less in alt about him than before, but certainly with no inclination to shut our doors against him.
Père Lachaise.—Mourning in public.—Defacing the Tomb of Abelard and Eloïsa.—Baron Munchausen.—Russian Monument.—Statue of Manuel.
Often as I have visited the enclosure of Père Lachaise, it was with feelings of renewed curiosity and interest that I yesterday accompanied thither those of my party who had not yet seen it. I was well pleased to wander once more through the cypress alleys, now grown into fine gloomy funereal shades, and once more to feel that wavering sort of emotion which I always experience there;—one moment being tempted to smile at the fantastic manner in which affection has been manifested,—and the next, moved to tears by some touch of tenderness, that makes itself felt even amidst the vast collection of childish superstitions with which the place abounds.
This mournful garden is altogether a very solemn and impressive spectacle. What a world of mortality does one take in at one glance! It will set one thinking a little, however fresh from the busy idleness of Paris,—of Paris, that antidote toall serious thought, that especial paradise for the worshippers ofSans Souci.
A profusion of spring flowers are at this season hourly shedding their blossoms over every little cherished enclosure. There is beauty, freshness, fragrance on the surface.... It is a fearful contrast!
I do not remember any spot, either in church or churchyard, where the unequal dignity of the memorials raised above the dust which lies so very equally beneath them all is shown in a manner to strike the heart so forcibly as it does at Père Lachaise. Here, a shovelful of weeds have hardly room to grow; and there rises a costly pile, shadowing its lowly neighbour. On this side the narrow path, sorrow is wrapped round and hid from notice by the very poverty that renders it more bitter; while, on the other, wealth, rank, and pride heap decorations over the worthless clay, striving vainly to conceal its nothingness. It is an epitome of the world they have left: remove the marble and disturb the turf, human nature will be found to wear the same aspect under both.
Many groups in deep mourning were wandering among the tombs; so many indeed, that when we turned aside from one, with the reverence one always feels disposed to pay to sorrow, we were sure to encounter another. This manner of lamenting in public seems so strange to us! Howwould it be for a shy English mother, who sobs inwardly and hides the aching sorrow in her heart's core,—how would she bear to bargain at the public gate for a pretty garland, then enter amidst an idle throng, with the toy hanging on her finger, and, before the eyes of all who choose to look, suspend it over the grave of her lost child? An Englishwoman surely must lose her reason either before or after such an act;—if it were not the effect of madness, it would be the cause of it. Yet such is the effect of habit, or rather of the different tone of manners and of mind here, that one may daily and hourly see parents, most devoted to their children during their lives, and most heart-broken when divided from them by death, perform with streaming eyes these public lamentations.
It is nevertheless impossible, let the manner of it differ from our own as much as it may, to look at the freshly-trimmed flowers, the garlands, and all the pretty tokens of tender care which meet the eye in every part of this wide-spread mass of mortal nothingness, without feeling that real love and real sorrow have been at work.
One small enclosure attracted my attention as at once the mostbizarreand the most touching of all. It held the little grassy tomb of a young child, planted round with choice flowers; and at its head rose a semicircular recess, containing, together with a crucifix and other religious emblems,several common playthings, which had doubtless been the latest joy of the lost darling. His age was stated to have been three years, and he was mourned as the first and only child after twelve years of marriage.
Below this melancholy statement was inscribed—
"Passans! priez pour sa malheureuse mère!"
Might we not say, that