The Tuileries—The Gardens—The Statues—The Cabinets de Lecture—The King’s Band—Regulations of the Gardens—Yankee modesty—The English Parks—Proper estimate of riches—Policy of cultivating a taste for innocent pleasures—Advantages of gardens—Should be made ornamental—Cause of the French Revolution—Mr. Burke’s notion of the English Parks—Climate of France.
The Tuileries—The Gardens—The Statues—The Cabinets de Lecture—The King’s Band—Regulations of the Gardens—Yankee modesty—The English Parks—Proper estimate of riches—Policy of cultivating a taste for innocent pleasures—Advantages of gardens—Should be made ornamental—Cause of the French Revolution—Mr. Burke’s notion of the English Parks—Climate of France.
Paris, July 24th, 1835.
I amgoing now to escort you to the Tuileries, for which you must scramble through a few filthy lanes a quarter of a mile towards the south-west. Who would live in this rank old Paris if it were not for its gardens? This garden is in the midst of the city, and contains near a hundred acres of ground. It has the Seine on the south side; the Palace of the Tuileries on the east; and on the north, the beautiful houses of the Rue Rivoli, the street intervening; and on the west, the Place Louis XV. between it andthe Champs Elysées. The whole is enclosed with an iron railing tipped with gold near the Palace, and terraces, having a double row of tile trees are raised along the north and south sides. A beautiful parterre is spread out in front of the Palace, of oranges, red-rosed laurels, and other shrubs, with a reservoir,jets d’eaux, vases, and statues. The chief walks also have orange-trees on both margins during the summer, and one of these, as wide as Chestnut-street, runs from the centre pavilion of the palace through the middle of the garden, and continuing up through the Champs Elysées to theBarrière de l’Etoile, terminates in a full view of the great triumphal arch of Napoleon. In the interior are plots of woodland, and chairs, upon which, at two sous the sitting, you may repose or read in the shade, and little cabinets, which offer you for a sou your choice of the newspapers. The area is of hard earth and gravel, relieved here and there by enclosures of verdure; and on the west end, an octagonal lake is inhabited by swans, and fishes, and river gods, and a fountain is jetting its silvery streams in the air. This is the garden of the Tuileries. The whole surface is sprinkled with heathen mythology. Hercules strangles the Hydra, Theseus deals blows to the Minotaur, Prometheus sits sullen on his rock, and Antinous is mad to see his own gardens outdone, and the Pius Æneas, little Jule by the hand, bears off his aged parent upon his shoulders. Venus, too, looks beautiful on the back of a tortoise, and Ceres is beautiful, her head coiffed in the latest fashion with sheaves of wheat.
On the side next the palace, you will see a knife-grinder, whom everybody admires, and statues of ancient heroes and statesmen majestic on their pedestals,—Pericles, Cincinnatus, Scipio, Cæsar, and Spartacus. You may imagine what life these images, set out alone and in groups through the garden, give to the perspective. The whole scene is as beautiful as my description of it is detestable. The French are justly proud of this garden, and are every year increasing the quantity of its statuary: it will become at length one of the splendid galleries of the capital; its silent lessons improving the public taste in the arts and elegances of life: how much better than the lessons of the schools! I like to see, in spite of English authority, a good deal of art in a city garden; a rude and uncivilized field seems to me no more appropriate there than a savage and unpolished community.
In this garden, there is no drinking, no smoking, no long faces waiting the preliminary soups, or turning up of noses over the relics of a departed dinner. It is a spot sacred to the elegant and intellectual enjoyments. The great walks are filled every fine evening with a full stream of fashionable company, and that near the Rue Rivoli has always a hedge of ladies extending along each margin, the third of a mile. In another section, a thousand or two of children are engaged in their infantine sports, and their army of nurses are gathering also a share of the health and amusements. Here are the most graceful little mothers, and children, and nurses, in the world; I will send you over one of each, some of these days, for a pattern.
How delightful to walk of an early morning amidst this silent congregation of statues of eminent men, of heroes, and mythological deities. I often rise with the first dawn for the sole luxury of this enjoyment. Very early, theCabinet de Lectureopens its treasures to the anxious politicians, who sit retired here and there through the shady elms. One, with a doctrinal air, spreads open the “Journal des Débats;” reads, ruminates, ponders, and now and then writes down an idea on his tablets; another pours out his whole spiritthrough his tangled hair and grisly mustachios, devouring the “National;” he rises sometimes, clenches his two fists, and sits down again; and a third, in a neat and venerable garb, a snuff-coloured coat and tie-wig, his handkerchief and snuff-box at his side (from the Faubourg St. Germain), lays deliberately upon his lap the “Quotidienne.” And here and there you will see a diligent school boy preparing his college recitations; perusing his Ovid at the side of a Daphne and Apollo, or by a group of Dryades skulking behind an oak, or of Naiades plunging into a fountain.
You will see one individual upon the southern terrace, his hands clasped, walking lonely, or standing still, his eyes stretched towards the west, till a tear steals down his cheeks. He is a stranger, and a thousand leagues of ocean yawn between him and his native country! I love this terrace of all things; it has a look towards home. When I receive your letters, I come here to read them; and when a pretty woman honours me with her company, why we come hither together, and in this shady bower, I tell her of our squaw wives and the little pappooses, until the sun fades away in the west.
All day long, this elegant saloon has its society, and a lady can walk in it, unaccompanied, when and whither she pleases. Every day is fashionable, but some more than others, and from four till six are the fashionable hours. The crowd by degrees thickens, the several groups are formed, and towards four the panorama is complete. This is the time that one stands gaping at the long file of ladies upon each side of the wide walk, or that one strolls up and down eyeing them along the intervening avenue, or airs or fans one’s idle minutes upon the terrace overlooking this scene of enchantment. I never venture in here, without saying that part of the Lord’s prayer about temptation, which I used to leave out in the Coal Region.
At length, the day is subdued, and the long glimmering twilight, peculiar to these northern climates, wanes away gently into night. Then the king’s band strikes up its concert from the front of the palace, and then you will see the gravelled walk leading to the steps of the royal residence, and the transversal alley, filled with ten thousand listeners, bound in the spell of Rossini and Mozart for an hour; an hour, too, in which the air has a more balmy fragrance, and the music a more delicious harmony.
Innumerable lights, in the meantime, shine out from the palace windows, and the Rue Rivoli, and glimmer through the tufted trees of the garden. The plantation of elms has also, at this hour, its little enchantments. Lovers, using the sweet opportunities of the night, and seated apart from the crowd, breathe their soft whisperings into each other’s ears, in a better music than the king’s; and you can see visions of men and women just flit by you now and then in the doubtful light, and fade away into the thin air. But I am venturing upon the poetical point of my description, which I had better leave to your fancy. Alas, I squandered away all my poetry last week upon the Palais Royal, and have left myself nothing but mere prose to describe to you the exquisite and incomparable Tuileries.
The regulations of this garden are simple. The world is admitted, if trim and dressed decently, with the morning dawn, and is dispersed about nine in the evening by the beating of a drum. One is not permitted to enter with anything of a large bundle. The Minister of Finance was stopped the other day; he was attempting to enter with the budget for this year! The rules are enforced by an individualaccoutred in a beard, mustachios, red breeches and a carabine, who walks gravely up and down at the entrance of each gate.
The statues (Lucretia and all) are exposed in a state of the most unsophisticated nakedness. If mother Eve should come back, she would find things here just as she left them, with the exception of the aprons. This to us green Americans, at our arrival, is a subject of great scandal. I had with me a modest Yankee (please excuse the tautology) on my first visit here, and we stumbled first on a Diana, which was passable, for she apologized,manibus passis, for her deshabille as well as she could; then a Hercules; and at length we fell in with a Venus just leaving her bath. “Come,” said he, interrupting my curiosity, and drawing me aside, “let us go out, I don’t think this is a decent place.” You must not imagine, however, my dear, that you Americans are essentially more modest thanweFrench * * * * * * Things of every day’s occurrence are never a subject of remark; and if our first mother had not begun these modesties of the toilette, the world might have gone on, as in her time, and no one would have taken notice of it. Americans (I presume I may mention it to their credit) aremore easily reconciled to the customs of foreign nations than any other people; they are more plastic, and easily fitted to every condition of life. Talk to any one of your acquaintance, of a community of lodging in her mansion in Chestnut-street, and she will have a fit of hysterics at least, and six months after, you will find her climbing up a long Parisian staircase as long as Jacob’s ladder, in common with half a dozen of families, and delighted with her apartments. An English or Frenchman in foreign countries can no more change his habits than the Æthiop his skin.
I may as well go ongardeningthrough the whole of this letter. Our little squares and squaroids of Philadelphia have their little advantages. I do not mean to disparage them, but from want of extent they are not susceptible of any elegant improvement, nor do they furnish a promiscuous multitude with the necessary accommodations; they lose, therefore, their rank in society, and become unfashionable. All your pretty squarets—and I believe those of New York too—could be put into the Tuileries alone.
I have not yet seen the English Parks, but report says they would swallow up our wholecity. And I have known even these little spots of ours to be looked at with a suspicious eye. I have heard men calculate the value of the houses and other things which might be built upon them. The “Independence Square” is worth a thousand dollars a foot, every inch of it; why don’t the New Yorkquois sell their “Battery” alongside the sea, which is big enough without it? Oh, the magnificent wharves, and oh, the warehouses and hotels, that might grow upon it.
Besides, who but the caterpillars enter it, and even they will be starved out shortly. With all its breezes from the sea, its port more beautiful than Naples, its fleets laden with India, Persia, and Arabia, a fashionable woman will not look through the fence.
Railroads and spinning-jennies are, to be sure, excellent things; but they lead us too much to measure value by its capacity to supply some physical necessity, and to forget that the moral condition of man has also its wants. If riches only were necessary to the prosperity of a nation, I should to-day, perhaps, instead of the Boulevards, be strolling through the fashionable streets of Babylon. If a painting, or a statue, by perpetuating the memory of virtuous and religious men, and the glorious events ofhistory, has the power of elevating the mind and inspiring it with emulous feelings, as Scipio Africanus and other great men used to testify; if it has the power of improving taste, which is improving virtue, or affording pleasure, which is a part of our natural wants, or even of employing time innocently, which might be otherwise employed wickedly—perhaps in getting drunk at the tavern—why then, a statue, or a painting, is not only more ornamental, but as useful as a steam-engine or a spinning-jenny.
The Scythian who preferred the neighing of a horse to a fine air of Timotheus, no doubt was a good Scythian; but we are not, in our present relations with the world, to remain long in a state of Scythian simplicity, and it is worth while to consider what is about to be the condition of a people, who have grown luxurious, consequently vicious, without the refinements and distractions of the fine arts and liberal amusements. Utility, with all her arithmetic, very often miscalculates. By keeping vacant spaces open in the midst of a town, an equivalent value is given to other localities. A garden would bring many, who now waste their time in travelling into airy situations, to the neighbourhood of the Exchange and other places of business, and it would drive many out from such places who may as well be anywhere else; whose time, at feast, is of less value.
Since human nature will have her diversion, the business of the statesman is to amuse her innocently; that is, to multiply pleasures which are cheap and accessible to all—pleasures which are healthy, and especially those which are public. Men never take bad habits under the eye of the world; but secret amusements are sedentary, unhealthy, and all lead to disreputable and dangerous excesses. Every one knows the social disposition of our race; it is a disposition founded upon both our good and bad passions—upon our love of kindred, and other loves, upon a sense of weakness and dependence,—and curiosity, vanity, and even malevolence, find their gratification in social intercourse. It is therefore the duty of statesmen to study that our crowds and meetings of pleasure, which they cannot prevent, should not be in gin-shops and taverns.
Let us have gardens, then, and other public places, where we may see our friends, and parade our vanities, if you will, before the eyes of the world. Did you ever know any one who was not delighted with a garden? What are thebest descriptions of the best poets? Their gardens. It is the original taste, it is transmitted from Paradise, and is almost the only gratification of the rich that does not cloy in the possession. I know an English gentleman here who has worn out all the pleasures that money can buy at twenty-eight; he is peevish, ill-natured, and insupportable; we sometimes walk together into the Luxembourg, where he suddenly brightens up, and is agreeable, and as happy for a while as if he was no lord.
To know the advantages of these places to the poor, one must visit the close alleys, crowded courts, and over-peopled habitations, of an over-grown city; where vices and diseases are festering in secret in the heart of the community. Why send missionaries to the South Seas, while their infected districts are unreclaimed? or why talk of popular religion, and morals, and education? The people who would employ about half the care and expense in preventing a disposition to vice, that they now employ in correcting it, would be the people the most happy and innocent of the earth. The best specifics I can conceive against the vagabond population of a city, are gardens, airy streets, and neat houses. Men’s habits of life are degraded always to themeanness of their lodgings; if we build “beggar’s nests,” we must expect beggars to breed in them.
Gardens give a taste for out-door exercises, and thereby promote health and physical developement; and they aid in keeping up the energy of a nation, which city life, in depriving the women and children of air and exercise, tends perpetually to destroy. To the children, they give not only habits of health, cheerfulness, and gracefulness, but an emulation of neatness and good manners, which they would surely not acquire under the sober stimulus of home and the nursery; to the nurses, too, they impart a valuable share of the same benefits. Finally, by gardens and other embellishments of a city, we induce strangers to reside there. About fifty thousand English are now residents in France, and their necessary expenditure is rated at half a million of pounds sterling annually. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say, that no property pays so abundant a revenue to a city as its gardens. What is it that produces to a city the same reputation? Who speaks of Madrid without its Prado, of London without its Parks? And why should Paris be the choice residence of Europe, but for its galleries and public gardens, its Tuileries, its Palais Royal, its Luxembourg, its Tivoli, its Champs Elysées, and Bois de Boulogne?
But to make gardens is not enough; you must cultivate the public taste for them. For this, it is necessary that they be made ornamental, kept by a vigilant police, and that fashionable women should frequent them. The French women have a better sense of their advantages than to suffer their fine gardens to become vulgar. They have, to be sure, days and hours that are more genteel than others; but they are to be seen there every day, and there is room for all classes without incommoding each other. Even the poorer classes will not frequent a garden that only poor devils visit. They are flattered to be seen within the sphere of good company, and are encouraged to appear there with becoming decency. It is not to be denied that the poorer people of Paris are decent in their manners and dress, and graceful beyond the example of all other nations. In what more serviceable manner can a lady of fortune benefit her country and humanity, than by improving the manners and elevating the character of the lower classes? She is taking care of her own interests in taking care of the poor. It was thepride of the French nobility, and not the Jacobins, that set loose the many-headed tyranny of their revolution: it was not Robespierre, but Louis XIV. and Louis XV., who put the axe to the throat of their unhappy successors.
Much intercourse of mind or society is not, indeed, to be expected between two classes of a different education and fortune; nor can it be desired by either; but there is nothing in our code of morals or religion which can justify the one in treating the other with unkindness or incivility. True dignity has no need to stand on the defensive. A lady, who has little of this quality, will always be most afraid to compromise it by vulgar associations; it is right to be economical of what one has but little. The contempt of the rabble, of which we hear so much, is three-fourths of it parade and affectation. She who abroad hangs the common world with so much scorn upon her nose, lives at home, under the same roof, almost at the same table, with the veriest rabble of the whole community, her own servants and slaves. Why should we abandon the Tuileries more than the Boulevards, and why the Washington-square more than Chestnut-street, because the common people walk in it? I have written upon thissubject more at length, and more earnestly, than perhaps I ought, from the mortification, the almost indignation, I feel, after witnessing the utility and ornament of gardens in other countries, at the immense defect occasioned by their stupid omission, in the face of European experience, in the beauty and comfort of our American cities.
But, without more scolding, let us see how far the evil may admit of a remedy. Mr. Burke, in pleading for the English Parks, which the Utilitarians of the day proposed to sacrifice to some temporary convenience or miserly policy, called them the “lungs of the city,” and supplicated the government not to obstruct the public health in one of its most vital and necessary functions. The question here is with our Philadelphia, which never had any other lungs than the grave-yards to supply these respiratory organs. I propose that some one of your old bachelors, as rich as Girard, shall die, as soon as he can be conveniently be spared, and leave us a second legacy, to be appropriated as follows: to buy two lots of fifty acres each upon the west bank of the Schuylkill; (they ought to be in the centre of the city, but time will place them there;) the one for the parade of equipages, display of horsemanship, and military training, and for the games and ceremonies of our public festivals; the other to be sacred to the arts, and to refined and intellectual pleasures.
I know of no benefaction by which he could impose upon his posterity so sacred a debt of gratitude; there is none, surely, which should confer upon its author so lasting and glorious a reputation.
I have not a word of news, only that my health has improved, very much to the credit of this French climate; you would think it was Spartacus who had stepped from his pedestal in the Tuileries. The French summer is delightful; only think of reading at three in the morning without a candle, and stepping about in the daylight till ten o’clock at night. Adieu.
The Three Glorious Days—The plump little Widow—Marriage of fifteen young Girls—Shrines of the Martyrs—Louis Philippe—Dukes of Orleans and Nemours—The National Guards—Fieschi—The Infernal Machine—Marshal Mortier and twelve persons killed—Dismissal of the Troops—The Queen and her Daughters—Disturbed state of France—The Chamber of Deputies—Elements of support to the present Dynasty—Private character of the King—The Daily Journals—The Chamber of Peers—Bonaparte.
The Three Glorious Days—The plump little Widow—Marriage of fifteen young Girls—Shrines of the Martyrs—Louis Philippe—Dukes of Orleans and Nemours—The National Guards—Fieschi—The Infernal Machine—Marshal Mortier and twelve persons killed—Dismissal of the Troops—The Queen and her Daughters—Disturbed state of France—The Chamber of Deputies—Elements of support to the present Dynasty—Private character of the King—The Daily Journals—The Chamber of Peers—Bonaparte.
Paris, August 1st, 1835.
TheParisians have set apart three days annually, to commemorate their Revolution of 1830—the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July; they call them the “Three Glorious Days.” On the 27th are showers of sermons all over town in the churches, and fastings over good dinners in the cafés. Pious visits, too, are paid to the graves of those who had the glory of being killed on the original “three days,” who are called “the martyrs,” and are buried on or nearthe spot upon which they were killed. The military parade is the 28th, and the gala, or jubilee day, is the 29th.
As the time approaches, the town is big with visiters, and all is noise and preparation. Yew trees are planted by the graves of the “martyrs,” where the dogs and other obscene animals, the rest of the year, wallow; and willows are set a-weeping several days before. Theatres are erected at the same time, and orchestras and platforms for the buffoons; and the illuminations, which they keep ready made from year to year, are brought out upon the Champs Elysées. Every evening the whole of Paris comes out to see these works, and says, this is for the mourning of the 27th, and this is for the dancing of the 29th. On the present occasion a rain had turned the streets into mud; but the French turn out on their fête days, mud or no mud, and in numbers far exceeding our notions of arithmetic.
The 27th arrived, and every street and avenue poured their waves into the Boulevards and Champs Elysées, as so many rivers their waters to the ocean. A plump little widow of our hotel offered to guide my inexperience in the crowd, which I accepted. I took her for herskill in the town, and she for my manhood, as a blind person takes a lame one for the use of his eyes. I should have profited by her services, but she was no sooner in the street, than she ran off in a hurry, each of her little feet doing its uttermost to get before the other, and kept me running after her all day long;—you have sometimes seen a colt running after its mother, now falling behind, and now catching up with her; and there were just in front of me, I verily believe, five thousand French women, each exhibiting a pair of pretty ancles. A stranger has a great many things to see that are no curiosities to the natives. Never take a native with you as a guide, but always some one who knows no more than yourself.
On these muddy occasions, a French woman just places her hand upon the right hip, gathering up her lower gear on the nether side to the level of the knee, and then whips along, totally regardless of that part of the world that is behind her; as in a chariot race you see the charioteer bending over the lash, and striving after the one just before him, not caring a straw for those he has passed by. You might have seen my guide and me, at one time walking slowly and solemnly in a file of sisters of charity, andthen looking down upon an awful procession from a gallery of the Boulevards; next you might have seen us behind a bottle of “vin ordinaire” at the café Turc, and then seated snugly together at the church of St. Roch.
Here we witnessed an interesting ceremony—a marriage. Fifteen young girls, and the same number of young men, children of the martyrs, were intermarried. They are apportioned by the government; and the marrying is to continue till the whole stock is married off—as encouragement to new “martyrs.” We stayed one hour here, and had a great deal of innocent squeezing, with prayers and sacred music, and then we went home and had our dinner.
After this repast, I sallied out again, under the ægis of my same guide, who now led me through long and intricate passages, and through thickets of men and women, all getting along in the slime of each other’s tracks towards the Hotel de Ville. Here, in the midst of an immense crowd, were the shrines of the martyrs, and over them a chapel of crape, with all the other mournful emblems. The relatives of the deceased were hanging up chaplets, and reverend men were saying prayers, and sprinkling holy water upon the graves.
July 28th.
Thisday was given to the general parade. More than a hundred thousand of the National Guard was arrayed upon the Boulevards; and the side walks were choaked up, and running over with the crowd, which was pushed back now and then, in great fright and confusion, by the gens d’armes, and the tails of the horses; and all the rest of Paris looked on from the windows, balconies, and roofs of the adjoining houses—I as much noticed, as a leaf of the Alleghany, upon a verandah of the Boulevard du Temple. Great was the noise, and long and patient the expectation. At length, there was a sudden flustering and bustle among the multitude, and I sat up closer to Madame Dodu—it was the King! He was accompanied by the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Nemours, his sons, and passed along the line, followed by officers on horseback, very grim. He was received with not very ardent acclamations. Compared to “General Jackson’s visit,” it was a fifth-rate thing. Not a bird, though many flew over us, fell dead.
But how shall I describe to you the magnificence of the pomp? since in our country there is no object of comparison. How should we—we, who can hardly contain the Washington Grays, or Blues—which is it? with Johnson’s band, and the twenty little boys who run after them—how should we be able to conceive of a regular infantry of more than a hundred thousand men, with their ten thousand drums, and trumpets, and clarions, and accoutred in uniform, and trained to the last grace and dexterity of discipline? But, alas! what avails to individual power this exhibition of human strength, since we see its haughtiest pretensions, every day, the sport of some ignominious chance?
Achilles, they say, was killed by the most effeminaterouéof all Troy; and his great descendant, Pyrrhus, by an old woman, who lived “au troisième,” and pitched, Heaven knows what, upon his head through her window. What signifies the strength of Hercules, if it may be outwrestled by a vapour?—It is vexatious, too, to see how much events are under the control of accident, and how little Providence seems to trouble itself about them; and to think how vain a thing is that boast of the world—human wisdom! I knew a man, who missed his fortune, and was ruined by his prudence; and another, who saved his house from being burnt by his foolishness! Who has not heard of noless an Emperor than Bonaparte being saved by some vanity of his wife?—the infernal machine blowing up, she fixing her tournure, or something in her chamber, and he fretting at the delay, and churning his spite through his teeth? Why, I have read of a lady who saved her life by staying at home at loo, on a Sunday, instead of going to prayers, where the church fell in, and killed the whole congregation. Yet, with all this experience, men still continue to be haughty of their strength, self-sufficient of their wisdom, and to throw Providence in each other’s teeth when anything happens.
But this morality is interrupting the thread of my story. As the king and his escort approached the east end of the Boulevards, a deadly machine, prepared by a man named Fieschi, (infernal machine maker to his Majesty,) was discharged from the window of a small wine store, and made havoc of the crowd; the king, with his two sons, by a special Providence, standing unhurt amidst the slaughter—not a hair was singed, not a garment was rent!—He continued to the end of the line, and returned over the scene of the murder. His cool and undaunted countenance gave a favourable opinion of his courage; and his danger, accompaniedby such cruel circumstances, has turned the sympathies of a great many in his favour, who cared not a straw for him yesterday. Of the twelve persons killed, Marshal Mortier, Duke of Treviso, is the most distinguished. Eighteen persons were wounded. I was so near as to smell the gunpowder, which was quite near enough for a foreigner. I have since visited the battle ground—what an atrocious spectacle!
The author of this murder is a Corsican, who has served a long time his apprenticeship to villainy in the French army. I have seen his machine: it is composed of a series of gun-barrels, and is a bungling contrivance. The French, with all their experience, don’t shine in this kind of manufacture. It would seem a most contemptible thing in the eyes of a Kentucky rifleman. This fellow’s fame, however, is assured; he will stand conspicuous in the catalogue of regicide villains. The others have all aimed at a single bird, but he at the whole flock. One is almost tempted to regret that Ravaillac’s boots are out of fashion. He attempted to escape through a back window, but the bursting of one of his guns disabled him. His head is fractured and mangled; they expect, however, that, by the care of his physician, he may get well enough to be hanged.
The last scene, the dismissal of the troops, was in the Place Vendôme, where I procured a convenient view of the ceremony. I must not forget, that in this place I lost my faithful guide, who had borne the fatigues and adventures of the day with me. Whether she had wandered from the way, or wearied had sat down, or had stopped to garter up her stockings, is uncertain—certain it is that she was lost here in the crowd,nec post oculis est reddita nostris.
On the west of the great column, the statue of Bonaparte all the while peering over him, sat the king on horseback, saluting the brigades as they passed by. His three sons attended him, and some of his generals and foreign ambassadors; and the queen and her daughters, and Madame Adelaide, the sister, and such like fine people, were on a gallery overhead, fanned by the national flags. As the queen descended, there was a shout from the multitude more animated than any during the whole day. The king sat here several hours, and received the affection of his troops bareheaded, bow following bow in perpetual succession, and each bow accompanied by a smile—just such a smile as one is obliged to put on when one meets an amiable and pretty woman whom one loves, in a fit of the cholic.
July 29th.
AllParis was so overwhelmed with grief for the death of General Mortier, and the “narrow escape of the king,” that it blighted entirely the immense enjoyment we had expected for this day—the last and best of the “three glorious days.” Ball-rooms and theatres were erected with extraordinary preparation all over theChamps Elysées, and the fireworks were designed to be the most brilliant ever exhibited in Europe. Multitudes had come from distant countries to see them. I say nothing of the private losses and disappointments; of the booths and fixtures put up and now to be removed, and the consequent ruin of individuals; or of the sugar-plums, candies, gingerbread-nuts, barley-sugar, and all the rancid butter of Paris bought up to make short cakes—all broken up by this one man; and the full cup of pleasure dashed from our very lips to the ground. We were to have such an infinite feast, too, furnished by the government. As for me, I was delighted a whole week in advance, and now—I am very sorry.
Under the Empire, and before, and long after, it was a common part of a great festival here to have thrown to the people bread and meat, and wine, and to set them to scramble forthe possession, as they do ravens, or hounds in a kennel, or the beasts at the Menagerie. To put the half-starved population up as an amusement for their better-fed neighbours; to pelt them with pound loaves and little pies; to set a hurricane of sausages to rain over their heads; and to see the hungry clowns gape with enormous mouths, and scramble for these eatables, and to see the officers,—facetious fellows, employed to heave out these provisions,—deceive the expectant mouths by feints and tricks, by throwing sometimes a loaf of leather, or of cork, to leap from one skull to another—what infinite amusement! One of the benefits of the last Revolution was to put an end to this dishonour of the French nation. This is all I have to say of the “three glorious days.” I must trust to-morrow to furnish me something for this blank space. Good night.
Rue St. Anne, August 2nd.
Louis Philippe has had nothing but trouble with these French people ever since he undertook their government. He has about the same enjoyment of his royalty, as one sea-sick, has of the majesty of the ocean. He is lampooned inthe newspapers, caricatured in the print-shops, hawked about town, placarded upon the walls of every street, and gibbeted upon every gateway and lamp-post of the city. In 1831, a revolt was suppressed by Marshal Soult at Lyons; another was got up in the same place in 1834, in which there were six days’ fighting, six thousand slain, and eighteen hundred crammed into the prisons. In Paris, there were three days’ skirmishing at the Cloister St. Merri, in which were five hundred arrests in one night; and one hundred and fifty are on trial (the “Procès Monstre,” so much talked of,) in the Chamber of Peers; and now we have, superadded, this affair of Fieschi, with great expectations for the future.
The foreigners here are full of ill-bodings, and I hear nothing but revolutions in every rustling leap. We shall have our brains knocked out by the mob some one of these days. It rains nothing but Damiens and Ravaillacs, and Jacques Clements, all over town. Every one is prophetic; and I am going, after the general example, to cast the king’s horoscope quietly in my corner, and calculate for you his chances. It will be a pretty thing if I can’t eke out a letter from so important an event, and the onlyone of any kind that has happened since I have been in Paris.
The main strength of the government is the Chamber of Deputies, which is chosen by less than two hundred thousand electors. It represents, then, not the mass of the people, who are thirty-two millions, but property, which has a natural interest in peace and quietude upon any reasonable terms. Besides, the voters being divided into small electoral colleges, are tangible, and easily bribed by offices and local interests; and the members of the Chamber, also, are allowed to hold other offices, and are very eager to possess them; and if the king does not bind both these parties about his neck, he has less policy than the world gives him credit for. He has, with his ministry, one hundred and fifty thousand of these bribes at his disposal. So, also, has he a large majority of this Chamber in his favour. Freeholders paying less than two hundred francs annual tax are not entitled to a vote. These are murmuring and struggling for an extension of suffrage, but this they do not expect from a change, and are therefore in favour of the present dynasty.
This class, from the great division of property in the Revolution, is by far the most numerous.Not more than fifteen hundred landed proprietors of the kingdom have a revenue above twelve thousand pounds. The king has also his means of popularity with the poorer classes, amongst which I may mention the “Savings Banks,” established on the responsibility of the government; one hundred of these are in Paris alone. They not only encourage the economy, industry, and orderly habits of the lower classes, but bind them by the strongest of all interests to the government. For the active support of this power, there is a national guard of eight hundred thousand men, all proprietors, and having interests to hazard in a revolution. There is an immense regular army of near five hundred thousand men, and disaffection in this body would indeed be dangerous; but who is the master spirit, who can hope, of a force so dispersed, and with a continual change of position and officers, to concert a general plan of revolt? Finally, the chief learning and talent of the nation is on the side of the king.
In his councils you find such men as Thiers, Guizot, Royer Collard, Villemain, Barrante, Keratry, and a number of others of the same caste, who were the main instruments in setting up the present government, and have of course a personal interest in its support.
The elements of the opposition are the liberals in favour of a constitutional monarchy, with an extension of suffrage and other popular rights, unwilling to endure under their present rulers what they resisted under their predecessors; secondly, the republicans, downright enemies of all sorts of monarchy, and in favour of an elective government, as that of the United States; this party is numerous, but without any concentration of strength; and finally, the Carlists, the partisans of the ancient monarchy, and its legitimate sovereigns. These parties all abut against each other, and have scarce a common interest; and I do not see from what quarter any one of them can set up a rival dangerous to the existing authority.
The present king has industry and capacity in a high degree, and he exerts both diligently in improving the condition of the people. He favours agriculture, commerce, and the arts of peace; he thrives by his own wit, as well as by the silliness of his predecessors. New streets and houses are rising up to bless him all over Paris. The nation was dragooned into Louis XVIII. and Charles X. by foreign bayonets; Louis Philippe is its own free choice. He took part also in the Revolution, and cannot be feared as the partisan of anti-revolutionary doctrines; thepeasants need not dread under his reign a restitution of the spoils of the nobility. He is also exemplary in private life; he rises early and looks after his business, knocks up his boys and packs them off to school with the other urchins of the city, and thinks there is no royal way to mathematics.
For his pacific policy alone he deserves to go to heaven. It cannot be doubtful, that war is one of the most aggravated miseries that can afflict our wretched human nature this side the grave. For the essential cause of their revolutions and national calamities, the French need not reason beyond a simple statistical view of their wars for the last five centuries. They had, in this period, thirty-five years of civil, and forty of religious wars; and of foreign wars, seventy-six on, and one hundred and seventy-six off, the French territory; and their great battles are one hundred and eighty-four. One does not comprehend why the judgments of heaven should not fall upon a nation which consumes a half nearly of its existence in carrying on offensive wars. And, moreover (a new virtue in a French king), Louis Philippe keeps no left-handed wives—no “Belles Feronières,” no “Gabrielle d’Etrées,” or “Madame Lavallières;” he sticks to his rib of Sicily,with whom he has nine children living, all in a fresh and vigorous health. Why then seek to kill a king recommendable by so many excellent qualities? Attempts at regicide are not always proofs of disloyalty in a nation.
A great number of desperate men, mostly the refuse of the army, have been turned loose upon the community, and these, in disposing of their own worthless lives, seek that of the king, in order to die gloriously upon the Place St. Jaques. I have no doubt that the majority of the nation desire ardently his safety. France has tried alternately the two extremes of human government, or rather misgovernment. She has rushed from an unlimited monarchy to a crazy democracy, and back into a military despotism. She has tilted the vessel on one side, then run to the other, and at length is taking her station in the middle. The general temper of the public mind now favours a moderate government, and this is wisdom bought at so dear a rate, that it would be underrating the common sense of the nation to suppose it will be lightly regarded.
Here is a copy of each of the Paris newspapers. You will see something of the spirit in which they are conducted, and one of the chiefengines by which the nation is governed. There is certainly no country in which a newspaper has so great an influence, and none in which the editor is so considerable a man, as in Paris.
TheConstitutionnelopposes and defends all parties, and is pleased and displeased with all systems of government. It courts the favour of the “Petite Bourgeoisie,” the shopkeepers, who are always restless and displeased, but their interests require a quiet pursuit of business. This is the most gossiping gazette of them all, and gossips very agreeably.
TheJournal des Debatsrepresents the “haute Bourgeoisie,” the rich industrial classes, whose great interests are, order and security of property, and the maintenance of peace with foreign countries. The “Partie Doctrinaire,” the chief supporters of this paper, are a kind of genteel liberals, holding the balance between confirmed royalists and democrats, and ultra liberals. They have supported their doctrines with a great display of scholastic learning, which has given them their appellation of “Doctrinaires.” Their leaders are mostly from the schools, as Royer Collard, Guizot, and Villemain, Keratry and Barrante. This paper has a leaning towards a vigorous monarchy andthe Orleans dynasty; it is now doing what it can in its moderate way to discredit the republicanism of the United States.
TheGazette de Franceand theQuotidienneare opposed directly to the present government, and in favour of the legitimate monarchy in the person of Henry V. The former advocates royalty with extended suffrage, the increase of power in the provinces, and decrease of the influence of the capital; the latter insists upon the re-establishment, in its fullest extent, of the ancient monarchy.
TheNationalasserts republicanism outright, on the system of the United States. It is conducted with spirit and ability, at present, by M. Carrel. In assuming his office he announced himself in his address as follows:—“La responsibilité du National pése en entier dès ce jour sur ma seule tête; si quelqu’un s’oubliât en invective au sujêt de cette feuille, il trouverait à qui parler.” With this the paper called theTribune, edited also with ability, co-operates.
TheMoniteurreports the speeches of the Chambers, and official documents, and is the ostensible organ of the government. TheTemps, theCourier, theMessager, andJournal du Commerce, all advocate reform on constitutionalprinciples. There are smaller papers, too, conducted with ability. These, with Galignani, and some other English prints, make up the newsmongerie of Paris. The price of Galignani and the principal French papers is twenty dollars a year, and their number of regular subscribers about 20,000. In Paris they are generally read by the hour, and transferred from one individual to another, and disposed of in the evening to the public establishments, or sent off to the country. In this manner, they are read by an immense number of persons daily. The price of advertising in the best papers is about thirty sous per line.
The first men of the nation are amongst the constant contributors to these papers, both as correspondents and editors. The editorial corps around each, discuss the leading topics, and form a board to admit or reject communications. These have their daily meetings with the functionaries of the state, and their correspondents in every foreign country. Argus, with his hundred eyes, and Briareus, with his hundred hands, preside over the preparation of the daily meal. In our country, where the same man caters, cooks, and does the honours, it would be unfair to make any comparison of ability. Thereis one point, however, in which there is no good reason why we should allow the French or any other people the superiority: it is, the decency of language in which animated debates are conducted. To be eloquent, or even vituperative, it is not necessary to be abusive, or transgress the rules of good breeding; polish neither dulls the edge nor enervates the vigour of the weapon. The existence of agencies between the owners and readers of newspapers is an immense gain to the liberty of the press. There can be very little freedom of opinion where the editor and proprietor, as in the United States, stand in immediate relation with their patrons.
In speaking of the powers of the government, I have said nothing of the Chamber of Peers. It is but a feather in either scale. It wants the hereditary influence and great estates necessary to command popular respect. The title of Peer is for life only, and is the reward of prescribed services in all the chief employments of the state. It is a cheap dignity, which pleases grown-up children, and consists of a ribbon in the button-hole.
I have said nothing, either, of Bonapartism, which has gasped its last. The most violent enmities against the Emperor seem to haveburnt out. No danger is now apprehended either from his family or his partisans, and the mind is open to a full sense of the glory he has conferred upon the nation; and there is mixed up with admiration of his talents, a sentiment of affection, from the recollection of his great reverses of fortune and his patient sufferings. I have heard all parties speak of him with great respect and praise. It is a good policy of the present government to have taken into favour all his plans for the improvement of the country, and to have placed him in his citizen’s coat, and cocked hat, stripped of its military plumes, upon his column.
When I write politics to ladies, Apollo keeps twitching me all the while by the ear; but I thought any other subject to-day would be impertinent. Yet why should ladies be ignorant of what enters so largely into the conversation of society, and makes so important a part of the learning of their children? I am meditating a journey to Rome, and expect to set out next week with a gentleman of Kentucky. His Holiness, I presume, will be delighted to see some one all the way from the Sharp Mountain. Direct your letters as usual. Very tenderly, yours.