The Garden of Plants—The Omnibus—The Museum of Natural History—American Birds—The Naturalist—Study of Entomology—The Botanic Garden—Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy—The Menagerie—The Giraffe—Notions of America—The Cedar of Lebanon—Effects of French Cookery—French Gastronomy—Goose Liver Pie—Mode of Procuring the Repletion of the Liver.
The Garden of Plants—The Omnibus—The Museum of Natural History—American Birds—The Naturalist—Study of Entomology—The Botanic Garden—Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy—The Menagerie—The Giraffe—Notions of America—The Cedar of Lebanon—Effects of French Cookery—French Gastronomy—Goose Liver Pie—Mode of Procuring the Repletion of the Liver.
Paris, August 14th, 1835.
Hereis an Englishman, who has interrupted me at the very outset of this letter, and says I must dine with him at the “Garden of Plants.” He is a kind of public informer, and does the honours of Paris to us raw Yankees, just come over. He has on his left arm, a basket of provisions, a couple of claret-bottles exhibiting their slender necks over the margin of the basket, and on his right a lady, his sister, who is to accompany us. She is exceedingly pretty, with a complexion of drifted snow, and a rosiness of cheeks. I have no comparison, onlystrawberries and cream. She is not slow, neither, as English women generally, to shew her parts of speech. “Sir, it is as delightful and romantic a little spot as there is in the whole city. Only two centuries ago it was an open field, and the physician of Louis XIII. laid it out as a botanical garden; it now covers eighty-four acres, partly with wood. Wood is so delightful at this hot season. And there is now a botanic garden, besides immense conservatories; also, a splendid gallery of anatomy, of botany, and a menagerie; a library, too, of natural history, and laboratories, and an amphitheatre, in which there are annually thirteen courses of lectures. And then there is the School of Drawing and Painting, of Natural History, all gratuitous. We will just step into an omnibus on the Boulevards, and for six sous we shall be set down at the very gate. Oh, it is quite near, only two steps.” I resign myself to the lady. The excursion will perhaps furnish me, what I have great need of, a subject for this letter. Parisian civility never allows one place to be far from another. The French women, if the place should be at any considerable distance, cannot for their little souls tell you. It is always “two steps,” and under this temptation of “two steps” you are often seduced into a walk of several miles. If there is any one virtue in Paris more developed than another, it is that of shewing strangers the way. A French lady asked me the way to-day, in the street, and though I did not know it, I ran all about shewing her, out of gratitude. The strangers who reside here soon fall, by imitation, into the same kind of civility. The Garden of Plants is distant from my lodging about three miles. Adieu till to-morrow.
August 15th.
The driver of a cab takes his seat at the side of his customer, and is therefore very civil, amiable, talkative, and a great rogue. The coachman, on the contrary, is a straight-up, selfish, and sulky brute, who has no complaisance for any one born of a woman; he is not even a rogue, for being seated outside, he has no communication with the passengers. He gives you back your purse if you drop it in his coach; he is the type of the omnibus-driver. You have your choice of the “Citadine,” which does not stop for way-passengers, but at its stations at half a mile; or the omnibus, which picks you up anywhere on the way. It sets offalways at the minute, not waiting for a load; and then you have a “correspondence;” that is, you have a ticket from the conducteur at the end of one course, which gives you a passage, without additional charge, for the next. You go all round the world for six sous. You change your omnibus three times from theBarrière du Troneto theBarrière de l’Etoile, which are at the east and west extremities of the city.
In Paris, everybody rides in an omnibus. The Chamber of Peers rides in an omnibus. I often go out in the one the king used to ride in before he got up in the world. I rode this morning between a grisette with a bandbox and a knight with a decoration. Some of the pleasantest evenings I have spent here were in an omnibus, wedged in between the easyembonpointof a healthy pair of Frenchwomen. If you get into melancholy, an omnibus is the best remedy you can imagine. Whether it is the queer shaking over the rough pavement I cannot say, but you have always an irresistible inclination to laugh. It is so laughable to see your face bobbing into the face of somebody else; it is so interesting, too, to know what one’s neighbours may be thinking about one; and then the strange people, and the strange rencontres. I often give six sous just for the comic effect of an omnibus. Precipitate jolts against a neighbour one never saw, as the ponderous vehicle rolls over the stones, gives agitation to the blood and brains, and sets one a thinking. And not the least part of the amusement is the getting in, especially if all the places but the back seat are filled. This back seat is always the last to have a tenant. It is a circular board of about six inches in diameter at the very farthest end, and to reach it you have to run the gauntlet between two rows of knees almost in contact; you set out, the omnibus setting out at the same time, and you get along sitting on a lady’s lap, now on this side, and now on that, until you arrive at your destination; and there you are set up on a kind of pivot to be stared at by seventeen pair of black eyes, ranged along the two sides of the omnibus.
The only evil I know of these vehicles is, that the seat being occupied by seven fat gentlemen, it may leave only six inches of space to a lady of two feet in diameter, so that she comes out compressed to such a degree as to require a whole day of the enlarging and tightening capacities of Madame Palmyre to get her back toher shapes; a worse evil is, that you often take an interest in a fellow-traveller, from whom you are in a few minutes to be separated, perhaps for ever.
We arrived at the garden just time enough before our repast to expatiate lightly upon its beauties. We visited first the Museum of Natural History, which occupies two stories of a building three hundred feet long. On the first floor are six rooms of geological and mineralogical collections; on the second, are quadrupeds, birds, insects, and all the family of the apes—two hundred specimens—and groups of crystals, porphyry, native gold and silver, rough and cut diamonds. Overlooking this whole animal creation is a beautiful statue of Venus Urania—hominum divumque voluptas!In one apartment is a group of six thousand birds, in all their gay and glittering plumage; and there are busts about the room, in bronze, of Linnæus, Fourcroy, Petit, Winslow, Tournefort, and Daubenton.
Our American birds here have all got to be members of the Academy. You can know them only by their feathers. There would be no objection to call our noisy and stupid whip-poor-will, “caprimulgus vociferus,” but what doyou think of calling our plain and simple Carolina wren, “troglodytus ludovicianus!”
The insects have a room also to themselves, very snug and beautiful, in cases, and sparkling like gems in all their variety of vivid and fantastic colours. We met here a naturalist, an acquaintance, who has lived the chief part of his life among spiders’ legs, and he explained to us the properties of the insects. He conversed upon their tenacity of life. He shewed us a mite that had lived three months glazed to a bit of glass, and a beetle which had been above three years without eating, and seemed not particular how long it lived; a spider, also, which had been kept one year on the same abstemious regimen, and yet was going on living as usual. Are you not ashamed, you miserable mortals, to beoutlivedby a beetle? He shewed us, also, flies and spiders sepulchred in amber, perhaps since the days of Ninus—how much better preserved than the mummied ladies and gentlemen who have been handed down to us from the same antiquity.
This professor has been so long in the world of insects that he has taken a distaste to big things. I baited him with a whale and an elephant, but he would not bite. I knew oncea botanist in America who had turned entirely into a flower, and I accompanied an entomologist of this kind to the brow of one of those cliffs which frown over the floods of the Susquehanna, where one could not read Milton, and there he turned up rotten logs for grubs and snails for his museum. It seems that even the study of nature, when confined to its minute particles, does not tend to enlarge or elevate the mind. I have observed that the practice even of hunting little birds, or fishing for minnows, gives little thoughts and appetites; so, to harpoon whales, chase deer, bears, wolves, and panthers, gives a disdain of what is trifling, and raises the mind to vast and perilous enterprises. The study of entomology, I mean the exclusive study, leaves, I presume, to the artist, about as big a soul as the beetle,
“or the wood-louse,That folds itself in itself for a house.”
“or the wood-louse,That folds itself in itself for a house.”
“or the wood-louse,That folds itself in itself for a house.”
There is a building apart also for the “Botanic Garden.” It has an herbal of twenty-five thousand species of plants. You will see here a very pretty collection of the mushrooms in wax—it is delightful to see the whole family together. The Cabinet of “Comparative Anatomy” has also separate lodgings. It contains skeletons of all animals compared with man and with one another, about twelve thousand preparations. It is a population of anatomies; it looks like Nature’s laboratory, or like the beginnings of creation, about the second or third day. Here are all the races which claim kindred with us, Tartar, Chinese, New Zealander, Negro, Hottentot, and several of our Indian tribes. Here is a lady wrapped in perpetual virginity and handed down to us from Sesostris, and the mummy of somebody’s majesty, that, divested of its wrappings, weighs eight pounds, that used to “walk about in Thebes’ streets three thousand years ago.”
We descanted much upon this wonderful school of nature—upon the varieties, analogies, and differences of the animal creation. “How strange that the Chinese should wear their cues on the top in that way!” said the lady. “How differently from us Europeans!” said the gentleman. “Only look at this dear little fish!” “Sister, don’t you think it is time to dine?”—And so we left the anatomical preparations for this more grateful preparation, the dinner. The great genius of this place, the BaronCuvier, is defunct. He has now a place, for aught I know, among his own collections. Alas, the skeleton of a Baron! how undistinguishable in a Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy!
In roaming about, we examined superficially the garden, the largest part of which is occupied by the menagerie,—this is not the reason it is called the “Garden of Plants.” There are seventeen different inclosures, and in each a committee of the several races of animals; in one are the huge and pacific, as the elephants and bisons; in another, the domestic, as goats, sheep, and deer. The camels are turning a machine to supply water—they who were born to dispense with this element. In one you will see the wild and ferocious beasts and their dens, as bears, tigers, hyenas, and wolves; and there is another containing the vultures, eagles, &c. The monkies are a beautiful family, about two hundred in number—their expression such as becomes sisters. The remainder of the garden also is divided into various apartments; one is a botanic garden, with six thousand five hundred species of plants; another is a collection of different soils and manures; another contains a specimen of every kind of hedge, fence, or ditch; another every culinary vegetable used forthe food of man; and another is a piece of water appropriated to aquatic plants.
The whole establishment contains five hundred and twenty-six thousand species of plants, minerals, and animals. In the hot-houses and conservatories are ten thousand different species of vegetables. In the midst of the birds you see the eagle; of the quadrupeds, his shaggy majesty, the king of the beasts; and I observed that sober cacique, the llama, reclining amongst his native trees. The most extraordinary of these animals (though nothing is extraordinary in Paris for a long time) is the giraffe. On her arrival, the professors and high dignitaries of the state went out to meet her at many days’ journey from the capital, and deputations from all the departments. She was attended by grooms and footmen, and “gentlemen of the bed-chamber,” from her native country; and an African cow supplied her with African milk. An antelope and three goats followed in an open barouche. She was formally invited to visit the Archbishop at his country seat near Lyons, but refused; whereupon his eminence, yielding to her claims of respect, went out to meet her, and was upset, his coach taking fright at the strange animal;et voilà son aristocratie par terre!
A military escort also proceeded from Paris, with members of the Institute and other learned bodies, which met her at Fontainebleau; and her entrance to the garden was a triumphal procession. The curiosity of the public had now risen to its height, (and there is no place where it can rise higher than in Paris.) From ten to twenty thousand persons poured into this garden daily. Fresh portraits by eminent artists, and bulletins of everything she did remarkable, were published weekly. All the bonnets, and shoes, and gloves, and gowns—every species of apparel—was made “à la giraffe;” quadrilles were danced “à la giraffe;”café-au-laitwas made “à la giraffe.” She has large black eyes, and pretty eye-lashes, and the mouth is very expressive. In philosophy, she is a Pythagorean, and eats maize and barley, and is very fond of roses; in religion, she is a Saint Simonian. She takes an airing every morning in the park in fine weather, and wears flannel next her skin in winter.
Our guide now mounted up, we following, by a spiral walk, to the summit of a hill, where there is a fine panoramic view of the city. In the centre of the spire is a little open kiosk, where we found seats, and a girl entertained us with choice sights through a telescope, at two sousa look. At length, after several little searches for a convenient place, we sat ourselves down underneath a hospitable tree, which, from its solemn and venerable aspect, and from my biblical recollections alone, I knew to be the cedar of Lebanon. Here our dinner was spread upon the earth. At the bottom of the hill is a dairy, which supplied milk, honey, eggs, fruit, and coffee, with the services of the dairy-maid; and, like our great ancestor, being seated amidst creation, we partook with grateful hearts our excellent repast, the enjoyment being enhanced by occasional conversation.
“How I should like to pay a visit to your country!”
“It would give us great pleasure, madam, if you would come over.”
“And I also. The truth is, I have a hearty contempt for these d—d monkey French people! I can’t tell why I ever came amongst them.”
“How long have you been here, sir?”
“Twenty years. But what terrible accounts are coming over about your riots!—why, you hang people up there, I see, without a trial!”
“No; we try them after they are hung!”
“Oh dear! I should never be able to sleep quiet in my bed!”
“The fact is, a republic won’t do.”
“Oh dear no; why cousin writes us from New York that he is coming back; and he says if things go on so, Europeans will leave off emigrating; that will be bad, won’t it? (Do let me help you to a little tongue.) But perhaps things will go better; America’s so young yet, isn’t she? And then your temperance societies are doing a deal of good; I read about them this morning. I am very particular about temperance; (you have nothing in your glass!) and then what Fanny Kemble says about the bugs—”
“Yes, and the fleas and mosquitoes too! Why it seems to me you can’t have need of any other kind offlea-bottomy.”
“Oh fie, brother!—I declare I like the Americans very much; they are so good natured. Only look at that dear little hen! Have you any muffled hens in your country—any bantams?” Thus a whole hour rolled by unheeded in this delightful interchange of sentiment; and the universe was created in vain for any notice we took of it till the end of the dinner. I now turned up my eyes upon the hospitable branches which had afforded us protection during this repast.
The verdure of this tree is perpetual, and itsbranches, which are fashioned like the goose-quill, are spread out horizontally to cover an immense space. It pushes them from the trunk gradually upwards, and their outward extremity is bent gently towards the earth, so that the shelter is complete, the rain running down the trunk or from the tip of these branches. You would easily know it was intended as a shelter. From its connexion with sacred history, its venerable appearance, and extraordinary qualities, it is the most remarkable tree that grows upon the earth, and there is scarce any relic of the Holy Land more sacred. It is sung by Isaiah and Solomon: “Justus florebit sicut cedrus Libani.” “The glory of Lebanon, the beauty of Carmel, and the abundance of Sharon.”
It does not suffer the presence of any other tree, nor does the smallest blade of grass presume to vegetate in its presence. It served to build the splendid temples of David and Solomon; also Diana’s Temple at Ephesus, Apollo’s at Utica; and the rich citizens of Babylon employed it in the construction of their private dwellings. Its wood is the least corruptible substance of the vegetable world. In the temple at Utica, it has been found pure andsound after two thousand years. Its saw-dust was one of the ingredients used to embalm the dead in Egypt, and an oil was extracted from it for the preservation of books. Its gum, too, is a specific for several diseases. Since this cedar lives in cold climates, and in unholy as well as holy lands, why does not some one induce it to come and live amongst us? This was brought to the garden by Jussieu in 1734.
It is a pity such gardens as these are not the growth of republics. What an ornament to a city! At the same time, what a sublime and pathetic lesson of religious and virtuous sentiment! What more can all the records, and commentaries, and polemics of theology teach us than this? My next visit here shall be alone. Alone, I could have fancied myself a patriarch, reclining under this tree. These camels on their tread-mill I could have turned into caravans, rich with spices of Arabia. I could have seen Laban’s flock in these buffaloes of the Missouri, and Rachel herself in the dairy-maid. If you take a woman with you, you must neglect the whole three kingdoms for her, and she will awake you in your most agreeable dreams; whilst you are admiring the order and beauty which reigns throughout creation, shewill stick you down to a muffled hen, or a johnny-jump-up; and while you are seated at the side of Jacob, or of some winged angel, she will make you admire the “goldfinches, the chaffinches, the bullfinches, and the greenfinches.”
* * * We will now adjourn from the “King’s Garden” to my apartments in the Rue St. Anne, where I must leave you, you know how reluctantly, till to-morrow. I am invited out by Mr. P——, one of the bravest men of the world, from the Mississippi, who is just going home, and in the grief of separation has called his friends around him at theHotel des Princes, to dine. I must trust to the events of a new day to fill this remaining sheet.
Rue St. Anne, August 15th.
I have not the courage to describe our gorgeous banquet; I have an excessive head-ache. Though I eat of nothing but the soup, and the fish, and game, and of the roasts, and ragouts, and side dishes, and then the dessert,—drank scarcely anything but burgundy, medoc, and champagne, and some coffee, and liqueur, yet I feel quite ill this morning. If one should die of the stomach-ache by eating a gooseberry pie, Iwonder if it is suicide? However, if you want to eat the best dinners in the world, I recommend you to theHotel des Princes, and the acquaintance of Mr. P. of the Mississippi.
It is very much to be feared that in cookery, especially the transcendant branches, we shall long remain inferior to these refined French people. We have no class of persons who devote their whole minds to the art, and there is nothing to bring talents out into exercise and improvement. If any one does by force of nature get “out of the frying pan,” who is there to appreciate his skill? He lives, like Bacon, in advance of his age, and even runs the risk of dying of hunger in the midst of his own dishes. Besides, in America, in cooking, as all things else, we weaken our genius by expansion. The chief cook in this “Hotel of the Princes” has spent a long life upon a single dish, and by this speciality, has not only ripened his talent unto perfection but has brought a general reputation to the house—as you have seen persons, by practising a single virtue, get up a name for all the rest. The English, too, are mere dabblers in this science. A French artist, to prepare and improve his palate, takes physic every morning; whereas an Englishman never seesthe necessity of taking medicine unless he is sick, (“que lorsqu’il est malade!”) his palate becomes indurated (“aussi insensible que le conscience d’un vieux juge.”) In this country, if a dish miss, or is underdone, do you believe that the cook survives it? No! he despises the ignominious boon of life without reputation—he dies! The death of Vatel is certainly one of the most pathetic, as well as most heroic events, recorded in history. No epicure can read it without tears.—“Votre bonté,” he said to the Prince, who sought to console him, “Votre bonté m’achève!—je sais ... je sais que le rôti a manqué à deux tables!” He then retired to his room—I cannot go on. I refer you to Madame de Sevigné, who has given a full account of the man’s tragical end.
I do not, however, approve of French gastronomy in everything. The cruelty exercised upon the goose is most barbarous. They recollect that a goose once brought ruin upon their ancestors in the Capitol, and they have no humanity for geese ever since. They formerly nailed the wretch by the feet to a plank, then crammed it, and deprived it of water, and exposed it to a hot fire (où elle passait une vie assez malheureuse) until the liver became nearly aslarge as the goose, which, being larded with truffles, and covered with a broad paste, bore the name of the inventor with distinction through the whole earth.
A “Paté de foie gras” used to be a monopoly of diplomatic dinners, and it is known that a great national congress always assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle on account of the number of geese resident in that city; but they have now spread everywhere, from the Palais Royal to the very cabins of the Alleghany. I saw the whole village of Pottsville having an indigestion of one that was brought in there last year. Pray do not touch them unless with the veritable brand upon the crust; some make them of gum elastic. When genuine, they are wholesome, they are intelligential. I am glad to see that humanity, in the general march of civilization, has interfered in behalf of the goose. It is now enclosed immoveably in a box, where it is crammed with maize and poppy oil, and other succulent food, and its eyes put out, so that it may give the whole of its powers to digestion—as that old Greek philosopher, who put out his eyes to give the whole mind to reflection—and a dropsical repletion of the liver being producedby the atony of the absorbents, the liver (the only part of a goose that is now of any account in Europe) is ready for the market. I received this information over a slice of goose-liver pie yesterday, from our host, and I was anxious to write it down, while yet fresh in memory. A single idea, you see, may be inflated, by nearly the same process as one of these livers, and made to cover a whole page. I have room only to say, I am entirely yours.
Burial of the victims—St. Cloud—The Chateau—The Cicerone—The Chevalier d’Industrie—Grave of Mrs. Jordan—The Bois de Boulogne—Amusements on Fête Days—Place Louis XV.—The King at the Tuileries—The American Address—His Majesty’s Reply—The Princess Amelia—The Queen and her Daughters—The Dukes of Orleans and Némours—Madame Adelaide—Splendour of Ancient Courts—Manner of governing the French—William the Fourth—Exhibition of the Students at the University.
Burial of the victims—St. Cloud—The Chateau—The Cicerone—The Chevalier d’Industrie—Grave of Mrs. Jordan—The Bois de Boulogne—Amusements on Fête Days—Place Louis XV.—The King at the Tuileries—The American Address—His Majesty’s Reply—The Princess Amelia—The Queen and her Daughters—The Dukes of Orleans and Némours—Madame Adelaide—Splendour of Ancient Courts—Manner of governing the French—William the Fourth—Exhibition of the Students at the University.
Paris, August 24th, 1835.
I believeI have not described to you the burial of the “victims,”—which is no great matter, since you will see it all in the newspapers. I fell in, the other day, with an immense crowd passing in a long file through the door of a church, and became one of its number. Here was a furnace, orchambre ardente, as they call it, into which a concealed flame threw a red and lurid light, and exhibited the corpses of thosewho were murdered. From this place they were brought out, and carried about the streets in the most gorgeous of all funeral processions. It would have done credit to the best times of Babylon. No people of the world can get up a theatric display of this kind so prettily as the French; and on this occasion they outdid themselves. The day was appointed, four days ahead, when the general grief was to explode, and it did explode exactly as the Prefecture of Police had predicted. We all ran about the streets the whole day, and cried, “long live” Louis Philippe, and General Mortier—who was killed!
The Duke’s coffin was carried in front, by six horses, in all the solemnity of crape. The spokes of the wheels were silvered, and the rims glittered with a more precious metal. Overhead were flags,—I presume, taken from the enemy,—and groups of emblematic figures: France, with her tresses loose and streaming, and the Departments, all dressed in black frocks, mopping their eyes, and pouring out their little souls over the coffin. The others of the train, seven or eight, followed at long intervals, arrayed in nearly the same style, more or less elegant, according to the dignity of the corpses carried inthem. In the midst was a chariot, as rich as the others in decoration, and forming a splendid contrast, of dazzling white; and young girls, in raiment whiter than the snow, following in a long train, chanted hymns to their departed sister. This procession had everything but funeral solemnity. I had expected muffled drums and dead marches, and all but the bell-clappers silent over the face of Paris. The music, on the contrary, was thrilling and military; and all the emblems, but the crape and coffin, would have served as well for an elegant jubilee. The last scene—the entrance into the Chapel of the Invalids, and the ceremony there—was the most solemn. The church was hung in its blackest mourning weeds, and priests, in a long row, said masses upon the dead, holding black torches in their hands. The floor opened, and the deceased were laid by the side of each other in a vault, which closed its marble jaws. All Paris spent the day in the procession, and in the evening went to the Opera Comique. But I don’t like funerals; I will write of something else.
I will tell you of my first excursion to the country. Every one who loves eating, and drinking, and dancing, went out yesterday tothe fête at St. Cloud—c’est si jolie, une fête de village!and I went along. The situation of this village is very picturesque, on the banks of the Seine, and commands a delightful prospect of the city and environs of Paris. If St. Cloud would not take it ill, I should like to stay here a month. There are the sweetest little hills, and glades, and cascades imaginable,—not, indeed, beautiful and poetical as your wild and native scenery of Pottsville; one does not wander by the mountain torrent, nor by the clear stream, such as gushes from the flanks of your craggy hills, nor by the “Tumbling Run” that winds its course through the intricate valley till it mingles and murmurs no more in the wizard Schuylkill; nor does one stray through forests of fragrant honeysuckles, or gather the wild flower from the solitary rock; but it is sweet, also, to see the little fishes cut with their golden oars the silvery lake, and to walk upon the fresh-mown turf, and scent the odour from the neighbouring hedge; the rose and woodbine, too, are sweet, when nourished by the agricultural ingenuity and care of man.
All that kind of beauty which the fertile earth can receive from the hand of a skilful cultivator is possessed by these little hills ofSt. Cloud in its most adorable perfection. I have listened here to the music of the bees, and in the calm and balmy evening to the last serenade of the thrush retiring to its rest. One forgets, in hearing this language of his native country, that he is wandering in a foreign land! St. Cloud has, also, an interest in its historical recollections. It was burnt once by the English; it was besieged and taken by Condé, in the religious wars; and Henry III. was assassinated here, by Jacques Clement. It was the favourite residence of Bonaparte. If he resided any where (for ambition has no home,) it was at St. Cloud. It was here he put himself at the head of the government, overthrowing the Directory, in 1799. The neighbourhood is adorned with magnificent villas. The French do not, like the English, plunge from the bustle and animation of their city into a lifeless solitude, or carry a multitude of guests with them to their country seats, to eat them out of house and home, as an antidote to the vapours. They select the vicinity of some frequented spot, as St. Cloud or Versailles, and secure the pleasures of society to their summer residences. I believe it is well for one who wishes to make the best of life, in all its circumstances, to study the French. I amglad that, in imitating England in many things (as we ought), we have not copied her absurd whim of living in the country at Christmas.
The Chateau at St. Cloud is an irregular building; it has on its principal front four Corinthian columns; and Justice, and Prudence, and a naked Truth, and some other hieroglyphic ladies, are looking down from the balustrade. I had myself conducted through its apartments; thesalle de compagnie—d’audience—de toilet, and the Queen’s bed-chamber. Only to think, here she used to sleep, the little queeny! They have made her bed just two feet high, lest she might fall out and break her majesty’s neck in the night. The King’s apartments are in a similar range. Thesalon de Dianeis fine, with the tapestry of the gobelins, and thegrand salonwith Sêvres’ China vases. Its crimson velvet hangings cost twenty thousand dollars, and its four candelabra six thousand. Thegalérie d’Apollonhas paintings by the best masters. I admired all these things excessively.
Every one knows the genealogy of admiration. They certainly exceed very far our usual republican notions of magnificence. Thou most unclassical Blucher! Why the fellow slept here, booted and spurred, in the Emperor’s bed,and kennelled his hounds upon the sofas—both with an equal sense I presume, of the sumptuousness of their lodgings. If, at least, he had put his hounds into Diana’s saloon, the stupid Goth, he might have had some credit for his wit—he can have none for his brutality.
I was puzzled about the reward to be given to our Cicerone. To have all this service for nothing was unreasonable; and to offer money to a man with a cocked hat, and black velvet breeches—it was a painful feeling. I was in a situation exactly the reverse of Alexander the Great towards his schoolmaster.—What was enough for such a respectable gentleman to receive, was too much for me to give. I consulted a French lady; for French ladies know every thing, and they don’t knock you down when you ask them a question.—She told me a franc would be as much as he would expect. Think of giving a franc for an hour’s service, to as good a looking gentleman as General Washington!
Coming out from the Castle, I wandered through the Park, which contains some hundred acres, diversified with hills and valleys, and presenting from an eminence a delightful view of the surrounding country, including Paris.On this spot is a “Lantern of Demosthenes,” copied from the monument of that name at Athens. A great part of the park is a public promenade, and is chiefly remarkable for itsjets d’eaux, which on a fête day throw up the water sportively in the air, and for its numerous cascades, one of which is one hundred and twenty-five feet above the level of the basin. I next went with a guide into the “Petit Parc,” made for Marie Antoinette. She bought this chateau (one of her sins) just before the Revolution. This park is beautiful, with bowers, groves, pieces of water, statuary, and every imaginable embellishment. In wandering about here, I got acquainted with a nobleman. He is of that order of knighthood which the French call “Chevaliers d’Industrie.”—“This, sir, I think, is by Pigale, and this Cupid by Depautre. Look especially at this Venus by Coustan.”—“Point du tout, monsieur, I make it a duty as you are a stranger.” He liked the Americans excessively.—“To be the countryman of Franklin,c’est un titre!” I seldom ever met a more polite and accomplished gentleman, and fashionable. I had a purse, containing in silver twenty francs, which, being incommodious to a waistcoat, I had put into an outside coat pocket.Late in the evening, you might have seen me returning homewards on foot, (the distance two leagues,) not having wherewith to hire a coach, and no money at my lodgings. If the devil had not been invented, I should have found him out on this occasion.
The verdure of this country is more fresh than ours under the dog star. There is a hazy atmosphere, which intercepts the rays of the sun and mitigates the heat. I don’t say a word here in favour of our summer climate from conscientious scruples. Indeed I have gained such a victory over my patriotism that I never find fault with these foreigners for having anything better than we have it ourselves; nor do I take any merit to myself because the Mississippi is two miles wide, or because the Niagara falls with such sublimity into Lake Ontario.
I was introduced by a mere accident to a Scotch lady of this village, who prevailed on my modesty to dine with her. She is a lady of experience and great affability, who has resided here and in Paris, eleven years. She is on a furlough from her husband, an Englishman. She shewed me the cathedral, the cemetery, and the grave of one who won princes by her smile, Mrs. Jordan. She asks a repetition of the visit,and is too amiable and accomplished to be refused. She is at least forty-five—in the “ambush of her younger days” the invitation would not have been safe for the visiter.
On my return I walked through the Bois de Boulogne, where you and romantic Mary have so often assisted at a duel. It was in the glimmerings of the twilight, and now and then looking through a vista of the tangled forest, I could see distinctly, a ghost pulling a trigger at another ghost, or pushingcarteandtierceat his ribs. This forest flanks the west side of the Faubourgs of Paris, and contains seventeen hundred acres of ground; in some parts an open wood, in others an intricate and impenetrable thicket. It is the fashionable drive for those who have coaches in the morning, and a solitary enough walk for one who has no coach of an evening. Young girls always find saddled at the east end a number of donkeys, upon which they take a wholesome exercise, and acquire the elements of equitation at three sous a ride. Some who have “witched the world with noble horsemanship,” have begun upon these little asses.
I had the light only of the gentle moonbeam to direct my footsteps through the latter part ofthis forest; and I walked speedily, recollecting I should not be the first man who was murdered here by a great many. I feared to meet some rogue ignorant that I was robbed already, so I went whistling along, (for men who have money don’t whistle,) till I arrived at the Champs Elysées—its lamps sparkling like the starry firmament.
An hour sooner I should have found it alive with all sorts of equipages; with all the landaus, tilburys, and other private vehicles, and footmen glittering in golden coats, with feathers waving on their empty heads, whilst the edges of the road would have been fringed with ten thousand pedestrians on their evening walks. Now there were a few only in attendance upon Franconi’s, or the concert. In the former of these places they exhibit melodramas, and equestrian feats, in which the riding ladies only outstrip what we see in our own country. In the latter there is a band of near a hundred musicians, who charm all the world at twenty sous a piece, playing the fashionable airs from six till nine every evening. Innumerable cafés around pour out the fragrant nectar to their guests.
For an image of this place you need not read Virgil’s sixth book, or refer to any of yourclassical associations. Fancy only, without a single inequality, a horizontal plain of an hundred or more acres, or rather a barren moor, a ball-alley, a baked and turfless common, or any most trodden spot upon the earth, and that is the French Elysium. Not a blade of grass, or shrub, or flower, dares grow upon its surface. The trees are straining and trying to grow but cannot. Yet it is precisely to this barren field that all the world comes, especially on fête days, to be perfectly delighted. It is surrounded by the city, and has an air of country in town. It is a kind of republican turn-out, where one may go as one pleases, without toilet or any troublesome respect to etiquette. It is a refuge always at hand from an uncomfortable home—from a scold or a creditor; it cures husbands of their wives, old bachelors of the vapours, and sometimes lovers of their sweethearts. On Sundays and holidays you will find here, of foolishness, all that you have ever seen, all that you have ever fancied, and if there is anything of this kind you have never seen or fancied, it is here. Besides the concert, and the circus, and fresco dances, here are all the jugglers and their tricks, mountebanks and their medicines, clowns and their fooleries, all the family of the punches,and all the apes in regimentals; not counting the voltigeurs without legs, and the blind girls, who see to walk over eggs without breaking them. You may have a stage if you love to play harlequin, or a greasy pole if you wish to climb for a prize at the top of it. You may sit down on a swing like a water wheel, which will toss you fifty feet in the air, where you may run from yourself and after yourself by the hour; or on another, which will whirl you about horizontally on hobby horses till you become invisible. If thirsty, you may have an ice cream; if studious, a chair and a newspaper; and if nervous, a shock of electricity worth two sous. Moreover, you can buy cakes reeking hot that were baked a week ago, and a stick of barley-sugar, only a little sucked by the woman’s baby, at half its value.
On the outskirts, towards night, you may find also an opportunity of exercising your charity, and other benevolent affections. One poor woman is getting a living here by the dropsy, and another by nine orphan children, and such like advantages; another has lost the use of her limbs and is running about with a certificate. In coming out by the side next the city you areat once upon the Place Louis XV., where you will see on their pedestals two superb and restive coursers, which tread on air, held in with difficulty by their two marble grooms. We are again upon St. Anne’s-street, and under the protection of her sainted wings I repose till to-morrow, bidding you an affectionate good night.
August 25th.
I called a few days ago upon the king. We Yankees went to congratulate his Majesty for not being killed on the 28th. We were overwhelmed with sympathy—and the staircase which leads up to the royal apartments is very beautiful, and has two Ionic columns just on the summit. You first enter through a room of white and plain ground, then through a second, hung round with awful field marshals, and then you go through a room very large, and splendid with lustres, and other elegant furniture, which conducts into a fourth with a throne and velvet canopy. The king was very grateful, at least he made a great many bows, and we too were very grateful to Providence for more than a couple of hours. There was the queen, and the two little princesses—but I will write this so thatby embroidering it a little you may put it in the newspapers.
The Chamber of Peers and Deputies, and other functionaries of the State, were pouring in to place at the foot of the throne the expression of their loyalty. This killing of the king has turned out very much to his advantage. There was nothing anywhere but laudatory speeches and protestations of affection—foreigners from all the countries of Europe uniting in sympathy with the natives. So we got ashamed of ourselves, we Americans, and held a meeting in the Rue Rivoli, where we got up a procession too, and waited upon his Majesty for the purpose above stated, and were received into the presence—the royal family being ranged around the room to get a sight of us.
Modesty forbids me to speak of the very eloquent manner in which we pronounced our address; to which the king made a very appropriate reply. “Gentlemen, you can betterguess,” said he, “than I can express to you, the gratification,” &c.—I missed all the rest by looking at the Princess Amelia’s most beautiful of all faces, except the conclusion, which was as follows:—“And I am happy to embrace this occasion of expressing to you all, andthrough you to your countrymen, the deep gratitude I have ever felt for the kindness and hospitality I experienced in America, during my misfortunes.” The king spoke in English, and with an affectionate and animated expression, and we were pleasedall to pieces. So was Louis Philippe, and so wasMarie Amelie, princess of the two Sicilies, his wife; and so wasMarie-Christine-Caroline-Adelaide-Françoise-Leopoldine, andMarie-Clementine-Caroline-Leopoldine-Clotilde, her two daughters, and the rest of the family.
A note from the king’s aide-de-camp required the presence of our consul at the head of the deputation, which our consul refused. He did not choose, he said, to see the Republic make a fool of herself, running about town, and tossing up her cap, because the king was not killed, and he would not go. “Then,” said the king (a demur being made by his officers,) “I will receive the Americans as they received me, without fuss or ceremony.” So we got in without any head, but not without a long attendance in the ante-chamber, very inconvenient to our legs.—How we strolled about during this time, looking over the nick-nacks, and how some of us took out our handkerchiefs andknocked the dust off our boots in thesalle des marechaux, and how we reclined upon the royal cushions, and set one leg to ride impatiently on the other, I leave to be described by Major Downing, who was one of our party. I will bring up the rear of this paragraph, with an anecdote, which will make you laugh. One of our deputation had brought along a chubby little son of his, about sixteen. He returned, (for he had gone ahead to explore,) and said in a soft voice,—“Tommy, you can go in to the Throne, but don’t go too near.” And then Tommy set off with velvet steps, and approached, as you have seen timid old ladies to a blunderbuss,—he feared it might go off.
The king is a bluff old man, with more firmness of character, sense, and activity, than is indicated by his plump and rubicund features. The queen has a very unexceptionable face; her features are prominent, and have a sensible benevolent expression—a face not of the French cut, but such as you often meet amongst the best New England faces. Any gentleman would like to have such a woman for his mother. The eldest daughter is married to the King of Belgium; the second and third are grown up tomanhood, but not yet married. They wouldbe thought pretty girls even by your village beaux, and with your ladies, except two or three (how many are you?) they would be “stuck up things, no prettier than their neighbours.”
The Duke of Orleans is a handsome young man, and so spare and delicate as almost to call into question his mother’s reputation. He assumes more dignity of manner than is natural to a Frenchman at his age; he is not awkward, but a little stiff; his smile seems compulsory, and more akin to the lips than the heart. Any body else would have laughed out on this occasion. He has been with the army in Africa, and has returned moderately covered with laurels. The Duke of Némours is just struggling into manhood, and is shaving to get a beard as assiduously as his father to get rid of it. He also has fought valiantly somewhere—I believe in Holland. Among the ladies there is one who pleases me exceedingly; it is Madame Adelaide, the king’s sister. She has little beauty, but a most affable and happy expression of countenance. She was a pupil of Madame Genlis, who used to call her “cette belle et bonne Princesse.” She was married secretly to General Athelin, her brother’s secretary, during their residence in England. She revealed this marriage, with great fear of his displeasure, to her brother, after his accession to the throne, throwing herself on her knees.—After some pause, he said, embracing her tenderly,—“Domestic happiness is the main thing after all; and now that he is the king’s brother-in-law, we must make him a duke.” Madame Adelaide is now in the Indian summer of her charms.
One who knows royalty only from the old books, necessarily looks about for that motley gentleman, the king’s fool. The city of Troyes used to have a monopoly of supplying this article; but the other towns, I have heard, grew jealous of the privilege, and they have them now from all parts of the kingdom. Seriously, the splendour of ancient courts has faded away wonderfully in every respect. When Sully went to England, says the history, he was attended by two hundred gentlemen, and three hundred guns saluted him at the Tower. The pomp and luxury of drawing-rooms and levees were then most gorgeous.
The eye was dazzled with the glittering display; nothing but yeomen of the guards with halberds, and wearing hats of rich velvet, plumedlike the peacock, with wreaths and rosettes in their shoes; and functionaries of the law, in black gowns, and full wigs; and bishops, and other church dignitaries, in aprons of black silk; and there were knights of the garter, the lord steward, the lord chancellor, and the Lord knows who. And the same grandeur and brilliancy in the French courts—chambellans, andécuyers, andaumoniers, all the way down to thechauf-cire, and keeper of the royal hounds; and one swam in a sea of gems and plumes, and sweet and honied ladies. Republicanism has set her irreverend foot upon all this regal splendour. I wish I had come over a hundred years ago. The king’s salary before the Revolution, though provisions were at half their present rate, was thirty millions; that of Charles X. was twenty-five; and the present king’s is only twelve millions, with one million to the Duke of Orleans.
Iand Louis Philippe do not agree altogether about the manner in which the French people ought to be governed. The censorship of the press, the espionage, the violation of private correspondence, the jail and the gibbet, will not arrest the hand of the regicide. I have read in a journal to-day, that 2,746 persons have already been imprisoned for having censured the acts ofthe present government, in the person of the king. The devil will get his Most Christian Majesty if he goes on at this rate. Why don’t he learn that the strength of kings, in these days, is in their weakness? Why don’t he set up M. Thiers, and then M. Guizot, and then M. Thiers again, as they do in England? Look at King William—does any body shoot him? and yet he rides out with four cream-coloured horses, with blue eyes, every day, and sometimes he walks into the Hungerford Market, and asks the price of shrimps. Louis plays a principal part in all his measures, even his high-handed measures. If he makes himself a target, he must expect to be shot at. In the beginning of his reign, he played the liberal too loosely. “Why talk of censorship?” said he—“il n’y aura plus de délits de la presse.”—“I am but a bridge to arrive at the Republic.”
With his present acts, this language is in almost ludicrous contrast. He is a Jacobin turned king, say his enemies; and we must expect he will run the career of all renegades. I have not described his disasters and dangers in a lamentable tone, because I don’t choose to affect a sympathy I do not feel. He had a quiet and delightful habitation at Neuilly; and sincehe has not preferred it to this “bare-picked bone of Majesty,” at the Tuileries, let him abide the consequences. However, I shall be one of those who will deplore his loss, from the good will I bear the French people, for I have not the least doubt that, with twenty years’ possession of the throne, he will bring them, in all that constitutes real comfort and rational liberty, to a degree of prosperity unknown to their history.
Remember, I am talking French, not American politics. To infer from the example of America, that the institutions of a Republic may be introduced into these old governments of Europe, requires yet the “experiment” of another century. If we can retain our democracy when our back woodlands are filled up, when New York and Philadelphia have become a London and Paris; when the land shall be covered with its multitudes, struggling for a scanty living, with passions excited by luxurious habits and appetites;—if we can then maintain our universal suffrage and our liberty, it will be fair and reasonable enough in us to set ourselves up for the imitation of others. Liberty, as far as we yet know her, is not fitted to the condition of these populous and luxurious countries. Her household gods are of clay, and her dwelling,where the icy gales of Alleghany sing through the crevices of her hut.
I have spent a day at the exhibition of the students of the University, which was conducted with great pomp. There was aconcourfor prizes, and speeches in the learned languages; nothing butclarissimianderuditissimi, Thiers and Guizots. Don’t you love modern Latin? I read, the other day, an ode to “Hannæ Moræ,” and I intend to write one some of these days to Miss Kittæ J. Nellæ, of Pine Hill. A propos! what is doing at the Girard College? when are they to choose the professors? and who are the trustees? I must be recommended τοισι ανθροποισι μεγαλοισι. Please tell Mr. S—— I confide to him my interests, as a good catholic does his soul to the priest, without meddling himself in the matter. Good night.
Tour of Paris—The Seine—The Garden of Plants—The Animals—Island of St. Louis—The Halle aux Vins—The Police—Palais de Justice—The Morgue—Number of suicides—M. Perrin—The Hotel de Ville—Place de Grêve—The Pont Neuf—Quai des Augustins—The Institute—Isabeau de Bavière—The Bains Vigiers—The Pont des Arts—The Washerwomen’s Fête—Swimming schools for both sexes—The Chamber of Deputies—Place de la Revolution—Obelisk of Luxor—Hospital of the Invalids—Ecole Militaire—The Champ de Mars—Talleyrand.
September 14th, 1835.
Afterthe nonsense of my last letter, I almost despair of putting you in a humour to enjoy the serious matter likely to be contained in this. I have just returned from an excursion on foot from the one end to the other of Paris, making, as a sensible traveller ought to do, remarks upon the customs, institutions, and monuments of the place, and here I am with a sheet of double postto write you down these remarks. I would call it a classical tour, but I have some doubts whether walking in a straight line is atour, and therefore I have called it simply a journal.
I had for my companion the Seine—he was going for sea-bathing to the Havre. His destination thence no more known than ours, when we float into eternity. Some little wave may, however, roll till it reach the banks of the Delaware—and who knows, that lifted into vapour by the sun, it may not spread in rains upon the Broad Mountain, and at last delight your tea-tables at Pine Hill. I therefore send you a kiss, and in recommending the river to your notice, I must make you acquainted with his history.
Most rivers except the Seine, and perhaps the Nile, have a high and noble descent; this, as I have read in a French author, runs out of a hole in the ground, in the flat and dirty country of the Côté d’or; it was contained once in a monk’s kitchen near Dijon, and began the world, like Russian Kate, by washing the dishes. At Paris it is called, by the polite French, thefleuve royale. Any stream in this country which is able to run down a hill is called a river,—this, of course, is aroyalriver. It receives a pretty large share of its bigness from the Maine and Yonne, and someother streams, (for rivers, like great men, are not only great of their own merits, but by appropriating that of others) and is itself again lost in the great ocean. It is the most beneficent river on the Continent—it distributes water, one of the elements of life, to near a million of people, and it gives some to the milkwoman who furnishes me withcafé-au-laitin the Faubourg St. Germain (where you will direct your letters from this date.) It is received in its debut into Paris magnificently, the Garden of Plants being on the left, and the great avenue of the Bastille and the elephant on its right, and overhead, five triumphal arches, which were erected for its reception by Bonaparte, sustaining the superb bridge of Austerlitz. And here commences my journal.
At twelve I left the Garden of Plants, with only a peep through the railings. One cannot go inside here without stumbling against all creation. The whole of the three kingdoms—animal, vegetable, and mineral—are gathered into this garden from the four corners of the earth, as they were when Adam baptised them. I observed a great number of plants growing out of the ground as fast as they could, and little posts standing prim and stiff along side of them, to tell you their names in apothecaries’ Latin—I mean their modern names—those they got at the great christening have been entirely lost, and Monsieur de Buffon and some others have been obliged to hunt them new ones out of the dictionary.
I did go in a little, and stood alongside of an American acacia, conceiting for a moment I was on my native earth again, and so I was, for the tree was transplanted from the Susquehanna, and the soil was brought with it. It would not otherwise grow out of its native country. Alas, do you expect that one’s affections, so much more delicate, will not pine and wither away where there is not a particle of their native aliment to support them! I looked a long time upon a cedar of Lebanon; it stands like a patriarch in the midst of his family, its broad branches expanded hospitably, inviting the traveller to repose. Along the skirts of the garden one sees lions, and tigers, and jackals, and an elephant—a prisoner from Moscara, lately burnt by the Grand Army. Several elephants fought and bled for their country on that occasion, and this is one of them. And finally, I saw what you never have seen in America, a giraffe, a sort of quadruped imitation of an ostrich, its head twenty feet in the air; and there were a greatnumber of children and their dear little mammas giving it gingerbread. Deers also were stalking through the park—but in docility and sleekness how inferior to ours of the Mohanoy! and several bears were chained to posts, but not a whit less bearish, nor better licked, though brought up in Paris, than ours of the Sharp Mountain.
I could not help looking compassionately at a buffalo, who stood thoughtful and melancholy under an American poplar; his head hanging down, and gazing upon the earth. He had perhaps left a wife and children, and the rest of the family, on the banks of the Missouri! Wherever the eye strayed, new objects of interest were developed. Goats afar off were hanging upon cliffs, as high as a man’s head; and sheep from foreign countries (poor things!) were bleating through valleys—six feet wide! All the parrots in the world were here prating; and whole nations of monkies, imitating the spectators. Nothing in all this Academy of Nature seemed to draw such general admiration as these monkies and these parrots. What a concourse of observers! It is so strange in Paris to hear words articulated without meaning, and see grimaces that have no communication with the heart!
Just in leaving the Garden, the Seine has lent some of its water to St. Martin, to make an island—saints not being able to make islands without this accommodation. This island of St. Martin is covered, during summer, with huge piles of wood, ingeniously arranged into pyramids and conic sections. Some of the piles are built into dwellings, and let out for the warm season; so you can procure here a very snug little summer retreat, and burn your house to warm your toes in the winter. I ought to tell you (for acute travellers never let anything of this kind slip), that wood is here two sous a pound. That old woman, the government, is very expensive in her way of living, and the moment she finds any article of first necessity, as salt or fuel, &c., she claps a tax upon it. Besides, all that money which your railroad fanatics about Schuylkill lay out in contrivances to carry your coal to market, she lays out in new frocks—and this is the reason wood is two cents a pound.
A little onward, I stepped upon the quiet and peaceful island of St. Louis—quiet! and yet it is inhabited by nearly all the lawyers of Paris. St. Louis is the only saint that has not left off doing miracles. The noisy arts will notventure on it, though four bridges have been made for their accommodation. It reminds one of that world of Ovid’s, where everything went off to Heaven except justice.—Astræa ultima.Like all other places of Paris, this island has its curiosities and monuments. You will find here the ancientHotel de Mimes, its ceilings painted by Lebrun and Le Sueur, now a lumber-house for soldiers and their iron beds; and if you give a franc to the cicerone (the porter and his wife) you can get him to tell you that Bonaparte was hid here for two days after the battle of Waterloo. He will shew you, if you seem to doubt, the very paillasse upon which the Emperor, whilst the Allies were marching into Paris, slept. You will find here, also, some imperishable ruins of Lebrun and Le Sueur, in the once famousHotel de Bretonvilliers, now venerable for its dirt, as well as its antiquity.
I admired awhile theHalle aux Vins, one of the curiosities of the left bank, enclosed on three sides by a wall, and on the side of the Seine, by an iron railing 889 yards. It contains 800,000 casks of wine and spirits, from which are drawn annually, for the use of Paris, twenty millions of gallons. France, by a cunning legislation, prevents this natural produceof her soil escaping from the country, by laying a prohibitory duty upon the industry of other nations, which would enable them to purchase it; so we have the whole drinking of it to ourselves, and we oblige John Bull to stick to his inflammatory Port and Madeira.
L’isle de la Citécomes next; the last, but not the least, remarkable of the three sister islands, called the Island of the Cité, because once all Paris was here, and there was no Paris anywhere else. Antony used to quaff old Falernian on this island with Cæsar, and run after the grisette girls and milliners, whilst they sent Labienus to look after Dumnorix; and here in a later age came the gay and gartered earls; knights in full panoply; fashionable belles in rustling silks, and the winds brought delicate perfumes on their wings. At present no Arabic incense is wasted upon the air of this island. Filth has set up her tavern here, and keeps the dirtiest house of all Paris. But in the midst of this beggary of comfort and decency, are glorious monuments which the rust of ages has not yet consumed; theHôtel Dieu,Palais de Justice, andPræfecturateof Police; and I had like to have forgotten that majestic old pile, with fretted roofs and towers pinnacled in theclouds, with Gothic windows, and grizly saints painted on them,