The common event is, that the young gentleman having acquired, from his college associations, ambitious desires, and habits altogether adverse to ordinary industry, and finding the avenues to success shut against his little diligence or abilities, is driven to dishonourable expedients for a living; he turns gambler or drunkard: or, at least, if he does not make gunpowder to kill the “King of the French,”[2]heresorts to law, or gospel, or medicine, and gleans the stubble for a miserable subsistence during a long life, (for poor devils won’t die,) or he turns common hack upon the high way of letters, and peddles and hucksters all day, for his meagre provender at night. If you think this a caricature, come and live in the “Latin Quarter,” and you will find it is a handsome enough likeness.
However, I do not mean by all this reasoning, that you are to burn the University of Pennsylvania; but, that a system which cannot be changed, may be improved. I should like to see it confined to the highest possible range of studies, so that a smaller number of persons may be seduced from the laborious pursuits, and those common things, the schoolmasters, may have a wider field of duties, and, consequently, a larger share of the public consideration, and the dignity of human nature. It is silly to talk of the prosperity, especially of a literary employment, where honour and profit are not given to those who administer its duties.
I know two or three members of the Institute, who will be angry if I should tell you not a word of that “bel etablissement.” I have read somewhere, that Fulton having sued the protection of this Institute in vain, for a whole year,was afterwards enabled, by an individual, called William Pitt, to bring his valuable invention into the service of mankind; which seems to import, that “forty men” may not have always “de l’esprit comme quatre.” Such institutions, when established, like the geographical and other societies, for literary intercourse and correspondence, are of manifest utility; but when they assume judicial powers, and accord the world
“just as much wit,As Johnson, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit;”
“just as much wit,As Johnson, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit;”
“just as much wit,As Johnson, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit;”
standing between the author and the public; or when they become a privileged class, invested with honours, which cannot be attained by others of equal merit, I am a hardened heretic in all my opinions respecting them. I know, moreover, no scheme of patronage that secures such academical honours to the most worthy.
We used to see rejected in the old Academy, such names as Helvetius, Molière, Arnault and Pascal, and the two Rousseaus; and such as Sismondi and Beranger, in the present. Beranger, the poet, the most original and philosophical, one of the most richly endowed with poetic genius of the present age, “who, under the modest title of ‘Songs,’ makes odes worthy thelyre of Pindar, and the lute of Anacreon,” was refused the vacant place of this year, in theAcadémie des Belles Lettres, and it was given to Mr. Somebody, who writes vaudevilles. Broussais, who has left an impress upon his age, by his genius, was rejected in the “Académie des Sciences” for a Monsieur Double—and who knows M. Double? And Lisfranc, to whom surgery owes more than to any living Frenchman, was excluded for a Monsieur Breschet—and who is M. Breschet? I might as well ask, who, in the “Académie de Medecine,” are Messrs. Bouriat, Chardel, Chereau, Clarion and Cornac.[3]
The students pass their nine years here upon Latin, as in America, and by nearly the same processes; that is, the children are drilled as with us upon the studies of mature age, and improve their memories without much troubling the other faculties. A boy for instance, at ten and twelve years, is made to strain after the beauties of Cicero and Horace, which are conceivableonly by a well-cultivated manhood; and in the elementary schools, babies are taught, exactly as in Philadelphia, all the incomprehensible nonsense of the grammars. Any child here can tell you why a verb is “active, passive, and neuter,” and how the action must pass from the agent to the object, to make it “transitive;” and they study reading and punctuation on the “Beauties of the Classics,” as we do:—“vital spark,” (a comma,) “Heavenly flame,” (a semicolon;)—and the little things are taught to “Hic and Hac,” at a public examination to please Mrs. Quickly just as with us. Paris is, also, full of instructors, calling themselves Professors, who have introduced all the different ways of turning dunces into wits, in six lessons, which are practised so successfully in Philadelphia; and they have tapestried every street with their “new systems,” under the very nose of the Minister of Public Instruction. In the chamber adjoining mine is a young Englishman, just arrived, without a knowledge of French, to a course of medical study; he has taken a master, a venerable and noisy old man, who humbly conceives that the whole English nation is stupid, because this youth cannot pronouncevertu. He made, this morning, fifty persevering efforts, eachlouder than the last, and still it wasverthu. The old gentleman sat afterwards in my room awhile, quite meditative, and at length said, in a very feeling manner:—“I believe the English nation is fool!”—I know another teacher, an Englishman, who retaliates upon the French the violence done his countrymen. He begins by dislocating a Frenchman’s jaws. His “system” is to commence with the difficulties, and all the rest, he says, is “down hill.” So he has a little book of phrases, “made hard for beginners,” as follows:—“I snuff Scotch snuff, my wife snuffs Scotch snuff.”—“A lump of red leather, and a red leather lump,” &c. The scholar, having overcome these preparatory difficulties, takes up Sterne’s sentimental journey. It is, he says, as one who learns to run, having put on leaden shoes: when relieved from the weight he can almost fly.—I verily believe that the greatest fools, all over the world, are those who communicate knowledge; as the greatest knaves are usually those who teach men to be honest.—Je ne sais si je m’explique.
In the Parisian schools there is at present no corporal punishment. The student used to be flogged in these same Halls till there were no more birches.—Solomon may say what hepleases, I will not have my children whipped. The only natural authority for whipping, is in the parent, and it cannot be safely delegated to another. The discipline here is every where good.
The professors of Paris are men of the world, and mix in its pleasures. They have nothing in their air of awkward timidity, or haughty arrogance, or ridiculous pedantry—the faults often of those who live apart from fashionable society. They are as well bred as if there were no scholars at all. And they do not set them up here as examples to other men, or make them die, as with us, martyrs to virtue, at the rate of five hundred dollars a-year, and find themselves.—I know several of these professors, and one intimately; he attends to both the moral and intellectual improvement of his pupils, and is most assiduous in his duties. Moreover, he has three rooms in different parts of this “Latin Quarter,” in one of which he has a very pretty little mistress, highly cultivated in music and letters; in another he resides with his books, and has frequent conversations with venerable men about the best systems of education; the third he keeps for occasional adventures. He is much esteemed, and would not be less were I to publish his name.
My opinion is, that America has little to learn from Europe on the subject of schools; she wants but a wise and diligent application of the knowledge she already possesses, and which future experience may suggest; she runs at least as much risk of being led astray by European errors, as enlightened by European wisdom. The better scholarship of Europe, is not attributable to the better organisation of her schools.
I am aware there are opinions and doctrines in this letter which are not orthodox, but you did not ask me to write after other men’s opinions, but my own. On education the sentiments of men are yet unfortunately unsettled, and the field is open for speculation. With great respect, I remain your very humble servant.
Ladies’ Boarding Schools.—Names of Professors in the Prospectus.—System of Education.—American Schools.—Preference for Science.—High Intellectual Acquirements not approved.—Learned Women.—American Girls.—Comparison of French and American Society.—The care to preserve Female Beauty.—Expression of the Mouth.—Dress of American Women.—Notions of the Maternal Character.—Studies in Ladies’ Schools.—Literary Associations.—Société Geographique.—French Lady Authors.—Living Writers.—Chateaubriand—Beranger—Lamartine—Victor Hugo—Casimir de la Vigne—Alfred de Vigny—Guizot—Thiers—Thièrry Ségur—Lacretelle—Sismondi.
Ladies’ Boarding Schools.—Names of Professors in the Prospectus.—System of Education.—American Schools.—Preference for Science.—High Intellectual Acquirements not approved.—Learned Women.—American Girls.—Comparison of French and American Society.—The care to preserve Female Beauty.—Expression of the Mouth.—Dress of American Women.—Notions of the Maternal Character.—Studies in Ladies’ Schools.—Literary Associations.—Société Geographique.—French Lady Authors.—Living Writers.—Chateaubriand—Beranger—Lamartine—Victor Hugo—Casimir de la Vigne—Alfred de Vigny—Guizot—Thiers—Thièrry Ségur—Lacretelle—Sismondi.
Paris, December 25th, 1835.
I amgoing in my usual way to write you what has most engaged my attention during the last week. I have been breaking into ladies’ boarding schools, and turning and twisting about the school-mistresses, and making them explain their plans of education; which they have donevery obligingly, leading me through their dormitories, refectories, and school-rooms. The French women are so kind in showing you any thing. In the street, I often chose to lose myself a mile or two rather than impose upon their good nature. The organization of their schools has nothing different from the French boarding schools of Philadelphia. Their elementary branches are the same. Their foreign languages are German, English, and Italian; and these, with drawing, dancing, and needlework, make up the programme of studies. Most of the schools are in airy situations, with large gardens, having baths, and gymnastic exercises attached. Rewards and punishments are as usual; bulletins of conduct are sent to the parents, and public examinations are made to astonish the grandmothers and bring the schools into notoriety.
All the professors are printed up ostentatiously in the prospectus. One is “Danseur de l’ Académie Royal de l’Opera;” another is “Professeur du chant au Conservatoire;” a “Chevalier de la legion d’honneur” teaches you your “pot-hooks;” and an “Instituteur du duc de Bordeaux,”—“de la Reine de Portugal,”&c.your parts of speech. In the best schools theannual charge for boarding and education, including the foreign languages, is about two hundred dollars. Dancing and drawing are each three, and the piano six dollars per month.
A French woman is emphatically a social being, and prepares herself for this destination. A philosophical apparatus is no part of the furniture of her school-room; nor does she rashly study Latin, nor any of the “inflammatory branches.” But she makes herself well acquainted with all that is of daily use; her geography, history of France, mythology and the fashionable literature, and tries to be very expert in the “use and administration” of this learning; she talks of books and their authors, especially the drama, of the fine arts, of social etiquette, of dress and fashions, and all such common topics, better than other women. She studies the graces of language, and all the rhetoric of society, as an orator, that of public life. She learns to speak, not with the tongue only, but with the action, gesture, voice, and expression, which may give life and magic to her conversation.
You will hear her talk of the “jeu du visage,” and she thinks a woman, who has no variety offace, had better have no face at all. I take the liberty of thinking so too; extending only the rule to the whole woman, body and soul. What is she, after all, without variety? any thing is better; a fish without seasoning is better. I had almost said that a woman much oftener palls the appetite of her husband by uniform goodness, than by her caprices and levities. I have found it pleasant, after having a chill, even to have a fever by way of variety. And why should not the eloquence of common life be quite as important as that of the bar, or senate, or pulpit? since it is of daily use, and the other only occasional, and since much more important interests are affected by it.
A French woman does not limit her views of education to her maiden years, nor to her domestic and nursery duties, not being destined to be imprisoned by her husband, or devoured by her own children; nor to her marriage settlement; for this is the business of her mother; her aim is to prepare the qualifications of womanhood; and her ambition is not to win the unbearded admiration of boys, for her intercourse is to be with men, competent, from taste and understanding to judge of her acquirements, as well as to add something to the polishof her mind, by their manners and conversation. But the taste of gentlemen here, even of the learned, seeks not so much science in a lady as a certain knack in conversation, which may give a good grace to all that she says.
In our American schools science has taken precedence every where of letters; it has not only the principal seats at the universities, but in our best female academies is thought to be the most exalted and necessary kind of knowledge. It is so interesting to see a young miss expert at her sines and tangents; and presiding over a cabinet of minerals.
Why, a New England lady analyzes the atmosphere and gossips hydraulics at her tea-table. I have been puzzled there upon theories of geology, or meteorology, at a wedding. “Sir, this is a trap formation,—the angle seventeen minutes and three seconds.”—I do not mean to depreciate this kind of learning, but I would not make it the principal object of a gentleman’s, much less, a lady’s education. Calculations of science have little to do with the affections; they exercise only the mechanism of the understanding; and leave the imaginative power—the power which adorns and illustrates by images—unemployed; and the mind, under amathematical training, becomes too systematic for the irregularity of human affairs.
The partiality for science prevails in gentlemen’s education, also in Europe. The chief professorships of the colleges are scientific, and in the Institute, the Academy of Sciences, like Aaron’s rod, has swallowed up all the rest. But in the female schools such inquiries are postponed, at least, to the ornamental and agreeable. A French lady is of the romantic school, and thinks the classic too severe for feminine charms. Therefore, all studies which do not supply the materials of daily conversation, and have no immediate connection with some purpose of her social existence are rejected from the general plan of female instruction.
Acquirements highly intellectual in a lady, are not much approved by the French tutors and others with whom I have conversed. They think them dangerous to her domestic qualities. A Parisian lady living continually in society, having such accomplishments, would become too much the property of the other sex. Besides, such an education, they say, made Madame de Stael a libertine, Madame Centlivre, and two or three more, licentious, and Madame Montague a sloven and something else, and so theyrun on. One might ask them in return what it made of Mesdames Barbauld, Hamilton, Porter, Edgeworth, Hemans, and that good old blue-stocking saint, Hannah More. It is true that learning is more attractive, and will always be more courted and flattered than even beauty; and in this sense it is dangerous. The Greeks gave Minerva a shield, and turned Venus loose without one; it was apparently for this reason. Learning in France always studies books and the world together; the “Blue Stocking” is not known here, nor is there any equivalent term in the language. The “Precieuses Ridicules” is of a different character. So at least the learned woman has not to dread this opprobrious designation, which so terrifies ladies in some other countries. I know one, not of the Tuileries, but the Collieries, who, under the awful apprehension of Blue Stockingism, almost repents of her learning; hides her Virgil, and disowns her Horace altogether. There are places where ladies think proper to apologise for their virtues, and ask pardon for being in the right.
A French lady is not afraid to show her possessions. She shows her learning, and knows how to show it without affectation. She displays itas she does her pretty foot and ankle; she does not pull up her clothes expressly for the purpose. As for me, I love a learned woman, even in her blue stockings; and without them I love her to idolatry;—I mean a reasonable idolatry, which leads to a higher reverence for the Creator from an admiration of his best works. One of the grand purposes of a Frenchwoman, is to seem natural; and, indeed, if a lady is natural, even her singularities add to her perfections, whilst affectation makes even her sense and beauty insipid and ridiculous.
I talked with one of these mistresses about you American girls. She says you come too soon into the world, and take too many liberties when in it. This, she thinks, interferes with education, and awakens inclinations and passions which had better sleep until the girls have grown up. She says that tender plants should be kept a long while in the nursery; that to play well in the concert, one must play well at home, and that the whole of youth is even too little for acquirement. “These young ladies, you see, are not unhappy from the restraints they undergo; and they are not less accomplished I assure you. By coming sooner into society, they would acquire a bad tone, a badmanner, a bad air, which a mature age and judgment might be unable to correct. In a word, sir, a young lady below eighteen sees enough of the world over her mother’s shoulders.” So talked this impertinent little woman.
A Frenchwoman has no attentions from society while a girl, and consequently, no wit till she is married; exactly the period at which American ladies generally lose theirs. A smile and a few timid glances under the wing of her beautiful mamma, is all the little thing dares venture. But the American girl has the reins of her conduct a good deal in her own hands, and therefore grows prudent; she has her reason and judgment sooner developed. She has all the serpentine wisdom and columbine innocence so recommended in the Scriptures in her looks and actions. I feel, my dear sisters, all the admiration and respect which is due to you, but with my utmost efforts I cannot help falling a little in love with this innocent indiscretion of the French.
It would have puzzled the evil spirit more to tempt Eve after the fall than before it; yet I like her in the first state better. Their not coming into the world before the full time, I like alsowell enough. My tastes are not girlish. The eye indeed reposes with delight upon the green corn, but the ripened ear is better. I know, indeed, all the sweetness which a fine day pours out upon Chesnut-street; but —— I like better your mothers. They who give tone to society should have maturity of mind; they should have refinement of taste, which is a quality of experience and age. As long as college beaux and boarding school misses take the lead, it must be an insipid society in whatever community it may exist.
Middle age in this country never loses its sovereignty, nor does old age lose its respect; and this respect, with the enjoyments which accompany it, keeps the world young. It turns the clouds into drapery, and gilds them with its sunshine; which presents as fine a prospect as the clear and starry heavens. Even time seems to fall in with the general observance. I know French women who retain to forty-five and often beyond that age the most agreeable attractions of their sex.—Is it not villanous in your Quakerships of Philadelphia to lay us, before we have lived half our time out, upon the shelf? Some of our native tribes, more merciful, eat the old folks out of the way.—Don’t bemad; you will one day be as old as your mothers.
An important item here in a lady’s studies (and it should be a leading branch of education every where) is her beauty. Sentiment and health being the two chief ingredients and efficient causes of this quality, have each its proper degree of cultivation. Every body knows that the expression of the eye, the voice, and the whole physiognomy, is modified by the thoughts or passions habitually entertained in the mind. Every one sees their effects upon the face of the philosopher and the idiot; upon that of the generous man and the niggard; but how few have considered that not only is this outward and visible expression nothing but the reflection of the mind; but that the very features are in a material degree modelled by its sensations.
Give, for example, any woman a habit of self-complacency, and she will have a little pursed up mouth; or give her a prying and busy disposition, and you will give her a straight onward nose. What gives the miser a mouth mean and contracted, or the open-hearted man his large mouth, but the habitual series of thoughts with which we are conversant? Determination stiffens the upper lip, and this is the lip of a resolute man. Peevish women and churls have thin lips; and good humour, or a generous feeling, or a habit of persuasion, rounds them into beauty. I have read that it was common amongst the rakes about Charles the Second to have “sleepy, half-shut, sly and meretricious eyes,” and that this kind of eye became fashionable at court. So every feature has its class of sensations by which it is modified; and this is not forgotten in the education of the Parisian young ladies. They take care that, while young and tender, they may cherish honest and amiable feelings, if for no other reason than that they may have an amiable expression of countenance—that they may have Greek noses, pouting lips, and the other constituents of beauty.
Our climate is noted for three eminent qualities, extreme heat and cold, and extreme suddenness of change. If a lady has bad teeth, or a bad complexion, she blames it conveniently upon the climate; if her beauty, like a tender flower, fades before noon, it is the climate; if she has a bad temper or even a snub nose, still it is the climate. But our climate is active and intellectual, especially in winter, and in all seasons more pure and transparent than these inky skies of Europe. It sustains the infancy of beauty, and why not its maturity? it spares the bud, and why not the opened blossom or the ripened fruit? Our negroes are perfect in teeth, and why not the whites?—The chief preservative of beauty in any country is health, and there is no place in which this great interest is so little attended to as in America.
To be sensible of this, you must visit Europe. You must see the deep-bosomed maids of England upon thePlace Vendôme, and theRue Castiglione. There you will see no pinched and mean-looking shoulders overlooking the plumpness and round sufficiency of a luxuriant tournure. As for the French women, a constant attention to the quantity and quality of their food is an article of their faith; and bathing and exercise are as regular as their meals. When children, they play abroad in their gardens; they have their gymnastic exercises in their schools, and their dancing and other social amusements keep up a healthful temperament throughout life. Besides, a young lady here does not put her waist in the inquisition. Fashion, usually insane, and an enemy to health, has grown sensible in this; she regards a very small waist as a defect, and points to theVenus de Medicis, who stands out boldly in the Tuileries, in vindication and testimony of the human shapes; and now among ladies of good breeding a waist which cannot dispense with tight lacing is thought not worth the mantua-maker’s bill—not worth the squeezing.
When I left America, the more a woman looked like an hour-glass, like two funnels or two extinguishers converging, the more pretty she was considered; and the waist in esteem by the cockney curiosity of the town, was one you would pinch between thumb and finger; giving her a withered complexion, bloated legs, consumptive lungs and ricketty children.—If this is not reformed, alas the republic!—A Frenchwoman’s beauty, such as it is, lasts her her lifetime, by the care she takes of it. Her limbs are vigorous, her bosom well developed, her colour healthy, and she has a greater moral courage, and is a hundred times better fitted to dashing enterprises, than the women of our cities.
The motherly virtues of our women, so eulogised by foreigners, are not entitled to unqualified praise. There is indeed no country in which maternal care is so assiduous; but also there is none in which examples of injudicious tenderness are so frequent. If a mother has eight or nine children (the American number) and wears out her life with the cares of nursing them, dies, and leaves them to a step-mother, she is not entitled to any praise but at the expense of her judgment and common sense; and this is one of our daily occurrences in America.—If a mother should squander away upon the infancy of her child, all that health and care which are so necessary to its youth and adolescence, or if by anticipating its wants she destroys its sense of gratitude, and her own authority, and impairs its constitution and temper by indiscreet indulgences—instead of being the most tender, she is the most cruel of all mothers—this happens commonly in all countries, and in none so much as in America.—If a mother should toil thirty years, and kill herself with cares, to procure for her son the glorious privilege of doing nothing, perhaps the means of being a rake and prodigal; she is a stupid mother, and such mothers——
But —— I forget I have a reputation all the way from Mohontongo-street to Adam-street, and I must take care how I lose it. Do you be a good little mother, and economise your health and good looks; and remember that alittle judicious hard fare and exposure will not injure your children’s happiness, and that not the quantity, so much as the quality of your maternal cares is useful and commendable. I do not preach rebellion, but if I were any body’s wife, and he should insist on killing me off for the benefit of his children, or to get a new wife—I should insist particularly on not being killed.
The system of ladies’ schools here, is more reasonable than that of their worse halves. There is a better adaptation of studies to the capacity and future destination of the scholars, and to the uses of society; and being open to a fair competition, and to public patronage only, there is a better management of the details.
The gentlemen’s colleges engross all the higher branches, and give them a specific direction, embracing only three or four of the employments of society, and these are, consequently, so overstocked, as to make success in them no better than a lottery. The community is, therefore, filled with a multitude of idlers, who falling often into desperate circumstances, either plot some treason against the state, or prowl, for a thievish subsistence about the gamblinghouses.—His Most Christian Majesty must have as many lives as a cat to escape them.
There are also in Paris, a great many literary associations, to which ladies have access; and this gives the opportunity of a decorous intercourse of the sexes, which serves to elevate both in the eyes of each other. Woman, associated with man in his intellectual, as in his domestic pursuits, assumes the station, which, by nature, as by the rules of every polished and literary society, she is entitled to. These societies furnish agreeable entertainments for Sundays, or holidays; and they have the good effect of introducing the Muses, naturally awkward, into company, and making them acquainted a little with the Graces.
I attended, a Sunday ago, a meeting of one of these, the—“Société Polytechnique,” in the great saloon of theHôtel de Ville. At the one end was an elevated platform, and mounted upon it a President and the usual apparatus of a meeting. Along each side were arranged the readers and orators, and distinguished guests. After a “Rapport,” read by the secretary, of the doings of the society, the speakers recited pieces of their own composition—some in rhyme, and many without rhyme orreason. Some were designed to make us laugh, and others to cry, and we did both with great acclamation.—Music closed the scene; a duo by “Italian Artists,” and some one screamed a song on the piano. It is one of the advantages of a large city, that its meetings never want the dignity of a crowd, whatever be the occasion.—The bishop has his at Notre Dame, and punch his at the Champs Elysées.
I have been, also, to the “Société Geographique.” There were Captain Ross, from the North Pole, and—what remains of him from American bugs and musquitoes—Captain Hall, and Baron Humboldt, and other Barons. An honorary badge of the society was presented to Captain Ross, with warm acclamation. I waited to the very end, for a lecture announced in the bill about—what do you think?—the “Beaux Arts en Amerique.”—But it was all about negroes and squaws, and such “copper fronts as Pocahontas.” It gave a history, circumstantially, of a great crusade of catguts, got up in Paris, a dozen of years ago, for Brazil, which scraped an acquaintance with Don Pedro, and spread the gamut all over Patagonia. Polyphemus threw away his pipe, and sang nothing but, “Tanti Palpiti” to his sheep, and thesheep bleated nothing butmamma mia, in reply.—“Ainsi, Messieurs, (this is the ending,)cet immense progrés est dù à la Grande Nation, dont nous nous honorons d’etre une humble partie.” From the “rapport” of this “société,” it seems to be a most valuable institution. The topics are various and useful, and its researches are carried by correspondence into every corner of the earth.
I must say a word of a school I visited this morning called the “Ecole Orthopedique,” to correct physical deformities, and slovenly habits. Here all that is gross in human nature is refined, all that is crooked reformed. There are as many branches as at the university. One professor ties strings a foot long about your ankles, to prevent too much stride, and another “straightens legs for both sexes.” Angular knees, and stoop shoulders, and such little freaks, are affairs of a fortnight. I have seen, with my own eyes, a girl whose face, they say, was running one way and her feet the other; people walking after her were continually treading on her toes, and in less than six months she has been turned round. The highest chair in this school is for teaching “sitting”—it is occupied by the President. There is also a chair for “walking,” and one for “standing still.” In some countries these are thought mere simple operations to be performed by any one who has wherewith to stand or sit upon.
Let me now introduce you to the French Lady Authors. The family is so small I shall happily have room for them on the rest of this page. The Dowager on the list is theDuchesse d’ Abrantes, with her Memoirs; and next her thePrincesse de Salm, who wrote an “Opera of Sappho” and “Poetical Epistles,” very good for a Princess; also a work calledVingt-quatre heures d’une femme sensible, in which there is a display of rich and brilliant fancy. I never read it.
Madame Tastuwrote a volume of little poetry very much loved for its tenderness, andMademoiselle Delphine Gay(now Madame Girardin) also a volume of miscellaneous poetry, very pretty and delicate, and she is almost a Corinne for extemporising; last of all, the exquisite BaronessDu Devant(George Sand), the gayest little woman in all Paris, who has written novels full of genius, and fit almost to stand along side of Aphra Behn’s and Lady Mary Montague’s verses. When they publish an edition, with little stars * *in usum Delphini, I will sendyou a copy.—I shall perhaps have room also for the gentlemen.
The patriarch isChateaubriand. It is idle to talk about him. He sold the copyright of his works for twenty years only at five hundred and fifty thousand francs. Who has not read his Génie du Christianisme, Martyrs, Journey to Jerusalem, Amerique Sauvage, Atala, &c. He has written also “Memoirs of his own Times,” not to be published till his death. Every one is anxious to read them. The oldest of the poets isBeranger. His songs are worthy of Pindar in boldness and sublimity, and not unworthy of Anacreon in liveliness and grace. I have only room for four lines:—Napoleon in his glory.
—— dans sa fortune altière,Se fit un jeu des sceptres, et des lois;Et de ses pieds on peut voir la poussière,Empreinte encore sur le bandeau des rois.
—— dans sa fortune altière,Se fit un jeu des sceptres, et des lois;Et de ses pieds on peut voir la poussière,Empreinte encore sur le bandeau des rois.
—— dans sa fortune altière,Se fit un jeu des sceptres, et des lois;Et de ses pieds on peut voir la poussière,Empreinte encore sur le bandeau des rois.
At his death;
Il dort enfin, ce boulet invincibleQui fracassa vingt trones â la fois!
Il dort enfin, ce boulet invincibleQui fracassa vingt trones â la fois!
Il dort enfin, ce boulet invincibleQui fracassa vingt trones â la fois!
Another special favourite, the poet of romance and melancholy, isLamartine. He has written “Meditations;” alsoLa Mort de Socrate, andthe last canto of “Childe Harold.” Here are eight of his lines.—The “Golfe de Baia.”
O, de la Liberté vieille et sainte patrie!Terre autrefois féconde en sublime vertus!Sous d’indignes Cæsars, maintenant asservie,Ton empire est tombé! tes heroes ne sont plus!Mais dans ton sein l’ame aggrandie,Croit sur leurs monumens respirer leur génie,Comme on respire, encore dans un temple aboli,La majesté du Dieu dont il etait rempli.
O, de la Liberté vieille et sainte patrie!Terre autrefois féconde en sublime vertus!Sous d’indignes Cæsars, maintenant asservie,Ton empire est tombé! tes heroes ne sont plus!Mais dans ton sein l’ame aggrandie,Croit sur leurs monumens respirer leur génie,Comme on respire, encore dans un temple aboli,La majesté du Dieu dont il etait rempli.
O, de la Liberté vieille et sainte patrie!Terre autrefois féconde en sublime vertus!Sous d’indignes Cæsars, maintenant asservie,Ton empire est tombé! tes heroes ne sont plus!Mais dans ton sein l’ame aggrandie,Croit sur leurs monumens respirer leur génie,Comme on respire, encore dans un temple aboli,La majesté du Dieu dont il etait rempli.
He now makes eloquent speeches in the Chamber of Deputies.—Politics run away with all the genius, and rob even the schools of their professors. Only think of such a man as Arago prating radicalism in the Chamber of Deputies. The Muses weep over his and Lamartine’s infidelity.
I have readVictor Hugolately, and love him and hate him. Like our mocking-bird, he mingles the notes of the nightingale with the cacklings of the hen. But I must not abuse him, the ladies all love him so. Only think of “Bug Jargal,” the “Dernier jour d’un Condamné;” and above all, “Notre Dame de Paris;” and think only of poor little Esmeralda, put so tragically to death on the Place de Grêve in spite of her little goat Djali, and her little shoe.—I have read his tragedies,Hernan,Le Roi s’amuse, andMarie Tudor; parbleu! and “Lucrece Borgia.” His poetic works areLes Orientales; a collection of odes;Les Feuilles d’Automne, &c.
Victor Hugo is yet in the full tide of youth, and so isCasimir de la Vigne. The latter represents to-night, at the Theatre Français, hisDon Carlos; he has already reaped much glory from hisVêpres Siciliennes,Paria,Comedienne, andEcole des Vieillards, and still greater from his Poetic Lamentations, the Messeniennes, which are full of patriotic sentiment, expressed in the richest graces of poetry.
Alfred de Vignyhas written a pretty poem, theFrégate, and two biblical pieces,Moïse, and theFemme Adultère; but his great praise isCinq Mars, one of the best compositions of the French historical romance.—Scribe, Picard, and Duval have written so many vaudevilles, that one has a surfeit of their names.Dumasis a dramatic writer of first-rate merit for these days. His Antony, Therèse, Henry V., and Catharine Howard, are all played with success.Jules Janinhas a great fund of wit; hisAne Mort,Femme Guillotinée,Chemin de Travers, you can read with the certainty of being pleased.
I have said nothing of Leclercq, Langon, Balsac, Meremy, and Lacroix, who have all their share of admiration, especially from the fair sex.
When the vapours have smothered the sun, and when it rains, as it does always, instead of inhaling charcoal, or leaping from the Pont Neuf, I go into a “cabinet de lecture,” and readPaul de Kock. No author living can carry one so laughingly through a wet day. If you are fond of the genuine wit of low life, neither Fielding, nor Smollett, nor Pigault Lebrun, will disgust you with Paul de Kock. But here comes the end of my paper, what shall I do with the rest? I will just string them together by the gills.—GiveGuizotcredit for a Historyde la Civilisation, a translation of Gibbon, and a score or two of volumes on the English Revolution;MignetandThiersfor a History of the French Revolution, andBarantefor his Dukes of Burgundy;Sismondifor a History of the Italian Republics, of The French, and the Literature of the South; andDaru, of Venice;Thierry, of the Conquest of England;Capefigue, the Reform;Lacretelle, The 18th Century;Ségur, a Universal History;Michaud, of the Crusades;Delaure, of Paris;Michelet, of Rome; andPrécis de l’Histoire de France.Cousinhas written the “Philosophy of History;”Keratry, Metaphysics, and Novels; andVillemain,Melanges de Litterature, andM. de la Mennaisis praised for his “Indifference in matters of Religion.”—The French were strangely deficient in history before the present century, not even having furnished a good history of their own country; they have now supplied their deficiency in this department of letters.—Now with all due respect, and a full sense of the distinction, I place myself at the bottom of this illustrious group. Your obedient, humble servant.
The Theatres.—Mademoiselle Mars.—Théatre Royal.—Italien.—Grisi.—Académie Royal de Musique.—Taglioni.—Miss Fanny Elsler.—The Variètés.—The Odéon.—Mademoiselle George.—Hamlet.—Republican Spirit of the Age.—Character of the French Stage.—Machinery of the Drama.—The Claqueurs.—Supply of New Pieces.—The Vaudevillists.—M. Scribe.—The Diorama.—Concerts.—Music
The Theatres.—Mademoiselle Mars.—Théatre Royal.—Italien.—Grisi.—Académie Royal de Musique.—Taglioni.—Miss Fanny Elsler.—The Variètés.—The Odéon.—Mademoiselle George.—Hamlet.—Republican Spirit of the Age.—Character of the French Stage.—Machinery of the Drama.—The Claqueurs.—Supply of New Pieces.—The Vaudevillists.—M. Scribe.—The Diorama.—Concerts.—Music
Paris, December, 1835.
I willtreat you this evening to the play. The bill of fare is theThéâtre Français,Opera Français,Italien,Opera Comique,Gymnase,Vaudeville,Variètés,Gaité,AmbigùandPalais Royal, with twice as many more which we will reserve for the side dishes and the dessert.
The Post has brought me a letter from your mother, of November, which I have just read,and could not help laughing at the vanity of her fears. My morals indeed! fortified as they are by the good breeding I had from my Scotch grandmother and Presbyterian catechism.—I went last night to the play, and saw there a great many Sins, which came in their usual shape of pretty women to tempt Saint Anthony. They danced about him, and enticed him with voluptuous smiles and looks, and even set themselves at last to turn somersets to overcome his virtue, but he stuck fast to the faith.
So do I.—I should like to see all the pretty women of Paris come to tempt me. If it had not been for your mother’s letter and St. Anthony, I should not have thought of the theatre this evening.
What say you to the “Français” and Mademoiselle Mars?—Mademoiselle Mars! why she was an old thing twenty years ago; and acts yet all the charms and graces of the most amiable youth. Time flutters by and scarce breathes upon her with his wings; he is loth to set his mark upon a face which every one loves so. Why, what is younger than her voice? It is clear as the whistlings of the nightingale, or it is soft and mellow as thenotes of the wood thrush; or if she pleases, it is wild as the song of the whip-poor-will, and savage as the scream of the bald-eagle.
In gesture and the dramatic graces she is no longer subject to rules, but, like Homer, gives rules to all others of her art. When you have looked upon her divine countenance, so expressive of the seriousness of age, or the vivacity of youth; when you have listened to her sweet and honied sentences, you will say, what praise can be exaggerated of such an actress? Molière could not have had a proper conception of his own genius, not having seen Mademoiselle Mars. What a crowding and squeezing we shall have for a place! I have bought this privilege often by more than two hours attendance. Lady Mars is more chary of her favours now than in her greenest age. Like the old Sibyl, she sets a higher value upon her remnants than upon the whole piece.
This theatre, with its three tiers of boxes and two of galleries, contains 1,500 persons. It is called the “Theatre Royal,” and is very disposed to exercise its royalty despotically. It forbids the representation of tragedy at the other theatres, and has a claim upon everyélèveof the Conservatory; which claim it does notfail to assert as often as any one is likely to attain celebrity elsewhere; and its old actors having a monopoly of the choice parts, it prevents easily the advancement of the new aspirants, and weakens the rivalship of the other houses. Its distinguished actors, besides Mars, are Plessy, Chambaud, Dupont and Madame Volnys; its favourite writers Delavigne and Hugo.—Scribe too being now a member of the Institute and assuming a spirit equal to his new dignity, has abjured the ignoble vaudeville, and writes only five acts. In the vestibule you will see an admirable statue of Voltaire with the “sneering devil” in its marble features.
You must go two evenings of the week to the “Italien;” it commences in October. In October, Paris is repeopled with its fashionables, and the weeping country is forsaken. This Opera is crowded for the season with the choicest of Parisian beauty, with all the upper sort of folks, as high as the two Miss Princesses and their mamma the queen. A few evenings ago I saw an English woman here, prettier than them all; she, who with so much genius writes tales for the New Monthly, and poetry for the annuals—Mrs. Norton. I analysed her elegant features from the pit, andwondered how so pretty a woman could write verses. Of all the gratifications of Paris this theatre is surely the most delectable.
I went, on her first night, to see Signora Grisi, and since this first night, she is Grisi to me. Her melting voice and love-making features live in the memory always. Whilst she sings, one is all ear, all sense, and intellect is hushed; never did the quiet midnight listen to its nightingale so attentively; and as the last note expires,brava! brava!exclaims the incontinent Frenchman, and a thousandbravasandbravissimasare repeated through the house;O beneditto!just breathes the Italian expiring;che gusto! piacer de morire!and the unbreathing German goes silently home and lives upon her for a week.
At the close of the last song, and as the curtain threatens to descend, the acclamation bursts into its loudest explosion, and seems for a while inextinguishable; now every one who has a white handkerchief waves it, and every one who can buy a wreath or a bouquet strews it upon the stage. On Saturdays I steal into the third tier towards heaven, and there drink the divine harmony, as one thirsty drinks the healthful stream; or sit under a shower of bright eyes inthe pit. The present Italian company forms a union of talent (so say the best critics of the world) such as the world has never seen excelled. Lablache explodes as the thunder, when it mutters along the flinty ribs of the Tuscarora; Rubini out-sings the spheres, so almost Tamburini, and almost Ivanoff. But to thee, black-eyed and languishing Grisi—what are they to thee!