CHAPTER X

Paris is a beast of a city to be in—to those who cannot get out of it. Rousseau said well, that all the time he was in it, he was only trying how he should leave it. It would still bear Rabelais’ double etymology ofPar-risandLutetia.[29]There is not a place in it where you can set your foot in peace or comfort, unless you can take refuge in one of their hotels, where you are locked up as in an old-fashioned citadel, without any of the dignity of romance. Stir out of it, and you are in danger of being run over every instant. Either you must be looking behind you the whole time, so as to be in perpetual fear of their hackney-coaches and cabriolets; or, if you summon resolution, and put off the evil to the last moment, they come up against you with a sudden acceleration of pace and a thundering noise, that dislocates your nervous system, till you are brought to yourself by having the same startling process repeated. Fancy yourself in London with the footpath taken away, so that you are forced to walk along the middle of the streets with a dirty gutter running through them, fighting your way through coaches, waggons, and handcarts trundled along by large mastiff-dogs, with the houses twice as high, greasy holes for shop-windows, and piles of wood, green-stalls, and wheelbarrows placed at the doors, and the contents of wash-hand basins pouring out of a dozen stories—fancy all this and worse, and, with a change of scene, you are in Paris. The continual panic in which the passenger is kept, the alarm and the escape from it, the anger and the laughter at it, must have an effect on the Parisian character, and tend to make it the whiffling, skittish, snappish, volatile, inconsequential, unmeaning thing it is. The coachmen nearly drive over you in the streets, because they would not mind being driven over themselves—that is, they would have no fear of it the moment before, and would forget it the moment after. If an Englishman turns round, is angry, and complains, he is laughed at as a blockhead; and you must submit to be rode over in your national character. A horseman makes his horse curvet and capriole right before you, because he has no notion how an English lady, who is passing, can be nervous. They run up against you in the street out of mere heedlessness and hurry, and when you expect to have a quarrel (as would be the case in England) make you a low bow andslip on one side, to shew their politeness. The very walk of the Parisians, that light, jerking, fidgetting trip on which they pride themselves, and think it grace and spirit, is the effect of the awkward construction of their streets, or of the round, flat, slippery stones, over which you are obliged to make your way on tiptoe, as over a succession of stepping-stones, and where natural ease and steadiness are out of the question. On the same principle, French women shew their legs (it is a pity, for they are often handsome, and a stolen glimpse of them would sometimes be charming) sooner than get draggle-tailed; and you see an old French beau generally walk like a crab nearly sideways, from having been so often stuck up in a lateral position between a coach-wheel, that threatened the wholeness of his bones, and a stone-wall that might endanger the cleanliness of his person. In winter, you are splashed all over with the mud; in summer, you are knocked down with the smells. If you pass along the middle of the street, you are hurried out of breath; if on one side, you must pick your way no less cautiously. Paris is a vast pile of tall and dirty alleys, of slaughter-houses and barbers’ shops—an immense suburb huddled together within the walls so close, that you cannot see the loftiness of the buildings for the narrowness of the streets, and where all that is fit to live in, and best worth looking at, is turned out upon the quays, the boulevards, and their immediate vicinity.

Paris, where you can get a sight of it, is really fine. The view from the bridges is even more imposing and picturesque than ours, though the bridges themselves and the river are not to compare with the Thames, or with the bridges that cross it. The mass of public buildings and houses, as seen from the Pont Neuf, rises around you on either hand, whether you look up or down the river, in huge, aspiring, tortuous ridges, and produces a solidity of impression and a fantastic confusion not easy to reconcile. The clearness of the air, the glittering sunshine, and the cool shadows add to the enchantment of the scene. In a bright day, it dazzles the eye like a steel mirror. The view of London is more open and extensive; it lies lower, and stretches out in a lengthened line of dusky magnificence. After all, it is an ordinary town, a place of trade and business. Paris is a splendid vision, a fabric dug out of the earth, and hanging over it. The stately, old-fashioned shapes and jutting angles of the houses give it the venerable appearance of antiquity, while their texture and colour clothe it in a robe of modern splendour. It looks like a collection of palaces, or of ruins! They have, however, no single building that towers above and crowns the whole, like St. Paul’s, (the Pantheon is a stiff,unjointedmass to it)—nor isNotre-Dameat all to be compared to Westminster-Abbey with its Poets’ Corner, thaturn full of noble English ashes, where Lord Byron was ashamed to lie. The Chamber of Deputies (formerly the residence of the Dukes of Bourbon) presents a brilliant frontispiece, but it is a kind of architectural abstraction, standing apart, and unconnected with every thing else, not burrowing, like our House of Commons (that true and original model of a Representative Assembly House!) almost underground, and lost among therabbleof streets. The Tuileries is also a very noble pile of buildings, if not a superb piece of architecture. It is a little heavy and monotonous, a habitation for the bodies or for the minds of Kings, but it goes on in a laudable jog-trot, right-lined repetition of itself, without much worth or sense in any single part (like the accumulation of greatness in an hereditary dynasty). At least it ought to be finished (for the omen’s sake), to make the concatenation of ideas inviolable and complete! The Luxembourg, the Hospital of Invalids, the Hall of Justice, and innumerable other buildings, whether public or private, are far superior to any of the kind we have in London, except Whitehall, on which Inigo Jones laid his graceful hands; or Newgate, where we English shine equally in architecture, morals, and legislation. Our palaces (within the bills of mortality) are dog-holes, or receptacles for superannuated Abigails, and tabbies of either species. Windsor (whose airy heights are placed beyond them) is, indeed, a palace for a king to inhabit, or a poet to describe, or to turn the head of a prose-writer. (See Gray’s Ode, and the famous passage in Burke about it.) Buonaparte’s Pillar, in the Place Vendôme, cast in bronze, and with excellent sculptures, made of the cannon taken from the Allies in their long march to Paris, is a fine copy of the antique. A white flag flaps over it. I should like to write these lines at the bottom of it. Probably, Mr. Jerdan will know where to find them.

‘The painful warrior, famoused for fightAfter a thousand victories once foiled,Is from the book of honour razed quite,And all the rest forgot, for which he toiled.’

‘The painful warrior, famoused for fight

After a thousand victories once foiled,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot, for which he toiled.’

The new streets and squares in this neighbourhood are also on an improved plan—there is a double side-path to walk on, the shops are more roomy and richer, and you can stop to look at them in safety. This is as it should be—all we ask is common sense. Without this practical concession on their parts, in the dispute whether Paris is not better than London, it would seem to remain a question, whether it is better to walk on a mall or in a gutter, whether airy space is preferable to fetid confinement, or whether solidity and show together are notbetter than mere frippery? But for a real West End, for a solid substantialcutinto the heart of a metropolis, commend me to the streets and squares on each side of the top of Oxford-street—with Grosvenor and Portman squares at one end, and Cavendish and Hanover at the other, linked together by Bruton, South-Audley, and a hundred other fine old streets, with a broad airy pavement, a display of comfort, of wealth, of taste, and rank all about you, each house seeming to have been the residence of some respectable old English family for half a century past, and with Portland-place looking out towards Hampstead and Highgate, with their hanging gardens and lofty terraces, and Primrose-hill nestling beneath them, in green, pastoral luxury, the delight of the Cockney, the aversion of Sir Walter and his merry-men! My favourite walk in Paris is to the Gardens of the Tuileries. Paris differs from London in this respect, that it has no suburbs. The moment you are beyond the barriers, you are in the country to all intents and purposes. You have not to wade through ten miles of straggling houses to get a breath of fresh air, or a peep at nature. It is a blessing to counterbalance the inconveniences of large cities built within walls, that they do not extend far beyond them. The superfluous population is pared off, like the pie-crust by the circumference of the dish—even on the court side, not a hundred yards from the barrier of Neuilly, you see an old shepherd tending his flock, with his dog and his crook and sheep-skin cloak, just as if it were a hundred miles off, or a hundred years ago. It was so twenty years ago. I went again to see if it was the same yesterday. The old man was gone; but there was his flock by the road-side, and a dog and a boy, grinning with white healthy teeth, like one of Murillo’s beggar-boys. It was a bright frosty noon; and the air was, in a manner,vitreous, from its clearness, its coolness, and hardness to the feeling. The road I speak of, frequented by English jockeys and French market-women, riding between panniers, leads down to the Bois de Boulogne on the left, a delicious retreat, covered with copse-wood for fuel, and intersected by greensward paths and shady alleys, running for miles in opposite directions, and terminating in a point of inconceivable brightness. Some of the woods on the borders of Wiltshire and Hampshire present exactly the same appearance, with the same delightful sylvan paths through them, and are covered in summer with hyacinths and primroses, sweetening the air, enamelling the ground, and with nightingales loading every bough with rich music. It was winter when I used to wander through the Bois de Boulogne formerly, dreaming of fabled truth and good. Somehow my thoughts and feet still take their old direction, though hailed by no friendly greetings:—

‘What though the radiance which was once so bright,Be now for ever vanished from my sight;Though nothing can bring back the hourOf glory in the grass—of splendour in the flower:’—

‘What though the radiance which was once so bright,

Be now for ever vanished from my sight;

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of glory in the grass—of splendour in the flower:’—

yet the fever and the agony of hope is over too, ‘the burden and the mystery;’ the past circles my head, like a golden dream; it is a fine fragment of an unfinished poem or history; and the ‘worst,’ as Shakspeare says, ‘returns to good!’ I cannot say I am at all annoyed (as I expected) at seeing the Bourbon court-carriages issuing out with a flourish of trumpets and a troop of horse. It looks like a fantoccini procession, a State mockery. The fine moral lesson, the soul of greatness, is wanting. The legitimate possessors of royal power seem to be playing atMake-Believe; the upstarts and impostors are the trueSimon Puresand genuine realities. Bonaparte mounted a throne from the top of the pillar of Victory. People ask who CharlesX.is? But to return from this digression.

Through the arch-way of the Tuileries, at the end of the Champs Elysées, you see the Barrier of Neuilly, like a thing of air, diminished by a fairy perspective. The effect is exquisitely light and magical. You pass through the arch-way, and are in the gardens themselves. Milton should have written those lines abroad, and in this very spot—

‘And bring with thee retired Leisure,That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.’

‘And bring with thee retired Leisure,

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.’

True art is ‘nature to advantage drest;’ it is here a powdered beau. The prodigality of littleness, the excess of ornament, the superficial gloss, the studied neatness, are carried to a pitch of the romantic. The Luxembourg gardens are more extensive, and command a finer view; but are not kept in the same order, are dilapidated and desultory. This is an enclosure of all sweet sights and smells, a concentration of elegance. The rest of the world is barbarous to this ‘paradise of dainty devices,’ where the imagination is spell-bound. It is a perfectly-finished miniature set in brilliants. It is a toilette for nature to dress itself; where every flower seems a narcissus! The smooth gravel-walks, the basin of water, the swans (they might be of wax), the golden fishes, the beds of flowers, chine-asters, larkspur, geraniums, bright marigolds, mignonette (‘the Frenchman’s darling’) scenting the air with a faint luscious perfume, the rows of orange-trees in boxes, blooming verdure and vegetable gold, the gleaming statues, the raised terraces, the stately avenues of trees, and the gray cumbrous towers of the Tuileries overlooking the whole, give an effect of enchantment to the scene. This and the man in black byTitian, in the Louvre just by (whose features form asombrependant to the gay parterres) are the two things in Paris I like best. I should never tire of walking in the one, or of looking at the other. Yet no two things can be more opposite.[30]The one is the essence of French, the other of Italian art. By following the windings of the river in this direction, you come to Passy—a delightful village, half-way to St. Cloud, which is situated on a rich eminence that looks down on Paris and the Seine, and so on to Versailles, where the English reside. I have not been to see them, nor they me. The whole road is interspersed with villas, and lined with rows of trees. This last is a common feature in foreign scenery. Whether from the general love of pleasurable sensations, or from the greater warmth of southern climates making the shelter from the heat of the sun more necessary, or from the closeness of the cities making a promenade round them more desirable, the approach to almost all the principal towns abroad is indicated by shady plantations, and the neighbourhood is a succession of groves and arbours.

TheChamp de Mars(the French Runnymede) is on the opposite side of the river, a little above the Champs Elysées. It is an oblong square piece of ground immediately in front of theÉcole Militaire, covered with sand and gravel, and bare of trees or any other ornament. It is left a blank, as it should be. In going to and returning from it, you pass the fine old Invalid Hospital, with its immense gilded cupola and outer-walls overgrown with vines, and meet the crippled veterans who have lost an arm or leg, fighting the battles of the Revolution, with a bit of white ribbon sticking in their button-holes, which must gnaw into their souls worse than the wounds in their flesh, if Frenchmen did not alike disregard the wounds both of their bodies and minds.

The Jardin des Plantes, situated at the other extremity of Paris, on the same side of the river, is well worth the walk there. It is delightfully laid out, with that mixture of art and nature, of the useful and ornamental, in which the French excel all the world. Every plant of every quarter of the globe is here, growing in the open air; and labelled with its common and its scientific name on it. A prodigious number of animals, wild and tame, are enclosed in separate divisions, feeding on the grass or shrubs, and leading a life of learned leisure. At least, they have as good a title to this ironical compliment as most members of colleges and seminaries of learning; for they grow fat and sleek on it. They have a great variety of thesimioustribe. Is this necessary in France? The collection of wild beasts is not equal to our Exeter-‘Change; nor are they confined iniron cages out of doors under the shade of their native trees (as I was told), but shut up in a range of very neatly-constructed and very ill-aired apartments.

I have already mentioned the Père la Chaise—the Catacombs I have not seen, nor have I the least wish. But I have been to the top of Mont-Martre, and intend to visit it again. The air there is truly vivifying, and the view inspiring. Paris spreads out under your feet on one side, ‘with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned,’ and appears to fill the intermediate space, to the very edge of the horizon, with a sea of hazy or sparkling magnificence. All the different striking points are marked as on a map. London nowhere presents the same extent or integrity of appearance. This is either because there is no place so near to London that looks down upon it from the same elevation, or because Paris is better calculated for a panoramic view from the loftier height and azure tone of its buildings. Its form also approaches nearer to a regular square. London, seen either from Highgate and Hampstead, or from the Dulwich side, looks like a long black wreath of smoke, with the dome of St. Paul’s floating in it. The view on the other side Mont-Martre is also fine, and an extraordinary contrast to the Paris side—it is clear, brown, flat, distant, completely rustic, full of ‘low farms and pelting villages.’ You see St. Denis, where the Kings of France lie buried, and can fancy you see Montmorenci, where Rousseau lived, whose pen was near being as fatal to their race as the scythe of death. On this picturesque site, which so near London would be enriched with noble mansions, there are only a few paltry lodging-houses and tottering windmills. So little prone are the Parisians to extricate themselves from the sty of Epicurus; so fond ofcabinets of society, of playing at dominoes in the coffee-houses, and of practising the artde briller dans les Salons; so fond are they of this, that even when the Allies were at Mont-Martre, they ran back to be the first to give an imposing account of the attack, to finish the game of the Revolution, and make theélogeof the new order of things. They shew you the place where the affair with the Prussians happened, as—a brilliant exploit. When will they be no longer liable to such intrusions as these, or to such a result from them? When they get rid of that eternal smile upon their countenances, or of that needle-and-thread face, that is twisted into any shape by every circumstance that happens,[31]or whenthey can write such lines as the following, or even understand their meaning, their force or beauty, as a charm to purge their soil of insolent foes—theirs only, because the common foes of man!

‘But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;Doing annoyance to the feet of themThat with usurping steps do trample thee;Yield stinging-nettles to mine enemies;And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,Whose double tongue may, with a mortal touch,Throw death upon thy baffled enemies.’

‘But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,

And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;

Doing annoyance to the feet of them

That with usurping steps do trample thee;

Yield stinging-nettles to mine enemies;

And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,

Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,

Whose double tongue may, with a mortal touch,

Throw death upon thy baffled enemies.’

No Parisian’s sides can ‘bear the beating of so strong a passion,’ as these lines contain; nor have they it in them to ‘endure to the end for liberty’s sake.’ They can never hope to defend the political principles which they learnt from us, till they understand our poetry, both of which originate in the same cause, the strength of our livers and the stoutness of our hearts.

Statuary does not affect me like painting. I am not, I allow, a fair judge, having paid a great deal more attention to the one than to the other. Nor did I ever think of the first as a profession; and it is that perhaps which adds the sting to our love of excellence, the hope of attaining it ourselves in any particular walk. We strain our faculties to the utmost to conceive of what is most exquisite in any art to which we devote ourselves, and are doubly sensitive to it when we see it attained. Knowledge may often beget indifference, but here it begets zeal. Our affections kindled and projected forward by the ardour of pursuit, we come to the contemplation of truth and beauty with the passionate feeling of lovers; the examples of acknowledged excellence before us are the steps by which we scale the path of distinction, the spur which urges us on; and the admiration which we fondly cherish for them is the seed of future fame.No wonder that the youthful student dwells with delight and rapture on the finished works of art, when they are to his heated fancy the pledge and foretaste of immortality; when at every successful stroke of imitation he is ready to cry out with Correggio—‘I also am a painter!’—when every heightening flush of his enthusiasm is a fresh assurance to him of congenial powers—and when overlooking the million of failures (that all the world have forgot) or names of inferior note, Raphael, Titian, Guido, Salvator are each another self. Happy union of thoughts and destinies, lovelier than the hues of the rainbow! Why can it not last and span our brief date of life?

One reason, however, why I prefer painting to sculpture is, that painting is more like nature. It gives one entire and satisfactory view of an object at a particular moment of time, which sculpture never does. It is not the same in reality, I grant; but it is the same in appearance, which is all we are concerned with. A picture wants solidity, a statue wants colour. But we see the want of colour as a palpably glaring defect, and we do not see the want of solidity, the effects of which to the spectator are supplied by light and shadow. A picture is as perfect an imitation of nature as is conveyed by a looking-glass; which is all that the eye can require, for it is all it can take in for the time being. A fine picture resembles a real living man; the finest statue in the world can only resemble a man turned to stone. The one is an image, the other a cold abstraction of nature. It leaves out half the visible impression. There is therefore something a little shocking and repulsive in this art to the common eye, that requires habit and study to reconcile us completely to it, or to make it an object of enthusiastic devotion. It does not amalgamate kindly and at once with our previous perceptions and associations. As to the comparative difficulty or skill implied in the exercise of each art, I cannot pretend to judge: but I confess it appears to me that statuary must be the most trying to the faculties. The idea of moulding a limb into shape, so as to be right from every point of view, fairly makes my head turn round, and seems to me to enhance the difficulty to an infinite degree. There is not only the extraordinary circumspection and precision required (enough to distract the strongest mind, as I should think), but if the chisel, working in such untractable materials, goes a hair’s-breadth beyond the mark, there is no remedying it. It is not as in painting, where you may make a thousand blots, and try a thousand experiments, efface them all one after the other, and begin anew: the hand always trembles on the brink of a precipice, and one step over is irrecoverable. There is a story told, however, of Hogarth and Roubilliac, which, as far as it goes, may be thought to warrant a contrary inference. Theseartists differed about the difficulty of their several arts, and agreed to decide it by exchanging the implements of their profession with each other, and seeing which could do best without any regular preparation. Hogarth took a piece of clay, and succeeded in moulding a very tolerable bust of his friend; but when Roubilliac, being furnished with paints and brushes, attempted to daub a likeness of a human face, he could make absolutely nothing out, and was obliged to own himself defeated. Yet Roubilliac was a man of talent, and no mean artist. It was he who, on returning from Rome where he had studied the works of Bernini and the antique, and on going to see his own performances in Westminster Abbey, exclaimed, that ‘they looked like tobacco-pipes, by G—d! ‘What sin had this man or his parents committed, that he should forfeit the inalienable birthright of every Frenchman—imperturbable, invincible self-sufficiency? The most pleasing and natural application of sculpture is, perhaps, to the embellishment of churches and the commemoration of the dead. I don’t know whether they were Roubilliac’s or not, but I remember seeing many years ago in Westminster Abbey (in the part that is at present shut up) two figures of angels bending over a tomb, that affected me much in the same manner that these lines of Lord Byron’s have done since—

‘And when I think that his immortal wingsShall one day hover o’er the sepulchreOf the poor child of clay that so adored himAs he adores the highest, Death becomesLess terrible!’

‘And when I think that his immortal wings

Shall one day hover o’er the sepulchre

Of the poor child of clay that so adored him

As he adores the highest, Death becomes

Less terrible!’

It appears to me that sculpture, though not proper to express health or life or motion, accords admirably with the repose of the tomb; and that it cannot be better employed than in arresting the fleeting dust in imperishable forms, and in embodying a lifeless shadow. Painting, on the contrary, from what I have seen of it in Catholic countries, seems to be out of its place on the walls of churches; it has a flat and flimsy effect contrasted with the solidity of the building, and its rich flaunting colours harmonize but ill with the solemnity and gloom of the surrounding scene.

I would go a pilgrimage to see the St. Peter Martyr, or the Jacob’s Dream by Rembrandt, or Raphael’s Cartoons, or some of Claude’s landscapes;—but I would not go far out of my way to see the Apollo, or the Venus, or the Laocoon. I never cared for them much; nor, till I saw the Elgin Marbles, could I tell why, except for the reason just given, which does not apply to these particular statues, but to statuary in general. These are still to be found inChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage, with appropriate descriptive stanzas appended to them;[32]but they are no longer to be found in the Louvre, nor do the French seem to know they ever were there.Out of sight, out of mind, is a happy motto. What is not French, either as done by themselves, or as belonging to them, is of course not worth thinking about. Be this as it may, the place is fairly emptied out. Hardly a trace remains of the old Collection to remind you of what is gone. A short list includes all of distinguished excellence—the admirable bust of Vitellius, the fine fragment of Inopus, a clothed statue of Augustus, the full-zoned Venus, and the Diana and Fawn, whose light, airy grace seems to have mocked removal. A few more are ‘thinly scattered to make up a shew,’ but the bulk, the main body of the Grecian mythology, with the flower of their warriors and heroes, were carried off by the Chevalier Canova on his shoulders, a load for Hercules! The French sculptors have nothing of their own to shew for it to fill up the gap. Like their painters, their style is either literal and rigid, or affected and burlesque. Their merit is chiefly confined to the academic figure and anatomical skill; if they go beyond this, and wander into the regions of expression, beauty, or grace, they are apt to lose themselves. The real genius of French sculpture is to be seen in the curled wigs and swelling folds of the draperies in the statues of the age of LouisXIV.There they shone unrivalled and alone. They are the best man-milliners andfriseursin ancient or modern Europe. That praise cannot be denied them; but it should alarm them for their other pretensions. I recollect an essay in theMoniteursome years ago (very playful and very well written) to prove that a great hair-dresser was a greater character than Michael Angelo or Phidias; that his art was morean invention, more a creation out of nothing, and less a servile copy of any thing in nature. There was a great deal of ingenuity in the reasoning, and I suspect more sincerity than the writer was aware of. It expresses, I verily believe, the firm conviction of every true Frenchman. In whatever relates to the flutter and caprice of fashion, where there is no impulse but vanity, no limit but extravagance, no rule but want of meaning, they are in their element, and quite at home. Beyond that, they have no style of their own, and are a nation of second-hand artists, poets, and philosophers. Nevertheless, they have Voltaire, La Fontaine, Le Sage, Molière, Rabelais, and Montaigne—good men and true, under whatever class they come. They have also Very and Vestris. This is granted. Is it not enough? I should like to know the thing on the face of God’s earth in which they allow other nations to excel them. Nor need their sculptors be afraid of turning their talents to account, while they can execute pieces of devotion for the shrines of Saints, and classicalequivoquesfor the saloons of the old or newNoblesse.

The foregoing remarks are general. I shall proceed to mention a few exceptions to, or confirmations of them in theirExposé[33]of the present year. TheOthryadas wounded(No. 1870), by Legendre Heral, is, I think, the leastmannered, and most natural. It is a huge figure, powerful and somewhat clumsy (with the calves of the legs as if they had gaiters on), but it has great power and repose in it. It seems as if, without any effort, a blow from it would crush any antagonist, and reminds one of Virgil’s combat of Dares and Entellus. The form of the head is characteristic, and there is a fine mixture of sternness and languor in the expression of the features. The sculptor appears to have had an eye to the countenance of the Dying Gladiator; and the figure, from its ease and massiness, has some resemblance to the Elgin Marbles. It is a work of great merit. The statue ofOthryadas erecting the Trophy to his Companions(No. 1774) is less impressive, and aims at being more so. It comes under the head oftheatricalart, that is of French artproper. They cannot long keep out of this. They cannot resist an attitude, a significant effect. They do not consider that the definition of Sculpture is, or ought to be, nearly like their own celebrated oneofDeath—an eternal repose! This fault may in some measure be found with theHercules recovering the body of Icarus from the Sea(No. 1903), by Razzi. The body of Icarus can hardly be said to have found a resting-place. Otherwise, the figure is finely designed, and the face is one of considerable beauty and expression. The Hercules is a man-mountain. From the size and arrangement of this group, it seems more like a precipice falling on one’s head, than a piece of sculpture. The effect is not so far pleasant. If a complaint lies against this statue on the score of unwieldy and enormous size, it is relieved by No. 1775,A Zephyr thwarting the loves of a Butterfly and a Rose, Boyer. Here French art is on its legs again, and in the true vignette style. A Zephyr, a Butterfly, and a Rose, all in one group—Charming! In such cases the lightness, the prettiness, the flutter, and the affectation are extreme, and such as no one but themselves will think of rivalling. One of their greatest and most successful attempts is theGrâce aux Prisonniers. No. 1802, by David. Is it not theKnife-grinderof the ancients, thrown into a more heroic attitude, and with an impassioned expression? However this may be, there is real boldness in the design, and animation in the countenance, a feeling of disinterested generosity contending with the agonies of death. I cannot give much praise to their religious subjects in general. The French of the present day are not bigots, but sceptics in such matters; and the cold, formal indifference of their artists appears in their works. TheChrist confounding the incredulity of St. Thomas(by Jacquot) is not calculated to produce this effect on anybody else. They treat classical subjects much morecon amore; but the mixture of the Christian Faith and of Pagan superstitions is at least as reprehensible in the present Collection as in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Among pieces of devotion,The Virgin and Child, and theSt. Catherineof Cortot (Nos. 1791–22) struck me as the best. There is a certain delicacy of finishing and graceful womanhood about both, which must make them very acceptable accompaniments to Catholic zeal. The French excel generally in emblematic subjects, or in whatever depends on accuracy and invention in costume, of which there are several examples here. What I liked best, however, were some of their studies of the naked figure, which have great simplicity and ease, such as aNymph making a Garland of Flowers, No. 1888 (Parmentier), and aYouth going to bathe, No. 1831 (Espercieux). This last figure, in particular, appears to be really sliding down into the bath.Cupid tormenting the Soul(after Chaudet) is a very clever and spirited design, in bronze. Their busts, in general, are not excellent. There are, however, a few exceptions, one especially of a Mademoiselle Hersilie de F——,by Gayrard, which is a perfect representation of nature. It is an unaffected, admirable portrait, with good humour and good sense playing over every feature of the face.

In fine, I suspect there is nothing in the French Saloon of Sculpture greatly to stagger or entirely to overset the opinion of those who have a prejudice against the higher pretensions of French art. They have no masterpieces equal to Chantry’s busts, nor to Flaxman’s learned outlines, nor to the polished elegance of Canova; to say nothing of the exquisite beauty and symmetry of the antique, nor of the Elgin Marbles, among which the Theseus sits in form like a demi-god, basking on a golden cloud. If ever there were models of the Fine Arts fitted to give an impulse to living genius, these are they.[34]With enough to teach the truest, highest style in art, they are not in sufficient numbers or preservation to distract or discourage emulation. With these and Nature for our guides, we might do something in sculpture, if we were not indolent and unapt. The French, whatever may be their defects, cannot be charged with want of labour and study. The only charge against them (a heavy one, if true) is want of taste and genius.

The French themselves think less about their music than any other of their pretensions. It is almost a sore subject with them; for it interrupts their talking, and they had rather hear nothing about it, except as an accompaniment to a jig. Their ears are, in this respect,in their heels, and it is only the light and giddy that they at all endure. They have no idea ofcadencein any of the arts—of the rise and fall of the passions—of the elevations or depressions of hope or fear in poetry—of alternate light or shade in pictures—all is reduced (as nearly as possible) in their minds to the level of petty, vapid self-satisfaction, or to dry and systematic prosing for the benefit of others. But they must be more particularly at a loss in music, which requires the deepest feeling, and admits the least of the impertinence of explanation, which mounts on its own raptures and is dissolved in its own tenderness; which has no witness or vouchers but the inward sense of delight, and rests its faith on the speechless eloquence, the rich, circling intoxication of inarticulate but heart-felt sounds. The French have therefore no national music, except a few meagrechansons, and their only idea of musical excellence is either rapidity or loudness of execution. You perceive the effect of this want of enthusiasm even in the streets,—they have neither barrel-organs nor blind fiddlers as with us, who are willing to pay for the encouragement of the arts, however indifferently we may practise them; nor does the national spirit break out from every strolling party or village group, as it is said to do in Italy. A French servant-girl, while she is cleaning out a room, lays down her brush to dance—she takes it up to finish her work, and lays it down again to dance, impelled by the lightness of her head and of her heels. But you seldom hear her sing at her work, and never, if there is any one within hearing to talk to.—The French Opera is a splendid, but a comparatively empty theatre. It is nearly as large (I should think) as the King’s Theatre in the Hay-market, and is in a semi-circular form. The pit (theevening I was there) was about half full of men, in their black, dingysticky-lookingdresses; and there were a few plainly-dressed women in the boxes. But where was that blaze of beauty and fashion, of sparkling complexions and bright eyes, that streams like a galaxy from the boxes of our Opera-house—like a Heaven of loveliness let half-way down upon the earth, and charming ‘the upturned eyes of wondering mortals,’ before which the thrilling sounds that circle through the House seem to tremble with delight and drink in new rapture from its conscious presence, and to which the mimic Loves and Graces are proud to pay their distant, smiling homage? Certainly it was not here; nor do I know where the sun of beauty hides itself in France. I have seen but three rays of it since I came, gilding a dark and pitchy cloud! It was not so in Rousseau’s time, for these veryLogeswere filled with the most beautiful women of the Court, who came to see hisDevin du Village, and whom he heard murmuring around him in the softest accents—‘Tous ces sons là vont au cœur!’ The change is, I suppose, owing to the Revolution; but whatever it is owing to, the monks have not, by their return, banished this conventual gloom from their theatres; nor is there any of that airy, flaunting, florid, butterfly, gauzy, variegated appearance to be found in them that they have with us. These gentlemen still keep up the farce of refusing actors burial in consecrated ground; the mob pelt them, and the critics are even with them by going to see the representation of the Tartuffe!

I found but little at the Royal Academy of Music (as it is affectedly called) to carry off this general dulness of effect, either through the excellence or novelty of the performances. A Mademoiselle Noel (who seems to be a favourite) made herdebutin Dido. Though there was nothing very striking, there was nothing offensive in her representation of the character. For any thing that appeared in her style of singing or acting, she might be a very pleasing, modest, unaffected English girl performing on an English stage. There was not a single trait of Frenchbravuraor grimace. Her execution, however, seldom rose higher than an agreeable mediocrity; and with considerable taste and feeling, her powers seemed to be limited. She produced her chief effect in the latter and more pathetic scenes, and ascended the funeral pile with dignity and composure. Is it not strange (if contradictions and hasty caprices taken up at random, and laid down as laws, were strange in this centre of taste and refinement) that the French should raise such an outcry against our assaults at arms and executions on the stage, and yet see a young and beautiful female prepare to give herself the fatal blow, without manifesting the smallest repugnance or dissatisfaction?—Æneasand Iarbas were represented by Messrs. Mourritt and Derivis. The first was insipid, the last a perfect Stentor. He spoke or sung all through with an unmitigated ferocity of purpose and manner, and with lungs that seemed to have been forged expressly for the occasion. Ten bulls could not bellow louder, nor a whole street-full of frozen-out gardeners at Christmas. His barbarous tunic and accoutrements put one strongly in mind of Robinson Crusoe, while the modest demeanour and painted complexion of the pious Æneas bore a considerable analogy to the submissive advance and rosy cheeks of that usual accompaniment of English travelling, who ushers himself into the room at intervals, with awkward bows, and his hat twirled round in his hands, ‘to hope you’ll remember the coachman.’ The Æneas of the poet, however, was a shabby fellow, and had but justice done him.

I had leisure during thisotioseperformance to look around me, and as ‘it is my vice to spy into abuses,’ the first thing that struck me was the prompter. Any Frenchman who has that sum at his disposal, should give ten thousand francs a year for this situation. It must be a source of ecstasy to him. For not an instant was he quiet—tossing his hands in the air, darting them to the other side of the score which he held before him in front of the stage, snapping his fingers, nodding his head, beating time with his feet; and this not mechanically, or as if it were a drudgery he was forced to go through, and would be glad to have done with, but with unimpaired glee and vehemence of gesture, jerking, twisting, fidgeting, wriggling, starting, stamping, as if the incessant motion had fairly turned his head, and every muscle in his frame were saturated with the spirit of quicksilver. To be in continual motion for four hours, and to direct the motions of others by the wagging of a finger, to be not only an object of important attention to the stage and orchestra, but (in his own imagination) to pit, boxes, and gallery, as the pivot on which the whole grand machinery of that grandest of all machines, the French Opera, turns—this is indeed, for a Parisian, the acme of felicity! Every nerve must thrill with electrical satisfaction, and every pore into which vanity can creep tingle with self-conceit! Not far from this restless automaton (as if extremes met, or the volatility of youth subsided into a sort of superannuated still-life) sat an old gentleman in front of the pit, with his back to me, a white powdered head, the curls sticking out behind, and a coat of the finest black. This was all I saw of him for some time—he did not once turn his head or shift his position, any more than a wig and coat stuck upon a barber’s block—till I suddenly missed him, and soon after saw him seated on the opposite side of the house, his face as yellow and hard as a pieceof mahogany, but without expressing either pleasure or pain. Neither the fiddlers’ elbows nor the dancers’ legs moved him one jot. His fiddling fancies and his dancing-days were flown, and had left this shadow, this profile, this mummy of a French gentleman of the oldrégimebehind. A Frenchman has no object in life but to talk and move withéclat, and when he ceases to do either, he has no heart to do any thing. Deprived of his vivacity, his thoughtlessness, his animal spirits, he becomes a piece of costume, a finely-powdered wig, an embroidered coat, a pair of shoe-buckles, a gold cane, or a snuff-box. Drained of mere sensations and of their youthful blood, the old fellows seem like the ghosts of the young ones, and have none of their overweening offensiveness, or teasing officiousness. I can hardly conceive of a young Frenchgentleman, nor of an old one who is otherwise. The latter come up to myidealof this character, cut, as it were, out of pasteboard, moved on springs, amenable to forms, crimped and starched like a cravat, without a single tart ebullition, or voluntary motion. Some of them may be seen at present gliding along the walks of the Tuileries, and the sight of them is good for sore eyes. They are also thinly sprinkled through the play-house; for the drama and thebelles-lettreswere in their time the amusement and the privilege of the Court, and the contrast of their powdered heads and pale faces makes the rest of the audience appear like a set of greasy, impudent mechanics. A Frenchman is nothing without powder, an Englishman is nothing with it. The character of the one is artificial, that of the other natural. The women of France do not submit to the regular approaches and the sober discipline of age so well as the men. I had rather be in company with an old French gentleman than a young one; I prefer a young Frenchwoman to an old one. They aggravate the encroachments of age by contending with them, and instead of displaying the natural graces and venerable marks of that period of life, paint and patch their wrinkled faces, andtoupeeand curl their grizzled locks, till they look like Friesland hens, and are a caricature and burlesque of themselves. The old women in France that figure at the theatre or elsewhere, have very much the appearance of having kept a tavern or a booth at a fair, or of having been mistresses of a place of another description, for the greater part of their lives. Amannishhardened look and character survives the wreck of beauty and of female delicacy.

Of all things that I see here, it surprises me the most that the French should fancy they can dance. To dance is to move with grace and harmony to music. But the French, whether men or women, have no idea of dancing but that of moving with agility, and of distorting their limbs in every possible way, till they really alterthe structure of the human form. By grace I understand the natural movements of the human body, heightened into dignity or softened into ease, each posture or step blending harmoniously into the rest. There is grace in the waving of the branch of a tree or in the bounding of a stag, because there is freedom and unity of motion. But the French Opera-dancers think it graceful to stand on one leg or on the points of their toes, or with one leg stretched out behind them, as if they were going to be shod, or to raise one foot at right angles with their bodies, and twirl themselves round like ate-totum, to see how long they can spin, and then stop short all of a sudden; or to skim along the ground, flat-footed, like a spider running along a cobweb, or to pop up and down like a pea on a tobacco-pipe, or to stick in their backs till another part projects out behindcomme desvolails, and to strut about like peacocks with infirm, vain-glorious steps, or to turn out their toes till their feet resemble apes, or to raise one foot above their heads, and turn swiftly round upon the other, till the petticoats of the female dancers (for I have been thinking of them) rise above their garters, and display a pair of spindle-shanks, like the wooden ones of a wax-doll, just as shapeless and as tempting. There is neither voluptuousness nor grace in a single attitude or movement, but a very studious and successful attempt to shew in what a number of uneasy and difficult positions the human body can be put with the greatest rapidity of evolution. It is not that they do all this with much more to redeem it, but they do all this, and do nothing else. It would be very well as an exhibition of tumbler’s tricks, or as rope-dancing (which are only meant to surprise), but it is bad as Opera-dancing, if opera-dancing aspires to be one of the Fine Arts, or even a handmaid to them; that is, to combine with mechanical dexterity a sense of the beautiful in form and motion, and a certain analogy to sentiment. ‘The common people,’ says the Author ofWaverley, ‘always prefer exertion and agility to grace.’ Is that the case also with the most refined people upon earth? These antics and vagaries, this kicking of heels and shaking of feet as if they would come off, might be excusable in the men, for they shew a certain strength and muscular activity; but in the female dancers they are unpardonable. What is said of poetry might be applied to the sex.Non sat[is] est pulchra poemata esse, dulcia sunto.So women who appear in public, should be soft and lovely as well as skilful and active, or they ought not to appear at all. They owe it to themselves and others. As to some of the ridiculous extravagances of this theatre, such as turning out their toes and holding back their shoulders, one would have thought the Greek statues might have taught their scientific professors better—if French artists did not seeevery thing with French eyes, and lament all that differs from their established practice as a departure from the line of beauty. They are sorry that the Venus does not hold up her head like a boarding-school miss—

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