Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume I Part 28

But, oh! these doctrinaires! They have such a way of proving that if they are not quite right, at least everybody else is a great deal more wrong: and then they talk so prettily of England and _our_ revolution, and our glorious const.i.tution--and the miseries of anarchy--and the advantages of letting things remain quietly as they are, till, as I said before, I begin to doubt what is right and what is wrong.

There is one point, however, on which we agree wholly and heartily; and it is this perhaps that has been the means of softening my heart thus towards them. The doctrinaires shudder at the name of a republic.

This is not because their own party is regal, but is evidently the result of the experience which they and their fathers have had from the tremendous experiment which has once already been made in the country.

"You will never know the full value of your const.i.tution till you have lost it," said a doctrinaire to me the other evening, at the house of the beautiful Princess B----, formerly an energetic propagandiste, but now a very devoted doctrinaire,--"you will never know how beneficial is its influence on every hour of your lives, till your Mr. O'Connell has managed to arrange a republic for you: and when you have tasted that for about three months, you will make good and faithful subjects to the next king that Heaven shall bestow upon you. You know how devoted all France was to the Emperor, though the police was somewhat tight, and the conscriptions heavy: but he had saved us from a republic, and we adored him. For a few days, or rather hours, we were threatened again, five years ago, by the same terrible apparition: the result is, that four millions of armed men stand ready to protect the prince who chased it. Were it to appear a third time--which Heaven forbid!--you may depend upon it that the monarch who should next ascend the throne of France might play at _le jeu de quilles_ with his subjects, and no one be found to complain."

LETTER XLI.

M. Dupre.--His Drawings in Greece.--L'Eglise des Carmes.--M.

Vinchon's Picture of the National Convention.--Leopold Robert's Fishermen.--Reported cause of his Suicide.--Roman Catholic Religion.--Mr. Daniel O'Connell.

We went the other morning, with Miss C----, a very agreeable countrywoman, who has however pa.s.sed the greater portion of her life in Paris, to visit the house and atelier of M. Dupre, a young artist who seems to have devoted himself to the study of Greece. Her princes, her peasants, her heavy-eyed beauties, and the bright sky that glows above them,--all the material of her domestic life, and all the picturesque accompaniments of her cla.s.sic reminiscences, are brought home by this gentleman in a series of spirited and highly-finished drawings, which give decidedly the most lively idea of the country that I have seen produced. Engravings or lithographs from them are, I believe, intended to ill.u.s.trate a splendid work on this interesting country which is about to be published.

In our way from M. Dupre's house, in which was this collection of Greek drawings, to his atelier--where he was kind enough to show us a large picture recently commenced--we entered that fatal "Eglise des Carmes," where the most hideous ma.s.sacre of the first revolution took place. A large tree that stands beside it is pointed out as having been sought as a shelter--alas! how vainly!--by the unhappy priests, who were shot, sabred, and dragged from its branches by dozens. A thousand terrible recollections are suggested by the interior of the building, aided by the popular traditions attached to it, unequalled in atrocity even in the history of that time of horror.

Another scene relating to the same period, which, though inferior to the ma.s.sacre of the priests in multiplied barbarity, was of sufficient horror to freeze the blood of any but a republican, has, strange to say, been made, since the revolution of 1830, the subject of an enormous picture by M. Vinchon, and at the present moment makes part of the exhibition at the Louvre.

The canva.s.s represents a hall at the Tuileries which in 1795 was the place where the National Convention sat. The mob has broken in, and murdered Feraud, who attempted to oppose them; and the moment chosen by the painter is that in which a certain "_jeune fille nommee Aspasie Migelli_" approaches the president's chair with the young man's head borne on a pike before her, while she triumphantly envelopes herself in some part of his dress. The whole scene is one of the most terrible revolutionary violence. This picture is stated in the catalogue to belong to the minister of the interior; but whether the present minister of the interior, or any other, I know not. The subject was given immediately after the revolution of 1830, and many artists made sketches in compet.i.tion for the execution of it. One of those who tried, and failed before the superior genius of M. Vinchon, told us, that the subject was given at that time as one likely to be popular, either for love of the n.o.ble resolution with which Boissy d'Anglas keeps possession of the president's chair, which he had seized upon, or else from admiration of the energetic female who has a.s.sisted in doing the work of death. In either case, this young artist said, the popularity of such a subject was pa.s.sed by, and no such order would be given now.

Finding myself again on the subject of pictures, I must mention a very admirable one which is now being exhibited at the "Mairie du Second Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt." It is from the hand of the unfortunate Leopold Robert, who destroyed himself at Venice almost immediately after he had completed it. The subject is the departure of a party of Italian fishermen; and there are parts of the picture fully equal to anything I have ever seen from the pencil of a modern artist. I should have looked at this picture with extreme pleasure, had the painter still lived to give hope of, perhaps, still higher efforts; but the history of his death, which I had just been listening to, mixed great pain with it.

I have been told that this young man was of a very religious and meditative turn of mind, but a Protestant. His only sister, to whom he was much attached, was a Catholic, and had recently taken the veil.

Her affection for him was such, that she became perfectly wretched from the danger she believed awaited him from his heresy; and she commenced a species of affectionate persecution, which, though it failed to convert him, so hara.s.sed and distracted his mind, as finally to overthrow his reason, and lead him to self-destruction. This charming picture is exhibited for the benefit of the poor, at the especial desire of the unhappy nun; who is said, however, to be so perfect a fanatic, as only to regret that the dreadful act was not delayed till she had had time to work out the salvation of her own soul by a little more persecution of his.

There is something exceedingly curious, and, perhaps, under our present lamentable circ.u.mstances, somewhat alarming, in the young and vigorous after-growth of the Roman Catholic religion, which, by the aid of a very little inquiry, may be so easily traced throughout France.

Were we keeping our own national church sacred, and guarded both by love and by law, as it has. .h.i.therto been from all a.s.saults of the Pope and ... Mr. O'Connell, it could only be with pleasure that we should see France recovering from her long ague-fit of infidelity,--and, as far as she is concerned, we must in Christian charity rejoice, for she is unquestionably the better for it; but there is a regenerated activity among the Roman Catholic clergy, which, under existing circ.u.mstances, makes a Protestant feel rather nervous,--and I declare to you, I never pa.s.s within sight of that famous window of the Louvre, whence Charles Neuf, with his own royal and catholic hand, discharged a blunderbuss amongst the Huguenots, without thinking how well a window at Whitehall, already noted in history as a scene of horror, might serve King Daniel for the same purpose.

The great influence which the religion of Rome has of late regained over the minds of the French people has, I am told, been considerably increased by the priests having added to the strength derived from their command of pardons and indulgences, that which our Methodist preachers gain from the terrors of h.e.l.l. They use the same language, too, respecting regeneration and grace; and, as one means of regaining the hold they had lost upon the human mind, they now anathematize all recreations, as if their congregations were so many aspirants to the sublime purifications of La Trappe, or so many groaning fanatics just made over to them from Lady Huntingdon's Chapel. That there is, however, a pretty strong force to stem this fresh spring-tide of moon-struck superst.i.tion, is very certain. The doctrinaires, I am told, taken as a body, are not much addicted to this species of weakness. I remember, during the prevalence of that sweeping complaint called the influenza, hearing of a "good lady," of the high evangelical _clique_, who said to some of the numerous pensioners who flocked to receive the crumbs of her table and the precepts of her lips, that she could make up some medicine that was very good for all POOR people that were seized with this complaint.

"What can be the difference, ma'am," said the poor body who told me this, "between us and Madame C---- in this illness? Is not what is good for the poor, good for the rich too?"

The same pertinent question may, I think, be asked in Paris just now respecting the medicine called religion. It is administered in large doses to the poor, to which cla.s.s a great number of the fair s.e.x of all ranks happily seem to have joined themselves, intending, at least, to rank themselves as among the poor in spirit; nay, parish doctors are regularly paid by authority; yet, if the tale be true, the authorities themselves take little of it. "It is very good for poor people;" but, like the hot-baths which Anstie talks of,

"No creature e'er view'd Any one of the government gentry stew'd."

Whether the returning power of this pompous and aspiring faith will mount as it proceeds, and embrace within its grasp, as it was wont to do, all the great ones of the earth, is a question that it may require some years to answer; but one thing is at least certain,--that its ministers will try hard that it shall do so, whether they are likely to succeed or not; and, at the worst, they may console themselves by the reflection of Lafontaine:--

"Si de les gagner je n'emporte pas le prix, J'aurais au moins l'honneur de l'avoir entrepris."

One great one they have certainly already got, besides King Charles the Tenth,--even the immortal Daniel; and however little consequence you may be inclined to attach to this fact, it cannot be considered as wholly unimportant, since I have heard his religious principles and his influence in England alluded to in the pulpit here with a tone of hope and triumph which made me tremble.

I heartily wish that some of those who continue to vote in his traitorous majority because they are pledged to do so, could hear him and his power spoken of here. If they have English hearts, it must, I think, give them a pang.

LETTER XLII.

Old Maids.--Rarely to be found in France.--The reasons for this.

Several years ago, while pa.s.sing a few weeks in Paris, I had a conversation with a Frenchman upon the subject of old maids, which, though so long past, I refer to now for the sake of the sequel, which has just reached me.

We were, I well remember, parading in the Gardens of the Luxembourg; and as we paced up and down its long alleys, the "miserable fate," as he called it, of single women in England was discussed and deplored by my companion as being one of the most melancholy results of faulty national manners that could be mentioned.

"I know nothing," said he with much energy, "that ever gave me more pain in society, than seeing, as I did in England, numbers of unhappy women who, however well-born, well-educated, or estimable, were without a position, without an _etat_ and without a name, excepting one that they would generally give half their remaining days to get rid of."

"I think you somewhat exaggerate the evil," I replied: "but even if it were as bad as you state it to be, I see not why single ladies should be better off here."

"Here!" he exclaimed, in a tone of horror: "Do you really imagine that in France, where we pride ourselves on making the destiny of our women the happiest in the world,--do you really imagine that we suffer a set of unhappy, innocent, helpless girls to drop, as it were, out of society into the _neant_ of celibacy, as you do? G.o.d keep us from such barbarity!"

"But how can you help it? It is impossible but that circ.u.mstances must arise to keep many of your men single; and if the numbers be equally balanced, it follows that there must be single women too."

"It may seem so; but the fact is otherwise: we have no single women."

"What, then, becomes of them?"

"I know not; but were any Frenchwoman to find herself so circ.u.mstanced, depend upon it she would drown herself."

"I know one such, however," said a lady who was with us: "Mademoiselle Isabelle B*** is an old maid."

"Est-il possible!" cried the gentleman, in a tone that made me laugh very heartily. "And how old is she, this unhappy Mademoiselle Isabelle?"

"I do not know exactly," replied the lady; "but I think she must be considerably past thirty."

"C'est une horreur!" he exclaimed again; adding, rather mysteriously, in a half-whisper, "Trust me, she will not bear it long!"

I had certainly forgotten Mademoiselle Isabelle and all about her, when I again met the lady who had named her as the one sole existing old maid of France. While conversing with her the other day on many things which had pa.s.sed when we were last together, she asked me if I remembered this conversation. I a.s.sured her that I had forgotten no part of it.

"Well, then," said she, "I must tell you what happened to me about three months after it took place. I was invited with my husband to pay a visit at the house of a friend in the country,--the same house where I had formerly seen the Mademoiselle Isabelle B*** whom I had named to you. While playing _ecarte_ with our host in the evening, I recollected our conversation in the Gardens of the Luxembourg, and inquired for the lady who had been named in it.

"'Is it possible that you have not heard what has happened to her?' he replied.

"'No, indeed; I have heard nothing. Is she married, then?'

"'Married!... Alas, no! she has _drowned herself_!'"

Terrible as this denouement was, it could not be heard with the solemn gravity it called for, after what had been said respecting her. Was ever coincidence more strange! My friend told me, that on her return to Paris she mentioned this catastrophe to the gentleman who had seemed to predict it; when the information was received by an exclamation quite in character,--"G.o.d be praised! then she is out of her misery!"

This incident, and the conversation which followed upon it, induced me to inquire in sober earnest what degree of truth there might really be in the statement made to us in this well-remembered conversation; and it certainly does appear, from all I can learn, that the meeting a single woman past thirty is a very rare occurrence in France. The arranging _un mariage convenable_ is in fact as necessary and as ordinary a duty in parents towards a daughter, as the sending her to nurse or the sending her to school. The proposal for such an alliance proceeds quite as frequently from the friends of the lady as from those of the gentleman: and it is obvious that this must at once very greatly increase the chance of a suitable marriage for young women; for though we do occasionally send our daughters to India in the hope of obtaining this much-desired result, few English parents have as yet gone the length of proposing to anybody, or to anybody's son, to take their daughter off their hands.

I have not the least doubt in the world that, were the custom otherwise--were a young lady's claim to an establishment pointed out by her friends, instead of being left to be discovered or undiscovered as chance will have it,--I have no doubt in the world that in such a case many happy marriages might be the result: and where such an arrangement infringes on no feeling of propriety, but is adopted only in conformity to national custom, I can well believe that the fair lady herself may deem her having nothing to do with the business a privilege of infinite importance to her delicacy. But would our English girls like, for the satisfaction of escaping the chance of being an old maid, to give up the dear right of awaiting in maiden dignity till they are chosen--selected from out the entire world--and then of saying yes or no, as may please their fancy best?