Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands Volume Ii Part 13

There was Frankomm of the Conservatoire, with his Stradivarius, an instrument one hundred and fifty years old, which cost six thousand dollars. There was his son, a little lad of twelve, who played almost as well as his father. I wish F. and M. could have seen this. He was but a year older than F., and yet played with the most astonis.h.i.+ng perfection. Among other things the little fellow performed a _morceau_ of his own composition, which was full of pathos, and gave tokens of uncommon ability. His father gave us sonatas of Mozart, Chopin, &c., and a _polonaise_. The Princess Czartoryski accompanied on the piano with extraordinary ability.

That was an evening to be remembered a lifetime. One heard, probably, the best music in the world of its kind, performed under prepared circ.u.mstances, the most perfectly adapted to give effect. There was no whispering, no noise. All felt, and heard, and enjoyed. I conversed with the princess and with Frankomm. The former speaks English, the latter none. I interpreted for H., and she had quite a little conversation with him about his son, and about music. She told him she hoped the day was coming when art would be consecrated to express the best and purest emotions of humanity. He had read Uncle Tom; and when he read it he exclaimed, "This is genuine Christianity"--"_Ceci est la vraie Christianisme!_"

The attentions shown to H. were very touching and agreeable. There is nothing said or done that wearies or oppresses her. She is made to feel perfectly free, at large, at ease; and the regard felt for her is manifested in a way so delicate, so imperceptibly fine and considerate, that she is rather strengthened by it than exhausted.

This is owing, no doubt, to the fact that we came determined to be as private as possible, and with an explicit understanding with Mrs. C.

to that effect. Instead of trying to defeat her purpose, and force her into publicity, the few who know of her presence seem to try to help her carry it out, and see how much they can do for her, consistently therewith.

Tuesday, June 14. To-day we dined at six P. M., and read till nine.

Then drove to an evening _salon_--quite an early little party at Mrs. Putnam's. Saw there Peter Parley and La Rochejaquelin, the only one of the old n.o.bility that joined Louis Napoleon. Peter Parley is consul no longer, it seems. We discussed the empire a very little. "To be, or not to be, that is the question." Opinions are various as the circles. Every circle draws into itself items of information, that tend to indicate what it wishes to be about to happen. Still, Peter Parley and I, and some other equally cautious people, think that _this_ cannot always last. By _this_, of course, we mean this "thing"--this empire, so called. Sooner or later it must end in revolution; and then what? Said a gentleman the other day, "Nothing holds him up but fear of the RED." [Footnote: That is, fear of the Red Republicans.]

After chatting a while, Weston and I slipped out, and drove to the Jardin Mabille, a garden in the Champs Elysees, whither thousands go every night. We entered by an avenue of poplars and other trees and shrubs, so illuminated by jets of gas sprinkled amongst the foliage as to give it the effect of enchantment. It was neither moonlight nor daylight, but a kind of spectral aurora, that made every thing seem unearthly.

As we entered the garden, we found flower beds laid out in circles, squares, lozenges, and every conceivable form, with diminutive jets of gas so distributed as to imitate flowers of the softest tints, and the most perfect shape. This, too, seemed unearthly, weird. We seemed, in an instant, transported into some Thalaba's cave, infinitely beyond the common sights and sounds of every-day life. In the centre of these grounds there is a circle of pillars, on the top of each of which is a pot of flowers, with gas jets, and between them an arch of gas jets.

This circle is very large. In the midst of it is another circle, forming a pavilion for musicians, also brilliantly illuminated, and containing a large cotillion band of the most finished performers.

Around this you find thousands of gentlemen and ladies strolling singly, in pairs, or in groups. There could not be less than three thousand persons present. While the musicians repose, they loiter, sauntering round, or recline on seats.

But now a lively waltz strikes the ear. In an instant twenty or thirty couples are whirling along, floating, like thistles in the wind, around the central pavilion. Their feet scarce touch the smooth-trodden earth. Round and round, in a vortex of life, beauty, and brilliancy they go, a whirlwind of delight. Eyes sparkling, cheeks flus.h.i.+ng, and gauzy draperies floating by; while the crowds outside gather in a ring, and watch the giddy revel. There are countless forms of symmetry and grace, faces of wondrous beauty, both among the dancers and among the spectators.

There, too, are feats of agility and elasticity quite aerial. One lithe and active dancer grasped his fair partner by the waist. She was dressed in a red dress; was small, elastic, agile, and went by like the wind. And now and then, in the course of every few seconds, he would give her a whirl and a lift, sending her spinning through the air, around himself as an axis, full four feet from the ground.

Then the music ceases, the crowd dissolves, and floats and saunters away. On every hand are games of hazard and skill, with b.a.l.l.s, tops, wheels, &c., where, for five cents a trial, one might seek to gain a choice out of glittering articles exposed to view.

Then the band strike up again, and the whirling dance renews its vortex; and so it goes on, from hour to hour, till two or three in the morning. Not that _we_ staid till then; we saw all we wanted to see, and left by eleven. But it is a scene perfectly unearthly, or rather perfectly Parisian, and just as earthly as possible; yet a scene where earthliness is worked up into a style of sublimation the most exquisite conceivable.

Entrance to this paradise can be had for, gentlemen, a dollar; ladies, _free_. This tells the whole story. Nevertheless, do not infer that there are not any respectable ladies there. It is a place so remarkable, that very few strangers stay long in Paris without taking a look at it. And though young ladies residing in Paris never go, and matrons very seldom, yet occasionally it is the case that some ladies of respectability look in. The best dancers, those who exhibit such surprising feats of skill and agility, are _professional_--paid by the establishment.

Nevertheless, aside from the impropriety inherent in the very nature of waltzing, there was not a word, look, or gesture of immorality or impropriety. The dresses were all decent; and if there was vice, it was vice masked under the guise of polite propriety.

How different, I could not but reflect, is all this from the gin palaces of London! There, there is indeed a dazzling splendor of gas light. But there is nothing artistic, nothing refined, nothing appealing to the imagination. There are only hogsheads, and barrels, and the appliances for serving out strong drink. And there, for one sole end, the swallowing of fiery stimulant, come the nightly thousands--from the gay and well dressed, to the haggard and tattered, in the last stage of debas.e.m.e.nt. The end is the same--by how different paths! Here, they dance along the path to ruin, with flowers and music; there, they cast themselves bodily, as it were, into the lake of fire.

Wednesday, June 15. Went in the forenoon to M. Belloc's studio, and read while H. was sitting.

Then we drove to Madame Roger's, who is one of the leaders of Paris taste and legislation in dress, and who is said to have refused to work for a d.u.c.h.ess who neglected to return her husband's bow. I sat in the outer courts while some mysterious affairs were being transacted in the inner rooms of state.

Then we drove to the Louvre, and visited the remains from Nineveh.

They are fewer in number than those in the British Museum, which I have not yet seen. But the pair of human-headed, winged bulls are said to be equal in size to any.

I was very much impressed, not only by the solemn grandeur of the thought that thirty centuries were looking down upon me out of those stony eyes, but by what I have never seen noticed, the magnificent phrenological development of the heads. The brow is absolutely prodigious--broad, high, projecting, ma.s.sive. It is the brow of a divinity indeed, or of a cherub, which I am persuaded is the true designation of these creatures. They are to me but the earliest known attempts to preserve the cherubim that formed the fiery portals of the Eden temple until quenched in the Purges of the deluge.

Out of those eyes of serene, benign, profound reflection, therefore, not thirty, but sixty centuries look down upon me. I seem to be standing at those mysterious Eden gates, where Adam and Eve first guided the wors.h.i.+p of a world, amid the sad, yet sublime symbols of a previous existence in heavenly realms.

After leaving the Louvre H. and I took a _caleche_, or open two-seat carriage, and drove from thence to the Madeleine, and thence the whole length of the Boulevards, circling round, crossing the Pont d'Austerlitz, and coming back by the Avenue de l'Observatoire and the Luxembourg.

Then we saw theatres, the Port St. Denis, Port St. Martin, the site of the Bastille, and the most gay, beautiful, and bustling boulevards of the metropolis.

As we were proceeding along the Boulevard des Italiens, I saw the street beginning to line with people, the cabs and carriages drawing to either side and stopping; police officers commanding, directing, people running, pus.h.i.+ng, looking this way and that. "_Qu' y a-t-il?_" said I, standing up by the driver--"What's the matter?"

"The emperor is coming," said he.

"Well," said I, "draw to one side, and turn a little, so that we can see."

He did so, and H. and I both stood up, looking round. We saw several outriders in livery, on the full trot, followed by several carriages.

They came very fast, the outriders calling to the people to get out of the way. In the first carriage sat the emperor and the empress--he, cold, stiff, stately, and homely; she, pale, beautiful, and sad. They rode not two rods from us. There was not a hat taken off, not a single shout, not a "_Vive l'Empereur_? Without a single token of greeting or applause, he rode through the ever-forming, ever-dissolving avenue of people--the abhorred, the tolerated tyrant." Why do they not cry out?" I said to the coachman, "Why do they not cry, '_Vive l'Empereur_'?" A most expressive shrug was the answer, and "I do not know. I suppose, because they do not choose."

Thursday, June 16. Immediately after breakfast we were to visit Chateau de Corbeville. The carriage came, and H., Mrs. C., and W.

entered. I mounted the box with the "_c.o.c.ker_," as usual. To be shut up in a box, and peep out at the window while driving through such scenes, is horrible. By the way, our party would have been larger, but for the arrest of Monsieur F., an intimate friend of the family, which took place at five o'clock in the morning.

He was here yesterday in fine spirits, and he and his wife were to have joined our party. His arrest is on some political suspicion, and as the result cannot be foreseen, it casts a shadow over the spirits of our household.

We drove along through the bright, fresh morning--I enjoying the panorama of Paris exceedingly--to the Western Railway Station, where we took tickets for Versailles.

We feel as much at home now, in these continental railroad stations, as in our own--nay, more so. Every thing is so regulated here, there is almost no possibility of going wrong, and there is always somebody at hand whose business it is to be very polite, and tell you just what to do.

A very pleasant half hour's ride brought us to Versailles. There we took a barouche for the day, and started for the chateau. In about an hour and a half, through very pleasant scenery, we came to the spot, where we were met by Madame V. and her daughter, and, alighting, walked to the chateau through a long avenue, dark with overarching trees. We were to have a second breakfast at about one o'clock in the day; so we strolled out to a seat on the terrace, commanding a fine and very extensive prospect.

Madame V. is the wife of an eminent lawyer, who held the office of intendant of the civil list of Louis Philippe, and has had the settlement of that gentleman's pecuniary affairs since his death. At the time of the _coup d'etat_, being then a representative, he was imprisoned, and his wife showed considerable intrepidity in visiting him, walking on foot through the prison yard, amongst the soldiers sitting drunk on the cannon. At present Monsieur V. is engaged in his profession in Paris.

Madame V. is a pleasant-looking French woman, of highly-cultivated mind and agreeable manners; accomplished in music and in painting. Her daughter, about fifteen, plays well, and is a good specimen of a well-educated French demoiselle, not yet out. They are simply ciphers, except as developed in connection with and behind shelter of their mother. She performed some beautiful things beautifully, and then her mother played a duet with her. We took a walk through the groves, and sat on the bank, on the brow of a commanding eminence.

A wide landscape was before us, characterized by every beauty of foliage conceivable, but by none more admirable, to my eye, than the poplars, which sustain the same relation to French scenery that spruces do to that of Maine. Reclining there, we could almost see, besides the ancient territory of the Duke d'Orsay, the celebrated valley of Chartreuse, where was the famous Abbey of Port Royal, a valley filled with historic a.s.sociations. If it had not been for a hill which stood in the way, we should have seen it. At our leisure we discussed painting. Before us, a perfect landscape; around us, a deep solitude and stillness, broken by the sighing of ancient aristocratic shades, and the songs of birds; within us, emotions of la.s.situde and dreamy delight.

We had found a spot where existence was a blessing; a spot where to exist was enough; where the "to be" was, for a moment, disjoined from the inexorable "to do," or "to suffer." How agreeable to converse with cultivated and refined artistic minds! How delightful to find people to whom the beautiful has been a study, and art a world in which they could live, move, and have their being! And yet it was impossible to prevent a shade of deep sadness from resting on all things--a tinge of melancholy. Why?--why this veil of dim and indefinable anguish at sight of whatever is most fair, at hearing whatever is most lovely? Is it the exiled spirit, yearning for its own? Is it the captive, to whom the ray of heaven's own glory comes through the crevice of his dungeon walls? But this is a digression. Returning, we examined the mansion, a fine specimen of the old French chateau; square-built, with high Norman roof, and a round, conical-topped tower at each corner. In front was a garden, curiously laid out in beds, and knots of flowers, with a fountain in the centre. This garden was enclosed on all sides by beech trees, clipped into lofty walls of green. The chateau had once been fortified, but now the remains of the fortifications are made into terraces, planted with roses and honeysuckles. Here we heard, for the first time in our lives, the nightingale's song; a gurgling warble, with an occasional crescendo, _a la_ Jenny Lind.

At five we dined; took carriage at seven, cars at nine, and arrived in Paris at ten.

Friday, June 17. At twelve o'clock I started for Versailles to visit the camp at Sartory, where I understood the emperor was to review the troops.

At Versailles I mounted the top of an omnibus with two Parisian gentlemen. As I opened my umbrella one of them complimented me on having it. I replied that it was quite a necessary of life. He answered, and we were soon quite chatty. I inquired about the camp at Sartory, and whether the emperor was to be there. He said he had heard so.

He then asked me if we had not a camp near London, showing that he took me for an Englishman. I replied that there was a camp there, though I had not seen it, and that I was an American. In reply he congratulated me that the Americans were far ahead of the English.

I complimented him then in turn on Versailles and its galleries, and told him there was not a nation on earth that had such monuments of its own history and greatness. They were highly elated at this, and we rode along in the best possible humor together. Nothing will make a Frenchman thoroughly your friend sooner than heartily to praise his country. It is for this I love them.

Arrived at Sartory I had a long walk to reach the camp; and instead of inquiring, as I ought to have done, whether the review was to take place, I took it for granted. I saw bodies of soldiers moving in various directions, officers galloping about, and flying artillery trundling along, and heard drums, trumpets, and bands, and thought it was all right.

A fifteen minutes' walk brought me to the camp, where tents for some twenty-five thousand whiten the plain far as the eye can reach. There, too, I saw distant ma.s.ses of infantry moving. I might have known by their slouchy way that they were getting home from parade, not preparing for it. But I thought the latter, and lying down under a tree, waited for the review to begin.

It was almost three o'clock. I waited and waited. The soldiers did not come. I waited, and waited, and waited. The soldiers seemed to have _gone_ more and more. The throne where the emperor was to sit remained unoccupied. At last it was four o'clock. Thought I, I will just ask these redcaps here about this.

"Messieurs," said I, "will you be so good as to inform me if the emperor is to be here to-day?"

"No," they replied, "he comes on Sunday."

"And what is to be done here, then?" I asked.

"Here," they replied, "to-day? Nothing; _c'est fini_--it is all over. The review was at one o'clock."