The cords of the pall are held by two Marshals, an Admiral and General
Bertrand; who are followed by--
The Prefects of the Seine and Police, &c.
The Mayors of Paris, &c.
The Members of the Old Guard, &c.
A Squadron of Light Dragoons, &c.
Lieutenant-General Schneider, &c.
More cavalry, more infantry, more artillery, more everybody; and as the
procession passes, the Line and the National Guard forming line on each
side of the road fall in and follow it, until it arrives at the Church
of the Invalides, where the last honors are to be paid to it.]
Among the company assembled under the dome of that edifice, the casual
observer would not perhaps have remarked a gentleman of the name of
Michael Angelo Titmarsh, who nevertheless was there. But as, my dear
Miss Smith, the descriptions in this letter, from the words in page 298,
line 20--THE PARTY MOVED--up to the words PAID TO IT, on this page, have
purely emanated from your obedient servant's fancy, and not from
his personal observation (for no being on earth, except a newspaper
reporter, can be in two places at once), permit me now to communicate to
you what little circumstances fell under my own particular view on the
day of the 15th of December.
As we came out, the air and the buildings round about were tinged with
purple, and the clear sharp half-moon before-mentioned was still in the
sky, where it seemed to be lingering as if it would catch a peep of the
commencement of the famous procession. The Arc de Triomphe was shining
in a keen frosty sunshine, and looking as clean and rosy as if it had
just made its toilette. The canvas or pasteboard image of Napoleon, of
which only the gilded legs had been erected the night previous, was now
visible, body, head, crown, sceptre and all, and made an imposing show.
Long gilt banners were flaunting about, with the imperial cipher and
eagle, and the names of the battles and victories glittering in gold.
The long avenues of the Champs Elysees had been covered with sand for
the convenience of the great procession that was to tramp across it that
day. Hundreds of people were marching to and fro, laughing, chattering,
singing, gesticulating as happy Frenchmen do. There is no pleasanter
sight than a French crowd on the alert for a festival, and nothing more
catching than their good-humor. As for the notion which has been put
forward by some of the opposition newspapers that the populace were on
this occasion unusually solemn or sentimental, it would be paying a bad
compliment to the natural gayety of the nation, to say that it was,
on the morning at least of the 15th of December, affected in any
such absurd way. Itinerant merchants were shouting out lustily their
commodities of segars and brandy, and the weather was so bitter cold,
that they could not fail to find plenty of customers. Carpenters and
workmen were still making a huge banging and clattering among the sheds
which were built for the accommodation of the visitors. Some of
these sheds were hung with black, such as one sees before churches in
funerals; some were robed in violet, in compliment to the Emperor whose
mourning they put on. Most of them had fine tricolor hangings with
appropriate inscriptions to the glory of the French arms.
All along the Champs Elysees were urns of plaster-of-Paris destined to
contain funeral incense and flames; columns decorated with huge flags of
blue, red, and white, embroidered with shining crowns, eagles, and N's
in gilt paper, and statues of plaster representing Nymphs, Triumphs,
Victories, or other female personages, painted in oil so as to represent
marble. Real marble could have had no better effect, and the appearance
of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme. On each pillar
was a buckler, of the color of bronze, bearing the name and date of a
battle in gilt letters: you had to walk through a mile-long avenue
of these glorious reminiscences, telling of spots where, in the great
imperial days, throats had been victoriously cut.
As we passed down the avenue, several troops of soldiers met us: the
garde-muncipale a cheval, in brass helmets and shining jack-boots,
noble-looking men, large, on large horses, the pick of the old army, as
I have heard, and armed for the special occupation of peace-keeping: not
the most glorious, but the best part of the soldier's duty, as I fancy.
Then came a regiment of Carabineers, one of Infantry--little, alert,
brown-faced, good-humored men, their band at their head playing
sounding marches. These were followed by a regiment or detachment of the
Municipals on foot--two or three inches taller than the men of the Line,
and conspicuous for their neatness and discipline. By-and-by came a
squadron or so of dragoons of the National Guards: they are covered with
straps, buckles, aguillettes, and cartouche-boxes, and make under their
tricolor cock's-plumes a show sufficiently warlike. The point which
chiefly struck me on beholding these military men of the National Guard
and the Line, was the admirable manner in which they bore a cold that
seemed to me as sharp as the weather in the Russian retreat, through
which cold the troops were trotting without trembling and in the utmost
cheerfulness and good-humor. An aide-de-camp galloped past in white
pantaloons. By heavens! it made me shudder to look at him.
With this profound reflection, we turned away to the right towards the
hanging-bridge (where we met a detachment of young men of the Ecole de
l'Etat Major, fine-looking lads, but sadly disfigured by the wearing
of stays or belts, that make the waists of the French dandies of a most
absurd tenuity), and speedily passed into the avenue of statues leading
up to the Invalides. All these were statues of warriors from Ney to
Charlemagne, modelled in clay for the nonce, and placed here to meet the
corpse of the greatest warrior of all. Passing these, we had to walk to
a little door at the back of the Invalides, where was a crowd of persons
plunged in the deepest mourning, and pushing for places in the chapel
within.
The chapel is spacious and of no great architectural pretensions, but
was on this occasion gorgeously decorated in honor of the great person
to whose body it was about to give shelter.
We had arrived at nine; the ceremony was not to begin, they said, till
two: we had five hours before us to see all that from our places could
be seen.
We saw that the roof, up to the first lines of architecture, was hung
with violet; beyond this with black. We saw N's, eagles, bees, laurel
wreaths, and other such imperial emblems, adorning every nook and corner
of the edifice. Between the arches, on each side of the aisle, were
painted trophies, on which were written the names of some of Napoleon's
Generals and of their principal deeds of arms--and not their deeds of
arms alone, pardi, but their coats of arms too. O stars and garters!
but this is too much. What was Ney's paternal coat, prithee, or honest
Junot's quarterings, or the venerable escutcheon of King Joachim's
father, the innkeeper?
You and I, dear Miss Smith, know the exact value of heraldic bearings.
We know that though the greatest pleasure of all is to ACT like a
gentleman, it is a pleasure, nay a merit, to BE one--to come of an old
stock, to have an honorable pedigree, to be able to say that centuries
back our fathers had gentle blood, and to us transmitted the same. There
IS a good in gentility: the man who questions it is envious, or a coarse
dullard not able to perceive the difference between high breeding and
low. One has in the same way heard a man brag that he did not know the
difference between wines, not he--give him a good glass of port, and he
would pitch all your claret to the deuce. My love, men often brag about
their own dulness in this way.
In the matter of gentlemen, democrats cry, "Psha! Give us one of
Nature's gentlemen, and hang your aristocrats." And so indeed Nature
does make SOME gentlemen--a few here and there. But Art makes most.
Good birth, that is, good handsome well-formed fathers and mothers, nice
cleanly nursery-maids, good meals, good physicians, good education,
few cares, pleasant easy habits of life, and luxuries not too great
or enervating, but only refining--a course of these going on for a few
generations are the best gentleman-makers in the world, and beat Nature
hollow.
If, respected Madam, you say that there is something BETTER than
gentility in this wicked world, and that honesty and personal wealth are
more valuable than all the politeness and high-breeding that ever wore
red-heeled pumps, knights' spurs, or Hoby's boots, Titmarsh for one is
never going to say you nay. If you even go so far as to say that the
very existence of this super-genteel society among us, from the slavish
respect that we pay to it, from the dastardly manner in which we attempt
to imitate its airs and ape its vices, goes far to destroy honesty of
intercourse, to make us meanly ashamed of our natural affections and
honest, harmless usages, and so does a great deal more harm than it is
possible it can do good by its example--perhaps, Madam, you speak with
some sort of reason. Potato myself, I can't help seeing that the tulip
yonder has the best place in the garden, and the most sunshine, and the
most water, and the best tending--and not liking him over well. But I
can't help acknowledging that Nature has given him a much finer dress
than ever I can hope to have, and of this, at least, must give him the
benefit.
Or say, we are so many cocks and hens, my dear (sans arriere pensee),
with our crops pretty full, our plumes pretty sleek, decent picking here
and there in the straw-yard, and tolerable snug roosting in the barn:
yonder on the terrace, in the sun, walks Peacock, stretching his proud
neck, squealing every now and then in the most pert fashionable voice
and flaunting his great supercilious dandified tail. Don't let us be too
angry, my dear, with the useless, haughty, insolent creature, because
he despises us. SOMETHING is there about Peacock that we don't possess.
Strain your neck ever so, you can't make it as long or as blue as
his--cock your tail as much as you please, and it will never be half so
fine to look at. But the most absurd, disgusting, contemptible sight
in the world would you and I be, leaving the barn-door for my lady's
flower-garden, forsaking our natural sturdy walk for the peacock's
genteel rickety stride, and adopting the squeak of his voice in the
place of our gallant lusty cock-a-doodle-dooing.
Do you take the allegory? I love to speak in such, and the above
types have been presented to my mind while sitting opposite a gimcrack
coat-of-arms and coronet that are painted in the Invalides Church, and
assigned to one of the Emperor's Generals.
Ventrebleu! Madam, what need have THEY of coats-of-arms and coronets,
and wretched imitations of old exploded aristocratic gewgaws that they
had flung out of the country--with the heads of the owners in them
sometimes, for indeed they were not particular--a score of years before?
What business, forsooth, had they to be meddling with gentility and
aping its ways, who had courage, merit, daring, genius sometimes, and
a pride of their own to support, if proud they were inclined to be? A
clever young man (who was not of high family himself, but had been bred
up genteelly at Eton and the university)--young Mr. George Canning, at
the commencement of the French Revolution, sneered at "Roland the Just,
with ribbons in his shoes," and the dandies, who then wore buckles,
voted the sarcasm monstrous killing. It was a joke, my dear, worthy of a
lackey, or of a silly smart parvenu, not knowing the society into which
his luck had cast him (God help him! in later years, they taught him
what they were!), and fancying in his silly intoxication that simplicity
was ludicrous and fashion respectable. See, now, fifty years are gone,
and where are shoebuckles? Extinct, defunct, kicked into the irrevocable
past off the toes of all Europe!
How fatal to the parvenu, throughout history, has been this respect
for shoebuckles. Where, for instance, would the Empire of Napoleon
have been, if Ney and Lannes had never sported such a thing as a
coat-of-arms, and had only written their simple names on their shields,
after the fashion of Desaix's scutcheon yonder?--the bold Republican who
led the crowning charge at Marengo, and sent the best blood of the
Holy Roman Empire to the right-about, before the wretched misbegotten
imperial heraldry was born, that was to prove so disastrous to the
father of it. It has always been so. They won't amalgamate. A country
must be governed by the one principle or the other. But give, in a
republic, an aristocracy ever so little chance, and it works and plots
and sneaks and bullies and sneers itself into place, and you find
democracy out of doors. Is it good that the aristocracy should so
triumph?--that is a question that you may settle according to your own
notions and taste; and permit me to say, I do not care twopence how you
settle it. Large books have been written upon the subject in a variety
of languages, and coming to a variety of conclusions. Great statesmen
are there in our country, from Lord Londonderry down to Mr. Vincent,
each in his degree maintaining his different opinion. But here, in the
matter of Napoleon, is a simple fact: he founded a great, glorious,
strong, potent republic, able to cope with the best aristocracies in
the world, and perhaps to beat them all; he converts his republic into
a monarchy, and surrounds his monarchy with what he calls aristocratic
institutions; and you know what becomes of him. The people estranged,
the aristocracy faithless (when did they ever pardon one who was not of
themselves?)--the imperial fabric tumbles to the ground. If it teaches
nothing else, my dear, it teaches one a great point of policy--namely,
to stick by one's party.
While these thoughts (and sundry others relative to the horrible cold of
the place, the intense dulness of delay, the stupidity of leaving a warm
bed and a breakfast in order to witness a procession that is much better
performed at a theatre)--while these thoughts were passing in the
mind, the church began to fill apace, and you saw that the hour of the
ceremony was drawing near.
Imprimis, came men with lighted staves, and set fire to at least ten
thousand wax-candles that were hanging in brilliant chandeliers in
various parts of the chapel. Curtains were dropped over the upper
windows as these illuminations were effected, and the church was left
only to the funereal light of the spermaceti. To the right was the dome,
round the cavity of which sparkling lamps were set, that designed the
shape of it brilliantly against the darkness. In the midst, and where
the altar used to stand, rose the catafalque. And why not? Who is
God here but Napoleon? and in him the sceptics have already ceased to
believe; but the people does still somewhat. He and Louis XIV. divide
the worship of the place between them.
As for the catafalque, the best that I can say for it is that it
is really a noble and imposing-looking edifice, with tall pillars
supporting a grand dome, with innumerable escutcheons, standards, and
allusions military and funereal. A great eagle of course tops the whole:
tripods burning spirits of wine stand round this kind of dead man's
throne, and as we saw it (by peering over the heads of our neighbors in
the front rank), it looked, in the midst of the black concave, and under
the effect of half a thousand flashing cross-lights, properly grand and
tall. The effect of the whole chapel, however (to speak the jargon of
the painting-room), was spoiled by being CUT UP: there were too many
objects for the eye to rest upon: the ten thousand wax-candles, for
instance, in their numberless twinkling chandeliers, the raw tranchant
colors of the new banners, wreaths, bees, N's, and other emblems dotting
the place all over, and incessantly puzzling, or rather BOTHERING the
beholder.
High overhead, in a sort of mist, with the glare of their original
colors worn down by dust and time, hung long rows of dim ghostly-looking
standards, captured in old days from the enemy. They were, I thought,
the best and most solemn part of the show.
To suppose that the people were bound to be solemn during the ceremony
is to exact from them something quite needless and unnatural. The very
fact of a squeeze dissipates all solemnity. One great crowd is always,
as I imagine, pretty much like another. In the course of the last few
years I have seen three: that attending the coronation of our present
sovereign, that which went to see Courvoisier hanged, and this which
witnessed the Napoleon ceremony. The people so assembled for hours
together are jocular rather than solemn, seeking to pass away the weary
time with the best amusements that will offer. There was, to be sure,
in all the scenes above alluded to, just one moment--one particular
moment--when the universal people feels a shock and is for that second
serious.
But except for that second of time, I declare I saw no seriousness here
beyond that of ennui. The church began to fill with personages of all
ranks and conditions. First, opposite our seats came a company of fat
grenadiers of the National Guard, who presently, at the word of command,
put their muskets down against benches and wainscots, until the arrival
of the procession. For seven hours these men formed the object of the
most anxious solicitude of all the ladies and gentlemen seated on our
benches: they began to stamp their feet, for the cold was atrocious, and
we were frozen where we sat. Some of them fell to blowing their fingers;
one executed a kind of dance, such as one sees often here in cold
weather--the individual jumps repeatedly upon one leg, and kicks out the
other violently, meanwhile his hands are flapping across his chest. Some
fellows opened their cartouche-boxes, and from them drew eatables of
various kinds. You can't think how anxious we were to know the qualities
of the same. "Tiens, ce gros qui mange une cuisse de volaille!"--"Il a
du jambon, celui-la." "I should like some, too," growls an Englishman,
"for I hadn't a morsel of breakfast," and so on. This is the way, my
dear, that we see Napoleon buried.
Did you ever see a chicken escape from clown in a pantomime, and hop
over into the pit, or amongst the fiddlers? and have you not seen the
shrieks of enthusiastic laughter that the wondrous incident occasions?
We had our chicken, of course: there never was a public crowd without
one. A poor unhappy woman in a greasy plaid cloak, with a battered
rose-colored plush bonnet, was seen taking her place among the stalls
allotted to the grandees. "Voyez donc l'Anglaise," said everybody, and
it was too true. You could swear that the wretch was an Englishwoman:
a bonnet was never made or worn so in any other country. Half an hour's
delightful amusement did this lady give us all. She was whisked from
seat to seat by the huissiers, and at every change of place woke a peal
of laughter. I was glad, however, at the end of the day to see the old
pink bonnet over a very comfortable seat, which somebody had not claimed
and she had kept.
Are not these remarkable incidents? The next wonder we saw was the
arrival of a set of tottering old Invalids, who took their places under
us with drawn sabres. Then came a superb drum-major, a handsome smiling
good-humored giant of a man, his breeches astonishingly embroidered
with silver lace. Him a dozen little drummer-boys followed--"the little
darlings!" all the ladies cried out in a breath: they were indeed pretty
little fellows, and came and stood close under us: the huge drum-major
smiled over his little red-capped flock, and for many hours in the most
perfect contentment twiddled his moustaches and played with the tassels
of his cane.
Now the company began to arrive thicker and thicker. A whole covey of
Conseillers-d'Etat came in, in blue coats, embroidered with blue silk,
then came a crowd of lawyers in toques and caps, among whom were sundry
venerable Judges in scarlet, purple velvet, and ermine--a kind of
Bajazet costume. Look there! there is the Turkish Ambassador in his red
cap, turning his solemn brown face about and looking preternaturally
wise. The Deputies walk in in a body. Guizot is not there: he passed by
just now in full ministerial costume. Presently little Thiers saunters
back: what a clear, broad sharp-eyed face the fellow has, with his gray
hair cut down so demure! A servant passes, pushing through the crowd a
shabby wheel-chair. It has just brought old Moncey the Governor of the
Invalids, the honest old man who defended Paris so stoutly in 1814. He
has been very ill, and is worn down almost by infirmities: but in his
illness he was perpetually asking, "Doctor, shall I live till the 15th?
Give me till then, and I die contented." One can't help believing that
the old man's wish is honest, however one may doubt the piety of another
illustrious Marshal, who once carried a candle before Charles X. in a
procession, and has been this morning to Neuilly to kneel and pray at
the foot of Napoleon's coffin. He might have said his prayers at home,
to be sure; but don't let us ask too much: that kind of reserve is not a
Frenchman's characteristic.
Bang--bang! At about half-past two a dull sound of cannonading was heard
without the church, and signals took place between the Commandant of
the Invalids, of the National Guards, and the big drum-major. Looking to
these troops (the fat Nationals were shuffling into line again) the two
Commandants tittered, as nearly as I could catch them, the following
words--
"HARRUM HUMP!"
At once all the National bayonets were on the present, and the sabres
of the old Invalids up. The big drum-major looked round at the
children, who began very slowly and solemnly on their drums,
Rub-dub-dub--rub-dub-dub--(count two between each)--rub-dub-dub, and a
great procession of priests came down from the altar.
First, there was a tall handsome cross-bearer, bearing a long gold
cross, of which the front was turned towards his grace the Archbishop.
Then came a double row of about sixteen incense-boys, dressed in white
surplices: the first boy, about six years old, the last with whiskers
and of the height of a man. Then followed a regiment of priests in black
tippets and white gowns: they had black hoods, like the moon when she is
at her third quarter, wherewith those who were bald (many were, and fat
too) covered themselves. All the reverend men held their heads meekly
down, and affected to be reading in their breviaries.
After the Priests came some Bishops of the neighboring districts, in
purple, with crosses sparkling on their episcopal bosoms.
Then came, after more priests, a set of men whom I have never seen
before--a kind of ghostly heralds, young and handsome men, some of them
in stiff tabards of black and silver, their eyes to the ground, their
hands placed at right angles with their chests.
Then came two gentlemen bearing remarkable tall candlesticks, with
candles of corresponding size. One was burning brightly, but the wind
(that chartered libertine) had blown out the other, which nevertheless
kept its place in the procession--I wondered to myself whether the
reverend gentleman who carried the extinguished candle, felt disgusted,
humiliated, mortified--perfectly conscious that the eyes of many
thousands of people were bent upon that bit of refractory wax. We all of
us looked at it with intense interest.
Another cross-bearer, behind whom came a gentleman carrying an
instrument like a bedroom candlestick.
His Grandeur Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris: he was in black and
white, his eyes were cast to the earth, his hands were together at right
angles from his chest: on his hands were black gloves, and on the black
gloves sparkled the sacred episcopal--what do I say?--archiepiscopal
ring. On his head was the mitre. It is unlike the godly coronet that
figures upon the coach-panels of our own Right Reverend Bench. The
Archbishop's mitre may be about a yard high: formed within probably of
consecrated pasteboard, it is without covered by a sort of watered silk
of white and silver. On the two peaks at the top of the mitre are two
very little spangled tassels, that frisk and twinkle about in a very
agreeable manner.
Monseigneur stood opposite to us for some time, when I had the
opportunity to note the above remarkable phenomena. He stood opposite me
for some time, keeping his eyes steadily on the ground, his hands before
him, a small clerical train following after. Why didn't they move? There
was the National Guard keeping on presenting arms, the little drummers
going on rub-dub-dub--rub-dub-dub--in the same steady, slow way, and the
Procession never moved an inch. There was evidently, to use an elegant
phrase, a hitch somewhere.
[Enter a fat priest who bustles up to the drum-major.]