illuminations. These long continued straight lines are admirably adapted
to display crowds and illuminations. From the Barrière de l’Étoile, at
the extremity of the Champs Elysées, to the palace of the Tuilleries,
all was one continued blaze. The _lampions_, used on these occasions,
give a very strong light; they are pots of tallow, about two inches
deep, and six in diameter, with a wick of hemp about one inch thick:
they were disposed in festoons along the great avenue of the Elysian
fields, and in pyramids in the gardens. On entering the Place Louis XV.
the view was superb; on the right were the Chambre des Deputés, the dome
of the Invalides, and at some distance, rising alone against the dark
sky, the star of the Legion of Honour. Before us was the Tuilleries and
its gardens, and the temple which had been erected for the purpose round
the basin of water. The terraces presented a single row of illumination
along the cornice, exhibiting the crowds which peopled them. On the left
were the Garde Meuble and the Admiralty. At first, before daylight was
entirely lost, the illumination of the dome of the Invalides being
redder than the twilight, gave a silvery look to the building, which had
a peculiar and a very beautiful effect. The portico of the Chambre des
Deputés had the steps covered with lampions, and green candelabras
(either formed by green lamps or by a transparency,) between the
columns. The result was, that the columns were seen dark against the
illuminated inside of the portico, without any cutting lines or strong
contrasts, but with a sort of tenderness of tint, which gave to them the
appearance of semi-transparency. Something of the same sort was
exhibited in the Garde Meuble, but less beautifully. The perpendicular
lines of the architecture were no where illuminated. Taken singly, none
of these objects are equal to some of the best illuminations exhibited
in London: but taking the whole together, nothing we have had, or can
have, can be compared with it. On entering the gardens of the
Tuilleries, the first object was the great basin, which was encircled by
lampions on the edge of the water, and thickly surrounded by people, who
were shewn to great advantage by the disposition of the lights, and all
their varied colouring was reflected in the water. As we approached the
Tuilleries, the temple erected round the smaller basin increased in
consequence, and hid the palace, which was not highly illuminated. The
open part of the gardens was terminated by a colonnade of lampions, and
from this point the effect produced by the light thrown on the company
on the terrace, from the line of lampions disposed on its cornice was
very brilliant and beautiful. These exhibitions have been concluded with
a review in the Champs de Mars. There is a raised slope round this
place, made by the sovereign people themselves for their own
convenience, which gives one a fine opportunity of seeing what passes,
and also shews off the spectators to great advantage. The king rode
twice round the plain in an open carriage, accompanied by the duchesses
of Angoulême and Berri, and the troops saluted him with _vive le roi!_
On Wednesday the playhouses were opened gratis, but I did not go to see
what sort of a scene was produced. A Parisian crowd seems in general
very tractable; but the efficient cause of good order is in the
soldiers, who are seen everywhere. This habitual submission to the
military does not appear very favourable to public liberty; and in
estimating the chance of a permanently free constitution in France, it
is not enough to consider merely the conduct of the rulers, or the
sentiments of the leaders of different parties; the manners and habits
of the people form an important item. This acquiescence in the
interference of the military in every concern may, I suppose, be traced
to the ancient government; and we may perhaps attribute to it, in some
measure, their ready submission to the despotism of Napoleon. The
principle of liberty is not very strong in this country, but I think it
exists, and is taking root. The friends of liberty have learned
moderation, and that is a valuable lesson. They would be well pleased
now with a constitution as free as that of England, with which twenty
years ago they were not satisfied. Perhaps they are hardly yet convinced
that a constitution can have no strength, and consequently no value,
without the habitual attachment of the people. Let us hope that the
present will last long enough to create such a habit. It has doubtless
many defects in theory, and more in practice; but it may be better
suited to the actual state of France than a more perfect system, and it
will form a foundation on which they may stand to attain their further
objects, without any violent revolution, an event which almost
invariably leads to despotism.
I have concerned myself very little with politics, but it does not
appear to me that the French are in general at all sulky after their
defeat. “What could we do against all Europe?” They have no affection
for the Bourbons: it is not in human nature that they should; but they
would be very unwilling to do any thing to excite a fresh war. “Ah
monsieur, la France était si florissante, tout allait si bien avant
l’expedition à Moscou.” “C’etait un grand homme, il a fait beaucoup de
belles choses, mais son ambition a gâté tout, il nous a tous
perdus.”—These are sentiments you hear everywhere. They ask me what is
thought of Bonaparte in England. I tell them that he is considered as a
man of great talents, but that his immoderate ambition rendered his
existence dangerous to every country in Europe. For the most part they
perfectly agree with me; but after all, I am persuaded they regret him.
The dazzling splendor which he spread around the throne of France, his
personal activity, his firm and vigorous administration, and the
employment of his revenues to public purposes, gratified the
imagination, and form altogether a striking contrast with the present
sovereign. Yet I believe Louis is not disliked, and his personal
character has certainly made him friends since his return. All this
seems perfectly natural; and if we except in favour of England, a
somewhat deeper feeling of national honour, and a higher sense of
liberty, it is what might take place in any country of Europe, without
injury to the character of the people. They did not dislike the
Bourbons, but after twenty-five years of absence, it is not wonderful
that they did not feel much attachment to them. Neither did they much
like Napoleon, but they were pleased with the military glory which the
nation attained under his auspices. At last they were alienated and
disgusted with the mad expedition to Moscow, the enormous waste of human
life consequent upon it, and the severe conscription to supply that
waste; and received the Bourbons with pleasure. After a time, the
changes actually introduced excited an apprehension that further and
more important changes were in contemplation, affecting the individual
interests of almost every class in the community. Alarmed at this, they
rejoiced at the return of Napoleon, merely as a means of putting down a
government from whose progress they dreaded much personal evil.
Independently of submission to the military, the habitual dependence of
the people on the government to accomplish every object of public
utility, is unfavourable to their liberty. Whatever is of advantage to
more persons than one, is to be done by the sovereign, or not at all;
and even when an individual is to profit from it, it is a chance if he
will do any thing for himself, if he think the government ought to do it
for him. The French themselves tell a story to ridicule this propensity,
of which they are very sensible. A soldier had enriched himself with
plunder, but his shoes were full of holes, and his feet blistered in
consequence. “Why do you not buy yourself a pair of shoes?” said one of
his comrades. “Ah non, c’est le roi qui doit faire cela.” Perhaps for
“roi” you should read “empereur,” but that is of little consequence.
LETTER VIII.
JOURNEY TO LYON.
_Lyon, July 1, 1816._
I HAVE at last left Paris, after having staid longer than I intended,
though by no means long enough to learn all that might have been
acquired by a continued residence. I took my place for Troyes in the
cabriolet of the diligence, but found it so small that I could not sit
upright, and therefore changed to the inside, where I had plenty of
room, for the carriage was calculated for nine, and we were only four.
We left Paris at three o’clock in the afternoon, and the first part of
the ride was tolerably pleasant, but in the morning I found myself in
one of those wide naked common fields, of which I have so often
complained. At Troyes the whole visible horizon is chalk, but there is
shade about the town, and a promenade ornamented with large trees all
round it, with the Seine running at the bottom.
Champaine is famous for its wine; the country about Chartres for corn.
After hearing this, one is rather surprised to see almost the whole of
the first province a corn country, and the latter city exclusively
surrounded by vineyards; yet such is the fact. Champaine is almost all
chalk, a soil very unfavourable to vines. According to Cuvier, one part
of it is a complete chalky desert. A similar barrenness of soil has
given to another district the name of Lousy Champaine. The wine seems to
be grown on the hills which form the edge of the Paris basin.
We observed in passing along, numerous traces of the campaign of 1814.
Houses and villages destroyed, and the inhabitants restoring a bit of
roof or a floor, as the one or the other was most necessary for their
immediate accommodation, and leaving the rest to be gradually renewed,
as they should find themselves able to effect it.
One of my companions had been an officer under Napoleon, and another,
perhaps a serjeant, or corporal, but he seemed an observing man. Neither
of them appeared to have any affection for their general, but the
officer in particular was very bitter against him. He had been torn by
him from all his domestic comforts, and had not been long enough in the
army to cease to think about the privations it required. Both had been
wounded, but not very severely, and both wished for peace. This the
French think they shall have, if the English will let them be quiet; but
it is difficult to persuade them that there is any correspondent wish on
our part; and quite impossible to convince them that Napoleon’s return
from Elba was not favoured by the English government. This is very
extravagant no doubt, but not more so than the belief in England that
the French wish for war. One universal cry rises from every part of
France, _peace! peace!_ This may perhaps be in some degree the
consequence of having suffered by unsuccessful war; but the wish is not
for the moment the less earnest or sincere. Returning strength may
recall their ambition. In all nations the consciousness of power seems
to produce the desire to exert it, so far at least as to make their
neighbours feel it; and it would be unreasonable to expect that France
should prove an exception.
Our journey to Troyes occupied twenty-four hours. I did little that
evening. The next morning I walked round the ramparts and made a few
memoranda. Monday was unfortunately a _jour de fête_, which I had not
anticipated, and I was sadly disturbed in my sketches and observations
by the services and by the crowds of people. The first view of the
buildings at Troyes rather discontented me, but since I have left it I
begin to think more highly of its architecture, and to regret that I did
not spend more time there. The cathedral of course was my first object,
and I endeavoured to ascertain the precise date of its architecture, but
without success. I was told indeed that the chapels of the choir are
older than the rest of the building, that the choir is eight hundred
years old, that the nave was built twenty-five years later, and the
front last of all. I was pleased with this traditionary account, because
the architecture announces the same order in the erections, though not
precisely at these epochs. The windows of the chapels, narrow, pointed,
and without any sort of internal ornament, may perhaps indicate a
building of the middle or latter end of the twelfth century. I insert
these guesses at dates, because they tell in themselves several things
of the style of building, and are of importance in judging of the
historical evidence which I may hereafter be able to obtain; but if I
were now to give to the early architecture of France all the attention
it deserves, it would be some years before I went to Italy. The choir
has roses in the windows, but the piers are slender to excess, and they
are consequently much crippled. It must be decidedly posterior to the
cathedral of Rheims and Amiens, and perhaps to the choir at Beauvais.
The earliest date would be therefore the latter part of the thirteenth
century, and it may class very well with the nave of St. Denis, built by
Matthieu de Vendôme in 1281. In the improved architecture of that period
there is usually a capital all round the pier, at the springing of the
arches, which open from the body of the building into the side aisles.
The capitals of the small shafts are sometimes smaller (in height) than
the general capital, (perhaps this indicates a difference of date) but
at Troyes they have disappeared altogether. Every column and every
shaft, still has its capital; but the longer ones are not divided into
two heights with a capital to each. The capitals which remain are
smaller in proportion, and the pillars more slender than in the earlier
Gothic. If the nave was built only twenty-five years later, a great
change had taken place in a very short interval. The roses of the
windows are entirely gone, and the heads filled up with rather a
complicated tracery; the mullions both of the windows, and of the
divisions of the arches of the gallery, have lost their capitals; the
ribs of the vaulting continue quite simple, and the intermediate spaces
are much arched upon them. This must be considered as an example of the
third style of French Gothic, and is the most important instance I have
seen. The rose windows at the ends of the transepts have a perpendicular
pillar of masonry running up the middle, to support them; a precaution
dictated by the same necessity as the upright mullions of our
perpendicular style, when the parts became very light and the windows
very extensive. The effect is by no means pleasing. That of the north
transept is inserted in a square externally. I cannot venture to assign
a date for these novelties, but both of them are characteristic in the
history of the art. The earliest rose windows were complete detached
circles; those which succeeded are more or less united with accessories,
forming a pointed window. The peculiarities at Troyes are posterior to
both these.
The western front is of the last style of Gothic, and is a rich and
beautiful specimen. Two towers were designed, but one only is built, and
this is so singular, that I am induced to think it an old tower, of
which the lower part has been entirely covered with work of the latter
part of the fifteenth century, and the upper touched up and altered
towards the latter part of the sixteenth, or beginning of the
seventeenth. This last is abundantly denoted by the ornaments, and by
little but the ornaments. In the earlier parts the little arches of the
decorations terminate in a trefoil, and some of the mouldings pass over
the others in the manner I have already described, as belonging to the
fourth style of Gothic. In the second French Gothic, the crenated
ornament occurs abundantly in the circular parts of the windows. In the
third it is found at the heads of the divisions of the windows, and
among the leaves of the tracery. In both these it is always on the edge
of the opening, and close to the glass; in the fourth it occurs among
the mouldings, and lies over some of the interior ones; it is even
repeated two or three times in the same opening, and becomes singularly
varied in its forms. One opening at Troyes has it as in _fig. 1_,
another exhibits it as in _fig. 2_, or as in _fig. 3_,
[Illustration: _Fig. 1._]
[Illustration: _Fig. 2._]
[Illustration: _Fig. 3_]
becoming a sort of scroll, enriched with foliage; lastly, and this also
may be seen in a church at Troyes, it inclines forwards from the face of
the work, instead of lying parallel to it.
Two other churches at Troyes attracted my attention, that of the
Madelaine and St. Urban. The former has the shape of a Greek cross in a
square, the angles being filled up with double aisles. The windows are
narrow and unornamented; one, two, or three together; in the last case
the middle is the largest. Externally, they exhibit the triangular
ornament, but this has been cut away from a great many of them. There
are neither galleries nor two stories of aisles, and the ‘_rond point_’
is of a late Gothic, neither curious nor beautiful; so that we lose the
character usually offered by that part in ascertaining the date. The
groining of the vault is oblique. Across the opening of the choir is a
beautiful arched screen, somewhat less complicated than at Chartres, and
of less delicate workmanship, but still very rich, and well executed.
One of the statues contained in it, and apparently of the same date, is
very fine; but most of these have been destroyed, and one or two are
supplied in painted wood. We may still distinguish that the old work has
been painted. The church of St. Urban is perhaps of the end of the
thirteenth century, or beginning of the fourteenth; it is small, but
very beautiful inside and out. The tracery of the windows is in roses,
not in leaves. The aisles are not continued to the ‘_rond point_,’ but
there is a sort of gallery which is opened into windows, forming a
continuation of the upper windows. The south and north portals offer the
peculiarity of arches supported on detached columns, but these columns
have a rib down each side, and are without capitals. I consider them as
posterior to the body of the building, with which they do not well
unite, or rather the outer half of the portico does not correspond well
with the part which joins the church, and here perhaps the addition took
place, in the fifteenth century.
I left Troyes in the evening, but I fancied I could distinguish that we
did not leave the chalk till about Bar sur Seine. In the morning I found
myself in a deep valley, broken by limestone rocks, and bright little
streams bursting out by the road side, and hurrying down into the Seine,
which seemed here about as large as the river Lee at Ware. Woods are
scattered about, but in small proportion, and not enough to prevent an
appearance of nakedness. After some time we left the valley, and again
entered a wide common field, but much more hilly than those to which I
have lately been accustomed, and here and there with a spot of wood. At
last we descended through a forest, to the little village of Val Suzon.
It is situated in a very deep valley, to which I can think of no nearer
resemblance than Dovedale, but the rocks are less bold, and the hills
less steep and high; still however, it is a fine romantic hollow, too
uniformly covered with brush-wood, which, as is the case in most of the
French forests, is preserved merely for fuel; and deficient in trees.
Deep and narrow ravines opening into this valley, seemed a suitable
resort for wolves, but it was not a time of year, or of day, to see any
of these animals. The botany for the first time differed essentially
from that of England. Crossing again a range of hills, we soon arrived
at Dijon, which is situated at a little distance from their base.
The cathedral of St. Benigne, at Dijon, has been called a very fine
building, and Millin speaks of it as a very ancient one. I therefore was
in great haste to visit it, but was very much disappointed. It is
indeed, of the thirteenth century, and perhaps later in style than in
date, but small, poor, and deficient in expression. An older church was
crushed by the fall of a lofty central tower in 1271, and the present
edifice was completed in 1291. Its want of effect is perhaps partly
owing to the unstained glass, and to the whitewash. Till the period of
the French revolution, an ancient domical temple existed behind the
choir of this church. It was composed of two circular peristyles, one
above the other, and is said to have been erected _A. D._ 173, under
Marcus Aurelius, in honour of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. In later times
it was consecrated to the Virgin. Near the cathedral are two other
churches, one of which is now a stable, and the other the office of
weights and measures. The porch of the first is pretty good. In another
part of the town there is also a group of three churches.
[Illustration:
J. Hawksworth. Sculp.
CAPITAL OF COLUMNS IN THE PORCH OF NOTRE DAME AT DIJON
_London. Published by J & A Arch. Cornhill. March 1^{st}. 1828._]
The principal is that of St. Michel, which is said to have been built,
or rebuilt in 1030, and restored in 1338. But in 1497 it threatened
ruin, and the parish repaired it, and added the present choir. Here the
windows are very long and narrow. Some are united in pairs, with a rose
over them, but not included in any common arch. At the ends of the
transept the rose windows and the openings below them are filled with
tracery. The aisles are high and well lighted, but the general effect is
heavy and displeasing. The western portal is the most singular part of
the edifice. The architect was Hugues Sambin, a native of Dijon, who is
said to have been the friend and pupil of M. Angelo Buonarotti. The
porch is a return to the first Gothic style of shafts and statues; the
latter indeed have been destroyed in the storms of the revolution,
except those in the soffites of the arches, where angels are represented
with wings and fiddles, and these are very little damaged. Many parts
are ornamented with Arabesques, and some of the capitals have the Gothic
trefoil topsy-turvy. The arches are semicircular, and are surmounted by
an entablature in a continued line. It seems, that on the first
introduction of Italian Architecture, the first period of the
_renaissance_, as everybody here calls it, the great lines of the
construction were better preserved than they were afterwards. I met a
gentleman who contended that this porch was copied from a Roman arch of
triumph, and presented all the characters of one, though there is in
fact no resemblance. The ease with which a Frenchman seems to utter all
that comes into his head, without any fear of ridicule, ought, one would
think, to give him an opportunity of speedily correcting his errors, but
for some reason or other this does not take place. The middle of the
porch has a little cupola. Over the porch, the five orders of
architecture, disposed in all ways, are heaped over one another, “as
if,” said a blacksmith, in whose shop I sheltered myself from a shower
of rain, “they had got hold of Vignola, and determined to execute all he
had described.” This remark was the more just, as the orders really
resemble those of Vignola. It would do well for a front to St. Eustache,
at Paris. The two other churches of this group are no longer used as
places of worship, and the outsides did not incite me to be at the
trouble of examining them within.
But the church at Dijon most worthy of attention is that of Nôtre Dame.
It was built, according to Agencourt, by St. Louis; and probably
therefore, in the first half of the thirteenth century; and there are
many circumstances which put one in mind of the church at Mantes,
attributed likewise to that monarch; but we have no account of its
consecration before 1334.