Holland, as we conceive it, than like England or France. Of course, the
railroad avoids the higher ground, but I did not see a cliff nor steep
acclivity until darkness closed us in, though some moderate hills were
visible from time to time, mainly on the right. Here, too, as across the
Channel, Grass largely predominated, but I think there was a greater
breadth of Wheat. I saw very few Fruit-trees, though much more growing
Timber than I had expected, from the representations I had read of the
treeless nakedness of the French soil. I think trees are as abundant for
fifty miles southward from Calais as in any part of England, but they
are mainly Elms and Willows, scarcely an orchard anywhere, and of course
no vineyards, for the Grape loves a more Southern sun. The cultivation
is scarcely equal to the English, though not strikingly inferior, and
the evidences of a minute subdivision of the soil are often palpable.
Fences are very rare, save along the sides of the railway; ditches serve
their purpose near Calais, and nothing at all answers afterward. I
presume wood becomes much scarcer as we approach Paris, but darkness
forbade observation.
By the terms of the enticing advertisement, we should have been here at
10 1/2 P. M., but, though we met with none other than the ordinary
detentions, it was half-past two on Sunday morning when we actually
reached the station at the barrier of the city. Here commenced the
custom-house search, and I must say it was conducted with perfect
propriety and commendable energy, though with determined rigor. Our
trunks and valises were all arranged on a long table according to the
numbers affixed to them respectively at Calais, and each, being opened
by its owner, was searched in its turn, and immediately surrendered, if
found "all right." I had been required to pay smartly on my books at
Liverpool, though nobody could have suspected that they were for any
other than my own use; so I left most of them at London and had no
difficulty here. [One unlucky wight, who had pieces of linen in his
trunk, had to see them taken out and put safely away for farther
consideration.] I did not at first comprehend that the number on my
trunk, standing out fair before me in honest, unequivocal Arabic
figures, could possibly mean anything but "fifty-two," but a friend
cautioned me in season that those figures spelled "cinquante-deux," or
phonetically "sank-on-du" to the officer, and I made my first attempt at
mouthing French accordingly, and succeeded in making myself
intelligible.
It was fair daylight when we left the railway station for our various
destinations. Mine was the "Hotel Choiseul," Rue St. Honore, which had
been warmly commended to me, and where I managed to stop _pro tem._
though there was not an unoccupied bed in the house. Paris, by the way,
is quite full--scarcely a room to be had in any popular hotel, and,
where any is to be found, the price is very high or the accommodations
quite humble. London, on the contrary, where the keepers of hotels and
lodging-houses had been induced to expect a grand crush, and had
aggravated their prices accordingly, is comparatively empty. Thousands
after thousands go there, but few remain for any time; consequently the
hotels make what money is spent, while the boarding and lodging-houses
are often tenantless. Many sharp landladies have driven away their old
lodgers to the Country or the Continent by exorbitant charges, in the
hope of extorting many times as much from visiters to the Exhibition;
and have thus far been bitterly disappointed. I presume it will be so to
the end. Sixty thousand people are as many as the Crystal Palace will
comfortably hold, in addition to its wares and their attendants, and
these make no impression on the vast capacity of London, while they go
away as soon as they have satisfied their curiosity and ceased to attend
the Fair, giving place to others, who require no more room than they
did. I suspect theirs are not the only calculations which will be
disappointed by the ultimate issues of the World's Exhibition.
THE MADELEINE.
My first day in Paris was Sunday, so, after breakfast, I repaired to the
famous modern Church of the Madeleine, reputed one of the finest in
Europe. This was the day of Pentecost, and fitly commemorated by the
Church. The spacious edifice was filled in every part, though at least a
thousand went out at the close of the earlier service, before the
attendance was fullest.
I think I was never in a place of worship so gorgeous as this. Over the
main altar there is a magnificent picture on the largest scale,
purporting to represent the Progress of Civilization from Christ's day
to Bonaparte's, Napoleon being the central figure in the foreground,
while the Saviour and the Virgin Mary occupy a similar position in the
rear. In every part, the Church is very richly and I presume tastefully
ornamented.
I did not comprehend the service, and cannot intelligibly describe it.
The bowings and genuflexions, the swinging of censers and ringing of
bells, the frequent appearance and disappearance of a band of gorgeously
dressed priests or assistants bearing what looked like spears, were
"inexplicable dumb show" to me, and most of them unlike anything I
remember to have seen in American Catholic Churches. The music was
generally fine, especially that of a chorus of young boys, and the
general bearing of the people in attendance, that of reverence and
interest.
"Peace be with all, whate'er their varying creeds,
With all who send up holy thoughts on high."
But I could not bring myself to like the continual circulation of
several officials throughout almost the entire service, collecting rents
for seats (they were let very cheap), and begging money for "the Poor of
the Church;" as a stout, gross, absurdly overdressed herald who preceded
the collectors loudly proclaimed. I think this collection should have
been taken before or after the Mass. There was no sermon up to one
o'clock, when I left, with nearly all the audience, though there may
have been one afterward.
XV.
THE FUTURE OF FRANCE.
PARIS, Wednesday, June 11, 1851.
"Will the French Republic withstand the assaults of its enemies?" is a
question of primary importance with regard to the Political Future, not
of France only but of Europe, and more remotely of the world. Even
fettered and stifled as the Republic now is--a shorn and blind Samson in
the toils of the Philistines--it is still a potent fact, and its very
name is a "word of fear" to the grand conspiracy of despots and owls who
are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the
debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French
Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the
Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his
vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,--it is the overthrow of the French
Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which
engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout
Europe. "Put out the light, and then put out the light," is the general
aspiration; and the fact that the actual Republic is reasonably
moderate, peaceful, unaggressive, so far from disarming their hostility,
only inflames it. Haman can never feel safe in his exaltation so long as
Mordecai the Jew is seen sitting at the king's gate; and if France is to
be a Republic, the Royalties and Aristocracies of Europe would far
sooner see her bloody, turbulent, desolating and intent on conquest
than tranquil and inoffensive. A Republic absolutely ruled by Danton,
Marat and Robespierre would be far less appalling in the eyes of the
Privileged, Luxurious and Idle Classes of Europe than one peacefully
pursuing its career under the guidance of Cavaignac, De Tocqueville or
Lamartine.
While in England, I could not but smile at the delusions propagated by
the Press and readily credited as well as diffused by the fortunate
classes with regard to the deplorable condition of France and the
absolute necessity existing for some radical change in her Government.
"O yes, you get along very well with a Republic in the United States,
where you had cheap lands, a vast and fertile wilderness, common schools
and a general reverence for Religion and Order to begin with; but just
look at France!"--such was and is a very general line of argument. If
the French had been equally divisible into felons, bankrupts, paupers
and lunatics, their hopeless state could hardly have been referred to
more compassionately. All this time France was substantially as tranquil
as England herself, and decidedly more prosperous, though annoyed and
impeded by the incessant plottings of traitors in her councils and other
exalted stations to resubject her to kingly sway. A thrifty, provident,
frugal artisan may often seem less wealthy and prosperous than his
dashing, squandering, lavish neighbor. France may not display so much
plate on the sideboards of her landlords and bankers as England does;
but every day adds to her ability to display it. While Great Britain and
the United States have undertaken to vie with each other in Free Trade,
France holds fast to the principle of Protection, with scarcely a
division in her Councils on the subject; and she is consequently
amassing in silence the wealth created by other Nations. The Californian
digs gold, which mainly comes to New-York in payment for goods; but on
that gold England has a mortgage running fast to maturity, for the goods
were in part bought of her and we owe her for Millions' worth beside.
But France has a similar mortgage on it for the Grain supplied to
England to feed the fabricators of the goods, and it has hardly reached
the Bank of England before it is on its way to Paris. A great share of
the golden harvests of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin
now find their resting-place here.
"But what," asks a Say-Bastiat economist, "if they do? Isn't all
Commerce an exchange of equivalents? Must we not buy in order to sell?
Isn't Gold a commodity like any other? If our Imports exceed our
Exports, doesn't that prove that we are obtaining more for our Exports
than their estimated value?" &c. &c. &c.
No, Sir! commerce is _not_ always an exchange of genuine equivalents.
The savage tribe which sells its hunting grounds and its ancestors'
graves for a few barrels of firewater, whereby its members are
debauched, diseased, rendered insanely furious, and set to cutting each
other's throats, receives no real equivalent for what it parts with. Nor
is it well for ever so civilized a people to be selling its Specie and
mortgaging its Lands and Houses for Silks, Liquors, Laces, Wines,
Spices, &c.--trading off the essential and imperishable for the
factitious and transitory--and so eating itself out of house and home.
The farmer who drinks up his farm at the cross-roads tavern may have
obtained "more for his exports" (of produce from his farm), than they
were worth in the market--at least, it would seem so from the fact that
he has run over head and ears in debt--but he has certainly done a
pernicious, a losing business. So does any Nation which buys more wares
and fabrics than its exports will pay for, and finds itself in debt at
the year's end for imports that it has eaten, drunk or worn out. The
thrifty household is the true model of the Nation. And, thus tested,
France, in spite of her enormous, locust-like Army and other relics of
past follies which the National mind is outgrowing though the Nation's
rulers still cling to them, is this day one of the most prosperous
countries on earth.
But when I hear the aristocratic plotters talk of the necessity of a
Revision of the Constitution in order to restore to France tranquillity
and prosperity, I am moved not to mirth but to indignation. For these
plotters and their schemes are themselves the causes of the mischiefs
they affect to deplore and the dangers they pretend to be bent on
averting. Whatever is now feverish and ominous in French Politics grows
directly out of two great wrongs--the first positive and
accomplished--the law of the 31st May, whereby Three Millions of
Electors were disfranchised--the other contingent and meditated--the
overthrow of the Republic. All the agitation, the apprehension, the
uncertainty, and the consequent derangement of Industry, through the
last year, have grown out of these misdeeds, done and purposed, of the
Aristocratic party. In the sacred name of Order, they have fomented
discord and anarchy; invoking Peace, they have stirred up hatred and
bitterness. Whatever the Social Democracy _might_ have done, had they
been in the ascendant or under other supposable circumstances, the fact
is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of
Tranquillity and the Constitution. Had they proved recreant to their
faith and trust, France would ere this have been plunged into
convulsions through the mutual jealousies and hostilities of the
factions who vaunt themselves collectively the party of Order; they have
been withheld from cutting each other's throats by the calm, determined,
watchful, intrepid attitude of the calumniated Democracy.
The law of the 31st May still stands on the statute-book, and I
apprehend is destined to remain (though many who are better informed are
sanguine that it will be repealed before the next Presidential
Election), but the Republic will endure and its Constitution cannot be
overthrown. All the Bourbonists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists in the
Assembly combined are insufficient to change the Constitution legally;
and if a bare majority sufficed for that purpose (instead of
three-fourths), they could not to-day command a working majority for any
practical measure of Revision. It is easy to club their votes and
vaguely declare _some_ change necessary--but _what_ change? A Bourbon
Restoration? An Orleans Middle-Class Royalty? A Napoleonic Empire? For
no one of these can a majority even of this Reaectionist Assembly be
obtained. What, then, is their chance with the People?
As to the signing of Petitions for Revision, that is easily understood.
The Prefect, the Mayor, &c., of a locality readily procure the
signatures of all the Government _employes_ and hangers-on, who
constitute an immense army in France; the great manufacturers circulate
the petitions among their workmen, and most of them sign, not choosing
to risk their masters' displeasure for a mere name more or less to an
unmeaning paper. But the plotters know perfectly well that the People
are _not_ for Revision in _their_ sense of the word; if they did not
fear this, they would restore Universal Suffrage. By clinging with
desperate tenacity to the Restrictive law of May 31st, they virtually
confess that their hopes of success involve the continued exclusion of
Three Millions of adult Frenchmen from the Registry of Voters. When they
prate, therefore, of _the people's_ desire for Revision, the Republican
retort is ready and conclusive--"Repeal the law of May 31st, and we can
then tell what the people really desire. But so long as you maintain
that law, you confess that you dare not abide the verdict of the whole
People. You appeal to a Jury which you have packed--one whose right to
try this question we utterly deny. Restore Universal Suffrage, and we
can then tell what the People really do wish and demand; but until you
do this, we shall resist every attempt to change the Constitution even
by as much as a hair." Who can doubt that this is right?
"Therefore, Representatives of the People, deliberate in peace," pithily
says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army
will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a
Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout
the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing;
the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the
popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic.
It cannot be legally subverted; and should Force and Usurpation be
attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread
the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are
on their side--that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed
to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all,
are all for the Republic--that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an
Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique
is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain
Military officers, mainly relics of the Empire; the class includes a
good part of the lucky Parisian shop-keepers and Government _employes_
during the reign of Louis Philippe; the party embraces the remnants of
the anti-Revolutionary Aristocracy, most of the influential Priesthood,
and a small section of the rural Peasantry; all these combined may
number Four Millions, leaving Thirty Millions for the Nation. Such is
France in 1851; and, being such, the subversion of the Republic, whether
by foreign assault or domestic treason, is hardly possible. An open
attack by the Autocrat and his minions would certainly consolidate it; a
prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have
the same effect. Four years more of tranquil though nominal
Republicanism would only render a return to Monarchy more difficult;
wherefore the Royalist party will never assent to it, and without their
aid the project has no chance. To obtain that aid, "the Prince" must
secretly swear that after four years more he will turn France over to
Henry V.; this promise only the last extreme of desperation could extort
from him, and then to no purpose, since he could not fulfill it and the
Legitimists could not trust him. And thus, alike by its own strength and
by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured.
XVI.
PARIS, SOCIAL AND MORAL.
PARIS, Thursday, June 12, 1851.
A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen
a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built
around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is
entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the
minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining
their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of
goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of
the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most
celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue
Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and
"Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a
considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops,
"restaurants," "cafes," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think
of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in
Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss
his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here
it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds
sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise
during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink
or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him: he reads his
newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in
one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c.
which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly
necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is
Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere
is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or
paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or
forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have
signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent,
vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but
willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same
time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the
Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere
are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old
Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would
eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but
no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred
stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of
Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as
Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of
by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to
those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very
cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18 3/4
cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the
comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is
very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is
scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor
girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a
man of wealth, or one who can support her in luxury and idleness, is
the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by
which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly
designated, involve the idea of demoralization--no man would apply them
to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In
no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so
great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else
is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of
London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris--that is,
they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in
view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active
there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe.
Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and
Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this,
and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with
that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to
strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in
the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself.
SIGHTS OF PARIS.
The first object of interest I saw in Paris was the COLUMN OF NAPOLEON
in the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn of the morning
of my arrival. This gigantic Column, as is well known, was formed of
cannon taken by the Great Captain in the several victories which
irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was Emperor
of France and virtually of the Continent. His Statue crowns the pyramid;
it was pulled down while the Allied Armies occupied Paris, and a resolute
attempt was made to prostrate the Column also, but it was too firmly
rooted. The Statue was not replaced till after the Revolution of 1830.
The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the stately
Column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and
especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should
not regard it very highly.
Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting,
is the OBELISK OF LUXOR, which for thousands of years had overshadowed
the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late Pacha of
Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near the
Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which impressed
me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with mysterious
inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four thousand
years, yet seem as fresh and clear as though chiseled but yesterday. The
removal entire of this bulk of many thousand tuns from Egypt to Paris is
one of the most marvelous achievements of human genius, and Paris has for
me no single attraction to match the Obelisk of Luxor.
The TUILERIES strikes me as an irregular mass of buildings with little
pretensions to Architectural beauty or effect. It has great capacity, and
nothing more. The LOUVRE is much finer, yet still not remarkable, but its
wealth of Paintings by the Great Masters of all time surprised as well as
delighted me. I never saw anything at all comparable to it. But of this
another time.
THE FRENCH OPERA.
PARIS, Monday, June 9, 1851.