A very instructive resort, even for a layman, was the Record Office,
for there one could run through the whole history of France in the most
entertaining manner with the help of the manuscripts placed on view,
from the most ancient papyrus rolls to the days of parchment and paper.
You saw the documents of the Feudal Lords' and Priests' Conspiracies
under the Merovingians and the Capets, the decree of divorce between
Philip Augustus and Ingeborg, and letters from the most notable
personages of the Middle Ages and the autocracy. The period of the
Revolution and the First Empire came before one with especial
vividness. There was Charlemagne's monogram stencilled in tin, and that
of Robert of Paris, reproduced in the same manner, those of Louis XIV.
and Molière, of Francis the Catholic and Mary Stuart. There were
letters from Robespierre and Danton, requests for money and
death-warrants from the Reign of Terror, Charlotte Corday's last
letters from prison and the original letters of Napoleon from St.
Helena.
In June I saw the annual races at Longchamps for the first time. Great
was the splendour. From two o'clock in the afternoon to six there was
an uninterrupted stream of carriages, five or six abreast, along the
Champs Elysées; there were thousands of _lorettes_ (as they were called
at that time) in light silk gowns, covered with diamonds and precious
stones, in carriages decorated with flowers. Coachmen and footmen wore
powdered wigs, white or grey, silk stockings and knee-breeches and a
flower in the buttonhole matching the colour of their livery and the
flowers which hung about the horses' ears. Some of the carriages had no
coachman's box or driver, but were harnessed to four horses ridden by
postillions in green satin or scarlet velvet, with white feathers in
their caps.
The only great _demi-mondaine_ of whom I had hitherto caught a glimpse
was the renowned Madame de Païva, who had a little palace by the side
of the house in which Frölich the painter lived, in the Champs Elysées.
Her connection with Count Henckel v. Donnersmark permitted her to
surround herself with regal magnificence, and, to the indignation of
Princess Mathilde, men like Gautier and Renan, Sainte-Beuve and
Goncourt, Saint-Victor and Taine, sat at her table. The ladies here
were younger and prettier, but socially of lower rank. The gentlemen
went about among the carriages, said _tu_ without any preamble to the
women, and squeezed their hands, while their men-servants sat stolid,
like wood, seeming neither to hear nor see.
This race-day was the last under the Empire. It is the one described in
Zola's _Nana_. The prize for the third race was 100,000 francs. After
English horses had been victorious for several years in succession, the
prize was carried off in 1870--as in _Nana_--by a native-born horse,
and the jubilation was great; it was a serious satisfaction to national
vanity.
At that time, the Tuileries were still standing, and I was fond of
walking about the gardens near closing time, when the guard beat the
drums to turn the people out. It was pleasant to hear the rolling of
the drums, which were beaten by two of the Grenadier Guard drummers and
a Turco. Goldschmidt had already written his clever and linguistically
very fine piece of prose about this rolling of the drums and what it
possibly presaged: Napoleon's own expulsion from the Tuileries and the
humiliation of French grandeur before the Prussians, who might one day
come and drum this grandeur out. But Goldschmidt had disfigured the
pretty little piece somewhat by relating that one day when, for an
experiment, he had tried to make his way into the gardens after the
signal for closing had sounded, the Zouave had carelessly levelled his
bayonet at him with the words: _"Ne faites pas des bêtises!"_ This
levelling of the bayonet on such trivial provocation was too
tremendous, so I made up my mind one evening to try myself. The soldier
on guard merely remarked politely: "_Fermé, monsieur, on va sortir._"
I little dreamed that only a few months later the Empress would steal
secretly out of the palace, having lost her crown, and still less that
only six months afterwards, during the civil war, the Tuileries would
be reduced to ashes, never to rise again.