the scenery too beautiful to re-enter the carriage immediately, and we
walked to the top of the mountain. The view from the summit was truly
admirable. The Seine comes winding its way, through a broad rich valley,
from the southward, having just before run east, and, a league or two
beyond, due west, our own Susquehanna being less crooked. The stream was
not broad, but its numerous isles, willowy banks, and verdant meadows,
formed a line for the eye to follow. Rouen, in the distance, with its
ebony towers, fantastic roofs, and straggling suburbs, lines its shores,
at a curvature where the stream swept away west again, bearing craft of
the sea on its bosom. These dark old towers have a sombre, mysterious
air, which harmonizes admirably with the recollections that crowd the
mind, at such a moment! Scarce an isolated dwelling was to be seen, but
the dense population is compressed into villages and _bourgs_, that dot
the view, looking brown and teeming, like the nests of wasps. Some of
these places have still remains of walls, and most of them are so
compact and well defined that they appear more like vast castles, than
like the villages of England or America. All are gray, sombre, and
without glare, rising from the back ground of pale verdure, so many
appropriate _bas reliefs_.
The road was strewed with peasants of both sexes, wending their way
homeward, from the market of Rouen. One, a tawny woman, with no other
protection for her head than a high but perfectly clean cap, was going
past us, driving an ass, with the panniers loaded with manure. We were
about six miles from the town, and the poor beast, after staggering some
eight or ten miles to the market in the morning, was staggering back
with this heavy freight, at even. I asked the woman, who, under the
circumstances, could not but be a resident of one of the neighbouring
villages, the name of a considerable _bourg_, that lay about a gun-shot
distant in plain view, on the other side of the river. “_Monsieur, je ne
saurais pas vous dire, parceque, voyez-vous, je ne suis pas de ce pays
là_,” was the answer!
Knowledge is the parent of knowledge. He who possesses most of the
information of his age, will not quietly submit to neglect its current
acquisitions, but will go on improving as long as means and
opportunities offer; while he who finds himself ignorant of most things,
is only too apt to shrink from a labour which becomes Herculean. In this
manner, ambition is stifled, the mind gets to be inactive, and finally
sinks into unresisting apathy. Such is the case with a large portion of
the European peasantry. The multitude of objects that surround them,
becomes a reason of indifference; and they pass, from day to day, for a
whole life, in full view of a town, without sufficient curiosity in its
history to inquire its name, or, if told by accident, sufficient
interest to remember it. We see this principle exemplified daily in
cities. One seldom thinks of asking the name of a passer by, though he
may be seen constantly, whereas, in the country, such objects being
comparatively rare, the stranger is not often permitted to appear,
without some question touching his character.[3]
Footnote 3:
When in London, two years later, I saw a gentleman of rather striking
appearance pass my door for two months, five or six times of a
morning. Remembering the apathy of the Norman peasant, I at length
asked who it was—“Sir Francis Burdett,” was the answer.
I once inquired of a servant girl at a French inn, who might be the
owner of a _château_ near by, the gate of which was within a hundred
feet of the house we were in. She was unable to say, urging, as an
apology, that she had only been six weeks in her present place! This,
too, was in a small country hamlet. I think every one must have
remarked, _cæteris paribus_, how much more activity and curiosity of
mind is displayed by a countryman, who first visits a town, than by the
dweller in a city, who first visits the country. The first wishes to
learn every thing, since he has been accustomed to understand every
thing he has hitherto seen; while the last, accustomed to a crowd of
objects, usually regards most of the novel things he now sees for the
first time, with indifference.
The road, for the rest of the afternoon, led us over hills, and plains,
from one reach of the river to another, for we crossed the latter
repeatedly before reaching Paris. The appearance of the country was
extraordinary, in our eyes. Isolated houses were rare, but villages
dotted the whole expanse. No obtrusive colours, but the eye had
frequently to search against the hill-side, or in the valley, and, first
detecting a mass, it gradually took in the picturesque angles, roofs,
towers and walls of the little _bourg_. Not a fence, or visible boundary
of any sort, to mark the limits of possessions. Not a hoof in the fields
grazing, and occasionally, a sweep of mountain land resembled a pattern
card, with its stripes of green and yellow and other hues, the narrow
fields of the small proprietors. The play of light and shade on these
gay upland patches, though not strictly in conformity with the laws of
taste, certainly was attractive. When they fell entirely into shadow,
the harvest being over, and their gaudy colours lessened, they resembled
the melancholy and wasted vestiges of a festival.
At Louviers we dined, and there we found a new object of wonder in the
church. It was of the Gothic of the _bourgs_, less elaborated and more
rudely wrought than that of the larger towns, but quaint, and, the
population considered, vast. Ugly dragons thrust out their grinning
heads at us from the buttresses. The most agreeable monstrosities
imaginable, were crawling along the gray old stones. After passing this
place, the scenery lost a good deal of the pastoral appearance, which
renders Normandy rather remarkable in France, and took still more of the
starched pattern-card look, just mentioned. Still it was sombre, the
villages were to be extracted by the eye from their setting of fields,
and, here and there, one of those “silent fingers pointing to the
skies,” raised itself into the air like a needle, to prick the
consciences of the thoughtless. The dusky hues of all the villages,
contrasted oddly, and not unpleasantly; with the carnival colours of the
grains.
We slept at Vernon, and before retiring for the night, passed half an
hour in a fruitless attempt to carry by storm a large old circular
tower, that is imputed to the inexhaustible industry of Cæsar. This was
the third of his reputed works that we had seen, since landing in
France. In this part of Europe, Cæsar has the credit of every thing for
which no one else is willing to apply, as is the case with Virgil, at
Naples.
It was a sensation to rise in the morning with the rational prospect of
seeing Paris, for the first time in one’s life, before night. In my
catalogue it stands numbered as sensation the 5th; Westminster, the
night arrival in France, and the Cathedral of Rouen giving birth to
No’s. 1, 2, and 4. Though accustomed to the tattoo, and the evening
bugle of a man-of-war, the drums of Havre had the honour of No. 3. Alas!
how soon we cease to feel those agreeable excitements at all, even a
drum coming in time to pall on the ear.
Near Vernon we passed a village, which gave us the first idea of one
feature in the old _régime_. The place was gray, sombre, and
picturesque, as usual, in the distance; but crowded, dirty,
inconvenient, and mean, when the eye got too near. Just without the
limits of its nuisances, stood the _château_, a regular pile of hewn
stone, with formal _allées_, abundance of windows, extensive stables,
and broken vases. The ancient _seigneur_ probably retained no more of
this ancient possession than its name, while some Monsieur Le Blanc, or
Monsieur Le Noir filled his place in the house, and “_Personne dans la
seigneurie_.”
A few leagues farther brought us to an eminence, whence we got a
beautiful glimpse of the sweeping river, and of a wide expanse of
fertile country less formally striped, and more picturesque than the
preceding. Another gray castellated town lay on the verge of the river,
with towers that seemed even darker than ever. How different was all
this from the glare of our own objects! As we wound round the brow of
the height, extensive park grounds, a village more modern, less
picturesque, and less dirty than common, with a large _château_ in red
bricks was brought in sight, in the valley. This was _Rosny_, the place
that gave his hereditary title to the celebrated _Sully_, as _Baron_ and
_Marquis de Rosny_: _Sully_, a man, who, like Bacon, almost deserves the
character so justly given of the latter by Pope, that of “The wisest,
greatest, _meanest_, of mankind.” The house and grounds were now the
property of _Madame_, as it is the ettiquette to term the _Duchesse de
Berri_. The town in the distance, with the dark towers, was Mantes, a
place well known in the history of Normandy. We breakfasted at _le
Cheval Blanc_. The church drew us all out, but it was less monstrous
than that of Louviers, and, as a cathedral, unworthy to be named with
those of the larger places.
The next stage brought us to _St. Germain en Laye_, or to the verge of
the circle of low mountains, that surround the plains of Paris. Here we
got within the influence of royal magnificence and the capital. The
Bourbons, down to the period of the revolution, were indeed kings, and
they have left physical and moral impressions of their dynasty of seven
hundred years, that will require as long a period to eradicate. Nearly
every foot of the entire semicircle of hills, to the west of Paris, is
historical, and garnished by palaces, pavillions, forests, parks,
aqueducts, gardens or chases. A carriage terrace, of a mile in length,
and on a most magnificent scale in other respects, overlooks the river,
at an elevation of several hundred feet above its bed. The palace
itself, a quaint old edifice of the time of Francis 1st., who seems to
have had an architecture not unlike that of Elizabeth of England, has
long been abandoned as a royal abode. I believe its last royal occupant
was the dethroned James II. It is said to have been deserted by its
owners, because it commands a distant view of that silent monitor, the
sombre but beautiful spire of St. Denis, whose walls shadow the vaults
of the Bourbons; they who sat on a throne not choosing to be thus
constantly reminded of the time, when they must descend to the common
fate and crumbling equality of the grave.
An aqueduct, worthy of the Romans, gave an imposing idea of the scale on
which these royal works were conducted. It appeared, at the distance of
a league or two, a vast succession of arches, displaying a broader range
of masonry than I had ever before seen. So many years had passed since I
was last in Europe, that I gazed, in wonder at its vastness.
From St. Germain we plunged into the valley, and took our way towards
Paris, by a broad paved avenue, that was bordered with trees. The road
now began to show an approach to a capital, being crowded with all sorts
of uncouth looking vehicles, used as public conveyances. Still it was on
a Liliputian scale as compared to London, and semi-barbarous even, as
compared to one of our towns. _Marly-la-Machine_ was passed; an
hydraulic invention to force water up the mountains to supply the
different princely dwellings of the neighbourhood. Then came a house of
no great pretension, buried in trees, at the foot of the hill. This was
the celebrated consular abode, _Malmaison_. After this we mounted to a
hamlet, and the road stretched away before us, with the river between,
to the unfinished _arc de L’Etoile_, or the barrier of the capital. The
evening was soft, and there had been a passing shower. As the mist drove
away, a mass rose like a glittering beacon, beyond the nearest hill,
proclaiming Paris. It was the dome of the Hotel of the Invalids!
Though Paris possesses better points of view, from its immediate
vicinity, than most capitals, it is little seen from any of its ordinary
approaches, until fairly entered. We descended to the river, by a gentle
declivity. The _château_ and grounds of _Neuilly_, a private possession
of the Duke of Orleans, lay on our left; the _Bois de Boulogne_, the
carriage promenade of the capital, on our right. We passed one of those
abortions a _magnificent_ village (_Neuilly_,) and ascended gently
towards the unfinished arch of the star. Bending around this imposing
memorial of—Heaven knows what! for it has had as many destinations as
France has had governors—we entered the iron gate of the barrier, and
found ourselves within the walls of Paris.
We were in the _avenue de Neuilly_. The _Champs Elysées_, without
verdue, a grove divided by the broad approach, and moderately peopled by
a well-dressed crowd, lay on each side. In front, at the distance of a
mile, was a mass of foliage that looked more like a rich copse in a
park, than an embellishment of a town garden, and above this, again,
peered the pointed roofs of two or three large and high members of some
vast structure, sombre in colour and quaint in form. They were the
pavillions of the _Tuileries_.[4] A line of hotels became visible
through trees and shrubbery on the left, and on the right we soon got
evidence that we were again near the river. We had just left it behind
us, and after a _détour_ of several leagues, here it was again flowing
in our front, cutting in twain the capital.
Footnote 4:
Tuileries is derived from _Tuil_ or tile; the site of the present
gardens having been a tile yard.
Objects now grew confused, for they came fast. We entered and crossed a
paved area, that lay between the Seine, the _Champs Elysées_, the garden
of the _Tuileries_, and two little palaces of extraordinary beauty of
architecture. This was the place where Louis XVIth, and his unfortunate
wife, were beheaded. Passing between the two edifices last named, we
came upon the _Boulevards_, and plunged at once into the street-gaiety
and movement of this remarkable town.
LETTER V.
TO R. COOPER, ESQUIRE, COOPERSTOWN.
We were not a fortnight in Paris, before we were quietly established,
_en bourgeois_, in the _Fauxbourg St. Germain_. Then followed the long
and wearying toil of sight-seeing. Happily, our time was not limited,
and we took months for that which is usually performed in a few days.
This labor is connected with objects that description has already
rendered familiar, and I shall say nothing of them, except as they may
incidentally belong to such parts of my subject as I believe worthy to
be noticed.
Paris was empty in the month of August, 1826. The court was at St.
Cloud; the _Duchesse de Berri_ at her favourite Dieppe; and the
fashionable world was scattered abroad over the face of Europe. Our own
minister was at the baths of Aix, in Savoy.
One of the first things was to obtain precise and accurate ideas of the
position and _entourage_ of the place. In addition to those enjoyed from
its towers, there are noble views of Paris from Monmartre and Père la
Chaise. The former has the best look-out, and thither we proceeded. This
little mountain is entirely isolated, forming no part of the exterior
circle of heights which environ the town. It lies north of the walls,
which cross its base. The ascent is so steep, as to require a winding
road, and the summit, a table of a hundred acres, is crowned by a
crowded village, a church, and divers windmills. There was formerly a
convent or two, and small country houses still cling to its sides,
buried in the shrubbery that clothe their terraces.
We were fortunate in our sky, which was well veiled in clouds, and
occasionally darkened by mists. A bright sun may suit particular scenes,
and peculiar moods of the mind, but every connoisseur in the beauties of
nature will allow that, as a rule, clouds, and very frequently a partial
obscurity, greatly aid a landscape. This is yet more true of a
bird’s-eye view of a grey old mass of walls, which give up their
confused and dusky objects all the better for the absence of glare. I
love to study a place teeming with historical recollections, under this
light; leaving the sites of memorable scenes to issue, one by one, but
of the grey mass of gloom, as time gives up its facts from the obscurity
of ages.
Unlike English and American towns, Paris has scarcely any suburbs. Those
parts which are called its _Fauxbourgs_ are in truth integral parts of
the city, and, with the exception of a few clusters of wine-houses and
_guinguettes_, which have collected near its gates to escape the city
duties, the continuity of houses ceases suddenly with the _barrières_,
and, at the distance of half a mile from the latter, one is as
effectually in the country, so far as the eye is concerned, as if a
hundred leagues in the provinces. The unfenced meadows, vineyards,
lucerne, oats, wheat, and vegetables, in many places, literally reach
the walls. These walls are not intended for defence, but are merely a
financial _enceinte_, created for offensive operations against the
pockets of the inhabitants. Every town in France that has two thousand
inhabitants, is entitled to set up an _octroi_ on its articles of
consumption, and something like four millions of dollars are taken,
annually, at the gates of Paris, in duties on this internal trade. It is
merely the old expedient to tax the poor, by laying impositions on food
and necessaries.
From the windmills of Montmartre, the day we ascended, the eye took in
the whole vast capital, at a glance. The domes sprung up through the
mist, like starting balloons; and, here and there, the meandering stream
threw back a gleam of silvery light. Enormous roofs denoted the sites of
the palaces, churches, or theatres. The summits of columns, the crosses
of the minor churches, and the pyramids of pavillion-tops, seemed
struggling to rear their heads from out the plain of edifices. A better
idea of the vastness of the principal structures was obtained here, in
one hour, than could be got from the streets in a twelvemonth. Taking
the roofs of the palace, for instance, the eye followed its field of
slate and lead, through a parallelogram, for quite a mile. The sheet of
the French opera resembled a blue pond, and the aisles of Notre-Dame,
and St. Eustache, with their slender ribs and massive buttresses,
towered so much above the lofty houses around them, as to seem to stand
on their ridges. The church of _St. Geneviève_, the Pantheon of the
revolution, faced us, on the swelling land of the opposite side of the
town, but surrounded still with crowded lines of dwellings; the
Observatory limiting, equally, the view, and the vast field of houses,
in that direction.
Owing to the state of the atmosphere, and the varying light, the picture
before us was not that simply of a town, but, from the multiplicity and
variety of its objects, it was a vast and magnificent view. I have
frequently looked at Paris since from the same spot, or from its church
towers, when the strong sun-light reduced it to the appearance of
confused glittering piles, on which the eye almost refused to dwell;
but, in a clouded day, all the peculiarities stand out sombre and
distinct, resembling the grey accessaries of the ordinary French
landscape.
From the town we turned to the heights which surround it. East and
south-east, after crossing the Seine, the country lay in the waste-like
unfenced fields which characterize the scenery of this part of Europe.
Roads stretched away in the direction of Orleans, marked by the usual
lines of clipped and branchless trees. More to the west commences the
abrupt heights, which, washed by the river, encloses nearly half the
wide plain, like an amphitheatre. This has been the favorite region of
the kings of France, from the time of Louis XIIIth, down to the present
day. The palaces of Versailles, St. Germain, St. Cloud, and Meudon, all
lie in this direction, within short distances of the capital, and the
royal forests, avenues, and chases, intersect it in every direction, as
mentioned before.
Farther north, the hills rise to be low mountains, though a wide and
perfectly level plain spreads itself between the town and their bases,
varying in breadth from two to four leagues. On the whole of this
expanse of cultivated fields, there was hardly such a thing as an
isolated house. Though not literally true, this fact was so nearly so,
as to render the effect oddly peculiar, when one stood on the eastern
extremity of Montmartre, where, by turning southward, he looked down
upon the affluence, and heard the din of a vast capital, and by turning
northward, he beheld a country with all the appliances of rural life,
and dotted by grey villages. Two places, however, were in sight, in this
direction, that might aspire to be termed towns. One was _St. Denis_,
from time immemorial, the burying place of the French kings, and the
other was _Montmorency_, the _bourg_ which gives its name to, or
receives it from, the illustrious family that is so styled, for I am
unable to say which is the fact. The church spire of the former, is one
of the most beautiful objects in view from Montmartre, the church
itself, which was desecrated in the revolution, having been restored by
Napoleon. St. Denis is celebrated, in the Catholic annals, by the fact
of the martyr, from whom the name is derived, having walked, after
decapitation, with his head under his arm, all the way from Paris to
this very spot.
Montmorency is a town of no great size or importance, but lying on the
side of a respectable mountain, in a way to give the spectator more than
a profile, it appears to be larger than it actually is. This place is
scarcely distinguishable from Paris, under the ordinary light, but on a
day like that which we had chosen, it stood out in fine relief from the
surrounding fields, even the grey mass of its church being plainly
visible.
If Paris is so beautiful and striking, when seen from the surrounding
heights, there are many singularly fine pictures, in the bosom of the
place itself. We rarely crossed the Pont Royal, during the first month
or two of our residence, without stopping the carriage to gaze at the
two remarkable views it offers. One is up the reach of the Seine which
stretches through the heart of the town, separated by the island, and
the other, in an opposite direction, looks down the reach by which the
stream flows into the meadows, on its way to the sea. The first is a
look into the avenues of a large town, the eye resting on the quaint
outlines and endless mazes of walls, towers, and roofs, while the last
is a prospect, in which the front of the picture is a collection of some
of the finest objects of a high state of civilization, and the back
ground a beautiful termination of wooded and decorated heights.
At first, one who is accustomed to the forms and movements of a
sea-port, feels a little disappointment at seeing a river that bears
nothing but dingy barges loaded with charcoal and wine casks. The
magnificence of the quays seems disproportioned to the trifling
character of the commerce they are destined to receive. But familiarity
with the town soon changes all these notions, and while we admit that
Paris is altogether secondary so far as trade is concerned, we come to
feel the magnificence of her public works, and to find something that is
pleasing and picturesque, even in her huge and unwieldy wood and coal
barges. Trade is a good thing in its way, but its agents rarely
contribute to the taste, learning, manners, or morals of a nation.
The sight of the different interesting objects that encircle Paris
stimulated our curiosity to nearer views, and we proceeded, immediately,
to visit the environs. These little excursions occupied more than a
month, and they not only made us familiar with the adjacent country,
but, by compelling us to pass out at nearly every one of the twenty, or
thirty, different gates, or barriers, as they are called, with a large
portion of the town also. This capital has been too often described to
render any further account of the principal objects necessary, and in
speaking of it, I shall endeavour to confine my remarks to things that I
think may still interest you by their novelty.