THE HARRIS PARTY VISITS PARIS
The distance is two hours from London to Dover. Half-way is Gad's Hill,
famous as the residence of the late Charles Dickens. Further on is
Canterbury, which is celebrated as the stronghold of Kentishmen and the
first English Christian city. Its prime attraction of course is its fine
cathedral, which in 1170 was the scene of Becket's murder.
Dover on the English Channel lies in a deep valley surrounded by high
chalk hills. On one of these, which is strongly fortified, may be seen
evidences of Norman, Saxon, and Roman works.
Every morning and evening the royal mail steamers leave Dover for Calais.
The channel ride of twenty-one miles was made by the Harrises without the
dreaded _mal de mer_. In the railway restaurant at Calais, Lucille
volunteered to order for the party, but she soon learned, much to the
amusement of her friends, that the French learned in Boston is not
successful at first in France.
The express to Paris is through Boulogne, an important sea town of
fifty-thousand inhabitants, which combines much English comfort with
French taste. From there hundreds of fishing boats extend their voyages
every season to the Scotch coast and even to far-off Iceland.
The scenery in the fertile valley of the Somme is beautiful. The route
lies through Amiens, a large city of textile industries, thence across
the Arve; the Harrises reached the station of the Northern Railway,
in the Place Roubaix, in northern Paris as the sun faded in the west.
Carriages were taken for the Grand Hotel, Boulevard des Capucines, near
the new opera house, which is centrally located, and offers to travelers
every comfort. The carriages enter a court, made inviting by fountains,
flowers, and electric light.
The first day or evening in Paris is bewildering. Early in the morning
the Harrises drove along the inner and the outer boulevards that encircle
Paris. Many miles of fine boulevards were built under Napoleon III. Most
from the Madeleine to the July Column are flanked with massive limestone
buildings, palatial mansions, and glittering shops, the architecture of
which is often uniform, and balconies are frequently built with each
story. Early every morning the asphalt and other pavements are washed.
At midday a busy throng crowds all the main streets.
Parisians favor residence in flats, and they enjoy immensely their
outdoor methods of living. At sundown the wide walks in front of
brilliant cafés are crowded with well dressed men and women, who seek
rest and refreshment in sipping coffee, wine, or absynthe, scanning the
papers for bits of social or political news, and discussing the latest
fad or sensation of the day. The English hurry but the French rarely.
Paris under electric light is indeed a fairyland. The boulevards are
brilliant and the scenes most animating. Everybody is courteous, and
all seen bent on a pleasurable time. Cafés, shops, and places of
entertainment are very inviting, and you easily forget to note the
passage of time. Midnight even overtakes you before you are aware of
the lateness of the hour. This is true, if you chance to visit, as did
the Harris party, some characteristic phases of Parisian life.
Near the east end of the Champs-Elysées, under the gas light and beneath
the trees, they found open-air theaters, concerts, crowded cafes, and
pretty booths supplied with sweets and drinks. Every afternoon if the
weather is favorable, tastefully dressed children appear in charge of
nursemaids in white caps and aprons, and together they make picturesque
groups in the shade of elm and lime trees.
At breakfast, Leo proposed a study of Paris, as seen from the Arc de
Triomphe de l'Etoile, so named from the star formed by a dozen avenues
which radiate from it. The location is at the west end of the Avenue des
Champs-Elysées. This monument is one of the finest ever built by any
nation for its defenders. It is 160 feet in height, 145 in width, was
begun in 1806 by Napoleon and completed thirty years afterwards by Louis
Philippe. Figures and reliefs on the arch represent important events in
Napoleon's campaigns. Arriving at the arch, Leo led the way up a spiral
staircase, 261 steps to the platform above which commands fine views of
Paris.
The Champs-Elysées, a boulevard one thousand feet in width, extends east
over a mile from the monument of the Place de la Concord. Handsome
buildings flank the sides, and much of the open space is shaded with elm
and lime trees. Grand statues, fountains, and flowers add their charm.
Between three and five o'clock every pleasant afternoon this magnificent
avenue becomes the most fashionable promenade in the world. Here you will
behold the elite in attendance at Vanity Fair; many are riding in elegant
equipages, many on horseback, and almost countless numbers on foot.
The popular drive is out the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, 320 feet in
width, to the Bois de Boulogne, a beautiful park of 2250 acres,
containing several lakes and fringed on the west side by the River
Seine. In the southwest part of this park is located the Hippodrome de
Longchamp, which is the principal race-course near Paris, where races
attract vast crowds, especially when the French Derby or the Grand Prix
of twenty thousand dollars is competed for early in June.
The Harrises standing on the monument, looked eastward, and Leo pointed
out the River Seine shooting beneath more than a score of beautiful stone
and iron bridges, and making a bold curve of seven miles through Paris.
Then the Seine flows like a ribbon of silver in a northwesterly direction
into the English Channel. On the right bank is seen the Palais du
Trocadero of oriental style, which was used for the International
Exposition of 1878. On the left bank stands the Palais du Luxembourg,
rich in modern French art, the Hotel des Invalides, where rests Napoleon,
and the Church of St. Genevieve, or the Pantheon, where Victor Hugo is
buried.
Beyond the Place de la Concord are the Royal Gardens of the Tuileries,
where Josephine and Eugenie walked among classic statues, vases,
fountains and flowers; the Louvre filled with priceless art treasures,
the beautiful Hotel de Ville or city-hall, majestic Notre Dame, and
the graceful Column of July. Paris is truly an earthly Paradise. For
centuries it has been the residence of French rulers, and the mecca of
her pleasure loving citizens. Fire, famine, foreign invasion, civil war,
and pestilence have often swept over this, the fairest of cities, yet
from each affliction, Phoenix-like, Paris has risen brighter and
gayer than ever.
Gertrude, May, and Lucille were charmed with the fair vision before them,
and were anxious to leave the Arch of Triumph and become a part of the
gay city. The carriages drove back to the Place de la Concord, one of the
finest open places in Europe. Around this place the chief cities of
France are represented by eight large stone figures. That of Strasburg
the French keep in mourning. In the center stands the Obelisk of Luxor,
of reddish granite, which was brought at great expense from Egypt and
tells of Rameses II. and his successor. Other ornaments are twenty
rostral columns, bearing twin burners. On grand occasions this place
and the avenue are illuminated by thirty thousand gas lights.
In the Place de la Concord the guillotine did its terrible work in the
months between January 21st, 1793, and May 3rd, 1795, when thousands of
Royalists and Republicans perished. Two enormous fountains adorned with
Tritons, Nereids, and Dolphins beautify the court. No wonder the
brilliant writer Chateaubriand objected to the erection here of these
fountains, observing that all the water in the world could not remove
the blood stains which sullied the spot.
How beautiful the vista up the broad and short Rue Royale, which conducts
to the classic Madeleine! Alfonso was entranced with the beauty of this
rare temple, which was begun and finally dedicated as a church, though
Napoleon earnestly hoped to complete it as a temple of glory for his old
soldiers. Its cost was nearly three million dollars. A colonnade of
fifty-two huge fluted Corinthian columns and above them a rich frieze
surround the church. The approach is by a score and more of stone steps
and through enormous bronze doors on which the Ten Commandments are
illustrated.
Entering the Madeleine, one sees an interior richly adorned, floors of
marble, and lofty columns supporting a three-domed roof, through which
light enters. On either side are six confessionals of oak and gilt,
where prince and peasant alike confess their sins. Beyond is the altar
of spotless marble. How beautiful the group of white figures, which
represents Madeleine forgiven, and borne above on angels' wings! This
artistic group cost thirty thousand dollars.
On Sunday morning Leo and his friends came to the Madeleine which is the
metropolitan church of Paris. Here every Sunday exquisite music is
rendered, and here come the elite to worship and to add liberal gifts. It
is a broad policy that no Catholic Church on the globe, not even splendid
St. Peter's of Rome, is considered too good for rich and poor of all
nationalities to occupy together for the worship of the Master.
All the Parisian churches are crowded on Sunday mornings, but Sunday
afternoons are used as holidays, and all kinds of vehicles and trains are
burdened with well dressed people in pursuit of pleasure.
Traveling by omnibus and tramway in Paris is made as convenient to the
public as possible; nobody is permitted to ride without a seat, and there
are frequent waiting stations under cover. This is as it should be.
Nearly a hundred lines of omnibuses and tramways in Paris intersect
each other in every direction. Inside the fares are six cents, outside
three cents. A single fare allows of a transfer from one line to another.
Railways surround Paris, thus enabling the public to reach easily the
many pretty suburbs and villages.
Both Mrs. Harris and Gertrude on their return to the Grand Hotel were
glad to find letters from the men they loved. George wrote Gertrude that
he was amazed at the enormous capacity of the manufacturing plants which
he and Colonel Harris were visiting; that both labor and capital were
much cheaper than in America. His closing words were, "Learn all you can,
darling, I shall soon come to claim you."
Gertrude had read of the laundries on the Seine, so she left the hotel
early with her mother and Alfonso to see them, while Leo, Lucille, and
May went to study contemporaneous French masterpieces in the Luxembourg
palace and gallery. The public wash houses on the Seine are large
floating structures with glass roofs, steaming boilers, and rows of tubs
foaming with suds. Hard at work, stand hundreds of strong and bare armed
women, who scrub and wring their linen, while they sing and reply to the
banter of passing bargee or canotier.
If the sun is shining and the water is clear, the blue cotton dresses
of the women contrast prettily with white linen and bare arms busily
employed. Though they earn but a pittance, about five cents an hour, yet
they are very independent; mutual assistance is their controlling creed,
and few, if any, honor more loyally the republican principle of liberty,
equality and fraternity. The women seemed to do all the hard work, while
the men in snowy shirts and blue cotton trousers, with scarlet girdles
about their waists, pushed deftly to and fro the hot flat or box irons
over white starched linen.
Each ironer has a bit of wax, which he passes over the hot iron when he
comes to the front, the collar, or the wrist-bands, and he boasts that he
can goffer a frill or "bring up" a pattern of lace better than a
Chinaman.
Alfonso and his party drove along the handsome Rue de Rivoli, with its
half-mile of arcades, attractive shops, and hotels of high grade, and
up the Rue Castiglione, which leads to the Place Vendome. Here in one
of a hundred open places in Paris rises the Column Vendome in imitation
of Trajan's column in Rome. The inscription records that it is to
commemorate Napoleon's victories in 1805 over the Austrians and Russians.
On the pedestal are reliefs which represent the uniforms and weapons
of the conquered armies. The memorable scenes, from the breaking of camp
at Boulogne down to the Battle of Austerlitz, are shown on a broad bronze
band that winds spirally up to the capital, and the shaft is surmounted
by a bronze statue of Napoleon in his imperial robes.
Fortunately Alfonso's carriage overtook Leo's party, and they visited
together the pretty arcades and gardens of the Palais Royal. In the open
courts are trees, flowers, fountains, and statues, and on the four sides
are inviting cafés and shops which display tempting jewelry and other
beautiful articles. On summer evenings a military band plays here.
Returning, the ladies stepped into the Grand Magasin du Louvre. At a
buffet, refreshments were gratis, and everywhere were crowds, who
evidently appreciated the great variety of materials for ladies' dresses,
the fine cloths, latest novelties, exquisite laces, etc. The ladies
planned to return here, and to make a visit to the famous Au Bon Marche,
where cheap prices always prevail. Most of the afternoon was spent in the
Louvre, a vast palace of art, and the evening at the Theatre Français,
the ceiling of which represents France, bestowing laurels upon her three
great children, Molière, Corneille, and Racine. The Theatre Français
occupies the highest rank. Its plays are usually of a high class, and the
acting is admirable. The government grants this theatre an annual subsidy
of about fifty thousand dollars.
Early next morning, the Harrises took carriages to the Halles Centrales,
or union markets. These markets consist of ten pavilions intersected by
streets. There are twenty-five hundred stalls which cover twenty-two
acres, and cost fifteen million dollars. Under the markets are twelve
hundred cellars for storage. The sales to wholesale dealers are made by
auction early in the day, and they average about a hundred thousand
dollars. Then the retail traffic begins. The supplies, some of which
come from great distances along the Mediterranean, include meat, fish,
poultry, game, oysters, vegetables, fruit, flowers, butters, cream
cheese, etc. Great throngs of people, mostly in blue dresses and blouses,
with baskets and bundles constantly surge past you. The whole scene is
enjoyable. Everything they offer is fresh, and the prices usually are
reasonable. When you make a purchase, you are made to feel that you
have conferred a favor and are repeatedly thanked for it.
The few days that followed in Paris were days of rest, or were spent
in planning for the future. The art galleries and the shops on the
boulevards were repeatedly visited, theaters and rides were enjoyed,
and on Friday morning, the ladies went to the railway station to take
leave of Alfonso and Leo, who left Paris for the study of art in the
Netherlands. Colonel Harris and George Ingram were expected to arrive
in Paris on Saturday evening.