PARIS.--MARGARET'S RECEPTION THERE.--GEORGE
SAND.--CHOPIN.--RACHEL.--LAMENNAIS.--BÉRANGER.--CHAMBER OF
DEPUTIES.--BERRYER.--BALL AT THE TUILERIES.--ITALIAN OPERA.--ALEXANDRE
VATTEMARE.--SCHOOLS AND REFORMATORIES.--JOURNEY TO
MARSEILLES.--GENOA.--LEGHORN.--NAPLES.--ROME.
If the aspect of London society has changed greatly since Margaret's
visit there in 1846, the Paris which she saw that winter may be said to
exist no longer, so completely is its physiognomy transformed by the
events of the last thirty-seven years. Like London, Paris had then some
gems of the first water, to which nothing in the present day
corresponds. Rachel was then queen of its tragic stage, George Sand
supreme in its literary domain. De Balzac, Eugène Sue, Dumas _père_, and
Béranger then lived and moved among admiring friends. Victor Hugo was in
early middle age. Guizot was in his full prestige, literary and
administrative. Liszt and Chopin held the opposite poles of the musical
world, and wielded, the one its most intense, the other its broadest
power. The civilized world then looked to Paris for the precious
traditions of good taste, and the city deserved this deference as it
does not now.
The sense of security which then prevailed in the French capital was
indeed illusory. The stable basis of things was already undermined by
the dangerous action of theories and of thinkers. Louis Philippe was
unconsciously nearing the abrupt close of his reign. A new chaos was
imminent, and one out of which was to come, first a heroic uprising, and
then a despotism so monstrous and mischievous as to foredoom itself, a
caricature of military empire which for a time cheated Europe, and in
the end died of the emptiness of its own corruption.
Into this Paris Margaret came, not unannounced. Her essay on American
Literature, which had recently appeared in her volume entitled "Papers
on Literature and Art," had already been translated into French, and
printed in the "Revue Indépendante." The same periodical soon after
published a notice of "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." Margaret
enjoyed the comfortable aspect of the apartment which she occupied with
her travelling-companions at Hôtel Rougemont, Boulevard Poissonière. She
mentions the clock, mirror, curtained bed, and small wood-fire which
were then, and are to-day, so costly to the transient occupant.
Though at first not familiar with the sound of the French language, she
soon had some pleasant acquaintances, and was not long in finding her
way to the literary and social eminences who were prepared to receive
her as their peer.
First among these she mentions George Sand, to whom she wrote a letter,
calling afterwards at her house. Her name was not rightly reported by
the peasant woman who opened the door, and Margaret, waiting for
admittance, heard at first the discouraging words, "Madame says she does
not know you." She stopped to send a message regarding the letter she
had written, and as she spoke, Madame Sand opened the door and stood
looking at her for a moment.
"Our eyes met. I shall never forget her look at that moment. The doorway
made a frame for her figure. She is large, but well formed. She was
dressed in a robe of dark violet silk, with a black mantle on her
shoulders, her beautiful hair dressed with the greatest taste, her whole
appearance and attitude, in its simple and lady-like dignity, presenting
an almost ludicrous contrast to the vulgar caricature idea of George
Sand. Her face is a very little like the portraits, but much finer. The
upper part of the forehead and eyes are beautiful, the lower strong and
masculine, expressive of a hardy temperament and strong passions, but
not in the least coarse, the complexion olive, and the air of the whole
head Spanish." This striking apparition was further commended in
Margaret's eyes by "the expression of goodness, nobleness, and power"
that characterized the countenance of the great French-woman.
Madame Sand said, "C'est vous," and offered her hand to Margaret, who,
taking it, answered, "Il me fait du bien de vous voir" ("It does me good
to see you"). They went into the study. Madame Sand spoke of Margaret's
letter as _charmante_, and the two ladies then talked on for hours, as
if they had always known each other. Madame Sand had at that moment a
work in the press, and was hurried for copy, and beset by friends and
visitors. She kept all these at a distance, saying to Margaret: "It is
better to throw things aside, and seize the present moment." Margaret
gives this _résumé_ of the interview: "We did not talk at all of
personal or private matters. I saw, as one sees in her writings, the
want of an independent, interior life, but I did not feel it as a fault.
I heartily enjoyed the sense of so rich, so prolific, so ardent a
genius. I liked the woman in her, too, very much; I never liked a woman
better."
To complete the portrait, Margaret mentions the cigarette, which her new
friend did not relinquish during the interview. The impression received
as to character did not materially differ from that already made by her
writings. In seeing her, Margaret was not led to believe that all her
mistakes were chargeable upon the unsettled condition of modern society.
Yet she felt not the less convinced of the generosity and nobleness of
her nature. "There may have been something of the Bacchante in her
life," says Margaret, some reverting to the wild ecstasies of heathen
nature-worship, "but she was never coarse, never gross."
Margaret saw Madame Sand a second time, surrounded by her friends, and
with her daughter, who was then on the eve of her marriage with the
sculptor Clésinger. In this _entourage_ she had "the position of an
intellectual woman and good friend; the same as my own," says Margaret,
"in the circle of my acquaintance as distinguished from my intimates."
Beneath the same roof Margaret found Chopin, "always ill, and as frail
as a snow-drop, but an exquisite genius. He played to me, and I liked
his talking scarcely less." The Polish poet, Mickiewicz, said to her,
"Chopin gives us the Ariel view of the universe."
Margaret had done her best while in London to see what the English stage
had to offer. The result had greatly disappointed her. In France she
found the theatre living, and found also a public which would not have
tolerated "one touch of that stage-strut and vulgar bombast of tone
which the English actor fancies indispensable to scenic illusion."
In Paris she says that she saw, for the first time, "something
represented in a style uniformly good." Besides this general excellence,
which is still aimed at in the best theatres of the Continent, the
Parisian stage had then a star of the first magnitude, whose splendor
was without an equal, and whose setting brought no successor. In the
supreme domain of tragic art, Rachel then reigned, an undisputed queen.
Like George Sand, her brilliant front was obscured by the cloud of doubt
which rested upon her private character,--a matter of which even the
most dissolute age will take note, after its fashion. And yet the
charmed barrier of the footlights surrounded her with a flame of
mystery. Whatever was known or surmised of her elsewhere, within those
limits she appeared as the living impersonation of beauty, grace, and
power. For Rachel had, at this time, no public sorrow. How it might fare
with her and her lovers little concerned the crowds who gathered
nightly, drawn by the lightnings of her eye, the melodious thunder of
her voice. Ten years later, a new favorite, her rival but not her equal,
came to win the heart of her Paris from her. Then Rachel, grieved and
angry, knew the vanity of all human dependence. She crossed the ocean,
and gave the New World a new delight. But in spite of its laurels and
applause, she sickened (Margaret had said she could not live long), and
fled far, far eastward, to hear in ancient Egypt the death-psalms of her
people. With a smile, the last change of that expressive countenance,
its lovely light expired.
Of the woman, Margaret says nothing. Of the artist, she says that she
found her worthy of Greece, and fit to be made immortal in its marble.
She did not, it is true, find in her the most tender pathos, nor yet the
sublime of sweetness:--
"Her range, even in high tragedy, is limited. Her noblest aspect is when
sometimes she expresses truth in some severe shape, and rises, simple
and austere, above the mixed elements around her." Had Margaret seen her
in "Les Horaces"? One would think so.
"On the dark side, she is very great in hatred and revenge. I admired
her more in Phèdre than in any other part in which I saw her. The guilty
love inspired by the hatred of a goddess was expressed with a force and
terrible naturalness that almost suffocated the beholder."
Margaret had heard much about the power which Rachel could throw into a
single look, and speaks of it as indeed magnificent. Yet she admired
most in her "the grandeur, truth, and depth of her conception of each
part, and the sustained purity with which she represented it."
In seeing other notabilities, Margaret was indeed fortunate. She went
one day to call upon Lamennais, to whom she brought a letter of
introduction. To her disappointment, she found him not alone. But the
"citizen-looking, vivacious, elderly man," whom she was at first sorry
to see with him, turned out to be the poet Béranger, and Margaret says
that she was "very happy in that little study, in presence of these two
men whose influence has been so great, so real." It was indeed a very
white stone that hit two such birds at one throw.
Margaret heard a lecture from Arago, and was not disappointed in him.
"Clear, rapid, full, and equal was this discourse, and worthy of the
master's celebrity."
The Chamber of Deputies was in those days much occupied with the Spanish
Marriage, as it was called. This was the intended betrothal of the
Queen of Spain's sister to the Duc de Montpensier, youngest son of the
then reigning King of the French, Louis Philippe. Guizot and Thiers were
both heard on this matter, but Margaret heard only M. Berryer, then
considered the most eloquent speaker of the House. His oratory appeared
to her, "indeed, very good; not logical, but plausible, with occasional
bursts of flame and showers of sparks." While admiring him, Margaret
thinks that her own country possesses public speakers of more force, and
of equal polish.
At a presentation and ball at the Tuileries Margaret was much struck
with the elegance and grace of the Parisian ladies of high society. The
Queen made the circuit of state, with the youthful Duchess, the cause of
so much disturbance, hanging on her arm. Margaret found here some of her
own country women, conspicuous for their beauty. The uniforms and
decorations of the gentlemen contrasted favorably, in her view, with the
sombre, black-coated masses of men seen in circles at home.
"Among the crowd wandered Leverrier, in the costume of an Academician,
looking as if he had lost, not found, his planet. He seemed not to find
it easy to exchange the music of the spheres for the music of fiddles."
The Italian Opera in Paris fell far short of Margaret's anticipations.
So curtly does she judge it, that one wonders whether she expected to
find it a true Parnassus, dedicated to the ideal expression of the most
delicate and lofty sentiment. Grisi appeared to her coarse and shallow,
Persiani mechanical and meretricious, Mario devoid of power. Lablache
alone satisfied her.
These judgments show something of the weakness of off-hand criticism. In
the world of art, the critic who wishes to teach, must first be taught
of the artist. He must be very sure that he knows what a work of art is
before he carps at what it is not. Relying on her own great
intelligence, and on her love of beautiful things, Margaret expected,
perhaps, to understand too easily the merits and defects of what she saw
and heard.
In Paris Margaret met Alexandre Vattemare, intent upon his project of
the exchange of superfluous books and documents between the public
libraries of different countries. Busy as he was, he found time to be of
service to her, and it was through his efforts that she was enabled to
visit the Imprimerie Royale and the Mint. He also induced the Librarian
of the Chamber of Deputies to show her the manuscripts of Rousseau,
which she found "just as he has celebrated them, written on fine white
paper, tied with ribbon. Yellow and faded, age has made them," says
Margaret; "yet at their touch I seemed to feel the fire of youth,
immortally glowing, more and more expansive, with which his soul has
pervaded this century."
M. Vattemare introduced Margaret to one of the evening schools of the
Frères Chrétiens, where she saw with pleasure how much can be
accomplished for the working classes by evening lessons.
"Visions arose in my mind of all that might be done in our country by
associations of men and women who have received the benefits of literary
culture, giving such evening lessons throughout our cities and
villages." Margaret wishes, however, that such disinterested effort in
our own country should not be accompanied by the priestly robe and
manner which for her marred the humanity of the Christian Brotherhood of
Paris.
The establishment of the Protestant Deaconesses is praised by Margaret.
She visited also the School for Idiots, near Paris, where her feelings
vented themselves in "a shower of sweet and bitter tears; of joy at what
has been done, of grief for all that I and others possess, and cannot
impart to these little ones." She was much impressed with the character
of the master of the school, a man of seven or eight and twenty years,
whose fine countenance she saw "looking in love on those distorted and
opaque vases of humanity."
Turning her face southward, she thus takes leave of the great capital:--
"Paris! I was sad to leave thee, thou wonderful focus, where ignorance
ceases to be a pain, because there we find such means daily to lessen
it."
Railroads were few in the France of forty years ago. Margaret came by
diligence and boat to Lyons, to Avignon, where she waded through the
snow to visit the tomb of Laura, and to Marseilles, where she embarked
for Genoa. Her first sight of this city did not disappoint her, but to
her surprise, she found the weather cold and ungenial:--
"I could not realize that I had actually touched those shores to which I
had looked forward all my life, where it seemed that the heart would
expand, and the whole nature be turned to delight. Seen by a cutting
wind, the marble palaces, the gardens, the magnificent water-view,
failed to charm." Both here and in Leghorn Margaret visited Italians at
their houses, and found them very attractive, "charming women, refined
and eloquent men." The Mediterranean voyage was extended as far as
Naples, which she characterizes as "priest-ridden, misgoverned, full of
dirty, degraded men and women, yet still most lovely." And here, after a
week which appeared to be "an exact copy of the miseries of a
New-England spring," with a wind "villanous, horrible, exactly like the
worst east wind of Boston," Margaret found at last her own Italy, and
found it "beautiful, worthy to be loved and embraced, not talked
about.... Baiæ had still a hid divinity for me, Vesuvius a fresh baptism
of fire, and Sorrento--oh! Sorrento was beyond picture, beyond poesy."
After Naples came Margaret's first view of Rome, where she probably
arrived early in May, and where she remained until late in the month of
June. We do not find among her letters of this period any record of her
first impressions of the Eternal City, the approach to which, before the
days of railroads in Italy, was unspeakably impressive and solemn.
Seated in the midst of her seven hills, with the desolate Campagna about
her, one could hardly say whether her stony countenance invited the
spirit of the age, or defied it. Her mediæval armor was complete at all
points. Her heathen heart had kept Christianity far from it by using as
exorcisms the very forms which, at the birth of that religion, had
mediated between its spirit and the dull sense of the Pagan world. It
was the nineteenth century in America, the eighteenth in England, the
seventeenth in France, and the fifteenth in Rome. The aged hands of the
grandam still held fast the key of her treasures. Her haughty front
still said to Ruin and Desolation,--
"Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it."
So the writer first saw Rome in the winter of 1843. Her walls seemed
those of a mighty sepulchre, in which even the new-born babe was born
into death. The stagnation of thought, the prohibition of question, the
denial of progress! Her ministers had a sweet Lethean draught with which
to lull the first clamors of awakening life, to quiet the first
promptings of individual thought. It was the draught of Circe, fragrant
but fatal. And those who fed upon it became pathetic caricatures of
humanity.
Not so did Margaret find Rome in 1847. The intervening years had wrought
a change. Within the defiant fortress of superstition a divine accident
had happened. A man had been brought to the chair of St. Peter who felt
his own human power too strongly to consent to the impotence of the
traditional _non possumus_. To the timid questioning of Freedom from
without he gave the bold answer of Freedom from within. The Papal crown
had sometimes covered the brows of honest, heroic men. Such an one would
he prove himself, and his first message was to that effect. Fortunate,
fatal error! The thrones of the earth trembled at it. Crowned heads
shook with the palsy of fear. The enslaved multitudes and their despised
champions sent up a ringing shout to heaven, for the apocalyptic hour
had come. The sixth seal was broken, and the cannon of St. Angelo, which
saluted the crowning of the new Pontiff, really saluted the installation
of the new era.
Alas! many woes had to intervene before this new order could establish
itself upon any permanent foundation. The Pope forsook his lofty ground.
France, republican for a day only, became the ally of absolutism, and
sent an army to subdue those who had believed the papal promise and her
own. After a frightful interval of suffering and resistance, this was
effected, and Pius was brought back, shorn of his splendors, a Jove
whose thunderbolt had been stolen, a man without an idea. Then came the
confusion of endless doubt and question. What had been the secret of the
Pope's early liberalism? What that of his _volte-face_? Was it true, as
was afterwards maintained, that he had been, from the first, a puppet,
moved by forces quite outside his own understanding, and that the moving
hands, not the puppet, had changed? Or had he gone to war with mighty
Precedent, without counting the cost of the struggle, and so failed? Or
had he undergone a poisoning which broke his spirit and touched his
brain?
These were the questions of that time, not ours to answer, brought to
mind here only because they belong to the history of Margaret's years in
Italy, years in which she learned to love that country as her own, and
to regard it as the land of her spiritual belonging.