I add to the list of remarkables and agreeables the Count and Countess
de Segur, father and mother to our well-bred translator; [Footnote: Of
_Belinda_] she a beautiful grandmother, he a nobleman of the old school,
who adds to agreeable manners a great deal of elegant literature.
Malouet, the amiable and able councillor of the King, must also be added
to your list: we met him yesterday, a fine countenance and simple
manners; he conversed freely with my father, not at all afraid of
_committing_ himself. In general I do not see that prodigious fear of
committing themselves, which makes the company of some English men of
letters and reputation irksome even to their admirers. Mr. Palmer, the
great man of taste, who has lived for many years in Italy, is here, and
is very much provoked that the French can now see all the pictures and
statues he has been admiring, without stirring out of Paris. The Louvre
is now so crowded with pictures, that many of them are seen to
disadvantage. The Domenichino, my Aunt Ruxton's favourite, is not at
present _visible._ Several of the finest pictures are, as they say,
_sick_, and the physicians are busy restoring them to health and beauty.
May they not mar instead of mending! A Raphael which has just come out
of their hospital has the eyes of a very odd sort of modern blue. The
Transfiguration is now in a state of convalescence; it has not yet made
its appearance in public, but we were admitted into the sick-room.
Half Paris is now stark mad about a picture by Guérin of Phèdre and
Hippolyte, which they actually think equal to Raphael.
Of the public buildings Les Invalides appears to me the finest; here are
all the flags and standards used in battle, or won from foreign
nations,--a long-drawn aisle of glory that must create ambition in the
rising generation of military in France. We saw here a little boy of
nine years old with his tutor, looking at Turenne's monument, which has
been placed with great taste, alone, with the single word TURENNE upon
the sarcophagus. My father spoke to the little boy and his tutor, who
told him he had come to look at a picture in which the heroic action of
one of the boy's ancestors is portrayed. We went into the hospital
library, and found a circle of old soldiers, sitting round a stove all
reading most comfortably. It was a very pleasing and touching sight. One
who had lost both his hands, and who had iron hooks at the end of his
wrists, was sitting at a table reading _Télémaque_ with great attention;
he turned over the leaves with these hooks.
My aunt asks me what I think of French society? All I have seen of it I
like extremely, but we hear from all sides that we see only the best of
Paris,--the men of literature and the _ancienne noblesse._ _Les nouveaux
riches_ are quite a different set. My father has seen something of them
at Madame Tallien's (now Cabarus), and was disgusted. Madame Recamier is
of quite an opposite sort, though in the first fashion, a graceful and
_decent_ beauty of excellent character. Madame de Souza, the Portuguese
Ambassadress, is a pretty and pleasing woman, authoress of _Adèle de
Senanges_, which she wrote in England. Her friends always proclaim her
title as author before her other titles, and I thought her a pleasing
woman before I was told that she had pronounced at Madame Lavoisier's an
eloquent eulogium on _Belinda._ I have never heard any person talk of
dress or fashions since we came to Paris, and very little scandal. A
scandalmonger would be starved here. The conversation frequently turns
on the new _petites pièces_ and little novels which come out every day,
and are talked of for a few days with as much eagerness as a new fashion
in other places. They also talk a vast deal about the little essays of
criticism. In yesterday's _Journal des Débats_, after a flaming
panegyric on Buonaparte, "Et après avoir parlé de l'univers de qui
peut-on parler? Des plus grandes des Poètes--de Racine": then follows a
criticism on _Phèdre._
We saw the grand Review the day before yesterday from a window that
looked out on the court of the Louvre and Place de Carousal. Buonaparte
rode down the lines on a fine white Spanish horse. Took off his hat to
salute various generals, and gave us a full view of his pale, thin,
woebegone countenance. He is very little, but much at ease on horseback:
it is said he never appears to so much advantage as on horseback. There
were about six thousand troops, a fine show, well appointed, and some,
but not all, well mounted. On those who had distinguished themselves in
the battle of Marengo all eyes were fixed. While I was looking out of
the window a gentleman came in who had passed many years in Spain: he
began to talk to me about Madrid, and when he heard my name, he said a
Spanish lady is translating _Practical Education_ from the French. She
understands English, and he gave us her address that we may send a copy
of the book to her.
Mr. Knox, who was presented to Buonaparte, and who saw all the wonderful
presentations, says that it was a huddled business, all the world
received in a very small room. Buonaparte spoke more to officers than to
any one else, affected to be gracious to the English. He said,
"L'Angleterre est une grande nation, _aussi bien_ que la France, il faut
que nous soyons amis!" Great men's words, like little men's dreams, are
sometimes to be interpreted by the rule of contraries.
_To_ MRS. MARY SNEYD.