Spent last evening in the Rue d'Anjou: met there la Marquise de
Pouleprie, and the usual _habitués_. She is a delightful person; for
age has neither chilled the warmth of her heart, nor impaired the
vivacity of her manners. I had heard much of her; for she is greatly
beloved by the Duchesse de Guiche and all the De Gramont family; and
she, knowing their partiality to me, treated me rather as an old than
as a new acquaintance.
Talking of old times, to which the Duc de Gramont reverted, the
Marquise mentioned having seen the celebrated Madame du Barry in the
garden at Versailles, when she (the Marquise) was a very young girl.
She described her as having a most animated and pleasant countenance,
_un petit nez retroussé_, brilliant eyes, full red lips, and as being
altogether a very attractive person.
The Marquise de Pouleprie accompanied the French royal family to
England, and remained with them there during the emigration. She told
me that once going through the streets of London in a carriage, with
the French king, during an election at Westminster, the mob, ignorant
of his rank, insisted that he and his servants should take off their
hats, and cry out "Long live Sir Francis Burdett!" which his majesty
did with great good humour, and laughed heartily after.
Went last night to see Mademoiselle Mars, in "Valérie." It was a
finished performance, and worthy of her high reputation. Never was
there so musical a voice as hers! Every tone of it goes direct to the
heart, and its intonations soothe and charm the ear. Her countenance,
too, is peculiarly expressive. Even when her eyes, in the _rôle_ she
enacted last night, were fixed, and supposed to be sightless, her
countenance was still beautiful. There is a harmony in its various
expressions that accords perfectly with her clear, soft, and liquid
voice; and the united effect of both these attractions renders her
irresistible.
Never did Art so strongly resemble Nature as in the acting of this
admirable _artiste_. She identifies herself so completely with the part
she performs, that she not only believes herself for the time being the
heroine she represents, but makes others do so too. There was not a dry
eye in the whole of the female part of the audience last night--a
homage to her power that no other actress on the French stage could now
command.
The style, too, of Mademoiselle Mars' acting is the most difficult of
all; because there is no exaggeration, no violence in it. The same
difference exists between it and that of other actresses, as between a
highly finished portrait and a glaringly coloured transparency. The
feminine, the graceful, and the natural, are never lost sight of for a
moment.
The French are admirable critics of acting, and are keenly alive to the
beauties of a chaste and finished style, like that of Mademoiselle
Mars. In Paris there is no playing to the galleries, and for a simple
reason:--the occupants of the galleries here are as fastidious as those
of the boxes, and any thing like outraging nature would be censured by
them: whereas, in other countries, the broad and the exaggerated almost
invariably find favour with the gods.
The same pure and refined taste that characterises the acting of
Mademoiselle Mars presides also over her toilette, which is always
appropriate and becoming.
Accustomed to the agreeable mixture of literary men in London society,
I observe, with regret, their absence in that of Paris. I have
repeatedly questioned people why this is, but have never been able to
obtain a satisfactory answer. It tells much against the good taste of
those who can give the tone to society here, that literary men should
be left out of it; and if the latter _will_ not mingle with the
aristocratic circles they are to blame, for the union of both is
advantageous to the interests of each.
Parisian society is very exclusive, and is divided into small coteries,
into which a stranger finds it difficult to become initiated. Large
routes are rare, and not at all suited to the tastes of the French
people; who comment with merriment, if not with ridicule, on the
evening parties in London, where the rooms being too small to contain
half the guests invited, the stairs and ante-rooms are filled by a
crowd, in which not only the power of conversing, but almost of
respiring is impeded.
The French ladies attribute the want of freshness so remarkable in the
toilettes of Englishwomen, to their crowded routes, and the knowledge
of its being impossible for a robe, or at least of a greater portion of
one than covers a bust, to be seen; which induces the fair wearers to
economise, by rarely indulging in new dresses.
At Paris certain ladies of distinction open their _salons_, on one
evening of each week, to a circle of their acquaintances, not too
numerous to banish that ease and confidence which form the delight of
society. Each lady takes an evening for her receptions, and no one
interferes with her arrangements by giving a party on the same night.
The individuals of each circle are thus in the habit of being
continually in each other's society; consequently the etiquette and
formality, so _gênant_ among acquaintances who seldom meet, are
banished.
To preserve the charm of these unceremonious _réunions_, strangers are
seldom admitted to them, but are invited to the balls, dinners, or
large parties, where they see French people _en grande lenue_, both in
dress and manner, instead of penetrating into the more agreeable
parties to which I have referred, where the graceful _négligé_ of a
_demi-toilette_ prevails, and the lively _causerie_ of the _habitués de
la maison_ supersedes the constraint of ceremony.
Such a society is precisely the sort of one that literary men would, I
should suppose, like to mingle in, to unbend their minds from graver
studies, and yet not pass their time unprofitably; for in it, politics,
literature, and the fine arts, generally furnish the topics of
conversation: from which, however, the warmth of discussion, which too
frequently renders politics a prohibited subject, is excluded, or the
pedantry that sometimes spoils literary _causerie_ is banished.
French people, male and female, talk well; give their opinions with
readiness and vivacity; often striking out ideas as original as they
are brilliant; highly suggestive to more profound thinkers, but which
they dispense with as much prodigality as a spendthrift throws away his
small coin, conscious of having more at his disposal. Quick of
perception, they jump, rather than march, to a conclusion, at which an
Englishman or a German would arrive leisurely, enabled to tell all the
particulars of the route, but which the Frenchman would know little of
from having arrived by some shorter road. This quickness of perception
exempts them from the necessity of devoting much of the time and study
which the English or Germans employ in forming opinions, but it also
precludes their being able to reason as justly or as gravely on those
they form.
Walked in the gardens of the Tuileries to-day. What a contrast their
frequenters offer to those of the Luxembourg! In the Tuileries, the
promenaders look as if they only walked there to display their tasteful
dresses and pretty persons.
The women eye each other as they pass, and can tell at a glance whether
their respective _chapeaux_ have come from the _atelier_ of Herbault,
or the less _rechercé magasin de modes_ of some more humble _modiste_.
How rapidly can they see whether the Cashmere shawl of some passing
dame owes its rich but sober tints to an Indian loom, or to the fabric
of M. Ternaux, who so skilfully imitates the exotic luxury; and what a
difference does the circumstance make in their estimation of the
wearer! The beauty of a woman, however great it may be, excites less
envy in the minds of her own sex in France, than does the possession of
a fine Cashmere, or a _garniture_ of real Russian sable--objects of
general desire to every Parisian _belle_.
I met few handsome women to-day, but these few were remarkably
striking. In Kensington Gardens I should have encountered thrice as
many; but there I should also have seen more plain ones than here. Not
that Englishwomen _en masse_ are not better-looking than the French,
but that these last are so skilful in concealing defects, and revealing
beauties by the appropriateness and good taste in their choice of
dress, that even the plain cease to appear so; and many a woman looks
piquant, if not pretty, at Paris, thanks to her _modiste_, her
_couturière_, and her _cordonnier_, who, without their "artful aid,"
would be plain indeed.
It is pleasant to behold groups of well-dressed women walking, as only
French women ever do walk, nimbly moving their little feet _bien
chaussé_, and with an air half timid, half _espiègle_, that elicits the
admiration they affect to avoid. The rich and varied material of their
robes, the pretty _chapeaux_, from which peep forth such coquettish
glances, the modest assurance--for their self-possession amounts
precisely to that--and the ease and elegance of their carriage, give
them attractions we might seek for in vain in the women of other
countries, however superior these last may be in beauty of complexion
or roundness of _contour_, for which French women in general are not
remarkable.
The men who frequent the gardens of the Tuileries are of a different
order to those met with in the Luxembourg. They consist chiefly of
military men and young fashionables, who go to admire the pretty women,
and elderly and middle-aged ones, who meet in knots and talk politics
with all the animation peculiar to their nation. Children do not abound
in the walks here, as in the Luxembourg; and those to be seen are
evidently brought by some fond mother, proud of exhibiting her boys and
girls in their smart dresses.
The Tuileries Gardens, so beautiful in summer, are not without their
attractions in winter. The trees, though leafless, look well, rearing
their tall branches towards the clear sky, and the statues and vases
seen through vistas of evergreen shrubs, with the gilded railing which
gives back the rays of the bright, though cold sun, and the rich
velvets of every hue in which the women are enveloped, giving them the
appearance of moving _parterres_ of dahlias, all render the scene a
very exhilarating one to the spirits.
I observe a difference in the usages _de moeurs_ at Paris, and in those
of London, of which an ignorance might lead to give offence. In
England, a lady is expected to bow to a gentleman before he presumes to
do so to her, thus leaving her the choice of acknowledging his
acquaintance, or not; but in France it is otherwise, for a man takes
off his hat to every woman whom he has ever met in society, although he
does not address her, unless she encourages him to do so.
In Paris, if two men are walking or riding together, and one of them
bows to a lady of his acquaintance, the other also takes off his hat,
as a mark of respect to the lady known to his friend, although he is
not acquainted with her. The mode of salutation is also much more
deferential towards women in France than in England. The hat is held a
second longer off the head, the bow is lower, and the smile of
recognition is more _amiable_, by which, I mean, that it is meant to
display the pleasure experienced by the meeting.
It is true that the really well-bred Englishmen are not to be surpassed
in politeness and good manners by those of any other country, but all
are not such; and I have seen instances of men in London acknowledging
the presence of ladies, by merely touching, instead of taking off,
their hats when bowing to them; and though I accounted for this
solecism in good breeding by the belief that it proceeded from the
persons practising it wearing wigs, I discovered that there was not
even so good an excuse as the fear of deranging them, and that their
incivility proceeded from ignorance, or _nonchalance_, while the glum
countenance of him who bowed betrayed rather a regret for the necessity
of touching his beaver, than a pleasure at meeting her for whom the
salute was intended.
Time flies away rapidly here, and its flight seems to me to mark two
distinct states of existence. My mornings are devoted wholly to reading
history, poetry, or _belles lettres_, which abstract me so completely
from the actual present to the past, that the hours so disposed of
appear to be the actual life, and those given up to society the shadowy
and unreal.
This forcible contrast between the two portions of the same day, gives
charms to both, though I confess the hours passed in my library are
those which leave behind them the pleasantest reflections. I
experienced this sentiment when in the hey-day of youth, and surrounded
by some of the most gifted persons in England; but now, as age
advances, the love of solitude and repose increases, and a life spent
in study appears to me to be the one of all others the most desirable,
as the enjoyment of the best thoughts of the best authors is preferable
even to their conversation, could it be had, and, consequently to that
of the cleverest men to be met with in society.
Some pleasant people dined here yesterday. Among them was Colonel
Caradoc, the son of our old friend Lord Howden. He possesses great and
versatile information, is good-looking, well-bred, and has superior
abilities; in short, he has all the means, and appliances to boot, to
make a distinguished figure, in life, if he lacks not the ambition and
energy to use them; but, born to station and fortune, he may want the
incitement which the absence of these advantages furnishes, and be
content to enjoy the good he already has, instead of seeking greater
distinction.
Colonel Caradoc's conversation is brilliant and epigrammatic; and if
occasionally a too evident consciousness of his own powers is suffered
to be revealed in it, those who know it to be well-founded will pardon
his self-complacency, and not join with the persons, and they are not
few, whose _amour-propre_ is wounded by the display of his, and who
question, what really is not questionable, the foundation on which his
pretensions are based.
The clever, like the handsome, to be pardoned for being so, should
affect a humility they are but too seldom in the habit of feeling; and
to acquire popularity must appear unconscious of meriting it. This is
one of the many penalties entailed on the gifted in mind or person.
_January 1st_, 1829.--There is always something grave, if not awful, in
the opening of a new year; for who knows what may occur to render it
memorable for ever! If the bygone one has been marked by aught sad, the
arrival of the new reminds one of the lapse of time; and though the
destroyer brings patience, we sigh to think that we may have new
occasions for its difficult exercise. Who can forbear from trembling
lest the opening year may find us at its close with a lessened circle.
Some, now dear and confided in, may become estranged, or one dearer
than life may be snatched away whose place never can be supplied! The
thought is too painful to be borne, and makes one look around with
increased affection on those dear to us.
The custom prevalent at Paris of offering an exchange of gifts on the
first day of the new year was, perhaps, originally intended to banish
the melancholy reflections such an epoch is calculated to awaken.
My tables are so crowded with gifts that I might set up a _petit
Dunkerque_ of my own, for not a single friend has omitted to send me a
present. These gifts are to be acknowledged by ones of similar value,
and I must go and put my taste to the test in selecting _cadeaux_ to
send in return.
Spent several hours yesterday in the gallery of the Louvre. The
collection of antiquities, though a very rich, one, dwindles into
insignificance when compared with that of the Vatican, and the halls in
which it is arranged appear mean in the eyes of those accustomed to see
the numerous and splendid ones of the Roman edifice. Nevertheless, I
felt much satisfaction in lounging through groups of statues, and busts
of the remarkable men and women of antiquity, with the countenances of
many of whom I had made myself familiar in the Vatican, the Musée of
the Capitol, or in the collection at Naples, where facsimiles of
several of them are to be found.
Nor had I less pleasure in contemplating the personifications of the
_beau idéal_ of the ancient sculptors, exhibited in their gods and
goddesses, in whose faultless faces the expression of all passion seems
to have been carefully avoided. Whether this peculiarity is to be
accounted for by the desire of the artist to signify the superiority of
the Pagan divinities over mortals, by this absence of any trace of
earthly feelings, or whether it was thought that any decided expression
might deteriorate from the character of repose and beauty that marks
the works of the great sculptors of antiquity, I know not, but the
effect produced on my mind by the contemplation of these calm and
beautiful faces, has something so soothing in it, that I can well
imagine with what pleasure those engaged in the turmoils of war, or the
scarcely less exciting arena of politics, in former ages, must have
turned from their mundane cares to look on these personations of their
fabled deities, whose tranquil beauty forms so soothing a contrast to
mortal toils.
I have observed this calmness of expression in the faces of many of the
most celebrated statues of antiquity, in the Aristides at Naples, I
remember being struck with it, and noticing that he who was banished
through the envy excited by his being styled the Just, was represented
as unmoved as if the injustice of his countrymen no more affected the
even tenour of his mind, than the passions of mortals disturb those of
the mythological divinities of the ancients.
A long residence in Italy, and a habit of frequenting the galleries
containing the finest works of art there, engender a love of sculpture
and painting, that renders it not only a luxury but almost a necessary
of life to pass some hours occasionally among the all but breathing
marbles and glorious pictures bequeathed to posterity by the mighty
artists of old. I love to pass such hours alone, or in the society of
some one as partial, but more skilled in such studies than myself; and
such a companion I have found in the Baron de Cailleux, an old
acquaintance, and now Under-Director of the Musée, whose knowledge of
the fine arts equals his love for them.
The contemplation of the _chefs-d'uvre_ of the old masters begets a
tender melancholy in the mind, that is not without a charm for those
addicted to it. These stand the results of long lives devoted to the
developement of the genius that embodied these inspirations, and left
to the world the fruit of hours of toil and seclusion,--hours snatched
from the tempting pleasures that cease not to court the senses, but
which they who laboured for posterity resisted. The long vigils, the
solitary days, the hopes and fears, the fears more frequent than the
hopes, the depression of spirits, and the injustice or the indifference
of contemporaries, endured by all who have ever devoted their lives to
art, are present to my mind when I behold the great works of other
times.
What cheered these men of genius during their toils and enabled them to
finish their glorious works? Was it not the hope that from posterity
they would meet with the admiration, the sympathy, denied them by their
contemporaries?--as the prisoner in his gloomy dungeon, refused all
pity, seeks consolation by tracing a few lines on its dreary walls, in
appeal to the sympathy of some future inhabitant who may be doomed to
take his place.
I seem to be paying a portion of the debt due by posterity to those who
laboured long and painfully for it, when I stand rapt in admiration
before the works of the great masters of the olden time, my heart
touched with a lively sympathy for their destinies; nor can I look on
the glorious faces or glowing landscapes that remain to us, evincing
the triumph of genius over even time itself, by preserving on canvass
the semblance of all that charmed in nature, without experiencing the
sentiment so naturally and beautifully expressed in the celebrated
picture, by Nicolas Poussin, of a touching scene in Arcadia, in which
is a tomb near to which two shepherds are reading the inscription. "I,
too, was an Arcadian."
Yes, that which delighted the artists of old, they have transmitted to
us with a tender confidence that when contemplating these bequests we
would remember with sympathy that they, like us, had felt the charms
they delineated.