PARIS, July 30th, 1839.
We have arrived here just in time for the fêtes of July.—You have read,
no doubt, of that glorious revolution which took place here nine years
ago, and which is now commemorated annually, in a pretty facetious
manner, by gun-firing, student-processions,
pole-climbing-for-silver-spoons, gold-watches and legs-of-mutton,
monarchical orations, and what not, and sanctioned, moreover, by
Chamber-of-Deputies, with a grant of a couple of hundred thousand
francs to defray the expenses of all the crackers, gun-firings, and
legs-of-mutton aforesaid. There is a new fountain in the Place Louis
Quinze, otherwise called the Place Louis Seize, or else the Place de la
Révolution, or else the Place de la Concorde (who can say why?)—which,
I am told, is to run bad wine during certain hours to-morrow, and there
WOULD have been a review of the National Guards and the Line—only,
since the Fieschi business, reviews are no joke, and so this latter
part of the festivity has been discontinued.
Do you not laugh, O Pharos of Bungay, at the continuance of a humbug
such as this?—at the humbugging anniversary of a humbug? The King of
the Barricades is, next to the Emperor Nicholas, the most absolute
Sovereign in Europe; yet there is not in the whole of this fair kingdom
of France a single man who cares sixpence about him, or his dynasty:
except, mayhap, a few hangers-on at the Château, who eat his dinners,
and put their hands in his purse. The feeling of loyalty is as dead as
old Charles the Tenth; the Chambers have been laughed at, the country
has been laughed at, all the successive ministries have been laughed at
(and you know who is the wag that has amused himself with them all);
and, behold, here come three days at the end of July, and cannons think
it necessary to fire off, squibs and crackers to blaze and fizz,
fountains to run wine, kings to make speeches, and subjects to crawl up
greasy mâts-de-cocagne in token of gratitude and réjouissance
publique!—My dear sir, in their aptitude to swallow, to utter, to enact
humbugs, these French people, from Majesty downwards, beat all the
other nations of this earth. In looking at these men, their manners,
dresses, opinions, politics, actions, history, it is impossible to
preserve a grave countenance; instead of having Carlyle to write a
History of the French Revolution, I often think it should be handed
over to Dickens or Theodore Hook: and oh! where is the Rabelais to be
the faithful historian of the last phase of the Revolution—the last
glorious nine years of which we are now commemorating the last glorious
three days?
I had made a vow not to say a syllable on the subject, although I have
seen, with my neighbors, all the gingerbread stalls down the Champs
Elysées, and some of the “catafalques” erected to the memory of the
heroes of July, where the students and others, not connected personally
with the victims, and not having in the least profited by their deaths,
come and weep; but the grief shown on the first day is quite as absurd
and fictitious as the joy exhibited on the last. The subject is one
which admits of much wholesome reflection and food for mirth; and,
besides, is so richly treated by the French themselves, that it would
be a sin and a shame to pass it over. Allow me to have the honor of
translating, for your edification, an account of the first day’s
proceedings—it is mighty amusing, to my thinking.
“CELEBRATION OF THE DAYS OF JULY.
“To-day (Saturday), funeral ceremonies, in honor of the victims of
July, were held in the various edifices consecrated to public worship.
“These edifices, with the exception of some churches (especially that
of the Petits-Pères), were uniformly hung with black on the outside;
the hangings bore only this inscription: 27, 28, 29 July,
1830—surrounded by a wreath of oak-leaves.
“In the interior of the Catholic churches, it had only been thought
proper to dress LITTLE CATAFALQUES, as for burials of the third and
fourth class. Very few clergy attended; but a considerable number of
the National Guard.
“The Synagogue of the Israelites was entirely hung with black; and a
great concourse of people attended. The service was performed with the
greatest pomp.
“In the Protestant temples there was likewise a very full attendance:
APOLOGETICAL DISCOURSES on the Revolution of July were pronounced by
the pastors.
“The absence of M. de Quélen (Archbishop of Paris), and of many members
of the superior clergy, was remarked at Notre Dame.
“The civil authorities attended service in their several districts.
“The poles, ornamented with tri-colored flags, which formerly were
placed on Notre Dame, were, it was remarked, suppressed. The flags on
the Pont Neuf were, during the ceremony, only half-mast high, and
covered with crape.”
Et caetera, et caetera, et caetera.
“The tombs of the Louvre were covered with black hangings, and adorned
with tri-colored flags. In front and in the middle was erected an
expiatory monument of a pyramidical shape, and surmounted by a funeral
vase.
“These tombs were guarded by the MUNICIPAL GUARD, THE TROOPS OF THE
LINE, THE SERGENS DE VILLE (town patrol), AND A BRIGADE OF AGENTS OF
POLICE IN PLAIN CLOTHES, under the orders of peace-officer Vassal.
“Between eleven and twelve o’clock, some young men, to the number of
400 or 500, assembled on the Place de la Bourse, one of them bearing a
tri-colored banner with an inscription, ‘TO THE MANES OF JULY:’ ranging
themselves in order, they marched five abreast to the Marché des
Innocens. On their arrival, the Municipal Guards of the Halle aux
Draps, where the post had been doubled, issued out without arms, and
the town-sergeants placed themselves before the market to prevent the
entry of the procession. The young men passed in perfect order, and
without saying a word—only lifting their hats as they defiled before
the tombs. When they arrived at the Louvre they found the gates shut,
and the garden evacuated. The troops were under arms, and formed in
battalion.
“After the passage of the procession, the Garden was again open to the
public.”
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
There’s nothing serious in mortality: is there, from the beginning of
this account to the end thereof, aught but sheer, open, monstrous,
undisguised humbug? I said, before, that you should have a history of
these people by Dickens or Theodore Hook, but there is little need of
professed wags;—do not the men write their own tale with an admirable
Sancho-like gravity and naïveté, which one could not desire improved?
How good is that touch of sly indignation about the LITTLE CATAFALQUES!
how rich the contrast presented by the economy of the Catholics to the
splendid disregard of expense exhibited by the devout Jews! and how
touching the “APOLOGETICAL DISCOURSES on the Revolution,” delivered by
the Protestant pastors! Fancy the profound affliction of the Gardes
Municipaux, the Sergens de Ville, the police agents in plain clothes,
and the troops with fixed bayonets, sobbing round the “expiatory
monuments of a pyramidical shape, surmounted by funeral vases,” and
compelled, by sad duty, to fire into the public who might wish to
indulge in the same woe! O “manes of July!” (the phrase is pretty and
grammatical) why did you with sharp bullets break those Louvre windows?
Why did you bayonet red-coated Swiss behind that fair white façade,
and, braving cannon, musket, sabre, perspective guillotine, burst
yonder bronze gates, rush through that peaceful picture-gallery, and
hurl royalty, loyalty, and a thousand years of Kings, head-over-heels
out of yonder Tuileries’ windows?
It is, you will allow, a little difficult to say:—there is, however,
ONE benefit that the country has gained (as for liberty of press, or
person, diminished taxation, a juster representation, who ever thinks
of them?)—ONE benefit they have gained, or nearly—abolition de la
peine-de-mort pour délit politique: no more wicked guillotining for
revolutions. A Frenchman must have his revolution—it is his nature to
knock down omnibuses in the street, and across them to fire at troops
of the line—it is a sin to balk it. Did not the King send off
Revolutionary Prince Napoleon in a coach-and-four? Did not the jury,
before the face of God and Justice, proclaim Revolutionary Colonel
Vaudrey not guilty?—One may hope, soon, that if a man shows decent
courage and energy in half a dozen émeutes, he will get promotion and a
premium.
I do not (although, perhaps, partial to the subject,) want to talk more
nonsense than the occasion warrants, and will pray you to cast your
eyes over the following anecdote, that is now going the round of the
papers, and respects the commutation of the punishment of that
wretched, fool-hardy Barbés, who, on his trial, seemed to invite the
penalty which has just been remitted to him. You recollect the
braggart’s speech: “When the Indian falls into the power of the enemy,
he knows the fate that awaits him, and submits his head to the knife:—I
am the Indian!”
“Well—”
“M. Hugo was at the Opera on the night the sentence of the Court of
Peers, condemning Barbés to death, was published. The great poet
composed the following verses:—
‘Par votre ange envolée, ainsi qu’une colombe,
Par le royal enfant, doux et frêle roseau,
Grace encore une fois! Grace au nom de la tombe!
Grace au nom du berçeau!’ *
* Translated for the benefit of country gentlemen:—
“By your angel flown away just like a dove,
By the royal infant, that frail and tender reed,
Pardon yet once more! Pardon in the name of the tomb!
Pardon in the name of the cradle!”
“M. Victor Hugo wrote the lines out instantly on a sheet of paper,
which he folded, and simply despatched them to the King of the French
by the penny-post.
“That truly is a noble voice, which can at all hours thus speak to the
throne. Poetry, in old days, was called the language of the Gods—it is
better named now—it is the language of the Kings.
“But the clemency of the King had anticipated the letter of the Poet.
His Majesty had signed the commutation of Barbés, while the poet was
still writing.
“Louis Philippe replied to the author of ‘Ruy Blas’ most graciously,
that he had already subscribed to a wish so noble, and that the verses
had only confirmed his previous disposition to mercy.”
Now in countries where fools most abound, did one ever read of more
monstrous, palpable folly? In any country, save this, would a poet who
chose to write four crack-brained verses, comparing an angel to a dove,
and a little boy to a reed, and calling upon the chief magistrate, in
the name of the angel, or dove (the Princess Mary), in her tomb, and
the little infant in his cradle, to spare a criminal, have received a
“gracious answer” to his nonsense? Would he have ever despatched the
nonsense? and would any journalist have been silly enough to talk of
“the noble voice that could thus speak to the throne,” and the noble
throne that could return such a noble answer to the noble voice? You
get nothing done here gravely and decently. Tawdry stage tricks are
played, and braggadocio claptraps uttered, on every occasion, however
sacred or solemn: in the face of death, as by Barbés with his hideous
Indian metaphor; in the teeth of reason, as by M. Victor Hugo with his
twopenny-post poetry; and of justice, as by the King’s absurd reply to
this absurd demand! Suppose the Count of Paris to be twenty times a
reed, and the Princess Mary a host of angels, is that any reason why
the law should not have its course? Justice is the God of our lower
world, our great omnipresent guardian: as such it moves, or should move
on majestic, awful, irresistible, having no passions—like a God: but,
in the very midst of the path across which it is to pass, lo! M. Victor
Hugo trips forward, smirking, and says, O divine Justice! I will
trouble you to listen to the following trifling effusion of mine:—
Par votre ange envolée, ainsi qu’une,” &c.
Awful Justice stops, and, bowing gravely, listens to M. Hugo’s verses,
and, with true French politeness, says, “Mon cher Monsieur, these
verses are charming, ravissans, délicieux, and, coming from such a
célébrité littéraire as yourself, shall meet with every possible
attention—in fact, had I required anything to confirm my own previous
opinions, this charming poem would have done so. Bon jour, mon cher
Monsieur Hugo, au revoir!”—and they part:—Justice taking off his hat
and bowing, and the author of “Ruy Blas” quite convinced that he has
been treating with him d’égal en égal. I can hardly bring my mind to
fancy that anything is serious in France—it seems to be all rant,
tinsel, and stage-play. Sham liberty, sham monarchy, sham glory, sham
justice,—où diable donc la vérité va-t-elle se nicher?
The last rocket of the fête of July has just mounted, exploded, made a
portentous bang, and emitted a gorgeous show of blue lights, and then
(like many reputations) disappeared totally: the hundredth gun on the
Invalid terrace has uttered its last roar—and a great comfort it is for
eyes and ears that the festival is over. We shall be able to go about
our everyday business again, and not be hustled by the gendarmes or the
crowd.
The sight which I have just come away from is as brilliant, happy, and
beautiful as can be conceived; and if you want to see French people to
the greatest advantage, you should go to a festival like this, where
their manners, and innocent gayety, show a very pleasing contrast to
the coarse and vulgar hilarity which the same class would exhibit in
our own country—at Epsom racecourse, for instance, or Greenwich Fair.
The greatest noise that I heard was that of a company of jolly
villagers from a place in the neighborhood of Paris, who, as soon as
the fireworks were over, formed themselves into a line, three or four
abreast, and so marched singing home. As for the fireworks, squibs and
crackers are very hard to describe, and very little was to be seen of
them: to me, the prettiest sight was the vast, orderly, happy crowd,
the number of children, and the extraordinary care and kindness of the
parents towards these little creatures. It does one good to see honest,
heavy épiciers, fathers of families, playing with them in the
Tuileries, or, as to-night, bearing them stoutly on their shoulders,
through many long hours, in order that the little ones too may have
their share of the fun. John Bull, I fear, is more selfish: he does not
take Mrs. Bull to the public-house; but leaves her, for the most part,
to take care of the children at home.
The fête, then, is over; the pompous black pyramid at the Louvre is
only a skeleton now; all the flags have been miraculously whisked away
during the night, and the fine chandeliers which glittered down the
Champs Elysées for full half a mile, have been consigned to their dens
and darkness. Will they ever be reproduced for other celebrations of
the glorious 29th of July?—I think not; the Government which vowed that
there should be no more persecutions of the press, was, on that very
29th, seizing a Legitimist paper, for some real or fancied offence
against it: it had seized, and was seizing daily, numbers of persons
merely suspected of being disaffected (and you may fancy how liberty is
understood, when some of these prisoners, the other day, on coming to
trial, were found guilty and sentenced to ONE day’s imprisonment, after
THIRTY-SIX DAYS’ DETENTION ON SUSPICION). I think the Government which
follows such a system, cannot be very anxious about any farther
revolutionary fêtes, and that the Chamber may reasonably refuse to vote
more money for them. Why should men be so mighty proud of having, on a
certain day, cut a certain number of their fellow-countrymen’s throats?
The Guards and the Line employed this time nine years did no more than
those who cannonaded the starving Lyonnese, or bayoneted the luckless
inhabitants of the Rue Transnounain:—they did but fulfil the soldier’s
honorable duty:—his superiors bid him kill and he killeth:—perhaps, had
he gone to his work with a little more heart, the result would have
been different, and then—would the conquering party have been justified
in annually rejoicing over the conquered? Would we have thought Charles
X. justified in causing fireworks to be blazed, and concerts to be
sung, and speeches to be spouted, in commemoration of his victory over
his slaughtered countrymen?—I wish for my part they would allow the
people to go about their business as on the other 362 days of the year,
and leave the Champs Elysées free for the omnibuses to run, and the
Tuileries’ in quiet, so that the nurse-maids might come as usual, and
the newspapers be read for a halfpenny apiece.
Shall I trouble you with an account of the speculations of these
latter, and the state of the parties which they represent? The
complication is not a little curious, and may form, perhaps, a subject
of graver disquisition. The July fêtes occupy, as you may imagine, a
considerable part of their columns just now, and it is amusing to
follow them one by one; to read Tweedledum’s praise, and Tweedledee’s
indignation—to read, in the Débats how the King was received with
shouts and loyal vivats—in the Nation, how not a tongue was wagged in
his praise, but, on the instant of his departure, how the people called
for the “Marseillaise” and applauded THAT.—But best say no more about
the fête. The Legitimists were always indignant at it. The high
Philippist party sneers at and despises it; the Republicans hate it: it
seems a joke against THEM. Why continue it?—If there be anything sacred
in the name and idea of loyalty, why renew this fête? It only shows how
a rightful monarch was hurled from his throne, and a dexterous usurper
stole his precious diadem. If there be anything noble in the memory of
a day, when citizens, unused to war, rose against practised veterans,
and, armed with the strength of their cause, overthrew them, why speak
of it now? or renew the bitter recollections of the bootless struggle
and victory? O Lafayette! O hero of two worlds! O accomplished Cromwell
Grandison! you have to answer for more than any mortal man who has
played a part in history: two republics and one monarchy does the world
owe to you; and especially grateful should your country be to you. Did
you not, in ’90, make clear the path for honest Robespierre, and in
’30, prepare the way for—
[The Editor of the Bungay Beacon would insert no more of this letter,
which is, therefore, for ever lost to the public.]