bellowing of the deer: sometimes it sounded close to us, and at other
times far away. To an unaccustomed ear it might easily have passed for
the roaring of a host of much more dangerous wild beasts, so loud and
hollow did it sound. I awoke in the morning cold and stiff, but soon put
my blood into circulation by running two or three times up and down a
steep bit of the hill. As for Donald, he shook himself, took a pinch of
snuff, and was all right. The sun was not yet above the horizon, though
the tops of the mountains to the west were already brightly gilt by its
rays, and the grouse-cocks were answering each other in every
direction."
A graphic and most true description! The same gathering of the deer, but
on a far larger scale, may be seen in the glens near the centre of
Sutherland, hard by the banks of Loch Naver. Many hundreds of them
congregate there together at the bleak season of their love; and the
bellowing of the stags may be heard miles off among the solitude of the
mountain. Nor is it altogether safe at that time to cross their path.
The hart--a dangerous brute whenever brought to bay--then appears to
lose all trace of his customary timidity, and will advance against the
intruder, be he who he may, with levelled antler and stamping hoof, as
becomes the acknowledged leader, bashaw, and champion of the herd. Also
among the Coolin hills, perhaps the wildest of all our Highland scenery,
where the dark rain-clouds of the Atlantic stretch from peak to peak of
the jagged heights--where the ghostlike silence strikes you with
unwonted awe, and the echo of your own footfall rings startlingly on the
ear from the metallic cliffs of Hyperstein.
What is it, Ian? As we live, Orleans is pointing in yon correi, and
Bordeaux backing him like a Trojan. Soho, Tours! Now for it. Black game,
we rather think. Well roaded, dogs! Bang! An old cock. Ian, you may pick
him up.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands._ From the
Journals of CHARLES ST JOHN, Esq. Murray. London: 1846.
LETTERS AND IMPRESSIONS FROM PARIS.[2]
THE gay metropolis of France has not lacked chroniclers, whether
indigenous or foreign. And no wonder. The subject is inexhaustible, the
mine can never be worn out. Paris is a huge kaleidoscope, in which the
slightest movement of the hand of time produces fantastic changes and
still recurring novelties. Central in position, it is the rendezvous of
Europe. London is respected for its size, wealth, and commerce, and as
the capital of the great empire on which the sun never sets; Paris is
loved for its pleasures and pastimes, its amusements and dissipations.
The one is the money-getter's Eldorado, the other the pleasure-seeker's
paradise. The former is viewed with wonder and admiration; for size it
is a province, for population a kingdom. But Paris, the modern Babel,
with its boulevards and palaces, its five-and-twenty theatres, its gaudy
restaurants and glittering coffee-houses, its light and cheerful aspect,
so different from the soot-grimed walls of the English capital, is the
land of promise to truant gentlemen and erratic ladies, whether from the
Don or the Danube, the Rhine or the Wolga, from the frozen steppes of
the chilly north, or the orange groves of the sunny south. A library has
been written to exhibit its physiognomy; thousands of pens have laboured
to depict the peculiarities of its population, floating and stationary.
Amongst those who have most recently attempted the task, Mr Karl
Gutzkow, a dramatist of some fame in his own land, holds a respectable
place. He has recorded in print the results of two visits to Paris, paid
in 1842 and in the present year. The self-imposed labour has been
creditably performed; much truth and sharpness of observation are
manifest in his pages, although here and there a triviality forces a
smile, a far-fetched idea or a bizarre opinion causes a start. Mr
Gutzkow partakes a fault common to many of his countrymen--a tendency to
extremes, an aptness either to trifle or to soar, now playing on the
ground with the children, then floating in the clouds with mystical
familiars, or on a winged hobbyhorse. Desultory in style, he neglects
the classification of his subject. Abruptly passing from the grave to
the light, from the solid to the frothy, he breaks off a profound
disquisition or philosophical argument to chatter about the new
vaudeville, and glides from a scandalous anecdote of an actress into the
policy of Louis Philippe. His frequent and capricious transitions are
not disagreeable, and help one pleasantly enough through the book, but a
methodical arrangement would be more favourable to the reader's memory.
As it is, we lay down the volume with a perfect jumble in our brains,
made up of the sayings, doings, qualities, and characteristics of
actors, authors, statesmen, communists, journalists, and of the various
other classes concerning whom Mr Gutzkow discourses, introducing them
just as they occur to him, or as he happened to meet with them, and in
some instances returning three or four times to the same individual. The
first part of the book, which is the most lengthy and important, is in
the form of letters, and was perhaps actually written to friends in
Germany. This would account for its desultoriness and medley of matter.
The second portion, written during or subsequently to a recent visit to
Paris, serves as an appendix, and as a rectification of what came
before. The author troubles himself little about places; he went to see
Parisians rather than to gaze at Paris, to study men rather than to
admire monuments, and has the good sense to avoid prattling about things
that have been described and discussed by more common-place writers than
himself. Well provided with introductions, he made the acquaintance of
numerous notabilities, both political and literary, and of them he
gives abundant details: an eager play-goer, his theatrical criticisms
are bold, minute, and often exceedingly happy; an observant man, his
remarks on the social condition of Paris and of France are both acute
and interesting. Let us follow him page by page through his fifth letter
or chapter, the first that relates to Paris. Those that precede contain
an account of his journey from Hanover. On his entrance into France, he
encounters various petty disagreeables, in the shape of ill-hung
vehicles, sulky conductors, bad dinners, extravagant prices, and
attempts at extortion, which stir up his bile, accustomed as he is to
the moderate charges, smiling waiters, and snug although slow
_eilwagens_ of his own country. But he has resolved neither to grumble
at trifles nor to judge hastily. A visit to France, and especially to
Paris, has long been his darling project. His greatest fear is to be
disappointed--imagination, especially that of a German, is so apt to
outrun reality.
"Every _sou_ upon which I read 'Republique FranASec.aise,' every portrait of
the unhappy Louis upon the coarse copper money, makes such impression on
me, that I no longer think of any thing but the historical ground under
my feet; and consoled for my trifling grievances, upon a fine spring
morning I enter the great Babel through the BarriA"re St Denis.
"I am in France, in Paris. I must reflect, in order to ascertain what
was my first thought. As a boy, I hated France and loved Paris. My
thoughts clung fast to Germany's fall and Germany's greatness; my
feelings, my fancy, ranged through the French capital, of which I had
early heard much from my father, who had twice marched thither as a
Prussian soldier and conqueror." Then come sundry reflections on the
July revolution, and its effect on Europe. "These are chains of thought
which hereafter will occupy us much. I must now think for a while of the
France that I brought with me, because the one I have found is likely to
lead me astray. Louis Philippe, Guizot, the armed peace, the peace at
all price, the chamber of peers, the attempts on the king's life, the
deputies, the _A(C)piciers_, the great men and the little intrigues, art
and science, VA(C)ry, Vefour, Musard--I am really puzzled not to forget
something of what I previously knew. A hackney-coach horse, lying dead
upon the boulevard, preoccupies me more than yonder _hA'tel des
Capucins_, where Guizot gives his dinners. A wood-pavement at the end of
the Rue Richelieu sets me a-thinking more than the bulletin of to-day's
_DA(C)bats_. They pave Paris with wood to deprive revolutions of building
materials. Barricades are not to be made out of blocks. Better that
those who cannot hear should be run over than that those who cannot see
should risk to fall from their high estate."
Considering that, when this was written, all the wood-pavement in Paris
might have been covered with a Turkey carpet, and that up to this day
its superficies has very little increased, Mr Gutzkow's discovery has
much the appearance of a mare's nest. A better antidote to the stone
within Paris is to be found in the stone around it. The fortifications
will match the barricades. But it would be unfair to criticise too
severely the crude impressions of a novice, suddenly set down amidst the
turmoil, bustle, tumult, and fever of the French capital. From the
pavements we pass to the promenaders.
"Pity that black should this year be the fashion for ladies' dresses.
The mourning garments clash with the freshness of spring. The heavens
are blue, the sun shines, the trees already burst into leaf, the
fountains round the obelisk throw their countless diamonds into the air.
The exhibition of pictures has just opened. Shall I go thither, and
exchange this violet-scented atmosphere for the odour of the varnish? In
Paris the exhibition comes with the violets--in Berlin with the asters.
I prefer the autumn show at Berlin to the spring exhibition in Paris;
also intrinsically, with respect to art. Our German painters have more
poetry. With us painting is lyric--here all is, or strives to be,
dramatic. Every picture seems to thrust itself forward and demand
applause. I see great effects, but little feeling. Religion is
represented by a few gigantic altar-pieces. They are the offerings of a
devotion which only thinks of the saints because new churches require
new pictures. New churches consist of stone, wood, gold, silver, an
organ, an altar-piece. These pictures of saints belong to the ministry
of public works; it is easy to see that they have been done to order.
Besides them, the gallery is full of Oriental scenes, family pictures
and portraits. The first are to inspire enthusiasm for Algiers, the
second illustrate the happiness of wedded life, the last are matrimonial
advertisements in oil colour. In the family groups, children and little
dogs are most prominent; of the male portraits the beard is the
principal part. It is useless to look for men here; one sees nothing but
hair. Everybody wears a beard _A la mode du moyen Acge--flAcneurs_,
coachmen, marquises, artisans. On all sides one is surrounded with
Vandyke and Rubens heads, poetical beards and hair, contrasting
strangely with prosaic eyes, pallid lips, and the graceless costumes of
the nineteenth century."
After some more very negative praise of French art, Mr Gutzkow gets sick
of turpentine and confinement, and rushes out of the Louvre into the
sunshine and the Champs ElysA(C)es, where the sight of the throng of
dashing equipages, gay cavaliers, and pretty amazons, instead of causing
him to throw up his hat and bless his stars for having conducted him
into such ways of pleasantness, renders him melancholy and metaphysical.
He is moralising on the Parisian ladies, when a cloud of dust and the
clatter of cavalry give a new turn to his reflections. "Here," he
exclaims, "comes an example of earthly happiness. Louis Philippe, King
of the French, surrounded by a half squadron of his body-guard; a narrow
and scarcely perceptible window in his deep six-horse carriage; a King,
flying by, resting not, leaning back in his coach, not venturing to look
out, breathing with difficulty under the shirt of mail which, according
to popular belief, he ever wears beneath his clothes. But of this more
hereafter." Quite enough as it is, Mr Gutzkow; and you are right, being
in so gloomy a mood, to run off to the Theatre FranASec.ais, and try to
dissipate your vapours by seeing Rachel in ChimA"ne. An unfavourable
criticism of that actress, retracted at a later period, closes the
chapter. ChimA"ne is one of Rachel's worst parts, and her critic was not
in his best humour. He found her cold, and deficient in voice.
Subsequently, in Joan of Arc, she fully redeemed herself in his opinion,
although he had seen the best German actresses in Schiller's tragedy of
that name, with which the work of Soumet ill bears comparison. Here, he
acknowledges, she raised herself to an artistical elevation to which no
German actress of the present day can hope to attain.
The next actress of whom Mr Gutzkow records his judgment, is the queen
of the vaudeville, the faded but still fascinating Dejazet. From the
classic hall of the "FranASec.ais" to the agreeable little den of iniquity
at the other end of the Palais Royal, the distance was not great, but
the transition was very violent. It was passing from a funeral to an
orgie, thus to leave PhA"dre for FrA(C)tillon, Rachel for Dejazet. "She
performed in a little piece called the _Fille de Dominique_, in which
she represents the daughter of a deceased royal comedian of the days of
MoliA"re. She comes to Paris to get admitted into the troop to which her
father belonged. She is to give proofs of her talents, and has already
done so before any one suspects it. She has been to Baron, the comedian,
and presented herself alternately as a peasant girl, a fantastical lady,
and as a young drummer of the Royal Guard. She is seen by the audience
in all these parts. Her first word, her first step, convinced me of the
great fidelity of her acting. She is no queen, no fairy, or great dame
out of Scribe's comedies, but the peasant girl, the grisette, the
heroine of the vaudeville. All about her is arch, droll, true. Her
gestures are extraordinarily correct and steady; and in spite of her
harsh counter-tenor, and of an organ in which many a wild night and
champagne debauch may be traced, she sings her couplets with clearness
of intonation, grace of execution, and not unfrequently with most
touching effect. I am at a loss fully to explain and define her very
peculiar style of acting."
Mr Gutzkow thought that the French public had become careless of
Dejazet, even when he first saw her, now four years ago. We believe he
is mistaken, and that she is as much appreciated as ever, in spite of
her five and forty years, soon to be converted into fifty. Although
haggard from vigils and dissipation, neither on the stage nor off it
does she look her age. The good heart and joyous disposition that have
endeared her to her comrades of the buskin, have in some degree
neutralized the effects of her excesses. On his second visit to Paris,
our author finds her grown exceedingly old, and depreciates as much as
he before praised her--calls her a rouged corpse, and makes all manner
of uncivil and unsavoury comments and comparisons. He goes so far as to
style her acting in 1846, languid, feeble, and insipid. _Qui trop dit,
ne dit rien_, and this is palpable exaggeration. We perceive scarcely
any difference in Dejazet now and five years ago. Her singing voice may
be a little less sure, her eyes a trifle hollower--she may need rather
more paint to conceal the inroads of time on her _piquante_ and
_spirituelle_ physiognomy, but she preserves the same spirit and
vivacity, _verve_ and vigour. Her appearance this spring at the VariA(C)tA(C)s
theatre, in the vaudeville of _Gentil Bernard_, was a triumph of talent
over time; and crowded houses, attracted not by the excellence of the
piece, but by the perfection of the acting, proved that Dejazet is
still, which she long has been, the pet of the Parisians. She is an
extraordinary actress--so true to nature, possessed of such perfect
judgment, and grace of gesticulation. Not a movement of her hand, a turn
of her head, an inflexion of her voice, but has its signification and
produces its effect. Her performance in the picturesque and bustling
second act of _Gentil Bernard_ is faultless. The frequenters of St
James's theatre have this summer had an opportunity of appreciating it.
At Paris she was better supported. Lafont makes a very fair La Tulipe,
but not so good a one as Hoffmann. The inferior parts, also, were far
better filled on the Boulevard des Italiens, than in King Street, St
James's, where the whole weight of the protracted and not very
interesting vaudeville rested upon the shoulders of Dejazet.
The success of Rachel has roused the ambition and raised the reputation
of the daughters of Israel, who are now quite in vogue at the Paris
theatres. Mesdemoiselles Rebecca and Worms, at the "FranASec.ais," are both
Jewesses; at the minor theatre of the "Folies Dramatiques," Judith
delights a motley audience by her able enactment of the grisette.
Instances have been known of very Christian young ladies feigning
themselves of the faith of Moses, in hope that the fraud might
facilitate their admission to the Thespian arena.
A severe judgment is passed by Mr Gutzkow upon the present state of
musical art and representations in the French capital. The opera, he
affirms, and not without reason, is on its last legs, sustained only by
the ballet, by the beauty of the scenery and costumes. Duprez has had
his day, Madame Stolz is among the middlings, Barroilhet alone may be
reckoned a first-rate singer. Our author saw the _ElA-sir d'Amore_ given
by a company which he says would hardly be listened to in a German
provincial town. Madame Stolz was then absent on a starring expedition.
The ballet of _Paquita_ was some compensation for the poorness of the
singing. "At the 'Italiens' I heard the _Barber of Seville_, with
Lablache, Ronconi, Tagliafico, Mario, and Persiani. This opera is
considered the triumph of the Italian company; but I confess that the
magnificence of the theatre, the high charge for admission, the Ohs! and
Ahs! of the English women in the boxes, just arrived from London, and
who had never before heard good music, were all insufficient to blind me
with respect to the merits of the performance. I look upon the Italian
opera at Paris as a mystification on the very largest scale, a thorough
classic-Italian swindle. That a German company, composed of our best
opera singers, would be infinitely superior to this Italian one, appears
to me to admit of no dispute; but even at an ordinary theatre in Germany
or Italy, one hears as good singing, perhaps with the exception of
Lablache in _Bartolo_--and even he is cold and careless, devoid of
freshness, and always seems to say to the audience, 'You stupid people,
take that for your twelve francs a-seat!' The quackery of this theatre
becomes the more intelligible when we reflect that, in all Paris, there
is no other where a single note of Italian opera music can be heard, the
Italians having the monopoly of the sweet melodies of their native
country. The Grand Opera, and the Opera Comique, deal in French music
only; and the pleasure obtainable in any small German town possessing a
theatre, that, namely, of hearing _Norma_, the _Somnambula_, and other
similar operas, is nowhere to be procured except by paying extravagant
prices to these half-dozen Italians." This statement is not quite
correct. The Opera Comique, it is true, gives nothing but French music,
and poor enough it is. In this particular, the Parisians are not
difficult to satisfy. A good libretto, smart scenery, a hard-handed
_claque_, a few skilful _reclames_, and laudatory paragraphs in the
newspapers, will create an enthusiasm even for the insipid music of
Monsieur HalA(C)vy, and sustain the _Mousquetaires de la Reine_, or similar
mawkish compositions, through a whole season. But at the AcadA(C)mie
Royale, good operas are to be heard, although the singing be deficient.
Meyerbeer, Rossini, and Donizetti are not the names of Frenchmen; and
the operas of these and other foreign composers are constantly given in
the Rue Lepelletier.
"Several German opera companies have visited Paris; have begun well, and
finished badly. And here our most brilliant singers would meet the same
fate, because they would be allowed to sing nothing but German music;
and German operas are not listened to in Paris. But if it were possible,
with only a moderately good German company, to give _Norma_, the
_Barber_, _Robert the Devil_, the _Huguenots_, and Mozart's operas,
(omitting the dialogue,) that company, supported by a good orchestra,
and performing in a decent theatre, would carry all before them, and
return to Germany laden with fame and gold. But that is the difficulty.
In France every one must stick to a speciality. From the German they
will hear nothing but German music, and the representation of other
operas is positively forbidden him."
Without going the lengths that Mr Gutzkow does, or by any means
coinciding in his sweeping censure of the artists who now furnish forth
the Italian theatres of London and Paris, we doubt whether it is not
fashion, as much as the excellence of the music, that draws the A(C)lite of
French and English society to the Haymarket and the Salle Ventadour, and
whether a German company of equal intrinsic merit would receive adequate
patronage and encouragement in either capital, supposing even that they
were allowed their choice of operas, and had the benefit of a handsome
theatre and an able management. Certainly they would not get the
enormous salaries which, in combination with the greediness of managers,
and the manA"uvres of ticket-sellers, render the enjoyment of a good
opera, in London at least, a luxury attainable but by an exceedingly
limited class.
Although the prices of admission to most of the Paris theatres are
moderate, they are occasionally raised by illegitimate stratagems. This
is especially the case when a new piece is performed from which much is
expected, or concerning which, by puffery or for other reasons, the
public curiosity has been greatly excited. On such occasions, the first
few representations are sometimes rendered doubly and even trebly
productive. The prices cannot be raised at the theatre itself without
express permission from the authorities, and as this is seldom granted,
another plan is resorted to. The box-office is transferred _de facto_
from the corridor of the theatre to the open street. Whoever applies for
tickets is told that there is not one left to any part of the house.
Nothing then remains but to have recourse to the ticket-brokers, who
carry on their disreputable commerce in the streets or at the
wine-shops. In the Rue Montmartre, within a few doors of the Boulevard,
there is a _marchand de vin_, whose establishment is a grand rendezvous
of these gentry. They are the agents of the managers of the theatres.
The latter sell all the tickets to themselves a fortnight beforehand,
inscribing on the _coupons_ the names of imaginary buyers, and then
distribute them amongst the brokers, who sell them in front of the
theatre to eager theatrical amateurs, as a great favour, and as the last
obtainable tickets, at two or three times the regulation price. The
theatre pockets the profits, minus a brokerage. In this manner a first
representation at the large theatre of the Porte St Martin may be made
to yield ten thousand francs. When a theatre is out of vogue, and
filling poorly, the same system is adopted; but in the contrary sense.
The _marchands de billets_ are provided with tickets which they sell at
less than the established price.