Sunday in Paris.--Family Groups.--Popular Enjoyment.--Polytechnic
Students.--Their resemblance to the figure of Napoleon.--Enduring
attachment to the Emperor.--Conservative spirit of the English
Schools.--Sunday in the Gardens of the Tuileries.--Religion of
the Educated.--Popular Opinion.
Sunday is a delightful day in Paris--more so than in any place I ever
visited, excepting Francfort. The enjoyment is so universal, and yet
so domestic; were I to form my idea of the national character from the
scenes passing before my eyes on that day, instead of from books and
newspapers, I should say that the most remarkable features in it, were
conjugal and parental affection.
It is rare to see either a man or a woman, of an age to be wedded and
parents, without their being accompanied by their partner and their
offspring. The cup of light wine is drunk between them; the scene that
is sought for amusement by the one is also enjoyed by the other; and
whether it be little or whether it be much that can be expended on
this day of jubilee, the man and wife share it equally.
I have entered many churches during the hours of the morning masses,
in many different parts of the town, and, as I have before stated, I
have uniformly found them extremely crowded; and though I have never
remarked any instances of that sort of penitential devotion so
constantly seen in the churches of Belgium when the painfully extended
arms remind one of the Hindoo solemnities, the appearance of earnest
and devout attention to what is going on is universal.
It is not till after the grand mass is over that the population pours
itself out over every part of the town, not so much to seek as to meet
amusement. And they are sure to find it; for not ten steps can be
taken in any direction without encountering something that shall
furnish food for enjoyment of some kind or other.
There is no sight in the world that I love better than a numerous
populace during their hours of idleness and glee. When they assemble
themselves together for purposes of legislation, I confess I do not
greatly love or admire them; but when they are enjoying themselves,
particularly when women and children share in the enjoyment, they
furnish a delightful spectacle--and nowhere can it be seen to greater
advantage than in Paris. The nature of the people--the nature of the
climate--the very form and arrangement of the city, are all especially
favourable to the display of it. It is in the open air, under the
blue vault of heaven, before the eyes of thousands, that they love to
bask and disport themselves. The bright, clear atmosphere seems made
on purpose for them; and whoever laid out the boulevards, the quays,
the gardens of Paris, surely remembered, as they did so, how necessary
space was for the assembling together of her social citizens.
The young men of the Polytechnic School make a prominent feature in a
Paris Sunday; for it is only on the _jours de fête_ that they are
permitted to range at liberty through the town: but all occasions of
this kind cause the streets and public walks to swarm with young
Napoleons.
It is quite extraordinary to see how the result of a strong principle
or sentiment may show itself externally on a large body of
individuals, making those alike, whom nature has made as dissimilar as
possible. There is not one of these Polytechnic lads, the eldest of
whom could hardly have seen the light of day before Napoleon had left
the soil of France for ever,--there is hardly one of them who does not
more or less remind one of the well-known figure and air of the
Emperor. Be they tall, be they short, be they fat, be they thin, it is
the same,--there is some approach (evidently the result of having
studied their worshipped model closely in paintings, engravings,
bronzes, marbles, and Sèvres china,) to that look and bearing which,
till the most popular tyrant that ever lived had made it as well known
as sunshine to the eyes of France, was as little resembling to the
ordinary appearance and carriage of her citizens as possible.
The tailor can certainly do much towards making the exterior of one
individual look like the exterior of another; but he cannot do all
that we see in the mien of a Polytechnic scholar that serves to recall
the extraordinary man whose name, after years of exile and of death,
is decidedly the most stirring that can be pronounced in France. Busy,
important, and most full of human interest has been the period since
his downfall; yet his memory is as fresh among them as if he had
marched into the Tuileries triumphant from one of his hundred
victories but yesterday.
O, if the sovereign people could but understand as well as read!...
And O that some Christian spirit could be found who would interpret to
them, in such accents as they would listen to, the life and adventures
of Napoleon the Great! What a deal of wisdom they might gain by it!
Where could be found a lesson so striking as this to a people who are
weary of being governed, and desire, one and all, to govern
themselves? With precisely the same weariness, with precisely the
same desire, did this active, intelligent, and powerful people throw
off, some forty years ago, the yoke of their laws and the authority of
their king. Then were they free as the sand of the desert--not one
individual atom of the mighty mass but might have risen in the
hurricane of that tempest as high as the unbridled wind of his
ambition could carry him; and what followed? Why, they grew sick to
death of the giddy whirl, where each man knocked aside his neighbour,
and there was none to say "Forbear!" Then did they cling, like sinking
souls in the act of drowning, to the first bold man who dared to
replace the yoke upon their necks; they clung to him through years of
war that mowed down their ranks as a scythe mows down the ripe corn,
and yet they murmured not. For years they suffered their young sons to
be torn from their sides while they still hung to them with all the
first fondness of youth, and yet they murmured not;--for years they
lived uncheered by the wealth that commerce brings, uncheered by any
richer return of labour than the scanty morsel that sustained their
life of toil, and yet they murmured not: for they had once more a
prince upon the throne--they had once more laws, firmly administered,
which kept them from the dreaded horrors of anarchy; and they clung to
their tyrant prince, and his strict and stern enactments, with a
devotion of gratitude and affection which speaks plainly enough their
lasting thankfulness to the courage which was put forth in their hour
of need to relieve them from the dreadful burden of self-government.
This gratitude and affection endures still--nothing will ever efface
it; for his military tyranny is passed away, and the benefits which
his colossal power enabled him to bestow upon them remain, and must
remain as long as France endures. The only means by which another
sovereign may rival Napoleon in popularity, is by rivalling him in
power. Were some of the feverish blood which still keeps France in
agitation to be drawn from her cities to reinforce her military array,
and were a hundred thousand of the sons of France marched off to
restore to Italy her natural position in Europe, power, glory, and
popularity would sustain the throne, and tranquillity be restored to
the people. Without some such discipline, poor young France may very
probably die of a plethora. If she has not this, she must have a
government as absolute as that of Russia to keep her from mischief:
and that she will have one or the other before long, I have not the
least doubt in the world; for there are many very clever personages at
and near the seat of power who will not be slow to see or to do what
is needful.
Meanwhile this fine body of young men are, as I understand, receiving
an education calculated to make them most efficient officers, whenever
they are called upon to serve. Unfortunately for the reputation of the
Polytechnic School, their names were brought more forward than was
creditable to those who had the charge of them, during the riots of
1830. But the government which the men of France accepted from the
hands of the boys really appears to be wiser and better than they had
any right to expect from authority so strangely constituted. The new
government very properly uses the strength given it, for the purpose
of preventing the repetition of the excesses to which it owes its
origin; and these fine lads are now said to be in a state of very
respectable discipline, and to furnish no contemptible bulwark to the
throne.
It is otherwise, however, as I hear, with most of the bodies of young
men collected together in Paris for the purpose of education. The
silly cant of republicanism has got among them; and till this is
mended, continued little riotous outbreakings of a naughty-boy spirit
must be expected.
One of the happiest circumstances in the situation of poor struggling
England at present is, that her boys are not republican. On the
contrary, the rising spirit among us is decidedly conservative. All
our great schools are tory to the heart's core. The young English
have been roused, awakened, startled at the peril which threatens the
land of their fathers! The _penny king_ who has invaded us has
produced on them the effect usual on all invasions; and rather than
see him and his popish court succeed in conquering England, they would
rush from their forms and their cloisters to repel him, shouting,
"Alone we'll do it, BOYS!"--and they would do it, too, even if they
had no fathers to help them.
But I have forgotten my Sunday holiday, while talking about the gayest
and happiest of those it brings forth to decorate the town. Many a
proud and happy mother may on these occasions be seen leaning on the
arm of a son that she is very conscious looks like an emperor; and
many a pretty creature, whom her familiarity, as well as her features,
proclaims to be a sister, shows in her laughing eyes that the day
which gives her smart young brother freedom is indeed a _jour de fête_
for her.
You will be weary of the Tuileries Gardens; but I cannot keep out of
them, particularly when talking of a Paris Sunday, of whose prettiest
groups they are the rendezvous: the whole day's history may be read in
them. As soon as the gates are open, figures both male and female, in
dishabille more convenient than elegant, may be seen walking across
them in every direction towards the _sortie_ which leads towards
the quay, and thence onwards to _Les Bains Vigier_. Next come the
after-breakfast groups: and these are beautiful. Elegant young mothers
in half-toilet accompany their _bonnes_, and the pretty creatures
committed to their care, to watch for an hour the happy gambols which
the presence of the "chère maman" renders seven times more gay than
ordinary.
[Illustration: Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.
TUILERIES GARDENS, ON SUNDAY.
London, Published by Richard Bentley, 1835.]
I have watched such, repeatedly, with extreme amusement; often
attempting to read, but never able to pursue the occupation for
three-quarters of a minute together, till they at last abandon it
altogether, and sit with the useless volume upon their knee,
complacently answering all the baby questions that may be proposed to
them, while watching with the smiling satisfaction of well-pleased
maternity every attitude, every movement, and every grimace of the
darling miniatures in which they see themselves, and perhaps one
dearer still.
From about ten till one o'clock the gardens swarm with children and
their attendants: and pretty enough they are, and amusing too, with
their fanciful dresses and their baby wilfulness. Then comes the hour
of early dinners: the nurses and the children retreat; and were it
possible that any hour of the day could find a public walk in Paris
unoccupied, it would be this.
The next change shows the gradual influx of best bonnets,--pink,
white, green, blue. Feathers float onwards, and fresh flowers are seen
around: gay barouches rush down the Rues Castiglione and Rivoli; cabs
swing round every corner, all to deposit their gay freight within the
gardens. By degrees, double, treble rows of chairs are occupied on
either side of every walk, while the whole space between is one vast
moving mass of pleasant idleness.
This lasts till five; and then, as the elegant crowd withdraws,
another, less graceful perhaps, but more animated, takes its place.
Caps succeed to bonnets; and unchecked laughter, loud with youth and
glee, replaces the whispered gallantry, the silent smile, and all the
well-bred ways of giving and receiving thoughts with as little
disturbance to the circumambient air as possible.
From this hour to nightfall the multitude goes on increasing; and did
one not know that every theatre, every guinguette, every boulevard,
every café in Paris were at the same time crammed almost to
suffocation, one might be tempted to believe that the whole population
had assembled there to recreate themselves before the windows of the
king.
Among the higher ranks the Sunday evening at Paris is precisely the
same as that of any other day. There are the same number of _soirées_
going on, and no more; the same number of dinner-parties, just as
much card-playing, just as much dancing, just as much music, and just
as much going to the opera; but the other theatres are generally left
to the _endimanchés_.
You must not, however, imagine that no religious exercises are
attended to among the rich and noble because I have said nothing
especially about them on this point. On the contrary, I have great
reason to believe that it is not alone the attractive eloquence of the
popular preachers which draws such multitudes of wealthy and high-born
females into the fashionable churches of Paris; but that they go to
pray as well as to listen. Nevertheless, as to the general state of
religion amongst the educated classes in Paris, it is quite as
difficult to obtain information as it is to learn with anything like
tolerable accuracy the average state of their politics. It is not that
there is the least reserve or apparent hanging back when either
subject is discussed; on the contrary, all seem kindly eager to answer
every question, and impart to you all the information it is possible
to wish for: but the variety of statements is inconceivable; and as I
have repeatedly listened to very strong and positive assertions
respecting the opinions of the majority, from those in whose sincerity
I have perfect confidence, but which have been flatly contradicted by
others equally deserving of credit, I am led to suppose that in
effect the public mind is still wavering on both subjects. There is,
in fact, but one point upon which I truly and entirely believe that an
overwhelming majority exists,--and this is in the aversion felt for
any farther trial of a republican form of government.
The party who advocate the cause of democracy do indeed make the most
noise--it is ever their wont to do so. Neither the Chamber of Deputies
nor the Chamber of Peers can assemble nightly at a given spot to
scream "Vive le Roi!" nor are the quiet citizens, who most earnestly
wish to support the existing government, at all more likely to leave
their busy shops for this purpose than the members of the two Chambers
are to quit their _hôtels_;--so that any attempt to judge the
political feelings of the people by the outcries heard in the streets
must of necessity lead to error. Yet it is of such judgments, both at
home and abroad, that we hear the most.
As to the real private feelings on the subject of religion which exist
among the educated portion of the people, it is still more difficult
to form an opinion, for on this subject the strongest indications are
often declared to prove nothing. If churches filled to overflowing be
proof of national piety, then are the people pious: and farther than
this, no looker-on such as myself should, I think, attempt to go.