M. Dupré.--His Drawings in Greece.--L'Eglise des Carmes.--M.
Vinchon's Picture of the National Convention.--Léopold
Robert's Fishermen.--Reported cause of his Suicide.--Roman
Catholic Religion.--Mr. Daniel O'Connell.
We went the other morning, with Miss C----, a very agreeable
countrywoman, who has however passed the greater portion of her life
in Paris, to visit the house and atelier of M. Dupré, a young artist
who seems to have devoted himself to the study of Greece. Her princes,
her peasants, her heavy-eyed beauties, and the bright sky that glows
above them,--all the material of her domestic life, and all the
picturesque accompaniments of her classic reminiscences, are brought
home by this gentleman in a series of spirited and highly-finished
drawings, which give decidedly the most lively idea of the country
that I have seen produced. Engravings or lithographs from them are, I
believe, intended to illustrate a splendid work on this interesting
country which is about to be published.
In our way from M. Dupré's house, in which was this collection of
Greek drawings, to his atelier--where he was kind enough to show us a
large picture recently commenced--we entered that fatal "Eglise des
Carmes," where the most hideous massacre of the first revolution took
place. A large tree that stands beside it is pointed out as having
been sought as a shelter--alas! how vainly!--by the unhappy priests,
who were shot, sabred, and dragged from its branches by dozens. A
thousand terrible recollections are suggested by the interior of the
building, aided by the popular traditions attached to it, unequalled
in atrocity even in the history of that time of horror.
Another scene relating to the same period, which, though inferior to
the massacre of the priests in multiplied barbarity, was of sufficient
horror to freeze the blood of any but a republican, has, strange to
say, been made, since the revolution of 1830, the subject of an
enormous picture by M. Vinchon, and at the present moment makes part
of the exhibition at the Louvre.
The canvass represents a hall at the Tuileries which in 1795 was the
place where the National Convention sat. The mob has broken in, and
murdered Feraud, who attempted to oppose them; and the moment chosen
by the painter is that in which a certain "_jeune fille nommée Aspasie
Migelli_" approaches the president's chair with the young man's head
borne on a pike before her, while she triumphantly envelopes herself
in some part of his dress. The whole scene is one of the most terrible
revolutionary violence. This picture is stated in the catalogue to
belong to the minister of the interior; but whether the present
minister of the interior, or any other, I know not. The subject was
given immediately after the revolution of 1830, and many artists made
sketches in competition for the execution of it. One of those who
tried, and failed before the superior genius of M. Vinchon, told us,
that the subject was given at that time as one likely to be popular,
either for love of the noble resolution with which Boissy d'Anglas
keeps possession of the president's chair, which he had seized upon,
or else from admiration of the energetic female who has assisted in
doing the work of death. In either case, this young artist said, the
popularity of such a subject was passed by, and no such order would be
given now.
Finding myself again on the subject of pictures, I must mention a very
admirable one which is now being exhibited at the "Mairie du Second
Arrondissement." It is from the hand of the unfortunate Leopold
Robert, who destroyed himself at Venice almost immediately after he
had completed it. The subject is the departure of a party of Italian
fishermen; and there are parts of the picture fully equal to anything
I have ever seen from the pencil of a modern artist. I should have
looked at this picture with extreme pleasure, had the painter still
lived to give hope of, perhaps, still higher efforts; but the history
of his death, which I had just been listening to, mixed great pain
with it.
I have been told that this young man was of a very religious and
meditative turn of mind, but a Protestant. His only sister, to whom he
was much attached, was a Catholic, and had recently taken the veil.
Her affection for him was such, that she became perfectly wretched
from the danger she believed awaited him from his heresy; and she
commenced a species of affectionate persecution, which, though it
failed to convert him, so harassed and distracted his mind, as finally
to overthrow his reason, and lead him to self-destruction. This
charming picture is exhibited for the benefit of the poor, at the
especial desire of the unhappy nun; who is said, however, to be so
perfect a fanatic, as only to regret that the dreadful act was not
delayed till she had had time to work out the salvation of her own
soul by a little more persecution of his.
There is something exceedingly curious, and, perhaps, under our
present lamentable circumstances, somewhat alarming, in the young and
vigorous after-growth of the Roman Catholic religion, which, by the
aid of a very little inquiry, may be so easily traced throughout France.
Were we keeping our own national church sacred, and guarded both by
love and by law, as it has hitherto been from all assaults of the Pope
and ... Mr. O'Connell, it could only be with pleasure that we should
see France recovering from her long ague-fit of infidelity,--and, as
far as she is concerned, we must in Christian charity rejoice, for she
is unquestionably the better for it; but there is a regenerated
activity among the Roman Catholic clergy, which, under existing
circumstances, makes a Protestant feel rather nervous,--and I declare
to you, I never pass within sight of that famous window of the Louvre,
whence Charles Neuf, with his own royal and catholic hand, discharged
a blunderbuss amongst the Huguenots, without thinking how well a
window at Whitehall, already noted in history as a scene of horror,
might serve King Daniel for the same purpose.
The great influence which the religion of Rome has of late regained
over the minds of the French people has, I am told, been considerably
increased by the priests having added to the strength derived from
their command of pardons and indulgences, that which our Methodist
preachers gain from the terrors of hell. They use the same language,
too, respecting regeneration and grace; and, as one means of regaining
the hold they had lost upon the human mind, they now anathematize all
recreations, as if their congregations were so many aspirants to the
sublime purifications of La Trappe, or so many groaning fanatics just
made over to them from Lady Huntingdon's Chapel. That there is,
however, a pretty strong force to stem this fresh spring-tide of
moon-struck superstition, is very certain. The doctrinaires, I am
told, taken as a body, are not much addicted to this species of
weakness. I remember, during the prevalence of that sweeping complaint
called the influenza, hearing of a "good lady," of the high
evangelical _clique_, who said to some of the numerous pensioners who
flocked to receive the crumbs of her table and the precepts of her
lips, that she could make up some medicine that was very good for all
POOR people that were seized with this complaint.
"What can be the difference, ma'am," said the poor body who told me
this, "between us and Madame C---- in this illness? Is not what is
good for the poor, good for the rich too?"
The same pertinent question may, I think, be asked in Paris just now
respecting the medicine called religion. It is administered in large
doses to the poor, to which class a great number of the fair sex of
all ranks happily seem to have joined themselves, intending, at
least, to rank themselves as among the poor in spirit; nay, parish
doctors are regularly paid by authority; yet, if the tale be true, the
authorities themselves take little of it. "It is very good for poor
people;" but, like the hot-baths which Anstie talks of,
"No creature e'er view'd
Any one of the government gentry stew'd."
Whether the returning power of this pompous and aspiring faith will
mount as it proceeds, and embrace within its grasp, as it was wont to
do, all the great ones of the earth, is a question that it may require
some years to answer; but one thing is at least certain,--that its
ministers will try hard that it shall do so, whether they are likely
to succeed or not; and, at the worst, they may console themselves by
the reflection of Lafontaine:--
"Si de les gagner je n'emporte pas le prix,
J'aurais au moins l'honneur de l'avoir entrepris."
One great one they have certainly already got, besides King Charles
the Tenth,--even the immortal Daniel; and however little consequence
you may be inclined to attach to this fact, it cannot be considered as
wholly unimportant, since I have heard his religious principles and
his influence in England alluded to in the pulpit here with a tone of
hope and triumph which made me tremble.
I heartily wish that some of those who continue to vote in his
traitorous majority because they are pledged to do so, could hear him
and his power spoken of here. If they have English hearts, it must, I
think, give them a pang.