There is no need of telling how disgusted I became with Aix-les-Bains
and all that in it is, after a short residence there. How I hated those
straw-hatted people who beset the baths from the earliest flush of the
aurora! How I detested those fellows who were constantly pestering me
with offers (highly advantageous, without doubt) of donkeys whereon to
ride, when they knew that I didn't want one! How I abominated the sight
of a man (who seemed to haunt me) in a high velvet-collared coat and a
bell-crowned hat just overtopping an oily-looking head of hair and bushy
whiskers--who looked, for all the world, as if he were made up for Sir
Harcourt Courtly! How maliciously he held on to the newspapers in the
_cafe_! How constantly he sat there and devoured all the news out of
them through the medium of a double tortoise-shell eye-glass, which
always seemed to be just falling off his nose! How I abhorred the sight
of those waiters, who looked as if the season were a short one, and time
(as B. Franklin said) was money! How stifling was the atmosphere of that
"seven-by-nine" room for which I had to pay so dearly! How hot, how
dusty, how dull it was, I need not weary you by telling; suffice it to
say, that I never packed my trunk more willingly than when I left that
village. I am very glad to have been there, however, for the
satisfaction I felt at leaving the place is worth almost any effort to
obtain. The joy of departure made even the exorbitant bills seem
reasonable; and when I thought of the stupidity and discomfort I was
escaping from, I felt as if, come what might, my future could only be
one of sunshine and content. Aix-les-Bains is one of the pleasantest
places to leave that I have ever seen. I can never forget the
measureless happiness of seeing my luggage ticketed for Paris, and then
taking my seat with the consciousness that I was leaving Aix (not
_aches_, alas!) behind me.
The Lake of Bourget was as beautiful and smiling as before--only it did
seem as if the sun might have held in a little. He scorched and
blistered the passengers on that steamboat in the most absurd manner. He
seemed never to have heard of Horace, and was consequently entirely
ignorant of the propriety of maintaining a _modus_ in his _rebuses_. The
scenery along the banks of the Rhone had not changed in the least, but
was as romantic and theatrical as ever. At Culoz I was glad to get on
shore, for like Hamlet, I had been "too much i' the sun"; so I left the
"blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone," (which the late Lord Byron, with his
usual disregard of truth, talks about, and which is as muddy as a
Medford brick-yard,) and took refuge in the hospitality of a custom
house. Here I fell into a meditation upon custom house officers. I
wonder whether the custom house officers of France are in their leisure
hours given to any of the vanities which delight their American
brethren. There was one lean, thoughtful-looking man among those at
Culoz who attracted my attention. I tried ineffectually to make out his
bent from his physiognomy. I could not imagine him occupying his leisure
by putting any twice-told tales on paper--or cultivating Shanghai
poultry--or riding on to the tented field amid the roar of artillery at
the head of a brigade of militia,--and I was obliged, in the hurry of
the examination of luggage, to give him up.
I had several times, during the journey from Aix, noticed a tall,
eagle-eyed man, in a suit of gray, and wearing a moustache of the same
colour, and while we were waiting for the train at Culoz, I observed
that he attracted a great deal of attention: his bearing was so
commanding, that I had set him down as being connected with the military
interest, before I noticed that he did not bear arms, for the left
sleeve of his coat hung empty and useless by his side; so I ventured to
inquire concerning him, and learned that I was a fellow-traveller of
Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers. I must do him the justice to say that he
did not look like a man who would leave his arms on the field.
We were soon whirling, and puffing, and whistling along through the tame
but pleasing landscape of France. Those carefully-tilled fields, those
vineyards almost overflowing with the raw material of conviviality,
those interminable rows of tall trees which seem to give no shade, those
farm-houses, whose walls we should in America consider strong enough for
fortifications, those contented-looking cattle, those towns that seem to
consist of a single street and an old gray tower, with a dark-coloured
conical top, like a candle extinguisher,--all had a good, familiar look
to me; and the numerous fields of Indian corn almost made me think that
I was on my way to Worcester or Fitchburg. I stopped for a while at
Macon, (a town which I respect for its contributions to the good cheer
of the world,) and hugely enjoyed a walk through its clean, quiet
streets. While I was waiting at the station, the express train from
Paris came along; and many of the passengers left their places (like Mr.
Squeers) to stretch their legs. Among them was a man whose acquisitive
eye, black satin waistcoat, fashionable hat, (such as no man but an
American would think of travelling in,) and coat with the waist around
his hips, and six or eight inches of skirt, immediately fixed my
attention. Before I thought, he had asked me if I could speak English. I
set him at his ease by answering that I took lessons in it once when I
was young, and he immediately launched out as follows: "Well, this is
the cussedest language I ever did hear. I don't see how in _the_ devil
these blasted fools can have lived so long right alongside of England
without trying to learn the English language." The whistle of the engine
cut short the declaration of his sentiments, and he was whizzing on
towards Lyons a moment after. Whoever that man may have been, he owes it
to himself and his country to write a book. His work would be as worthy
of consideration as the writings of two thirds of our English and
American travellers, who think they are qualified to write about the
government and social condition of a country because they have travelled
through it. Fancy a Frenchman, entirely ignorant of the English tongue,
landing at Boston, and stopping at the Tremont House or Parker's; he
visits the State House, the Athenaeum, Bunker Hill, the wharves, &c.
Then on Sunday he wishes to know something about the religion of these
strange people; so he goes across the street to the King's Chapel, and
finds that it is closed; so he walks down the street in the burning sun
to Brattle Street, where he hears a comfortable, drony kind of sermon,
which seems to have as composing an effect upon the fifty or a hundred
persons who are present as upon himself. In the afternoon he finds his
way to Trinity Church, (somebody having charitably told him that that is
the most genteel place,) and there he hears "our admirable liturgy"
sonorously read out to twenty or thirty people, all of whom are so
engrossed in their devotions that the responses are entirely neglected.
Having had enough of what the Irishman called the English lethargy, he
returns to his lodgings, and writes in his note-book that the Americans
seldom go to church, and when they do, go there to sleep in comfortable
pews. Then he makes a little tour of a fortnight to New Haven,
Providence, Springfield, &c., and returns to France to write a book of
travels in New England. And what are all his observations worth? I'll
tell you. They are worth just as much, and give exactly as faithful a
representation of the state of society in New England, as four fifths of
the books written by English and American travellers in France, Spain,
and Italy, do of the condition of those countries.
I have encountered many interesting studies of humanity here on the
continent in my day. I have met many people who have come abroad with a
vague conviction that travel improves one, and who do not see that to
visit Europe without some preparation is like going a-fishing without
line or bait. They appear to think that some great benefit is to be
obtained by passing over a certain space of land and water, and being
imposed upon to an unlimited extent by a horde of _commissionnaires_,
_ciceroni_, couriers, and others, who find in their ignorance and lack
of common sense a source of wealth. I met, the other day, a gentleman
from one of the Western States, who said that he was "putting up" at
Meurice's Hotel, but didn't think much of it; if it had not been for
some English people whom he fell in with on the way from Calais, he
should have gone to the Hotel de Ville, which he supposed, from the
pictures he had seen, must be a "fust class house"! I have within a few
hours seen an American, who could not ask the simplest question in
French, but thinks that he shall stop three or four weeks, and learn the
language! I have repeatedly met people who told me that they had come
out to Europe "jest to see the place." But it is not alone such
ignoramuses as these who merit the pity or contempt of the judicious and
sensible. Their folly injures no one but themselves. The same cannot be
said, however, of the authors of the numerous duodecimos of foreign
travel which burden the booksellers' counters. They have supposed that
they can sketch a nation's character by looking at its towns from the
windows of an express train. They presume to write about the social life
of France or Italy, while they are ignorant of any language but their
own, and do not know a single French or Italian family. Victims of a
bitter prejudice against those countries and their institutions, they
are prepared beforehand to be shocked and disgusted at all they see.
Like Sterne's Smelfungus, they "set out with the spleen and jaundice,
and every object they pass by is discoloured or distorted." Kenelm Digby
wisely remarks that one of the great advantages of journeying beyond
sea, to a man of sense and feeling, is the spectacle of general
travellers: "it will prevent his being ever again imposed upon by these
birds of passage, when they record their adventures and experience on
returning to the north."
Dijon is a fine old city. Every body knows that it used to be the
capital of Burgundy, but to the general reader it is more particularly
interesting as being the place to which Mrs. Dombey and Mr. Carker fled
after the elopement. There is a fine cathedral and public library, and
the whole place has an eminently Burgundian flavour which makes one
regret that he got tired so soon when he tried to read Froissart's
Chronicles. There is a church there which was desecrated during the old
revolution, and is now used as a market-house. It bears an inscription
which presents a satirical commentary on its recent history: "_Domine,
dilexi decorem domus tuae!_" The Dijon gingerbread (which the people, in
their ignorance and lack of our common school advantages, call _pain
d'epice_) would really merit a diploma from that academy of
connoisseurs, the Massachusetts House of Representatives. But Dombey and
Dijon are all forgotten in our first glimpse of the "gay capital of
bewildering France." There lay Paris, sparkling under the noonday sun.
The sight of its domes and monuments awoke all my fellow-travellers:
shabby caps and handkerchiefs were exchanged for hats and bonnets, which
gave their wearers an air of respectability perfectly uncalled for. We
were soon inside the fortifications, which have been so outgrown by the
city that one hardly notices them; and, after the usual luggage
examination, I found myself in an omnibus, and once more on the
Boulevards.
And what a good, comfortable home-feeling it was! There were the old,
familiar streets, the well-known advertisements, painted conspicuously,
in blue, and green, and gold, on what would else have been a blank,
unsightly wall, and inviting me to purchase cloths and cashmeres; there
were the same ceaseless tides of life ebbing and flowing through those
vast thoroughfares, the same glossy beavers, the same snowy caps and
aprons, the same blouses, the same polite, _s'il vous-plait, pardon,
m'sieur_, take-it-easy air, that Paris, as seen from an omnibus window,
always presents. We rolled through the Rue St. Antoine, and it was hard
to realize that it had ever been the theatre of so much appalling
history. I tried to imagine the barricades, the street ploughed up by
artillery, and that heroic martyr, Archbishop Affre, falling there, and
praying that his blood might be the last shed in that fratricidal
strife; but it was useless; the lively present made the past seem but
the mere invention of the historian. All traces of the frightful scenes
of 1848 have been effaced, and the facilities for barricades have been
disposed of in a way that must make red republicanism very disrespectful
to the memory of MacAdam. As we passed a church in that bloody locality,
a wedding party came out; the bridegroom looked as if he had taken
chloroform to enable him to get through his difficulties, and the effect
of it had not entirely passed off. The bride (for women, you know, have
greater power of endurance than men) seemed to take it more easily, and,
beaming in the midst of a sort of wilderness of lace, and gauze, and
muslin, like a lighthouse in a fog, she tripped briskly into the
carriage, with a bouquet in her hand, and happiness in her heart. Before
the bridal party got fairly out of sight, a funeral came along. The
white pall showed that it was a child who slept upon the bier; for the
Catholic church does not mourn over those who are removed from the
temptations of life before they have known them. The vehicles all gave
way to let the little procession pass, the hum seemed to cease for a
moment, every head was uncovered, even the porter held his burden on his
shoulder with one hand that he might pay his respects to that sovereign
to whom even republicans are obliged to bow, and the many-coloured hats
of the omnibus drivers were doffed. I had often before noticed those
striking contrasts that one sees in a capital like Paris; but to meet
such a one at my very entrance impressed me deeply. Such is Paris. You
think it the liveliest place in the world, (and so it is;) but suddenly
you come upon something that makes you thoughtful, if it does not sadden
you. Life and death elbow and jostle each other along these gay streets,
until it seems as if they were rivals striving to drive each other out.
I entered a church a day or two since. There was a funeral at the high
altar. The black vestments and hangings, the lighted tapers, the solemn
chant of the _De profundis_ were eloquent of death and what must follow
it. I was startled by hearing a child's cry, and looking round into the
chapel which served as a baptistery, there stood two young mothers who
had just received their infants from that purifying laver which made
them members of the great Christian family. I never before had that
beautiful thought of Chateaubriand's so forced upon me--"Religion has
rocked us in the cradle of life, and her maternal hand shall close our
eyes, while her holiest melodies soothe us to rest in the cradle of
death."
There are, without doubt, many persons, who can say that in their
pilgrimage of life they have truly "found their warmest welcome at an
inn." My experience outstrips that, for I have received one of my most
cordial greetings in a _cafe_. The establishment in question is so
eminently American, that I should feel as if I had neglected a sacred
duty, if I did not describe it, for the benefit of future sojourners in
the French capital, who are hereby requested to overhaul their
memorandum books and make a note of it. It does not boast the
magnificence and luxury of the _Cafe de Paris_, Very's, the _Trois
Freres Provencaux_, nor of Taylor's; nor does it thrust itself forward
into the publicity of the gay Boulevards, or of the thronged arcades of
the _Palais Royal_. It does not appeal to those who love the noise and
dust of fashion's highway; for them it has no welcome. But to those who
love "the cool, sequestered path of life," it offers a degree of quiet
comfort, to which the "slaves of passion, avarice, and pride," who view
themselves in the mirrors of the _Maison Doree_, are strangers. You turn
from the _Boulevard des Italiens_ into the _Rue de la Michodiere_, which
you perambulate until you come to number six, where you will stop and
take an observation. Perhaps wonder will predominate over admiration.
The front of the establishment does not exceed twelve feet in width, and
the sign over the door shows that it is a _Cremerie_. The fact is also
adumbrated symbolically by a large brass can, which is set over the
portal. In one of the windows may be observed a neatly-executed placard,
to this effect:--
_Aux Americains_
Specialite.
Pumpkin Pie.
"Enter--its vastness overwhelms thee not!" On the contrary, having
passed through the little front shop, you stand in a room ten or twelve
feet square--just the size of Washington Irving's "empire," in the Red
Horse Inn, at Stratford. This little room is furnished with two round
tables, a sideboard, and several chairs, and is decorated with numerous
crayon sketches of the knights of the aforesaid round tables. You make
the acquaintance of the excellent Madame Busque, and order your dinner,
which is served promptly and with a motherly care, which will at first
remind you of the time when your bib was carefully tied on, and you were
lifted to a seat on the family Bible, which had been placed on a chair,
to bring the juvenile mouth into proper relations with the table.
Nothing can surpass the home feeling that took possession of me when I
found myself once more in Madame Busque's little back room at No. 6,
_Rue de la Michodiere_. How cordial was that estimable lady's welcome!
She made herself as busy as a cat with one chicken, and prepared for me
a "tired nature's sweet restorer" in the shape of one of her famous
omelets. The old den had not changed in the least. Madame Busque used to
threaten occasionally to paint it, and otherwise improve and embellish
it; but we always told her that if she did any thing of that kind, or
tried to render it less dingy, or snug, or unpretending, we would never
eat another of her pumpkin pies. Not all the mirrors and magnificence of
the resorts of fashion can equal the quiet cosiness of Madame Busque's
back room. You meet all kinds of company there. The blouse is at home
there, as well as its ambitious cousin, the broadcloth coat. Law and
medicine, literature and art, pleasure and honest toil, meet there upon
equal terms. Our own aristocratic Washington never dreamed of such a
democracy as his calm portrait looks down upon in that room. Then we
have such a delightful neighbourhood there. I feel as if the charcoal
woman of the next door but one below was some relation to me--at least
an aunt; she always has a pleasant word and a smile for the frequenters
of No. 6; and then it is so disinterested on her part, for we can none
of us need any of her charcoal. I hope that no person who reads this
will be misled by it, and go to Madame Busque's _cremerie_ expecting to
find there the variety which the restaurants boast, for he will be
disappointed. But he will find every thing there of the best
description. My taste in food (as in most other matters) is a very
catholic one: I can eat beef with the English, garlic and onions with
the French, sauerkraut with the Germans, macaroni with the Italians,
pilaf with the Turks, baked beans with the Yankees, hominy with the
southerners, and oysters with any body. But as I feel age getting the
better of me day by day, I think I grow to be more and more of a
pre-Raphaelite in these things. So I crave nothing more luxurious than a
good steak or chop, with the appropriate vegetables; and these are to be
had in their perfection at Madame Busque's. My benison upon her!
The canicular weather I suffered from in the south followed me even
here. I found every body talking about the extraordinary _chaleur_.
Shade of John Rogers! how the sun has glared down upon Paris, day after
day, without winking, until air-tight stoves are refrigerators compared
to it, and even old-fashioned preaching is outdone! How the asphalte
sidewalks of the Boulevards have melted under his rays, and perfumed the
air with any thing but a Sabaean odour! The fragrance of the linden
trees was entirely overpowered. The thought of the helmets of the
cavalry was utterly intolerable. Tortoni's and the _cafes_ were crowded.
Great was the clamour for ices. Greater still was the rush to the cool
shades of the public gardens, or the environs of Bougival and Marly. At
last, the welcome rain came hissing down upon these heated roofs; and
_malheur_ to the man who ventures out during these days without his
umbrella. It has been a rain of terror. It almost spoilt the great
national _fete_ of the 15th; but the people made the best of it, and,
between the free theatrical performances at sixteen theatres, the superb
illuminations, and the fireworks, seemed to have a very merry time. I
went in the morning to that fine lofty old church, (whose Lady Chapel is
a splendid monument of Couture's artistic genius,) St. Eustache, where I
heard a new mass, by one M. L'Hote. It was well executed, and the
orchestral parts were particularly effective. After the mass, the annual
_Te Deum_ for the Emperor was sung. The effect of the latter was very
grand; indeed, when it was finished, I was just thinking that it was
impossible for music to surpass it, when the full orchestra and two
organs united in a burst of harmony that almost lifted me off my feet. I
recognized the old Gregorian anthem that is sung every Sunday in all the
churches, and when it had been played through, the trumpets took up the
air of the chant, above the rest of the accompaniment, and the clear,
alto voice of one of those scarlet-capped choir-boys rang out the words,
_Domine, salvum fac imperatorem nostrum, Napoleonem_, in a way that
seemed to make those old arches vibrate, and wonderfully quickened the
circulation in the veins of every listener. It was like the gradual
mounting and heaving up of a high sea in a storm on the Atlantic, which,
when it has reached a pitch you thought impossible, curls majestically
over, and, breaking into a creamy foam, loses itself in a transitory
vision of emerald brilliancy, that for the moment realizes the most
gorgeous and improbable fables of Eastern luxury. It made even me,
notwithstanding my prejudices in favour of republicanism, forget the
spread eagle, and my free (and easy) native land, and for several hours
I found myself singing that solemn anthem over in a most impressive
manner. _Vive l'Empereur!_