The time between the revolt of the two days, and the 17th July, passed
in the usual manner. The court-martial had made considerable progress in
condemning men to be shot, but appeals were made to the Carlist Court of
Cassation, which finally adjudged the whole proceedings to be illegal.
In the mean time we got up the dinner for the 4th, Lafayette coming from
La Grange expressly to make one among us. As for this dinner, I have
only to say that one of its incidents went to prove how completely a
body of Americans are subject to common and inconsiderate impulses, let
the motive be right or wrong,--of how low estimate character is getting
to be among us, and to determine me never to be present at another. It
is a painful confession, but truth compels me to say, that, I believe,
for the want of a condensed class, that are accustomed to sustain each
other in a high tone of feeling and thinking, and perhaps from ignorance
of the world, no other people, above the illiterate and downright
debased, are so easily practised on and cajoled, as the great mass of
our own. I hope I have never been addicted to the vice of winning golden
opinions by a sacrifice of sentiments or principles; but this dinner has
given me a surfeit of what is called "popularity," among a people who,
while affecting to reduce everything to a standard of their own
creating, do not give themselves time or opportunity to ascertain facts,
or weigh consequences.
The weather was pleasant and warm for several weeks, about the close of
June and the commencement of July, and, although a slight shade has been
cast over our enjoyments by the re-appearance of the cholera, in a
greatly diminished degree however, I do not remember to have passed the
same period of time in Paris with so much satisfaction to myself. The
town has been empty, in the usual signification of the term, and the
world has left us entirely to ourselves. After completing the morning's
task, I have strolled in the gardens, visited the churches, loitered on
the quays, rummaged the shops of the dealers in old furniture and other
similar objects. The number of these shops is great, and their stores of
curious things incredible. It appears to me that all France has poured
her relics of the old system into the warehouses of the capital. The
plunder of the chateaux and hotels has enriched them to a degree that
must be witnessed to be understood, and to me it is matter of surprise
that some of our wealthy travellers do not transfer many of these
treasures to the other side of the Atlantic.
I usually spend an our or two with M----, in the gallery of the Louvre,
from two to four: he returns home with me to dinner; and at seven,
which, at this season in this latitude, is still broad day, we issue
forth for a promenade. Paris, I have often told you, is a picturesque
town, and offers endless sources of satisfaction, beyond its living
throngs, its society, its theatres, and its boulevards. The public
displays at the Academy, and its meetings of science, taste, and
philanthropy are little to my taste, being too artificial and affected,
and I have found most enjoyment in parts of this little world that I
believe travellers usually overlook.
The churches of Paris want the odour, the genial and ecclesiastical
atmosphere and the devout superstition that rendered those of Italy so
strikingly soothing and pleasant; but they are huge piles, and can
always be visited with pleasure. Notre Dame de Paris is a noble
monument, and now that the place of the archbishop is destroyed, one is
likely to get better views of it, than is apt to be the case with these
venerable edifices. A few evenings since M----, and myself ascended the
towers, and seating ourselves on the leads, looked down, for near an
hour, on the extraordinary picture beneath. The maze of roofs,
out-topped, here and there, by black lacquered-looking towers, domes,
pavilions of palaces, and, as is the case with the Tuileries and Louvre,
literally by a mile of continuous structures; the fissures of streets,
resembling gaping crevices in rocks; the river meandering through the
centre of all, and spanned by bridges thronged by mites of men and pigmy
carriages; the crowds of images of the past; the historical eminences
that surround the valley of the capital; the knowledge of its interior;
our acquaintance with the past and the present, together with
conjectures for the future, contributed to render this a most impressive
evening. The distant landscape was lost, and even quarters of the town
itself were getting to be obscure before we descended, helping
singularly to increase the effect produced by our speculations on those
ages in which Paris had been the scene of so many momentous events.
We have also wandered among the other relics of antiquity, for the
present structure of Notre Dame is said to have already stood seven
centuries. The Place Royale is one of the most singular quarters of the
town, and although often visited before, we have again examined it, for
we are beginning to regard objects with the interest that one is apt to
feel on leaving a favourite spot, perhaps for ever. This square, unique
in its kind, occupies the site of the ancient residences of the kings of
France, who abandoned it in consequence of the death of Henri II, in a
tournament. Henri IV caused the present area to be enclosed by hotels,
which are all of brick, a novelty in Paris, and built in the style of
his reign. Fashion has, however, been stronger than the royal will; and
noble ranges of rooms are to be hired here at a fourth of the prices
that are paid for small and crowded apartments near the Tuileries. The
celebrated arsenal, where Sully so often received his royal master, is
near this place, and the Bastile stood at no great distance. In short,
the world has moved, within the last two centuries, directly across the
town.
I can never tire of speaking of the bridges of Paris. By day and by
night have I paused on them to gaze at their views; the word not being
too comprehensive for the crowds and groupings of objects that are
visible from their arches. They are less stupendous and magnificent, as
public works, than the bridges of London, Florence, Dresden, Bordeaux,
and many other European towns, the stream they have to span being
inconsiderable; but their number, the variety of their models, even the
very quaintness of some among them, render them, as a whole, I think,
more interesting than any others that I know. The Pont de Jena is as
near perfection in all respects, perhaps, as a bridge well can be. I
greatly prefer it to the celebrated Ponte della Trinità, at Florence.
Some enormous statues are about to be placed on the Pont Louis XVI,
which, if they do not escape criticism, will, at least, I think, help
the picturesque.
I have now known Paris a sufficient time to watch, with interest, the
progress of the public works. The arch at the Barrière de Neuilly has,
within my observation, risen several feet, and approaches its
completion. The wing, a counterpart of the gallery, that is to enclose
the Carrousel, and finally to convert the Louvre and the Tuileries into
a single edifice, has advanced a long distance, and preparations are
making to clear the area of the few buildings that still remain. When
this design shall be executed, the Palace of the Kings of France will
contain considerably more than a mile of continuous buildings, which
will be erected around a large vacant area. The single room of the
picture-gallery is of itself a quarter of a mile in length!
During the heat of the late finance discussion, all sorts of unpleasant
things were said of America, for the money-power acts here as it does
everywhere else, proving too strong even for French _bon ton_, and,
failing of facts and logic, some of the government writers had recourse
to the old weapon of the trader, abuse and vituperation. Among other
bold assertions, one of them affirmed, with a view to disparage the
vaunted enterprise of the Americans, that while they attempted so much
in the way of public works, nothing was ever finished. He cited the
Capitol, a building commenced in 1800, and which had been once destroyed
by fire in the interval, as an example.
As one of the controversionalists, on this occasion, I certainly had no
disposition to debase my mind, or to descend from the level of a
gentleman who was compelled to bow before no political master, in order
to retort in kind; but as is apt to be the case under provocations of
this sort, the charge induced me to look about, in order to see what
advantages the subjects of a monarchy possess over us in this
particular. The result has made several of my French friends laugh, and
acknowledge that they who "live in glass houses should not throw
stones."
The new palace of the Louvre was erected more than two centuries since.
It is a magnificent pile, surrounding a court of more than a quarter of
a mile in circumference, possessing many good statues, fine bas-reliefs,
and a noble colonnade. In some respects, it is one of the finest palaces
in Europe. The interior is, however, unfinished, though in the course of
slow embellishment. Now a principal and very conspicuous window, in the
pavilion that caps the entrance to the Carrousel, is unglazed, the
weather being actually excluded by the use of _coarse unplaned boards_,
precisely in the manner in which one is apt to see a shingle palace
embellished at home. One hundred francs would conceal this deformity.
The palace of the Tuileries was built by Catherine di Medici, who was
dead before the present United States were first peopled. It is a
lantern-like, tasteless edifice, composed of different pavilions,
connected by _corps de bâtimens_ of different sizes, but of pretty
uniform ugliness. The stone of this vicinity is so easily wrought, that
it is usual to set it up, in blocks, and to work out the capitals and
other ornaments in the wall. On a principal portion of this palace,
_these unwrought blocks still remain_, just enough being finished to
tell the observer that the design has never been completed. I shall not
go beyond the palaces to make out our case, though all Europe abounds
with these discrepancies in taste, and with similar neglect. As a rule,
I believe we more uniformly push through our public undertakings than
any other people, though they are not always executed with the same
taste, on the same scale, or as permanently, perhaps, as the public
works that are undertaken here. When they yield profit, however, we need
turn our backs on no nation.
It is a curious commentary on the change in the times, that
Louis-Philippe has dared to do that which Napoleon, with all his power,
did not deem it expedient to undertake, though it is known that he
chafed under the inconvenience, which it was desirable to both to be rid
of. Until quite lately, the public could approach as near the palace
windows, as one usually gets to those of any considerable dwelling that
stands on a common street. The Emperor complained that he could not look
out of a window, into his own gardens, without attracting a crowd: under
this evil, however, he reigned, as consul and emperor, fourteen years,
for there was no obvious way of remedying it, but by taking possession
of a part of that garden, which so long had been thrown open to the
public, that it now considered it as its own. Sustained by the
congregated wealth of France, and secretly by those nations with whom
his predecessor had to contend, Louis-Philippe has boldly broken ground,
by forming two little gardens beneath the palace windows, which he has
separated from the public promenade by ditches and low railings, but
which serves effectually to take possession, to keep the tiger at a
distance, and to open the way for farther improvement. In the end there
will probably be a wing of the palace thrown forward into the garden,
unless, indeed, the whole of the present structure should be destroyed,
to make place for one more convenient and of purer architecture.
Paris enjoys a high reputation for the style of its public edifices,
and, while there is a very great deal to condemn, compared with other
capitals, I think it is entitled to a distinguished place in this
particular. The church of the Magdalen (Napoleon's Temple de la Gloire,
on which the names of distinguished Frenchmen were to be embossed in
letters of bronze), is one of the finest modern edifices of Europe. It
is steadily advancing to completion, having been raised from beneath the
cornices during my visit. It is now roofed, and they are chiseling the
bas-reliefs on the pediment. The Gardes-Meubles, two buildings, which
line one entire side of the Place Louis Seize, or de la Concorde, as it
is now termed, and which are separated by the Rue Royale, are among the
best structures of the town. Some of their ornaments are a little
meretricious, but the prevalent French features of their architecture
are more happy than common. Only one of these edifices belongs to the
public, and is now the hotel of the Admiralty, the other having been
erected for symmetry, though occupied as private dwellings, and actually
private property. The Bourse, or Exchange, is another modern building
that has an admirable general effect.
Of the private hotels and private gardens of Paris, a stranger can
scarcely give a just account. Although it is now six years since I have
been acquainted with the place, they occasion surprise daily, by their
number, beauty, and magnificence. Relatively, Rome, and Florence, and
Venice, and Genoa, may surpass it, in the richness and vastness of some
of their private residences; but, Rome excepted, none of them enjoy such
gardens, nor does Rome even, in absolute connection with the town abodes
of her nobles. The Roman villas[15] are almost always detached from the
palaces, and half of them are without the walls, as I have already
described to you. The private gardens of Paris certainly cannot compare
with these villas, nor, indeed, can those which belong to the public;
but then there is a luxury, and a quiet, and a beauty, about the five or
six acres that are so often enclosed and planted in the rear of the
hotels here, that I do not think any other Christian city can show in
equal affluence. The mode of living, which places the house between
court and garden, as it is termed here, is justly esteemed the
perfection of a town residence; for while it offers security, by means
of the gate, and withdraws the building from the street--a desideratum
with all above the vulgar--it gives space and room for exercise and
beauty, by means of the verdure, shrubbery, trees, and walks. It is no
unusual thing for the French to take their repasts, in summer, within
the retirement of their gardens, and this in the heart of one of the
most populous and crowded towns of Europe. The miserable and minute
subdivisions of our own towns preclude the possibility of our ever
enjoying a luxury as great, and yet as reasonable as this; and if, by
chance, some lucky individual should find the means to embellish his own
abode and his neighbourhood, in this way, some speculation, half a
league off, would compel him to admit an avenue through his laurels and
roses, in order to fill the pockets of a club of projectors. In America,
everybody sympathises with him who makes money, for it is a common
pursuit, and touches a chord that vibrates through the whole community;
but few, indeed, are they who can enter into the pleasures of him who
would spend it elegantly, rationally, and with good taste. If this were
the result of simplicity, it would, at least, be respectable; but every
one knows that the passion at home is for display--finery, at the
expense of comfort and fitness, being a prevalent evil.
[Footnote 15: This word has a very different signification in Italian,
from that which we have given it, in English. It means a _garden_ in the
country; the _house_ not being necessarily any part of it, although
there is usually a _casino_ or pavilion.]
The private hotels are even more numerous than the private gardens, land
not always having been attainable. Of course these buildings vary in
size and magnificence, according to the rank and fortune of those who
caused them to be constructed, but the very smallest are usually of
greater dimensions than our largest town-houses, and infinitely better
disposed; though we have a finish in many of the minor articles, such as
the hinges, locks, and the wood-work in general, and latterly, in
marbles, that is somewhat uncommon, even in the best houses of France;
when the question, however, is of magnificence, we can lay no claim to
it, for want of arrangement, magnitude, and space.
Many American travellers will render you a different account of these
things, but few of our people stay long enough to get accurate notions
of what they see, and fewer still have free access to the sort of
dwellings of which I now speak.
These hotels bear the names of their several owners. In the instances of
the high nobility, it was usual to build a smaller hotel, near the
principal structure, which was inhabited by the inferior branches of the
family, and sometimes by favoured dependants (for the French, unlike
ourselves, are fond of maintaining the domestic relations to the last,
several generations frequently dwelling under the same roof), and which
it is the fashion to call the _petit hôtel_.
Our first apartments were in one of these _petits hôtels_, which had
once belonged to the family of Montmorency.[16] The great hotel, which
joined it, was inhabited, and I believe owned, by an American, who had
reversed the usual order of things by coming to Europe to seek his
fortune. Our next abode was the Hôtel Jumilliac, in a small garden of a
remote part of the Faubourg St. Germain. This was a hotel of the smaller
size, and our apartments were chiefly on the second floor, or in what is
called the third story in America, where we had six rooms besides the
offices. Our saloon, dining-room, &c. had formerly been the bed-chamber,
dressing-room, and ante-chamber of Madame la Marquise, and gave one a
very respectful opinion of the state of a woman of quality, of a
secondary class, though I believe that this family too was highly
allied. From the Rue St. Maur, we went into a small country-house on the
bank of the Seine, about a league from the gates of Paris, which, a
century since, was inhabited by a Prince de Soubise, as _grand veneur_
of Louis XV, who used to go there occasionally, and eat his dinner, in
a very good apartment, that served us for a drawing-room. Here we were
well lodged, having some two or three-and-twenty well-furnished rooms,
offices included. From this place we went into the Rue des
Champs-Elysées, where we had a few rooms in a hotel of some size. Oddly
enough, our predecessor in a portion of these rooms was the Prince
Polignac, and our successor Marshal Marmont, two men who are now
proscribed in France. We have been in one or two apartments in nameless
edifices since our return from Germany, and we are now in a small hotel
in the Rue St. Dominique, where in some respects we are better lodged
than ever, though compelled to occupy three floors. Here the salon is
near thirty feet in length, and seventeen high. It is panelled in wood,
and above all the doors, of which, real and false, there are six, are
allegories painted on canvass, and enclosed in wrought gilded frames.
Four large mirrors are fixtures, and the windows are vast and descend to
the floor. The dining-room, which opens on a garden, is of the same
size, but even loftier. This hotel formerly had much interior gilding,
but it has chiefly been painted over. It was built by the physician of
the Duc d'Orléans, who married Madame de Montesson, and from this fact
you may form some idea of the style maintained by the nobles of the
period; a physician, at that
time,
being but a very inferior personage in Europe.
[Footnote 16: This ancient family still exists, though much shorn of its
splendour, by the alienation of its estates, in consequence of the
marriage of Charlotte de Montmorency, heiress of the eldest line, with a
Prince of Condé, two centuries since. By this union, the estates and
chateaux of Chantilly, Ecouen, etc., ancient possessions of the house,
passed into a junior branch of the royal family. In this manner Enghien,
a _seigneurie_ of the Montmorencies, came to be the title of a prince of
the blood, in the person of the unfortunate descendant of Charlotte of
that name. At the present time, besides the Duc de Montmorency, the Duc
de Laval-Montmorency, the Duc de Luxembourg, the Prince de Bauffremont,
the Prince de Tancarville, and one or two more, are members of this
family, and most of them are, or were before the late revolution, peers
of France. The writer knew, at Paris, a Colonel de Montmorency, an
Irishman by birth, who claimed to be the head of this celebrated family,
as a descendant of a cadet who followed the Conqueror into England.
There are two Irish peers, who have also pretensions of the same sort,
though the French branches of the family look coolly on the claim. The
title of "First Christian Baron," is not derived from antiquity, ancient
as the house unquestionably is, but from the circumstance that the
barony of Montmorency, from its local position, in sight of Paris, aided
by the great power of the family, rendered the barons the first in
importance to their sovereign. The family of Talleyrand-Perigord is so
ancient, that, in the middle ages, when a King demanded of its head,
"Who made you Count de Perigord?" he was asked, by way of reply, "Who
made you King of France?"--God! I think I should have hesitated on the
score of taste about establishing myself in a house of the
Montmorencies, but Jonathan has usually no such scruples. Our own
residence was but temporary, the hotel being public.]
In describing these residences, which have necessarily been suited to
very moderate means, I have thought you might form some idea of the
greater habitations. First and last, I may have been in a hundred, and,
while the Italian towns do certainly possess a few private dwellings of
greater size and magnificence, I believe Paris contains, in proportion,
more noble abodes than any other place in Europe. London, in this
particular, will not compare with it. I have been in some of the best
houses in the British capital, but very few of them rise to the level of
these hotels in magnificence and state, though nearly all surpass them
in comfort. I was at a ball given by the Count ----, when thirteen rooms
_en suite_ were opened. The Duke of Devonshire can hardly exceed this.
Prince Borghese used, on great occasions, to open twenty, if I remember
right, at Florence, one of which was as large as six or eight of our
ordinary drawing-rooms. Although, as a whole, nothing can be more
inconvenient or irrational than an ordinary town-house in New York, even
we excel the inhabitants of these stately abodes, in many of the minor
points of domestic economy, particularly in the offices, and in the
sleeping-rooms of the second class.
Your question, as to the comparative expense of living at home and of
living in Europe, is too comprehensive to be easily answered, for the
prices vary so materially, that it is difficult to make intelligent
comparisons. As between Paris and New York, so long as one keeps within
the usual limits of American life, or is disposed to dispense with a
multitude of little elegancies, the advantage is essentially with the
latter. While no money will lodge a family in anything like style, or
with suites of rooms, ante-chambers, &c. in New York, for the simple
reason, that buildings which possess these elegancies, or indeed with
fine apartments at all, have never yet been erected in the country; a
family can be better lodged in a genteel part of the town for less
money, than it can be lodged, with equal room and equal comforts, in a
genteel quarter of Paris; always excepting the inferior distribution of
the rooms, and other little advantages, such as the convenience of a
porter, &c. all of which are in favour of the latter place.[17] Food of
all kinds is much the cheapest with us, bread alone excepted. Wines can
be had, as a whole, better and cheaper in New York, if obtained from the
wine-merchant, than in any European town we have yet inhabited. Even
French wines can be had as cheap as they can be bought here, for the
entrance-duty into the country is actually much less than the charges at
the gates of Paris. The transportation from Bordeaux or Champagne, or
Burgundy, is not, as a whole, essentially less than that to New York, if
indeed it be any less. All the minor articles of table luxuries, unless
they happen to be of French growth, or French fabrications, are
immeasurably cheaper in America than here. Clothes are nominally much
cheaper here than with us; but neither the French nor the English use
habitually as good clothes as we; nor are the clothes generally as well
made. You are not, however, to suppose from this that the Americans are
a well-dressed people; on the contrary, we are greatly behind the
English in this particular, nor are our men, usually, as well attired as
those of Paris. This is a consequence of a want of servants, negligent
habits, greediness of gain, which monopolizes so much of our time as to
leave little for relaxation, and the high prices of articles, which
prevent our making as frequent calls on the tailor, as is the practice
here. My clothes have cost me more in Europe, however, than they did at
home, for I am compelled to have a greater variety, and to change them
oftener.
[Footnote 17: In New York, the writer has a house with two
drawing-rooms, a dining-room, eight bed-rooms, dressing-rooms, four good
servants' rooms, with excellent cellars, cisterns, wells, baths,
water-closets, etc. for the same money that he had an apartment in
Paris, of one drawing-room, a cabinet, four small and inferior
bed-rooms, dining-room, and ante-chamber; the kitchens, offices,
cellars, etc. being altogether in favour of the New York residence. In
Paris, water was bought in addition, and a tax of forty dollars a year
was paid for inhabiting an apartment or a certain amount of rent; a tax
that was quite independent of the taxes on the house, doors, and
windows, which in both cases were paid by the landlord.]
Our women do not know what high dress is, and consequently they escape
many demands on the purse, to which those of Paris are compelled to
submit. It would not do, moreover, for a French belle to appear every
other night for a whole season in the same robe, and that too looking
bedraggled, and as jaded as its pretty wearer. Silks and the commoner
articles of female attire are perhaps as cheap in our own shops, as in
those of Paris: but when it comes to the multitude of little elegances
that ornament the person, the salon, or the boudoir, in this country,
they are either wholly unknown in America, or are only to be obtained by
paying treble and quadruple the prices at which they may be had here. We
absolutely want the caste of shopkeepers as it exists in Europe. By
shopkeepers, I mean that humble class of traders who are content with
moderate profits, looking forward to little more than a respectable
livelihood, and the means of placing their children in situations as
comfortable as their own. This is a consequence of the upward tendency
of things in a young and vigorous community, in which society has no
artificial restrictions, or as few as will at all comport with
civilization, and the buoyancy of hope that is its concomitant. The want
of the class, notwithstanding, deprives the Americans of many elegancies
and some comforts, which would be offered to them at as low rates as
they are sold in the countries in which they are made, were it not for
the principle of speculative value, which enters into nearly all of our
transactions. In Paris the man or woman who sells a duchess an elegant
bauble, is half the time content to eat his humble dinner in a small
room adjoining his shop, to sleep in an _entresol_ over it, and to limit
his profits by his wants. The pressure of society reduces him to this
level. With us the thing is reversed, and the consumer is highly taxed,
as a necessary result. As we become more familiar with the habits of
European life, the demand will gradually reduce the value of these minor
articles, and we shall obtain them at the same relative prices, as
ordinary silks and shawls are now to be had. At present it must be
confessed that our shops make but indifferent figures compared with
those of London and Paris. I question if the best of them would pass for
more than fourth-rate in London, or for more than third-rate here;
though the silk-mercers at home might possibly be an exception to the
rule.
The amount of all my experience, on this point, is to convince me, that
so long as one is willing to be satisfied with the habits of American
life, which include a great abundance, many comforts, and even some few
elegancies, that are not known here, such as the general use of carpets,
and that of many foreign articles which are excluded from the European
markets by the different protective systems, but which, also, do not
know a great many embellishments of living that are common all over
Europe, he can get along with a good deal less money in New York, than
in Paris; certainly, with less, if he mix much with the world.
EXCURSION UP THE RHINE, &c.