world. The prodigious enthusiasm about her, all over Europe, had, of
course, raised my expectations to the highest possible pitch. "_Have
you seen Taglioni?_" is the first question addressed to a stranger in
Paris; and you hear her name constantly over all the hum of the
_cafes_ and in the crowded resorts of fashion. The house was
overflowed. The king and his numerous family were present; and my
companion pointed out to me many of the nobility, whose names and
titles have been made familiar to our ears by the innumerable private
memoirs and autobiographies of the day. After a little introductory
piece, the king arrived, and, as soon as the cheering was over, the
curtain drew up for "_Le Dieu et la Bayadere_." This is the piece in
which Taglioni is most famous. She takes the part of a dancing girl,
of whom the Bramah and an Indian prince are both enamored; the former
in the disguise of a man of low rank at the court of the latter, in
search of some one whose love for him shall be disinterested. The
disguised god succeeds in winning her affection, and, after testing
her devotion by submitting for a while to the resentment of his rival,
and by a pretended caprice in favor of a singing girl, who accompanies
her, he marries her, and then saves her from the flames as she is
about to be burned for marrying beneath her _caste_. Taglioni's part
is all pantomime. She does not speak during the play, but her motion
is more than articulate. Her first appearance was in a troop of Indian
dancing girls, who performed before the prince in the public square.
At a signal from the vizier a side pavilion opened, and thirty or
forty bayaderes glided out together, and commenced an intricate dance.
They were received with a tremendous round of applause from the
audience; but, with the exception of a little more elegance in the
four who led the dance, they were dressed nearly alike; and as I saw
no particularly conspicuous figure, I presumed that Taglioni had not
yet appeared. The splendor of the spectacle bewildered me for the
first moment or two, but I presently found my eyes rivetted to a
childish creature floating about among the rest, and, taking her for
some beautiful young _eleve_ making her first essays in the chorus, I
interpreted her extraordinary fascination as a triumph of nature over
my unsophisticated taste; and wondered to myself whether, after all, I
should be half so much captivated with the show of skill I expected
presently to witness. _This was Taglioni!_ She came forward directly,
in a _pas seul_, and I then observed that her dress was distinguished
from that of her companions by its extreme modesty both of fashion and
ornament, and the unconstrained ease with which it adapted itself to
her shape and motion. She looks not more than fifteen. Her figure is
small, but rounded to the very last degree of perfection; not a muscle
swelled beyond the exquisite outline; not an angle, not a fault. Her
back and neck, those points so rarely beautiful in woman, are
faultlessly formed; her feet and hands are in full proportion to her
size, and the former play as freely and with as natural a yieldingness
in her fairy slippers, as if they were accustomed only to the dainty
uses of a drawing-room. Her face is most strangely interesting; not
quite beautiful, but of that half-appealing, half-retiring sweetness
that you sometimes see blended with the secluded reserve and
unconscious refinement of a young girl just "out" in a circle of high
fashion. In her greatest exertions her features retain the same timid
half smile, and she returns to the alternate by-play of her part
without the slightest change of color, or the slightest perceptible
difference in her breathing, or in the ease of her look and posture.
No language can describe her motion. She swims in your eye like a curl
of smoke, or a flake of down. Her difficulty seems to be to keep to
the floor. You have the feeling while you gaze upon her, that, if she
were to rise and float away like Ariel, you would scarce be surprised.
And yet all is done with such a childish unconsciousness of
admiration, such a total absence of exertion or fatigue, that the
delight with which she fills you is unmingled; and, assured as you are
by the perfect purity of every look and attitude, that her hitherto
spotless reputation is deserved beyond a breath of suspicion, you
leave her with as much respect as admiration; and find with surprise
that a dancing girl, who is exposed night after night to the profaning
gaze of the world, has crept into one of the most sacred niches of
your memory.
* * * * *
I have attended several of the best theatres in Paris, and find one
striking trait in all their first actors--_nature_. They do not look
like actors, and their playing is not like acting. They are men,
generally, of the most earnest, unstudied simplicity of countenance;
and when they come upon the stage, it is singularly without
affectation, and as the character they represent would appear. Unlike
most of the actors I have seen, too, they seem altogether unaware of
the presence of the audience. Nothing disturbs the fixed attention
they give to each other in the dialogue, and no private interview
between simple and sincere men could be more unconscious and natural.
I have formed consequently a high opinion of the French drama,
degenerate as it is said to be since the loss of Talma; and it is easy
to see that the root of its excellence is in the taste and judgment of
the people. _They applaud judiciously._ When Taglioni danced her
wonderful _pas seul_, for instance, the applause was general and
sufficient. It was a triumph of art, and she was applauded as an
artist. But when, as the neglected bayadere, she stole from the corner
of the cottage, and, with her indescribable grace, hovered about the
couch of the disguised Bramah, watching and fanning him while he
slept, she expressed so powerfully, by the saddened tenderness of her
manner, the devotion of a love that even neglect could not estrange,
that a murmur of delight ran through the whole house; and, when her
silent pantomime was interrupted by the waking of the god, there was
an overwhelming tumult of acclamation that came from the _hearts_ of
the audience, and as such must have been both a lesson, and the
highest compliment, to Taglioni. An actor's taste is of course very
much regulated by that of his audience. He will cultivate that for
which he is most praised. We shall never have a high-toned drama in
America, while, as at present, applause is won only by physical
exertion, and the nice touches of genius and nature pass undetected
and unfelt.
Of the French actresses, I have been most pleased with Leontine Fay.
She is not much talked of here, and perhaps, as a mere artist in her
profession, is inferior to those who are more popular; but she has
that indescribable something in her face that has interested me
through life--that strange talisman which is linked wisely to every
heart, confining its interest to some nice difference invisible to
other eyes, and, by a happy consequence, undisputed by other
admiration. She, too, has that retired sweetness of look that seems to
come only from secluded habits, and in the highly-wrought passages of
tragedy, when her fine dark eyes are filled with tears, and her tones,
which have never the out-of-doors key of the stage, are clouded and
imperfect, she seems less an actress than a refined and lovely woman,
breaking through the habitual reserve of society in some agonizing
crisis of real life. There are prints of Leontine Fay in the shops,
and I have seen them in America, but they resemble her very little.
LETTER VII.
JOACHIM LELEWEL--PALAIS ROYAL--PERE LA CHAISE--VERSAILLES, ETC.
I met, at a breakfast party, to-day, Joachim Lelewel, the celebrated
scholar and patriot of Poland. Having fallen in with a great deal of
revolutionary and emigrant society since I have been in Paris, I have
often heard his name, and looked forward to meeting him with high
pleasure and curiosity. His writings are passionately admired by his
countrymen. He was the principal of the university, idolized by that
effective part of the population, the students of Poland; and the
fearless and lofty tone of his patriotic principles is said to have
given the first and strongest momentum to the ill-fated struggle just
over. Lelewel impressed me very strongly. Unlike most of the Poles,
who are erect, athletic, and florid, he is thin, bent, and pale; and
were it not for the fire and decision of his eye, his uncertain gait
and sensitive address would convey an expression almost of timidity.
His form, features, and manners, are very like those of Percival, the
American poet, though their countenances are marked with the
respective difference of their habits of mind. Lelewel looks like a
naturally modest, shrinking man, worked up to the calm resolution of a
martyr. The strong stamp of his face is devoted enthusiasm. His eye is
excessively bright, but quiet and habitually downcast; his lips are
set firmly, but without effort, together; and his voice is almost
sepulchral, it is so low and calm. He never breaks through his
melancholy, though his refugee countrymen, except when Poland is
alluded to, have all the vivacity of French manners, and seem easily
to forget their misfortunes. He was silent, except when particularly
addressed, and had the air of a man who thought himself unobserved,
and had shrunk into his own mind. I felt that he was winning upon my
heart every moment. I never saw a man in my life whose whole air and
character were so free from self-consciousness or pretension--never
one who looked to me so capable of the calm, lofty, unconquerable
heroism of a martyr.
* * * * *
"Paris is the centre of the world," if centripetal tendency is any
proof of it. Everything struck off from the other parts of the
universe flies straight to the _Palais Royal_. You may meet in its
thronged galleries, in the course of an hour, representatives of every
creed, rank, nation, and system, under heaven. Hussein Pacha and Don
Pedro pace daily the same _pave_--the one brooding on a kingdom lost,
the other on the throne he hopes to win; the Polish general and the
proscribed Spaniard, the exiled Italian conspirator, the contemptuous
Turk, the well-dressed negro from Hayti, and the silk-robed Persian,
revolve by the hour together around the same _jet d'eau_, and costumes
of every cut and order, mustaches and beards of every degree of
ferocity and oddity, press so fast and thick upon the eye that one
forgets to be astonished. There are no such things as "lions" in
Paris. The extraordinary persons outnumber the ordinary. Every other
man you meet would keep a small town in a ferment for a month.
* * * * *
I spent yesterday at _Pere la Chaise_, and to day at _Versailles_. The
two places are in opposite environs, and of very opposite
characters--one certainly making you in love with life, the other
almost as certainly with death. One could wander for ever in the
wilderness of art at Versailles, and it must be a restless ghost that
could not content itself with _Pere la Chaise_ for its elysium.
This beautiful cemetery is built upon the broad ascent of a hill,
commanding the whole of Paris at a glance. It is a wood of small
trees, laid out in alleys, and crowded with tombs and monuments of
every possible description. You will scarce get through without being
surprised into a tear; but, if affectation and fantasticalness in such
a place do not more grieve than amuse you, you will much oftener
smile. The whole thing is a melancholy mock of life. Its distinctions
are all kept up. There are the fashionable avenues, lined with costly
chapels and monuments, with the names of the exclusive tenants in
golden letters upon the doors, iron railings set forbiddingly about
the shrubs, and the blessing-scrap writ ambitiously in Latin. The
tablets record the long family titles, and the offices and honors,
perhaps the numberless virtues of the dead. They read like chapters of
heraldry more than like epitaphs. It is a relief to get into the outer
alleys, and see how poverty and simple feeling express what should be
the same thing. It is usually some brief sentence, common enough, but
often exquisitely beautiful in this prettiest of languages, and
expressing always the _kind_ of sorrow felt by the mourner. You can
tell, for instance, by the sentiment simply, without looking at the
record below, whether the deceased was young, or much loved, or
mourned by husband, or parent, or brother, or a circle of all. I
noticed one, however, the humblest and simplest monument perhaps in
the whole cemetery, which left the story beautifully untold; it was a
slab of common marl, inscribed "_Pauvre Marie!_"--nothing more. I have
thought of it, and speculated upon it, a great deal since. What was
she? and who wrote her epitaph? _why_ was she _pauvre Marie_?
Before almost all the poorer monuments is a minature garden with a low
wooden fence, and either the initials of the dead sown in flowers, or
rose-trees, carefully cultivated, trained to hang over the stone. I
was surprised to find, in a public cemetery, in December, roses in
full bloom and valuable exotics at almost every grave. It speaks both
for the sentiment and delicate principle of the people. Few of the
more costly monuments were either interesting or pretty. One struck my
fancy--a small open chapel, large enough to contain four chairs, with
the slab facing the door, and a crucifix encircled with fresh flowers
on a simple shrine above. It is a place where the survivors in a
family might come and sit at any time, nowhere more pleasantly. From
the chapel I speak of, you may look out and see all Paris; and I can
imagine how it would lessen the feeling of desertion and forgetfulness
that makes the anticipation of death so dreadful, to be certain that
your friends would come, as they may here, and talk cheerfully and
enjoy themselves near you, so to speak. The cemetery in summer must be
one of the sweetest places in the world.
* * * * *
_Versailles_ is a royal summer chateau, about twelve miles from Paris,
with a demesne of twenty miles in circumference. Take that for the
scale, and imagine a palace completed in proportion, in all its
details of grounds, ornament, and architecture. It cost, says the
guide book, two hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and, leaving
your fancy to expend that trifle over a residence, which, remember, is
but one out of some half dozen, occupied during the year by a single
family, I commend the republican moral to your consideration, and
proceed with the more particular description of my visit.
My friend, Dr. Howe, was my companion. We drove up the grand avenue on
one of the loveliest mornings that ever surprised December with a
bright sun and a warm south wind. Before us, at the distance of a
mile, lay a vast mass of architecture, with the centre, falling back
between the two projecting wings, the whole crowning a long and
gradual ascent, of which the tri-colored flag waving against the sky
from the central turrets was the highest point. As we approached, we
noticed an occasional flash in the sun, and a stir of bright colors,
through the broad deep court between the wings, which, as we advanced
nearer, proved to be a body of about two or three thousand lancers and
troops of the line under review. The effect was indescribably fine.
The gay uniforms, the hundreds of tall lances, each with its red flag
flying in the wind, the imposing crescent of architecture in which the
array was embraced, the ringing echo of the grand military music from
the towers--and all this intoxication for the positive senses fused
with the historical atmosphere of the place, the recollection of the
king and queen, whose favorite residence it had been (the unfortunate
Louis and Marie Antoinette), or the celebrated women who had lived in
their separate palaces within its grounds, of the genius and chivalry
of Court after Court that had made it, in turn, the scene of their
brilliant follies, and, over all, Napoleon, who _must_ have rode
through its gilded gates with the thought of pride that he was its
imperial master by the royalty of his great nature alone--it was in
truth, enough, the real and the ideal, to dazzle the eyes of a simple
republican.
After gazing at the fascinating show for an hour, we took a guide and
entered the palace. We were walked through suite after suite of cold
apartments, desolately splendid with gold and marble, and crowded with
costly pictures, till I was sick and weary of magnificence. The guide
went before, saying over his rapid rigmarole of names and dates,
giving us about three minutes to a room in which there were some
twenty pictures, perhaps, of which he presumed he had told us all that
was necessary to know. I fell behind, after a while; and, as a
considerable English party had overtaken and joined us, I succeeded in
keeping one room in the rear, and enjoying the remainder in my own
way.
The little marble palace, called "_Petit Trianon_," built for Madame
Pompadour in the garden grounds, is a beautiful affair, full of what
somebody calls "affectionate-looking rooms;" and "_Grand Trianon_,"
built also on the grounds at the distance of half a mile, for Madame
Maintenon, is a very lovely spot, made more interesting by the
preference given to it over all other places by Marie Antoinette. Here
she amused herself with her Swiss village. The cottages and artificial
"mountains" (ten feet high, perhaps) are exceedingly pretty models in
miniature, and probably illustrate very fairly the ideas of a
palace-bred fancy upon natural scenery. There are glens and grottoes,
and rocky beds for brooks that run at will ("_les rivieres a
volonte_," the guide called them), and trees set out upon the crags at
most uncomfortable angles, and every contrivance to make a lovely
lawn as inconveniently like nature as possible. The Swiss families,
however, must have been very amusing. Brought fresh from their wild
country, and set down in these pretty mock cottages, with orders to
live just as they did in their own mountains, they must have been
charmingly puzzled. In the midst of the village stands an exquisite
little Corinthian temple; and our guide informed us that the cottage
which the Queen occupied at her Swiss tea-parties was furnished at an
expense of sixty thousand francs--two not very Switzer-like
circumstances.
It was in the little palace of _Trianon_ that Napoleon signed his
divorce from Josephine. The guide showed us the room, and the table on
which he wrote. I have seen nothing that brought me so near Napoleon.
There is no place in France that could have for me a greater interest.
It is a little _boudoir_, adjoining the state sleeping-room, simply
furnished, and made for familiar retirement, not for show. The single
sofa--the small round table--the enclosing, tent-like curtains--the
modest, unobtrusive elegance of ornaments, and furniture, give it
rather the look of a retreat, fashioned by the tenderness and taste of
private life, than any apartment in a royal palace. I felt unwilling
to leave it. My thoughts were too busy. What was the strongest motive
of that great man in this most affecting and disputed action of his
life?
After having been thridded through the palaces, we had a few moments
left for the grounds. They are magnificent beyond description. We know
very little of this thing in America, as an art; but it is one, I have
come to think, that, in its requisition of genius, is scarce inferior
to architecture. Certainly the three palaces of Versailles together
did not impress me so much as the single view from the upper terrace
of the gardens. It stretches clear over the horizon. You stand on a
natural eminence that commands the whole country, and the plan seems
to you like some work of the Titans. The long sweep of the avenue,
with a breadth of descent that at the first glance takes away your
breath, stretching its two lines of gigantic statues and vases to the
water level; the wide, slumbering canal at its foot, carrying on the
eye to the horizon, like a river of an even flood lying straight
through the bosom of the landscape; the side avenues almost as
extensive; the palaces in the distant grounds, and the strange union
altogether, to an American, of as much extent as the eye can reach,
cultivated equally with the trim elegance of a garden--all these,
combining together, form a spectacle which nothing but nature's
royalty of genius could design, and (to descend ungracefully from the
climax) which only the exactions of an unnatural royalty could pay
for.
* * * * *
I think the most forcible lesson one learns at Paris is the value of
time and money. I have always been told, erroneously, that it was a
place to waste both. You could do so much with another hour, if you
had it, and buy so much with another dollar, if you could afford it,
that the reflected economy upon what you _can_ command, is inevitable.
As to the worth of time, for instance, there are some twelve or
fourteen _gratuitous_ lectures every day at the _Sorbonne_, the
_School of Medicine_ and the _College of France_, by men like Cuvier,
Say, Spurzheim, and others, each, in his professed pursuit, the most
eminent perhaps in the world; and there are the Louvre, and the Royal
Library, and the Mazarin Library, and similar public institutions,
all open to gratuitous use, with obsequious attendants, warm rooms,
materials for writing, and perfect seclusion; to say nothing of the
thousand interesting but less useful resorts with which Paris abounds,
such as exhibitions of flowers, porcelains, mosaics, and curious
handiwork of every description, and (more amusing and time-killing
still) the never-ending changes of sights in the public places, from
distinguished foreigners down to miracles of educated monkeys. Life
seems most provokingly short as you look at it. Then, for money, you
are more puzzled how to spend a poor pitiful franc in Paris (it will
buy so many things you want) than you would be in America with the
outlay of a month's income. Be as idle and extravagant as you will,
your idle hours look you in the face as they pass, to know whether, in
spite of the increase of their value, you really mean to waste them;
and the money that slipped through your pocket you know not how at
home, sticks embarrassed to your fingers, from the mere multiplicity
of demands made for it. There are shops all over Paris called the
"_Vingt-cinq-sous_," where every article is fixed at that
price--_twenty five cents_! They contain everything you want, except a
wife and fire-wood--the only two things difficult to be got in France.
(The latter, with or without a pun, is much the _dearer_ of the two.)
I wonder that they are not bought out, and sent over to America on
speculation. There is scarce an article in them that would not be held
cheap with us at five times its purchase. There are bronze standishes
for ink, sand, and wafers, pearl paper-cutters, spice-lamps,
decanters, essence-bottles, sets of china, table-bells of all devices,
mantel ornaments, vases of artificial flowers, kitchen utensils,
dog-collars, canes, guard-chains, chessmen whips, hammers, brushes,
and everything that is either convenient or pretty. You might freight
a ship with them, and all good and well finished, at twenty-five cents
the set or article! You would think the man were joking, to walk
through his shop.
LETTER VIII.
DR. BOWRING--AMERICAN ARTISTS--BRUTAL AMUSEMENT, ETC.