with their triple locks, which were designed to close the tomb. These
rich portals are not suspended on hinges, but rest against a wall of
solid masonry, over which the above inscription is seen. The imperial
vault thus chosen by the living despot as the sanctuary for bones
which it was our fortune to dispose of elsewhere is greatly
distinguished by its situation, being exactly under the high altar,
and in the centre of the crypts, which follow the beautiful curve of
the Lady Chapel above. It now contains the bodies of Louis Dix-huit
and the Duc de Berri, and is completely bricked up.
In another vault, at one end of the circular crypts, and perfectly
excluded from the light of day, but made visible by a single feeble
lamp, are two coffins enclosing the remains of the two last defunct
princes of the blood royal; but I forget their names. When I inquired
of our conductor why these two coffins were thus exposed to view, he
replied, with the air of a person giving information respecting what
was as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, "C'est
toujours ainsi;" adding, "When another royal corpse is interred, the
one of these two which was the first deposited will be removed, to be
placed beneath its monument; but two must ever remain thus."
"Always" and "ever" are words which can seldom be used discreetly
without some reservation; but respecting anything connected with the
political state of France, I should think they had better never be
used at all.
We returned to the carriages and pursued our pretty drive. The latter
part of the route is very beautiful, and we all walked up one long
steep hill, as much, or more perhaps, to enjoy the glorious view, and
the fresh delicious air, as to assist the horses.
Arrived at the famous _Cheval Blanc_ at Montmorency, (a sign painted,
as the tradition says, by no less a hand than that of Gérard, who, in
a youthful pilgrimage with his friend Isabey to this region
consecrated to romance, found himself with no other means of defraying
their bill than by painting a sign for his host,) we quitted our
wearied and wearisome citadines, and began to seek, amidst the
multitude of horses and donkeys which stood saddled and bridled around
the door of the inn, for twenty well-conditioned beasts, besides a
sumpter-mule or two, to carry us and our provender to the forest.
And, oh! the tumult and the din that accompanied this selection!
Multitudes of old women and ragamuffin boys assailed us on all
sides.--"Tenez, madame; voilà mon âne! y a-t-il une autre bête comme
la mienne?..." "Non, non, non, belles dames! Ne le croyez pas; c'est
la mienne qu'il vous faut..." "Et vous, monsieur--c'est un cheval qui
vous manque, n'est-ce pas? en voilà un superbe...."
The multitude of hoarse old voices, and shrill young ones, joined to
our own noisy mirth, produced a din that brought out half the
population of Montmorency to stare at us: but at length we were
mounted--and, what was of infinitely more consequence, and infinitely
more difficulty also, our hampers and baskets were mounted too.
But before we could think of the greenwood tree, and the gay repast
to be spread under it, we had a pilgrimage to make to the shrine which
has given the region all its fame. Hitherto we had thought only of its
beauty,--who does not know the lovely scenery of Montmorency?--even
without the name of Rousseau to give a fanciful interest to every path
around it, there is enough in its hills and dales, its forest and its
fields, to cheer the spirits and enchant the eye.
A day stolen from the dissipation, the dust, and the noise of a great
city, is always delightful; but when it is enjoyed in the very fullest
green perfection of the last days of May, when every new-born leaf and
blossom is fully expanded to the delicious breeze, and not one yet
fallen before it, the enjoyment is perfect. It is like seeing a new
piece while the dresses and decorations are all fresh; and never can
the mind be in a state to taste with less of pain, and more of
pleasure, the thoughts suggested by such a scene as _the Hermitage_. I
have, however, no intention of indulging myself in a burst of tender
feeling over the melancholy memory of Rousseau, or of enthusiastic
gratitude at the recollection of Grétry, though both are strongly
brought before the mind's eye by the various memorials of each so
carefully treasured in the little parlour in which they passed so many
hours: yet it is impossible to look at the little rude table on which
the first and greatest of these gifted men scribbled the "Héloïse,"
or on the broken and untuneable keys of the spinette with which the
eloquent visionary so often soothed his sadness and solitude, without
some feeling tant soit peu approaching to the sentimental.
Before the window of this small gloomy room, which opens upon the
garden, is a rose-tree planted by the hand of Rousseau, which has
furnished, as they told us, cuttings enough to produce a forest of
roses. The house is as dark and dull as may be; but the garden is
pretty, and there is something of fanciful in its arrangement which
makes me think it must be as he left it.
The records of Grétry would have produced more effect if seen
elsewhere,--at least I thought so;--yet the sweet notes of "O Richard!
O mon roi!" seemed to be sounding in my ears, too, as I looked at his
old spectacles, and several other little domestic relics that were
inscribed with his name. But the "Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire" are
worth all the notes that Grétry ever wrote.
A marble column stands in a shady corner of the garden, bearing an
inscription which states that her highness the Duchesse de Berri had
visited the Hermitage, and taken "le coeur de Grétry" under her
august protection, which had been unjustly claimed by the Liégeois
from his native France. What this means, or where her highness found
the great composer's heart, I could not learn.
We took the objects of our expedition in most judicious order, fasting
and fatigue being decidedly favourable to melancholy; but, even with
these aids, I cannot say that I discovered much propensity to the
tender vein in the generality of our party. Sentiment is so completely
out of fashion, that it would require a bold spirit to confess before
twenty gay souls that you felt any touch of it. There was one young
Italian, however, of the party whom I missed from the time we entered
the precincts of the Hermitage; nor did I see him till some time after
we were all mounted again, and in full chase for the well-known
chesnut-trees which have thrown their shadow over so many al-fresco
repasts. When he again joined us, he had a rose in his button-hole: I
felt quite certain that it was plucked from the tree the sad
philosopher had planted, and that he, at least, had done homage to his
shade, whoever else had failed to do so.
Whatever was felt at the Hermitage, however, was now left behind us,
and a less larmoyante party never entered the Forest of Montmorency.
When we reached the spot on which we had fixed by anticipation for our
salle-à-manger, we descended from our various _montures_, which were
immediately unsaddled and permitted to refresh themselves, tied
together in very picturesque groups, while all the party set to work
with that indescribable air of contented confusion and happy disorder
which can only be found at a pic-nic. I have heard a great many very
sensible remarks, and some of them really very hard to answer, upon
the extreme absurdity of leaving every accommodation which is
considered needful for the comfort of a Christian-like dinner, for the
sole purpose of devouring this needful repast without one of them.
What can be said in defence of such an act?... Nothing,--except
perhaps that, for some unaccountable reason or other, no dinner
throughout the year, however sumptuously served or delicately
furnished, ever does appear to produce one half so much light-hearted
enjoyment as the cold repast round which the guests crouch like so
many gipsies, with the turf for their table and a tree for their
canopy. It is very strange--but it is very true; and as long as men
and women continue to experience this singular accession of good
spirits and good humour from circumstances which might be reasonably
expected to destroy both, nothing better can be done than to let them
go on performing the same extraordinary feat as long as the fancy
lasts.
And so we sat upon the grass, caring little for what the wise might
say of us, for an hour and a half at the very least. Our attendant
old women and boys, seated at convenient distance, were eating as
heartily and laughing as merrily as ourselves; whilst our beasts, seen
through the openings of the thicket in which they were stabled, and
their whimsical housings piled up together at the foot of an old thorn
at its entrance, completed the composition of our gipsy festival.
At length the signal was given to rise, and the obedient troop were on
their feet in an instant. The horses and the asses were saddled
forthwith: each one seized his and her own and mounted. A council was
then called as to whither we should go. Sundry forest paths stretched
away so invitingly in different directions, that it was difficult to
decide which we should prefer. "Let us all meet two hours hence at the
Cheval Blanc," said some one of brighter wit than all the rest:
whereupon we all set off, fancy-led, by twos and by threes, to put
this interval of freedom and fresh air to the best account possible.
I was strongly tempted to set off directly for Eaubonne. Though I
confess that Jean-Jacques' descriptions (tant vantées!) of some of the
scenes which occurred there between himself and his good friend Madame
d'Houdetot, in which she rewards his tender passion by constant
assurances of her own tender passion for Saint-Lambert, have always
appeared to me the very reverse of the sublime and beautiful; yet
still the place must be redolent of the man whose "Rêveries" have made
its whole region classic ground: and go where I will, I always love to
bring the genius of the place as near to me as possible. But my wishes
were effectually checked by the old lady whose donkey carried me.
"Oh! dame--il ne faut pas aller par là ... ce n'est pas là le beau
point de vue; laissez-moi faire ... et vous verrez...."
And then she enumerated so many charming points of forest scenery that
ought to be visited by "tout le monde," that I and my companions
decided it would be our best course to permit the _laisser faire_ she
asked for; and accordingly we set off in the direction she chose. We
had no cause to regret it, for she knew her business well, and, in
truth, led us as beautiful a circuit as it was well possible to
imagine. If I did not invoke Rousseau in his bosquet d'Eaubonne, or
beside the "cascade dont," as he says, "je lui avais donné _l'idée_,
et qu'elle avait fait _exécuter_,"--(Rousseau had never seen Niagara,
or he would not have talked of his Sophie's having executed his idea
of a cascade;)--though we did not seek him there, we certainly met
him, at every step of our beautiful forest path, in the flowers and
mosses whose study formed his best recreation at Montmorency.
"Herboriser" is a word which, I think, with all possible respect for
that modern strength of intellect that has fixed its stigma upon
_sentiment_, Rousseau has in some sort consecrated. There is something
so natural, so genuine, so delightfully true, in his expressions, when
he describes the pleasure this occupation has given him, contrasted as
it is with his sour and querulous philosophy, and still more perhaps
with the eloquent but unrighteous bursts of ill-directed passion, that
its impression on my mind is incomparably greater than any he has
produced by other topics.
"Brillantes fleurs, émail des prés!" ... is an exclamation a thousand
times more touching, coming from the poor solitary J.J. at
sixty-five, than any of the most passionate exclamations which he
makes St. Preux utter; and for this reason the woods of Montmorency
are more interesting from their connexion with him than any spot the
neighbourhood of Vévay could offer.
The view from the Rendezvous de Chasse is glorious. While pausing to
enjoy it, our old woman began talking politics to us. She told us that
she had lost two sons, who both died fighting beside "_notre grand
Empereur_," who was certainly "le plus grand homme de la terre;
cependant, it was a great comfort for poor people to have bread for
onze sous--and that was what King Louis-Philippe had done for them."
After our halt, we turned our heads again towards the town, and were
peacefully pursuing our deliciously cool ride under the trees, when a
holla! from behind stopped us. It proceeded from one of the boys of
our cortége, who, mounted upon a horse that one of the party had used,
was galloping and hollaing after us with all his might. The
information he brought was extremely disagreeable: one of the
gentlemen had been thrown from his horse and taken up for dead; and he
had been sent, as he said, to collect the party together, to know what
was to be done. The gentleman who was with our detachment immediately
accompanied the boy to the spot; but as the unfortunate sufferer was
quite a stranger to me, and was already surrounded by many of the
party, I and my companion decided upon returning to Montmorency, there
to await at Le Cheval Blanc the appearance of the rest. A medical man,
we found, had been already sent for. When at length the whole party,
with the exception of this unfortunate young man and a friend who
remained with him, were assembled, we found, upon comparing notes
together, that no less than four of our party had been unhorsed or
undonkeyed in the course of the day; but happily three of these were
accidents followed by no alarming results. The fourth was much more
serious; but the report from the Montmorency surgeon, which we
received before we left the town, assured us that no ultimate danger
was to be apprehended.
One circumstance attending this disagreeable contre-tems was very
fortunate. The accident took place at the gates of a chateau, the
owners of which, though only returned a few hours before from a tour
in Italy, received the sufferer and his friend with the greatest
kindness and hospitality. Thus, though only eighteen of us returned to
Paris to recount the day's adventures, we had at least the consolation
of having a very interesting, and luckily not fatal, episode to
narrate, in which a castle and most courteous knights and dames bore a
part, while the wounded cavalier on whom their generous cares were
bestowed had not only given signs of life, but had been pronounced, to
the great joy of all the company, quite out of danger either of life
or limb.
So ended our day at Montmorency, which, spite of our manifold
disasters, was declared upon the whole to have been one of very great
enjoyment.
LETTER LXIII.
George Sand.
I have more than once mentioned to you my observations on the
reception given in Paris to that terrible school of composition which
derives its power from displaying, with strength that exaggerates the
vices of our nature, all that is worst and vilest in the human heart.
I have repeatedly dwelt upon the subject, because it is one which I
have so often heard treated unfairly, or at least ignorantly, in
England; and a love of truth and justice has therefore led me to
assure you, with reiterated protestations, that neither these
mischief-doing works nor their authors meet at all a better reception
in Paris than they would in London.
It is this same love of truth and justice which prompts me to separate
from the pack one whom nature never intended should belong to it. The
lady who writes under the signature of George Sand cannot be set aside
by the sternest guardian of public morals without a sigh. With
great--perhaps, at the present moment, with unequalled power of
writing, Madame de D---- perpetually gives indications of a heart and
mind which seem to prove that it was intended her place should be in a
very different set from that with which she has chosen to mingle.
It is impossible that she should write as she has done without
possessing some of the finest qualities of human nature; but she is
and has been tossed about in that whirlpool of unsettled principles,
deformed taste and exaggerated feeling, in which the distempered
spirits of the day delight to bathe and disport themselves, and she
has been stained and bruised therein. Yet she has nothing in common
with their depraved feelings and distorted strength; and there is so
much of the divine spirit of real genius within her, that it seems as
if she could not sink in the vortex that has engulfed her companions.
She floats and rises still; and would she make one bold effort to free
herself from this slough, she might yet become one of the brightest
ornaments of the age.
Not her own country only, but all the world have claims on her; for
genius is of no nation, but speaks in a language that can be heard and
understood by all. And is it possible that such a mind as hers can be
insensible to the glory of enchanting the best and purest spirits in
the world?... Can she prefer the paltry plaudits of the obscure herd
who scorn at decency, to the universal hymn of love and praise which
she must hear rising from the whole earth to do honour to the holy
muse of Walter Scott?
The powers of this lady are of so high an order as in fact to withdraw
her totally, though seemingly against her will, from all literary
companionship or competition with the multitude of little authors
whose moral theories appear of the same colour as her own; and in the
tribute of admiration which justice compels me to pay her, my memory
dwells only on such passages as none but herself could write, and
which happily all the world may read.
It is sad, indeed, to be forced to read almost by stealth volumes
which contain such passages, and to turn in silence from the lecture
with one's heart glowing with admiration of thoughts that one might so
proudly quote and boast of as coming from the pen of a woman! But,
alas! her volumes are closed to the young and innocent, and one may
not dare to name her among those to whom the memory clings with
gratitude as the giver of high mental enjoyment.
One strong proof that the native and genuine bent of her genius would
carry her far above and quite out of sight of the whole décousu school
is, that, with all her magical grace of expression, she is always less
herself, less original, a thousand times less animated and inspired,
when she sets herself to paint scenes of unchaste love, and of
unnatural and hard indifference to decorum, than when she throws the
reins upon the neck of her own Pegasus, and starts away into the
bright region of unsoiled thoughts and purely intellectual meditation.
I should be sorry to quote the titles of any books which ought never
to have been written, and which had better not be read, even though
there should be buried in them precious gems of thought and expression
which produce the effect of a ray of sunshine that has entered by a
crevice into a dark chamber; but there are some morsels by George Sand
which stand apart from the rest, and which may be cited without
mischief. "La Revue des Deux Mondes" has more than once done good
service to the public by putting forth in its trustworthy pages some
of her shorter works. Amongst these is a little story called "André,"
which if not quite _faultless_, may yet be fairly quoted to prove of
what its author might be capable. The character of Geneviève, the
heroine of this simple, natural little tale, is evidence enough that
George Sand knows what is good. Yet even here what a strange
perversity of purpose and of judgment peeps out! She makes this
Geneviève, whose character is conceived in a spirit of purity and
delicacy that is really angelic,--she makes this sweet and exquisitely
innocent creature fall into indiscretion with her lover before she
marries him, though the doing so neither affects the story nor changes
the catastrophe in the slightest degree. It is an impropriety _à pure
perte_, and is in fact such a deplorable incongruity in the character
of Geneviève--so perfectly gratuitous and unnecessary, and so utterly
out of keeping with the rest of the picture, that it really looks as
if Madame D---- _might not_ publish a volume that was not timbré with
the stamp of her clique. It would not, I suppose, pass current among
them without it.
This story of "André" is still before me; and though it is quite
impossible that I should be able to give you any idea of it by
extracts, I will transcribe a few lines to show you the tone of
thought in which its author loves to indulge.
Speaking of the universal power or influence of poetry, which
certainly, like M. Jourdain's prose, often exists in the mind sans
qu'on en sache rien, she says,--
"Les idées poétiques peuvent s'ajuster à la taille de tous les hommes.
L'un porte sa poésie sur son front, un autre dans son coeur;
celui-ci la cherche dans une promenade lente et silencieuse au sein
des plaines, celui-là la poursuit au galop de son cheval à travers les
ravins; un troisième l'arrose sur sa fenêtre, dans un pot de tulipes.
Au lieu de demander où elle est, ne devrait-on pas demander où
n'est-elle pas? Si ce n'était qu'une langue, elle pourrait se perdre;
mais c'est une essence qui se compose de deux choses, la beauté
répandue dans la nature extérieure, et le sentiment départi à toute
l'intelligence ordinaire."
Again she shows the real tone of her mind when, speaking of a future
state, she says,--
"Qui sait si, dans un nouveau code de morale, un nouveau catéchisme
religieux, le dégoût et la tristesse ne seront pas flétris comme des
vices, tandis que l'amour, l'espoir, et l'admiration seront
récompensés comme des vertus?"
This is a beautiful idea of the _duties_ belonging to a happier state
of existence; nay, I think that if we were only as good as we easily
might be here, even this life would become rather an act of
thanksgiving than what it too often is--a record of sighs.
I know not where I should look in order to find thoughts more true, or
fanciful ideas more beautifully expressed, than I have met with in
this same story, where the occupations and reveries of its heroine are
described. Geneviève is by profession a maker of artificial flowers,
and the minute study necessary to enable her to imitate skilfully her
lovely models has led her to an intimate acquaintance with them, the
pleasures of which are described, and her love and admiration of them
dwelt upon, in a strain that I am quite persuaded none other but
George Sand could utter. It is evident, indeed, throughout all her
writings, that the works of nature are the idols she worships. In the
"Lettres d'un Voyageur,"--which I trust are only begun, for it is here
that the author is perfect, unrivalled, and irreproachable,--she gives
a thousand proofs of a heart and imagination which can only be truly
at home when far from "the rank city." In writing to a friend in
Paris, whom she addresses as a person devoted to the cares and the
honours of public life, she says,--"Quand tu vois passer un pauvre
oiseau, tu envies son essor, et tu regrettes les cieux." Then she
exclaims, "Que ne puis-je t'emmener avec moi sur l'aile des vents
inconstans, te faire respirer le grand air des solitudes et
t'apprendre le secret des poètes et des Bohémiens!" She has learned
that secret, and the use she makes of it places her, in my estimation,
wondrously above most of the descriptive poets that France has ever
boasted. Yet her descriptions, exquisite as they sometimes are,
enchant me less perhaps than the occasional shooting, if I may so
express it, of a bold new thought into the regions of philosophy and
metaphysics; but it is done so lightly, so playfully, that it should
seem she was only jesting when she appears to aim thus wildly at
objects so much beyond a woman's ken. "Tous les trônes de la terre ne
valent pas pour moi une petite fleur au bord d'un lac des Alpes," she
says; and then starts off with this strange query: "Une grande
question serait celle de savoir si la Providence a plus d'amour et de
respect pour notre charpente osseuse, que pour les pétales embaumés de
ses jasmins."