fact the phrase used in speaking of all the _real_ political hubbubs
that have taken place, and was certainly on this occasion as
ridiculous as if some one, on seeing forty or fifty people collected
together around a pick-pocket or a broken-down carriage in London,
were to gravely inquire of his neighbour if the crowd he saw indicated
a revolution.
"Mouvement!" she repeated with a very speaking smile: "est-ce que
madame est effrayée?... Mouvement ... oui, madame, il y a beaucoup de
mouvement; mais cependant c'est sans mouvement.... C'est tout
bonnement le petit serin de la marchande de modes là bas qui vient de
s'envoler. Je puis vous assurer la chose," she added, laughing, "car
je l'ai vu partir."
"Is that all?" said I. "Is it possible that the escape of a bird can
have brought all these people together?"
"Oui, madame, rien autre chose.... Mais regardez--voilà les agens de
police qui s'approchent pour voir ce que c'est--ils en saisissent un,
je crois.... Ah! ils ont une manière si étonnante de reconnaître leur
monde!"
This last hint quite decided my return, and I thanked the obliging
bonnetière for her communications.
"Bonjour, madame," she replied with a very mystifying sort of
smile,--"bonjour; soyez tranquille--il n'y a pas de danger d'un
_mouvement_."
I am quite sure she was the wife of a doctrinaire; for nothing
affronts the whole party, from the highest to the lowest, so much as
to breathe a hint that you think it possible any riot should arise to
disturb their dear tranquillity. On this occasion, however, I really
had no such matter in my thoughts, and sinned only by a blundering
phrase.
I returned home to look for an escort; and having enlisted one, set
forth again for the Marché des Innocens, which I reached this time
without any other adventure than being splashed twice, and nearly run
over thrice. Having made my purchases, I was setting my face towards
home again, when my companion proposed that we should go across the
market to look at the monuments raised over some half-dozen or
half-score of revolutionary heroes who fell and were buried on a spot
at no great distance from the fountain, on the 29th July 1830.
When we reached the little enclosure, we remarked a man, who looked, I
thought, very much like a printer's devil, leaning against the rail,
and haranguing a girl who stood near him with her eyes wide open as if
she were watching for, as well as listening to, every word which
should drop from his oracular lips. A little boy, almost equally
attentive to his eloquence, occupied the space between them, and
completed the group.
I felt a strong inclination to hear what he was saying, and stationed
myself doucement, doucement at a short distance, looking, I believe,
almost as respectfully attentive as the girl for whose particular
advantage he was evidently holding forth. He perceived our approach,
but appeared nowise annoyed by it; on the contrary, it seemed to me
that he was pleased to have an increased audience, for he evidently
threw more energy into his manner, waved his right hand with more
dignity, and raised his voice higher.
I will not attempt to give you his discourse verbatim, for some of
his phrases were so extraordinary, or at least so new to me, that I
cannot recall them; but the general purport of it made an impression
both on me and my companion, from its containing so completely the
very soul and essence of the party to which he evidently belonged. The
theme was the cruel treatment of the amiable, patriotic, and
noble-minded prisoners at the Luxembourg. "What did we fight for?" ...
said he, pointing to the tombs within the enclosure: "was it not to
make France and Frenchmen free?... And do they call it freedom to be
locked up in a prison ... actually locked up?... What! can a slave be
worse than that? Slaves have got chains on ... qu'est-ce que cela
fait?... If a man is locked up, he cannot go farther than if he was
chained--c'est clair ... it is all one, and Frenchmen are again
slaves.... This is what we have got by our revolution...."
The girl, who continued to stand looking at him with undeviating
attention, and, as I presume, with proportionate admiration, turned
every now and then a glance our way, to see what effect it produced on
us. My attention, at least, was quite as much riveted on the speaker
as her own; and I would willingly have remained listening to his
reasons, which were quite as "plentiful as blackberries," why no
Frenchman in the world, let him do what he would, (except, I suppose,
when they obey their king, like the unfortunate victims of popular
tyranny at Ham,) should ever be restricted in his freedom--because
freedom was what they fought for--and being in prison was not being
free--and so on round and round in his logical circle. But as his
vehemence increased, so did his audience; and as I did not choose to
be present at a second "mouvement" on the same day, or at any rate of
running the risk of again seeing the police approaching a throng of
which I made one, I walked off. The last words I heard from him, as he
pointed piteously to the tombs, were--"V'là les restes de notre
révolution de Juillet!" In truth, this fellow talked treason so
glibly, that I felt very glad to get quietly away; but I was also glad
to have fallen in with such an admirable display of popular eloquence,
with so little trouble or inconvenience.
We lingered long enough within reach of the tombs, while listening to
this man, for me to read and note the inscription on one of them. The
name and description of the "victime de Juillet" who lay beneath it
was, "Hapel, du département de la Sarthe, tué le 29 Juillet 1830."
[Illustration: Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.
"V'LA LES RESTES DE NOTRE REVOLUTION DE JUILLET".
London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1835.]
Nothing can be more trumpery than the appearance of this burying-place
of "the immortals," with its flags and its foppery of spears and
halberds. There is another similar to it in the most eastern court
of the Louvre, and, I believe, in several other places. If it be
deemed advisable to leave memorials upon these unconsecrated graves,
it would be in better taste to make them of such dignity as might
excuse their erection in these conspicuous situations; but at present
the effect is decidedly ludicrous. If the bodies of those who fell are
really deposited within these fantastical enclosures, it would show
much more reverence for them and their cause if they were all to
receive Christian burial at Père Lachaise, with all such honours, due
or undue, as might suit the feelings of the time; and over them it
would be well to record, as a matter of historical interest, the time
and manner of their death. This would look like the result of national
feeling, and have something respectable in it; which certainly cannot
be said of the faded flaunting flags and tassels which now wave over
them, so much in the style of decorations in the barn of a strolling
company of comedians.
As we left the spot, my attention was directed to the Rue de la
Ferronnerie, which is close to the Marché des Innocens, and in which
street Henri Quatre lost his life by the assassin hand of Ravaillac.
It struck me as we talked of this event, and of the many others to
which the streets of this beautiful but turbulent capital have been
witness, that a most interesting--and, if accompanied by good
architectural engravings, a most beautiful--work might be compiled on
the same plan, or at least following the same idea as Mr. Leigh Hunt
has taken in his work on the interesting localities of London. A
history of the streets of Paris might contain a mixture of tragedy,
comedy, and poetry--of history, biography, and romance, that might
furnish volumes of "entertaining knowledge," which being the favourite
_genre_ amidst the swelling mass of modern literature, could hardly
fail of meeting with success.
How pleasantly might an easy writer go on anecdotizing through century
after century, as widely and wildly as he pleased, and yet
sufficiently tied together to come legitimately under one common
title; and how wide a grasp of history might one little spot sometimes
contain! Where some scattered traces of the stones may still be seen
that were to have been reared into a palace for the King of Rome, once
stood the convent of the "Visitation de Sainte Marie," founded by
Henriette the beautiful and the good, after the death of her martyred
husband, our first Charles; within whose church were enshrined her
heart, and those of her daughter, and of James the Second of England.
Where English nuns took refuge from English protestantism, is
now--most truly English still--a manufactory for spinning cotton.
Where stood the most holy altar of Le Verbe Incarné, now stands a
caserne. In short, it is almost impossible to take a single step in
Paris without discovering, if one does but take the trouble of
inquiring a little, some tradition attached to it that might
contribute information to such a work.
I have often thought that a history of the convents of Paris during
that year of barbarous profanation 1790, would make, if the materials
were well collected, one of the most interesting books in the world.
The number of nuns returned upon the world from the convents of that
city alone amounted to many thousands; and when one thinks of all the
varieties of feeling which this act must have occasioned, differing
probably from the brightest joy for recovered hope and life, to the
deepest desolation of wretched helplessness, it seems extraordinary
that so little of its history has reached us.
Paris is delightful enough, as every one knows, to all who look at it,
even with the superficial glance that seeks no farther than its
external aspect at the present moment; but it would, I imagine, be
interesting beyond all other cities of the modern world if carefully
travelled through with a consummate antiquarian who had given enough
learned attention to the subject to enable him to do justice to it.
There is something so piquant in the contrasts offered by some
localities between their present and their past conditions,--such
records furnished at every corner, of the enormous greatness of the
human animal, and his most _chétif_ want of all stability--traces of
such wit and such weakness, such piety and profanation, such bland and
soft politeness, and such ferocious barbarism,--that I do not believe
any other page of human nature could furnish the like.
I am sure, at least, that no British records could furnish pictures of
native manners and native acts so dissimilar at different times from
each other as may be found to have existed here. The most striking
contrast that we can show is between the effects of Oliver Cromwell's
rule and that of Charles the Second; but this was unity and concord
compared to the changes in character which have repeatedly taken place
in France. That this contrast with us was, speaking of the general
mass of the population, little more than the mannerism arising from
adopting the style of "the court" for the time being, is proved by the
wondrously easy transition from one tone to the other which followed
the restoration. This was chiefly the affair of courtiers, or of
public men, who as necessarily put on the manners of their master as a
domestic servant does a livery; but Englishmen were still in all
essentials the same. Not so the French when they threw themselves
headlong, from one extremity of the country to the other, into all the
desperate religious wildness which marks the history of the Ligue; not
so the French when from the worship of their monarchs they suddenly
turned as at one accord and flew at their throats like bloodhounds.
Were they then the same people?--did they testify any single trait of
moral affinity to what the world thought to be their national
character one short year before? Then again look at them under
Napoleon, and look at them under Louis-Philippe. It is a great, a
powerful, a magnificent people, let them put on what outward seeming
they will; but I doubt if there be any nation in the world that would
so completely throw out a theorist who wished to establish the
doctrine of distinct races as the French.
You will think that I have made a very circuitous ramble from the
Marché des Innocens; but I have only given you the results of the
family speculation we fell into after returning thence, which arose, I
believe, from my narrating how I had passed from the tombeaux of the
_victimes de Juillet_ to the place where Henri Quatre received his
death. This set us to meditate on the different political objects of
the slain; and we all agreed that it was a much easier task to define
those of the king than those of the subject. There is every reason in
the world to believe that the royal Henri wished the happiness and
prosperity of France; but the guessing with any appearance of
correctness what might be the especial wish and desire of the Sieur
Hapel du département de la Sarthe, is a matter infinitely more
difficult to decide.
LETTER LXIX.
A Philosophical Spectator.--Collection of Baron
Sylvestre.--Hôtel des Monnaies.--Musée d'Artillerie.
We have been indebted to M. J***, the same obliging and amiable
friend of whom I have before spoken, for one or two more very
delightful mornings. We saw many things, and we talked of many more.
M. J*** is inexhaustible in piquant and original observation,
and possesses such extensive knowledge on all those subjects which are
the most intimately connected with the internal history of France
during the last eventful forty years, as to make every word he utters
not only interesting, but really precious. When I converse with him, I
feel that I have opened a rich vein of information, which if I had but
time and opportunity to derive from it all it could give, would
positively leave me ignorant of nothing I wish to know respecting the
country.
The Memoirs of such a man as M. J*** would be a work of no
common value. The military history of the period is as familiar to
all the world as the marches of Alexander or the conquests of Cæsar;
the political history of the country during the same interval is
equally well known; its literary history speaks for itself: but such
Memoirs as I am sure M. J*** could write, would furnish a
picture that is yet wanting.
We are not without full and minute details of all the great events
which have made France the principal object for all Europe to stare at
for the last half-century; but these details have uniformly proceeded
from individuals who have either been personally engaged in or nearly
connected with these stirring events; and they are accordingly all
tinctured more or less with such strong party feeling, as to give no
very impartial colouring to every circumstance they recount. The
inevitable consequence of this is, that, with all our extensive
reading on the subject, we are still far from having a correct
impression of the internal and domestic state of the country
throughout this period.
We know a great deal about old nobles who have laid down their titles
and become men of the people, and about new nobles who have laid down
their muskets to become men of the court,--of ministers, ambassadors,
and princes who have dropped out of sight, and of parvenus of all
sorts who have started into it; but, meanwhile, what do we know of
the mass--not of the people--of them also we know quite enough,--but
of the gentlemen, who, as each successive change came round, felt
called upon by no especial duty to quit their honourable and peaceable
professions in order to resist or advance them? Yet of these it is
certain there must be hundreds who, on the old principle that
"lookers-on see most of the game," are more capable of telling us what
effect these momentous changes really produced than any of those who
helped to cause them.
M. J*** is one of these; and I could not but remark, while
listening to him, how completely the tone in which he spoke of all the
public events he had witnessed was that of a philosophical spectator.
He seemed disposed, beyond any Frenchman I have yet conversed with, to
give to each epoch its just character, and to each individual his just
value: I never before had the good fortune to hear any citizen of the
Great Nation converse freely, calmly, reasonably, without prejudice or
partiality, of that most marvellous individual Napoleon.
It is not necessary to attempt recalling the precise expressions used
respecting him; for the general impression left on my mind is much
more deeply engraven than the language which conveyed it: besides, it
is possible that my inferences may have been more conclusive and
distinct than I had any right to make them, and yet so sincerely the
result of the casual observations scattered here and there in a
conversation that was anything but _suivie_, that were I to attempt to
repeat the words which conveyed them, I might be betrayed into
involuntary and unconscious exaggeration.
The impression, then, which I received is, that he was a most
magnificent tyrant. His projects seem to have been conceived with the
vastness and energy of a moral giant, even when they related to the
internal regulation only of the vast empire he had seized upon; but
the mode in which he brought them into action was uniformly marked by
barefaced, unshrinking, uncompromising tyranny. The famous Ordonnances
of Charles Dix were no more to be compared, as an act of arbitrary
power, to the daily deeds of Napoleon, than the action of a dainty
pair of golden sugar-tongs to that of the firmest vice that ever
Vulcan forged. But this enormous, this tremendous power, was never
wantonly employed; and the country when under his dominion had more
frequent cause to exclaim in triumph--
"'Tis excellent to have a giant's strength,"
than to add in suffering,
"But tyrannous to use it like a giant."
It was the conviction of this--the firm belief that the GLORY of
France was the object of her autocrat, which consecrated and confirmed
his power while she bent her proud neck to his yoke, and which has
since and will for ever make his name sound in the ears of her
children like a pæan to their own glory. What is there which men, and
most especially Frenchmen, will not suffer and endure to hear that
note? Had Napoleon been granted to them in all his splendour as their
emperor for ever, they would for ever have remained his willing
slaves.
When, however, he was lost to them, there is every reason to believe
that France would gladly have knit together the severed thread of her
ancient glory with her hopes of future greatness, had the act by which
it was to be achieved been her own: but it was the hand of an enemy
that did it--the hand of a triumphant enemy; and though a host of
powerful, valiant, noble, and loyal-hearted Frenchmen welcomed the son
of St. Louis to his lawful throne with as deep and sincere fidelity as
ever warmed the heart of man, there was still a national feeling of
wounded pride which gnawed the hearts of the multitude, and even in
the brightest days of the Restoration prevented their rightful king
from being in their eyes what he would have been had they purchased
his return by the act of drawing their swords, instead of laying them
down. It was a greatness that was thrust upon them--and for that
reason, and I truly believe for that reason only, it was distasteful.
In days of old, if it happened by accident that a king was unpopular,
it mattered very little to the general prosperity of his country, and
still less to the general peace of Europe. Even if hatred went so far
as to raise the hand of an assassin against him, the tranquillity of
the rest of the human race was but little affected thereby. But in
these times the effect is very different: disaffection has been taught
to display itself in acts that may at one stroke overthrow the
prosperity of millions at home, and endanger the precious blessings of
peace abroad; and it becomes therefore a matter of importance to the
whole of Europe that every throne established within her limits should
be sustained not only by its own subjects, but by a system of mutual
support that may insure peace and security to all. To do this where a
king is rejected by the majority of the people, is, to say the least
of it, a very difficult task; and it will probably be found that to
support power firmly and legally established, will contribute more to
the success of this system of mutual support for the preservation of
universal tranquillity, than any crusade that could be undertaken in
any part of the world for the purpose of substituting an exiled
dynasty for a reigning one.
This is the _doctrine_ to which I have now listened so long and so
often, that I have ceased all attempts to refute it. I have, however,
while stating it, been led to wander a little from those reminiscences
respecting fair France which I found so interesting, coming forth as
they did, as if by accident, from the rich storehouse of my agreeable
friend's memory: but I believe it would be quite in vain were I to go
back to the point at which I deviated, for I could do justice neither
to the matter nor the manner of the conversations which afforded me so
much pleasure;--I believe therefore that I had better spare you any
more politics just at present, and tell you something of several
things which we had the pleasure of seeing with him.
One of these was Baron Gros' magnificent sketch, if I must so call a
very finished painting, of his fine picture of the Plague of Jaffa. A
week or two before I had seen the picture itself at the Luxembourg,
and felt persuaded then that it was by far the finest work of the
master; but this first developement of his idea is certainly finer
still. It is a beautiful composition, and there are groups in it that
would not have lowered the reputation of Michael Angelo. The severe
simplicity of the Emperor's figure and position is in the very purest
taste.
This very admirable work was, when we saw it, in the possession of
the Baron de Sylvestre, whose collection, without having the dignity
of a gallery, has some beautiful things in it. Our visit to it and its
owner was one of great interest to me. I have seldom seen any one with
a more genuine and enthusiastic love of art. He has one cabinet,--it
is, I believe, his own bed-room,--which almost from floor to ceiling
is hung with little gems, so closely set together as to produce at
first sight the effect of almost inextricable confusion;--portraits,
landscapes, and historic sketches--pencil crayon, water-colour and
oil--with frames and without frames, all blended together in utter
defiance of all symmetry or order whatever. But it was a rich
confusion, and many a collector would have rejoiced at receiving
permission to seize upon a chance handful of the heterogeneous mass of
which it was composed.
Curious, well-authenticated, original drawings of the great masters,
though reduced to a mere rag, have always great interest in my
eyes,--and the Baron de Sylvestre has many such: but it was his own
air of comfortable domestic intimacy with every scrap, however small,
on the lofty and thickly-studded walls of this room, which delighted
me;--it reminded me of Denon, who many years ago showed me his large
and very miscellaneous collection with equal enthusiasm. I dearly
love to meet with people who are really and truly in earnest.