The Three Glorious Days--The plump little Widow--Marriage of
fifteen young Girls--Shrines of the Martyrs--Louis Philippe--Dukes
of Orleans and Nemours--The National Guards--Fieschi--The Infernal
Machine--Marshal Mortier and twelve persons killed--Dismissal of
the Troops--The Queen and her Daughters--Disturbed state of
France--The Chamber of Deputies--Elements of support to the present
Dynasty--Private character of the King--The Daily Journals--The
Chamber of Peers--Bonaparte.
_Paris, August 1st, 1835._
The Parisians have set apart three days annually, to commemorate their
Revolution of 1830--the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July; they call them the
“Three Glorious Days.” On the 27th are showers of sermons all over town
in the churches, and fastings over good dinners in the cafés. Pious
visits, too, are paid to the graves of those who had the glory of being
killed on the original “three days,” who are called “the martyrs,” and
are buried on or near the spot upon which they were killed. The
military parade is the 28th, and the gala, or jubilee day, is the 29th.
As the time approaches, the town is big with visiters, and all is noise
and preparation. Yew trees are planted by the graves of the “martyrs,”
where the dogs and other obscene animals, the rest of the year, wallow;
and willows are set a-weeping several days before. Theatres are erected
at the same time, and orchestras and platforms for the buffoons; and the
illuminations, which they keep ready made from year to year, are brought
out upon the Champs Elysées. Every evening the whole of Paris comes out
to see these works, and says, this is for the mourning of the 27th, and
this is for the dancing of the 29th. On the present occasion a rain had
turned the streets into mud; but the French turn out on their fête days,
mud or no mud, and in numbers far exceeding our notions of arithmetic.
The 27th arrived, and every street and avenue poured their waves into
the Boulevards and Champs Elysées, as so many rivers their waters to the
ocean. A plump little widow of our hotel offered to guide my
inexperience in the crowd, which I accepted. I took her for her skill
in the town, and she for my manhood, as a blind person takes a lame one
for the use of his eyes. I should have profited by her services, but she
was no sooner in the street, than she ran off in a hurry, each of her
little feet doing its uttermost to get before the other, and kept me
running after her all day long;--you have sometimes seen a colt running
after its mother, now falling behind, and now catching up with her; and
there were just in front of me, I verily believe, five thousand French
women, each exhibiting a pair of pretty ancles. A stranger has a great
many things to see that are no curiosities to the natives. Never take a
native with you as a guide, but always some one who knows no more than
yourself.
On these muddy occasions, a French woman just places her hand upon the
right hip, gathering up her lower gear on the nether side to the level
of the knee, and then whips along, totally regardless of that part of
the world that is behind her; as in a chariot race you see the
charioteer bending over the lash, and striving after the one just before
him, not caring a straw for those he has passed by. You might have seen
my guide and me, at one time walking slowly and solemnly in a file of
sisters of charity, and then looking down upon an awful procession from
a gallery of the Boulevards; next you might have seen us behind a bottle
of “vin ordinaire” at the café Turc, and then seated snugly together at
the church of St. Roch.
Here we witnessed an interesting ceremony--a marriage. Fifteen young
girls, and the same number of young men, children of the martyrs, were
intermarried. They are apportioned by the government; and the marrying
is to continue till the whole stock is married off--as encouragement to
new “martyrs.” We stayed one hour here, and had a great deal of innocent
squeezing, with prayers and sacred music, and then we went home and had
our dinner.
After this repast, I sallied out again, under the ægis of my same guide,
who now led me through long and intricate passages, and through thickets
of men and women, all getting along in the slime of each other’s tracks
towards the Hotel de Ville. Here, in the midst of an immense crowd, were
the shrines of the martyrs, and over them a chapel of crape, with all
the other mournful emblems. The relatives of the deceased were hanging
up chaplets, and reverend men were saying prayers, and sprinkling holy
water upon the graves.
_July 28th._
This day was given to the general parade. More than a hundred thousand
of the National Guard was arrayed upon the Boulevards; and the side
walks were choaked up, and running over with the crowd, which was pushed
back now and then, in great fright and confusion, by the gens d’armes,
and the tails of the horses; and all the rest of Paris looked on from
the windows, balconies, and roofs of the adjoining houses--I as much
noticed, as a leaf of the Alleghany, upon a verandah of the Boulevard du
Temple. Great was the noise, and long and patient the expectation. At
length, there was a sudden flustering and bustle among the multitude,
and I sat up closer to Madame Dodu--it was the King! He was accompanied
by the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Nemours, his sons, and passed
along the line, followed by officers on horseback, very grim. He was
received with not very ardent acclamations. Compared to “General
Jackson’s visit,” it was a fifth-rate thing. Not a bird, though many
flew over us, fell dead.
But how shall I describe to you the magnificence of the pomp? since in
our country there is no object of comparison. How should we--_we_, who
can hardly contain the Washington Grays, or Blues--which is it? with
Johnson’s band, and the twenty little boys who run after them--how
should we be able to conceive of a regular infantry of more than a
hundred thousand men, with their ten thousand drums, and trumpets, and
clarions, and accoutred in uniform, and trained to the last grace and
dexterity of discipline? But, alas! what avails to individual power this
exhibition of human strength, since we see its haughtiest pretensions,
every day, the sport of some ignominious chance?
Achilles, they say, was killed by the most effeminate _roué_ of all
Troy; and his great descendant, Pyrrhus, by an old woman, who lived “_au
troisième_,” and pitched, Heaven knows what, upon his head through her
window. What signifies the strength of Hercules, if it may be
outwrestled by a vapour?--It is vexatious, too, to see how much events
are under the control of accident, and how little Providence seems to
trouble itself about them; and to think how vain a thing is that boast
of the world--human wisdom! I knew a man, who missed his fortune, and
was ruined by his prudence; and another, who saved his house from being
burnt by his foolishness! Who has not heard of no less an Emperor than
Bonaparte being saved by some vanity of his wife?--the infernal machine
blowing up, she fixing her tournure, or something in her chamber, and he
fretting at the delay, and churning his spite through his teeth? Why, I
have read of a lady who saved her life by staying at home at loo, on a
Sunday, instead of going to prayers, where the church fell in, and
killed the whole congregation. Yet, with all this experience, men still
continue to be haughty of their strength, self-sufficient of their
wisdom, and to throw Providence in each other’s teeth when anything
happens.
But this morality is interrupting the thread of my story. As the king
and his escort approached the east end of the Boulevards, a deadly
machine, prepared by a man named Fieschi, (infernal machine maker to his
Majesty,) was discharged from the window of a small wine store, and made
havoc of the crowd; the king, with his two sons, by a special
Providence, standing unhurt amidst the slaughter--not a hair was singed,
not a garment was rent!--He continued to the end of the line, and
returned over the scene of the murder. His cool and undaunted
countenance gave a favourable opinion of his courage; and his danger,
accompanied by such cruel circumstances, has turned the sympathies of a
great many in his favour, who cared not a straw for him yesterday. Of
the twelve persons killed, Marshal Mortier, Duke of Treviso, is the most
distinguished. Eighteen persons were wounded. I was so near as to smell
the gunpowder, which was quite near enough for a foreigner. I have since
visited the battle ground--what an atrocious spectacle!
The author of this murder is a Corsican, who has served a long time his
apprenticeship to villainy in the French army. I have seen his machine:
it is composed of a series of gun-barrels, and is a bungling
contrivance. The French, with all their experience, don’t shine in this
kind of manufacture. It would seem a most contemptible thing in the eyes
of a Kentucky rifleman. This fellow’s fame, however, is assured; he will
stand conspicuous in the catalogue of regicide villains. The others have
all aimed at a single bird, but he at the whole flock. One is almost
tempted to regret that Ravaillac’s boots are out of fashion. He
attempted to escape through a back window, but the bursting of one of
his guns disabled him. His head is fractured and mangled; they expect,
however, that, by the care of his physician, he may get well enough to
be hanged.
The last scene, the dismissal of the troops, was in the Place Vendôme,
where I procured a convenient view of the ceremony. I must not forget,
that in this place I lost my faithful guide, who had borne the fatigues
and adventures of the day with me. Whether she had wandered from the
way, or wearied had sat down, or had stopped to garter up her stockings,
is uncertain--certain it is that she was lost here in the crowd, _nec
post oculis est reddita nostris_.
On the west of the great column, the statue of Bonaparte all the while
peering over him, sat the king on horseback, saluting the brigades as
they passed by. His three sons attended him, and some of his generals
and foreign ambassadors; and the queen and her daughters, and Madame
Adelaide, the sister, and such like fine people, were on a gallery
overhead, fanned by the national flags. As the queen descended, there
was a shout from the multitude more animated than any during the whole
day. The king sat here several hours, and received the affection of his
troops bareheaded, bow following bow in perpetual succession, and each
bow accompanied by a smile--just such a smile as one is obliged to put
on when one meets an amiable and pretty woman whom one loves, in a fit
of the cholic.
_July 29th._
All Paris was so overwhelmed with grief for the death of General
Mortier, and the “narrow escape of the king,” that it blighted entirely
the immense enjoyment we had expected for this day--the last and best of
the “three glorious days.” Ball-rooms and theatres were erected with
extraordinary preparation all over the _Champs Elysées_, and the
fireworks were designed to be the most brilliant ever exhibited in
Europe. Multitudes had come from distant countries to see them. I say
nothing of the private losses and disappointments; of the booths and
fixtures put up and now to be removed, and the consequent ruin of
individuals; or of the sugar-plums, candies, gingerbread-nuts,
barley-sugar, and all the rancid butter of Paris bought up to make short
cakes--all broken up by this one man; and the full cup of pleasure
dashed from our very lips to the ground. We were to have such an
infinite feast, too, furnished by the government. As for me, I was
delighted a whole week in advance, and now--I am very sorry.
Under the Empire, and before, and long after, it was a common part of a
great festival here to have thrown to the people bread and meat, and
wine, and to set them to scramble for the possession, as they do
ravens, or hounds in a kennel, or the beasts at the Menagerie. To put
the half-starved population up as an amusement for their better-fed
neighbours; to pelt them with pound loaves and little pies; to set a
hurricane of sausages to rain over their heads; and to see the hungry
clowns gape with enormous mouths, and scramble for these eatables, and
to see the officers,--facetious fellows, employed to heave out these
provisions,--deceive the expectant mouths by feints and tricks, by
throwing sometimes a loaf of leather, or of cork, to leap from one skull
to another--what infinite amusement! One of the benefits of the last
Revolution was to put an end to this dishonour of the French nation.
This is all I have to say of the “three glorious days.” I must trust
to-morrow to furnish me something for this blank space. Good night.
* * * * *
_Rue St. Anne, August 2nd._
Louis Philippe has had nothing but trouble with these French people ever
since he undertook their government. He has about the same enjoyment of
his royalty, as one sea-sick, has of the majesty of the ocean. He is
lampooned in the newspapers, caricatured in the print-shops, hawked
about town, placarded upon the walls of every street, and gibbeted upon
every gateway and lamp-post of the city. In 1831, a revolt was
suppressed by Marshal Soult at Lyons; another was got up in the same
place in 1834, in which there were six days’ fighting, six thousand
slain, and eighteen hundred crammed into the prisons. In Paris, there
were three days’ skirmishing at the Cloister St. Merri, in which were
five hundred arrests in one night; and one hundred and fifty are on
trial (the “_Procès Monstre_,” so much talked of,) in the Chamber of
Peers; and now we have, superadded, this affair of Fieschi, with great
expectations for the future.
The foreigners here are full of ill-bodings, and I hear nothing but
revolutions in every rustling leap. We shall have our brains knocked out
by the mob some one of these days. It rains nothing but Damiens and
Ravaillacs, and Jacques Clements, all over town. Every one is prophetic;
and I am going, after the general example, to cast the king’s horoscope
quietly in my corner, and calculate for you his chances. It will be a
pretty thing if I can’t eke out a letter from so important an event, and
the only one of any kind that has happened since I have been in Paris.
The main strength of the government is the Chamber of Deputies, which is
chosen by less than two hundred thousand electors. It represents, then,
not the mass of the people, who are thirty-two millions, but property,
which has a natural interest in peace and quietude upon any reasonable
terms. Besides, the voters being divided into small electoral colleges,
are tangible, and easily bribed by offices and local interests; and the
members of the Chamber, also, are allowed to hold other offices, and are
very eager to possess them; and if the king does not bind both these
parties about his neck, he has less policy than the world gives him
credit for. He has, with his ministry, one hundred and fifty thousand of
these bribes at his disposal. So, also, has he a large majority of this
Chamber in his favour. Freeholders paying less than two hundred francs
annual tax are not entitled to a vote. These are murmuring and
struggling for an extension of suffrage, but this they do not expect
from a change, and are therefore in favour of the present dynasty.
This class, from the great division of property in the Revolution, is by
far the most numerous. Not more than fifteen hundred landed proprietors
of the kingdom have a revenue above twelve thousand pounds. The king has
also his means of popularity with the poorer classes, amongst which I
may mention the “Savings Banks,” established on the responsibility of
the government; one hundred of these are in Paris alone. They not only
encourage the economy, industry, and orderly habits of the lower
classes, but bind them by the strongest of all interests to the
government. For the active support of this power, there is a national
guard of eight hundred thousand men, all proprietors, and having
interests to hazard in a revolution. There is an immense regular army of
near five hundred thousand men, and disaffection in this body would
indeed be dangerous; but who is the master spirit, who can hope, of a
force so dispersed, and with a continual change of position and
officers, to concert a general plan of revolt? Finally, the chief
learning and talent of the nation is on the side of the king.
In his councils you find such men as Thiers, Guizot, Royer Collard,
Villemain, Barrante, Keratry, and a number of others of the same caste,
who were the main instruments in setting up the present government, and
have of course a personal interest in its support.
The elements of the opposition are the liberals in favour of a
constitutional monarchy, with an extension of suffrage and other popular
rights, unwilling to endure under their present rulers what they
resisted under their predecessors; secondly, the republicans, downright
enemies of all sorts of monarchy, and in favour of an elective
government, as that of the United States; this party is numerous, but
without any concentration of strength; and finally, the Carlists, the
partisans of the ancient monarchy, and its legitimate sovereigns. These
parties all abut against each other, and have scarce a common interest;
and I do not see from what quarter any one of them can set up a rival
dangerous to the existing authority.
The present king has industry and capacity in a high degree, and he
exerts both diligently in improving the condition of the people. He
favours agriculture, commerce, and the arts of peace; he thrives by his
own wit, as well as by the silliness of his predecessors. New streets
and houses are rising up to bless him all over Paris. The nation was
dragooned into Louis XVIII. and Charles X. by foreign bayonets; Louis
Philippe is its own free choice. He took part also in the Revolution,
and cannot be feared as the partisan of anti-revolutionary doctrines;
the peasants need not dread under his reign a restitution of the spoils
of the nobility. He is also exemplary in private life; he rises early
and looks after his business, knocks up his boys and packs them off to
school with the other urchins of the city, and thinks there is no royal
way to mathematics.
For his pacific policy alone he deserves to go to heaven. It cannot be
doubtful, that war is one of the most aggravated miseries that can
afflict our wretched human nature this side the grave. For the essential
cause of their revolutions and national calamities, the French need not
reason beyond a simple statistical view of their wars for the last five
centuries. They had, in this period, thirty-five years of civil, and
forty of religious wars; and of foreign wars, seventy-six on, and one
hundred and seventy-six off, the French territory; and their great
battles are one hundred and eighty-four. One does not comprehend why the
judgments of heaven should not fall upon a nation which consumes a half
nearly of its existence in carrying on offensive wars. And, moreover (a
new virtue in a French king), Louis Philippe keeps no left-handed
wives--no “Belles Feronières,” no “Gabrielle d’Etrées,” or “Madame
Lavallières;” he sticks to his rib of Sicily, with whom he has nine
children living, all in a fresh and vigorous health. Why then seek to
kill a king recommendable by so many excellent qualities? Attempts at
regicide are not always proofs of disloyalty in a nation.
A great number of desperate men, mostly the refuse of the army, have
been turned loose upon the community, and these, in disposing of their
own worthless lives, seek that of the king, in order to die gloriously
upon the Place St. Jaques. I have no doubt that the majority of the
nation desire ardently his safety. France has tried alternately the two
extremes of human government, or rather misgovernment. She has rushed
from an unlimited monarchy to a crazy democracy, and back into a
military despotism. She has tilted the vessel on one side, then run to
the other, and at length is taking her station in the middle. The
general temper of the public mind now favours a moderate government, and
this is wisdom bought at so dear a rate, that it would be underrating
the common sense of the nation to suppose it will be lightly regarded.
Here is a copy of each of the Paris newspapers. You will see something
of the spirit in which they are conducted, and one of the chief engines
by which the nation is governed. There is certainly no country in which
a newspaper has so great an influence, and none in which the editor is
so considerable a man, as in Paris.
The _Constitutionnel_ opposes and defends all parties, and is pleased
and displeased with all systems of government. It courts the favour of
the “Petite Bourgeoisie,” the shopkeepers, who are always restless and
displeased, but their interests require a quiet pursuit of business.
This is the most gossiping gazette of them all, and gossips very
agreeably.
The _Journal des Debats_ represents the “_haute Bourgeoisie_,” the rich
industrial classes, whose great interests are, order and security of
property, and the maintenance of peace with foreign countries. The
“_Partie Doctrinaire_,” the chief supporters of this paper, are a kind
of genteel liberals, holding the balance between confirmed royalists and
democrats, and ultra liberals. They have supported their doctrines with
a great display of scholastic learning, which has given them their
appellation of “Doctrinaires.” Their leaders are mostly from the
schools, as Royer Collard, Guizot, and Villemain, Keratry and Barrante.
This paper has a leaning towards a vigorous monarchy and the Orleans
dynasty; it is now doing what it can in its moderate way to discredit
the republicanism of the United States.
The _Gazette de France_ and the _Quotidienne_ are opposed directly to
the present government, and in favour of the legitimate monarchy in the
person of Henry V. The former advocates royalty with extended suffrage,
the increase of power in the provinces, and decrease of the influence of
the capital; the latter insists upon the re-establishment, in its
fullest extent, of the ancient monarchy.
The _National_ asserts republicanism outright, on the system of the
United States. It is conducted with spirit and ability, at present, by
M. Carrel. In assuming his office he announced himself in his address as
follows:--“_La responsibilité du National pése en entier dès ce jour sur
ma seule tête; si quelqu’un s’oubliât en invective au sujêt de cette
feuille, il trouverait à qui parler._” With this the paper called the
_Tribune_, edited also with ability, co-operates.
The _Moniteur_ reports the speeches of the Chambers, and official
documents, and is the ostensible organ of the government. The _Temps_,
the _Courier_, the _Messager_, and _Journal du Commerce_, all advocate
reform on constitutional principles. There are smaller papers, too,
conducted with ability. These, with Galignani, and some other English
prints, make up the newsmongerie of Paris. The price of Galignani and
the principal French papers is twenty dollars a year, and their number
of regular subscribers about 20,000. In Paris they are generally read by
the hour, and transferred from one individual to another, and disposed
of in the evening to the public establishments, or sent off to the
country. In this manner, they are read by an immense number of persons
daily. The price of advertising in the best papers is about thirty sous
per line.
The first men of the nation are amongst the constant contributors to
these papers, both as correspondents and editors. The editorial corps
around each, discuss the leading topics, and form a board to admit or
reject communications. These have their daily meetings with the
functionaries of the state, and their correspondents in every foreign
country. Argus, with his hundred eyes, and Briareus, with his hundred
hands, preside over the preparation of the daily meal. In our country,
where the same man caters, cooks, and does the honours, it would be
unfair to make any comparison of ability. There is one point, however,
in which there is no good reason why we should allow the French or any
other people the superiority: it is, the decency of language in which
animated debates are conducted. To be eloquent, or even vituperative, it
is not necessary to be abusive, or transgress the rules of good
breeding; polish neither dulls the edge nor enervates the vigour of the
weapon. The existence of agencies between the owners and readers of
newspapers is an immense gain to the liberty of the press. There can be
very little freedom of opinion where the editor and proprietor, as in
the United States, stand in immediate relation with their patrons.
In speaking of the powers of the government, I have said nothing of the
Chamber of Peers. It is but a feather in either scale. It wants the
hereditary influence and great estates necessary to command popular
respect. The title of Peer is for life only, and is the reward of
prescribed services in all the chief employments of the state. It is a
cheap dignity, which pleases grown-up children, and consists of a ribbon
in the button-hole.
I have said nothing, either, of Bonapartism, which has gasped its last.
The most violent enmities against the Emperor seem to have burnt out.
No danger is now apprehended either from his family or his partisans,
and the mind is open to a full sense of the glory he has conferred upon
the nation; and there is mixed up with admiration of his talents, a
sentiment of affection, from the recollection of his great reverses of
fortune and his patient sufferings. I have heard all parties speak of
him with great respect and praise. It is a good policy of the present
government to have taken into favour all his plans for the improvement
of the country, and to have placed him in his citizen’s coat, and cocked
hat, stripped of its military plumes, upon his column.
When I write politics to ladies, Apollo keeps twitching me all the while
by the ear; but I thought any other subject to-day would be impertinent.
Yet why should ladies be ignorant of what enters so largely into the
conversation of society, and makes so important a part of the learning
of their children? I am meditating a journey to Rome, and expect to set
out next week with a gentleman of Kentucky. His Holiness, I presume,
will be delighted to see some one all the way from the Sharp Mountain.
Direct your letters as usual. Very tenderly, yours.