Burial of the victims--St. Cloud--The Chateau--The Cicerone--The
Chevalier d’Industrie--Grave of Mrs. Jordan--The Bois de
Boulogne--Amusements on Fête Days--Place Louis XV.--The King at the
Tuileries--The American Address--His Majesty’s Reply--The Princess
Amelia--The Queen and her Daughters--The Dukes of Orleans and
Némours--Madame Adelaide--Splendour of Ancient Courts--Manner of
governing the French--William the Fourth--Exhibition of the
Students at the University.
_Paris, August 24th, 1835._
I believe I have not described to you the burial of the
“victims,”--which is no great matter, since you will see it all in the
newspapers. I fell in, the other day, with an immense crowd passing in a
long file through the door of a church, and became one of its number.
Here was a furnace, or _chambre ardente_, as they call it, into which a
concealed flame threw a red and lurid light, and exhibited the corpses
of those who were murdered. From this place they were brought out, and
carried about the streets in the most gorgeous of all funeral
processions. It would have done credit to the best times of Babylon. No
people of the world can get up a theatric display of this kind so
prettily as the French; and on this occasion they outdid themselves. The
day was appointed, four days ahead, when the general grief was to
explode, and it did explode exactly as the Prefecture of Police had
predicted. We all ran about the streets the whole day, and cried, “long
live” Louis Philippe, and General Mortier--who was killed!
The Duke’s coffin was carried in front, by six horses, in all the
solemnity of crape. The spokes of the wheels were silvered, and the rims
glittered with a more precious metal. Overhead were flags,--I presume,
taken from the enemy,--and groups of emblematic figures: France, with
her tresses loose and streaming, and the Departments, all dressed in
black frocks, mopping their eyes, and pouring out their little souls
over the coffin. The others of the train, seven or eight, followed at
long intervals, arrayed in nearly the same style, more or less elegant,
according to the dignity of the corpses carried in them. In the midst
was a chariot, as rich as the others in decoration, and forming a
splendid contrast, of dazzling white; and young girls, in raiment whiter
than the snow, following in a long train, chanted hymns to their
departed sister. This procession had everything but funeral solemnity. I
had expected muffled drums and dead marches, and all but the
bell-clappers silent over the face of Paris. The music, on the contrary,
was thrilling and military; and all the emblems, but the crape and
coffin, would have served as well for an elegant jubilee. The last
scene--the entrance into the Chapel of the Invalids, and the ceremony
there--was the most solemn. The church was hung in its blackest mourning
weeds, and priests, in a long row, said masses upon the dead, holding
black torches in their hands. The floor opened, and the deceased were
laid by the side of each other in a vault, which closed its marble jaws.
All Paris spent the day in the procession, and in the evening went to
the Opera Comique. But I don’t like funerals; I will write of something
else.
I will tell you of my first excursion to the country. Every one who
loves eating, and drinking, and dancing, went out yesterday to the fête
at St. Cloud--_c’est si jolie, une fête de village!_ and I went along.
The situation of this village is very picturesque, on the banks of the
Seine, and commands a delightful prospect of the city and environs of
Paris. If St. Cloud would not take it ill, I should like to stay here a
month. There are the sweetest little hills, and glades, and cascades
imaginable,--not, indeed, beautiful and poetical as your wild and native
scenery of Pottsville; one does not wander by the mountain torrent, nor
by the clear stream, such as gushes from the flanks of your craggy
hills, nor by the “Tumbling Run” that winds its course through the
intricate valley till it mingles and murmurs no more in the wizard
Schuylkill; nor does one stray through forests of fragrant honeysuckles,
or gather the wild flower from the solitary rock; but it is sweet, also,
to see the little fishes cut with their golden oars the silvery lake,
and to walk upon the fresh-mown turf, and scent the odour from the
neighbouring hedge; the rose and woodbine, too, are sweet, when
nourished by the agricultural ingenuity and care of man.
All that kind of beauty which the fertile earth can receive from the
hand of a skilful cultivator is possessed by these little hills of St.
Cloud in its most adorable perfection. I have listened here to the music
of the bees, and in the calm and balmy evening to the last serenade of
the thrush retiring to its rest. One forgets, in hearing this language
of his native country, that he is wandering in a foreign land! St. Cloud
has, also, an interest in its historical recollections. It was burnt
once by the English; it was besieged and taken by Condé, in the
religious wars; and Henry III. was assassinated here, by Jacques
Clement. It was the favourite residence of Bonaparte. If he resided any
where (for ambition has no home,) it was at St. Cloud. It was here he
put himself at the head of the government, overthrowing the Directory,
in 1799. The neighbourhood is adorned with magnificent villas. The
French do not, like the English, plunge from the bustle and animation of
their city into a lifeless solitude, or carry a multitude of guests with
them to their country seats, to eat them out of house and home, as an
antidote to the vapours. They select the vicinity of some frequented
spot, as St. Cloud or Versailles, and secure the pleasures of society to
their summer residences. I believe it is well for one who wishes to make
the best of life, in all its circumstances, to study the French. I am
glad that, in imitating England in many things (as we ought), we have
not copied her absurd whim of living in the country at Christmas.
The Chateau at St. Cloud is an irregular building; it has on its
principal front four Corinthian columns; and Justice, and Prudence, and
a naked Truth, and some other hieroglyphic ladies, are looking down from
the balustrade. I had myself conducted through its apartments; the
_salle de compagnie--d’audience--de toilet_, and the Queen’s
bed-chamber. Only to think, here she used to sleep, the little queeny!
They have made her bed just two feet high, lest she might fall out and
break her majesty’s neck in the night. The King’s apartments are in a
similar range. The _salon de Diane_ is fine, with the tapestry of the
gobelins, and the _grand salon_ with Sêvres’ China vases. Its crimson
velvet hangings cost twenty thousand dollars, and its four candelabra
six thousand. The _galérie d’Apollon_ has paintings by the best masters.
I admired all these things excessively.
Every one knows the genealogy of admiration. They certainly exceed very
far our usual republican notions of magnificence. Thou most unclassical
Blucher! Why the fellow slept here, booted and spurred, in the Emperor’s
bed, and kennelled his hounds upon the sofas--both with an equal sense
I presume, of the sumptuousness of their lodgings. If, at least, he had
put his hounds into Diana’s saloon, the stupid Goth, he might have had
some credit for his wit--he can have none for his brutality.
I was puzzled about the reward to be given to our Cicerone. To have all
this service for nothing was unreasonable; and to offer money to a man
with a cocked hat, and black velvet breeches--it was a painful feeling.
I was in a situation exactly the reverse of Alexander the Great towards
his schoolmaster.--What was enough for such a respectable gentleman to
receive, was too much for me to give. I consulted a French lady; for
French ladies know every thing, and they don’t knock you down when you
ask them a question.--She told me a franc would be as much as he would
expect. Think of giving a franc for an hour’s service, to as good a
looking gentleman as General Washington!
Coming out from the Castle, I wandered through the Park, which contains
some hundred acres, diversified with hills and valleys, and presenting
from an eminence a delightful view of the surrounding country, including
Paris. On this spot is a “Lantern of Demosthenes,” copied from the
monument of that name at Athens. A great part of the park is a public
promenade, and is chiefly remarkable for its _jets d’eaux_, which on a
fête day throw up the water sportively in the air, and for its numerous
cascades, one of which is one hundred and twenty-five feet above the
level of the basin. I next went with a guide into the “_Petit Parc_,”
made for Marie Antoinette. She bought this chateau (one of her sins)
just before the Revolution. This park is beautiful, with bowers, groves,
pieces of water, statuary, and every imaginable embellishment. In
wandering about here, I got acquainted with a nobleman. He is of that
order of knighthood which the French call “Chevaliers
d’Industrie.”--“This, sir, I think, is by Pigale, and this Cupid by
Depautre. Look especially at this Venus by Coustan.”--“_Point du tout,
monsieur_, I make it a duty as you are a stranger.” He liked the
Americans excessively.--“To be the countryman of Franklin, _c’est un
titre_!” I seldom ever met a more polite and accomplished gentleman, and
fashionable. I had a purse, containing in silver twenty francs, which,
being incommodious to a waistcoat, I had put into an outside coat
pocket. Late in the evening, you might have seen me returning homewards
on foot, (the distance two leagues,) not having wherewith to hire a
coach, and no money at my lodgings. If the devil had not been invented,
I should have found him out on this occasion.
The verdure of this country is more fresh than ours under the dog star.
There is a hazy atmosphere, which intercepts the rays of the sun and
mitigates the heat. I don’t say a word here in favour of our summer
climate from conscientious scruples. Indeed I have gained such a victory
over my patriotism that I never find fault with these foreigners for
having anything better than we have it ourselves; nor do I take any
merit to myself because the Mississippi is two miles wide, or because
the Niagara falls with such sublimity into Lake Ontario.
I was introduced by a mere accident to a Scotch lady of this village,
who prevailed on my modesty to dine with her. She is a lady of
experience and great affability, who has resided here and in Paris,
eleven years. She is on a furlough from her husband, an Englishman. She
shewed me the cathedral, the cemetery, and the grave of one who won
princes by her smile, Mrs. Jordan. She asks a repetition of the visit,
and is too amiable and accomplished to be refused. She is at least
forty-five--in the “ambush of her younger days” the invitation would not
have been safe for the visiter.
On my return I walked through the Bois de Boulogne, where you and
romantic Mary have so often assisted at a duel. It was in the
glimmerings of the twilight, and now and then looking through a vista of
the tangled forest, I could see distinctly, a ghost pulling a trigger at
another ghost, or pushing _carte_ and _tierce_ at his ribs. This forest
flanks the west side of the Faubourgs of Paris, and contains seventeen
hundred acres of ground; in some parts an open wood, in others an
intricate and impenetrable thicket. It is the fashionable drive for
those who have coaches in the morning, and a solitary enough walk for
one who has no coach of an evening. Young girls always find saddled at
the east end a number of donkeys, upon which they take a wholesome
exercise, and acquire the elements of equitation at three sous a ride.
Some who have “witched the world with noble horsemanship,” have begun
upon these little asses.
I had the light only of the gentle moonbeam to direct my footsteps
through the latter part of this forest; and I walked speedily,
recollecting I should not be the first man who was murdered here by a
great many. I feared to meet some rogue ignorant that I was robbed
already, so I went whistling along, (for men who have money don’t
whistle,) till I arrived at the Champs Elysées--its lamps sparkling like
the starry firmament.
An hour sooner I should have found it alive with all sorts of equipages;
with all the landaus, tilburys, and other private vehicles, and footmen
glittering in golden coats, with feathers waving on their empty heads,
whilst the edges of the road would have been fringed with ten thousand
pedestrians on their evening walks. Now there were a few only in
attendance upon Franconi’s, or the concert. In the former of these
places they exhibit melodramas, and equestrian feats, in which the
riding ladies only outstrip what we see in our own country. In the
latter there is a band of near a hundred musicians, who charm all the
world at twenty sous a piece, playing the fashionable airs from six till
nine every evening. Innumerable cafés around pour out the fragrant
nectar to their guests.
For an image of this place you need not read Virgil’s sixth book, or
refer to any of your classical associations. Fancy only, without a
single inequality, a horizontal plain of an hundred or more acres, or
rather a barren moor, a ball-alley, a baked and turfless common, or any
most trodden spot upon the earth, and that is the French Elysium. Not a
blade of grass, or shrub, or flower, dares grow upon its surface. The
trees are straining and trying to grow but cannot. Yet it is precisely
to this barren field that all the world comes, especially on fête days,
to be perfectly delighted. It is surrounded by the city, and has an air
of country in town. It is a kind of republican turn-out, where one may
go as one pleases, without toilet or any troublesome respect to
etiquette. It is a refuge always at hand from an uncomfortable
home--from a scold or a creditor; it cures husbands of their wives, old
bachelors of the vapours, and sometimes lovers of their sweethearts. On
Sundays and holidays you will find here, of foolishness, all that you
have ever seen, all that you have ever fancied, and if there is anything
of this kind you have never seen or fancied, it is here. Besides the
concert, and the circus, and fresco dances, here are all the jugglers
and their tricks, mountebanks and their medicines, clowns and their
fooleries, all the family of the punches, and all the apes in
regimentals; not counting the voltigeurs without legs, and the blind
girls, who see to walk over eggs without breaking them. You may have a
stage if you love to play harlequin, or a greasy pole if you wish to
climb for a prize at the top of it. You may sit down on a swing like a
water wheel, which will toss you fifty feet in the air, where you may
run from yourself and after yourself by the hour; or on another, which
will whirl you about horizontally on hobby horses till you become
invisible. If thirsty, you may have an ice cream; if studious, a chair
and a newspaper; and if nervous, a shock of electricity worth two sous.
Moreover, you can buy cakes reeking hot that were baked a week ago, and
a stick of barley-sugar, only a little sucked by the woman’s baby, at
half its value.
On the outskirts, towards night, you may find also an opportunity of
exercising your charity, and other benevolent affections. One poor woman
is getting a living here by the dropsy, and another by nine orphan
children, and such like advantages; another has lost the use of her
limbs and is running about with a certificate. In coming out by the side
next the city you are at once upon the Place Louis XV., where you will
see on their pedestals two superb and restive coursers, which tread on
air, held in with difficulty by their two marble grooms. We are again
upon St. Anne’s-street, and under the protection of her sainted wings I
repose till to-morrow, bidding you an affectionate good night.
* * * * *
_August 25th._
I called a few days ago upon the king. We Yankees went to congratulate
his Majesty for not being killed on the 28th. We were overwhelmed with
sympathy--and the staircase which leads up to the royal apartments is
very beautiful, and has two Ionic columns just on the summit. You first
enter through a room of white and plain ground, then through a second,
hung round with awful field marshals, and then you go through a room
very large, and splendid with lustres, and other elegant furniture,
which conducts into a fourth with a throne and velvet canopy. The king
was very grateful, at least he made a great many bows, and we too were
very grateful to Providence for more than a couple of hours. There was
the queen, and the two little princesses--but I will write this so that
by embroidering it a little you may put it in the newspapers.
The Chamber of Peers and Deputies, and other functionaries of the State,
were pouring in to place at the foot of the throne the expression of
their loyalty. This killing of the king has turned out very much to his
advantage. There was nothing anywhere but laudatory speeches and
protestations of affection--foreigners from all the countries of Europe
uniting in sympathy with the natives. So we got ashamed of ourselves, we
Americans, and held a meeting in the Rue Rivoli, where we got up a
procession too, and waited upon his Majesty for the purpose above
stated, and were received into the presence--the royal family being
ranged around the room to get a sight of us.
Modesty forbids me to speak of the very eloquent manner in which we
pronounced our address; to which the king made a very appropriate reply.
“Gentlemen, you can better _guess_,” said he, “than I can express to
you, the gratification,” &c.--I missed all the rest by looking at the
Princess Amelia’s most beautiful of all faces, except the conclusion,
which was as follows:--“And I am happy to embrace this occasion of
expressing to you all, and through you to your countrymen, the deep
gratitude I have ever felt for the kindness and hospitality I
experienced in America, during my misfortunes.” The king spoke in
English, and with an affectionate and animated expression, and we were
pleased _all to pieces_. So was Louis Philippe, and so was _Marie
Amelie_, princess of the two Sicilies, his wife; and so was
_Marie-Christine-Caroline-Adelaide-Françoise-Leopoldine_, and
_Marie-Clementine-Caroline-Leopoldine-Clotilde_, her two daughters, and
the rest of the family.
A note from the king’s aide-de-camp required the presence of our consul
at the head of the deputation, which our consul refused. He did not
choose, he said, to see the Republic make a fool of herself, running
about town, and tossing up her cap, because the king was not killed, and
he would not go. “Then,” said the king (a demur being made by his
officers,) “I will receive the Americans as they received me, without
fuss or ceremony.” So we got in without any head, but not without a long
attendance in the ante-chamber, very inconvenient to our legs.--How we
strolled about during this time, looking over the nick-nacks, and how
some of us took out our handkerchiefs and knocked the dust off our
boots in the _salle des marechaux_, and how we reclined upon the royal
cushions, and set one leg to ride impatiently on the other, I leave to
be described by Major Downing, who was one of our party. I will bring up
the rear of this paragraph, with an anecdote, which will make you laugh.
One of our deputation had brought along a chubby little son of his,
about sixteen. He returned, (for he had gone ahead to explore,) and said
in a soft voice,--“Tommy, you can go in to the Throne, but don’t go too
near.” And then Tommy set off with velvet steps, and approached, as you
have seen timid old ladies to a blunderbuss,--he feared it might go off.
The king is a bluff old man, with more firmness of character, sense, and
activity, than is indicated by his plump and rubicund features. The
queen has a very unexceptionable face; her features are prominent, and
have a sensible benevolent expression--a face not of the French cut, but
such as you often meet amongst the best New England faces. Any gentleman
would like to have such a woman for his mother. The eldest daughter is
married to the King of Belgium; the second and third are grown up to
_manhood_, but not yet married. They would be thought pretty girls even
by your village beaux, and with your ladies, except two or three (how
many are you?) they would be “stuck up things, no prettier than their
neighbours.”
The Duke of Orleans is a handsome young man, and so spare and delicate
as almost to call into question his mother’s reputation. He assumes more
dignity of manner than is natural to a Frenchman at his age; he is not
awkward, but a little stiff; his smile seems compulsory, and more akin
to the lips than the heart. Any body else would have laughed out on this
occasion. He has been with the army in Africa, and has returned
moderately covered with laurels. The Duke of Némours is just struggling
into manhood, and is shaving to get a beard as assiduously as his father
to get rid of it. He also has fought valiantly somewhere--I believe in
Holland. Among the ladies there is one who pleases me exceedingly; it is
Madame Adelaide, the king’s sister. She has little beauty, but a most
affable and happy expression of countenance. She was a pupil of Madame
Genlis, who used to call her “_cette belle et bonne Princesse_.” She was
married secretly to General Athelin, her brother’s secretary, during
their residence in England. She revealed this marriage, with great fear
of his displeasure, to her brother, after his accession to the throne,
throwing herself on her knees.--After some pause, he said, embracing her
tenderly,--“Domestic happiness is the main thing after all; and now that
he is the king’s brother-in-law, we must make him a duke.” Madame
Adelaide is now in the Indian summer of her charms.
One who knows royalty only from the old books, necessarily looks about
for that motley gentleman, the king’s fool. The city of Troyes used to
have a monopoly of supplying this article; but the other towns, I have
heard, grew jealous of the privilege, and they have them now from all
parts of the kingdom. Seriously, the splendour of ancient courts has
faded away wonderfully in every respect. When Sully went to England,
says the history, he was attended by two hundred gentlemen, and three
hundred guns saluted him at the Tower. The pomp and luxury of
drawing-rooms and levees were then most gorgeous.
The eye was dazzled with the glittering display; nothing but yeomen of
the guards with halberds, and wearing hats of rich velvet, plumed like
the peacock, with wreaths and rosettes in their shoes; and functionaries
of the law, in black gowns, and full wigs; and bishops, and other church
dignitaries, in aprons of black silk; and there were knights of the
garter, the lord steward, the lord chancellor, and the Lord knows
who. And the same grandeur and brilliancy in the French
courts--_chambellans_, and _écuyers_, and _aumoniers_, all the way down
to the _chauf-cire_, and keeper of the royal hounds; and one swam in a
sea of gems and plumes, and sweet and honied ladies. Republicanism has
set her irreverend foot upon all this regal splendour. I wish I had come
over a hundred years ago. The king’s salary before the Revolution,
though provisions were at half their present rate, was thirty millions;
that of Charles X. was twenty-five; and the present king’s is only
twelve millions, with one million to the Duke of Orleans.
_I_ and Louis Philippe do not agree altogether about the manner in which
the French people ought to be governed. The censorship of the press, the
espionage, the violation of private correspondence, the jail and the
gibbet, will not arrest the hand of the regicide. I have read in a
journal to-day, that 2,746 persons have already been imprisoned for
having censured the acts of the present government, in the person of
the king. The devil will get his Most Christian Majesty if he goes on at
this rate. Why don’t he learn that the strength of kings, in these days,
is in their weakness? Why don’t he set up M. Thiers, and then M. Guizot,
and then M. Thiers again, as they do in England? Look at King
William--does any body shoot him? and yet he rides out with four
cream-coloured horses, with blue eyes, every day, and sometimes he walks
into the Hungerford Market, and asks the price of shrimps. Louis plays a
principal part in all his measures, even his high-handed measures. If he
makes himself a target, he must expect to be shot at. In the beginning
of his reign, he played the liberal too loosely. “Why talk of
censorship?” said he--“_il n’y aura plus de délits de la presse_.”--“I
am but a bridge to arrive at the Republic.”
With his present acts, this language is in almost ludicrous contrast. He
is a Jacobin turned king, say his enemies; and we must expect he will
run the career of all renegades. I have not described his disasters and
dangers in a lamentable tone, because I don’t choose to affect a
sympathy I do not feel. He had a quiet and delightful habitation at
Neuilly; and since he has not preferred it to this “bare-picked bone of
Majesty,” at the Tuileries, let him abide the consequences. However, I
shall be one of those who will deplore his loss, from the good will I
bear the French people, for I have not the least doubt that, with twenty
years’ possession of the throne, he will bring them, in all that
constitutes real comfort and rational liberty, to a degree of prosperity
unknown to their history.
Remember, I am talking French, not American politics. To infer from the
example of America, that the institutions of a Republic may be
introduced into these old governments of Europe, requires yet the
“experiment” of another century. If we can retain our democracy when our
back woodlands are filled up, when New York and Philadelphia have become
a London and Paris; when the land shall be covered with its multitudes,
struggling for a scanty living, with passions excited by luxurious
habits and appetites;--if we can then maintain our universal suffrage
and our liberty, it will be fair and reasonable enough in us to set
ourselves up for the imitation of others. Liberty, as far as we yet know
her, is not fitted to the condition of these populous and luxurious
countries. Her household gods are of clay, and her dwelling, where the
icy gales of Alleghany sing through the crevices of her hut.
I have spent a day at the exhibition of the students of the University,
which was conducted with great pomp. There was a _concour_ for prizes,
and speeches in the learned languages; nothing but _clarissimi_ and
_eruditissimi_, Thiers and Guizots. Don’t you love modern Latin? I read,
the other day, an ode to “Hannæ Moræ,” and I intend to write one some of
these days to Miss Kittæ J. Nellæ, of Pine Hill. A propos! what is doing
at the Girard College? when are they to choose the professors? and who
are the trustees? I must be recommended τοισι ανθροποισι μεγαλοισι.
Please tell Mr. S---- I confide to him my interests, as a good catholic
does his soul to the priest, without meddling himself in the matter.
Good night.