The Observatory--The Astronomers--Val de Grace--Anne of
Austria--Hospice des Enfans Trouvés--Rows of Cradles--Sisters of
Charity--Vincent de Paul--Maisons d’Accouchement--Place St.
Jaques--The Catacombs--Skull of Ninon de l’Enclos--The Poet
Gilbert--Julian’s Bath--Hôtel de Cluny--Ancient Furniture--Francis
the First’s Bed--Charlotte Corday--Danton--Marat--Robespierre--Rue
des Postes--Convents of former times--Faubourg St. Marceau.
_Paris, Oct. 25th._
I rose this morning, and refreshed myself from the repose of the night,
by running boyishly up the broad and elegant walk which leads to the
south end of the garden, to the Observatory, the place where they make
almanacks; I went in and saw great piles of astronomical books and
instruments, an _anemometer_ to measure the winds, and another affair
baptised also in Greek, to measure the rain; also, a thing in the
cellar, which, in this Latin quarter, they call an “_acoustic
phenomenon_.” By this you can talk aloud all day to any individual
standing in a particular place, and not another of the company will be
anything the wiser for it.
There are a number of men here, whom they call astronomers, who, while
we are asleep, look after the stars, and observe what is going on in the
moon; and who go to bed with Venus and the heavenly bodies towards
morning.
There is an old woman here in a little stall, upon the broad and paved
place in front of the Observatory, who sells tobacco and butter, besides
vaudevilles and epic poems, who shewed me, what do you think?--the very
stone upon which Marshal Ney stood to be shot. “There stood the wretches
that shot him. Yes, sir, I saw him murdered, and I never wish to see the
like again.”
Just east, I visited another remarkable building, which young girls read
about in their romances, called _Val de Grace_. This church, built by
Anne of Austria, was called _Val de Grace_. If you wish to see the
prettiest fresco paintings of all Paris, you must go in here and look up
at the dome; the chapels, too, are full of virgins and dirty little
angels. She came here in 1624, and laid the corner-stone with her own
little hands. She bestowed some special privileges upon the monastery,
amongst others the right of burying in this church the hearts of all the
defunct princesses, beginning with herself; and at the Revolution, “one
counted even to twenty-six royal hearts.” The convent of _Val de Grace_
is now turned into a military hospital, and greasy soldiers are stabled
where once lived and breathed the pretty nuns you read of in your
novels.
Just in the neighbourhood is the _Hospice des Enfans Trouvés_, to which
I paid a hasty visit. If a child takes it into its head to be born out
of lawful wedlock, which now and then occurs, it is carried to this
hospital for nourishment and education. The average number admitted
here, is 6,000 annually, 16½ per day. They are received day and night,
and no questions asked. All you have to do is, to place the little human
being in a box, communicating with an apartment in the interior, which,
on ringing a bell, is taken in, and gets on afterwards well enough,
often better than we who think ourselves legitimate. It sucks no
diseases from its mother’s milk; and from its father’s example no vices;
and it has a good many virtues incident to its condition. It has
amongst these a great reverence for old age, not knowing but that every
old gentleman it meets might be its papa.
On entering this hospital you will see two long rows of cradles running
over with babies, and a group of sisters, in gowns of black serge,
making and mending up the baby wardrobe, or extending to the little
destitute creatures the offices of maternity; and indeed they take such
care of them, as almost to discourage poor people from having legitimate
children altogether. But what praise can be equal to the merits of these
Sisters of Charity? You see them wherever suffering humanity needs their
assistance; their devotion has no parallel in the history of the world.
They are very often, too, of rich and distinguished families; women who
leave all the enjoyments of gay society to pursue these humble and
laborious duties, to practise, in these silent walls, prudence,
patience, fortitude, and all those domestic virtues and peaceful
moralities which, in this naughty world of ours, obtain neither
admiration nor distinction. Think only of relinquishing fashion, and
rank, and pleasure, to be granny to an almshouse!
This hospital was founded by one of the most respectable saints of all
Paris, Vincent de Paul. His statue is placed in the vestibule. It would
do your heart good to see the babies go down on their bits of knees
every evening, and bless the memory of this saint. A cradle used to be
hung up as a sign to draw customers here, but the reputation of the
house is now made, and it is taken down. Formerly the ringing of a bell,
too, or the wailings of the infant, the mother giving it a pinch, was
enough to announce a new comer, but lately so many dead children have
been put in the box to avoid the expense of burying them that they have
been obliged to stop up the hole. I am sorry for this; it was so
convenient. You just put in a baby as you put a letter in the
post-office; now you are obliged to carry it into a room inside, where
the names, dress, the words, and behaviour of those who bring it, as
also its death, are entered in a register; this register is kept a
profound secret; never revealed to any one, unless one pays twenty
francs. I visited the school-rooms, where those of proper age are taught
to read and write. They seem very merry and happy; and, having no
communication with the world, are unconscious of any inferiority of
birth. When very young or sickly they are put out to nurse in the
country, and at twelve are apprenticed to a trade. The sisters will
point you out a mother who has placed her infant here, and got herself
employed as child’s nurse to the hospital to give it nourishment and
care. I forgot to mention that mothers are not allowed to see their
babies, or receive their bodies if they die; they are reserved for the
improvement of anatomical science.
A useful appendage to this establishment are the numerous _Maisons
d’Accouchement_, distributed everywhere over the city, in which persons
find accommodations, as secretly as they please, and at all prices, to
suit their circumstances. The evils of all these establishments are
manifest: the good is, the prevention of infanticide, often of suicide,
and of the perjuries innumerable, and impositions practised in some
other countries. I doubt whether a city like Paris could safely adopt
any other system. The tables of the last year’s births stand
thus:--seventeen thousand one hundred and twenty-nine legitimate; nine
thousand seven hundred and twenty-one illegitimate. So you see that
every second man you meet in Paris wants but a trifle of being no
bastard. Expense, above a million and a half of francs.
Here is the _Place St. Jaques_; the place of public execution. It is
the present station of the guillotine, which has already made several
spots of the city classical. And here is appropriately the _Barrière
d’Enfer_. These barriers are found at all the great issues from the city
through the walls. They are amongst the curiosities of Paris; often
beautiful with sculpture, and other ornaments.
Whilst I was surveying this district, in my usual solitary way, I met
two gentlemen and a lady, acquaintances, who were descending into the
catacombs, whose opening is just here, and I went down with them.
This nether world bears upon its vaults three fourths of the Quartier
St. Germain, with its superincumbent mass of churches and palaces. The
light of Heaven is shut out, and so deep a silence reigns in its
recesses, that one hears his own footsteps walking after him, and is so
vast that several visitors, straying away a few years ago, have not yet
returned. The bones of fifty generations are emptied here from ancient
grave yards of Paris, now only known to history. What a hideous
deformity of skulls! After entering half a mile we saw various
constructions, all made out of these remnants of mortality; sepulchral
monuments, an entire church, with its pulpit, confessional, altars,
tombs, and coffins; and the victims of several Revolutionary massacres,
are laid out here chronologically. How unjacobinical they look!
On entering, you are confronted with the following inscription;
“_Arrête, c’est ici l’empire de la Mort!_” and various other
inscriptions are put up in the dead languages, and names often written
upon skulls, to designate their owners. “Fix your eyes here,” said the
lady; “this is the skull of Ninon de l’Enclos,” with verses.
“L’indulgente et sage Nature
A formé l’âme de Ninon
De la Volupté d’Epicure,
Et de la vertu de Caton.”
And this is her skull! Every one knows her history, but I will tell you
a little of it over again. I will give you a list of her court. Molière,
to begin with, and Corneille; Scarron, St. Evermond, Chapelle,
Desmarets, Mignard, Chateauneuf, Chaulieu, Condé, Vendome, Villeroi,
Villars, D’Etrée, La Rochefoucauld, Choiseul, Sevigné and Fontenelle.
She was honoured with the confidence of Madame Scarron, and the homage,
through her ambassadors, of the Queen of Sweden. She made conquests at
sixty, one at seventy, and died at ninety. Her own son, the Chevalier
de Villars, fell in love with her at fifty, and fell upon his sword when
she revealed to him the secret of his birth. The Chevalier de Gourville
confided to her twenty thousand crowns, when driven to exile, and a like
sum to the Grand Penetencier; the priest denied the deposit, and the
courtezan restored it, unasked.
I visited, a month ago, her chateau, and saw the rooms in which she used
to give her famous suppers “_à tous les Despreaux, et tous les
Racines_.” And this is her skull! While my doctor companions were
turning it about, and explaining the bumps--how big was her ideality,
how developed her amativeness, I turned her about in my mind, until I
had turned her into shapes again--into that incomparable beauty and
grace, which no rival was able to equal, and which sensuality itself was
not able to degrade. I hung back the lips upon those grinning teeth, I
gave her her smile again, her wit, and her eloquence. I assisted at her
little court of Cyprus, in the Rue de Tournelle, where philosophers came
to gather wisdom, and courtiers grace, from her conversation; I assisted
at her toilette, and witnessed the hopes, the jealousies, the agonies,
and ecstacies of her lovers. And so we took leave of the exquisite
Ninon’s skull--if it was her’s.
The poet Gilbert, who died of want, has here an apartment to himself,
which he had not above ground. It is inscribed with his own mournful
epitaph,
“Au banquet de la vie, infortuné convive,
J’apparus un jour, et je meurs.
Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, où lentement j’arrive,
Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs!”