which, since that time, has here and there affected the tone of our
society. In the days of which I speak, brothers who returned from Europe
brought with them the romances of Balzac and Victor Hugo, which their
sisters surreptitiously read. We heard also with a sort of terror of
George Sand, the evil woman, who wrote such somnambulic books. We
pictured to ourselves the wicked delight of reading them; and presently
some friend confidentially lent us the forbidden volumes, which our
Puritan nurture and habit of life did much to render harmless and not
quite clear in meaning.
I should say that the works of Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, and
Eugène Sue had each exerted an appreciable influence upon the social
atmosphere of this country. Of these four, Balzac was the least popular,
having long been known only to readers acquainted with the French
language. George Sand first became widely recognized through her
"Consuelo." Victor Hugo's popular fame dates from "Les Miserables," and
"The Mysteries of Paris" opened the doors to Eugène Sue, and _Rigolette_
and _Fleur de Marie_, new types of character to most of us, appeared
upon the stage.
Still nearer was Paris brought to us by Carlyle's work on the French
Revolution, which, falling like a compact and burning coal upon the
American imagination, reddened the sober twilight of our firesides with
the burning passion and frenzy of that great drama of enthusiasm and
revenge. And here, lest I should entirely reverse the order in which
historic things should be spoken of, let me dismiss those early
memories, and, having shown you something of the far-reaching influence
of the city, let me speak of it from nearer sight and study.
History must come first. I find it written in a certain record that
Paris, in the time of Julius Cæsar, was a collection of huts built upon
an island in the Seine, and bearing the name of Lutetia. Its
inhabitants were called Parisii, which was the name of their tribe,
supposed to be an offshoot from the Belgæ. I do not know whether this
primitive settlement lay within the bounds of Gallia _Bracchiata_; but,
if it did, how natural that to the other indebtedness of polite life,
that of the trouser should be added! The city still possesses some
interesting remains of the Roman period. The Hotel Cluny is also called
"The Hotel of the Baths," and whoever visits it may at the same time
explore a massive ruin which is said to have covered beneath its roof
the baths of the Emperor Julian, surnamed "The Apostate."
A rapid panoramic retrospect will give us briefly the leading points of
the city's many periods of interest. First must be named Paris of the
early saints: Saint Genevieve, who saved it from the hands of Attila;
Saint Denis, famous for having walked several miles after his head was
cut off, carrying that deposed member under his arm.
A well-known French proverb was suggested some time in the last century
by the relation of this mediæval miracle. The celebrated Madame
Dudeffant, a wit and beauty of Horace Walpole's time, was told one day
that the Archbishop of Paris had said that every one knew that Saint
Denis had walked some distance after his decapitation, but that few
people were aware that he had walked several miles on that occasion.
Madame Dudeffant said, in reply: "Indeed, in such a case, it is the
first step only that costs,"--_"Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte."_
Paris of the sleepy Merovingians,--do-nothing kings, a race made to be
kicked out, and fulfilling its destiny,--Paris of Hugh Capet, in whose
reign were laid the foundations of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Paris of
1176, whereof the old chronicler, John of Salisbury, writes: "When I saw
the abundance of provisions, the gaiety of the people, the good
condition of the clergy, the majesty and glory of all the church, the
diverse occupations of men admitted to the study of philosophy, I seemed
to see that Jacob's ladder whose summit reached heaven, and on which the
angels ascended and descended. I must confess that truly the Lord was in
this place. This passage also of a poet came to my mind: 'Happy is the
man whose exile is to this place.'"
This suggests the familiar saying of our own time,--that good
Bostonians, when they die, go to Paris.
Paris of Louis XI., he of the strong hand, the stony heart, the
superstitious mind. Scott has seized the features of the time and of the
man in his novel of "Quentin Durward." His hat, full of leaden images of
saints, his cunning and pitiless diplomacy, and the personages of his
brilliant court are brought vividly before us by the magician of the
North.
Paris of Louis XIII., and its Richelieu live for us in Bulwer's vivid
play, in which I have often seen the fine impersonation of Edwin Booth.
Paris of Louis XIV., the handsome young king, the idol, the absolute
sovereign, who said: _"L'état, c'est moi;"_ the old man before whom
Madame de Maintenon is advised to say her prayers, in order to make upon
his mind a serious impression; the revoker of the edict of Nantes; he
who tried to extinguish Dutch freedom with French blood; a god in his
own time, a figure now faded, pompous, self-adoring.
Paris of Louis XV., the reign of license, the _Parc aux cerfs_, the
period of the courtesan, Madame de Pompadour, and a host of rivals and
successors,--a hateful type of womanhood, justly odious and gladly
forgotten.
Paris of Louis XVI., the days of progress and of good intentions; the
deficit, the ministry of Neckar, the states general, Mirabeau,
Lafayette, Robespierre, the fall of the monarch, the reign of terror;
the guillotine in permanence, science, virtue, every distinction
supplying its victims.
Paris of Napoleon I.; a whiff of grape-shot that silences the last
grumblings of the Revolution; the mighty marches, the strategy of
Ulysses, the labors of Hercules, the glory of Jupiter, ending in the
fate of Prometheus.
Paris of the returned Bourbons, Charles X., the Duc de Berri, the
Duchess d'Angoulême; Paris of the Orleans dynasty, civil, civic, free,
witty; wise here, and wicked there; the Mecca of students in all
sciences; a region problematic to parents, who fear its vices and
expense, but who desire its opportunities and elegance for their sons.
This was in the days in which a visit to Paris was the _ne plus ultra_
of what parents could do to forward a son's studies, or perfect a
daughter's accomplishments.
Having made my connections in this breathless review, I must return to
speak of two modern works of art which treat of matters upon which my
haste did not allow me, in the first instance, to dwell.
The first of these is Victor Hugo's picture of mediæval Paris, given in
his famous romance entitled "Notre Dame de Paris." This remarkable novel
preserves valuable details of the architecture of the ancient cathedral
from which it takes its name. It paints the society of the time in
gloomy colors. The clergy are corrupt, the soldiery licentious, the
people forlorn and friendless. Here is a brief outline of the story. The
beautiful gipsy, _Esmeralda_, dances and twirls her tambourine in the
public streets. Her companion is a little goat, which she has taught to
spell her lover's name, by putting together the letters which compose
it. This lover is _Phoebus_, captain of the guard. _Claude Frollo_,
the cunning, wicked priest of the period, has cast his evil eye upon the
girl. He manages to surprise her when alone with her lover, and stabs
the latter so as to endanger his life. A hideous dwarf, named
_Quasimodo_, also loves _Esmeralda_, with humble, faithful affection. As
the story develops, he turns out to have been the changeling laid in the
place of the lovely girl-infant whom gipsies stole from her cradle.
_Esmeralda_ finds her distracted parent, but only to be torn from her
arms again. The priest, _Claude Frollo_, foiled in his unlawful passion,
stirs up the wrath of the populace against _Esmeralda_, accusing her of
sorcery. She is seized by the mob, and hanged in the public street. The
narrative is powerful and graphic, but it shows the disease of Victor
Hugo's mind,--a morbid imagination which heightens the color of human
crimes in order to give a melodramatic brilliancy to the virtue which
contrasts with them. According to his view, suffering through the fault
of others is necessarily the lot of all good people. French romance has
in it much of this despair of the cause of virtue. It springs, however
remotely, from the dark days of absolutism, whose bitter secrets were
masked over by the frolic fancy of the people who invented the joyous
science of minstrelsy.
The other work which I have now in mind is Meyerbeer's opera of "The
Huguenots," which I mention here because it brings so vividly to mind
the features of another period in the history of Paris. It represents,
as an opera may, the frightful days in which a king's hospitality was
made a trap for the wholesale butchery of as many Protestants as could
be lured within the walls of Paris,--the massacre which bears the name
of Saint Bartholomew. Nobles and leaders were shot down in the streets,
or murdered in their beds, while the hollow phrases of the royal favor
still rang in their ears. I have seen, near the church of St. Germain
l'Auxerois, the palace window from which the kerchief of Catherine de
Medici gave the signal for the fatal onslaught. "Do you not believe my
word?" asked the Queen Mother one day of the English ambassador. "No, by
Saint Bartholomew, Madam," was the sturdy reply.
Meyerbeer's opera is truly a Protestant work of art, vigorous and noble.
Through all the intensity of its dramatic situations runs the grand
choral of Luther:--
A mighty fortress is our God.
So true faith holds its own, and sails its silver boat upon the bloody
sea of martyrdom.
Am I obliged to have recourse to a novel and an opera in order to bring
before your eyes a vision of Paris in those distant ages? Such are our
indebtednesses to art and literature. And here I must again mention, as
a great master in both of these, Thomas Carlyle, who has given us so
vivid and graphic a picture of the Revolution in France, which followed
so nearly upon our own War of Independence.
I, a grandmother of to-day, recall the impression which this great
conflict had made upon the grandparents of my childhood. Most wicked and
cruel did they esteem it, in all of its aspects. To people of our day,
it appears the inevitable crisis of a most malignant state of national
disease. Much of political quackery was swept away forever, one may
hope, by its virulent outbreak. No half-way nostrums, no outside
tinkering, answered for this fiery patient, whose fever set the whole
continent of Europe in a blaze. War itself was gentle in comparison with
the acts of its savage delirium, in which the vengeance of defrauded
ages fell upon victims most of whom were innocent of personal offence.
The reign of humanitarian theory led strangely to a period of military
predominance which has had no parallel since the days of Alexander of
Macedon. Then War itself died of exhaustion. The stupor of reaction
quenched the dream of civil and religious liberty. But the patient
stirred again in 1830 and 1848, and the dream, scarcely yet realized,
became more and more the settled purpose of his heart.
Now the government in 1830 was manifestly in the wrong. The stupid old
Bourbon Prince, Charles X., had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing,
but the French people had learned and unlearned many things. They had
learned the illusion of Monarchy, the corruption of the demagogue, the
futility of the sentimentalist. The impotence of the aristocracy was one
of the lessons of the day. Was ever a people more rapidly educated? Take
the _canaille_ of the pre-revolutionary history, and the _peuple_ of the
Revolution. What a contrast! It is the lion asleep in the toils, and the
lion awake, and turning upon his captors in fury. The French people have
never gone back to what they were before that great outbreak. The
mighty, volcanic heart has made its pulsations felt through all
assumptions, through all restraints. Yet the French people are easily
tricked. They are easily led to receive pedantry for education, bigotry
for religion, constraint for order, and successful pretension for glory.
The Revolution of 1848 was justified in all but its method. And method
has often been the weak point in French politics. Methods are handed
down more surely than ideas are inherited. The violent measures whose
record forms so large a part of French history have left behind them a
belief in military, rather than in moral, action. The _coup d'état_
would seem by its name to be a French invention; but it is a method
abhorred of Justice. Justice recognizes two sides, and gives ear to
both. Passion sees but one, and blots out in blood the representatives
of the other. The Revolution of 1848 was the rather premature explosion
of a wide and subtle conspiracy. But if the conflicting opinions and
interests then current could have encountered each other, as in England
or America, in open daylight, trusting only in the weapons of reason, a
very different result would have been achieved. Do not conspire, is one
of the lessons which Paris teaches by her history. Do not say, nor teach
others to say: "If we cannot have our way, we will have your life." Say,
rather: "Let both sides state their case, and plead their cause, and let
the weight of Reason decide which shall prevail."
* * * * *
Paris as I first knew it, half a century ago, was a place imposing for
its good taste and good manners. A stranger passing through it with ever
so little delay would necessarily have been impressed with the general
intelligence, and with the æsthetic invention and nicety which, more
than anything else, have given the city its social and commercial
prestige.
In those days, Chateaubriand and Madame Récamier were still alive. The
traditions of society were polite. The theatres were vivacious schools
of morality. The salon was still an institution. This was not what we
should call a party, but the habitual meeting of friends in a friend's
house,--a good institution, if kept up in a good spirit.
The natural sociability of the French made the salon an easy and natural
thing for them. Salons were of all sorts. Some shone in true glory; some
disguised evil purposes and passions with artificial graces. I think the
institution of the salon indigenous to Paris, although it has by no
means stopped there.
The great point in administering a salon is to do it sincerely. Where
the children are put out of the way, the old friends neglected, the rich
courted, and celebrities impaled and exhibited, the institution is
demoralizing, and answers no end of permanent good. A friendly house,
that opens its doors as often and as widely as the time and fortune of
its inmates can afford, is a boon and blessing to many people.
I suppose that the French salons were of both sorts. Sydney Smith speaks
of a certain historical set of Parisian women who dealt very lightly
with the Decalogue, but who, on the other hand, gave very pleasant
little suppers. French society, no doubt, afforded many occasions of
this sort, but far different were the meetings in which the literary
world of Paris listened to the unpublished memoirs of Chateaubriand; far
different was the throng that gathered, twice a day, around the hearth
of the wise and devout Madame Swetchine.
In the days just mentioned, I passed through Paris, returning from my
bridal journey, which had carried me to Rome. I was eager to explore
every corner of the enchanted region. What I did see, I have never
forgotten,--the brilliant shops, the tempting _cafés_, the varied and
entertaining theatres. I attended a _séance_ of the Chamber of Deputies,
a lecture of Edgar de Quinet, and one of Philarete Charles. De Quinet's
lecture was given at the Sorbonne. I remember of it only the enthusiasm
of the audience,--the faces at once fiery and thoughtful, the occasional
cries of "De Quinet," when any passage particularly stirred the feelings
of the auditors. Of Philarete Charles, I remember that his theme was
"English Literature," and that at the close of his lecture he took
occasion to reprobate the whole literary world of America. The _bon
homme_ Franklin, he said, had outwitted the French Court. The country of
Franklin was utterly without interest from an intellectual point of
view. "When," said he, "we take into account the late lamentable
disorders in New York (some small election riot, in 1844), we shall
agree upon the low state of American civilization and the small
prospect of good held out by the republic." He was unaware, of course,
that Americans were among his hearers; but a certain tidal wave of anger
arose in my heart, and had not my graver companion held me down, I
should have arisen then, as I certainly should now, to say: "Monsieur
Philarete Charles, you are uttering falsehoods."
In those days, I first saw Rachel, then in the full affluence of her
genius. The trenchant manner, the statuesque drapery, the
chain-lightning effects, were much as they were afterwards seen in this
country. But when I saw her, seven years after that first time, in
London, I thought that her unrivalled powers had bloomed to a still
fuller perfection than before. Of finest clay, thrilled by womanly
passion and tempered by womanly tact, we need not remember the faults of
the person in the perfection of the artist. Alfred de Musset has left a
charming account of a supper at her house. I certainly have never seen
on the boards a tragic conception equal to hers. Ristori, able as she
was, seemed to me to fall short in Rachel's great parts, if we except
the last scene of "Marie Stuart," in which the Christian woman,
following the crucifix to her death, showed a sense of its value which
the Jewish woman could neither feel nor counterfeit.
The gallery of the Louvre recalls the finest palaces of Italy, and
equals, in value and interest, any gallery in the world. Venice is far
richer in Titian's pictures, and Rome and Florence keep the greatest
works of Raphael and Michael Angelo. To understand Quintin Matsys and
Rubens, you must go to Antwerp, where their finest productions remain.
But the Louvre has an unsurpassed variety and interest, and exhibits not
a few of the chief treasures of ancient and modern art. Among these are
some of the masterpieces of Titian, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, the
Conception of Murillo, Paul Veronese's great picture of the marriage at
Cana in Galilee, and the ever-famous Venus of Milo.
In one of the principal galleries of Venice, I was once shown a large
picture by the French artist David. I do not remember much about its
merits, but, on asking how it came there, I was told that its place had
formerly been occupied by a famous picture by Paul Veronese. Napoleon
I., it will be remembered, robbed the galleries of Italy of many of
their finest pictures. After his downfall, most of these stolen
treasures were restored to their rightful owners; but the French never
gave up the Paul Veronese picture, which was this very one that now
hangs in the Louvre, where its vivid coloring and rich grouping look
like a piece of Venice, bright and glorious like herself.
The student of art, returning from Italy, is possessed with the mediæval
gloom and glory which there have filled his eyes and his imagination.
With a sigh, looking toward our Western world, so rich in action, so
poor as yet in art, he pauses here in surprise, to view a cosmopolitan
palace of her splendors. It consoles him to think that the Beautiful has
made so brave a stand upon the nearer borders of the Seine. Encouraged
by the noble record of French achievement, he carries with him across
the ocean the traditions of Jerome, of Rosa Bonheur, of Horace Vernet.
* * * * *
In historical monuments, Paris is rich indeed. The oldest of these that
I remember was the Temple,--the ancient stronghold of the Knights
Templar, who were cruelly extirpated in the year 1307. It was a large,
circular building, occupied, when I visited it, as a place for the sale
of second-hand commodities. I remember making purchases of lace within
its walls which were nearly black with age. You will remember that Louis
XVI. and his family were confined here for some time, and that here took
place the sad parting between the King and the dear ones he was never to
see again. I will subjoin a brief extract from the diary of my
grandfather, Col. Samuel Ward, of the Revolutionary War, who was in
Paris at the time of the King's execution:--
_January 17, 1792._ The Convention up all night upon the question
of the King's sentence. At eleven this night the sentence of death
was pronounced,--three hundred and sixty-six for death; three
hundred and nineteen for seclusion or banishment; thirty-six
various; majority of five absolute. The King desired an appeal to
be made to the people, which was not allowed. Thus the Convention
have been the accusers, the judges, and will be the executors of
their own sentence. This will cause a great degree of astonishment
in America, where the departments are so well divided that the
judges have power to break all acts of the Legislature interfering
with the exercise of their office.
_January 20._ The fate of the King disturbs everybody.
_January 21._ I had engaged to pass this day, which is one of
horror, at Versailles, with Mr. Morris. The King was beheaded at
eleven o'clock. Guards at an early hour took possession of the
Place Louis XV., and were posted at each avenue. The most profound
stillness prevailed. Those who had feeling lamented in secret in
their houses, or had left town. Others showed the same levity and
barbarous indifference as on former occasions. Hitchborn,
Henderson, and Johnson went to see the execution, for which, as an
American, I was sorry. The King desired to speak: he had only time
to say he was innocent, and forgave his enemies. He behaved with
the fortitude of a martyr. Santerre ordered the executioner to
dispatch.
Louis Napoleon ordered the destruction of this venerable monument of
antiquity, and did much else to efface the landmarks of the ancient
Paris, and to give his elegant capital the air of a city entirely
modern.
The history of the Bastile has been published in many volumes, some of
which I have read. It was the convenient dark closet of the French
nursery. Whoever gave trouble to the Government or to any of its
creatures was liable to be set away here without trial or resource. One
prisoner confined in it escaped by patiently unravelling his shirts and
drawers of silk, and twisting them into a thick cord, by means of which
he reached the moat, and so passed beyond bounds.
An historical personage, whose name is unknown, passed many years in
this sad place, wearing an iron mask, which no official ever saw
removed. He is supposed by some to have been a twin brother of the King,
Louis XIV.; so we see that, although it might seem a piece of good
fortune to be born so near the crown, it might also prove to be the
greatest of misfortunes. Think what must have been the life of that
captive--how blank, weary, and indignant!
When the Bastile was destroyed, a prisoner was found who had suffered so
severely from the cold and damp of its dungeons that his lips had split
completely open, leaving his teeth exposed. Carlyle describes the
commandant of the fortress carried along in the hands of an infuriated
mob, crying out with piteous supplication: "O friends, kill me quick!"
The fury was indeed natural, but better resource against tyranny had
been the calm, strong will and deliberate judgment. It is little to kill
the tyrant and destroy his tools. We must study to find out what
qualities in the ruler and the ruled make tyranny possible, and then
defeat it, once and forever.
The hospital of the _Invalides_ was built by Louis XIV., as a refuge for
disabled soldiers. This large edifice forms a hollow square, and is
famous for its dome,--one of the four real domes of the world, the
others being the dome of St. Sophia, in Constantinople; that of St.
Peter's, in Rome; and the grand dome of our own Capitol, in Washington.