Four Years in France Part 6

An English family of moderate fortune lives very much in the dining-room: a French family would as soon think of sitting in the kitchen as in the salle-a-manger at any other than eating hours. The English think it marvellous that a French lady should receive visits in her bed-room; but to this bed-room is annexed a cabinet; which conceals all objects that ought to be put out of sight: the bed is either hidden by the drapery, or covered by a handsome counterpane, with a _traversin_ or bolster at each end, which, as it is placed lengthways against the wall, the two ends resembling each other in the woodwork also, gives it, during the day-time, the appearance of a couch.

The park of St. Cloud is not a park in the English sense of the word; it is a pretty pleasure-ground, with great variety of surface. If King George III. had been as much accustomed to the continental notion of a park as the king his grandfather probably was, he would not have expressed so much surprise, when, on his visit to Magdalen College, Oxford, he was asked if he would be pleased to see the park. "Park!

what, have you got a park?"--"We call it a park, sir, because there are deer in it."--"Deer! How big is it?"--"Nine acres, an it please your Majesty."--"Well, well, I must go and see a park of nine acres: let us go and see a park of nine acres."

From the elevated ground of the park of St. Cloud, where the lantern rears its head, Paris is seen over an extent of flat and marshy ground, over which the Seine winds with as many evolutions and curvatures as a serpent. The fable of the sun and the wind contending which of them could first induce a traveller to quit his cloak, might be paralleled by one invented on the sinuosity of rivers in plain countries. Let nature oppose rocks and mountains, the river holds on its way by torrent and by cataract: arrived at a level country, it seems to amuse itself by delay.

If it were told, at an English gaming club, that the mountain and the plain had engaged in a contest, which of them should most effectually divert the course of a river from its direct line to the ocean, the odds would, most likely, be in favour of the mountain. But the result is otherwise.

The road from Paris to St. Germains en Laye is the most varied and agreeable of any in the environs. From the avenue and bridge of Neuilly it pa.s.ses by Mont Valerien, a finely-wooded hill; through Nanterre, the birth-place of Ste. Genevieve, patroness of Paris; near Malmaison, the last abode of Napoleon in France; by Marly, where all is beautiful except the aqueduct. There is a steam-engine to raise the water, and pipes to conduct it, which workmen were repairing. We clambered up by the side of the pipes, at every step induced to mount higher by the beauties of the prospect, the same as that from the terrace of St.

Germains. It reminded me of the view from Richmond Hill, but it is bolder and more romantic; and the Seine, being nearer to the hill than the Thames at Richmond, appears an equally important feature in the landscape.

One of the roads to St. Cloud pa.s.ses through the Bois de Boulogne: this wood was much injured while the allied armies remained in the neighbourhood of Paris: young trees had been planted, and appeared thriving. Let us hope that a long, a very long peace, may obliterate all traces of a war which desolated all Europe, and more than Europe, for a quarter of a century. Indeed, I cannot help agreeing in the wish expressed by one of the common people, in answer to another who congratulated him on the good news of the peace of Amiens:--"Ay," said the first, "I wish we may never have such good news again." A third cried out, "D--n your jacobin eyes, what do you mean by that?" The congratulator explained, "Why, doesn't see, that, for us to have good news of peace again, we must first have war again? and he wishes we may never have another war." The wish, it seems, was then a symptom of jacobinism; but in the present day, it must be considered as laudable to join in it, as I do most cordially, since it is the end proposed by the Holy Alliance.

At Meudon, is a very pretty palace, from the terrace of which the eye looks down on a beautiful ravine, and then traverses the plain which is seen from the park of St. Cloud. While my sons and I were loitering on the bridge of this latter place, the daughter of Louis XVI. pa.s.sed by on horseback. She returned our salute by an inclination of the body, while the princ.i.p.al person in attendance (a general officer he seemed to be,) took off his hat, as Dr. ---- said, determinately. Three years only after the restoration, to see this princess for the first time was an interesting occurrence; and I certainly regarded her with a very different feeling from that of the Parisian, who, on her entrance into the capital, after five and twenty years of suffering and exile, showed what he was _not_ thinking of, by exclaiming, "Comme son chapeau est pet.i.t!"[17]

We returned to the restaurateur's to dine; and, pa.s.sing the bridge in the evening, saw the water works play in honour of the arrival of the king; a sheet of water thrown down artificial rocks; a pretty play-thing enough.

We saw at Sevre a most splendid collection of china, for the greatest part ornamental. Every one has seen some of this china, but it is well worth while to see it _en ma.s.se_ in a great quant.i.ty at this repository.

The working part of the manufacture was not opened to us; as I had not been aware that, for this purpose, it was necessary to be fortified, _muni_, with a permission of the director. If I translate _muni_ by _fortified_, it is in the sense of the Englishman, who being invited to be present at a ma.s.s, "a.s.sister a une messe,"--asked what it was expected of him to _do_ there.

We went to St. Ouen, celebrated by Madame de Stael as the birth-place of the revolution and of the _charte_; and thence, along the bank of the Seine, to the port of St. Denis,--the point, that is on the river, towards which one of the streets of the town extends itself. It is a small _bourg_; but the seat of a sous-prefecture. On the abolition of royalty, the ashes of the kings of France, who for many ages had been interred in the church of St. Denis, were dug up and thrown to the winds: they were punished for the crime of having been kings, as Cromwell was punished for having been an usurper. Royalty was called an usurpation on the sovereign people. The roof of the church was stripped of its lead to be melted into bullets for the use of the armies, and the windows were broken for no use at all. The building was thus left exposed to all the injuries of the seasons, till that great counter-revolutionist Napoleon undertook to repair it as a burial-place for the monarchs of "the fourth dynasty,"--a phrase by which he ingeniously reminded the French that, as the race of Capet was not the first, it had no imprescriptible right to be the last race of their sovereigns. The force of this argument prevailed, while maintained by the argument of force. The audacious _roturier_ who had seized on the sceptre of royalty, like the daring mortal who stole fire from heaven, was chained on a barren rock, with vultures,--their prey a fallen great man,--to gnaw his entrails: on this rock he found his grave. The reparations of the church of St. Denis, continued by order of the king, were, at this time, nearly completed. Some remains of the bodies of Louis XVI. and his queen, rescued from the unseemly sepulture to which infuriated republicanism had consigned them, had been here honourably deposited. We had seen the mortal spoil of the brave Prince de Conde lying in state at the Palais Bourbon; it had here also found its place.

The church resembles that of Notre Dame; it is not so large, but proportionably loftier; and the pillars, with the whole of the architecture, are lighter.

Sceaux is a small town, six miles to the south of Paris, situated on a ridge commanding a fine view to the south and north. It is, as well as St. Denis, the seat of a sous-prefecture. Hither the Parisians resort during summer on Sundays to dance under arbours in gardens, and enjoy other sports, with the zest of those who have been "long in populous cities pent."

James I. issued an ordinance in favour of Sunday sports: Charles I.

renewed it: the spirit of those who observe no festival but Sunday, and who keep Sunday like a fast, prevails in England. Such persons will hardly think it a sufficient set-off against the enormities of the amus.e.m.e.nts of Sceaux, that, during four months residence at Paris, I did not see one drunken man, not even on a Sunday.

The chateau of Vincennes is an ancient feudal castle with modern additions: it has a chace before it, an extensive open s.p.a.ce left for military exercises and sports of chivalry, and to prevent surprise from an enemy, who might, under the shadow of a wood, have approached too near without being discovered. In the moat, surrounding the castle, the Duc d'Enghien was put to death. Every one must lament the early fate of this prince, and the extinction of an ill.u.s.trious house. The duke perished for having done or attempted to do what he thought to be his duty, and Bonaparte, in causing him to suffer death, regarded himself as acting according to his own. He is said to have declared at St. Helena that, were the deed to be done again, he would do it. The "greenest usurpation," to use a phrase of Burke's, has never scrupled to inflict capital punishment on those who endeavoured its overthrow. In the beginning of the reign of William III. a man was guilty of intending the death of the king; and having nothing to plead in his defence except the defect, according to his reasoning, of the king's t.i.tle, and that "murderare" was bad Latin,--both which pleas were considered as equally valid by the court,--received the sentence of a traitor. But some time must elapse ere the conduct of Bonaparte be judged by principles applied to that of other men.

Seventeen years ago, I entertained the design of writing the history of the French revolution, which then appeared to be terminated by the a.s.sumption of the imperial t.i.tle by Bonaparte: a counter-revolution was in reality effected; all was reversed that had been done during the revolution; republican principles,--the very name of republic,--was extinguished, and, as a Frenchman well expressed himself, "a la chute de Bonaparte les Bourbons n'avoient qu' a monter le trone tout dresse."[18]

I was told it was too soon to write the history of so stormy a period.

Yet Thucydides, Tacitus, Davila, Clarendon, were contemporary with the times of which they wrote. It was not too soon, at the time of Bonaparte's elevation, to write with impartiality, as I was disposed to do, the history of the preceding events, but it was too soon for readers to judge without pa.s.sion.

In the chateau is a small room, hung with black, with an altar, on which, by the care of the family of Conde, ma.s.ses are said for the repose of the soul of their unfortunate relative; and some military accoutrements, said to have been his, are shown to strangers whom sympathy may render credulous. He desired to have the a.s.sistance of a priest before the execution of the sentence of the commission. "Veux-tu mourir en capucin?"[19] is said to have been the answer. I pa.s.s over all other obvious reflections on this circ.u.mstance, to remark that it implied an eulogy on the Capucins, which, from all that I have seen and know of them, they well deserve. Brutus and Ca.s.sius were called the last of Romans; the Capucins may perhaps be the last of Christians.

The bottom of the fosse is flat, about twelve feet broad: a wall, of the height of a man, supports the earth of the outer side: the spot, where the execution took place, was pointed out to us. The sign of the cross fortified him in the absence of that other spiritual succour which had been refused to him.

In front of the castle is shown an oak under which Saint Louis was wont to sit. The t.i.tle of saint was given to this king _honoris causa_: in his time it was honourable; at the present day, the recollection of his valour, probity, piety, disinterestedness, and great talents is necessary to rescue Louis IX. from the ridicule of having been a saint and a crusader. The fashion of this world pa.s.seth away: religion would have pa.s.sed away with it, had it depended on the fashion of this world.

Veritas Domini manet in aeternum. Let those, who now wish to maintain it, remember that it is not truth because useful, but useful because truth.

Forty years ago, who could return into the country, after having made the visit of a countryman to London, without having seen Bedlam? I was contented with the view of the two admirable statues of furious and melancholy madness at the entrance of the court. I went to Charenton without seeing the Maison des Fous. Such an asylum ought not to be an object of pa.s.sing curiosity: there may be among the patients some who are amused by visits, but there are others who are very much afflicted by them. Besides, my sons were with me: it requires long experience and observation of the miseries of human life to harden the mind to the endurance of such a scene as a mad-house presents. Terror and pity have sometimes too strong an influence on young imaginations, when excited by theatric exhibition of fict.i.tious woe; how much more when called forth by the sight of real misery such as this,--of man in his lowest state of degradation and wretchedness!

We made our remarks on the confluence of the Seine and Marne: the latter is by far the more rapid river of the two, and, though not quite so broad, seems to bear along a greater quant.i.ty of water. It flows, for some distance, in the same bed with the river in which its independent existence is merged, and its name lost, without mingling with it, as if resenting the injustice of its own lot. This appearance I afterwards looked for in vain at the junction of the Rhone and Saone, though it is recorded, if I mistake not, by cla.s.sical authority. The Saone has no pretension to an equality with the Rhone, and ought quietly to submit to its fate.

On the day of my departure from Paris, I attended ma.s.s in the chapel of the Palace of the Tuilleries. This is one of the sights that the English go to gaze at, it being new to them not only in deed, but in thought; and even "Augusto mense," there was great resort of them. To me it appeared nothing wonderful that the Most Christian King should a.s.sist at ma.s.s; that, supported by his attendants on account of his great bulk, he should place himself on his knees, and his guards present arms, at the moment of the elevation of the host. Monsieur, now Charles X. and other members of the royal family, pa.s.sed through the room in which we were, in their way to the tribune of the king.

Before I leave Paris, I must indulge in a few remarks on the spirit of the times, and the state of the public mind at this epoch.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] What a little hat!

[18] At the fall of Bonaparte the Bourbons had only to mount the throne that had been set up again.

[19] Dost thou want to die like a capucin?

CHAP. V.

O Fortunatos nimium! O too fortunate those who visited Paris in the year 1814! They knew not however their own advantage, as they foresaw not the events of the following year, and all the changes consequent on those events. The pictures and statues of the Louvre were sent back in 1815 to the countries which had produced them, where, says an enthusiast for Italy, it is more natural to see them: just as a whig chancellor of the exchequer said that ten per cent was the natural limit of the income tax. Venus and the Graces fled to climes resembling those of Paphos and Cythera; Apollo and Laoc.o.o.n went to be shut up in dark closets at Rome; the horses of St. Mark galloped off to Venice, leaving the beautiful arch, constructed by Napoleon as a pedestal for this trophy of his victories, to be a misplaced entrance to an iron palisade.

But this was not all, nor the worst: it even served the English as an excuse, though a superfluous one, for travelling further from home: the spirit of the French people was changed, both in regard to foreigners, and towards each other.

In 1818, I found it to be pretty generally believed in France, that the English government contrived and connived at the return of Napoleon from Elba, as an expedient for dividing, weakening, humbling, and despoiling a rival nation. It was in vain that I argued, that the experiment was too hazardous a one to have been ventured upon; that the imperial government was implacably hostile to England, while the royal government was, for the present at least, friendly, and likely to continue so; that the English people were overwhelmed by a load of debt and taxation, and needed repose after so long a war; that, had the battle of Waterloo been lost, they were very ill disposed for the struggle that must have ensued.

I was answered point by point; that, happen what might as to the success or discomfiture of Napoleon, England was secure, fearing no invasion so long as France had no marine; that it was the rival of France under whatever government; that, spite of its debt, it would find means to hire the troops of the continent; that, had the Prussians not come up in time to gain the battle of Mont St. Jean, the Austrians and Russians would have arrived shortly after, and the whole force of Europe would have been set in array.

Before the "hundred days," all that had happened from 1789 was considered as the result of a concatenation of circ.u.mstances neither to be foreseen nor controlled;--as a visitation of Providence, a fatality, a delirium. This explanation had been given and received between the restored government and individuals, and by individuals amongst each other: all things proceeded towards union and amnesty. But during the "cent jours," the medal was reversed: many were compelled or persuaded, or joyfully availed themselves of the occasion to manifest opinions and engage in acts contrary to royalty: jacobinism or republicanism, which Napoleon in the vigour of his sway had stifled, began again to take breath during his short and fleeting apparition; so that the second restoration of the king found the people in every town, in every society, divided and discordant.

After the battle, which it was unkind and unjust to refuse to call by the name of "La Belle Alliance;"--after this battle, in which so many thousand human beings lost their lives,--the French submitted to sacrifices, galling to every man of every party among them; for in France it is permitted to every man to be a patriot. Their frontier-line was remeasured in a manner unfavourable to them, in a sense contrary to that in which it had been marked out the year before: then all that was enclave was ceded to them; now, whatever stretched out into the neighbouring territory was taken from them; some fortresses were abandoned; others were to be temporarily occupied by allied forces, for whose sustenance the French paid what they regarded as enormous sums: "the spoils of victory," and such they really were, at the Louvre, were yielded up.

Let any Englishman suppose what would be his own feelings were such treatment dealt out to England by a hostile country; and how much the soreness of his mind would be irritated, if he imagined, (whether truly or falsely imports not,) that these evils were the result of the machinations of the government of that country. He would think the display of a little ill-humour towards individuals of that country to be very natural at least, if not very reasonable. I was therefore not much surprised nor offended by the "civil G.o.d-dems," with which we were occasionally saluted at Paris. At Auxerre, I overheard a G.o.d-dem which rather amused me. My younger son had placed a table on the balcony, and was drawing a view of the church. "Voila un pet.i.t G.o.d-dem qui dessine,"[20] said they: this might even have been good-naturedly meant.

At Chalons-sur-Saone, as we walked in the evening by the side of the river, we were greeted by hisses, low and suppressed, but still audible hisses. At Lyons, some soldiers, contrary to the rule of military discipline, (for they were marching in their ranks,) and contrary to the gallantry of the military profession, cried out "a bas les Anglois."

From several instances of resiliency, coldness, and alienation, inconsistent with the genius of the people, and their well-known politeness, it was evident that the spirit of enmity was not yet subsided.

The practice of barter is not so well understood in France as in England. A French shop-keeper, (many of them at least, though the number of such is, I believe, daily diminishing,) proposes to himself to gain, not a certain profit on each article, but as much as he can obtain, the wealth, ignorance, and other circ.u.mstances of the customer taken into consideration. A French gentleman, or, rather let us put the case, a French lady, after beating down the price of an object for half an hour, will, as a last effort, leave the shop; and, if this valedictory demonstration does not succeed, will return in the course of the morning to complete her purchase, in a renewed treaty, of which the basis is the price last named: if, by these manoeuvres, a few francs are saved, the morning has been well employed. If the French thus bargain amongst themselves, it may easily be imagined how they would treat, in money matters, with the English, supposed to be indefinitely rich, coming from a country where prices were, during the currency of paper money, higher than in France, ignorant of French prices, and affording an occasion of political revenge.

I really believe that, in many instances, the gratification of this pa.s.sion was an incitement to overcharging, stronger even than private interest. At any rate, during the first years of peace, the English are said to have thrown their money out of the window: I knew one of them at Avignon who did so literally. They paid English prices and gave English gratifications; sometimes they paid more than was demanded, as they said, for the honour of old England: having deposited a certain sum with a banker, if the sum was spent sooner than they expected, they had only to return home so much the sooner; like the young Oxonian, who being asked how long he should stay in town, answered "twenty pounds."

The French, who had any thing to dispose of for money naturally wished to profit by this disposition of the English, which they flatteringly termed generosity; and to have the advantage of the highest prices which these latter were willing to give: but, at this time, these prices were unknown and unsettled, and every affair of bargain and sale rose into a contest. "Quel est _votre_ prix, Monsieur?"[21] said one, of whom I was buying a parasol. The Parisian shop-keepers, when they saw an Englishman, nodded, and cried, "Speculation." "On ne dit plus G.o.d-dem, on dit speculation,"[22] said my informant. "As you are an Englishman, you ought to pay double," said one, whose opinion was asked on occasion of an over-charge. My voiturier, who, for a certain sum, paid my expenses on the road, told me that he would do this for a German family for half the money. "The inn-keepers set no bounds to their charges,"

said he, "when they know you to be English;" muttering besides some words, from which I inferred the hostile mind above-mentioned.

_La jeunesse Francaise_ (so the young men of an age for military service affected to call themselves, as if they were a corps apart,) seemed still to breathe war and defiance, and to endeavour by fierceness of look to make up for the want of c.o.c.kades and epaulettes. An especial ordinance was required to prevent all who were not officers in the army from wearing moustaches. These symptoms of a warlike temper were not pleasing to a peaceful visitant. The whole French nation was, at this time, discontented; and it was evident that some years must pa.s.s away before it could resume that amenity of manners which rendered it heretofore the delight of strangers. All parties were discontented.

The prudent and conciliatory conduct of the king displeased the royalists. The emigrants said, that the restoration was to them no restoration, since they had lost their estates; and they complained bitterly of that provision by which the purchasers of the national domains were confirmed in their possessions: had nothing been said on this matter,--had silence been observed on a subject on which themselves only had a right to speak,--a great part of the lands confiscated during the revolution would have been restored unconditionally, or on terms of easy compromise, to the ancient t.i.tulars. The clause by which, as the emigrants said, their estates were thus a second time given away without their consent or avowal, was reported to have been of ecclesiastical suggestion. It would be unfair to suppose any man, least of all an ecclesiastic, capable of deriving an uncharitable consolation from having companions in misfortune; but it is remarkable, that no mention was ever made of the rest.i.tution of ecclesiastical property. It "died and made no sign." The French clergy endured this spoliation with the patience of Christians and the good humour of Frenchmen, as every one can witness who knew them in their emigration: but, on their return home, they found their appointments inadequate to their services and to the augmented price of the necessaries of life.

That Napoleon should descend from the throne when he could no longer maintain himself upon it,--that France should re-enter within her former limits,--that what was gained by victory should be lost by defeat;--all this was in order. But military glory had consoled many for the loss of liberty and republican forms,--synonymes in their vocabulary: though they needed not to go very far back in history to discover that they did not always subsist together. Of military glory Napoleon had obtained for the French more, beyond all comparison, than was ever gained by any people within an equal number of years. Possessed of absolute power over a great empire, he had used the means, at his disposal, of drawing to himself many adherents,--of founding the fortunes of many. Frequent suicides took place, after his fall, of persons whose hopes were ruined by that event. Some of these chose, in preference to any other mode of self-destruction, to throw themselves from the top of the column erected by Napoleon in the Place Vendome: insomuch that, when I was in Paris, an order was still in force that no one should be allowed to ascend the column without a permission, that it might be ascertained that they had no motive but curiosity. Such were the discontents of the Bonapartists.

Had Bonaparte contented himself with being the first magistrate of the republic,--had he allowed its name and forms to subsist,--he would have identified himself with the cause and party of the revolution. But he had put down the revolution; and in 1814 the question was no longer between a monarchical and democratic government, but between the ancient claimant and the recent possessor. One of the evils, (and they were many,) resulting to Napoleon from the a.s.sumption of the imperial purple, was that he himself became personally the object of hostilities. Of this no one was more sensible than himself: he said to his friends, "They will crush, first me, then you, then France." France was not crushed: the king returned, and the charter was given. The republicans could not complain that a monarchy, a government by _one_, was imposed upon them; they had themselves submitted to it. But an argument drawn from a former defeat was not suited to make them quite pleased with a second. They reposed; but it was the repose of la.s.situde, not of contented acquiescence.

The prudence of Louis XVIII. succeeded in uniting all parties, though blamed by all; in obliterating, if not the memory, at least many of the sensible traces of what France had endured. Both Royalists and Napoleonists complained that whatever the court had to dispose of was given to the other party. Just before I left England, I was advised by a friend, lately returned from Paris, by no means to venture into France.

"If the king dies," said he, "and his health is very bad, there will certainly be a kick-up." My counsellor saw a very little way into futurity: he himself, being about the age of Louis XVIII. died within two years after. Five years later the king terminated in peace an anxious but successful reign: the demise of the crown caused not the least disturbance; its quiet devolution on his successor seems rather to have strengthened the ancient notion of hereditary right.

Paris, since the time to which my account of it refers, has been improved and increased. It is the lot of all old cities in a state of great prosperity to have a new town built near them: of this London, Edinburgh, Ma.r.s.eilles, Lyons, Bath, and Liverpool are examples. "Mend _you_?" said the chairman to Mr. Pope, in reply to his accustomed exclamation,--"G.o.d mend me," "Mend _you_? it would not be half the trouble to make another." Old Paris is, however, worth mending: the case is by no means so desperate as that of a deformed man like Pope. They have begun to make trottoirs. When I was in Paris, the trottoirs being paved like the middle of the street, persons on foot had no inducement to walk on them in preference to the middle of the street; people exposed merchandises there, roasted coffee, blacked shoes, or played at cards: the cabriolets ran along them where there was a vacant s.p.a.ce, sometimes where there was no vacant s.p.a.ce at all. When the trottoirs shall be such as carriages cannot drive on, the foot pa.s.sengers will occupy them, and the enc.u.mbrances, above-mentioned, will be removed of course.