Over the Ocean Part 20

Besides these galleries, there is also a gallery of Anglo-Roman antiquities, found in Britain, another of British antiquities anterior to the Romans, embracing such remains as have been found of the period previous to the Roman conquest, known as the stone and bronze period among the antiquaries; also a collection of Anglo-Saxon antiquities, including Saxon swords, spear-heads, bronze ornaments, coins, &c.; then comes a mediaeval collection, a vast array of enamelled work, vases, jewelry, armor, mosaic work, seals, earthen ware, and weapons of the middle ages; two great Vase Rooms, filled with Grecian, Italian, Roman, and other antique vases, found princ.i.p.ally in tombs and ancient monuments, from the rudest to the most graceful of forms; the Bronze Room, where we revelled amid ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan bronzes, and found that the Bacchus, Mercury, and Jupiter, and the lions, dolphins, satyrs, and vases of antiquity, are still the most beautiful and graceful works of art extant, and that a large portion of those of our own time are but reproductions of these great originals of a former age.

If the visitor have a zoological taste, the four great galleries of zoological specimens--beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes--will engage his attention, in which all sorts and every kind of stuffed specimens are displayed; and in another gallery a splendid collection of fossils may be inspected, where are the remains of the gigantic iguanodon and megalosaurus, skeleton portions of an enormous bird, ten feet high, from New Zealand,--the unp.r.o.nounceable Latin name of which I forgot to note down,--a splendid entire skeleton of the great Irish deer, fossil fish, imprints of bird tracks found in rocks, of skeletons of antediluvian animals, plants, and sh.e.l.ls, and huge skeletons of the megatherium and mastodon, skeletons and fragments of gigantic reindeer, elk, oxen, ibex, turtles, and huge lizards and crocodiles now extinct. There are also halls and departments for botany and mineralogy, coin and medal room, which, besides its splendid numismatical collection, contains the celebrated Portland Vase, and some curious historical relics.

Apropos of historical relics; in a room not far from the entrance hall there are some most interesting historical and literary curiosities, over and about which I loitered with unabated interest, for here I looked upon the original deed of a house in Blackfriars, dated March 11, 1612, and signed William Shakespeare. Here we saw the original Magna Charta, the very piece of parchment that had been thumbed by the rebellious barons, and to which King John affixed his unwilling signature at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. This piece of discolored parchment, with the quaint, regular, clerkly old English handwriting, and the fragment of the tyrant's great seal hanging to it, is the instrument that we have read so much of, as the chief foundation of the const.i.tutional liberties of the people of England, first executed over six centuries and a half ago, and confirmed since then by no less than thirty-eight solemn ratifications. It is certainly one of the most interesting English doc.u.ments in existence, and we looked upon it with feelings something akin to veneration.

Displayed in gla.s.s cases, we read the original draft of the will of Mary, Queen of Scots, in her own handwriting, the original ma.n.u.script of Kenilworth in Walter Scott's handwriting, the original ma.n.u.script of Pope's translation of the Iliad, a tragedy in the handwriting of Ta.s.so, the original ma.n.u.script of Macaulay's England, Sterne's Sentimental Journey in the author's handwriting, Nelson's own pen sketch of the battle of the Nile, Milton's original agreement for the sale of Paradise Lost, which was completed April 27, 1667, the author being then fifty-eight years of age. The terms of the sale, which was made to Samuel Symons, a bookseller, was five pounds down, with a promise of five pounds more when thirteen hundred copies of the first edition should have been sold, another five pounds more when thirteen hundred copies of the second edition should be sold, and so on for successive editions. It was not, however, till 1674, the year of his death, that the second edition was published; and in December, 1680, Milton's widow sold all her interest in the work for eight pounds, paid by Symons.

We saw here the little prayer book used by Lady Jane Grey on the scaffold, with her name, Jane Dudley, in her own handwriting on the fly-leaf; autographic letters from British sovereigns, including those of Richard III., Henry IV., Prince Hal, Edward the Black Prince, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, Charles II., Mary, Queen of Scots, and Oliver Cromwell. Nor were these all. Here were Hogarth's receipted bills for some of his pictures, the original Bull of Pope Leo X., conferring on Henry VIII. the t.i.tle of Defender of the Faith (and a precious bull he made of it), autographic letters of Peter the Great, Martin Luther, Erasmus, Calvin, Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Cranmer, John Knox, Robert, Earl of Ess.e.x, Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton; then a batch of literary names, letters from Addison, Dryden, Spenser, Moliere, Corneille; papers signed by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Horatio Nelson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Francis I., Philip II., Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII. of Sweden, and so many fresh and interesting surprises greeted me that I verily believe that at last I should have copied down in the little note-book, from which I am writing out these memoranda, a despatch from Julius Caesar, announcing that he yesterday pa.s.sed the River Rubicon, or his "_Veni, Vidi, Vici_," with the feeling that it was quite correct that such a doc.u.ment should be there.

CHAPTER VIII.

From London to Paris. One of the thoughts that comes uppermost in the mind while one is making preparations for the journey is the pa.s.sage of the Channel, about which so much has been said and written--a pa.s.sage in which old Neptune, though he may have exempted the traveller on other occasions, hardly ever fails to exact his tribute. He who can pa.s.s the Channel in rough weather without a qualm, may henceforth consider himself proof against any attack of the sea G.o.d upon his digestion.

A first-cla.s.s through ticket from London to Paris costs nearly fifteen dollars in gold; but many cheapen the fare by taking first-cla.s.s boat and second-cla.s.s railroad tickets. The railroad ride to Dover is about seventy miles, and the close of it carries us through a tunnel that pierces the celebrated Shakespeare's Cliff; and finally we are landed on the pier near the little steamer that is to take us over. After a good long stare at the high, chalky cliffs of old Albion, we disposed ourselves upon deck, comfortable as possible, and by rare good fortune had a smooth pa.s.sage; for of the entire number of pa.s.sengers, not a single one suffered from seasickness during the transit; so that the huge piles of wash-bowls were not even brought into requisition, and the stewards and boat boys grumbled at the luck that deprived them of so many sixpences and shillings.

"'Tisn't horfen the Chan'l runs as smooth as this," said an old weather-beaten sort of sea chambermaid, who stood guard over the bowls.

"She's flat as Dover Pier to-day; but," added he with a grin, "when yer make hanythink like a smooth parsidge over, yer sure to ketch a horful 'eave comin' back."

And he was right. There is one comfortable antic.i.p.ation, however; and that is, that the sea trip occupies only an hour and a quarter. Arrived at the great railroad station at Calais, we had our first experience of a French railway buffet, or restaurant, for dinner was ready and the tables spread, the pa.s.sengers having ample time afforded them before the train started.

The neatness of the table linen, the excellence of the French bread, the bottles of claret, _vin ordinaire_, set at intervals along the table, the promptness and rapidity of the service, fine flavor of the soup, and good cooking of the viands, were noticeable features. The waiters spoke both French and English; they dashed about with Yankee celerity; and gay, and jolly, and right hearty were the pa.s.sengers after their comfortable transit. Now, in getting positions in the cars come trials of indifferent as well as outrageously bad attempts at the French language, which the French guards, probably from long experience, contrive in some way to understand, and not laugh at.

Arrived at Paris after a journey of eleven hours from London, we have even time, though fatigued, to admire the admirable system that prevails at the railroad station, by which all confusion is prevented in obtaining luggage or carriages, and we are soon whirling over the asphalte, floor-like pavements to the Hotel de l'Athenee.

Here I had my first experience of the humbug of French politeness; for, on descending from the carriage, after my luggage had been deposited at the very office of the hotel, the servants, whose duty it was to come forward and take it, stood back, and laughed to see the puzzle of a foreigner at the demand for _pour boire_, which, in his inexperience, he did not understand, and, when the driver was finally sent away with thrice his demand, suffered luggage, lady and gentleman, to find their own way to the little cuddy of a _bureau_, office of the hotel, and were with difficulty made to understand, by a proficient in their own tongue, that rooms for the party were engaged there.

This house and the Grand Hotel, which, I believe, are "run" by the Credit Mobilier Company, are perfect extortion mills in the matter of charges, especially to Americans, whom the Parisians make a rule always to charge very much more than any one else. During the Exposition year, the Grand Hotel extortions were but little short of barefaced swindles upon American guests; and to this day there is no way one can quicker arouse the ire of certain American citizens than to refer to their experiences in that great caravanserai for the fleecing of foreign visitors.

The _cuisine_ of these great hotels is unexceptionable, the rooms, which are either very grand or very small, well furnished, although comfort is too often sacrificed to display; but the attendance or attention, unless the servants are heavily feed, is nothing to speak of, while the charges during the travelling season are a third beyond those of other equally good, though not "grand" establishments.

The magnificent new opera house, near these hotels, is a huge building, rich on the exterior with splendid statues, marbles, medallions, carving, and gilding, upon an island as it were, with the great, broad avenues on every side of it; and as I sit at table in the _salle a manger_ looking out at it, I am suddenly conscious that the English tongue appears to be predominant about me; and so indeed it is, as a large portion of the guests at these two hotels are Americans or English, which accounts in a measure for the high prices and bad service, the French considering Americans and English who travel to be moving money-bags, from which it is their duty to extract as much as possible by every means in their power.

The court-yard of the Grand Hotel, around which, in the evening, gentlemen sit to sip a cup of coffee and puff a cigar, is such a rendezvous for Americans, that during the Exposition it was proposed by some to post up the inscription, "French Spoken Here," for fear of mistakes.

The modes of living, besides that at hotels, have been frequently described, and in taking apartments, one must be very explicit with the landlord; indeed, it will be well to take a written memorandum from him, else, on the presentation of his first bill, one may ascertain the true value of a Frenchman's word, or rather how valueless he considers a verbal agreement.

We had the fortune, however, in hiring apartments, to deal with a Frenchman who understood how to bargain with foreigners, and had learned that there was something to be gained by dealing fairly, and having the reputation of being honest.

This man did a good business by taking new houses immediately after they were finished, hiring furniture, and letting apartments to foreigners.

From him we learned that French people never like to live in an entirely new house, one that has been dwelt in by others for a year having the preference; perhaps this pre-occupation is supposed to take the chill off the premises; so our landlord made a good thing of it in taking these houses at a low rent of the owners for one year, and getting a reputation for fair prices, fair dealing, and an accommodating spirit: those who hired of him were so prompt to commend him as an exception among the crowd of grasping, cringing rascals in his business, that his houses in the pleasant quarter, near the Arc d'Etoile were constantly occupied by Americans and English.

In Paris do as the Parisians do; and really it is difficult to do otherwise in the matter of meals. Breakfast here is taken at twelve o'clock, the day being commenced with a cup of coffee and a French roll, so that between twelve and one business appears at its height in the _cafes_, and almost suspended everywhere else. To gastronomic Yankees, accustomed to begin the day with a good "square" meal, the French _dejener_ is hardly sufficient to support the three hours' sight-seeing our countrymen calculate upon doing between that time and the real _dejener a la fourchette_.

The sights and scenes of Paris have been so thoroughly described within the past three years, in every style and every vein, by the army of correspondents who have visited the gay capital, that beyond personal experiences it seems now as though but little else could possibly be written. I therefore look at my closely-written note-book, the heap of little memoranda, and the well-pencilled fly-leaves of my guide-books, of facts, impressions, and experiences, with some feelings of doubt as to how much of this already, perhaps, too familiar matter shall be inflicted upon the intelligent reader; and yet, before I visited Paris, every letter of the descriptive tourist kind was of interest, and since then they are doubly so. Before visiting Europe, such letters were instruction for what I was to one day experience; and many a bit of useful information, read in the desultory letter of some newspaper correspondent which had been nearly forgotten, has come to mind in some foreign capital, and been of essential service, while, as before remarked in these pages, much of the important minutiae of travel I have been surprised has not been alluded to. That surprise in a measure vanishes, when any one with a keen love of travel finds how much occupies his attention amid such an avalanche of the enjoyable things that he has read, studied, and dreamed of, as are encountered in the great European capitals.

In Paris my first experience at living was in lodgings in a fine new house on Avenue Friedland, third flight (_au troisieme_). The apartments consisted of a _salon_, which served as parlor, breakfast and reception room, a sleeping-room, and a dressing-room with water fixtures and pegs for clothing. The grand Arc d'Etoile was in full view, and but a few rods from my lodgings, and consequently the very first sight that I "did."

This magnificent monument of the first Napoleon is almost as conspicuous a landmark in Paris as is the State House in Boston, and seems to form the terminus of many of the broad streets that radiate from it, and upon approaching the city from certain points overtops all else around. The arch is situated in a large, circular street, called the Place d'Etoile, which is filled with elegant houses, with gardens in front, and is one of the most fashionable quarters of Paris: from this Place radiate, as from a great star, or like the sticks of a lady's fan, twelve of the most magnificent avenues of the city, and from the top of the arch itself the spectator can look straight down these broad streets for miles. It is quite recently that several of them have been straightened and widened, under the direction of Baron Haussmann; and one cannot but see what a commanding position a battery of artillery would occupy stationed in this Place d'Etoile, and sweeping down twelve great avenues to the very centre of the city.

The length, breadth, straightness, regularity, and beauty of these avenues strike the American visitor with astonishment. Fancy a street twice as wide as Broadway or Washington Street, with a sidewalk as wide as some of our ordinary streets, and shaded by a double line of trees, the street itself paved or laid in concrete or smooth hard asphalte; the houses tall, elegant, and of uniform style; brilliant, with elegant stores, cafes with their crowds at the tables set in front of them; the gay, merry throngs; little one-horse barouches, the French _voitures_, as they are called, flying here and there, and the more stylish turn-outs of the aristocracy,--and you have some idea of the great avenues leading up to the Arc d'Etoile. After pa.s.sing this grand arch, you enter upon the magnificent Avenue de l'Imperatrice, three hundred feet wide, which leads to the splendid Bois de Boulogne, an avenue that is crowded with the rush of elegant equipages, among which were to be seen those of foreign amba.s.sadors, rich residents, English and other foreign n.o.blemen, French ballet-dancers, and the demi-monde, every pleasant afternoon.

This great arch of triumph overwhelms one with its grandeur and vastness upon near approach; it lifts its square altar over one hundred and fifty feet from the ground; its width is one hundred and thirty-seven feet, and it is sixty-eight feet in thickness. The grand central arch is a great curve, ninety feet high and forty-five wide, and a transverse arch--that is, one going through it from one end to the other--is fifty-seven feet high and twenty-five wide. The arch fronts the magnificent Champs Elysees, adown which broad vista the visitor looks till he sees it expand into the grand Place de la Concorde, with its fountains and column of Luxor, beyond which rise the Tuileries. The outside of this arch has superb groups, representing warlike scenes, allegorical figures, &c., by some of the most celebrated French and Italian artists. Some of the great figures of Victory, History, Fame, &c., are from eighteen to twenty feet in height. Inside the arch, upon its walls, are cut in the solid stone the names of nearly a hundred victories, and also the names of French generals whose bravery won so much renown for the French nation, so much glory for their great Corsican captain, and which are names that are identified with his and _la grande armee_.

This superb monument was commenced, in 1806, by Napoleon, but not completed till 1836; and some idea may be obtained of the work and skill expended upon it from its cost, which was ten million four hundred and thirty-three thousand francs, or over _two millions of dollars_ in gold.

Two of the groups of ba.s.s-reliefs upon it cost nearly thirty thousand dollars. Ascent to the top is obtained by broad staircases, up a flight of two hundred and seventy-two steps, and the visitor may look down the Avenue de la Grande Armee, Avenue d'Eylau, or over the beautiful Avenue de l'Imperatrice, or Champs Elysees, far as his eye can reach, and still farther by the aid of the telescopes and spy-gla.s.ses kept by the custodians on the summit.

Descending from the arch, we will take a stroll down the Avenue des Champs Elysees--the broad, beautiful avenue which appears to be the favorite promenade of Parisians. Upon either side of this avenue are open grounds, and groves of trees, in and amid which is every species of cheap amus.e.m.e.nt for the people--open booths in which are little games of chance for cheap prizes of gla.s.s ware and toys, merry-go-rounds, Punch and Judy shows, elegant cafes with their throngs of patrons sitting in front and watching the pa.s.sers by, or the gay equipages on their way to the Bois de Boulogne. In one of these groves, at the side of the Champs Elysees, is the Circus of the Empress, where feats of horsemanship are performed, and in another a fine military band plays every afternoon; the old Palais de l'Industrie fronts upon this avenue, and the celebrated Jardin Mabille is but a few steps from it; but this should be seen by gas-light; so, indeed, should the whole avenue, which by night, in the summer, presents a most fairy-like scene. Then the groves are illuminated by thousands of colored lights; Cafes Chantants are seen with gayly-dressed singers, sitting in ornamented kiosks, which are illuminated by jets of gas in every conceivable form; here, at a corner, a huge lyre of fire blazes, and beneath it shines, in burning letters, the name of a celebrated cafe, or theatre; the little booths and penny shows are all gayly illuminated; gas gleams and flashes in all sorts of fantastic forms from before and within the cafe; and, looking far up the avenue, to where the great arch rears its dark form, you see thousands of colored lights flitting too and fro, hither and thither, in every direction, like a troup of elves on a midnight gambol; these are the lights upon the cabs and voitures, which are obliged by law to have them, and those of different quarters of the city are distinguished the one from the other by different colors.

The cheapness and convenience of these little one-horse open barouches of Paris make us long for the time when they and the English Hansom cab shall displace the great, c.u.mbersome carriage we now use in America. One of these little fiacres, which you can hail at any time, and almost anywhere in the streets of Paris, carries you anywhere you may choose, to go in the city from one point to another, for a franc and a half fare, and a _pour boire_ of about three or four cents to the driver; or, if taken by the hour, you can glide over the asphalte floor-like streets at the rate of two francs an hour. The police regulations respecting fares are very strict and rigidly enforced, as, in fact, are all police regulations, which are most excellent; and the order, system, and regularity which characterize all arrangements at places of public resort and throughout the city, give the stranger a feeling of perfect safety and confidence--confidence that he is under the protection and eye of a power and a law, one which is prompt and efficient in its action, and in no way to be trifled with. The fiacre drivers all have their printed _carte_ of the tariff, upon which is their number, which they hand to customers upon entering the vehicle; these can be used in case of imposition or dispute, which, however, very seldom occurs; rewards are given to drivers for honesty in restoring articles left in vehicles, and the property thus restored to owners by the police in the course of a year is very large, sometimes reaching sixty or seventy thousand dollars.

Straight down the broad Champs Elysees, till we came into that magnificent and most beautiful of all squares in Paris, the Place de la Concorde. Here, in this great open square, which the guide-books describe as four hundred paces in length, and the same in width, several other superb views of the grand avenues and splendid public buildings are obtained. Standing in the centre, I looked back, up the broad Champs Elysees, more than a mile in length, the whole course slightly rising in grade, till the view terminated with the Triumphal Arch. Looking upon one side, we saw the old palace of the Bourbons, now the palace of the Corps Legislatif. Fronting upon one side of the Place are two magnificent edifices, used as government offices, and up through the Rue Royale that divides them, the vista is terminated by the magnificent front of the Madeleine.

Here, in the centre of the square, we stood opposite the celebrated obelisk of Luxor, that expensive gift of the Pacha of Egypt to Louis Philippe, and which, from the numerous bronze models of it sold in the fancy goods stores in America, is getting to be almost as familiar as Bunker Hill monument. Indeed, a salesman in Tiffany and Company's room of bronzes, in Broadway, New York, once told me that, notwithstanding the hieroglyphics upon the bronze representations of this obelisk that they sell, he had more than once had people, who looked as though they ought to have known better, cry out, "O, here's Bunker Hill Monument; and it looks just like it, too."

The Luxor obelisk was a heavy, as well as an expensive present, for it weighed five hundred thousand pounds, and it cost the French government more than forty thousand dollars to get it in place upon its pedestal; but now that it is here, it makes a fine appearance, and, as far as proportions and looks go, appears to be very appropriately placed in the centre of this magnificent square, its monolith of red granite rising one hundred feet; though, as we lean over the rail that surrounds it, the thought suggests itself, that this old chronicle of the deeds of Sesostris the Great, who reigned more than a thousand years before Paris had an existence, and whose hundred-gated city is now a heap of ruins, was really as out of place here, in the great square of the gayest of modern capitals, as a funeral monument in a crowded street, or an elegy among the pages of a novel. Around the square, at intervals, are eight huge marble statues, seated upon pedestals, which represent eight of the great cities of France, such as Ma.r.s.eilles, Rouen, Lyons, Bordeaux, &c.

Each figure is said to face in the direction in which the city or town it is called for lies from Paris.

The great bronze fountains that stand in the centre of the square have round basins, fifty feet in diameter, above which rise others of lesser sizes. Tritons and water nymphs about the lower basin hold dolphins, which spout streams of water into the upper ones, and at the base sit ponderous granite figures, which the Parisians say do well to sit down, for, if they stood up, they would soon be fatigued by their own weight.

But the great fountain here in the Place de la Concorde marks an historic spot. It is no more nor less than the site of that horrid instrument, the guillotine, during the French revolution; and it was here, in this great square, now filled with bright and happy crowds, gazing at the flashing waters of the fountains, the statues, and obelisk, or rambling amid the pretty walks, lined with many-hued flowers, in the gardens of the Tuilleries near by,--it was here, round and about, that the fierce crowd surged during some of the bloodiest scenes in French history. Near where rises the bronze fountain, the horrid scaffold once stood; here, where the crystal streams rush and foam, shine and sparkle in the sunbeams, once poured out the richest and basest blood of France, in torrents almost rivalling those that now dash into the great basin that covers the spot they crimsoned; here the head of Louis XVI. fell from his shoulders; here Charlotte Corday met death unterrified; here twenty-two Girondists poured out their life-blood; here poor Marie Antoinette bent her neck to the cruel knife, and the father of Louis Philippe met his death; here the victims of the fell tyrant Robespierre fell by hundreds. At length Danton himself, and his party, were swept before the descending axe; and finally the b.l.o.o.d.y Robespierre and his fierce a.s.sociates met a just retribution beneath the sweep of the insatiate blade, sixty or seventy falling beneath it in a day.

Great heavens! would they never tire of blood, or was the clang of the guillotine music to their ears, that for more than two years they kept the horrid machine in motion, till twenty-eight hundred victims fell beneath its stroke! Well said Chateaubriand, in opposing the erection of a fountain upon the very site of the scaffold, that all the water in the world would not be sufficient to efface the b.l.o.o.d.y stains with which the place was sullied. It thus fell out that it was agreed, that any monument placed in this memorable square should be one which should bear no allusion to political events, and the gift of Mehemet Ali afforded opportunity to place one. So here the laudatory inscription to a warlike Egyptian of three thousand years ago and more is placed, to change the current of men's thoughts, who may stand here and think of the surging crowd of fierce _sans-culottes_, and still fiercer women, who once thronged this place, and who were treated to their fill of what their brutal natures demanded--blood, blood!

But are these the people that would do such horrid deeds--these men we see around us, with varnished boots, immaculate linen, and irreproachable costume? these ladies, gentle creatures, with faultless costume, ravishing boots, dainty toilets, and the very b.u.t.terflies of fashion? If you would like something approaching a realization of your imagination, wait till you get into the Latin quarter, or in some of the old parts of Paris, where narrow lanes have not yet been made into broad avenues; where low-browed, blue-bloused workmen are playing dominoes in cheap wine-shops; and coa.r.s.e women, with big, bare, red arms, and handkerchief-swathed heads, stand in the doorways and bandy obscene jests at the pa.s.sers by; where foul odors a.s.sail the olfactories; where you meet the _sergent-de-ville_ frequently; and where, despite of what you have heard of the great improvements made in Paris, you see just such places as the _Tapis Franc_, described in Eugene Sue's Mysteries of Paris, and in which, despite the excellence of the Parisian police, you had rather not trust yourself after dark without a guard; and you will meet to-day those whom it would seemingly take but little to transform into the fierce mob of 1792.

The gigantic improvements made in Paris during the reign of Louis Napoleon are apparent even to the newly-arrived tourist, and are unequalled by any city in the world. Broad, elegant avenues have been cut through densely-populated and filthy districts; great squares, monuments, opera-houses, theatres, and public buildings of unexampled splendor have arisen on every side; palaces and monuments have been repaired and restored, the great quadrangle of the Louvre and Tuilleries completed. Turn which way one will, he sees the evidences of this remarkable man's ability--excellent police arrangements, drainage, public works, liberality to foreigners, &c. What little opportunity I had of judging the French people almost leads me to believe that no government could be invented under the sun that would satisfy them for any length of time, and that they would attempt revolutions merely for a new sensation.

From this square it is but a few steps to the garden of the Tuilleries.

The portion of the garden that is immediately contiguous to the palace is not open to the public, but separated from it by a sort of trench and an iron railing. The public portion of the garden is beautifully laid out with _parterres_ of flowers, fountains, bronze and marble statues, &c. While promenading its walks, our attention was attracted to a man who seemed upon the best of terms with the birds that flew from the trees and bushes, and perched upon his head, hands, and arms, ate bird-seed off his hat and shoulders, and even plucked it from between his lips. He was evidently either some "Master of the Birds to the Emperor," or a favored bird-charmer, as he appeared to be familiarly acquainted with the feathered warblers, and also the police, who sauntered by without interfering with him.

The exciting scenes of French history, that are familiar to every school-boy's memory, render Paris, to say nothing of its other attractions, one of those points fraught with historical a.s.sociations that the student longs to visit. To stand upon the very spot where the most memorable events of French history took place, beneath the shadow of some of the self-same buildings and monuments that have looked down upon them, and to picture in one's mind how those scenes of the past must have appeared, is pleasant experience to those of an imaginative turn. Here we stand in the Place de la Bastille, the very site of the famous French prison; the horrors of its dungeons and the cruelties of its jailers have chilled the blood of youth and roused the indignation of maturer years; but here it was rent asunder and the inmost secrets exposed by the furious mob, in the great revolution of 1789, and not a vestige of the terrible prison now remains. In the broad, open square rises a tall monument of one hundred and fifty feet, from the summit of which a figure of Liberty, with a torch in one hand and broken chain in another, is poised upon one foot, as if about to take flight. The stones of the cruel dungeons of the Bastille now form the Pont de la Concorde, trampled under foot, as they should be, by the throngs that daily pa.s.s and repa.s.s that splendid bridge. The last historical and revolutionary act in this square was the burning of Louis Philippe's throne there in 1848.

Pa.s.sing through the Rue de la Paix, celebrated for its handsome jewelry and gentlemen's furnishing goods stores, and as a street where you may be sure of paying the highest price asked in Paris for any thing you wish to purchase, we came out into the Place Vendome, in the middle of which stands the historic column we have so often read of, surmounted by the bronze statue of the great Napoleon, who erected this splendid and appropriate trophy of his victories. One hundred and thirty-five feet high, and twelve in diameter, is this well-known column, and the bronze ba.s.s-reliefs, which commence at the base and circle round the shaft to its top, are cast from twelve hundred pieces of Russian and Austrian cannon, which the great Corsican captured in his campaign of 1805, which ended with the tremendous battle of Austerlitz. The ba.s.s-reliefs on the pedestal are huge groups of weapons, warlike emblems, &c., and four huge bronze eagles, weighing five hundred pounds each, holding wreaths, are perched at the four corners of the pedestal.

The iron railing around this monument is thickly hung with wreaths of _immortelles_; these are placed here by the surviving soldiers of the grand army of Napoleon I., and are renewed once a year upon some celebrated anniversary, when the spectacle of this handful of trembling veterans of the first empire, showing their devotion to the memory of their great chieftain, is a most touching one, while the deference and honor shown to these shattered relics of France's warlike host, whose deeds have won it an imperishable name in military glory, must be gratifying to their pride. I saw an old shrunken veteran with a wooden leg hobbling along with a stick, who wore an old-fashioned uniform, upon which glittered the medals and decorations of the first empire, to whom sentinels at public stations, as he pa.s.sed, presented arms with a clang and clatter that seemed to send the faint sparks of dying fire up into his eyes, with a momentary martial gleam beneath his s.h.a.ggy white eyebrows, as he raised his shrunken hand in acknowledgment to his old fashioned _kepi_, while the military salutes, and even deferential raising of hats, of young officers, his superiors in rank, that he pa.s.sed, were returned with a smile beneath his snowy mustache that bespoke what an incense to his pride as a soldier of the grand army were all such tokens.

But it was a still more interesting sight to see, at the court-yard of the Hotel des Invalides, at about noon, on the occasion of some daily military routine, some thirty or forty of these old soldiers in various uniforms, wearing side arms only, some hobbling upon one leg, others coming feebly but determinedly into line as they ever did on the great battle-fields of the empire, and stand in dress parade while the band played its martial strains, and their own flags surmounted by the French eagles waved before them, and a splendid battalion of French troops (some of their sons and grandsons, perhaps), officers and men, presented arms to them as they saluted the flags they had won renown under half a century before, and then slowly, and with an effort at military precision that was almost comical, filed back to their quarters.

We used to read in Rogers's poem of Ginevra that,

"If ever you should come to Modena, (Where, among other relics, you may see Ta.s.soni's bucket; but 'tis not the true one;")

so, also, if ever you should go to Paris, you will be shown at one end of the Louvre a large window, from which you will be told Charles IX.

fired upon the flying Huguenots as they ran from the ferocious mob that pursued them with b.l.o.o.d.y weapons and cries of "Kill, kill!" on the night of St. Bartholomew, 1572; but this window is "not the true one," for it was not built till long after the year of the ma.s.sacre; but the old church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, near by, from the belfry of which first issued the fatal signal of that terrible night, is still standing, and the Parisians in that vicinity find it easy to detect strangers and foreigners, from their pausing and looking up at this church with an expression of interest.