Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume II Part 10

I doubt, too, if in any country a musical inst.i.tution can be pointed out in purer taste than that of our ancient music concert. The style and manner of this are wholly national, though the compositions performed there are but partially so; and I think no one who truly and deeply loves the science but must feel that there is a character in it which, considering the estimation in which it has for so many years been held, may fairly redeem the whole nation from any deficiency in musical taste.

There is one branch of the "gay science," if I may so call it, which I always expect to find in France, but respecting which I have hitherto been always disappointed: this is in the humble cla.s.s of itinerant musicians. In Germany they abound; and it not seldom happens that their strains arrest the feet and enchant the ear of the most fastidious. But whenever, in France, I have encountered an ambulant troubadour, I confess I have felt no inclination to linger on my way to listen to him. I do not, however, mean to claim much honour for ourselves on the score of our travelling minstrels. If we fail to pause in listening to those of France, we seldom fail to run whenever our ears are overtaken by our own. Yet still we give strong proof of our love of music, in the more than ordinary strains which may be occasionally heard before every coffee-house in London, when the noise and racket of the morning has given place to the hours of enjoyment. I have heard that the bands of wind instruments which nightly parade through the streets of London receive donations which, taken on an average throughout the year, would be sufficient to support a theatre.

This can only proceed from a genuine propensity to being "moved by concord of sweet sounds;" for no fashion, as is the case at our costly operas, leads to it. On the contrary, it is most decidedly mauvais ton to be caught listening to this unexclusive harmony; yet it is encouraged in a degree that clearly indicates the popular feeling.

Have I then proved to your satisfaction, as completely as I undoubtedly have to my own, that if without a national music, at least we are not without a national taste for it?

LETTER LVI.

The Abbe Deguerry.--His eloquence.--Excursion across the water.--Library of Ste. Genevieve.--Copy-book of the Dauphin.--St. Etienne du Mont.--Pantheon.

The finest sermon I have heard since I have been in Paris--and, I am almost inclined to think, the finest I ever heard anywhere--was preached yesterday by the Abbe Deguerry at St. Roch. It was a discourse calculated to benefit all Christian souls of every sect and denomination whatever--had no shade of doctrinal allusion in it of any kind, and was just such a sermon as one could wish every soi-disant infidel might be forced to listen to while the eyes of a Christian congregation were fixed upon him. It would do one good to see such a being cower and shrink, in the midst of his impotent and petulant arrogance, to feel how a "plain word could put him down."

The Abbe Deguerry is a young man, apparently under thirty; but nature seems to have put him at once in possession of a talent which generally requires long years to bring to perfection. He is eloquent in the very best manner; for it is an eloquence intended rather to benefit the hearer than to do honour to the mere human talent of the orator. Beautifully as his periods flowed, I felt certain, as I listened to him, that their harmonious rhythm was the result of no study, but purely the effect, unconsciously displayed, of a fine ear and an almost unbounded command of language. He had studied his matter,--he had studied and deeply weighed his arguments; but, for his style, it was the free gift of Heaven.

Extempore preaching has always appeared to me to be a fearfully presumptuous exercise. Thoughts well digested, expressions carefully chosen, and arguments conscientiously examined, are no more than every congregation has a right to expect from one who addresses them with all the authority of place on subjects of most high importance; and rare indeed is the talent which can produce this without cautious and deliberate study. But in listening to the Abbe Deguerry, I perceived it was possible that a great and peculiar talent, joined to early and constant practice, might enable a man to address his fellow-creatures without presumption even though he had not written his sermon;--yet it is probable that I should be more correct were I to say, without reading it to his congregation, for it is hardly possible to believe that such a composition was actually and altogether extempore.

His argument, which was to show the helpless insufficiency of man without the a.s.sistance of revelation and religious faith, was never lost sight of for an instant. There was no weak wordiness, no repet.i.tion, no hacknied ornaments of rhetoric; but it was the voice of truth, speaking in that language of universal eloquence which all nations and all creeds must feel; and it flowed on with unbroken clearness, beauty, and power, to the end.

Having recently quitted Flanders, where everything connected with the Roman Catholic worship is sustained in a style of stately magnificence which plainly speaks its Spanish origin, I am continually surprised by the comparatively simple vestments and absence of ostentatious display in the churches of Paris. At the metropolitan church of Notre Dame, indeed, nothing was wanting to render its archiepiscopal dignity conspicuous; but everywhere else, there was a great deal less of pomp and circ.u.mstance than I expected. But nowhere is the relaxation of clerical dignity in the clergy of Paris so remarkable as in the appearance of the young priests whom we occasionally meet in the streets. The flowing curls, the simple round hat, the pantaloons, and in some cases the boots also, give them the appearance of a race of men as unlike as possible to their stiff and primitive predecessors.

Yet they all look flourishing, and well pleased with themselves and the world about them: but little of mortification or abstinence can be traced on their countenances; and if they do fast for some portion of every week, they may certainly say with Father Philip, that "what they take prospers with them marvellously."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.

PReTRES DE LA JEUNE FRANCE.

London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1835.]

We have this morning made an excursion to the other side of the water, which always seems like setting out upon a journey; and yet I know not why it should be so, for as the river is not very wide, the bridges are not very long; but so it is, that for some reason or other, if it were not for the magnetic Abbaye-aux-Bois, we should very rarely find ourselves on the left bank of the Seine.

On this occasion, our object was to visit the famous old library of Ste. Genevieve, on the invitation of a gentleman who is one of the librarians. Nothing can be more interesting than an expedition of this sort, with an intelligent and obliging cicisbeo, who knows everything concerning the objects displayed before you, and is kindly willing to communicate as much of his _savoir_ as the time may allow, or as may be necessary to make the different objects examined come forth from that venerable but incomprehensible acc.u.mulation of treasures, which form the ma.s.s of all the libraries and museums in the world, and which, be he as innocent of curiosity as an angel, every stranger is bound over to visit, under penalty, when honestly reciting his adventures, of hearing exclamations from all the friends he left at home, of--"What! ... did you not see that?... Then you have seen nothing!"

I would certainly never expose myself to this cutting reproach, could I always secure as agreeable a companion as the one who tempted us to mount to the elevated repository which contains the hundred thousand volumes of the royal library of Ste. Genevieve. Were I a student there, I should grumble prodigiously at the long and steep ascent to this temple of all sorts of learning: but once reached, the tranquil stillness, and the perfect seclusion from the eternal hum of the great city that surrounds it, are very delightful, and might, I think, act as a sedative upon the most restive and truant imagination that ever beset a student.

I was sorry to hear that symptoms of decay in the timbers of the venerable roof make it probable that this fine old room must be given up, and the large collection it has so long sheltered be conveyed elsewhere. The apartment is in the form of a cross, with a dome at the point of intersection, painted by the elder Restout. Though low, and in fact occupying only the roof of the college, formerly the Abbaye of Sainte Genevieve, there is something singularly graceful and pleasing to the eye in this extensive chamber, its ornaments and general arrangement;--something monastic, yet not gloomy; with an air of learned ease, and comfortable exclusion of all annoyance, that is very enviable.

The library appears to be kept up in excellent style, and in a manner to give full effect to its liberal regulations, which permit the use of every volume in the collection to all the earth. The wandering scholar at distance from his own learned cell, and the idle reader for mere amus.e.m.e.nt, may alike indulge their bookish propensities here, with exactly the same facilities that are accorded to the students of the college. The librarians or their deputies are ready to deliver to them any work they ask for, with the light and reasonable condition annexed that the reader shall accompany the person who is to find the volume or volumes required, and a.s.sist in conveying them to the spot which he has selected for his place of study.

The long table which stretches from the centre under the doom, across the transepts of the cross, was crowded with young men when we were there, who really seemed most perfectly in earnest in their occupation--gazing on the volumes before them "with earnest looks intent," even while a large party swept past them to examine a curious model of Rome placed at the extremity of one of the transepts.

A rigorous silence, however, is enjoined in this portion of the apartments; so that even the ladies were obliged to postpone their questions and remarks till they had pa.s.sed out of it.

After looking at splendid editions, rare copies, and so forth, our friend led us to some small rooms, fitted up with cases for the especial protection under lock and key of the ma.n.u.scripts of the collection. Having admired the spotless vellum of some, and the fair penmanship of others, a thin morocco-bound volume was put into my hands, which looked like a young lady's collection of ma.n.u.script waltzes. This was the copy-book of the Dauphin, father of the much-regretted Duke de Bourgogne, and grandfather of Louis Quinze.

The characters were evidently written with great care. Each page contained a moral axiom, and all of them more or less especially applicable to a royal pupil. There was one of these which I thought might be particularly useful to all such at the present day: it was ent.i.tled, in large letters--

SE MOQUEUR DE LIBELLES

--the superfluous U being erased by a dash of the master's pen. Then followed, in extremely clear and firm characters, these lines:--

Si de vos actions la satyre rejoue, Feignez adroitement de ne la pas our: Qui releve une injure, il semble qu'il l'avoue; Qui la scait mepriser, la fait evanouir.

L LOUIS LOUIS LOUIS LOUIS

In one of these smaller rooms hangs the portrait of a negress in the dress of a nun. It has every appearance of being a very old painting, and our friend M. C*** told us that a legend had been ever attached to it, importing that it was the portrait of a daughter of Mary Queen of Scots, born before she left France for Scotland. What could have originated such a very disagreeable piece of scandal, it is difficult to imagine; but I can testify that all the internal evidence connected with it is strong against its truth, for no human countenance can well be conceived which would show less family likeness to our lovely and unfortunate northern queen than does that of this grim sister.

From the library of Ste. Genevieve, we went under the same kind escort to look at the barbaric but graceful vagaries of St. Etienne du Mont.

The galleries suspended as if by magic between the pillars of the choir, and the spiral staircases leading to them, out of all order as they are, must nevertheless be acknowledged as among the lightest and most fairy-like constructions in the world. This singular church, capricious in its architecture both within and without, is in some parts of great antiquity, and was originally built as a chapel of ease to the old church of Ste. Genevieve, which stood close beside it, and of which the lofty old tower still remains, making part of the college buildings. As a proof of the entire dependance of this pretty little church upon its mother edifice, it was not permitted to have any separate door of its own, the only access to it being through the great church. This subsidiary chapel, now dignified into a parish church, has at different periods been enlarged and beautified, and has again and again pet.i.tioned for leave from its superior to have a door of its own; but again and again it was refused, and it was not till the beginning of the sixteenth century that this modest request was at length granted. The great Pascal lies buried in this church.

I was very anxious to give my children a sight of the interior of that beautiful but versatile building called, when I first saw it, the Pantheon--when I last saw it, Ste. Genevieve, and which is now again known to all the world, or at least to that part of it which has been fortunate enough to visit Paris since the immortal days, as the Pantheon.

We could not, however, obtain an entrance to it; and it is very likely that before we shall again find ourselves on its simple and severe, but very graceful threshold, it will have again changed its vocation, and be restored to the use of the Christian church.--Ainsi soit-il!

LETTER LVII.

Little Suppers.--Great Dinners.--Affectation of Gourmandise.--Evil effects of "dining out."--Evening Parties.--Dinners in private under the name of Luncheons.--Late Hours.

How I mourn for the departed pet.i.ts soupers of Paris!... and how far are her pompous dinners from being able to atone for their loss! For those people, and I am afraid there are many of them, who really and literally live to eat, I know that the word "dinner" is the signal and symbol of earth's best, and, perhaps, only bliss. For them the steaming vapour, the tedious long array, the slow and solemn progress of a diner de quatre services, offers nothing but joy and gladness; but what is it to those who only eat to live?

I know no case in which injustice and tyranny are so often practised as at the dinner-table. Perhaps twenty people sit down to dinner, of whom sixteen would give the world to eat just no more than they like and have done with it: but it is known to the Amphitryon that there are four heavy persons present whose souls hover over his ragouts like harpies over the feast of Phinaeus, and they must not be disturbed, or revilings instead of admiration will repay the outlay and the turmoil of the banquet.

A tedious, dull play, followed by a long, noisy, and gunpowder-scented pantomime, upon the last scene of which your party is determined to see the curtain fall; a heavy sermon of an hour long, your pew being exactly in front of the preacher; a morning visit from a lady who sends her carriage to fetch her boys from school at Wimbleton, and comes to entertain you with friendly talk about her servants till it comes back;--each of these is hard to bear and difficult to escape; but which of them can compare in suffering to a full-blown, stiff, stately dinner of three hours long, where the talk is of food, and the only relief from this talk is to eat it?... How can you get away? How is it possible to find or invent any device that can save you from enduring to the end? With cheeks burning from steam and vexation, can you plead a sudden faintness? Still less can you dare to tell the real truth, and confess that you are dying of disgust and ennui. The match is so unfair between the different parties at such a meeting as this--the victims so utterly helpless!... And, after all, there is no occasion for it. In London there are the clubs and the Clarendon; in Paris are Perigord's and Very's, and a score beside, any one of whom could furnish a more perfect dinner than can be found at any private mansion whatever, where sufferings are often inflicted on the wretched lookers-on very nearly approaching to those necessary for the production of the _foie gras_.

Think not, however, that I am inclined in the least degree to affect indifference or dislike to an elegant, well-spread table: on the contrary, I am disposed to believe that the hours when mortals meet together, all equally disposed to enjoy themselves by refreshing the spirits, recruiting the strength, and inspiring the wit, with the cates and the cups most pleasing to the palate of each, may be reckoned, without any degradation to human pride, among the happiest hours of life. But this no more resembles the endless crammings of a _repas de quatre services_, than a work in four volumes on political economy to an epigram in four lines upon the author of it.

In fact, to give you a valuable hint upon the subject, I am persuaded that some of the most distinguished gourmets of the age have plunged themselves and their disciples into a most lamentable error in this matter. They have overdone the thing altogether. Their object is to excite the appet.i.te as much as possible, in order to satisfy it as largely as possible; and this end is utterly defeated by the means used. But I will not dwell on this; neither you nor I are very particularly interested in the success either of the French or English eaters by profession; we will leave them to study their own business and manage it as well as they can.

For the more philosophical enjoyers of the goods the G.o.ds provide I feel more interest, and I really lament the weakness which leads so many of them to follow a fashion which must be so contrary to all their ideas of real enjoyment; but, unhappily, it is daily becoming more necessary for every man who sits down at a fashionable table to begin talking like a cook. They surely mistake the thing altogether.

This is not the most effectual way of proving the keenness of their gourmandise.

In nine cases out of ten, I believe this inordinate pa.s.sion for good eating is pure affectation; and I suspect that many a man, especially many a young man, both in Paris and London, would often be glad to eat a reasonably good dinner, and then change the air, instead of sitting hour after hour, while dishes are brought to his elbow till his head aches in shaking it as a negative to the offer of them, were it not that it would be so dreadfully bourgeois to confess it.

If, however, on the other hand, an incessant and pertinacious "diner-out" should take up the business in good earnest, and console himself for the long sessions he endures by really eating on from soup to ice, what a heavy penalty does he speedily pay for it! I have lived long enough to watch more than one svelte, graceful, elegant young man, the glory of the drawing-room, the pride of the Park, the hero of Almack's, growing every year rounder and redder; the clear, well-opened eye becoming dull and leaden--the brilliant white teeth looking "not what they were, but quite the reverse," till the n.o.ble-looking, animated being, that one half the world was ready to love, and the other to envy, sank down into a heavy, clumsy, middle-aged gentleman, before half his youth was fairly past; and this solely for the satisfaction of continuing to eat every day for some hours after he had ceased to be hungry.

It is really a pity that every one beginning this career does not set the balance of what he will gain and what he will lose by it fairly before him. If this were done, we should probably have much fewer theoretical cooks and practical crammers, but many more lively, animated table-companions, who might oftener be witty themselves, and less often the cause of wit in others.

The fashion for a.s.sembling large parties, instead of selecting small ones, is on all occasions a grievous injury to social enjoyment. It began perhaps in vanity: fine ladies wished to show the world that they had "a dear five hundred friends" ready to come at their call.

But as everybody complains of it as a bore, from Whitechapel to Belgrave-square, and from the Faubourg St. Antoine to the Faubourg du Roule, vanity would now be likely enough to put a general stop to it, were it not that a most disagreeable species of economy prevents it.

"A large party kills such a prodigious number of birds," as I once heard a friend of mine say, when pleading to her husband for permission to overflow her dinner-table first, and then her drawing-rooms, "that it is the most extravagant thing in the world to have a small one." Now this is terrible, because it is true: but, at least, those blest with wealth might enjoy the extreme luxury of having just as many people about them as they liked, and no more; and if they would but be so very obliging as to set the fashion, we all know that it would speedily be followed in some mode or other by all ranks, till it would be considered as positively mauvais ton to have twice as many people in your house as you have chairs for them to sit on.

The pleasantest evening parties remaining in Paris, now that such delightful little committees as Moliere brings together after the performance of "L'Ecole des Femmes" can meet no more, are those a.s.sembled by an announcement made by Madame une Telle to a somewhat select circle, that she shall be at home on a certain evening in every week, fortnight, or month, throughout the season. This done, nothing farther is necessary; and on these evenings a party moderately large drop in without ceremony, and depart without restraint. No preparation is made beyond a few additional lights; and the alb.u.ms and portfolios in one room, with perhaps a harp or pianoforte in another, give aid, if aid be wanted, to the conversation going on in both. Ices, eau sucree, syrup of fruits, and gaufres are brought round, and the party rarely remain together after midnight.

This is very easy and agreeable,--incomparably better, no doubt, than more crowded and more formal a.s.semblees. Nevertheless, I am so profoundly rococo as to regret heartily the pa.s.sing away of the pet.i.ts soupers, which used to be the favourite scene of enjoyment, and the chosen arena for the exhibition of wit, for all the beaux esprits, male and female, of Paris.

I was told last spring, in London, that at present it was the parvenus only who had incomes unscathed by the stormy times; and that, consequently, it was rather elegant than otherwise to _chanter misere_ upon all occasions. I moreover heard a distinguished confectioner, when in conversation with a lady on the subject of a ball-supper, declare that "orders were so slack, that he had countermanded a set of new ornaments which he had bespoken from Paris."