Paris as It Was and as It Is Part 73

That ancient college is extremely well calculated for such a destination, from the extent of its buildings, its remoteness from noise, and the airiness of its situation. By this liberal conduct to the PIRANESI, the French government has shewn the warm interest it takes in the progress of those arts. The establishment of these Romans is to be divided into three branches. The first is placed in the _College de Navarre_; the second is to be in the _Palais du Tribunat_; and the third, at _Morfontaine_.

Three hundred artists of different nations, some of whom are known by master-pieces, while others announce the genius necessary for producing them, are to be distributed in the seven cla.s.ses of this academy, which include the fine arts of every description. Each artist being at liberty to follow the branch to which he is most partial, it may easily be conceived how n.o.ble an emulation will be roused by such an a.s.semblage of talents. Several are now employed here in the workshops of Painting, Sculpture, Mosaic, and Engraving.

Let us see in what manner.

The ground-floor is devoted to Sculpture. Here are made, in plaster and terra cotta, models of the finest monuments of Greece and Italy, which are executed in stone of the richest species, such as porphyry, granite, red antique, Parian and Carrara marble. From the hands of the two CARDELLI, and other eminent artists, are seen to issue copies of the most magnificent bas-reliefs of ancient Rome, and the most beautiful friezes of RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, JULIO ROMANO, and other great masters of the Italian school; tripods, obelisks, antique vases, articles of furniture in the Egyptian and Chinese taste, together with objects taken from nature, such as the most curious animals in the national _menagerie_, likewise occupy their talents.

All these subjects are executed in different sizes, and form, together or separately, decorations for apartments or tables, particularly pilasters, and plateaux, in which the richness of the materials is surpa.s.sed by that of the workmanship.

On the same floor is the workshop of Mosaic. It is under the direction of BELLONI, who has invented methods, by means of which he has introduced Mosaic into articles of furniture, and for the pavement of rich apartments, at prices far inferior to what might be imagined. The princ.i.p.al articles here exhibited, as specimens, are: --1. Superb marble tables and stands, in which are inserted ornaments and pictures in Mosaic, or incrustated in the Florentine manner--2. A large pavement, where the beauty and variety of the marbles are relieved by embellished incrustations--3. Small pictures, in which the painting, in very fine Mosaic, is raised on an even ground of one piece of black marble--4. Large tables, composed of specimens of fine-grained stones, such as jasper, agate, carnelion, lapis lazuli, &c. and also of valuable marbles, distributed into compartments and after a design imitated from the antique, and enriched with a few incrustated pictures, representing animals and flowers. Besides these, here are to be seen other essays of a kind entirely new. These are marbles, intended for furniture, coloured in an indelible manner.

Sometimes the figures and ornaments in them are coloured in the ground; sometimes they are in colour, but raised on a ground of white marble.

On the first story is the workshop for Engraving. Here the artists are employed in engraving the seven hills of Rome, ancient circuses of that celebrated city, plans of the _forum_, obelisks of Rome and Egypt, ruins of Pompeia, drawn on the spot by the late J. B.

PIRANESI, together with modern subjects, such as the splendid edifices of Paris, the beautiful views of the environs, the national fetes, and every thing that can deservedly interest artists and persons of taste. On the same story are the plates of the PIRANESI calcography, the place where they are printed, and the warehouse where they are deposited. The engravings, now nearly executed, will form upwards of twenty volumes; and those begun will equal that number.

The second story is occupied by painters in oil-colours; the third, by those in water-colours; the fourth, by draughtsmen in Indian ink and bistre; and the fifth serves for the lodging of the artists, particularly the most skilful among them, who direct the different branches of this establishment. The princ.i.p.al pile of building is crowned by a _Belvedere_, which commands an extensive view of Paris, and seems calculated for promoting the inspirations of genius. Here are copied, in oil, water-colours, Indian ink and bistre, the fresco paintings of RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, and JULIO ROMANO; the Vatican, the Farnesian palace, the Villa Altoviti, and the Villa Lante alternately furnishing models no less happily chosen than carefully executed. The antiquities of Herculaneum, so interesting from the knowledge they afford us of the customs of the ancient Romans, and from the elegant decorations of which they have procured us the models, the ruins of Palmyra and Balbeck, those of Greece and Sicily, together with views of Constantinople and of the country in which it is situated, are here rendered with the most exact truth, joined to the most harmonious colouring. Here too are represented; in the three manners before-mentioned, views and sites of Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, and all other countries; cascades, such as those of TERNI, NARNI, and TIVOLI; sea-pieces; landscapes, parks; and gardens; arabesques after RAPHAEL; new and picturesque plants; in a word, decorations formed of an a.s.semblage of every thing most perfect in art and nature.

On the first and second stories are also two exhibition-rooms, for such pictures and works of sculpture as are finished, where the eye wanders agreeably amidst a crowd of objects of an enlivening or serious nature. Here it is that the amateur, after having seen the artists at work in the cla.s.ses of this academy, fixes his choice on the kind of production which most takes his fancy. These two rooms contain the different articles which are afterwards to be displayed in the two porticos of the _Palais du Tribunat_.

Those elegant and s.p.a.cious porticos, situated in the most centrical part of Paris, facing the _Rue St. Honore_, have likewise been granted to the PRIANESI through the special favour of the government.

Not only all the productions of their establishment, but also the princ.i.p.al master-pieces in painting, sculpture, and architecture, produced by artists of all nations, will there be exhibited; so that those porticos will present, as it were, an Encyclopaedia of the Fine Arts.[1]

[Footnote 1: The princ.i.p.al protector of the undertaking of the PIRANESI is JOSEPH BONAPARTE, who has not confined himself to a.s.sisting them in the capital. Being desirous to introduce the arts into the country where he pa.s.ses the finest season of the year, and to promote the discovery of the PIRANESI, relative to the properties of the argill found at _Morfontaine_, he has given to them for several years the use of a large building and a very extensive piece of ground, ornamented with bowers, where all the subjects modelled at the _College de Navarre_, in _terra cotta_ or in porcelain of _Morfontaine_, undergo the process of baking. In the last-mentioned place, the PIRANESI purpose to establish a foundery for sculpture in bronze and other metals. The government daily affords to them encouragement and resources which insure the success of their establishment. To its other advantages are added a library, and a printing-office.]

LETTER Lx.x.xIII.

_Paris, March 22, 1802._

As to the mechanical arts, if you are desirous to view some of the modern improvements and inventions in that line, you must accompany me to the _Rue St. Martin_, where, in the _ci-devant_ priory, is an establishment of recent date, ent.i.tled the

CONSERVATORY OF ARTS AND TRADES.

Here is a numerous collection of machines of every description employed in the mechanical arts. Among these is the _belier hydraulique_, newly invented by MONTGOLFIER, by means of which a stream of water, having a few feet of declivity, can be raised to the top of a house by a single valve or sucker, so disposed as to open, to admit the water, and shut, when it is to be raised by compression.

By increasing the compression, it can be raised to 1000 feet, and may be carried to a much greater elevation. The commissioners appointed by the Inst.i.tute to examine this machine, reported that it was new, very simple, very ingenious, and might be extremely useful in turning to account little streams of water for the purposes of agriculture, manufactories, &c.

This reminds me of another singular hydraulic machine, of which I have been informed by a person who attended a trial made of it not long since in Paris.

A basin placed at the height of twenty feet, was filled with water, the fall of which set in motion several wheels and pumps that raised the water again into the basin. The machine was fixed in a place, glazed on all sides, and locked by three different keys. It kept in play for thirty-two days, without the smallest interruption; but the air, the heat, and the wood of the machine, having undoubtedly diminished the water, it no longer ascended into the basin. Till the thirty-second day, many persons imagined that the perpetual motion had been discovered. However, this machine was extremely light, well combined, and very simple in its construction. I ought to observe that it neither acted by springs nor counterpoise; all its powers proceeding from the fall of the water.

The conservatory also contains several models of curious buildings, too numerous to mention.

The mechanical arts in France appear to have experienced more or less the impulse given to the sciences towards the close of the eighteenth century. While calamities oppressed this country, and commerce was suspended, the inventive and fertile genius of the French was not dormant.

The clothiers have introduced woollen articles manufactured on a new plan; and their fine broad cloths and kerseymeres have attained great perfection. The introduction of the Spanish merinos into France has already produced in her wools a considerable amelioration.

Like a phoenix, Lyons is reviving from its ashes, and its silks now surpa.s.s, if possible, their former magnificence. Brocaded silk is at present made in a loom worked by one man only, in lieu of two, which the manufacture of that article hitherto demanded. Another new invention is a knitting-loom, by means of which 400 threads are interwoven with the greatest exactness, by merely turning a winch.

The cotton manufactures are much improved, and the manufactories in that line are daily increasing in number and perfection. A new spinning-machine has produced here, I am told, 160,000 ells in length out of a pound of cotton. The fly-shuttle is now introduced into most of the manufactories in this country, and 25 pieces of narrow goods are thus made at once by a single workman. In adopting ARKWRIGHT'S system, the French have applied it to small machines, which occupy no more room than a common spinning-wheel.

Among other branches in which the French mechanics have particularly distinguished themselves, since the revolution, is the making of astronomical and philosophical instruments.

All the machines used here in coining have also been modified and improved. By one of these, the piece is struck at the same time on the edge and on the flat side in so perfect a manner, that the money thus coined cannot he counterfeited.

I have already mentioned the invention of a composition which supplies the place of black lead for pencils, and the discovery of a new and very expeditious method of tanning leather.

New species of earthen-ware have been invented, and those already known have received considerable improvement.

Chemists have put the manufacturers in possession of new means of decomposing and recomposing substances. Muriat of tin is now made here with such economy, that it is reduced to one-eighth of its former price. This salt is daily used in dying and in the manufacture of printed calicoes. Carbonates of strontia and of baryt, obtained by a new process, will shortly be sold in Paris at 3 francs the _kilogramme_. This discovery is expected to have a great influence on several important arts, such as the manufacture of gla.s.s, of soap, &c.

Articles of furniture, jewellery, and every branch dependent on design, are now remarkable for a purer taste than that which they formerly exhibited.

Indeed, the characteristic difference of the present state of French industry, and that in which it was before the revolution, is that most of the proprietors of the manufactories have received a scientific education. At that time, many of them were strangers to the principles applicable to the processes of their art; and, in this respect, they lay at the mercy of the routine, ignorance, and caprice of their workmen. At present, the happy effects of instruction, more widely-diffused, begin to be felt, and, in proportion as it is extended, it excites a spirit of emulation which promises no small advantage to French commerce.

LETTER Lx.x.xIV.

_Paris, March 23, 1802._

In the richness of her territory, the abundance of her population, the activity of her inhabitants, and the knowledge comprised in her bosom, France possesses great natural advantages; but the effect which they might have produced on her industry, has been counteracted by the errors of her old government, and the calamities attendant on the revolution. Some public-spirited men, thinking the moment favourable for restoring to them all their influence, have lately met; and from this union has sprung the

SOCIETY FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF NATIONAL INDUSTRY.

It is formed on a scale still more extensive than the _Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce_, inst.i.tuted at London. Its meetings are held in the _Louvre_; but, though fixed in the metropolis, it embraces the whole extent of the Republic, and every department will partic.i.p.ate in the benefits which it proffers.

The chief objects of this society are: To collect, from all quarters, discoveries and inventions useful to the progress of the arts; to bestow annually premiums and gratuitous encouragements; to propagate instruction, by disseminating manuals on different objects relative to the arts, by combining the lights of theory with the results of practice, and by constructing at its own expense, and disseminating among the public in general, and particularly in the manufactories, such machines, instruments, and apparatus as deserve to be more generally known and brought into use; to make essays and experiments for ascertaining the utility which may be expected from new discoveries; to make advances to artists who may be in distress, or deficient in the means to put in practice the processes of their inventions; to unite by new ties all such persons as from their situation in life, their taste, or their talents, feel an interest in the progress of the arts; to become the centre of similar inst.i.tutions, which are called for in all the princ.i.p.al manufacturing-towns of the Republic; in a word, to _excite emulation, diffuse knowledge, and a.s.sist talents_.

To attain these objects, various committees, consisting of men the most conversant in knowledge relative to the arts, are already appointed, and divide among them _gratuitously_ the whole of the labour.

This society, founded, on principles so purely patriotic, will, no doubt, essentially second the strenuous efforts of the government to reanimate the different branches of national industry. The free and spontaneous concurrence of the men of whom it is composed, may unite the power of opinion to that of other means; and public opinion produces naturally that which power and authority obtain only by a slow and difficult progress.

But, while those branches of industry, more immediately connected with the arts, are stimulated by these simultaneous encouragements, that science, on the practice of which depends the welfare of States, is not neglected. Independently of the Council of Agriculture, Commerce and Arts, established under the presidency of the Minister of the Interior, here is a

FREE SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURE.

Its object is to improve agriculture, not only in the department of La Seine, but throughout France. For this purpose, it maintains a regular correspondence with all the agricultural societies of the other departments. It publishes memoirs, in which are inserted the results of its labours, as well as the notices and observations read at the meetings by any one of its members, and the decision which has followed.

Every year it proposes prizes for the solution of some question important to the amelioration of agriculture.

What, at first view, appears extraordinary, is not, on that account, less founded on truth. Amidst the storms of the revolution, agriculture has been improved in France. At a period of happiness and tranquillity, the soil was not so well cultivated as in times of terror and mourning; because, during the latter, the lands enjoyed the franchises so long wanted. Hands never failed; for, when the men marched to the armies, women supplied their place; and no one was ashamed to handle the spade or the plough.

However, if, in 1789, agriculture in France was far from a state of prosperity, it was beginning to receive new light from the labours of the agricultural societies. That of Paris had given a great impulse to the culture of artificial meadows, potatoes, hemp, flax, and fruit-trees. Practical directions, spread with profusion in the country, had diverted the inhabitants from the routine which they had blindly followed from generation to generation.

Before the revolution, the French began to imitate us in gelding their horses, and giving to their lackies, their coachmen, and their equipages an English appearance; instead of copying us in the cultivation of our land, and adopting the principles of our rural economy. This want of foresight they are now anxious to repair, by increasing their pastures, and enriching them by an extensive variety of plants, augmenting the number of their cattle, whether intended for subsistence or reproduction, and improving the breed by a mixture of races well a.s.sorted, procuring a greater quant.i.ty of manure, varying their culture so as not to impoverish the soil, and separating their lands by inclosures, which obviate the necessity of constantly employing herdsmen to tend their cattle.

Agriculture has, unquestionably, suffered much, and is still suffering in the western departments. Notwithstanding the succour afforded by the government to rebuild and repair the deserted cottages and barns, to supply them with men and cattle, to set the ploughs to work, and revive industry, it is still evident that the want of confidence which maintains the value of money at an exorbitant rate, the love of stock-jobbing, the impossibility of opening small loans, the excessive price of manual labour, contributions exacted in advance, and the distress of most of the land-owners, who are not in a condition to shew favour to their tenants, are scourges which still overwhelm the country. But I am credibly informed that, in general, the rural inhabitants now lend a more attentive ear to instruction, and that prejudices have less empire over their reason. The great landed proprietors, whom terror had induced to fly their country, have, on recovering possession of their patrimony, converted their parks into arable land. Others, who are not fond of living in town, are daily repairing to their estates, in order to superintend the cultivation of them. No one disdains the simple t.i.tle of farmer. Old publications relative to agriculture are reprinted in a form more within reach of the capacity of the people; though treatises on domestic animals are still much wanted.

At Rambouillet, formerly the country-seat of the duke of Penthievre, is an experimental national farm. Fine cattle are now held in high estimation. Flocks of sheep of the Spanish breed are daily increasing; and the number of those of a pure race, already imported, or since bred in France, exceeds 8000.[1] Wide roads, which led to one solitary castle only, have been ploughed, and sown. The rage for ornamental gardens and pleasure-grounds is dying away. The breeding of horses, a branch of industry which the war and the requisition had caused to be abandoned, is on the point of being resumed with increased activity. It is in contemplation to establish studs, on plans better combined and much more favourable to the object than those which formerly existed. In short, the ardent wish of the thinking part of the nation seems to be, that the order which the government is endeavouring to introduce into every branch of its administration, may determine the labourer to proportion his hire to the current price of corn; but all these truths a.s.sembled form not such a sketch as you may, perhaps, expect. The state of French agriculture has never yet been delineated on a comprehensive scale, except by Arthur Young. You must persuade him to repeat his tour, if you wish for a perfect picture.[2]