Paris: With Pen and Pencil Part 2

On my way home from the Bourse, I stopped to go over Galignani's Reading Room. It is a capital collection of the best books of all countries, some of them in French, some in English, and others in German. I found on the shelves many American republications, but Cooper was always first among these. For a small sum the stranger can subscribe to this library, either for a month or a year, and supply himself with reading and the newspapers of the world.

The Messrs. Galignani publish an English journal in Paris. It is a daily, and has no opinions of its own. Of course, an original and independent journal could not be allowed to exist in Paris.

For this reason _Galignani's Messenger_ is a vapid concern. It presents no thoughts to the reader. It is interesting to the Englishman in Paris, because it gathers English news, and presents it in the original language. As there are always a great many Englishmen in Paris, the journal is tolerably well supported. Then, again, the Paris shop-keepers and hotel-owners know very well that the English are among their best customers, and they advertise largely in it. So far as my experience has gone, I have found the _Messenger_ quite unfair to America. It quotes from the worst of American journals, and is sure to parade anything that may be for the disadvantage of American reputation. It also is generally sure of showing by its quotations its sympathy with "the powers that be." This may all be natural enough, for it is for their interest to stand well with the despot who rules France, but to an American, and a republican, it excites only disgust. At present the _Messenger_ is as good, or nearly so, as any of the French journals, but when the latter had liberty to write as they pleased, the contrast between the French and English press in Paris was ludicrous. In one you had fearless political writing, wit, and spice. In the other, nothing but selections.

Once, while in Paris, during the days of the republic, I called upon the editor of one of the prominent French journals. It was a journal which had again and again paid government fines for the utterance of its honest sentiments, both under Louis Philippe and the presidency of Louis Napoleon. Before the revolution it had a very great influence over the people, and in the days of the so-called republic. The struggle between it and the government, at that time was continued. Its editor's great aim was to express as much truth as was possible and escape the government line, which in the end would suppress the journal.

As I entered the building in which this journal was printed and published, I felt a kind of awe creeping over me, as if coming into the presence of a great mind. We entered the editor's office; a little green baize-covered table by a window, pen and ink, and scissors, indicated the room. One might indeed tremble in such a place. What greater place is there in this world than an editor's office, if his journal be one which sells by tens of thousands and sways a vast number of intelligent men? A throne-room is nothing in comparison to it. Thrones are demolished by the journals. Especially in Paris has such been the case.

The liberal press has in past years controlled the French people to a wonderful extent. Kings and queens have physical power, but here in this little room was the throne-room of intellect. A door opened out of it into the printing-room, where the thoughts were stamped upon paper, afterward to be impressed upon a hundred thousand minds.

The editor sat over his little desk, an earnest, care-worn, yet hopeful man. His fingers trembled with nervousness, yet his eye was like an eagle's. He did not stir when we first entered, did not even see us, he was so deeply absorbed in what lay before him upon his table. I was glad to watch him for a moment, un.o.bserved. He was no fashionable editor, made no play of his work. He felt the responsibility of his position, and endeavored honestly to do his duty. His forehead was high, his eye black, and his face was very pale. Suddenly he looked up and saw us, and recognized my friend. It was enough that I was a republican, from America, and unlike some Americans, abated not a jot of my radicalism when in foreign countries.

I looked around the room when the first words were spoken, and saw everywhere files of newspapers, old copy and that which was about to be given to the printers. It was very much like an editorial apartment in an American printing office, though in some respects it was different.

It was a gloomy apartment, and it seemed to me that the writings of the editor must partake somewhat of the character of the room.

We went into the printing-office, where a hundred hands were setting the "thought-tracks." It seemed as if everyone in the building, from editor-in-chief down to the devil, was solemn with the thought of his high and n.o.ble avocation. There was a half sadness on every countenance, for the future was full of gloom. I was struck with the fact that the office did not seem to me to be a _French_ office. There was a gravity, a solemnity, not often seen in Paris. The usual politeness of a Parisian was there, but no gayety, no recklessness.

Anxiety trouble, or fixedness of purpose were written upon almost every countenance. In one corner lay piled up to the ceilings copies of the journal, and I half expected to see a band of the police walk in and seize them. It seemed as if _they_ half expected some such thing, but they worked on without saying a word. I became at that moment convinced that a portion of the French people had been wronged by foreigners.

There is a large cla.s.s who are not only intellectual, but they are earnest and grave. They do not wish change for the sake of it. They love liberty and would die for it. Many of this cla.s.s were murdered in cold blood by Louis Napoleon. Others were sent to Cayenne, to fall a prey to a climate cruel as the guillotine, or were sent into strange lands to beg their bread. These men were the real glory of France, and yet they were forced to leave it.

CHAPTER III.

LAFAYETTE'S TOMB--THE RADICAL--A COUNTRY WALK.

LAFAYETTE'S TOMB.

I am fond of being at perfect liberty to ramble where my fancy may lead.

If the sun shine pleasantly this morning, and I would like to hear the birds sing and smell the flowers, I go to some pleasant garden and indulge my mood. Or, if I am sad, I go to the grave of genius, and lean over the tomb of Abelard and Heloise.

When I lived in Paris, I had no regularity in my wanderings, no method in my sight-seeing, following a perhaps wayward fancy, and enjoying myself the better for it.

One beautiful morning I sauntered out from my hotel, with a friend, who was also a stranger in Paris.

"Where shall we go?" he asked.

"To a little cemetery called Picpus, far away from here."

"Will it be worth our while to go so far to see a small cemetery?"

"You shall see when we get there."

We went part of the way by an omnibus, and walked the rest, and when the morning was nearly spent, we stood before No. 15, Rue de Picpus. The place was once a convent of the order of St. Augustine, but is now occupied by the "Women of the Sacred Heart." Within the convent, which we entered, there is a pretty Doric chapel with an Ionic portal. There was an air of privacy about, the little chapel which pleased me, and a chasteness in its architecture which could not fail to please any one who loves simple beauty. Within the walls of the court, there is a very small private cemetery, but though private, the porter, if you ask him politely, will let you enter, especially if you tell him you are from America.

"Here is the cemetery which we have come to see," I said to my friend.

"Certainly, it is a very pretty one," he replied; "still I see nothing to justify our coming so far to behold it."

"Wait a little while and you will not say so."

The first group of graves before which we stopped, was that of some victims of the reign of terror--poor slaughtered men and women. The gra.s.s was growing pleasantly above them, and all was calm, and sunny, and beautiful around. Perhaps the sun shone as pleasantly when, on the "_Place de la Concorde_," they walked up the steps of the scaffold to die--for _Liberty_! Oh shame! One--two--three--four--there were eight graves we counted, all victims of the reign of terror. For a moment I forgot where I was; the graves were now at my feet, but I saw the poor victims go slowly up to their horrible death. The faces of grinning, scowling devils, male and female, were before me, all clamoring for blood. I could see the tiger-thirst for human flesh in every countenance--the fierce eye--the flushed face--and yet, how still were the winds, how cheerful the sky.

Yet, though every pure-hearted man or woman must detest the horrible cruelties of the great revolution must shudder at the bare mention of the names of the leaders in it, is it not an eternal law of G.o.d, that oppression at last produces madness? Have not tyrants this fact always to dream over--_though you_ may escape the vengeance of outraged humanity, yet your children, your children's children shall pay the terrible penalty. Louis XVI. was a gentle king; unwise, but never at heart tyrannical; but alas! he answered not merely for his own misdeeds, but for the misdeeds, the tyrannical conduct of centuries of kingcraft.

It was an inevitable consequence--and it will ever be so. But I am moralizing.

"You came to see these graves?" remarked my friend. "They are interesting places to ponder and dream over."

"Not to see these, though, did I come," I replied.

We soon came to the graves of n.o.bility. There was the tomb of a Noailles, a Grammont, a Montagu. Plain, all of them, and yet with an air at once chaste and artistic. There was the tomb of Rosambo and Lemoignon amid the tangled gra.s.s. All of these names were once n.o.ble and great in France, and as I bent over them, I could but call up France in the days of the _ancien regime_, when all these names called forth bows and fawnings from the people. Dead and buried n.o.bility--what is it? The n.o.bility goes--names die with the body.

"You came out to see buried n.o.bility," said my companion.

"Me! Did I ever go out of my way to see even buried _royalty_? Never, unless the ashes had been something more than a mere king. To see the grave of genius or goodness, but not empty, buried names!"

We went on a little farther--to a quiet spot, where the sun shone in warmly, where the gra.s.s was mown away short, but where it was green and bright. The song of a plaintive bird just touched our ears--where it was we could not tell, only we heard it. It was a still, beautiful spot, and there was a grave before us--yet how very plain! A pure, white marble, a simple tomb.

Now my companion asked no questions, but I saw that his lips quivered.

The name on the simple tomb was that of

"LAFAYETTE."

Here, away from the noise of the city, amid silence chaste and sweet, without a monument, lie the remains of one of the greatest men of France. Not in Pere la Chaise, amid grandeur and fashion, but in a little private cemetery, with a cl.u.s.ter of extinguished n.o.bles on one side, and a band of victims of the reign of terror on the other!

We sat down beside his tomb, grateful to the dust beneath our feet for the n.o.ble a.s.sistance which it gave to the sinking "Old Thirteen," when the soul of Lafayette animated it. How vividly were the days of our long struggle before us. We saw Bunker Hill alive with battalions, and Charlestown lay in flames. Step by step we ran over the bitter struggle, with so much power on one side, and on the other such an amount of determination, but after all so many dark and adverse circ.u.mstances, so little physical power in comparison with the hosts arrayed against us.

It was when the heart of the nation drooped with an acc.u.mulation of misfortune, that Lafayette came and turned the balance in the scales.

And we were grateful to him; not so much for what he really accomplished, as for what he attempted--for the daring spirit, the n.o.ble generosity!

Then, too, I thought how Lafayette stood between the king and the people, before and after the reign of terror--thought of his devotion to France--of his stern patriotism, which would neither tremble before a king nor an infuriated rabble. Yet he was obliged to fly for life from Paris--from France. He lay in a felon's dungeon in a foreign land, for lack of devotion to kingcraft, and could not return to France because he loved humanity too well. Was it not hard?

France has never been just to her great men. She welcomes to her bosom her most dangerous citizens, and casts out the true and the n.o.ble. She did so when she sent Lafayette away. She did so in refusing Lamartine and accepting Louis Napoleon.

THE RADICAL.

When I first visited Paris, while Louis Napoleon was president of the republic instead of emperor, I became acquainted with a young man from America who had lived seventeen years in Paris. He was thoroughly acquainted with every phase of Parisian life, from the highest to the lowest, and knew the princ.i.p.al political characters of the country. He was a thorough radical, and an enthusiast. He came to Paris for an education, and when he had finished it, he had imbibed the most radical opinions respecting human liberty, and as his native town was New Orleans, and his father a wealthy slaveholder, he concluded to remain in Paris. When I found him, he was living in the Latin quarter, among the students, at a cheap, though very neat hotel. He was refined, modest, and highly educated, and was busy in political writing and speculations.

At that time he showed me a complete const.i.tution for a "model republic"

in France, and a code of laws fit for Paradise rather than France. The doc.u.ments exhibited great skill and learning, but the impress of an enthusiast was upon them all. By his conduct or manner, the stranger would never have supposed that my friend was enthusiastic. He never indulged in any flights of indignation at the existing state of things, never was thrown off his guard so as to show by his speech or his manner that he was pa.s.sionately attached to liberal principles. It was only after I had come to know him well, that I discovered this fact--that he was a great enthusiast, and so deeply attached to the purest principles respecting human freedom and happiness, that he would willingly have died for them. Living in Paris, one of the most dissolute cities of the world, he was pure in his morals, and as rigidly honest as any Puritan in Cromwell's day. But with all his own purity he possessed unbounded charity for others. His friends were among all cla.s.ses, and were good and bad. One day I saw him walking with one of the most distinguished men of France. A few days after, while he was taking a morning walk, he met a university student with a grisette upon his arm--his mistress. The student wished to leave Paris for the day on business, and asked my friend to accompany his mistress back to their rooms. With the utmost composure and politeness the radical offered his arm, and escorted the frail woman to her apartments.

Of course, this man was carefully watched by the police. He was well known, and the eye of the secret police was constantly upon him. He still clung to his old American pa.s.sport, for it had repeatedly caused him to be respected when other reasons were insufficient.