Recollections of Europe Part 19

Let us take ventriloquism as a parallel case to that of animal magnetism. Ventriloquism is neither more nor less than imitation; and yet, aided by the imagination, perhaps a majority of those who know anything about it, are inclined to believe there is really such a faculty as that which is vulgarly attributed to ventriloquism. The whole art of the ventriloquist consists in making such sounds as would be produced by a person, or thing, that should be actually in the circ.u.mstances that he wishes to represent. Let there be, for instance, five or six sitting around a table, in a room with a single door; a ventriloquist among them wishes to mislead his companions, by making them believe that another is applying for admission. All he has to do, is to make a sound similar to that which a person on the outside would make, in applying for admission. "Open the door, and let me in," uttered in such a manner, would deceive any one who was not prepared for the experiment, simply because men do not ordinarily make such sounds when sitting near each other, because the words themselves would draw the attention to the door, and because the sounds would be suited to the fict.i.tious application. If there were _two_ doors, the person first moving his head towards one of them, would probably give a direction to the imaginations of all the others; unless, indeed, the ventriloquist himself, by his words, or his own movements, as is usually the case, should a.s.sume the initiative. Every ventriloquist takes especial care to _direct_ the imagination of his listener to the desired point, either by what he says, by some gesture, or by some movement. Such, undeniably, is the fact in regard to ventriloquism; for we know enough of the philosophy of sound, to be certain it can he nothing else. One of the best ventriloquists of this age, after affecting to resist this explanation of his mystery, candidly admitted to me, on finding that I stuck to the principles of reason, that all his art consisted of no more than a power to control the imagination by imitation supported occasionally by acting. And yet I once saw this man literally turn a whole family out of doors, in a storm, by an exercise of his art. On that occasion, so complete was the delusion, that the good people of the house actually fancied sounds which came from the ventriloquist, came from a point considerably beyond the place where they stood, and on the side _opposite_ to that occupied by the speaker, although they stood at the top of a flight of steps, and he stood at the bottom. All this time, the sounds appeared to me to come from the place whence, by the laws of sound, except in cases of reverberation, and of the influence of the imagination, they only could appear to come; or, in other words, from the mouth of the ventriloquist himself. Now, if the imagination can effect so much, even in crowded a.s.semblies, composed of people of all degrees of credulity, intelligence, and strength of mind, and when all are prepared, in part at least, for the delusion, what may it not be expected to produce on minds peculiarly suited to yield to its influence, and this, too, when the prodigy takes the captivating form of mysticism and miracles!

In the case of the patient of M. Cloquet, we are reduced to the alternatives of denying the testimony, of believing that recourse was had to drugs, of referring all to the force of the imagination, or of admitting the truth of the doctrine of animal magnetism. The character of M. Cloquet, and the motiveless folly of such a course, compel us to reject the first; the second can hardly be believed, as the patient had not the appearance of being drugged, and the possession of such a secret would be almost as valuable as the art in question itself. The doctrine of animal magnetism we cannot receive, on account of the want of uniformity and exact.i.tude in the experiments; and I think, we are fairly driven to take refuge in the force of the imagination. Before doing this, however, we ought to make considerable allowances for exaggerations, colouring, and the different manner in which men are apt to regard the same thing. My young American friend, who _did_ believe in animal magnetism, viewed several of the facts I have related with eyes more favourable than mine, although even he was compelled to allow that M. C---- had much greater success with himself, than with your humble servant.

LETTER XXIII.

Preparations for Departure.--My Consulate.--Leave Paris.--Picardy.--Cressy.--Montreuil.--Gate of Calais.--Port of Calais.--Magical Words.

To R. COOPER, ESQ., COOPERSTOWN.

We entered France in July, 1826, and having remained in and about the French capital until February, 1828, we thought it time to change the scene. Paris is effectually the centre of Europe, and a residence in it is the best training an American can have, previously to visiting the other parts of that quarter of the world. Its civilisation, usages, and facilities take the edge off our provincial admiration, remove prejudices, and prepare the mind to receive new impressions, with more discrimination and tact. I would advise all our travellers to make this their first stage, and then to visit the North of Europe, before crossing the Alps or the Pyrenees. Most people, however, hurry into the South, with a view to obtain the best as soon as possible; but it is with this, as in most of our enjoyments, a too eager indulgence defeats its own aim.

We had decided to visit London, where the season, _or winter_, would soon commence. The necessary arrangements were made, and we sent round our cards of p.p.c. and obtained pa.s.sports. On the very day we were to quit Paris, an American friend wrote me a note to say that a young connexion of his was desirous of going to London, and begged a place for her in my carriage. It is, I believe, a peculiar and a respectable trait in the national character, that we so seldom hesitate about asking, or acceding to, favours of this sort. Whenever woman is concerned, our own s.e.x yield, and usually without murmuring. At all events, it was so with W----, who cheerfully gave up his seat in the carriage to Miss ----, in order to take one in the _coupe_ of the diligence. The notice was so short, and the hour so late, that there was no time to get a pa.s.sport for him, and, as he was included in mine, I was compelled to run the risk of sending him to the frontiers without one. I was a consul at the time,--a t.i.tular one as to duties, but in reality as much of a consul as if I had ever visited my consulate.[34] The only official paper I possessed, in connexion with the office, the commission and _exequatur_ excepted, was a letter from the Prefet of the Rhone, acknowledging the receipt of the latter. As this was strictly a French doc.u.ment, I gave it to W---- as proof of my ident.i.ty, accompanied by a brief statement of the reasons why he was without a pa.s.sport, begging the authorities at Need to let him pa.s.s as far as the frontier, where I should be in season to prove his character. This statement I signed as consul, instructing W---- to show it, if applied to for a pa.s.sport; and if the gendarmes disavowed me, to show the letter, by way of proving who I was. The expedient was clumsy enough, but it was the best that offered.

[Footnote 34: There being so strong a propensity to cavil at American facts, lest this book might fall into European hands, it may be well to explain a little. The consulate of the writer was given to him solely to avoid the appearance of going over to the enemy, during his residence abroad. The situation conferred neither honour nor profit, there being no salary, and, in his case, not fees enough to meet the expense of the office opened by a deputy. The writer suspects he was much too true to the character and principles of his native country, to be voluntarily selected by its Government as the object of its honours or rewards, and it is certain he never solicited either. There are favours, it would seem, that are reserved, in America, for those who most serve the interests of her enemies! A day of retribution will come.]

This arrangement settled, we got into the carriage, and took our leave of Paris. Before quitting the town, however, I drove round to the Rue d'Anjou, to take my leave of General Lafayette. This ill.u.s.trious man had been seriously ill for some weeks, and I had many doubts of my ever seeing him again. He did not conceive himself to be in any danger, however; but spoke of his speedy recovery as a matter of course, and made an engagement with me for the ensuing summer. I bade him adieu, with a melancholy apprehension that I should never see him again.

We drove through the gates of Paris, amid the dreariness of a winter's evening. You are to understand that everybody quits London and Paris just as night sets in. I cannot tell you whether this is caprice, or whether it is a usage that has arisen from a wish to have the day in town, and a desire to relieve the monotony of roads so often travelled, by sleep; but so it is. We did not fall into the fashion simply because it is a fashion, but the days are so short in February in these high lat.i.tudes, that we could not make our preparations earlier.

I have little agreeable to say concerning the first forty miles of the journey. It rained; and the roads were, as usual, slippery with mud, and full of holes. The old _paves_ are beginning to give way, however, and we actually got a bit of _terre_ within six posts of Paris. This may be considered a triumph of modern civilisation; for, whatever may be said and sung in favour of Appian ways and Roman magnificence, a more cruel invention for travellers and carriage-wheels, than these _paves_, was never invented. A real Paris winter's day is the most uncomfortable of all weather. If you walk, no device of leather will prevent the moisture from penetrating to your heart; if you ride, it is but an affair of mud and _gras de Paris_. We enjoyed all this until nine at night, by which time we had got enough of it; and in Beauvais, instead of giving the order _a la poste_, the postilion was told to go to an inn. A warm supper and good beds put us all in good-humour again.

In putting into the mouth of Falstaff the words, "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Shakspeare may have meant no more than the drowsy indolence of a glutton; but they recur to me with peculiar satisfaction whenever I get unbooted, and with a full stomach before the warm fire of an hotel, after a fatiguing and chilling day's work. If any man doubt whether Providence has not dealt justly by all of us in rendering our enjoyments dependent on comparative rather than on positive benefits, let him travel through a dreary day, and take his comfort at night in a house where everything is far below his usual habits, and learn to appreciate the truth. The sweetest sleep I have ever had has been caught on deck, in the middle watch, under a wet pee-jacket, and with a coil of rope for a pillow.

Our next day's work carried us as far as Abbeville, in Picardy. Here we had a capital supper of game, in a room that set us all shivering with good honest cold. The beds, as usual, were excellent. The country throughout all this part of France, is tame and monotonous, with wide reaches of grain-lands that are now brown and dreary, here and there a wood, and the usual villages of dirty stonehouses. We pa.s.sed a few hamlets, however, that were more than commonly rustic and picturesque, and in which the dwellings seemed to be of mud, and were thatched. As they were mostly very irregular in form, the street winding through them quite prettily, they would have been good in their way, had there been any of the simple expedients of taste to relieve their poverty. But the French peasants of this province appear to think of little else but their wants. There was occasionally a venerable and generous old vine clinging about the door, however, to raise some faint impressions of happiness.

We pa.s.sed through, or near, the field of Cressy. By the aid of the books, we fancied we could trace the positions of the two armies; but it was little more than very vague conjecture. There was a mead, a breadth of field well adapted to cavalry, and a wood. The river is a mere brook, and could have offered but little protection, or resistance, to the pa.s.sage of any species of troops. I saw no village, and we may not have been within a mile of the real field, after all. Quite likely; no one knows where it is. It is very natural that the precise sites of great events should be lost, though our own history is so fresh and full, that to us it is apt to appear extraordinary. In a conversation with a gentleman of the Stanley family, lately, I asked him if Latham-House, so celebrated for its siege in the civil wars, was still in the possession of its ancient proprietors. I was told it no longer existed, and that, until quite recently, its positive site was a disputed point, and one which had only been settled by the discovery of a hole in a rock, in which shot had been cast during the siege, and which hole was known to have formerly been in a court. It is no wonder that doubts exist as to the ident.i.ty of Homer, or the position of Troy.

We have anglicised the word Cressy, which the French term Crecy, or, to give it a true Picard orthography, Creci. Most of the names that have this termination are said to be derived from this province. Many of them have become English, and have undergone several changes in the spelling.

Tracy, or Tracey; de Courcy, or de Courcey; Montmorency; and Lacy, or Lacey, were once "Traci," "Courci," "Montmorenci," and "Laci." [35] The French get over the disgrace of their ancient defeats very ingeniously, by a.s.serting that the English armies of old were princ.i.p.ally composed of Norman soldiers, and that the chivalrous n.o.bility which performed such wonders were of purely Norman blood. The latter was probably more true than the former.

[Footnote 35: The celebrated Sir William Draper was once present when the subject turned on the descent of families, and the changes that names underwent. "Now my own is a proof of what I say," he continued, with the intention to put an end to a discourse that was getting to savour of family pride; "my family being directly derived from King Pepin." "How do you make that out, Sir William?" "By self-evident orthographical testimony, as you may see,--Pepin, Pipkin, Napkin, Diaper, Draper."]

As we drew nearer to the coast, the country became more varied.

Montreuil and Samer are both fortified; and one of these places, standing on an abrupt, rocky eminence, is quite picturesque and quaint.

But we did not stop to look at anything very minutely, pushing forward, as fast as three horses could draw us, for the end of our journey. A league or two from Boulogne we were met by a half-dozen mounted runners from the different inns, each inviting us to give our custom to his particular employer. These fellows reminded me of the wheat-runners on the hill at Albany; though they were as much more clamorous and earnest, as a noisy protestation-making Frenchman is more obtrusive, than a shrewd, quiet, calculating Yankee. We did not stop in Boulogne to try how true were the voluble representations of these gentry, but, changing horses at the post, went our way. The town seemed full of English; and we gazed about us, with some curiosity, at a place that has become so celebrated by the great demonstration of Napoleon. There is a high monument standing at no great distance from the town, to commemorate one of his military parades. The port is small and crowded, like most of the harbours on both sides of the Channel.

We had rain, and chills, and darkness, for the three or four posts that succeeded. The country grew more and more tame, until, after crossing an extensive plain of moist meadow-land, we pa.s.sed through the gate of Calais. I know no place that will give you a more accurate notion of this celebrated port than Powles Hook. It is, however, necessary to enlarge the scale greatly, for Calais is a town of some size, and the hommock on which it stands, and the low land by which it is environed, are much more considerable in extent than the spot just named.

We drove to the inn that Sterne has immortalised, or one at least that bears the same name, and found English comfort united with French cookery and French taste. After all, I do not know why I may not say French comforts too; for in many respects they surpa.s.s their island neighbours even in this feature of domestic comfort. It is a comfort to have a napkin even when eating a m.u.f.fin; to see one's self entire in a mirror, instead of _edging_ the form into it, or out of it, sideways; to drink good coffee; to eat good _cotelettes;_ and to be able to wear the same linen for a day, without having it soiled. The Bible says, "Comfort me with flagons, or apples," I really forget which,--and if either of these is to be taken as authority, a _cotelette_ may surely be admitted into the _carte de conforts_.

We found Calais a clear town, and pressing a certain medium aspect, that was as much English as French. The position is strong, though I was not much struck with the strength of the works. England has no motive to wish to possess it, now that conquest on the Continent is neither expedient nor possible. The port is good for nothing, in a warlike sense, except to protect a privateer or two; though the use of steam will probably make it of more importance in any future war, than it has been for the last two centuries.

We found W---- safely arrived. At one of the frontier towns he had been asked for his pa.s.sport, and in his fright he gave the letter of the Prefet of the Rhone, instead of the explanation I had so cleverly devised. This letter commenced with the words "Monsieur le Consul" in large letters, and occupying, according to French etiquette, nearly half of the first page. The gendarme, a _vieux moustache_, held his lantern up to read it, and seeing this ominous t.i.tle, it would seem that Napoleon, and Marengo, and all the glories of the Consulate, arose in his imagination. He got no further than those three words, which he p.r.o.nounced aloud; and then folding the letter, he returned it with a profound bow, asking no further questions. As the diligence drove on, W---- heard him say, "Apparemment vous avez un homme tres-considerable la-dedans, Monsieur le Conducteur." So much for our fears, for pa.s.sports, and for gendarmes!

We went to bed, with the intention of embarking for England in the morning.

THE END