Paris as It Was and as It Is Part 25

I was highly gratified the other day on finding myself in company with some of those men whom (to borrow Lord Thurlow's expression, in speaking of Warren Hastings,) I have known only as I know Alexander, by the greatness of their exploits; men whose names will be transmitted to posterity, and s.h.i.+ne with distinguished l.u.s.tre in the military annals of France.

General A----y had already invited me to dine with him, in order to meet General B----r; but, on the day fixed, the latter, as minister for the war department, being under the necessity of entertaining Lord Cornwallis, the party was postponed till the 8th of Frimaire, (20th of November), when, in addition to General B----r, General A----y had a.s.sembled at his table several men of note. Among others, were General M----rd, who commanded the right wing of the army of Naples under Macdonald, in which he distinguished himself as a brave soldier; and D----ttes, physician in chief to the army of the East.

This officer of health, as medical men are here denominated, is lately returned from Egypt, where his skill and attention to his professional duties gained him universal admiration.

In society so agreeable, time pa.s.sed away rapidly till General B----r arrived. It was late, that is about seven o'clock, though the invitation expressed five precisely, as the hour of dinner. But, in Paris, a minister is always supposed to be detained on official business of a nature paramount to every other consideraton. On my being introduced to General B----r, he immediately entered into conversation with me concerning Lord Cornwallis, whom he had known in the American war, having served in the staff of Rochambeau at the siege of Yorktown. As far back as that period B----r signalized himself by his skill in military science. It was impossible to contemplate these distinguished officers without calling to mind how greatly their country was indebted to the exertion of their talents on various important occasions. These recollections led me to admire that wisdom which had placed them in stations for which they had proved themselves so eminently qualified. In England, places are generally sought for men; in France, men are sought for places.

At seven, dinner was announced, and an excellent one it was, both in quality and quant.i.ty. _Presto_ was the word, and all the guests seemed habituated to expedition. The difference between the duration of such a repast at this day, and what it was before the revolution, shews how constantly men become the slaves of fas.h.i.+on. Had BONAPARTE resembled Lucullus in being addicted to the pleasures of the festive board, I make no doubt that it would have been the height of _ton_ to sit quietly two or three hours after dinner. But the Chief Consul is said to be temperate, almost to abstemiousness; he rises from table in less than half an hour; and that mode is now almost universal in Paris, especially among the great men in office. Two elegant courses and a desert were presently dispatched; the whole time employed in eating I know not how many good dishes, and drinking a variety of choice wines, not exceeding thirty-five minutes. At the end of the repast, coffee was presented to the company in an adjoining room, after which the opera of _Tarare_ was the attraction of the evening.

I have already mentioned to you that General A----y had put into my hand _L'Histoire du Ca.n.a.l du Midi_, written by himself. From a perusal of this interesting work, it appears that one of his ancestors[1] was the first who conceived the idea of that ca.n.a.l, which was not only planned by him, but entirely completed under his immediate direction. Having communicated his plan to Riquet, the latter submited it to Colbert, and, on its being approved by Lewis XIV, became _contractor_ for all the works of that celebrated undertaking, which he did not live to see finished. Riquet, however, not content with having derived from the undertaking every advantage of honour and emolument, greedily s.n.a.t.c.hed from the original projector the meed of fame, so dearly earned by the unremitting labour of thirty successive years. These facts are set forth in the clearest light in the above-mentioned work, in which I was carefully examining General A----y's plans for the improvement of this famous ca.n.a.l, when I was most agreeably interrupted.

I had expressed to the General a wish to know the nature of the establishment of which he is the director, at the same time apprizing him that this wish did not extend to any thing that could not with propriety be made public. He obligingly promised that I should be gratified, and this morning I received ftom him a very friendly letter, accompanied by the following account of the

DePoT DE LA GUERRE.

The general _Depot_ or repository of maps and plans of war, &c, &c, was established by LOUVOIS, in 1688. This was the celebrated period when France, having attained the highest degree of splendour, secured her glory by the results of an administration enlightened in all its branches.

At the beginning of its inst.i.tution, the _Depot de la guerre_ was no more than archives, where were collected, and preserved with order, the memoirs of the generals, their correspondence, the accounts yet imperfect, and the traces of anterior military operations.

The numerous resources afforded by this collection alone, the a.s.sistance and advantages derived from it on every occasion, when it was necessary to investigate a military system, or determine an important operation, suggested the idea of a.s.sembling it under a form and cla.s.sification more methodical. Greater attention and exactness were exerted in enriching the _Depot_ with every thing that might complete the theoretical works and practical elucidations of all the branches of the military art,

Marshal DE MAILLEBOIS, who was appointed director of this establishment in 1730, was one of the first authors of the present existing order. The cla.s.sification at first consisted only in forming registers of the correspondence of the generals, according to date, distinguis.h.i.+ng it by _different wars_. It was divided into two parts, the former containing the letters of the generals; and the latter, the minutes or originals of the answers of the king and his ministers. To each volume was added a summary of the contents, and, in regular succession, the journal of the military operations of the year. These volumes, to the number of upwards of two thousand seven hundred, contain doc.u.ments from the eleventh century to the close of the last American war; but the series is perfect only from the year 1631. This was a valuable mine for a historiographer to explore; and, indeed, it is well known that the _Memoirs of Turenne and of Conde_, the _History of the war of 1741_, and part of the fragments of the _Essay on the Manners and History of Nations_, by Voltaire, were compiled and digested from the original letters and memoirs preserved in the _Depot de la guerre_.

Geographical engineers did not then exist as a corps. Topography was practised by insulated officers, impelled thereto by the rather superficial study of the mathematics and a taste for drawing; because it was for them a mean of obtaining more advantageous employments in the staffs of the armies: but the want of a central point, the difference of systems and methods, not admitting of directing the operations to one same principle, as well as to one same object, topography, little encouraged, was making but a slow progress, when M. DE CHOISEUIL established, as a particular corps, the officers who had applied themselves to the practice of that science. The _Depot_ was charged to direct and a.s.semble the labours of the new corps. This authority doubled the utility of the _Depot_: its results had the most powerful influence during the war from 1757 to 1763.

Lieutenant-General De VAULT, who had succeeded Marshal De MAILLEBOIS as director of the _Depot de la guerre_, conceived, and executed a plan, destined to render still more familiar and secure the numerous doc.u.ments collected in this establishment. He first retrenched from the _Military Correspondences and Memoirs_ all tedious repet.i.tions and unnecessary details; he then cla.s.sed the remainder under the head of a different army or operation, without subjecting himself to any other order than a simple chronology; but he caused each volume to be preceded by a very succinct, historical summary, in order to enable the reader to seize the essence of the original memoirs and doc.u.ments, the text of which was faithfully copied in the body of each volume, In this manner did he arrange all the military events from the German war in 1677 to the peace of 1763. This a.n.a.lysis forms one hundred and twenty five volumes.

It is easy to conceive how much more interesting these historical volumes became by the addition, which took place about the same epoch, of the labours of the geographical engineers employed in the armies. The military men having it at the same time in his power to follow the combinations of the generals with the execution of their plans, imbibes, without difficulty, the principles followed by great captains, or improves himself from the exact account of the errors and faults which it is so natural to commit on critical occasions.

When all the establishments of the old _regime_ were tottering, or threatened by the revolutionary storm, measures were suggested for preserving the _Depot de la guerre_, and, towards the end of 1791, it was transferred from Versailles to Paris. Presently the new system of government, the war declared against the emperor, and the foreseen conflagration of Europe, concurred to give a new importance to this establishment. Alone, amidst the general overthrow, it had preserved a valuable collection of the military and topographical labours of the monarchy, of ma.n.u.scripts of the greatest importance, and a body of information of every kind respecting the resources, and the country, of the powers already hostile, or on the point of becoming so. All the utility which might result from the _Depot_ was then felt, and it was thought necessary to give it a new organization.[2]

The _Depot de la guerre_, however, would have attained but imperfectly the object of its inst.i.tution, had there not been added to its topographical treasure, the richest, as well as the finest, collection in Europe of every geographical work held in any estimation. The first epochs of the revolution greatly facilitated the increase of its riches of that description. The general impulse, imprinted on the mind of the French nation, prompted every will towards useful sacrifices. Private cabinets in possession of the scarcest maps, gave them up to the government, The suppression of the monasteries and abbeys caused to flow to the centre the geographical riches which they preserved in an obscurity hurtful to the progress of that important science: and thus the _Depot de la guerre_ obtained one of the richest collections in Europe.[3] The government, besides, completed it by the delivery of the great map of France by Ca.s.sINI, begun in 1750, together with all the materials forming the elements of that grand work. It is painful to add that not long before that period (in 1791) the corps of geographical engineers, which alone could give utility to such valuable materials had been suppressed.[4]

In the mean time, the sudden changes in the administrative system had dispersed the learned societies employed in astronomy, or the mathematical sciences. The _National Observatory_ was disused. The celebrated astronomers attached to it had no rallying point: they could not devote themselves to their labours but amidst the greatest difficulties; the salary allowed to them was not paid; the numerous observations, continued for two centuries, were on the point of being interrupted.

The _Depot de la guerre_ then became the asylum of those estimable men. This establishment excited and obtained the reverification of the measure of an arc of the meridian, in order to serve as a basis for the uniformity of the weights and measures which the government wished to establish.

MeCHAIN, DELAMBRE, NOUET, TRANCHOT, and PERNY were dispatched to different places from Barcelona to Dunkirk. After having established at each extremity of this line a base, measured with the greatest exactness, they were afterwards to advance their triangles, in order to ascend to the middle point of the line. This operation, which has served for rectifying a few errors that the want of perfection in the instruments had occasioned to be introduced into the measure of the meridian of Ca.s.sINI, may be reckoned one of the most celebrated works which have distinguished the close of the eighteenth century.

The establishment of the system of administration conformably to the const.i.tution of the year III (1795) separated the various elements which the _Depot de la guerre_ had found means to preserve. The _Board of Longitude_ was established; the _National Inst.i.tute_ was formed to supply the place of the _Academy of Sciences_, &c. The _Depot de la guerre_ was restored solely to its ancient prerogatives.

Two years before, it had been under the necessity of forming new geographical engineers and it succeeded in carrying the number sufficiently high to suffice for the wants of the fourteen armies which France had afterwards on foot.[5] These officers being employed in the service of the staffs, no important work was undertaken. But, since the 18th of Brumaire, year VIII, (9th of November, 1799) the Consuls of the Republic have bestowed particular attention on geographical and topographical operations. The new limits of the French territory require that the map of it should be continued; and the new political system, resulting from the general pacification, renders necessary the exact knowledge of the states of the allies of the Republic.

The _Depot de la guerre_ forms various sections of geographers, who are at present employed in constructing accurate maps of the four united departments. Piedmont, Savoy, Helvetia, and the part of Italy comprised between the Adige and the Adda. One section, in conjunction with the Bavarian engineers, is constructing a topographical map of Bavaria: another section is carrying into execution the military surveys, and other topographical labours, ordered by General MOREAU for the purpose of forming a map of Suabia.

The _Depot_ has just published an excellent map of the Tyrol, reduced from that of PAYSAN, and to which have been added the observations made by Chevaliers DUPAY and LA LUCERNE. It has caused to be resumed the continuation of the superb map of the environs of Versailles, called _La carte des cha.s.ses_, a master-piece of topography and execution in all the arts relating to that science. Since the year V (1795), it has also formed a library composed of upwards of eight thousand volumes or ma.n.u.scripts, the most rare, as well as the most esteemed, respecting every branch of the military art in general.

Although, in the preceding account, General A----y, with that modesty which is the characteristic of a superior mind, has been totally silent respecting his own indefatigable exertions, I have learned from the best authority, that France is soon likely to derive very considerable advantages from the activity and talent introduced by him, as director, into every branch of the _Depot de la guerre_, and of which he has afforded in his own person an ill.u.s.trious example.

In giving an impulse to the interior labours of the _Depot_, the sole object of General A----y is to make this establishment lose its _paralyzing_ destination of archives, in which, from time to time, literati might come to collect information concerning some periods of national or foreign history. He is of opinion that these materials ought to be drawn from oblivion, and brought into action by those very persons who, having the experience of war, are better enabled than any others to arrange its elements. Instruction and method being the foundations of a good administration, of the application of an art and of a science, as well as of their improvement, he has conceived the idea of uniting in a cla.s.sical work the exposition of the knowledge necessary for the direction of the _Depot_, for geographical engineers, staff-officers, military men in general, and historians. This, then, is the object of the _Memomorial du Depot de la guerre_, a periodical work, now in hand, which will become the guide of every establishment of this nature[6], by directing with method the various labours used in the application of mathematical and physical sciences to topography, and to that art which, of all others, has the greatest influence on the destiny of empires: I mean the art military. The improvements of which it is still susceptible will be pointed out in the _Memorial_, and every new idea proposed on the subject will there be critically investigated.

In transcribing General A----y's sketch of this extremely-interesting establishment, I cannot but reflect on the striking contrast that it presents, in point of geographical riches, even half a century ago, to the disgraceful poverty, in that line, which, about the same period, prevailed in England, and was severely felt in the planning of our military expeditions.

I remember to have been told by the late Lord Howe, that, when he was captain of the Magnanime at Plymouth, and was sent for express to London, in the year 1757, in order to command the naval part of an expedition to the coast of France, George II, and the whole cabinet council, seemed very much astonished at his requiring the production of a map of that part of the enemy's coast against which the expedition was intended. Neither in the apartment where the council sat, nor in any adjoining one, was any such doc.u.ment; even in the Admiralty-office no other than an indifferent map of the coast could be found: as for the adjacent country, it was so little known in England, that, when the British troops landed, their commander was ignorant of the distance of the neighbouring villages.

Of late years, indeed, we have ordered these matters better; but, to judge from circ.u.mstances, it should seem that we are still extremely deficient in geographical and topographical knowledge; though we are not quite so ill informed as in the time of a certain duke, who, when First Lord of the Treasury, asked in what part of Germany was the Ohio?

P.S. In order to give you, at one view, a complete idea of the collections of the _Depot de la guerre_, and of what they have furnished during the war for the service of the government and of the armies, I shall end my letter by stating that, independently of eight thousand chosen volumes, among which is a valuable collection of atlases, of two thousand seven hundred volumes of old archives, and of upwards of nine hundred _cartons_ or pasteboard boxes of modern original doc.u.ments, the _Depot_ possesses one hundred and thirty-one volumes and seventy-eight _cartons_ of descriptive memoirs, composed at least of fifty memoirs each, four thousand seven hundred engraved maps, of each of which there are from two to twenty-five copies, exclusively of those printed at the _Depot_, and upwards of seven thousand four hundred valuable ma.n.u.script maps, plans, or drawings of marches, battles, sieges, &c.

By order of the government, it has furnished, in the course of the war, seven thousand two hundred and seventy-eight engraved maps, two hundred and seven ma.n.u.script maps or plans, sixty-one atlases of various parts of the globe, and upwards of six hundred descriptive memoirs.

[Footnote 1: FRANcOIS ANDREOSSY; who was the great great grandfather of the present French amba.s.sador at our court.]

[Footnote 2: On the 25th of April, 1792, was published a regulation, decreed by the king, respecting the general direction of the _Depot de la guerre_. The annual expense of the establishment, at that time amounted to 68,000 francs, but the geographical and historical departments were not filled. _Note of the Author._]

[Footnote 3: An _Agence des cartes_ was appointed, by the National a.s.sembly, to cla.s.s these materials, and arrange them in useful order.]

[Footnote 4: At the juncture alluded to (1793), the want of geographical engineers having been felt as soon as the armies took the field, three brigades were formed, each consisting of twelve persons. The composition of the _Depot de la guerre_, was increased in proportion to its importance: intelligent officers were placed there; and no less than thirty-eight persons were employed in the interior labour, that is, in drawing plans of campaigns, sieges, &c.

_Note of the Author_.]

[Footnote 5: That tempestuous period having dispersed the then director and his a.s.sistants, the _Depot de la guerre_ remained, for some time, without officers capable of conducting it in a manner useful to the country. In the mean while, wants were increasing, and military operations daily becoming more important, when, in 1793, CARNOT, then a member of the Committee of Public Welfare, formed a private cabinet of topography, the elements of which he drew from the _Depot de la guerre_. This was a first impulse given to these valuable collections. _Note of the Author_.]

[Footnote 6: Prince Charles is employed at Vienna in forming a collection of books, maps, and military memoirs for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng a _Depot_ for the instruction of the staff-officers of the Austrian army. Spain has also begun to organize a system of military topography in imitation of that of France. Portugal follows the example. What are we doing in England?]

LETTER XXVII

_Paris, December 3, 1801_.

In this season, when the blasts of November have entirely stripped the trees of their few remaining leaves, and Winter has a.s.sumed his h.o.a.ry reign, the garden of the _Tuileries_, loses much of the gaiety of its attractions. Besides, to frequent that walk, at present, is like visiting daily one of our theatres, you meet the same faces so often, that the scene soon becomes monotonous. As well for the sake of variety as exercise, I therefore now and then direct my steps along the

BOULEVARDS.

This is the name given to the promenades with which Paris is, in part, surrounded for an extent of six thousand and eighty-four toises.

They are distinguished by the names of the _Old_ and the _New_. The _Old_, or _North Boulevards_, commonly called the _Grands Boulevards_, were begun in 1536, and, when faced with ditches, which were to have been dug, they were intended to serve as fortifications against the English who were ravaging Picardy, and threatening the capital. Thence, probably, the etymology of their name; _Boulevard_ signifying, as every one knows, a bulwark.

However this may be, the extent of these _Old_ Boulevards is two thousand four hundred toises from the _Rue de la Concorde_ to the _Place de la Liberte_, formerly the site of the Bastille. They were first planted in 1660, and are formed into three alleys by four rows of trees: the middle alley is appropriated to carriages and persons on horseback, and the two lateral ones are for foot-pa.s.sengers.

Here, on each side, is a.s.sembled every thing that ingenuity can imagine for the diversion of the idle stroller, or the recreation of the man of business. Places of public entertainment, ambulating musicians, exhibitions of different kinds, temples consecrated to love or pleasure, Vauxhalls, ball-rooms, magnificent hotels, and other tasteful buildings, &c. Even the coffee-houses and taverns here have their shady bowers, and an agreeable orchestra. Thus, you may always dine in Paris with a band of music to entertain you, without additional expense.

The _New_ Boulevards, situated to the south, were finished in 1761.

They are three thousand six hundred and eighty-three toises in extent from the _Observatoire_ to the _Hotel des Invalides_. Although laid out much in the same manner as the _Old_, there is little resemblance between them; each having a very distinct appearance.

On the _New Boulevards_, the alleys are both longer and wider, and the trees are likewise of better growth. There, the prospect is rural; and the air pure; while cultivated fields, with growing corn, present themselves to the eye. Towards the town, however, stand several pretty houses; little theatres even were built, but did not succeed. This was not their lat.i.tude. But some skittle-grounds and tea-gardens, lately opened, and provided with swings, &c. have attracted much company of a certain cla.s.s in the summer.

In this quarter, you seldom meet with a carriage, scarcely ever with persons sprucely dressed, but frequently with honest citizens, accompanied by their whole family, as plain in their garb as in their manners. Lovers too with their mistresses, who seek solitude, visit this retired walk; and now and then a poor poet comes. .h.i.ther, not to sharpen his appet.i.te, but to arrange his numbers.

Before, the revolution, the _Old_ Boulevards, from the _Porte St.