Four Years in France Part 4

We viewed the town and the port, and saw nothing particularly remarkable, but the great number of parrots hung at doors and windows, and crying out--"d.a.m.n" and "d.a.m.n your eyes." Their voyage from the tropics had been performed under English auspices. Havre is a great depot of colonial produce; and this bird may probably be in great demand in a nation, so loquacious as we, in our vulgar prejudices, suppose the French to be. The commerce of the place a.s.sumed at this time a great degree of activity in objects of more importance than parrots, however accomplished. But the day was a day of rest.

The next morning I went to the Bureau de Police for my pa.s.sport: the Commissaire, for reasons or from feelings best known to himself, desired me to call again in two hours. I have seen many instances of the hatred of the French towards the English, which the imperial government had excited to the utmost degree of intensity, and which did not begin to subside till the removal of the army of observation. M. le Commissaire, I suspect, indulged in a little ebullition of this unamiable sentiment: in vain I represented that my pa.s.sport had been in his office the whole of the preceding day, during which I had called there three times: this seemed to increase his triumph; and he coolly, though very civilly, repeated his request that I would call again in two hours.

He procured for us a very pleasant walk on the hills, which command a view of the town, the mouth of the Seine, and the channel. The trees, in this land of cyder, were in full blossom; the rye was in ear; all seemed to be a month earlier than in the northern region we had left a week before, when we quitted our home. We entered the church; the parish is called St. Vic: I was surprised to see the exact resemblance of this church to those edifices, the remains of former times, which, in our villages, are opened once a week for divine wors.h.i.+p: the altar and images excepted, it was the same sort of interior: there was indeed the holy water pot, but of that the trace at least is to be found in almost all our old churches: but the images; ay, there was St. Denis, with his head, not under his arm, but held between his hands. On this I shall only remark, that he who, on account of the legend of St. Denis, believes the catholic religion to be false, may deceive himself in a matter of the greatest moment; whereas he who believes the legend to be true, may be deceived, but in a matter of no moment at all.

A farmer's lad, of about fourteen, came up to us in the church-yard, and entered into a conversation, which he conducted without bashfulness, and with the greatest propriety. He told us, that ma.s.s was said every morning at break of day, and that the peasantry attended it before going to their labour. He talked of the princ.i.p.al tombs before us, and of the families in two or three large houses within our view: he asked questions respecting England, where, he supposed, there were no poor, because he had never seen any: undeceived on this point, he inquired after the state of these poor, with marks of fellow-feeling; what wages they gained: and when I, in my turn, was informed of the wages and price of bread in his country, and showed him, that though the Englishman gained more sous, the Frenchman gained more bread, he clearly apprehended the nature of the case, pitying at the same time those who had less bread to eat than he had himself. He took leave of us, and certainly had not the least expectation of a present to make him drink: that we were strangers,--that we talked his language with difficulty,--all that would have repelled an English peasant,--excited his curiosity, and even his good-will.

We returned to the town, found a commis who expedited our pa.s.sport in five minutes, and went to take our places in the Paris diligence. A woman gave me a receipt for my _arrhes_. I told her it would save trouble to include my luggage in the same receipt. "When you shall have sent it, sir," was the answer. A distinguis.h.i.+ng character of the French is exactness; in criticism, in style of writing, in calculation, in affairs, they are exact. I give my own opinion, not perhaps that of others.

It was the first of the Rogation days, which an Anglican may see, in his book of common-prayer, noted as days of abstinence. M. Marre, profiting by the neighbourhood of the sea, gave us a very fine turbot, part of a good dinner, at which appeared some dishes of meat. I paid my bill, (about fifty francs for three persons during two days,) and took my departure, but was arrested, in my way to the diligence, in a curious manner. I had given a franc to a boy for taking my two trunks in a wheel-barrow a short distance to the coach-office; _Boots_, at an inn in England, would have been contented with a sixpence; but the _porte-faix_ of the _douane_ had admonished me of the high expectations from English wealth and generosity. The father of this boy stopped me in the street; charged me with having robbed his son by paying only one franc instead of three, to which he had a right; threatening to take me before the commissary of police, "who," said he, "will put you in prison." He acted his part very well; he could not have been more angry, had I in reality committed an act of injustice towards so dear a part of his family as this son, dressed, like himself, in a stout jacket of English fustian, and the heir apparent of all his impudence, who took his share in the scene by barring the pa.s.sage to my elder son, not so stout, though rather taller than himself. I dreaded some act of vivacity on the part of my son, and called out to him at all events to be quiet. The boy of the inn, who carried my writing-desk and great coats, had no need of such a caution. My younger son, now in the first day of his thirteenth year, though alarmed by the hubbub, had the sense to see that the only way to get out of the affray was to pay the man, and begged me to do so.

The clock struck five, the hour of the departure of the diligence,--a circ.u.mstance which made compliance with this sage counsel no longer a matter of choice, and on which the man had calculated with more reason than on the a.s.sistance of the police. After all, the lad was not much better paid than the _porte-faix_ of the _douane_, who had attacked me only with the smell of garlic and tobacco, issuing from their mouths together with bad French. So much for Havre, _ci-devant, de Grace_.

We found the diligence to be a convenient and even handsome public carriage, made to hold six persons within, and three in the cabriolet or covered seat attached to it in front: at first, we had all this s.p.a.ce to ourselves. After about an hour's ride, we got out of the coach to walk up a steep hill, and took our last leave of the semblance of English landscape. France and Italy offer no views of luxuriant pastures, with herds and flocks grazing in them, of trees irregularly planted, of enclosures unequally distributed, of fine swelling clouds hanging in the horizon,--themselves a beautiful object, and adding variety of light and shade to the picture. These we were to exchange for vines, like bushes, planted in rows, or trained in festoons from one pollard elm to another; for the pale leaf of the olive, for skies almost always cloudless, for fields abundant in produce, but without any thing living or moving in them. But we were as yet unable to make the comparison. As night came on, we took up other pa.s.sengers who were going to a short distance: they were Normans; at least such I judged them to be from the great breadth of their bases, which took up a considerable s.p.a.ce on the seats of the coach: in manners as well as in form they were different from Frenchmen; they were not indeed reserved, they had no _mauvaise honte_, but they were rude and selfish. The French proverb however says, and it is certainly right, "il y a des honnetes gens partout, meme en Normandie;"[8] a proverb, cited by way of reprisal for a saying reported by a Norman; in contempt of the people of Champagne; "quatre-vingt dix-neuf moutons et un Champenois font cent bonnes betes."[9] It is curious to find jokes, like our own on Yorks.h.i.+re honesty and Gloucesters.h.i.+re ingenuity, repeated in a foreign land.

To return to the country through which I am pa.s.sing; the Normans are said to be very litigious; in proportion to the frequency of the discussion of questions of _meum_ and _tuum_, are the illegal attempts at appropriating what belongs to another; an offence which the law calls theft, and punishes capitally. It seems that, before the Revolution, this capital punishment was administered at the gallows; a machine of which our Norman conqueror brought with him perhaps a model into England,--an excellent subsidiary to the curfew, as lately tried in Ireland; for our Saxon legislators are recorded to have hung offenders on trees, but I am ignorant that any proof exists of their having contrived a gallows.

The invention of the guillotine was a still further improvement; but, either from dislike to the shedding of blood, or from attachment to long-established modes, the Normans are said to have prepared for the king, on his restoration, a pet.i.tion, of which here follows a copy:--

_Pet.i.tion adressee par les Normands a S. M. Louis XVIII. a son Retour en France._

Sage Prince! quand tu nous rends Tous nos anciens usages, Accepte les hommages Et comble les voeux des Normands!

Que la potence Revive en France, Daigne d'avance Nous donner l'a.s.surance Que sous le regne des vertus Les gibets nous seront rendus; Heureux Normands! nous serons donc pendus!

Sous un roi debonnaire, Comme on pendait nos peres!! (bis)

Oui, les bons Normands vont ravoir L'antique privilege D'aller en grand cortege Danser a la Croix du Trahair;[10]

Nouvelle etude Nous semble rude, De l'att.i.tude Nous avons l'habitude, Avec le sang de pere en fils Ce penchant nous etait transmis: Venez encore orner notre pays Gibets hereditaires Ou l'on pendait nos peres!!

I am sorry I cannot give the notes of the music to which this song or pet.i.tion was set, as that doubtless lent to it additional charms in the ears of His Majesty.

We arrived at Yvetot: I heard some talk, amongst my companions, concerning the king of Yvetot, but was unable to obtain from them a satisfactory explanation of its import. I have since been told, that there is a family in this neighbourhood, the head of which, by an immemorial traditionary usage, bore the t.i.tle of King of Yvetot, with the consent and approbation of the king of France, which consent was regularly asked for, on every demise of the crown of Yvetot, and never refused till the time of Louis XIV: he refused it, however, saying, he was determined to be the only king in France: since this time the king of Yvetot has disappeared from among the sovereigns of Europe, or, according to the form of anathema of republican or imperial France, "has ceased to reign." The family still subsists, and its chief is, no doubt, contented to be a private gentleman. I have forgotten his name.

We breakfasted at Rouen, at five in the morning: I much regretted the want of time to visit this great city, so well worthy of the curiosity of strangers. Here our companions left us, and we were again "all alone by ourselves."

At Magny they served soup and bouilli as the first part of our dinner, or _dejeune a la fourchette_: I protested against the use of meat on a Rogation day. "C'est egal,"[11] said the landlady, an elderly woman of dry and quiet comportment. "I thought France was a catholic country,"

said I. "C'est egal," repeated the imperturbable landlady. She gave us, however, with some symptoms of approbation of our conduct, and of compa.s.sion for my young fellow-travellers, plenty of coffee and its accompaniments, with boiled eggs at discretion. I have often been ridiculed, by those who never dine without roast beef or its equivalent, for "taking thought what I should eat," on a day of abstinence; they have told me, that if mortification was my purpose, it would be most effectually accomplished by dining on bread and water. They forgot, or chose not to remember, that fasting or abstinence is a _positive_ duty consequent on a precept, and that it suffices to comply with a precept to the extent of the precept. I find fault with no one for eating meat on whatever day of the year, but for so doing in defiance of a precept, the obligation of which he himself recognizes, while he aggravates his inconsistency by thinking scorn of those who comply with it.

An old relation of mine, in Devons.h.i.+re, told me he went to dine with a catholic family, in that county, who made an excuse for being obliged to give him what he would find a bad dinner: "They set me down," said he, "to eleven dishes of fish, and, d--n 'em, they called that fasting." My relation was gourmand enough to have preferred eleven dishes of meat.

Besides, none but those who have made the experiment know how insipid fish is to those who do not eat it, as all men of true taste do eat it, for variety only. So sensible are catholics of this insipidity, that one, at whose house I dined with a large party, called out to us on entering his dining room,--"No fish, gentlemen: we have enough of that on other days."

There is another road from Rouen to Paris, called the lower road, following, at a little distance, the course of the Seine, and exhibiting a great variety of fine scenery: that taken by our coach pa.s.sed over a high plain of land of little fertility, but very well cultivated; it was in a straight line, and bordered by rows of apple trees, which, for some time before the season of gathering the fruit for cyder, are guarded in the night by dogs: during the day, their situation by the side of the road secures them from all but petty pilfering. At intervals were seen farm-houses, which seemed adapted for large farms; and the country bore signs of being occupied on the plan of what is called grand cultivation, except near the towns, where small patches of land, of different crops, marked the minute subdivision of property.

We pa.s.sed through the village of St. Clair. A very particular circ.u.mstance, which had occurred five months before, caused me to be much affected, while in sight of this town. My elder son, who sat opposite to me, remarked the change of my countenance, and asked the reason: I eluded his question for the present: I was not aware how much what I then revolved in my mind regarded the fate of this son. St. Clair was an English priest, who, in the eighth century, retired into the pays de Vexin, led there an eremitical life, and occupied himself in the religious instruction of the inhabitants. His name and memory are held in great honour, particularly in the dioceses of Beauvais and Paris.

We crossed the bridge of Pontoise without entering that ancient town, in which the Etats Generaux were sometime held. The building of a bridge was formerly so great an exploit, and the possession of one an advantage so uncommon, that the word enters into the composition of many names of towns: we find even Deuxponts, and Bracebridge. The waters of all the rivers which fall into the Seine seem to be of the same colour; all bring with them chalk and clay. The soil of the whole basin, or valley of the Seine, is generally uniform.

Paris is hidden, from those who approach it by the road of St. Denis, by the interposition of Montmartre, a bare hill of no pleasing form. No increasing populousness or bustle, or pa.s.sage of exits and entrances, announces the vicinity of a great town: Paris is all within its own walls. We were stopt at the gate; for every gate is a douane, as all provisions pay a tax on entering the city, except bread, corn, and flour, which receive a premium: even one of my trunks was opened. As the parts of a town, remote from its centre, are, of course, inhabited by the poorer cla.s.ses, it is unreasonable to expect magnificence on the first entering, even of Paris; but it improved as we proceeded. We crossed the Boulevards, and were set down at the Messageries, the grand establishment of all the public carriages, whence we proceeded to the Hotel de Conti, at a little distance, and near the Palais Royal. We had performed the whole journey in twenty-five hours, at the rate of about six miles an hour, all stoppages included. During the night, and where the road was bad, we went slowly; but from Rouen to Paris we went more than seven miles and a half an hour, the rate of an English mail coach; the relays of horses always being in readiness at the door of each post-house. The expense for three persons, including breakfast and dinner, was about five pounds.

A friend, whom I had hastened to see before his departure from Paris, and who, to my very great satisfaction, prolonged his stay there for four weeks after my arrival, came to us in the evening: we pa.s.sed the next day with him, and on Thursday, after attending ma.s.s, on the feast of the Ascension, at the magnificent Gothic church of St. Eustache, settled ourselves in an apartment in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Autin, called otherwise, while Savoy was a department of France, Rue Mont Blanc, a name not yet entirely forgotten. It is, for length and width, one of the best in Paris, but very noisy. Garcons, however, did not mind noise: I too was a garcon, waiting the arrival of the female part of my family. We had two sitting-rooms with cabinets, and three good beds. The house supplied us with hot water for our tea; we had our mid-day repast of fruit; and, when we did not dine at a cafe, which we did but rarely, were supplied with our dinner by a neighbouring traiteur. Thus we lived for nearly three months: a French master and drawing-master attended my sons; I superintended their other studies; and we employed our time in the attainment of the object immediately within our reach--in becoming acquainted with Paris and its environs.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Overwhelmed by duties.

[8] There are honest people every where, even in Normandy.

[9] Ninety-nine sheep and one native of Champagne make a hundred good beasts.

[10] The Tyburn of Paris.

[11] It is all the same.

CHAP. III.

He, who, on his return to Edinburgh from London, should publish his remarks on the latter city, would not take more superfluous pains, for the instruction of his countrymen, than the Englishman who should publish in England an account of Paris: it is there almost as well known as London itself. Still it is a foreign city: and many, who would scorn to take up a London Guide, may, for the hundredth time, amuse themselves with notices of Paris.

"Il n'y a qu'une Paris dans le monde,"[12] say the French, and of that world they consider it as the capital: they are in some measure justified in so considering it, by the universality of their language, by the general imitation of their manners, and, above all, by the liberality with which every thing that a stranger can desire to view is offered to his inspection. There is certainly a greater resort of foreigners to Paris, independently of commerce, than to any other city of Europe.

I followed the advice of a former tourist, and went, first of all, to the Place Louis XV. It is almost the only object I have seen in my travels, that I have heard much praised beforehand, which has not disappointed me. Perhaps I was thus well contented, because the feeling of admiration was now, for the first time, excited in the beginning of my tour in foreign parts; and I pleased myself in expecting a frequent renewal of it; and I have since admired less, because I have seen more things to admire. But, to the Place Louis XV. Entering it from the north, you have the Seine, with its bridge, and the Palais Bourbon before you; advancing to the middle of the square, you have public buildings with magnificent colonnades behind you; on the left is the garden of the Tuilleries, at the end of the central allee of which is seen the chateau; on the right, the Champs Elysees; and, at the end of the grand avenue, the triumphal arch, which shared the fate of the triumphs of its founder, being left incomplete: it has since been finished in honour of his Royal Highness the Duc d'Angouleme on account of his Spanish campaign of 1823. A very good taste dictated to Napoleon the site of this arch; without it the fourth side of this magnificent square was trees and country only; but the arch seems to enclose the Champs Elysees, as the Palace encloses the garden of the Tuilleries; the extent of the _Place_ is increased by making the Champs Elysees appear as a part of it, and the whole is perfected. The daughter of Louis XVI.

and Marie Antoinette avoids this Place with a pious horror, in which every honest heart is disposed to sympathise.

The Museum of the Louvre consists of the lower apartments, in which the statues are placed, and of the gallery of paintings; but as it has become usual to call the gallery by the name of the Gallery only, the lower rooms have retained sole possession of the name of Museum. At the door may be bought catalogues of the statues and paintings, which enter, in some cases, into a short detail of their history and merits. The statues are well placed: one may go round them, and see them on every side. Common sense directs, that a statue should be placed thus; yet at Rome, statues, the admiration of the world, are placed in dark cabinets, in niches, close to the wall; as if statues, like paintings, were to be seen only on one side: they are thus robbed of half their glory, nay of all their glory; since, to judge of a statue, it must be contemplated as a whole. "They order these things better in France."

It is easy to say, and it has often been said, that the gallery is too long,--too long, that is, for its breadth: but who would wish it to be shorter? and as, on each side, there is sufficient distance to allow a good view of the pictures opposite, it cannot be said to be too narrow for its use. By two arches, thrown across the ceiling, it seems to be divided into three compartments; and thus the length is, in some sort, broken. The paintings of the Italian school have the place of honour, in the compartment at the end furthest from the door; the French school is, however, in a most flouris.h.i.+ng state, and boasts great names: it will soon rival, if it does not already rival, the old Italian school; to surpa.s.s it, is, I suppose, impossible.

This gallery, originally intended as a pa.s.sage from the Louvre to the Tuilleries, from the town-house to the country-house of the kings of France,--is now, with the rooms on the ground-floor, and some large chambers that have been added, the repository of the finest collection of monuments of the arts, that is to be found out of Italy. Indeed no single Italian collection equals it, saving always the reverence due to certain renowned and incomparable chefs-d'oeuvre.

The Museum of Natural History, in the Jardin des Plantes, is said to be the first in the world. That cla.s.s of society which has but one day in the week of relief from labour is admitted here as well as at the Louvre. Sunday is not the day on which the museums are closed; as the French government has not discovered the wisdom of driving the people into the cabaret by depriving them of all other amus.e.m.e.nt on that day. I have attended on that day at both museums, and have been equally surprised and pleased in witnessing the behaviour of those who on that day only have leisure to attend in great numbers. They had not the pretensions of savans and connoisseurs; though probably there might be found amongst them their fair proportion of connoisseurs and savans.

There was no crowding or jostling,--not so much as I have sometimes observed in a.s.semblies of people more fas.h.i.+onably dressed: there was no noise or clamour; they conducted themselves with the greatest decorum: in the botanical garden, they kept themselves on the walks and allees without ever stepping among the plants; they did not even teaze the poor animals imprisoned in the menagerie. No apprehension seemed to be entertained by any one that they would injure any object of art or science. This love of mischief is only excited in the people by the jealousy or disdain of their superiors, refusing to share with them pleasures that may, at so cheap a rate, be made common to all. Dr.

Willis used to have some of the persons entrusted to his charge as his daily guests at dinner: he was asked how he succeeded in making his patients behave so well at table,--"By treating them as if they were in their senses."

The palace of the Luxembourg contains many very fine paintings, the works chiefly of living authors: its beautiful garden is a source of health and enjoyment to the inhabitants of this distant quarter of the city; and this garden, as well as that of the Tuilleries, is open every day to the public. Even the pa.s.sage from the Place du Carousel to the garden, through the chateau, or from the front door to the back door of the king's palace, is a public thoroughfare; a practice not very respectful to the king, say some: I say it is a mark of his kindness; and I hope the people, to reward him for it, and show their grat.i.tude, will cry "Vive le Roi" whenever his Majesty appears on the balcony.

The library of the king of France is second only to that of the Vatican, and superior to the imperial library at Vienna, and to the Bodleian at Oxford: it is not generally known, even to the English, that this last-named ranks as the fourth library in Europe. The king of France gives the use of his library to the public during four hours every day of the week not a festival, except Thursdays. Persons are in attendance, who, with an air of civility, as if pleased with the service required of them, find and present every book that may be asked for; and although the number of readers is great, the most perfect decorum and silence prevail. There are five or six other great public libraries at Paris, at all of which the same accommodation is afforded. The apartment in which the king's library is kept is handsome, but not sufficiently so, and is in the midst of other buildings: if a fire should happen, a risk is incurred of an irreparable loss. When the building, now in construction, opposite to the Museum of the Louvre, shall be completed, and the Place du Carousel shall form one vast quadrangle, it is to be hoped that this building will contain a gallery, like that of the paintings, in which may be deposited this superb and useful collection of books. With two palaces united by two such galleries, the king of France will be more magnificently lodged than any monarch of ancient or modern time: he need not envy the golden palace of the Caesars: he may even be contented under the inconvenience consequent on his condescension to the wants of his people,--of having no place where he can take the air, but that very balcony, on which I augur to him the continuance of their felicitations.

The Pont Neuf is a fine point of view from which to see the eastern and southern fronts of this edifice, with the garden and Champs Elysees and country beyond.

Of the churches of Paris, the cathedral of Notre Dame may rank with the cathedral churches of the second order in England. Ste. Genevieve, sometime the Pantheon, although the inscription, "aux grands hommes la patrie reconnoissante,"[13] was still legible in 1818, is now restored to the use for which it was built. The portico is so extremely beautiful, that the architect was blamed by a pun, not transferable into English, for having turned all his architecture out of doors,--"mis a la porte toute son architecture." A greater and more unequivocal fault than this was committed; it was found necessary to support the dome by a double thickness of wall within. This church is not equal in grandeur to St. Paul's, which the little boy called "the church of England;" but the inside is more beautiful, and would appear larger, (as the pillars do not occupy so much s.p.a.ce,) were it not too short in the part beyond the dome; shorter than the due proportion of the cross demands.

A traveller, soon after the restoration, having visited the tombs below the pavement of this church, and seen the torch, typical of philosophy, issuing from that of Voltaire,--observed a monument which seemed to him a new one; he inquired whose it was, and was told by the attendant, "that of a member of the ancient Senate."--"But," said the traveller, "I thought this edifice was the place of interment for great men."--"C'est vrai; mais, en attendant, on y enterre des senateurs."[14] It is not certain whether this was said in simplicity or in _persiflage_.

I recommend to the attention of those who visit the church of St.

Sulpice an image or statue of the Blessed Virgin, with the infant Saviour in her arms, seated on a globe, and surrounded by angels. The light, from an unseen opening above, falls on the figures in such a manner, as to give to the whole scene an appearance of animation beyond what the sculptor, however great his merit, could have produced. There are other objects in this church worthy of notice. The double portico, or rather two porticos, one above the other, are much to be admired. I cannot be persuaded, however, even by the numerous examples of this practice, that it is not absurd for pillars to support pillars: it seems as if children were playing at architecture, and trying how high they could make their building reach. Yet there is nothing childish in these porticos; they are grand and imposing.

The gilded dome of the Church of the Invalids, from whatever point it can be seen, is the ornament of Paris, and it is an ornament because it is gilded. A dome is, on the outside, an ugly and heavy object to the view; and therefore gilding, or what is better, architectural ornament, like that left incomplete at Florence, is well employed on a dome. I know I have Cicero against me, who speaks in high praise of the dome of the Capitol. Cicero and the Capitol are great names; but, much as I venerate that great orator and philosopher, I hope there is no harm in saying, that I have seen more domes than he had an opportunity of seeing. I reserve what I have to say on the interior of domes till I shall arrive at St. Peter's and the Pantheon. The Church of the Invalids is a very handsome one: I attended military ma.s.s there: none but those who have proved it can judge of the fine effect produced, on such an occasion, by the military music and ceremonial.