Pencillings by the Way Part 6

I spent yesterday at _Pere la Chaise_, and to day at _Versailles_. The two places are in opposite environs, and of very opposite characters--one certainly making you in love with life, the other almost as certainly with death. One could wander for ever in the wilderness of art at Versailles, and it must be a restless ghost that could not content itself with _Pere la Chaise_ for its elysium.

This beautiful cemetery is built upon the broad ascent of a hill, commanding the whole of Paris at a glance. It is a wood of small trees, laid out in alleys, and crowded with tombs and monuments of every possible description. You will scarce get through without being surprised into a tear; but, if affectation and fantasticalness in such a place do not more grieve than amuse you, you will much oftener smile. The whole thing is a melancholy mock of life. Its distinctions are all kept up. There are the fas.h.i.+onable avenues, lined with costly chapels and monuments, with the names of the exclusive tenants in golden letters upon the doors, iron railings set forbiddingly about the shrubs, and the blessing-sc.r.a.p writ ambitiously in Latin. The tablets record the long family t.i.tles, and the offices and honors, perhaps the numberless virtues of the dead. They read like chapters of heraldry more than like epitaphs. It is a relief to get into the outer alleys, and see how poverty and simple feeling express what should be the same thing. It is usually some brief sentence, common enough, but often exquisitely beautiful in this prettiest of languages, and expressing always the _kind_ of sorrow felt by the mourner. You can tell, for instance, by the sentiment simply, without looking at the record below, whether the deceased was young, or much loved, or mourned by husband, or parent, or brother, or a circle of all. I noticed one, however, the humblest and simplest monument perhaps in the whole cemetery, which left the story beautifully untold; it was a slab of common marl, inscribed "_Pauvre Marie!_"--nothing more. I have thought of it, and speculated upon it, a great deal since. What was she? and who wrote her epitaph? _why_ was she _pauvre Marie_?

Before almost all the poorer monuments is a minature garden with a low wooden fence, and either the initials of the dead sown in flowers, or rose-trees, carefully cultivated, trained to hang over the stone. I was surprised to find, in a public cemetery, in December, roses in full bloom and valuable exotics at almost every grave. It speaks both for the sentiment and delicate principle of the people. Few of the more costly monuments were either interesting or pretty. One struck my fancy--a small open chapel, large enough to contain four chairs, with the slab facing the door, and a crucifix encircled with fresh flowers on a simple shrine above. It is a place where the survivors in a family might come and sit at any time, nowhere more pleasantly. From the chapel I speak of, you may look out and see all Paris; and I can imagine how it would lessen the feeling of desertion and forgetfulness that makes the antic.i.p.ation of death so dreadful, to be certain that your friends would come, as they may here, and talk cheerfully and enjoy themselves near you, so to speak. The cemetery in summer must be one of the sweetest places in the world.

_Versailles_ is a royal summer chateau, about twelve miles from Paris, with a demesne of twenty miles in circ.u.mference. Take that for the scale, and imagine a palace completed in proportion, in all its details of grounds, ornament, and architecture. It cost, says the guide book, two hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and, leaving your fancy to expend that trifle over a residence, which, remember, is but one out of some half dozen, occupied during the year by a single family, I commend the republican moral to your consideration, and proceed with the more particular description of my visit.

My friend, Dr. Howe, was my companion. We drove up the grand avenue on one of the loveliest mornings that ever surprised December with a bright sun and a warm south wind. Before us, at the distance of a mile, lay a vast ma.s.s of architecture, with the centre, falling back between the two projecting wings, the whole crowning a long and gradual ascent, of which the tri-colored flag waving against the sky from the central turrets was the highest point. As we approached, we noticed an occasional flash in the sun, and a stir of bright colors, through the broad deep court between the wings, which, as we advanced nearer, proved to be a body of about two or three thousand lancers and troops of the line under review. The effect was indescribably fine.

The gay uniforms, the hundreds of tall lances, each with its red flag flying in the wind, the imposing crescent of architecture in which the array was embraced, the ringing echo of the grand military music from the towers--and all this intoxication for the positive senses fused with the historical atmosphere of the place, the recollection of the king and queen, whose favorite residence it had been (the unfortunate Louis and Marie Antoinette), or the celebrated women who had lived in their separate palaces within its grounds, of the genius and chivalry of Court after Court that had made it, in turn, the scene of their brilliant follies, and, over all, Napoleon, who _must_ have rode through its gilded gates with the thought of pride that he was its imperial master by the royalty of his great nature alone--it was in truth, enough, the real and the ideal, to dazzle the eyes of a simple republican.

After gazing at the fascinating show for an hour, we took a guide and entered the palace. We were walked through suite after suite of cold apartments, desolately splendid with gold and marble, and crowded with costly pictures, till I was sick and weary of magnificence. The guide went before, saying over his rapid rigmarole of names and dates, giving us about three minutes to a room in which there were some twenty pictures, perhaps, of which he presumed he had told us all that was necessary to know. I fell behind, after a while; and, as a considerable English party had overtaken and joined us, I succeeded in keeping one room in the rear, and enjoying the remainder in my own way.

The little marble palace, called "_Pet.i.t Trianon_," built for Madame Pompadour in the garden grounds, is a beautiful affair, full of what somebody calls "affectionate-looking rooms;" and "_Grand Trianon_,"

built also on the grounds at the distance of half a mile, for Madame Maintenon, is a very lovely spot, made more interesting by the preference given to it over all other places by Marie Antoinette. Here she amused herself with her Swiss village. The cottages and artificial "mountains" (ten feet high, perhaps) are exceedingly pretty models in miniature, and probably ill.u.s.trate very fairly the ideas of a palace-bred fancy upon natural scenery. There are glens and grottoes, and rocky beds for brooks that run at will ("_les rivieres a volonte_," the guide called them), and trees set out upon the crags at most uncomfortable angles, and every contrivance to make a lovely lawn as inconveniently like nature as possible. The Swiss families, however, must have been very amusing. Brought fresh from their wild country, and set down in these pretty mock cottages, with orders to live just as they did in their own mountains, they must have been charmingly puzzled. In the midst of the village stands an exquisite little Corinthian temple; and our guide informed us that the cottage which the Queen occupied at her Swiss tea-parties was furnished at an expense of sixty thousand francs--two not very Switzer-like circ.u.mstances.

It was in the little palace of _Trianon_ that Napoleon signed his divorce from Josephine. The guide showed us the room, and the table on which he wrote. I have seen nothing that brought me so near Napoleon.

There is no place in France that could have for me a greater interest.

It is a little _boudoir_, adjoining the state sleeping-room, simply furnished, and made for familiar retirement, not for show. The single sofa--the small round table--the enclosing, tent-like curtains--the modest, un.o.btrusive elegance of ornaments, and furniture, give it rather the look of a retreat, fas.h.i.+oned by the tenderness and taste of private life, than any apartment in a royal palace. I felt unwilling to leave it. My thoughts were too busy. What was the strongest motive of that great man in this most affecting and disputed action of his life?

After having been thridded through the palaces, we had a few moments left for the grounds. They are magnificent beyond description. We know very little of this thing in America, as an art; but it is one, I have come to think, that, in its requisition of genius, is scarce inferior to architecture. Certainly the three palaces of Versailles together did not impress me so much as the single view from the upper terrace of the gardens. It stretches clear over the horizon. You stand on a natural eminence that commands the whole country, and the plan seems to you like some work of the t.i.tans. The long sweep of the avenue, with a breadth of descent that at the first glance takes away your breath, stretching its two lines of gigantic statues and vases to the water level; the wide, slumbering ca.n.a.l at its foot, carrying on the eye to the horizon, like a river of an even flood lying straight through the bosom of the landscape; the side avenues almost as extensive; the palaces in the distant grounds, and the strange union altogether, to an American, of as much extent as the eye can reach, cultivated equally with the trim elegance of a garden--all these, combining together, form a spectacle which nothing but nature's royalty of genius could design, and (to descend ungracefully from the climax) which only the exactions of an unnatural royalty could pay for.

I think the most forcible lesson one learns at Paris is the value of time and money. I have always been told, erroneously, that it was a place to waste both. You could do so much with another hour, if you had it, and buy so much with another dollar, if you could afford it, that the reflected economy upon what you _can_ command, is inevitable.

As to the worth of time, for instance, there are some twelve or fourteen _gratuitous_ lectures every day at the _Sorbonne_, the _School of Medicine_ and the _College of France_, by men like Cuvier, Say, Spurzheim, and others, each, in his professed pursuit, the most eminent perhaps in the world; and there are the Louvre, and the Royal Library, and the Mazarin Library, and similar public inst.i.tutions, all open to gratuitous use, with obsequious attendants, warm rooms, materials for writing, and perfect seclusion; to say nothing of the thousand interesting but less useful resorts with which Paris abounds, such as exhibitions of flowers, porcelains, mosaics, and curious handiwork of every description, and (more amusing and time-killing still) the never-ending changes of sights in the public places, from distinguished foreigners down to miracles of educated monkeys. Life seems most provokingly short as you look at it. Then, for money, you are more puzzled how to spend a poor pitiful franc in Paris (it will buy so many things you want) than you would be in America with the outlay of a month's income. Be as idle and extravagant as you will, your idle hours look you in the face as they pa.s.s, to know whether, in spite of the increase of their value, you really mean to waste them; and the money that slipped through your pocket you know not how at home, sticks embarra.s.sed to your fingers, from the mere multiplicity of demands made for it. There are shops all over Paris called the "_Vingt-cinq-sous_," where every article is fixed at that price--_twenty five cents_! They contain everything you want, except a wife and fire-wood--the only two things difficult to be got in France.

(The latter, with or without a pun, is much the _dearer_ of the two.) I wonder that they are not bought out, and sent over to America on speculation. There is scarce an article in them that would not be held cheap with us at five times its purchase. There are bronze standishes for ink, sand, and wafers, pearl paper-cutters, spice-lamps, decanters, essence-bottles, sets of china, table-bells of all devices, mantel ornaments, vases of artificial flowers, kitchen utensils, dog-collars, canes, guard-chains, chessmen whips, hammers, brushes, and everything that is either convenient or pretty. You might freight a s.h.i.+p with them, and all good and well finished, at twenty-five cents the set or article! You would think the man were joking, to walk through his shop.

LETTER VIII.

DR. BOWRING--AMERICAN ARTISTS--BRUTAL AMUs.e.m.e.nT, ETC.

I have met Dr. Bowring in Paris, and called upon him to-day with Mr.

Morse, by appointment. The translator of the "Ode to the Deity" (from the Russian of Derzhavin) could not by any accident be an ordinary man, and I antic.i.p.ated great pleasure in his society. He received us at his lodgings in the _Place Vendome_. I was every way pleased with him. His knowledge of our country and its literature surprised me, and I could not but be gratified with the unprejudiced and well-informed interest with which he discoursed on our government and inst.i.tutions.

He expressed great pleasure at having seen his ode in one of our schoolbooks (Pierpont's Reader, I think), and a.s.sured us that the promise to himself of a visit to America was one of his brightest antic.i.p.ations. This is not at all an uncommon feeling, by the way, among the men of talent in Paris; and I am pleasingly surprised, everywhere, with the enthusiastic hopes expressed for the success of our experiment in liberal principles. Dr. Bowring is a slender man, a little above the middle height, with a keen, inquisitive expression of countenance, and a good forehead, from which the hair is combed straight back all round, in the style of the Cameronians. His manner is all life, and his motion and gesture nervously sudden and angular.

He talks rapidly, but clearly, and uses beautiful language--concise, and full of select expressions and vivid figures. His conversation in this particular was a constant surprise. He gave us a great deal of information, and when we parted, inquired my route of travel, and offered me letters to his friends, with a cordiality very unusual on this side the Atlantic.

It is a cold but common rule with travellers in Europe to avoid the society of their own countrymen. In a city like Paris, where time and money are both so valuable, every additional acquaintance, pursued either for etiquette or intimacy, is felt, and one very soon learns to prefer his advantage to any tendency of his sympathies. The infractions upon the rule, however, are very delightful, and, at the general _reunion_ at our amba.s.sador's on Wednesday evening, or an occasional one at Lafayette's, the look of pleasure and relief at beholding familiar faces, and hearing a familiar language once more, is universal. I have enjoyed this morning the double happiness of meeting an American circle, around an American breakfast. Mr. Cooper had invited us (Morse, the artist, Dr. Howe, a gentleman of the navy, and myself). Mr. C. lives with great hospitality, and in all the comfort of American habits; and to find him as he is always found, with his large family about him, is to get quite back to the atmosphere of our country. The two or three hours we pa.s.sed at his table were, of course, delightful. It should endear Mr. Cooper to the hearts of his countrymen, that he devotes all his influence, and no inconsiderable portion of his large income, to the encouragement of American artists. It would be natural enough, after being so long abroad, to feel or affect a preference for the works of foreigners; but in this, as in his political opinions, most decidedly, he is eminently patriotic. We feel this in Europe, where we discern more clearly by comparison the poverty of our country in the arts, and meet, at the same time, American artists of the first talent, without a single commission from home for original works, copying constantly for support. One of Mr. Cooper's purchases, the "Cherubs," by Greenough, has been sent to the United States, and its merit was at once acknowledged. It was done, however (the artist, who is here, informs me), under every disadvantage of feeling and circ.u.mstances; and, from what I have seen and am told by others of Mr. Greenough, it is, I am confident, however beautiful, anything but a fair specimen of his powers. His peculiar taste lies in a bolder range, and he needs only a commission from government to execute a work which will begin the art of sculpture n.o.bly in our country.

My curiosity led me into a strange scene to-day. I had observed for some time among the placards upon the walls an advertis.e.m.e.nt of an exhibition of "fighting animals," at the _Barriere du Combat_. I am disposed to see almost any sight _once_, particularly where it is, like this, a regular establishment, and, of course, an exponent of the popular taste. The place of the "_Combats des Animaux_," is in one of the most obscure suburbs, outside the walls, and I found it with difficulty. After wandering about in dirty lanes for an hour or two, inquiring for it in vain, the cries of the animals directed me to a walled place, separated from the other houses of the suburb, at the gate of which a man was blowing a trumpet. I purchased a ticket of an old woman who sat s.h.i.+vering in the porter's lodge; and, finding I was an hour too early for the fights, I made interest with a savage-looking fellow, who was carrying in tainted meat, to see the interior of the establishment. I followed him through a side gate, and we pa.s.sed into a narrow alley, lined with stone kennels, to each of which was confined a powerful dog, with just length of chain enough to prevent him from reaching the tenant of the opposite hole. There were several of these alleys, containing, I should think, two hundred dogs in all. They were of every breed of strength and ferocity, and all of them perfectly frantic with rage or hunger, with the exception of a pair of n.o.ble-looking black dogs, who stood calmly at the mouths of their kennels; the rest struggled and howled incessantly, straining every muscle to reach us, and resuming their fierceness toward each other when we had pa.s.sed by. They all bore, more or less, the marks of severe battles; one or two with their noses split open, and still unhealed; several with their necks bleeding and raw, and galled constantly with the iron collar, and many with broken legs, but all apparently so excited as to be insensible to suffering. After following my guide very unwillingly through the several alleys, deafened with the barking and howling of the savage occupants, I was taken to the department of wild animals. Here were all the tenants of the menagerie, kept in dens, opening by iron doors upon the pit in which they fought. Like the dogs, they were terribly wounded; one of the bears especially, whose mouth was torn all off from his jaws, leaving his teeth perfectly exposed, and red with the continually exuding blood. In one of the dens lay a beautiful deer, with one of his haunches severely mangled, who, the man told me, had been hunted round the pit by the dogs but a day or two before. He looked up at us, with his large soft eye, as we pa.s.sed, and, lying on the damp stone floor, with his undressed wounds festering in the chilly atmosphere of mid-winter, he presented a picture of suffering which made me ashamed to the soul of my idle curiosity.

The spectators began to collect, and the pit was cleared. Two thirds of those in the amphitheatre were Englishmen, most of whom were amateurs, who had brought dogs of their own to pit against the regular mastiffs of the establishment. These were despatched first. A strange dog was brought in by the collar, and loosed in the arena, and a trained dog let in upon him. It was a cruel business. The sleek, well-fed, good-natured animal was no match for the exasperated, hungry savage he was compelled to encounter. One minute, in all the joy of a release from his chain, bounding about the pit, and fawning upon his master, and the next attacked by a furious mastiff, who was taught to fasten on him at the first onset in a way that deprived him at once of his strength; it was but a murderous exhibition of cruelty. The combats between two of the trained dogs, however, were more equal.

These succeeded to the private contests, and were much more severe and b.l.o.o.d.y. There was a small terrier among them, who disabled several dogs successively, by catching at their fore-legs, and breaking them instantly with a powerful jerk of his body. I was very much interested in one of the private dogs, a large yellow animal, of a n.o.ble expression of countenance, who fought several times very unwillingly, but always gallantly and victoriously. There was a majesty about him, which seemed to awe his antagonists. He was carried off in his master's arms, bleeding and exhausted, after punis.h.i.+ng the best dogs of the establishment.

The baiting of the wild animals succeeded the canine combats. Several dogs (Irish, I was told), of a size and ferocity such as I had never before seen, were brought in, and held in the leash opposite the den of the bear whose head was so dreadfully mangled.

The door was then opened by the keeper, but poor bruin shrunk from the contest. The dogs became unmanageable at the sight of him, however, and, fastening a chain to his collar, they drew him out by main force, and immediately closed the grating. He fought gallantly, and gave more wounds than he received, for his s.h.a.ggy coat protected his body effectually. The keepers rushed in and beat off the dogs, when they had nearly finished peeling the remaining flesh from his head; and the poor creature, perfectly blind and mad with pain, was dragged into his den again, to await another day of _amus.e.m.e.nt_!

I will not disgust you with more of these details. They fought several foxes and wolves afterward, and, last of all, one of the small donkeys of the country, a creature not so large as some of the dogs, was led in, and the mastiffs loosed upon her. The pity and indignation I felt at first at the cruelty of baiting so unwarlike an animal, I soon found was quite unnecessary. She was the severest opponent the dogs had yet found. She went round the arena at full gallop, with a dozen savage animals springing at her throat, but she struck right and left with her fore-legs, and at every kick with her heels threw one of them clear across the pit. One or two were left motionless on the field, and others carried off with their ribs kicked in, and their legs broken, while their inglorious antagonist escaped almost unhurt. One of the mastiffs fastened on her ear and threw her down, in the beginning of the chase, but she apparently received no other injury.

I had remained till the close of the exhibition with some violence to my feelings, and I was very glad to get away. Nothing would tempt me to expose myself to a similar disgust again. How the intelligent and gentlemanly Englishmen whom I saw there, and whom I have since met in the most refined society of Paris, can make themselves familiar, as they evidently were, with a scene so brutal, I cannot very well conceive.

LETTER IX.

MALIBRAN--PARIS AT MIDNIGHT--A MOB, ETC.

Our beautiful and favorite MALIBRAN is playing in Paris this winter. I saw her last night in Desdemona. The other theatres are so attractive, between Taglioni, Robert le Diable (the new opera), Leontine Fay, and the political pieces constantly coming out, that I had not before visited the Italian opera. Madame Malibran is every way changed. She sings, unquestionably, better than when in America. Her voice is firmer, and more under control, but it has lost that gus.h.i.+ng wildness, that brilliant daringness of execution, that made her singing upon our boards so indescribably exciting and delightful. Her person is perhaps still more changed. The round, graceful fulness of her limbs and features has yielded to a half-haggard look of care and exhaustion, and I could not but think that there was more than Desdemona's fict.i.tious wretchedness in the expression of her face. Still, her forehead and eyes have a beauty that is not readily lost, and she will be a strikingly interesting, and even splendid creature, as long as she can play. Her acting was extremely impa.s.sioned; and in the more powerful pa.s.sages of her part, she exceeded everything I had conceived of the capacity of the human voice for pathos and melody.

The house was crowded, and the applause was frequent and universal.

Madame Malibran, as you probably know, is divorced from the man whose name she bears, and has married a violinist of the Italian orchestra.

She is just now in a state of health that will require immediate retirement from the stage, and, indeed, has played already too long.

She came forward after the curtain dropped, in answer to the continual demand of the audience, leaning heavily on Rubini, and was evidently so exhausted as to be scarcely able to stand. She made a single gesture, and was led off immediately, with her head drooping on her breast, amid the most violent acclamations. She is a perfect pa.s.sion with the French, and seems to have out-charmed their usual caprice.

It was a lovely night, and after the opera I walked home. I reside a long distance from the places of public amus.e.m.e.nt. Dr. Howe and myself had stopped at a _cafe_ on the Italian Boulevards an hour, and it was very late. The streets were nearly deserted--here and there a solitary cabriolet with the driver asleep under his wooden ap.r.o.n, or the motionless figure of a munic.i.p.al guardsman, dozing upon his horse, with his helmet and brazen armor glistening in the light of the lamps.

Nothing has impressed me more, by the way, than a body of these men pa.s.sing me in the night. I have once or twice met the King returning from the theatre with a guard, and I saw them once at midnight on an extraordinary patrol winding through the arch into the Place Carrousel. Their equipments are exceedingly warlike (helmets of bra.s.s, and coats of mail), and, with the gleam of the breast-plates through their hors.e.m.e.n's cloaks, the tramp of hoofs echoing through the deserted streets, and the silence and order of their march, it was quite a realization of the descriptions of chivalry.

We kept along the Boulevards to the Rue Richelieu. A carriage, with footmen in livery, had just driven up to Frascati's, and, as we pa.s.sed, a young man of uncommon personal beauty jumped out and entered that palace of gamblers. By his dress he was just from a ball, and the necessity of excitement after a scene meant to be so gay, was an obvious if not a fair satire on the happiness of the "gay" circle in which he evidently moved. We turned down the Pa.s.sage Panorama, perhaps the most crowded thoroughfare in all Paris, and traversed its long gallery without meeting a soul. The widely-celebrated _patisserie_ of Felix, the first pastry-cook in the world, was the only shop open from one extremity to the other. The guard, in his gray capote, stood looking in at the window, and the girl, who had served the palates of half the fas.h.i.+on and rank of Paris since morning, sat nodding fast asleep behind the counter, paying the usual fatiguing penalty of notoriety. The clock struck two as we pa.s.sed the _facade_ of the Bourse. This beautiful and central square is, night and day, the grand rendezvous of public vice; and late as the hour was, its _pave_ was still thronged with flaunting and painted women of the lowest description, promenading without cloaks or bonnets, and addressing every pa.s.ser-by.

The Palais Royal lay in our way, just below the Bourse, and we entered its magnificent court with an exclamation of new pleasure. Its thousand lamps were all burning brilliantly, the long avenues of trees were enveloped in a golden atmosphere created by the bright radiation of light through the mist, the Corinthian pillars and arches retreated on either side from the eye in distinct and yet mellow perspective, the fountain filled the whole palace with its rich murmur, and the broad marble-paved galleries, so thronged by day, were as silent and deserted as if the drowsy _gens d'armes_ standing motionless on their posts were the only living beings that inhabited it. It was a scene really of indescribable impressiveness. No one who has not seen this splendid palace, enclosing with its vast colonnades so much that is magnificent, can have an idea of its effect upon the imagination. I had seen it hitherto only when crowded with the gay and noisy idlers of Paris, and the contrast of this with the utter solitude it now presented--not a single footfall to be heard on its floors, yet every lamp burning bright, and the statues and flowers and fountains all illuminated as if for a revel--was one of the most powerful and captivating that I have ever witnessed. We loitered slowly down one of the long galleries, and it seemed to me more like some creation of enchantment than the public haunt it is of pleasure and merchandise. A single figure, wrapped in a cloak, pa.s.sed hastily by us and entered the door to one of the celebrated "h.e.l.ls," in which the playing scarce commences till this hour--but we met no other human being.

We pa.s.sed on from the grand court to the Galerie Nemours. This, as you may find in the descriptions, is a vast hall, standing between the east and west courts of the Palais Royal. It is sometimes called the "gla.s.s gallery." The roof is of gla.s.s, and the shops, with fronts entirely of windows, are separated only by long mirrors, reaching in the shape of pillars from the roof to the floor. The pavement is tesselated, and at either end stand two columns completing its form, and dividing it from the other galleries into which it opens. The shops are among the costliest in Paris; and what with the vast proportions of the hall, its beautiful and glistening material, and the lightness and grace of its architecture, it is, even when deserted, one of the most fairy-like places in this fantastic city. It is the lounging place of military men particularly; and every evening from six to midnight, it is thronged by every cla.s.s of gayly dressed people, officers off duty, soldiers, polytechnic scholars, ladies, and strangers of every costume and complexion, promenading to and fro in the light of the _cafes_ and the dazzling shops, sheltered completely from the weather, and enjoying, without expense or ceremony, a scene more brilliant than the most splendid ball-room in Paris. We lounged up and down the long echoing pavement an hour. It was like some kingly "banquet hall deserted." The lamps burned dazzlingly bright, the mirrors multiplied our figures into shadowy and silent attendants, and our voices echoed from the glittering roof in the utter stillness of the hour, as if we had broken in, Thalaba-like, upon some magical palace of silence.

It is singular how much the differences of time and weather affect scenery. The first suns.h.i.+ne I saw in Paris, unsettled all my previous impressions completely. I had seen every place of interest through the dull heavy atmosphere of a week's rain, and it was in such leaden colors alone that the finer squares and palaces had become familiar to me. The effect of a clear sun upon them was wonderful. The sudden gilding of the dome of the Invalides by Napoleon must have been something like it. I took advantage of it to see everything over again, and it seemed to me like another city. I never realized so forcibly the beauty of suns.h.i.+ne. Architecture, particularly, is nothing without it. Everything looks heavy and flat. The tracery of the windows and relievos, meant to be definite and airy, appears clumsy and confused, and the whole building flattens into a solid ma.s.s, without design or beauty.

I have spent the whole day in a Paris mob. The arrival of General Romarino and some of his companions from Warsaw, gave the malcontents a plausible opportunity of expressing their dislike to the measures of government; and, under cover of a public welcome to this distinguished Pole, they a.s.sembled in immense numbers at the Port St. Denis, and on the Boulevard Montmartre. It was very exciting altogether. The cavalry were out, and patroled the streets in companies, charging upon the crowd wherever there was a stand; the troops of the line marched up and down the Boulevards, continually dividing the ma.s.ses of people, and forbidding any one to stand still. The shops were all shut, in antic.i.p.ation of an affray. The students endeavored to cl.u.s.ter, and resisted, as far as they dared, the orders of the soldiery; and from noon till night there was every prospect of a quarrel. The French are a fine people under excitement. Their handsome and ordinarily heartless faces become very expressive under the stronger emotions; and their picturesque dresses and violent gesticulation, set off a popular tumult exceedingly. I have been highly amused all day, and have learned a great deal of what it is very difficult for a foreigner to acquire--the language of French pa.s.sion. They express themselves very forcibly when angry. The constant irritation kept up by the intrusion of the cavalry upon the sidewalks, and the rough manner of dispersing gentlemen by sabre-blows and kicks with the stirrup, gave me sufficient opportunity of judging. I was astonished, however, that their summary mode of proceeding was borne at all. It is difficult to mix in such a vast body, and not catch its spirit, and I found myself, without knowing why, or rather with a full conviction that the military measures were necessary and right, entering with all my heart into the rebellious movements of the students, and boiling with indignation at every dispersion by force. The students of Paris are probably the worst subjects the king has. They are mostly young men of from twenty to twenty-five, full of bodily vigor and enthusiasm, and excitable to the last degree. Many of them are Germans, and no small proportion Americans. They make a good _amalgam_ for a mob, dress being the last consideration, apparently, with a medical or law student in Paris. I never saw such a collection of atrocious-looking fellows as are to be met at the lectures. The polytechnic scholars, on the other hand, are the finest-looking body of young men I ever saw.

Aside from their uniform, which is remarkably neat and beautiful, their figures and faces seem picked for spirit and manliness. They have always a distinguished air in a crowd, and it is easy, after seeing them, to imagine the part they played as leaders in the revolution of the three days.

Contrary to my expectation, night came on without any serious encounter. One or two individuals attempted to resist the authority of the troops, and were considerably bruised; and one young man, a student, had three of his fingers cut off by the stroke of a dragoon's sabre. Several were arrested, but by eight o'clock all was quiet, and the shops on the Boulevards once more exposed their tempting goods, and lit up their brilliant mirrors without fear. The people thronged to the theatres to see the political pieces, and evaporate their excitement in cheers at the liberal allusions; and so ends a tumult that threatened danger, but operated, perhaps, as a healthful vent for the acc.u.mulating disorders of public opinion.