Is Polite Society Polite? Part 4

If Paris gives to our mind some of the most brilliant pictures imaginable, she also gives us some of the most dismal. While her drawing-rooms were light and elegant, her streets were dark and wicked.

Among her hungry and ignorant populace, Crime planted its bitter seeds and ripened its b.l.o.o.d.y crop. Police annals show us that Eugene Sue has not exaggerated the truth in his portraits of the vicious population of the great city. London has its hideous dens of vice, but Paris has, too, its wicked inst.i.tutions.

Its greatest offences, upon which I can only touch, regard the relations between men and women. Its police regulations bearing upon this point are dishonoring to any Christian community. Its social tone in this respect is scarcely better. Men who have the dress and appearance of gentlemen will show great insolence to a lady who dares to walk alone, however modestly. Marriage is still a matter of bargain and interest, and the modes of conduct which set its obligations at naught are more open and recognized here than elsewhere. The city would seem, indeed, to be the great market for that host of elegant rebels against virtue who are willing to be admired without being respected, and who, with splendid clothes and poor and mean characteristics, are technically called the _demi-monde_, the half-world of Paris.

The corruption of young men and young women which this state of things at once recognizes and fosters is such as no state can endure without grievous loss of its manhood and womanhood. The Turks knew their power when they could compel from the Greeks the tribute of their children, to be trained as Turks, not as Christians. Must not the Spirit of evil in like manner exult at his hold upon the French nation, when it allows him to enslave its youth so largely, consoling itself for the same with a shrug at the inevitable nature of human folly, or with some witty saying which will be at once acknowledgment of and excuse for what cannot be justified?

Gambling has been one of the crying vices of the French metropolis, and the "h.e.l.ls" of Paris were familiarly spoken of in my youth. These were the gambling-houses, in that day among the most brilliant and ruinous of their kind. Government has since then interfered to abolish them. Still, I suppose that much money is lost and won at play in Paris. From this and other irregularities, many suicides result. One sees in numerous places in Paris, particularly near the river, placards announcing "help to the drowned and asphyxiated," a plunge into the Seine, and a sitting with a pan of charcoal being the favorite methods of self-destruction.

All have heard of the Morgue, a building in which, every day, the lifeless bodies found in the river are exposed upon marble slabs, in order that the friends of the dead--if they have any--may recognize and claim them. I believe that this sad place is rarely without its appropriate occupants.

Through the kindness of our minister, I was able, some years since, to attend more than one session of the French Parliament. This body, like our own Congress, consists of two houses. An outsider does not see any difference of demeanor between these two. An American visiting either the French Senate or the Chamber of Deputies will be surprised at the noise and excitement which prevail. The presiding officer agitates his bell again and again, to no purpose. He constantly cries, in a piteous tone: "Gentlemen, a little silence, if you please." In the Senate, one of the ushers with great pride pointed out to me Victor Hugo in his seat.

I have seen this venerable man of letters several times,--once in his own house, and once at a congress of literary people in Paris, where, as president of the congress, he made the opening address. This he read from a ma.n.u.script, in a sonorous voice, and with much dignity of manner.

He was heard with great interest, and was interrupted by frequent applause.

A number of invitations were given for this first meeting of the literary congress, which was held in one of the largest theatres of the city. I had been fortunate enough to receive one of these cards, but upon seeking for admission to the subsequent sittings of the congress, I was told that no ladies were admitted to them. So you see that Lucy Stone's favorite a.s.sertion that "women are people" does not hold good everywhere.

An esteemed Parisian friend had offered me an introduction to Victor Hugo, and the great man had signified his willingness to receive a visit from me. On the evening appointed for this visit, I called at his house, accompanied by my daughter. We were first shown into an anteroom, and presently into a small drawing-room, of which the walls and furniture were covered with a striped satin material, in whose colors red predominated. The venerable viscount kissed my hand and that of my young companion with the courtesy belonging to other times than the present. He was of middle height, reasonably stout. His eyes were dark and expressive, and his hair and beard snow-white. Several guests were present,--among others, the widow of one of his sons, recently married to a second husband.

Victor Hugo seated himself alone upon a sofa, and talked to no one.

While the rest of the company kept up a desultory conversation, a servant announced M. Louis Blanc, and our expectations were raised only to be immediately lowered, for at this announcement Victor Hugo arose and withdrew into another room, from which we were able to hear the two voices in earnest conversation, but from which neither gentleman appeared. Was not this disappointment like one of those dreams in which, just as you are about to attain some object of intense desire, the power of sleep deserts you, and you awake to life's plain prose?

The shops of Paris are wonderfully well mounted and well served. The display in the windows is not so large in proportion to the bulk of merchandise as it is apt to be with us. Still, these windows do unfold a catalogue of temptations longer than that of Don Giovanni's sins.

Among them all, the jewellers' shops attract most. The love of human beings for jewelry is a feature almost universal. The savage will give land for beads. The women of Christendom will do the same thing. I have seen fine displays of this kind in London, Rome, and Geneva. But in Paris, these exhibits seem to characterize a certain vivid pa.s.sion for adornment, which is kindled and kept alive in the minds of French women, and is by them communicated to the feminine world at large.

The French woman of condition wears nothing which can be called _outre_.

She loves costly attire, but her taste, and that of her costumer, are perfect. She wears the most delicate and harmonious shades, and the most graceful forms. She never caricatures the fas.h.i.+on by exaggerating it.

English women of the same social position are more inclined to what is tawdry, and have surely a less perfect sense of color and adaptation.

Parisians are very homesick people when obliged to forsake their capital. Madame de Stael, in full view of the beautiful lake of Geneva, said that she would much prefer a view of the gutter in the Rue de Bac, which in her day had not the attractions of the Bon Marche emporium, so powerful to-day.

I should deserve ill of my subject if I failed to say that the great issues of progress are to-day dearly and soberly held to by the intelligence of the French people, and the good faith of their representatives. In the history of the present republic, the solid interests of the nation have slowly and steadfastly gained ground.

The efforts which forward these seem to me to culminate in the measures which are intended at once to establish popular education and to defend it from ecclesiastical interference. The craze for military glory is also yielding before the march of civilization, and the ambitions which build up society are everywhere gaining upon the pa.s.sions which destroy it.

In the last forty-five years, the social relations of France to the civilized world have undergone much alteration. The magnificent traditions of ancient royalty have become entirely things of the past.

The genius of the first Napoleon has pa.s.sed out of people's minds. The social prestige of France is no longer appealed to, no longer felt.

We read French novels, because French novelists have an admirable style of narrating, but we no longer go to them for powerful ideals of life and character. The modern world has outgrown the Gallic theories of s.e.x.

We are tired of hearing about the women whose merit consists in their loving everything better than their husbands. In this light artillery of fas.h.i.+on and fiction, France no longer holds the place which was hers of old.

In losing these advantages, she has, I think, gained better things. The struggle of the French people to establish and maintain a republic in the face of and despite monarchical Europe is a heroic one, worthy of all esteem and sympathy. In science, France has never lost her eminence.

In serious literature, in the practical philosophy of history, in criticism of the highest order, the French are still masters in their own way. Notwithstanding their evil legislation regarding women, their medical authorities have been most generous to our women students of medicine. Many of these have crossed the Atlantic to seek in France that clinical study and observation from which they have been in great measure debarred in our own country.

There is still much bigotry and intolerance, much shallow scepticism and false philosophy; but there is also, underneath all this, the germ of great and generous qualities which place the nation high in the scale of humanity.

I should be glad to bind together these scattered statements into some great, instructive lesson for France and for ourselves. Perhaps the best thing that I can do in this direction will be to suggest to Americans the careful study of French history and of French character. The great divisions of the world to-day are invaded by travel, and the iron horse carries civilization far and wide. Many of those who go abroad may, however, be found to have less understanding regarding foreign countries than those who have learned all that may be learned concerning them from history and literature. To many Americans, Paris is little more than the place of shops and of fas.h.i.+ons. I have been mortified sometimes at the familiarity which our travellers show with all that may be bought and sold on the other side of the ocean, combined with an arrant and arrogant ignorance concerning the French people and the country in which they live.

Even to the most careful observer, the French are not easy to be understood. The most opposite statements may be made about them. Some call them n.o.ble; others, ign.o.ble. To some, they appear turbulent and ferocious; to others, slavish and cowardly. Great thinkers do not judge them in this offhand way, and from such we may learn to make allowances for the fact that monarchic and aristocratic rule create and foster great inequalities of character and intelligence among the nations in which they prevail. Limitations of mind and of opinion are inherited from generations which have been dwarfed by political and spiritual despotism; and in such countries, the success of liberal inst.i.tutions, even if emphatically a.s.sured, is but slowly achieved and established.

A last word of mine shall commend this Paris to those who are yet to visit it. Let me pray such as may have this experience not to suppose that they have read the wonderful riddle of this city's life when they shall have seen a few of its shops, palaces, and picture-galleries. If they wish to understand what the French people are, and why they are what they are, they will have to study history, politics, and human nature pretty deeply.

If they wish to have an idea of what the French may become, they must keep their faith in all that America finds precious and invaluable,--in free inst.i.tutions, in popular education, and, above all, in the heart of the people. Never let them believe that while freedom enn.o.bles the Anglo-Saxon, it brutalizes the Gaul. Despotism brutalizes for long centuries, and freedom cannot enn.o.ble in a moment. But give it time and room, and it will enn.o.ble. And let Americans who go to Paris remember that they should there represent republican virtue and intelligence.

How far this is from being the case some of us may know, and others guess. Americans who visit Paris very generally relax their rules of decorum and indulge in practices which they would not venture to introduce at home. Hence they are looked upon with some disfavor by the more serious part of the French people, while the frivolous ridicule them at will. But I could wish that, in visiting a nation to whom we Americans owe so much, we could think of something besides our own amus.e.m.e.nt and the buying of pretty things to adorn our persons and our houses. I could wish that we might visit schools, prisons, Protestant churches, and hear something of the charities and reforms of the place, and of what the best thinkers are doing and saying. I blush to think of the gold which Americans squander in Paris, and of the bales of merchandise of all sorts which we carry away. Far better would it be if we made friends with the best people, exchanging with them our best thought and experience, helping and being helped by them in the good works which redeem the world. Better than the full trunk and empty purse, which usually mark a return from Paris, will be a full heart and a hand clasping across the water another hand, pure and resolute as itself,--the hand of progress, the hand of order, the hand of brotherly kindness and charity.

Greece Revisited

I SPEAK of a country to which all civilized countries are deeply indebted.

The common speech of Europe and America shows this. In whatever way the languages of the western world have been woven and got together, they all show here and there some golden gleam which carries us back to the h.e.l.lenic tongue. Philosophy, science, and common thought alike borrow their phraseology from this ancient source.

I need scarcely say by what a direct descent all arts may claim to have been recreated by Greek genius, nor can I exaggerate the importance of the Greek poets, philosophers, and historians in the history of literature. Rules of correct thinking and writing, the nice balance of rhetoric, the methods of oratory, the notions of polity, of the correlations of social and national interests,--in all of these departments the Greeks may claim to have been our masters, and may call us their slow and blundering pupils.

A wide interval lies between these glories and the Greece of to-day.

Nations, like individuals, have their period of growth and decay, their limit of life, which human devices seem unable to prolong. But while systems of government and social organization change, race perseveres.

The Greeks, like the Hebrews, when scattered and powerless at home, have been potent abroad. Deprived for centuries of political and national existence, the spirit of their immortal literature, the power of their subtle and ingenious mind, have leavened and fas.h.i.+oned the mind, not of Europe only, but of the thinking world.

Let us recall the briefest outline of the story. The states of ancient Greece, always divided among themselves, in time invited the protection of the Roman Empire, hoping thereby to attain peace and tranquillity.

Rome of to-day shows how her officials of old plundered the temples and galleries of the Greeks, while her literary men admired and imitated the h.e.l.lenic authors.

At a later day, the beauty of the Orient seduced the stern heart of Roman patriotism. A second Rome was built on the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus,--a city whose beauty of position excelled even the dignity of the seven hills. Greek and Roman, eastern and western, became mingled and blent in a confusion with which the most patient scholar finds it difficult to deal. Then came a political division,--eastern and western empires, eastern and western churches, the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople. Other great changes follow. The western empire crumbles, takes form again under Charlemagne, finally disappears. The eastern empire follows it. The Turk plants his standard on the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus. The sacred city falls into his hands, without contradiction, so far as Europe is concerned. The veil of a dark and b.l.o.o.d.y barbarism hides the monuments of a most precious civilization. It is the age of blood. The nations of Western Europe have still the faith and the attributes of bandits. The Turkish ataghan is stronger than the Greek pen and chisel. The new race has a military power of which the old could only faintly dream.

And so the last Constantine falls, and Mahmoud sweeps from earth the traces of his reign. In the old Church of St. Sophia, now the Mosque of Omar, men show to-day, far up on one of the columns, the impress of the conqueror's b.l.o.o.d.y hand, which could only strike so high because the floor beneath was piled fathom-deep with Christian corpses.

Another period follows. The Turk establishes himself in his new domain, and employs the Greek to subjugate the Greek. Upon each Greek family the tribute of a male child is levied; and this child is bred up in Turkish ways, and taught to turn his weapon against the bosom of his mother country. From these babes of Christian descent was formed the corps of the Janissaries, a force so dangerous and deadly that the representative of Turkish rule was forced at a later day to plan and accomplish its destruction.

The name "Greek" in this time no longer suggested a nation. I myself, in my childhood, knew a young Greek, escaped from the ma.s.sacres of Scio, who told me that when, having learned English, he heard himself spoken of as "the Greek," his first thought was that those who so spoke of him were waiting to cut his throat.

Now follows another epoch. Western Europe is busied in getting a little civilization. Baptized mostly by force, _vi et armis_, she has still to be Christianized: she has America to discover and to settle. She has to go to school to the ghosts of Greece and Arabia, in order to have a grammar and to learn arithmetic. There are some wars of religion, endless wars for territorial aggrandizement. Europe is still a congress of the beasts,--lion, tiger, boar, rhinoceros, all snared together by the tortuous serpent of diplomacy.

I pause, for out of this dark time came your existence and mine. A small barque crosses the sea; a canoe steals toward the issue of a mighty river. Such civilization as Europe has plants itself out in a new country, in a virgin soil; and in the new domain are laid the foundations of an empire whose greatness is destined to reside in her peaceful and beneficent offices. Her task it shall be to feed the starving emigrant, to give land and free citizens.h.i.+p to those dispossessed of both by the greed of the old feudal systems.

In the fulness of this young nation's life, a cry arose from that ancient mother of arts and sciences. The Greek had arisen from his long sleep, had become awake to the fact that civilization is more potent than barbarism. Strong in this faith, Greece had closed in a death struggle with the a.s.sa.s.sin of her national life. Through the enthusiasm of individuals, not through the policy of governments, the desperate, heroic effort received aid. From the night of ages, from the sea of blood, Greece arose, shorn of her fair proportions, pointing to her ruined temples, her mutilated statues, her dishonored graves.

Americans may be thankful that this strange resurrection was not beheld by our fathers with indifference. From their plenty, a duteous tribute more than once went forth to feed and succor the country to which all owe so much. And so an American, to-day, can look upon the Acropolis without a blush--though scarcely without a tear.

Contenting myself with this brief retrospect, I must turn from the page of history to the record of individual experience.