"_Ah, ca_" And he put it back hastily, and felt of my travelling gown. "What is this?"
"Only a wrapping gown."
"_Ah, ca_" After fumbling a little more, he took sister H."s bag, gave a dive here, a poke there, and a kind of promiscuous rake with his five fingers, and turned to the trunk. There he seemed somewhat dubious. Eying the fine silk and lace dresses,--first one, then the other,--"Ah, ah!" said he, and snuffed a little. Then he peeped under this corner, and c.o.c.ked his eye under that corner; then, all at once, plunged his arm down at one end of the trunk, and brought up a little square box. "What"s that?" said he. He unrolled and was about to open it, when suddenly he seemed to be seized with an emotion of confidence. "_Non, non_" said he, frankly, and rolled it up, shoved it back, stuffed the things down, smoothed all over, signed my ticket, and pa.s.sed on. We locked up, gave the baggage to porters, and called a fiacre. As we left the station two ladies met us.
"Is there any one here expecting to see Mrs. C.?" said one of them.
"Yes, madam," said I; "_we_ do."
"G.o.d bless you," said she, fervently, and seized me by the hand. It was Mrs. C. and her sister. I gave He into their possession.
Our troubles were over. We were at home. We rode through streets whose names were familiar, crossed the Carrousel, pa.s.sed the Seine, and stopped before an ancient mansion in the Hue de Verneuil, belonging to M. le Marquis de Brige. This Faubourg St. Germain is the part of Paris where the ancient n.o.bility lived, and the houses exhibit marks of former splendor. The marquis is one of those chivalrous legitimists who uphold the claims of Henri VI. He lives in the country, and rents this hotel. Mrs. C. occupies the suite of rooms on the lower floor. We entered by a ponderous old gateway, opened by the _concierge_, pa.s.sed through a large paved quadrangle, traversed a short hall, and found ourselves in a large, cheerful parlor, looking out into a small flower garden. There was no carpet, but what is called here a parquet floor, or mosaic of oak blocks, waxed and highly polished. The sofas and chairs were covered with a light chintz, and the whole air of the apartment shady and cool as a grotto. A jardiniere filled with flowers stood in the centre of the room, and around it a group of living flowers--mother, sisters, and daughters--scarcely less beautiful. In five minutes we were at home. French life is different from any other.
Elsewhere you do as the world pleases; here you do as you please yourself. My spirits always rise when I get among the French.
Sabbath, June 5. Headache all the forenoon. In the afternoon we walked to the Madeleine, and heard a sermon on charity; listened to the chanting, and gazed at the fantastic ceremonial of the altar. I had antic.i.p.ated so much from Henry"s description of the organs, that I was disappointed. The music was fine; but our ideal had outstripped the real. The strangest part of the performance was the censer swinging at the altar. It was done in certain parts of the chant, with rhythmic sweep, and glitter, and vapor wreath, that produced a striking effect.
There was an immense audience--quiet, orderly, and to all appearance devout. This was the first Romish service I ever attended. It ought to be impressive here, if any where. Yet I cannot say I was moved by it Rome-ward. Indeed, I felt a kind of Puritan tremor of conscience at witnessing such a theatrical pageant on the Sabbath. We soon saw, however, as we walked home, across the gardens of the Tuileries, that there is no Sabbath in Paris, according to our ideas of the day.
Monday, June 6. This day was consecrated to knick-knacks. Accompanied by Mrs. C., whom years of residence have converted into a perfect _Parisienne_, we visited shop after shop, and store after store.
The politeness of the shopkeepers is inexhaustible. I felt quite ashamed to spend a half hour looking at every thing, and then depart without buying; but the civil Frenchman bowed, and smiled, and thanked us for coming.
In the evening, we rode to L"Arc de Triomphe d"Etoile, an immense pile of ma.s.sive masonry, from the top of which we enjoyed a brilliant panorama. Paris was beneath us, from the Louvre to the Bois de Boulogne, with its gardens, and moving myriads; its sports, and games, and light-hearted mirth--a vast Vanity Fair, blazing in the sunlight.
A deep and strangely-blended impression of sadness and gayety sunk into our hearts as we gazed. All is vivacity, gracefulness, and sparkle, to the eye; but ah, what fires are smouldering below! Are not all these vines rooted in the lava and ashes of the volcano side?
Tuesday, June 7. _A la Louvre_! But first the ladies must "shop"
a little. I sit by the counter and watch the pretty Parisian _shopocracy_. A lady presides at the desk. Trim little grisettes serve the customers so deftly, that we wonder why awkward men should ever attempt to do such things. Nay, they are so civil, so evidently disinterested and solicitous for your welfare, that to buy is the most natural thing imaginable.
But to the Louvre! Provided with catalogues, I abandoned the ladies, and strolled along to take a kind of cream-skimming look at the whole.
I was highly elated with one thing. There were three Madonnas with dark hair and eyes: one by Murillo, another by Carracci, and another by Guido. It showed that painters were not so utterly hopeless as a cla.s.s, and given over by common sense to blindness of mind, as I had supposed.
H. begins to recant her heresy in regard to Rubens. Here we find his largest pieces. Here we find the real originals of several real originals we saw in English galleries. It seems as though only upon a picture as large as the side of a parlor could his exuberant genius find scope fully to lay itself out.
When I met II. at last--after finishing the survey--her cheek was flushed, and her eye seemed to swim. "Well, H.," said I, "have you drank deep enough this time?"
"Yes," said she, "I have been _satisfied_, for the first time."
Wednesday, June 8. A day on foot in Paris. Surrendered H. to the care of our fair hostess. Attempted to hire a boat, at one of the great bathing establishments, for a pull on the Seine. Why not on the Seine, as well as on the Thames? But the old Triton demurred. The tide _marched_ too strong--"_Il marche trop fort._" Onward, then, along the quays; visiting the curious old book stalls, picture stands, and flower markets. Lean over the parapet, and gaze upon this modern Euphrates, rushing between solid walls of masonry through the heart of another Babylon. The river is the only thing not old. These waters are as turbid, tumultuous, unbridled, as when forests covered all these banks--fit symbol of peoples and nations in their mad career, generation after generation. Inst.i.tutions, like hewn granite, may wall them in, and vast arches span their flow, and hierarchies domineer over the tide; but the scorning waters burst into life unchangeable, and sweep impetuous through the heart of Vanity Fair, and dash out again into the future, the same grand, ungovernable Euphrates stream.
I do not wonder Egypt adored her Nile, and Rome her Tiber. Surely, the life artery of Paris is this Seine beneath my feet! And there is no scene like this, as I gaze upward and downward, comprehending, in a glance, the immense panorama of art and architecture--life, motion, enterprise, pleasure, pomp, and power. Beautiful Paris! What city in the world can compare with thee?
And is it not chiefly because, either by accident or by instinctive good taste, her treasures of beauty and art are so disposed along the Seine as to be visible at a glance to the best effect? As the instinct of the true Parisienne teaches her the mystery of setting off the graces of her person by the fascinations of dress, so the instinct of the nation to set off the city by the fascinations of architecture and embellishment. Hence a chief superiority of Paris to London. The Seine is straight, and its banks are laid out in broad terraces on either side, called _quais,_ lined with her stateliest palaces and gardens. The Thames forms an elbow, and is enveloped in dense smoke and fog. London lowers; the Seine sparkles; London shuts down upon the Thames, and there is no point of view for the whole river panorama.
Paris rises amphitheatrically, on either side the Seine, and the eye from the Pont d"Austerlitz seems to fly through the immense reach like an arrow, casting its shadow on every thing of beauty or grandeur Paris possesses.
Rapidly now I sped onward, paying brief visits to the Palais de Justice, the Hotel de Ville, and spending a cool half hour in Notre Dame. I love to sit in these majestic fanes, abstracting them from the superst.i.tion which does but desecrate them, and gaze upward to their lofty, vaulted arches, to drink in the impression of architectual sublimity, which I can neither a.n.a.lyze nor express. Cathedrals do not seem to me to have been built. They seem, rather, stupendous growths of nature, like crystals, or cliffs of basalt. There is little ornament here. That roof looks plain and bare; yet I feel that the air is dense with sublimity. Onward I sped, crossing a bridge by the Hotel Dieu, and, leaving the river, plunged into narrow streets. Explored a quadrangular market; surveyed the old church of St Genevieve, and the new--now the Pantheon; went onward to the Jardin des Plantes, and explored its tropical bowers. Many things remind me to-day of New Orleans, and its levee, its Mississippi, its cathedral, and the luxuriant vegetation of the gulf. In fact, I seem to be walking in my sleep in a kind of glorified New Orleans, all the while. Yet I return to the gardens of the Tuileries and the Place Vendome, and in the shadow of Napoleon"s Column the illusion vanishes. Hundreds of battles look down upon me from their blazonry.
In the evening I rested from the day"s fatigue by an hour in the garden of the Palais Royal. I sat by one of the little tables, and called for an ice. There were hundreds of ladies and gentlemen eating ices, drinking wine, reading the papers, smoking, chatting; scores of pretty children were frolicking and enjoying the balmy evening. Here six or eight midgets were jumping the rope, while papa and mamma swung it for them. Pretty little things, with their flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, how they did seem to enjoy themselves! What parent was ever far from home that did not espy in every group of children his own little ones--his Mary or his Nelly, his Henry or Charlie? So it was with me. There was a ring of twenty or thirty singing and dancing, with a smaller ring in the centre, while old folks and boys stood outside. But I heard not a single oath, nor saw a rough or rude action, during the whole time I was there. The boys standing by looked on quietly, like young gentlemen. The best finale of such a toilsome day of sightseeing was a warm bath in the Rue du Bac, for the trifling sum of fifteen sous. The cheapness and convenience of bathing here is a great recommendation of Paris life. They will bring you a hot bath at your house for twenty-five cents, and that without bustle or disorder. And nothing so effectually as an evening bath, as my experience testifies, cures fatigue and propitiates to dreamless slumber.
Thursday, June 9. At the Louvre. Studied three statues half an hour each--the Venus Victrix, Polyhymnia, and Gladiateur Combattant. The first is mutilated; but if _disarmed_ she conquers all hearts, what would she achieve in full panoply? As to the Gladiator, I noted as follows on my catalogue: A pugilist; antique, brown with age; att.i.tude, leaning forward; left hand raised on guard, right hand thrown out back, ready to strike a side blow; right leg bent; straight line from the head to the toe of left foot; muscles and veins most vividly revealed in intense development; a wonderful _petrifaction,_ as if he had been smitten to stone at the instant of striking.
Here are antique mosaics, in which colored stones seem liquefied, realizing the most beautiful effects of painting--quadrigae, warriors, arms, armor, vases, streams, all lifelike. Ascending to the hall of French paintings I spent an hour in studying one picture--La Meduse, by Gericault. It is a shipwrecked crew upon a raft in mid ocean. I gazed until all surrounding objects disappeared, and I was alone upon the wide Atlantic. Those transparent emerald waves are no fiction; they leap madly, hungering for their prey. That distended sail is filled with the lurid air. That dead man"s foot hangs off in the seething brine a stark reality. What a fixed gaze of despair in that father"s stony eye! What a group of deathly living ones around that frail mast, while one with intense eagerness flutters a signal to some far-descried bark! Coleridge"s Ancient Mariner has no colors more fearfully faithful to his theme. Heaven pities them not. Ocean is all in uproar against them. And there is no voice that can summon the distant, flying sail! So France appeared to that prophet painter"s eye, in the subsiding tempests of the revolution. So men"s hearts failed them for fear, and the dead lay stark and stiff among the living, amid the sea and the waves roaring; and so mute signals of distress were hung out in the lurid sky to nations afar.
For my part, I remain a heretic. Give to these French pictures the mellowing effects of age, impregnating not merely the picture, but the eye that gazes on it, with its subtle quality; let them be gazed at through the haze of two hundred years, and they will--or I cannot see why they will not--rival the productions of any past age. I do not believe that a more powerful piece ever was painted than yon raft by Gericault, nor any more beautiful than several in the Luxembourg; the "Decadence de Rome," for example, exhibiting the revels of the Romans during the decline of the empire. Let this Decadence unroll before the eyes of men the _cause_, that wreck by Gericault symbolize the _effect_, in the great career of nations, and the two are sublimely matched.
After visiting the Luxembourg, I resorted to the gardens of the Tuileries. The thermometer was at about eighty degrees in the shade.
From the number of people a.s.sembled one would have thought, if it had been in the United States, that some great ma.s.s convention was coming off. Under the impenetrable screen of the trees, in the dark, cool, refreshing shade, are thousands of chairs, for which one pays two cents apiece. Whole families come, locking up their door, bringing the baby, work, dinner, or lunch, take a certain number of chairs, and spend the day. As far as eye can reach you see a mult.i.tude seated, as if in church, with other mult.i.tudes moving to and fro, while boys and girls without number are frolicking, racing, playing ball, driving hoop, &c., but contriving to do it without making a hideous racket.
How French children are taught to play and enjoy themselves without disturbing every body else, is a mystery. "_C"est gentil_" seems to be a talismanic spell; and "_Ce n"est pas gentil ca_" is sufficient to check every rising irregularity. O that some _savant_ would write a book and tell us how it is done! I gazed for half an hour on the spectacle. A more charming sight my eyes never beheld. There were grayheaded old men, and women, and invalids; and there were beautiful demoiselles working worsted, embroidery, sewing; men reading papers; and, in fact, people doing every thing they would do in their own parlors. And all were graceful, kind, and obliging; not a word nor an act of impoliteness or indecency. No wonder the French adore Paris, thought I; in no other city in the world is a scene like this possible! No wonder that their hearts die within them at thoughts of exile in the fens of Cayenne!
But under all this there lie, as under the cultivated crust of this fair world, deep abysses of soul, where volcanic ma.s.ses of molten lava surge and shake the tremulous earth. In the gay and bustling Boulevards, a friend, an old resident of Paris, poised out to me, as we rode, the bullet marks that scarred the houses--significant tokens of what seems, but is not, forgotten.
At sunset a military band of about seventy performers began playing in front of the Tuileries. They formed an immense circle, the leader in the centre. He played the octave flute, which also served as a baton for marking time. The music was characterized by delicacy, precision, suppression, and subjugation of rebellious material.
I imagined a congress of horns, clarinets, trumpets, &c., conversing in low tones on some important theme; nay, rather a conspiracy of instruments, mourning between whiles their subjugation, and ever and anon breaking out in a fierce _emeute_, then repressed, hushed, dying away; as if they had heard of Baron Munchausen"s frozen horn, and had conceived the idea of yielding their harmonies without touch of human lips, yet were sighing and sobbing at their impotence.
Perhaps I detected the pulses of a nation"s palpitating heart, throbbing for liberty, but trodden down, and sobbing in despair.
In the evening Mrs. C. had her _salon_, a fashion of receiving one"s friends on a particular night, that one wishes could be transplanted to American soil.
No invitations are given. It is simply understood that on such an evening, the season through, a lady _receives_ her friends. All come that please, without ceremony. A little table is set out with tea and a plate of cake. Behind it presides some fairy Emma or Elizabeth, dispensing tea and talk, bonbons and bon-mots, with equal grace. The guests enter, chat, walk about, spend as much time, or as little, as they choose, and retire. They come when they please, and go when they please, and there is no notice taken of entree or exit, no time wasted in formal greetings and leave takings.
Up to this hour we had conversed little in French. One is naturally diffident at first; for if one musters courage to commence a conversation with propriety, the problem is how to escape a Scylla in the second and a Charybdis in the third sentence. Said one of our fair entertainers, "When I first began I would think of some sentence till I could say it without stopping, and courageously deliver myself to some guest or acquaintance." But it was like pulling the string of a shower bath. Delighted at my correct sentence, and supposing me _au fait_, they poured upon me such a deluge of French that I held my breath in dismay. Considering, however, that nothing is to be gained by half-way measures, I resolved upon a desperate game. Launching in, I talked away right and left, up hill and down,--jumping over genders, cases, nouns, and adjectives, floundering through swamps and mora.s.ses, in a perfect steeple chase of words. Thanks to the proverbial politeness of my friends, I came off covered with glory; the more mistakes I made the more complacent they grew.
Nothing can surpa.s.s the ease, facility, and genial freedom of these _soirees_. Conceive of our excellent professor of Arabic and Sanscrit, Count M. fairly cornered by three wicked fairies, and laughing at their stories and swift witticisms till the tears roll down his cheeks. Behold yonder tall and scarred veteran, an old soldier of Napoleon, capitulating now before the witchery of genius and wit. Here the n.o.ble Russian exile forgets his sorrows in those smiles that, unlike the aurora, warm while they dazzle. And our celebrated composer is discomposed easily by alert and nimble-footed mischief. And our professor of Greek and Hebrew roots is rooted to the ground with astonishment at finding himself put through all the moods and tenses of fun in a twinkling. Ah, culpable sirens, if the pangs ye have inflicted were reckoned up unto you,--the heart aches and side aches,--how could ye repose o" nights?
Sat.u.r.day, June 11. Versailles! When I have written that one word I have said all. I ought to stop. Description is out of the question.
Describe nine miles of painting! Describe visions of splendor and gorgeousness that cannot be examined in months! Suffice it to say that we walked from hall to hall until there was no more soul left within us. Then, late in the afternoon we drove away, about three miles, to the villa of M. Belloc, _directeur de l"Ecole Imperials de Dessein_. Madame Belloc has produced, a.s.sisted by her friend, Mademoiselle Montgolfier, the best French translation of Uncle Tom"s Cabin. At this little family party we enjoyed ourselves exceedingly, in the heart of genuine domestic life. Two beautiful married daughters were there, with their husbands, and the household seemed complete.
Madame B. speaks English well; and thus, with our limited French, we got on delightfully together. I soon discovered that I had been sinning against all law in admiring any thing at Versailles. They were all bad paintings. There might be one or two good paintings at the Luxembourg, and one or two good modern paintings at the Louvre--the Meduse, by Gericault, for example: (How I rejoiced that I had admired it!) But all the rest of the modern paintings M. Belloc declared, with an inimitable shrug, are poor paintings. There is nothing safely admirable, I find, but the old masters. All those battles of all famous French generals, from Charles Hartel to Napoleon, and the battles in Algiers, by Horace Yernet, are wholly to be snuffed at. In painting, as in theology, age is the criterion of merit. Yet Vernet"s paintings, though decried by M. le Directeur, I admired, and told him so. Said I, in French as lawless as the sentiment, "Monsieur, I do not know the rules of painting, nor whether the picture is according to them or not; I only know that I like it."
But who shall describe the social charms of our dinner? All wedged together, as we were, in the snuggest little pigeon hole of a dining room, pretty little chattering children and all, whom papa held upon his knee and fed with bonbons, all the while impressing upon them the absolute necessity of their leaving the table! There the salad was mixed by acclamation, each member of the party adding a word of advice, and each, gayly laughing at the advice of the other. There a gay, red lobster was pulled in pieces among us, with infinite gout; and Madame Belloc pathetically expressed her fears that we did not like French cooking. She might have saved herself the trouble; for we take to it as naturally as ducks take to the water. And then, when we returned to the parlor, we resolved ourselves into a committee of the whole on coffee, which was concocted in a trim little hydrostatic engine of latest modern invention, before the faces of all. And so we right merrily spent the evening. H. discussed poetry and art with our kind hosts to her heart"s content, and at a late hour we drove to the railroad, and returned to Paris.
LETTER x.x.xI.
MY DEAR L.:--
At last I have come into dreamland; into the lotus-eater"s paradise; into the land where it is always afternoon. I am released from care; I am unknown, unknowing; I live in a house whose arrangements seem to me strange, old, and dreamy. In the heart of a great city I am as still as if in a convent; in the burning heats of summer our rooms are shadowy and cool as a cave. My time is all my own. I may at will lie on a sofa, and dreamily watch the play of the leaves and flowers, in the little garden into which my room opens; or I may go into the parlor adjoining, whence I hear the quick voices of my beautiful and vivacious young friends. You ought to see these girls. Emma might look like a Madonna, were it not for her wicked wit; and as to Anna and Lizzie, as they glance by me, now and then, I seem to think them a kind of sprite, or elf, made to inhabit shady old houses, just as twinkling harebells grow in old castles; and then the gracious mamma, who speaks French, or English, like a stream of silver--is she not, after all, the fairest of any of them? And there is Caroline, piquant, racy, full of conversation--sharp as a quartz crystal: how I like to hear her talk! These people know Paris, as we say in America, "like a book." They have studied it aesthetically, historically, socially.
They have studied French people and French literature,--and studied it with enthusiasm, as people ever should, who would truly understand.
They are all kindness to me. Whenever I wish to see any thing, I have only to speak; or to know, I have only to ask. At breakfast every morning we compare notes, and make up our list of wants. My first, of course, was the Louvre. It is close by us. Think of it. To one who has starved all a life, in vain imaginings of what art might be, to know that you are within a stone"s throw of a museum full of its miracles, Greek, a.s.syrian, Egyptian, Roman sculptors and modern painting, all there!
I scarcely consider myself to have seen any thing of art in England.
The calls of the living world were so various and _exigeant_, I had so little leisure for reflection, that, although I saw many paintings, I could not study them; and many times I saw them in a state of the nervous system too jaded and depressed to receive the full force of the impression. A day or two before I left, I visited the National Gallery, and made a rapid survey of its contents. There were two of Turner"s masterpieces there, which he presented on the significant condition that they should hang side by side with their two finest Claudes. I thought them all four fine pictures, but I liked the Turners best. Yet I did not think any of them fine enough to form an absolute limit to human improvement. But, till I had been in Paris a day or two, perfectly secluded, at full liberty to think and rest, I did not feel that my time for examining art had really come.
It was, then, with a thrill almost of awe that I approached the Louvre. Here, perhaps, said I to myself, I shall answer, fully, the question that has long wrought within my soul, What is art? and what can it do? Here, perhaps, these yearnings for the ideal will meet their satisfaction. The ascent to the picture gallery tends to produce a flutter of excitement and expectation. Magnificent staircases, dim perspectives of frescoes and carvings, the glorious hall of Apollo, rooms with mosaic pavements, antique vases, countless spoils of art, dazzle the eye of the neophyte, and prepare the mind for some grand enchantment. Then opens on one the grand hall of paintings arranged by schools, the works of each artist by themselves, a wilderness of gorgeous growths.
I first walked through the whole, offering my mind up aimlessly to see if there were any picture there great and glorious enough to seize and control my whole being, and answer, at once, the cravings of the poetic and artistic element. For any such I looked in vain. I saw a thousand beauties, as also a thousand enormities, but nothing of that overwhelming, subduing nature which I had conceived. Most of the men there had painted with dry eyes and cool hearts, thinking only of the mixing of their colors and the jugglery of their art, thinking little of heroism, faith, love, or immortality. Yet when I had resigned this longing; when I was sure I should not meet there what I sought, then I began to enjoy very heartily what there was.
In the first place, I now saw Claudes worthy of the reputation he bore. Three or four of these were studied with great delight; the delight one feels, who, conscientiously bound to be delighted, suddenly comes into a situation to be so. I saw, now, those atmospheric traits, those reproductions of the mysteries of air, and of light, which are called so wonderful, and for which all admire Claude, but for which so few admire Him who made Claude, and who every day creates around us, in the commonest scenes, effects far more beautiful. How much, even now, my admiration of Claude was genuine, I cannot say. How can we ever be sure on this point, when we admire what has prestige and sanction, not to admire which is an argument against ourselves? Certainly, however, I did feel great delight in some of these works.
One of my favorites was Rembrandt. I always did admire the gorgeous and solemn mysteries of his coloring. Rembrandt is like Hawthorne. He chooses simple and everyday objects, and so arranges light and shadow as to give them a sombre richness and a mysterious gloom. The House of Seven Gables is a succession of Rembrandt pictures, done in words instead of oils. Now, this pleases us, because our life really is a haunted one; the simplest thing in it is a mystery, the invisible world always lies round us like a shadow, and therefore this dreamy golden gleam of Rembrandt meets somewhat in our inner consciousness to which it corresponds. There were no pictures in the gallery which I looked upon so long, and to which I returned so often and with such growing pleasure, as these. I found in them, if not a commanding, a drawing influence, a full satisfaction for one part of my nature.