Among the company a.s.sembled under the dome of that edifice, the casual observer would not perhaps have remarked a gentleman of the name of Michael Angelo t.i.tmarsh, who nevertheless was there. But as, my dear Miss Smith, the descriptions in this letter, from the words in page 298, line 20--THE PARTY MOVED--up to the words PAID TO IT, on this page, have purely emanated from your obedient servant"s fancy, and not from his personal observation (for no being on earth, except a newspaper reporter, can be in two places at once), permit me now to communicate to you what little circ.u.mstances fell under my own particular view on the day of the 15th of December.
As we came out, the air and the buildings round about were tinged with purple, and the clear sharp half-moon before-mentioned was still in the sky, where it seemed to be lingering as if it would catch a peep of the commencement of the famous procession. The Arc de Triomphe was shining in a keen frosty sunshine, and looking as clean and rosy as if it had just made its toilette. The canvas or pasteboard image of Napoleon, of which only the gilded legs had been erected the night previous, was now visible, body, head, crown, sceptre and all, and made an imposing show.
Long gilt banners were flaunting about, with the imperial cipher and eagle, and the names of the battles and victories glittering in gold.
The long avenues of the Champs Elysees had been covered with sand for the convenience of the great procession that was to tramp across it that day. Hundreds of people were marching to and fro, laughing, chattering, singing, gesticulating as happy Frenchmen do. There is no pleasanter sight than a French crowd on the alert for a festival, and nothing more catching than their good-humor. As for the notion which has been put forward by some of the opposition newspapers that the populace were on this occasion unusually solemn or sentimental, it would be paying a bad compliment to the natural gayety of the nation, to say that it was, on the morning at least of the 15th of December, affected in any such absurd way. Itinerant merchants were shouting out l.u.s.tily their commodities of segars and brandy, and the weather was so bitter cold, that they could not fail to find plenty of customers. Carpenters and workmen were still making a huge banging and clattering among the sheds which were built for the accommodation of the visitors. Some of these sheds were hung with black, such as one sees before churches in funerals; some were robed in violet, in compliment to the Emperor whose mourning they put on. Most of them had fine tricolor hangings with appropriate inscriptions to the glory of the French arms.
All along the Champs Elysees were urns of plaster-of-Paris destined to contain funeral incense and flames; columns decorated with huge flags of blue, red, and white, embroidered with shining crowns, eagles, and N"s in gilt paper, and statues of plaster representing Nymphs, Triumphs, Victories, or other female personages, painted in oil so as to represent marble. Real marble could have had no better effect, and the appearance of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme. On each pillar was a buckler, of the color of bronze, bearing the name and date of a battle in gilt letters: you had to walk through a mile-long avenue of these glorious reminiscences, telling of spots where, in the great imperial days, throats had been victoriously cut.
As we pa.s.sed down the avenue, several troops of soldiers met us: the garde-munc.i.p.ale a cheval, in bra.s.s helmets and shining jack-boots, n.o.ble-looking men, large, on large horses, the pick of the old army, as I have heard, and armed for the special occupation of peace-keeping: not the most glorious, but the best part of the soldier"s duty, as I fancy.
Then came a regiment of Carabineers, one of Infantry--little, alert, brown-faced, good-humored men, their band at their head playing sounding marches. These were followed by a regiment or detachment of the Munic.i.p.als on foot--two or three inches taller than the men of the Line, and conspicuous for their neatness and discipline. By-and-by came a squadron or so of dragoons of the National Guards: they are covered with straps, buckles, aguillettes, and cartouche-boxes, and make under their tricolor c.o.c.k"s-plumes a show sufficiently warlike. The point which chiefly struck me on beholding these military men of the National Guard and the Line, was the admirable manner in which they bore a cold that seemed to me as sharp as the weather in the Russian retreat, through which cold the troops were trotting without trembling and in the utmost cheerfulness and good-humor. An aide-de-camp galloped past in white pantaloons. By heavens! it made me shudder to look at him.
With this profound reflection, we turned away to the right towards the hanging-bridge (where we met a detachment of young men of the Ecole de l"Etat Major, fine-looking lads, but sadly disfigured by the wearing of stays or belts, that make the waists of the French dandies of a most absurd tenuity), and speedily pa.s.sed into the avenue of statues leading up to the Invalides. All these were statues of warriors from Ney to Charlemagne, modelled in clay for the nonce, and placed here to meet the corpse of the greatest warrior of all. Pa.s.sing these, we had to walk to a little door at the back of the Invalides, where was a crowd of persons plunged in the deepest mourning, and pushing for places in the chapel within.
The chapel is s.p.a.cious and of no great architectural pretensions, but was on this occasion gorgeously decorated in honor of the great person to whose body it was about to give shelter.
We had arrived at nine; the ceremony was not to begin, they said, till two: we had five hours before us to see all that from our places could be seen.
We saw that the roof, up to the first lines of architecture, was hung with violet; beyond this with black. We saw N"s, eagles, bees, laurel wreaths, and other such imperial emblems, adorning every nook and corner of the edifice. Between the arches, on each side of the aisle, were painted trophies, on which were written the names of some of Napoleon"s Generals and of their princ.i.p.al deeds of arms--and not their deeds of arms alone, pardi, but their coats of arms too. O stars and garters!
but this is too much. What was Ney"s paternal coat, prithee, or honest Junot"s quarterings, or the venerable escutcheon of King Joachim"s father, the innkeeper?
You and I, dear Miss Smith, know the exact value of heraldic bearings.
We know that though the greatest pleasure of all is to ACT like a gentleman, it is a pleasure, nay a merit, to BE one--to come of an old stock, to have an honorable pedigree, to be able to say that centuries back our fathers had gentle blood, and to us transmitted the same. There IS a good in gentility: the man who questions it is envious, or a coa.r.s.e dullard not able to perceive the difference between high breeding and low. One has in the same way heard a man brag that he did not know the difference between wines, not he--give him a good gla.s.s of port, and he would pitch all your claret to the deuce. My love, men often brag about their own dulness in this way.
In the matter of gentlemen, democrats cry, "Psha! Give us one of Nature"s gentlemen, and hang your aristocrats." And so indeed Nature does make SOME gentlemen--a few here and there. But Art makes most.
Good birth, that is, good handsome well-formed fathers and mothers, nice cleanly nursery-maids, good meals, good physicians, good education, few cares, pleasant easy habits of life, and luxuries not too great or enervating, but only refining--a course of these going on for a few generations are the best gentleman-makers in the world, and beat Nature hollow.
If, respected Madam, you say that there is something BETTER than gentility in this wicked world, and that honesty and personal wealth are more valuable than all the politeness and high-breeding that ever wore red-heeled pumps, knights" spurs, or Hoby"s boots, t.i.tmarsh for one is never going to say you nay. If you even go so far as to say that the very existence of this super-genteel society among us, from the slavish respect that we pay to it, from the dastardly manner in which we attempt to imitate its airs and ape its vices, goes far to destroy honesty of intercourse, to make us meanly ashamed of our natural affections and honest, harmless usages, and so does a great deal more harm than it is possible it can do good by its example--perhaps, Madam, you speak with some sort of reason. Potato myself, I can"t help seeing that the tulip yonder has the best place in the garden, and the most sunshine, and the most water, and the best tending--and not liking him over well. But I can"t help acknowledging that Nature has given him a much finer dress than ever I can hope to have, and of this, at least, must give him the benefit.
Or say, we are so many c.o.c.ks and hens, my dear (sans arriere pensee), with our crops pretty full, our plumes pretty sleek, decent picking here and there in the straw-yard, and tolerable snug roosting in the barn: yonder on the terrace, in the sun, walks Peac.o.c.k, stretching his proud neck, squealing every now and then in the most pert fashionable voice and flaunting his great supercilious dandified tail. Don"t let us be too angry, my dear, with the useless, haughty, insolent creature, because he despises us. SOMETHING is there about Peac.o.c.k that we don"t possess.
Strain your neck ever so, you can"t make it as long or as blue as his--c.o.c.k your tail as much as you please, and it will never be half so fine to look at. But the most absurd, disgusting, contemptible sight in the world would you and I be, leaving the barn-door for my lady"s flower-garden, forsaking our natural st.u.r.dy walk for the peac.o.c.k"s genteel rickety stride, and adopting the squeak of his voice in the place of our gallant l.u.s.ty c.o.c.k-a-doodle-dooing.
Do you take the allegory? I love to speak in such, and the above types have been presented to my mind while sitting opposite a gimcrack coat-of-arms and coronet that are painted in the Invalides Church, and a.s.signed to one of the Emperor"s Generals.
Ventrebleu! Madam, what need have THEY of coats-of-arms and coronets, and wretched imitations of old exploded aristocratic gewgaws that they had flung out of the country--with the heads of the owners in them sometimes, for indeed they were not particular--a score of years before?
What business, forsooth, had they to be meddling with gentility and aping its ways, who had courage, merit, daring, genius sometimes, and a pride of their own to support, if proud they were inclined to be? A clever young man (who was not of high family himself, but had been bred up genteelly at Eton and the university)--young Mr. George Canning, at the commencement of the French Revolution, sneered at "Roland the Just, with ribbons in his shoes," and the dandies, who then wore buckles, voted the sarcasm monstrous killing. It was a joke, my dear, worthy of a lackey, or of a silly smart parvenu, not knowing the society into which his luck had cast him (G.o.d help him! in later years, they taught him what they were!), and fancying in his silly intoxication that simplicity was ludicrous and fashion respectable. See, now, fifty years are gone, and where are s...o...b..ckles? Extinct, defunct, kicked into the irrevocable past off the toes of all Europe!
How fatal to the parvenu, throughout history, has been this respect for s...o...b..ckles. Where, for instance, would the Empire of Napoleon have been, if Ney and Lannes had never sported such a thing as a coat-of-arms, and had only written their simple names on their shields, after the fashion of Desaix"s scutcheon yonder?--the bold Republican who led the crowning charge at Marengo, and sent the best blood of the Holy Roman Empire to the right-about, before the wretched misbegotten imperial heraldry was born, that was to prove so disastrous to the father of it. It has always been so. They won"t amalgamate. A country must be governed by the one principle or the other. But give, in a republic, an aristocracy ever so little chance, and it works and plots and sneaks and bullies and sneers itself into place, and you find democracy out of doors. Is it good that the aristocracy should so triumph?--that is a question that you may settle according to your own notions and taste; and permit me to say, I do not care twopence how you settle it. Large books have been written upon the subject in a variety of languages, and coming to a variety of conclusions. Great statesmen are there in our country, from Lord Londonderry down to Mr. Vincent, each in his degree maintaining his different opinion. But here, in the matter of Napoleon, is a simple fact: he founded a great, glorious, strong, potent republic, able to cope with the best aristocracies in the world, and perhaps to beat them all; he converts his republic into a monarchy, and surrounds his monarchy with what he calls aristocratic inst.i.tutions; and you know what becomes of him. The people estranged, the aristocracy faithless (when did they ever pardon one who was not of themselves?)--the imperial fabric tumbles to the ground. If it teaches nothing else, my dear, it teaches one a great point of policy--namely, to stick by one"s party.
While these thoughts (and sundry others relative to the horrible cold of the place, the intense dulness of delay, the stupidity of leaving a warm bed and a breakfast in order to witness a procession that is much better performed at a theatre)--while these thoughts were pa.s.sing in the mind, the church began to fill apace, and you saw that the hour of the ceremony was drawing near.
Imprimis, came men with lighted staves, and set fire to at least ten thousand wax-candles that were hanging in brilliant chandeliers in various parts of the chapel. Curtains were dropped over the upper windows as these illuminations were effected, and the church was left only to the funereal light of the spermaceti. To the right was the dome, round the cavity of which sparkling lamps were set, that designed the shape of it brilliantly against the darkness. In the midst, and where the altar used to stand, rose the catafalque. And why not? Who is G.o.d here but Napoleon? and in him the sceptics have already ceased to believe; but the people does still somewhat. He and Louis XIV. divide the worship of the place between them.
As for the catafalque, the best that I can say for it is that it is really a n.o.ble and imposing-looking edifice, with tall pillars supporting a grand dome, with innumerable escutcheons, standards, and allusions military and funereal. A great eagle of course tops the whole: tripods burning spirits of wine stand round this kind of dead man"s throne, and as we saw it (by peering over the heads of our neighbors in the front rank), it looked, in the midst of the black concave, and under the effect of half a thousand flashing cross-lights, properly grand and tall. The effect of the whole chapel, however (to speak the jargon of the painting-room), was spoiled by being CUT UP: there were too many objects for the eye to rest upon: the ten thousand wax-candles, for instance, in their numberless twinkling chandeliers, the raw tranchant colors of the new banners, wreaths, bees, N"s, and other emblems dotting the place all over, and incessantly puzzling, or rather BOTHERING the beholder.
High overhead, in a sort of mist, with the glare of their original colors worn down by dust and time, hung long rows of dim ghostly-looking standards, captured in old days from the enemy. They were, I thought, the best and most solemn part of the show.
To suppose that the people were bound to be solemn during the ceremony is to exact from them something quite needless and unnatural. The very fact of a squeeze dissipates all solemnity. One great crowd is always, as I imagine, pretty much like another. In the course of the last few years I have seen three: that attending the coronation of our present sovereign, that which went to see Courvoisier hanged, and this which witnessed the Napoleon ceremony. The people so a.s.sembled for hours together are jocular rather than solemn, seeking to pa.s.s away the weary time with the best amus.e.m.e.nts that will offer. There was, to be sure, in all the scenes above alluded to, just one moment--one particular moment--when the universal people feels a shock and is for that second serious.
But except for that second of time, I declare I saw no seriousness here beyond that of ennui. The church began to fill with personages of all ranks and conditions. First, opposite our seats came a company of fat grenadiers of the National Guard, who presently, at the word of command, put their muskets down against benches and wainscots, until the arrival of the procession. For seven hours these men formed the object of the most anxious solicitude of all the ladies and gentlemen seated on our benches: they began to stamp their feet, for the cold was atrocious, and we were frozen where we sat. Some of them fell to blowing their fingers; one executed a kind of dance, such as one sees often here in cold weather--the individual jumps repeatedly upon one leg, and kicks out the other violently, meanwhile his hands are flapping across his chest. Some fellows opened their cartouche-boxes, and from them drew eatables of various kinds. You can"t think how anxious we were to know the qualities of the same. "Tiens, ce gros qui mange une cuisse de volaille!"--"Il a du jambon, celui-la." "I should like some, too," growls an Englishman, "for I hadn"t a morsel of breakfast," and so on. This is the way, my dear, that we see Napoleon buried.
Did you ever see a chicken escape from clown in a pantomime, and hop over into the pit, or amongst the fiddlers? and have you not seen the shrieks of enthusiastic laughter that the wondrous incident occasions?
We had our chicken, of course: there never was a public crowd without one. A poor unhappy woman in a greasy plaid cloak, with a battered rose-colored plush bonnet, was seen taking her place among the stalls allotted to the grandees. "Voyez donc l"Anglaise," said everybody, and it was too true. You could swear that the wretch was an Englishwoman: a bonnet was never made or worn so in any other country. Half an hour"s delightful amus.e.m.e.nt did this lady give us all. She was whisked from seat to seat by the huissiers, and at every change of place woke a peal of laughter. I was glad, however, at the end of the day to see the old pink bonnet over a very comfortable seat, which somebody had not claimed and she had kept.
Are not these remarkable incidents? The next wonder we saw was the arrival of a set of tottering old Invalids, who took their places under us with drawn sabres. Then came a superb drum-major, a handsome smiling good-humored giant of a man, his breeches astonishingly embroidered with silver lace. Him a dozen little drummer-boys followed--"the little darlings!" all the ladies cried out in a breath: they were indeed pretty little fellows, and came and stood close under us: the huge drum-major smiled over his little red-capped flock, and for many hours in the most perfect contentment twiddled his moustaches and played with the ta.s.sels of his cane.
Now the company began to arrive thicker and thicker. A whole covey of Conseillers-d"Etat came in, in blue coats, embroidered with blue silk, then came a crowd of lawyers in toques and caps, among whom were sundry venerable Judges in scarlet, purple velvet, and ermine--a kind of Bajazet costume. Look there! there is the Turkish Amba.s.sador in his red cap, turning his solemn brown face about and looking preternaturally wise. The Deputies walk in in a body. Guizot is not there: he pa.s.sed by just now in full ministerial costume. Presently little Thiers saunters back: what a clear, broad sharp-eyed face the fellow has, with his gray hair cut down so demure! A servant pa.s.ses, pushing through the crowd a shabby wheel-chair. It has just brought old Moncey the Governor of the Invalids, the honest old man who defended Paris so stoutly in 1814. He has been very ill, and is worn down almost by infirmities: but in his illness he was perpetually asking, "Doctor, shall I live till the 15th?
Give me till then, and I die contented." One can"t help believing that the old man"s wish is honest, however one may doubt the piety of another ill.u.s.trious Marshal, who once carried a candle before Charles X. in a procession, and has been this morning to Neuilly to kneel and pray at the foot of Napoleon"s coffin. He might have said his prayers at home, to be sure; but don"t let us ask too much: that kind of reserve is not a Frenchman"s characteristic.
Bang--bang! At about half-past two a dull sound of cannonading was heard without the church, and signals took place between the Commandant of the Invalids, of the National Guards, and the big drum-major. Looking to these troops (the fat Nationals were shuffling into line again) the two Commandants t.i.ttered, as nearly as I could catch them, the following words--
"HARRUM HUMP!"
At once all the National bayonets were on the present, and the sabres of the old Invalids up. The big drum-major looked round at the children, who began very slowly and solemnly on their drums, Rub-dub-dub--rub-dub-dub--(count two between each)--rub-dub-dub, and a great procession of priests came down from the altar.
First, there was a tall handsome cross-bearer, bearing a long gold cross, of which the front was turned towards his grace the Archbishop.
Then came a double row of about sixteen incense-boys, dressed in white surplices: the first boy, about six years old, the last with whiskers and of the height of a man. Then followed a regiment of priests in black tippets and white gowns: they had black hoods, like the moon when she is at her third quarter, wherewith those who were bald (many were, and fat too) covered themselves. All the reverend men held their heads meekly down, and affected to be reading in their breviaries.
After the Priests came some Bishops of the neighboring districts, in purple, with crosses sparkling on their episcopal bosoms.
Then came, after more priests, a set of men whom I have never seen before--a kind of ghostly heralds, young and handsome men, some of them in stiff tabards of black and silver, their eyes to the ground, their hands placed at right angles with their chests.
Then came two gentlemen bearing remarkable tall candlesticks, with candles of corresponding size. One was burning brightly, but the wind (that chartered libertine) had blown out the other, which nevertheless kept its place in the procession--I wondered to myself whether the reverend gentleman who carried the extinguished candle, felt disgusted, humiliated, mortified--perfectly conscious that the eyes of many thousands of people were bent upon that bit of refractory wax. We all of us looked at it with intense interest.
Another cross-bearer, behind whom came a gentleman carrying an instrument like a bedroom candlestick.
His Grandeur Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris: he was in black and white, his eyes were cast to the earth, his hands were together at right angles from his chest: on his hands were black gloves, and on the black gloves sparkled the sacred episcopal--what do I say?--archiepiscopal ring. On his head was the mitre. It is unlike the G.o.dly coronet that figures upon the coach-panels of our own Right Reverend Bench. The Archbishop"s mitre may be about a yard high: formed within probably of consecrated pasteboard, it is without covered by a sort of watered silk of white and silver. On the two peaks at the top of the mitre are two very little spangled ta.s.sels, that frisk and twinkle about in a very agreeable manner.
Monseigneur stood opposite to us for some time, when I had the opportunity to note the above remarkable phenomena. He stood opposite me for some time, keeping his eyes steadily on the ground, his hands before him, a small clerical train following after. Why didn"t they move? There was the National Guard keeping on presenting arms, the little drummers going on rub-dub-dub--rub-dub-dub--in the same steady, slow way, and the Procession never moved an inch. There was evidently, to use an elegant phrase, a hitch somewhere.
[Enter a fat priest who bustles up to the drum-major.]
Fat priest--"Taisez-vous."
Little drummer--Rub-dub-dub--rub-dub-dub--rub-dub-dub, &c.
Drum-major--"Qu"est-ce donc?"
Fat priest--"Taisez-vous, dis-je; ce n"est pas le corps. Il n"arrivera pas--pour une heure."
The little drums were instantly hushed, the procession turned to the right-about, and walked back to the altar again, the blown-out candle that had been on the near side of us before was now on the off side, the National Guards set down their muskets and began at their sandwiches again. We had to wait an hour and a half at least before the great procession arrived. The guns without went on booming all the while at intervals, and as we heard each, the audience gave a kind of "ahahah!"
such as you hear when the rockets go up at Vauxhall.
At last the real Procession came.
Then the drums began to beat as formerly, the Nationals to get under arms, the clergymen were sent for and went, and presently--yes, there was the tall cross-bearer at the head of the procession, and they came BACK!
They chanted something in a weak, snuffling, lugubrious manner, to the melancholy bray of a serpent.
Crash! however, Mr. Habeneck and the fiddlers in the organ loft pealed out a wild shrill march, which stopped the reverend gentlemen, and in the midst of this music--