THE MADELEINE.
My first day in Paris was Sunday, so, after breakfast, I repaired to the famous modern Church of the Madeleine, reputed one of the finest in Europe. This was the day of Pentecost, and fitly commemorated by the Church. The spacious edifice was filled in every part, though at least a thousand went out at the close of the earlier service, before the attendance was fullest.
I think I was never in a place of worship so gorgeous as this. Over the main altar there is a magnificent picture on the largest scale, purporting to represent the Progress of Civilization from Christ's day to Bonaparte's, Napoleon being the central figure in the foreground, while the Saviour and the Virgin Mary occupy a similar position in the rear. In every part, the Church is very richly and I presume tastefully ornamented.
I did not comprehend the service, and cannot intelligibly describe it. The bowings and genuflexions, the swinging of censers and ringing of bells, the frequent appearance and disappearance of a band of gorgeously dressed priests or assistants bearing what looked like spears, were "inexplicable dumb show" to me, and most of them unlike anything I remember to have seen in American Catholic Churches. The music was generally fine, especially that of a chorus of young boys, and the general bearing of the people in attendance, that of reverence and interest.
"Peace be with all, whate'er their varying creeds,
With all who send up holy thoughts on high."
But I could not bring myself to like the continual circulation of several officials throughout almost the entire service, collecting rents for seats (they were let very cheap), and begging money for "the Poor of the Church;" as a stout, gross, absurdly overdressed herald who preceded the collectors loudly proclaimed. I think this collection should have been taken before or after the Mass. There was no sermon up to one o'clock, when I left, with nearly all the audience, though there may have been one afterward.
XV.
THE FUTURE OF FRANCE.
Paris, Wednesday, June 11, 1851.
"Will the French Republic withstand the assaults of its enemies?" is a question of primary importance with regard to the Political Future, not of France only but of Europe, and more remotely of the world. Even fettered and stifled as the Republic now is—a shorn and blind Samson in the toils of the Philistines—it is still a potent fact, and its very name is a "word of fear" to the grand conspiracy of despots and owls who are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,—it is the overthrow of the French Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout Europe. "Put out the light, and then put out the light," is the general aspiration; and the fact that the actual Republic is reasonably moderate, peaceful, unaggressive, so far from disarming their hostility, only inflames it. Haman can never feel safe in his exaltation so long as Mordecai the Jew is seen sitting at the king's gate; and if France is to be a Republic, the Royalties and Aristocracies of Europe would far sooner see her bloody, turbulent, desolating and intent on conquest than tranquil and inoffensive. A Republic absolutely ruled by Danton, Marat and Robespierre would be far less appalling in the eyes of the Privileged, Luxurious and Idle Classes of Europe than one peacefully pursuing its career under the guidance of Cavaignac, De Tocqueville or Lamartine.
While in England, I could not but smile at the delusions propagated by the Press and readily credited as well as diffused by the fortunate classes with regard to the deplorable condition of France and the absolute necessity existing for some radical change in her Government. "O yes, you get along very well with a Republic in the United States, where you had cheap lands, a vast and fertile wilderness, common schools and a general reverence for Religion and Order to begin with; but just look at France!"—such was and is a very general line of argument. If the French had been equally divisible into felons, bankrupts, paupers and lunatics, their hopeless state could hardly have been referred to more compassionately. All this time France was substantially as tranquil as England herself, and decidedly more prosperous, though annoyed and impeded by the incessant plottings of traitors in her councils and other exalted stations to resubject her to kingly sway. A thrifty, provident, frugal artisan may often seem less wealthy and prosperous than his dashing, squandering, lavish neighbor. France may not display so much plate on the sideboards of her landlords and bankers as England does; but every day adds to her ability to display it. While Great Britain and the United States have undertaken to vie with each other in Free Trade, France holds fast to the principle of Protection, with scarcely a division in her Councils on the subject; and she is consequently amassing in silence the wealth created by other Nations. The Californian digs gold, which mainly comes to New-York in payment for goods; but on that gold England has a mortgage running fast to maturity, for the goods were in part bought of her and we owe her for Millions' worth beside. But France has a similar mortgage on it for the Grain supplied to England to feed the fabricators of the goods, and it has hardly reached the Bank of England before it is on its way to Paris. A great share of the golden harvests of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin now find their resting-place here.
"But what," asks a Say-Bastiat economist, "if they do? Isn't all Commerce an exchange of equivalents? Must we not buy in order to sell? Isn't Gold a commodity like any other? If our Imports exceed our Exports, doesn't that prove that we are obtaining more for our Exports than their estimated value?" &c. &c. &c.
No, Sir! commerce is not always an exchange of genuine equivalents. The savage tribe which sells its hunting grounds and its ancestors' graves for a few barrels of firewater, whereby its members are debauched, diseased, rendered insanely furious, and set to cutting each other's throats, receives no real equivalent for what it parts with. Nor is it well for ever so civilized a people to be selling its Specie and mortgaging its Lands and Houses for Silks, Liquors, Laces, Wines, Spices, &c.—trading off the essential and imperishable for the factitious and transitory—and so eating itself out of house and home. The farmer who drinks up his farm at the cross-roads tavern may have obtained "more for his exports" (of produce from his farm), than they were worth in the market—at least, it would seem so from the fact that he has run over head and ears in debt—but he has certainly done a pernicious, a losing business. So does any Nation which buys more wares and fabrics than its exports will pay for, and finds itself in debt at the year's end for imports that it has eaten, drunk or worn out. The thrifty household is the true model of the Nation. And, thus tested, France, in spite of her enormous, locust-like Army and other relics of past follies which the National mind is outgrowing though the Nation's rulers still cling to them, is this day one of the most prosperous countries on earth.
But when I hear the aristocratic plotters talk of the necessity of a Revision of the Constitution in order to restore to France tranquillity and prosperity, I am moved not to mirth but to indignation. For these plotters and their schemes are themselves the causes of the mischiefs they affect to deplore and the dangers they pretend to be bent on averting. Whatever is now feverish and ominous in French Politics grows directly out of two great wrongs—the first positive and accomplished—the law of the 31st May, whereby Three Millions of Electors were disfranchised—the other contingent and meditated—the overthrow of the Republic. All the agitation, the apprehension, the uncertainty, and the consequent derangement of Industry, through the last year, have grown out of these misdeeds, done and purposed, of the Aristocratic party. In the sacred name of Order, they have fomented discord and anarchy; invoking Peace, they have stirred up hatred and bitterness. Whatever the Social Democracy might have done, had they been in the ascendant or under other supposable circumstances, the fact is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of Tranquillity and the Constitution. Had they proved recreant to their faith and trust, France would ere this have been plunged into convulsions through the mutual jealousies and hostilities of the factions who vaunt themselves collectively the party of Order; they have been withheld from cutting each other's throats by the calm, determined, watchful, intrepid attitude of the calumniated Democracy.
The law of the 31st May still stands on the statute-book, and I apprehend is destined to remain (though many who are better informed are sanguine that it will be repealed before the next Presidential Election), but the Republic will endure and its Constitution cannot be overthrown. All the Bourbonists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists in the Assembly combined are insufficient to change the Constitution legally; and if a bare majority sufficed for that purpose (instead of three-fourths), they could not to-day command a working majority for any practical measure of Revision. It is easy to club their votes and vaguely declare some change necessary—but what change? A Bourbon Restoration? An Orleans Middle-Class Royalty? A Napoleonic Empire? For no one of these can a majority even of this Reäctionist Assembly be obtained. What, then, is their chance with the People?
As to the signing of Petitions for Revision, that is easily understood. The Prefect, the Mayor, &c., of a locality readily procure the signatures of all the Government employés and hangers-on, who constitute an immense army in France; the great manufacturers circulate the petitions among their workmen, and most of them sign, not choosing to risk their masters' displeasure for a mere name more or less to an unmeaning paper. But the plotters know perfectly well that the People are not for Revision in their sense of the word; if they did not fear this, they would restore Universal Suffrage. By clinging with desperate tenacity to the Restrictive law of May 31st, they virtually confess that their hopes of success involve the continued exclusion of Three Millions of adult Frenchmen from the Registry of Voters. When they prate, therefore, of the people's desire for Revision, the Republican retort is ready and conclusive—"Repeal the law of May 31st, and we can then tell what the people really desire. But so long as you maintain that law, you confess that you dare not abide the verdict of the whole People. You appeal to a Jury which you have packed—one whose right to try this question we utterly deny. Restore Universal Suffrage, and we can then tell what the People really do wish and demand; but until you do this, we shall resist every attempt to change the Constitution even by as much as a hair." Who can doubt that this is right?
"Therefore, Representatives of the People, deliberate in peace," pithily says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing; the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. It cannot be legally subverted; and should Force and Usurpation be attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are on their side—that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, are all for the Republic—that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain Military officers, mainly relics of the Empire; the class includes a good part of the lucky Parisian shop-keepers and Government employés during the reign of Louis Philippe; the party embraces the remnants of the anti-Revolutionary Aristocracy, most of the influential Priesthood, and a small section of the rural Peasantry; all these combined may number Four Millions, leaving Thirty Millions for the Nation. Such is France in 1851; and, being such, the subversion of the Republic, whether by foreign assault or domestic treason, is hardly possible. An open attack by the Autocrat and his minions would certainly consolidate it; a prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have the same effect. Four years more of tranquil though nominal Republicanism would only render a return to Monarchy more difficult; wherefore the Royalist party will never assent to it, and without their aid the project has no chance. To obtain that aid, "the Prince" must secretly swear that after four years more he will turn France over to Henry V.; this promise only the last extreme of desperation could extort from him, and then to no purpose, since he could not fulfill it and the Legitimists could not trust him. And thus, alike by its own strength and by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured.
XVI.
PARIS, SOCIAL AND MORAL.
Paris, Thursday, June 12, 1851.
A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and "Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops, "restaurants," "cafés," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him: he reads his newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c. which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18¾ cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a man of wealth, or one who can support her in luxury and idleness, is the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly designated, involve the idea of demoralization—no man would apply them to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris—that is, they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe. Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this, and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself.