LETTER XVIII.
CHOLERA—UNIVERSAL TERROR—FLIGHT OF THE INHABITANTS—CASES WITHIN THE WALLS OF THE PALACE—DIFFICULTY OF ESCAPE—DESERTED STREETS—CASES NOT REPORTED—DRYNESS OF THE ATMOSPHERE—PREVENTIVES RECOMMENDED—PUBLIC BATHS, ETC.
Cholera! Cholera! It is now the only topic. There is no other interest—no other dread—no other occupation, for Paris. The invitations for parties are at last recalled—the theatres are at last shut or languishing—the fearless are beginning to be afraid—people walk the streets with camphor bags and vinaigrettes at their nostrils—there is a universal terror in all classes, and a general flight of all who can afford to get away. I never saw a people so engrossed with one single and constant thought. The waiter brought my breakfast this morning with a pale face, and an apprehensive question, whether I was quite well. I sent to my boot-maker yesterday, and he was dead. I called on a friend, a Hanoverian, one of those broad-chested, florid, immortal-looking men, of whose health for fifty years, violence apart, one is absolutely certain, and he was at death's door with the cholera. Poor fellow! He had fought all through the revolution in Greece; he had slept in rain and cold, under the open sky, many a night, through a ten years' pursuit of the profession of a soldier of fortune, living one of the most remarkable lives, hitherto, of which I ever heard, and to be taken down here in the midst of ease and pleasure, reduced to a shadow with so vulgar and unwarlike a disease as this, was quite too much for his philosophy. He had been ill three days when I found him. He was emaciated to a skeleton in that short time, weak and helpless, and, though he is not a man to exaggerate suffering, he said he never had conceived such intense agony as he had endured. He assured me, that if he recovered, and should ever be attacked with it again, he would blow out his brains at the first symptom. Nothing but his iron constitution protracted the disorder. Most people who are attacked die in from three to twenty-four hours.
For myself, I have felt and still feel quite safe. My rooms are in the airiest quarter of Paris, facing the gardens of the Tuileries, with windows overlooking the king's; and, as far as air is concerned, if his majesty considers himself well situated, it would be quite ridiculous in so insignificant a person as myself to be alarmed. With absolute health, confident spirits, and tolerably regular habits, I have usually thought one may defy almost anything but love or a bullet. To-day, however, there have been, they say, two cases within the palace-walls, members of the royal household, and Casimir Perier, who probably lives well and has enough to occupy his mind, is very low with it, and one cannot help feeling that he has no certain exemption, when a disease has touched both above and below him. I went to-day to the Messagerie to engage my place for Marseilles, on the way to Italy, but the seats are all taken, in both mail-post and diligence, for a fortnight to come, and, as there are no extras in France, one must wait his turn. Having done my duty to myself by the inquiry, I shall be content to remain quiet.
I have just returned from a social tea-party at a house of one of the few English families left in Paris. It is but a little after ten, and the streets, as I came along, were as deserted and still as if it were a city of the dead. Usually, until four or five in the morning, the same streets are thronged with carriages hurrying to and fro, and always till midnight the trottoirs are crowded with promenaders. To-night I scarce met a foot-passenger, and but one solitary cabriolet in a walk of a mile. The contrast was really impressive. The moon was nearly full, and high in the heavens, and the sky absolutely without a trace of a cloud; nothing interrupted the full broad light of the moon, and the empty streets were almost as bright as at noon-day; and, as I crossed the Place Vendome, I could hear, for the first time since I have been in Paris, though I have passed it at every hour of the night, the echo of my footsteps reverberated from the walls around. You should have been in these crowded cities of Europe to realize the impressive solemnity of such solitude.
It is said that fifty thousand people have left Paris within the past week. Adding this to the thousand a day who are struck with the cholera, and the attendance necessary to the sick, and a thinned population is sufficiently accounted for. There are, however, hundreds ill of this frightful disease, whose cases are not reported. It is only those who are taken to the hospitals, the poor and destitute, who are numbered in the official statements. The physicians are wearied out with their private practice. The medical lectures are suspended, and a regular physician is hardly to be had at all. There is scarce a house in which some one has not been taken. You see biers and litters issuing from almost every gate, and the better ranks are no longer spared. A sister of the premier, M. Perier, died yesterday; and it was reported at the Bourse, that several distinguished persons, who have been ill of it, are also dead. No one feels safe; and the consternation and dread on every countenance you meet, is enough to chill one's very blood. I went out to-day for a little exercise, not feeling very well, and I was glad to get home again. Every creature looks stricken with a mortal fear. And this among a French population, the gayest and merriest of people under all depressions ordinarily, is too strong a contrast not to be felt painfully. There is something singular in the air, too; a disagreeable, depressing dryness, which the physicians say must change, or all Paris will be struck with the plague. It is clear and cold, but almost suffocating with dryness.
It is very consoling in the midst of so much that is depressing, that the preventives recommended against the cholera are so agreeable. "Live well," say the doctors, "and bathe often. Abstain from excesses, keep a clear head and good spirits, and amuse yourself as much and as rationally as possible." It is a very excellent recipe for happiness, let alone the cholera. There is great room for a nice observance of this system in Paris, particularly the eating and bathing. The baths are delightful. You are received in handsome saloons, opening upon a garden in the centre of the building, ornamented with statues and fountains, the journals lying upon the sofas, and everything arranged with quite the luxury of a palace. The bathing-rooms are furnished with taste; the baths are of marble, and covered inside with spotlessly white linen cloths; the water is perfumed, and you may lie and take your coffee, or have your breakfast served upon the mahogany cover which shuts you in—a union of luxuries which is enough to enervate a cynic. When you are ready to come out, a pull of the bell brings a servant, who gives you a peignoir—a long linen wrapper, heated in an oven, in the warm folds of which you are enveloped, and in three minutes are quite dry. In this you may sit, at your ease, reading, or musing, or lie upon the sofa without the restraint of a tight dress, till you are ready to depart; and then four or five francs, something less than a dollar, pays for all.