RANDOM RECORDS OF A RUN THROUGH CERTAIN CONTINENTAL COUNTRIES.
(By the Author of "All the Great Metropolises".)
[We rather think the following letter has reached us by mistake, and must have been intended for one of our morning contemporaries. However, we print it.—Ed.]
LETTER XLIII.
While I am on the Continent I feel quite different to what I do when I am on an island. The sensation that if you leave one country you can immediately go into another, without the intervention of what Lord Byron has so beautifully called the Blue Ocean, (although the ocean or sea is not always blue, but often green) between the two neighbourhoods, produces a curious effect upon my idiosyncrasy. At the same time I must confess that this metaphysical feeling does not apply to Paris, because that city is in the centre of a large country, and if I wished to leave it (which at present I do not), I should have to traverse a considerable extent of territory.
Yesterday I visited the Madelaine, which is a church, and stands near the Boulevards, and the front looks towards the Place de la Concorde, a locality which has also had various other names, which, if I knew them, as I am "free to confess" (as they say in a certain place which I have already immortalised) I do not, would naturally suggest to the mind a long train of instructive historical thoughts, although as the Madelaine, if Galignani's Guide may be trusted, was not built until after the principal events connected with the Place de la Concorde had occurred, to remember them here would be a case of post hoc et prompter hoc (I translate for the benefit of the fair sex—"because you are here you are prompted to think of that there,") and as I am travelling to instruct myself and my readers, I wish to avoid persiflage. The Madelaine is a building which has cost considerable sums of money, and it is a remarkable coincidence that it is Greek in style though intended for Roman Catholic worship, but such are the anomalies and anachronisms which strike the intelligent traveller. The façade, or altar-piece, is painted in very bright colours, with mythological allusions to the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and other well-known individuals. The effect of the exterior is something like that of the Licensed Victuallers' Asylum at Woking Buzzard, but I think in many respects inferior to that worthy and laudable institution, of which an Englishman (I do not particularly refer to a talented, gifted, and irascible correspondent) is so justly proud. I only staid five minutes; service was not being performed, and there was no person in the church but myself, but this was enough to inspire me with the utmost contempt for the mummeries of the Roman Catholic creed, and with pity for the blinded and unenlightened individuals who indulge therein.
The day being fine, or as they say in France, ce est une beau journal, I lounged along the Boulevards, and remarked that human nature was the same in every climate. I then went down the Rue de la Paix—you will observe that I am now quite familiar with the old parts of the City of Paris—and after some turnings came to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which is certainly fine, although devoted to a false religion, which, however, does not alter the architecture, and I hope I am too candid not to draw the distinction between the external and the internal aspects of an edifice. To adopt a metaphor, the sign of a tavern may be well painted, although the beer sold within may not be good; but in saying this, I wish to be understood to speak generally, and not with reference to any particular establishment, far less to swell that illiberal cry against hotel-keepers (many of whom are most worthy and honourable men) which my antagonist—whom it is my mission to crush—in Printing House Square continually raises.
But, revenions a nous moutions, ("to return to business") I was greatly pleased, or shall I say amused, with a highly dramatic scene which occurred in the course of my walk. I shall never forget it, and it may take its place "in this distracted orb" (Shakspere's Hamlet) beside that other joke, which, as I have already told my readers, will throw me into paradoxes of laughter at any hour or time. Wake me and tell me the house is on fire, assure me there is an earthquake, let me hear that a printer's unpardonable carelessness has made a newspaper under my charge say a reverend clergyman reached before Prince Albert instead of preached before H. R. H., and that the Court refuses to receive my published apology; still, if you tell me the joke in question, I shall laugh. But I think the following dialogue is as rich as the other, Arcades ambo, (the fair sex must excuse me if I do not translate this). I saw a respectable gentleman's handkerchief protruding from his coat pocket, and knowing the disagreeableness of finding that humble but useful article missing, especially in the influenza period, I thought I would waive ceremony, and though unintroduced, suggest to him the advisability of a precautionary measure. So, touching my hat with some playfulness, I said, "Monsieur, vous voulez perdre votre parapluie." (I must not translate this, or the joke will be lost.)
"Ah!" he replied, adding, after a pause, "Bah!"
But as he did not replace his handkerchief, I, who am not easily daunted, returned to the attack.
"Mais, Monsieur, vous n'attendez pas a moi." (Sir, you do not attend to me.)
"Diable!" he exclaimed, impatiently. As I never permit any of our own correspondents to use this word, I shall not break my own laws by rendering it into the vernacular.
A compatriot of my own here came up, and with the sportiveness allowable to intimacy, said,
"What's the row?"
I explained that I had given the French gentleman a caution as to his parapluie, to which I pointed as sticking out of his pocket.
"That's his mouchoir," said my friend, laughing heartily, as did the gentleman when the mistake was explained to him, and we all took off our hats to one another. These little amenities cost nothing, but yet may be bright oases on the ordinary stream of the battle of life.
I must reserve until to-morrow my narrative of the taking of the Bastille, which naturally occurred to me as I gazed upon the column in the Place Vendôme, and I shall probably offer some instructive observations upon the literature and religion of the country in which I now find myself. But I can truly say, "England" (which includes Scotland, and also poor Ireland) "with all thy faults, my heart still turns to thee," a thought which must comfort those countries during my temporary absence.