Said the fast Countess of Blessington, “Oh commend me to the comforts of a French bed; its soft and even mattress, its light curtains, and genial couvre pied of eider down; commend me, also, to a French cuisine, with its soup sans pepper, its cutlet a la minute, and its poulet au jus, its cafe a la creme, and its desserts. But defend me from its slamming of French doors, and the shaking of French windows, &c.” I like not the noise like the one in Paris; it is an amalgamated one, such as never was heard in another city on earth. The noise of Paris is a variegated one, like humming of bees, or a serpent’s hiss when they cannot be seen. Sometimes its cabs alone, at another carts filled with groups of theatre actors, from the Opera Comique, Theatre Francois, Ambique, Grand Opera, or Hippodrome. Or if it is early in the morning, it is sure to be some gay crowds returning from some wild and exciting amusement, such as only French can enjoy without remorse. When you hear a noise in Paris, you can no more tell its cause, than you can tell the composition of a fricassee. It may be a good rabbit, or a better cat, the skin of the former lying on the table to prove its identity. When you see woodcocks in the window of a second rate restaurateur, you must not be sure that the cook is putting his herbs among the joints of the woodcock you have ordered, instead of a diseased owl that was caught in the barn, for French cooks are not to be scared by an owl. The more he can dress a rat like a squirrel, the greater his celebrity as an epicure of the most refined taste. If you go to market in Paris, you will see under a butcher’s stall, whole herds of rabbits, for rabbits are domestic animals in France. This butcher lives at the upper end of the market, and has nothing to do with Mons. Ledeau, who lives at the other end, and who sells little cats under the disguise of amusing les enfants de Paris. But Mons. Feteau, the restaurateur, knows both, and takes particular care to invite Mons. Ledeau chez Lui to take dinner with him, when they have a good deal of unknown talk. After this interview, the trade in rabbits gets dull, and the vender wonders who can sell them on more advantageous terms than he can. He looks all around the market, and finds that his price is the usual price. It never enters his head that cats are substituted for rabbits.
Now reader, don’t accuse me of trying to become conspicuous by asserting more than others, for you know nothing about it, and I do. I have seen a landlord stand behind a post in his own restaurant, watching some of his patrons trying to cut what he called poulet (chicken), but no mortal man could tell what it was but a French cuisineur. I have dined at the Maison Doree, Trois Freres, Cafe Anglaise, and Vachettes, and then gradually down to the lowest grade, the socialists, and I ought to know something about it.
Oh, how delightful it is to walk on the Champ Elysee and take a seat among the French girls, au fait, and order your caffee au lait. Then take from your pocket a sou, sit cross legged and toss it up and down, and turn it over and, look at it, and while waiting for the light guitar, to fend off those nimble fingers, that are taking from it its sweetest notes, you can think what an immense deal of pleasure you are getting for the mere anticipation of a sou. Then look around, not slyly, but boldly, and you see some unassuming French demoiselle gazing upon you with such riveted force of interest, that the lashes of her eye moveth not. After this you walk into some valentino cassino, or jardin, and you will see some 80 or 100 modes of cupids and Psyches, keeping time to a Parisian band, and there will appear to your mind a perfect agreeing correspondence between the music and the figures that dance around it. Never will you see the right foot of one couple up while the left foot of another is down, such perfection of dancing is to be found in all classes in Paris.
Very candid, frank and free is a Frenchman. If one admires a lady, she knows it almost before an opportunity presents itself. If he is encouraging a useless desire, he always manages it before it can do a serious injury. Little trouble dwells within the mind of a Frenchman; he makes much of to-day, to-morrow’s trouble must dawn or die with itself. He finds more pleasure in going to the opera, with his five francs, than he does by sitting in the house, waiting for the morrow that never comes, or if it does come, bringing with it a greater anxiety and love for another morrow.
There is an amusement in Paris, which language is inadequate to express the vulgarity of. It is called the “industrious fleas.” The name does not indicate the performance. It changes its location every night in fear of the police. Its supporters are merely curious young men, who wish to see as strange a sight as the mind of woman can picture. Their performance commences with a dozen beautiful women habited like Eve before she devised the fig leaf covering. They first appear in the form of a wreath, with each one’s head between another’s legs; the rest must be imagined. Au revoir.
ROME AND ST. PETER’S CHURCH.
By the gate on the southern side, on the 28th of March, 1852, I entered the “Holy City,” just as day was turning to night. I moved slowly along by the venerable walls of the great St. Peter’s church, in a shackling old viturino. A celebrated writer says it is built on the site of the palace of Julius Cæsar. He also says the extent of ground covered by the ruined and inhabited parts of Rome amounts to four and twenty miles. You there find eighty halls of the eighty eminent kings; from king Tarquin, to king Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, who first conquered Spain, and wrested it from the Mahomedans. In the outskirts of Rome, he said, there is the palace of Titus, who was rejected by the 300 senators, in consequence of having wasted three years in the conquest of Jerusalem, which, according to their will, he ought to have accomplished in two years. There is likewise the hall of Vespasian, a very large and strong building, also the hall of king Galba, containing 360 windows, the circumference of this palace is nearly three miles, and on this very three miles of earth, a battle was fought in times of yore, and more than one hundred thousand fell, whose bones are hung up there even to the present day. Now Rome is the leader of all Christendom, and St. Peters’ yearly carnivals are the glory of Rome, instead of the gladiatorial festivals in the Colisseum. Some writers assert that it is only the forum upon the site of the palace of the Cæsars. Cooper says in his excursions in Italy, that the first palace of Nero must have occupied the whole of the Palatine hill, with perhaps the exception of a temple or two. The ground round the Colisseum, and all the land as far as the Esquiline, and even to the verge of the Quirinal, a distance exceeding a mile; this was occupying, moreover, the heart of the town, although a portion of the space was occupied by gardens, and other embellishments. When this building was burned, he returned to the Palatine, repaired the residence of Augustus, and rebuilt his residence with so much magnificence, that the new palace was called the “golden house;” this building also extended to the Esquiline, though it was never finished. Vespasian and Titus, more moderate than the descendants of the Cæsars, demolished all the new parts of the palace, and caused the Colisseum and the baths that bear the name of the latter, to be constructed on the spot; the emperors were all elected, and they found it necessary to consult the public taste and good. Thus we find the remains of two of the largest structures of the world, now standing within the ground once occupied by the palace of the Cæsars, on which they appear as little more than points. From this time, the emperors confined themselves to the palatine, the glory of which gradually departed. It is said that the palace, as it was subsequently reduced, remained standing in a great measure, as recently as the 8th century, and that it was even inhabited in the 7th, so says Cooper.
Having been anxious to see the Pope of Rome, Pius IX, I was a frequent visitor of the Carnival, and at last got a good look at the great man. He was seated on a divan, which rested on the shoulders of twelve cardinals, or senators of Rome; he was crowned with a gorgeously jewelled crown, as the eye of man need wish to gaze on. Ten thousand people were in the church at the time, and they would carry the Pope from one aisle to another. The people all would fall on their knees, and the great man would bless them in the name of God, and the organ would peal its bassy notes of Te Deum, from east to west, and north to south, whilst the alarum from the belfry jarred my heart strings.