FIRST NIGHT IN PARIS.
My “first day in Paris” commenced at night. If sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, I will commence this chapter in the day by saying, “where now! valet de place?” “Notre dame,” he replied, and the coachman drove away towards the Boulevards. In half an hour’s time, he reined before the door of that “Venerable old monument of reality and romance.” I approached it like a timid child being baited with a shining sixpence. As my feet touched the sill, a peal came from the belfry, one of those sonorous twangs, that have made so many hearts flinch for hundreds of years in the “Bloody Bastile,” and it vibrated from my timid heart to all parts of my frame. At this moment a reverend father offered me his hand, who had all the time been concealed beneath what one might well take to be a dark black coffin standing on end. I accepted his hand, and he led me quietly in that vast “sepulchre of kings.”
In all directions I saw magnificent aisles, and altars with burning incense. Magnificent pictures representing all reverend worth, from the “Son of Man,” to saints of France. Golden knobs with inscriptions thereon, adorned the footsteps of every visitor thereof, denoting the downwardness of kings who had once ruled nations. Whilst standing there awestruck with departed worth, I gazed downward with a submissive heart, when lo! I stood upon the coffin of a king! I quickly changed my position, but stepped upon a queen. The valet was relating to me the many different opinions the people had about stepping on noted personages, and how unnecessary it was to take notice of such things as they were dead, when I got disgusted at his ignorance, and stepped from a Queen to a Princess.
To describe this gorgeously furnished sanctum, it is enough to say, that all the brilliant artists of this scientific people have been engaged for hundreds of years in its decoration. Not only employed by the coffers of the Church of France, but by the throne that upheld numerous kings, as well as the wish of the whole populace of France, and the spoils of other nations. Hundreds of people from different parts of the world visit it every day, and all leave a franc or two. Thousands of Parisians visit it every day, and they make no mark of decay. It stands a living monument of Church and State.
Drive me to the national assembly, I said to the coachman. In ten minutes I was going up the gallery. Before I went in, the valet went to a member’s coachman, and gave him a franc, and he gave in return a ticket to the gallery. Each member is allowed so many gallery tickets, and if he fails in giving them out, he makes his servants presents of them, and they sell them.
They were debating republican principles. Louis Napoleon was then President of the Republic, and on the door of every building and gate of France were these words in legible letters, “Liberte Eqalite Fraternite.” Louis Napoleon was not there that day, and they seemed to have a good time, like mice when the cat is away. The most incomprehensible part of their proceeding was, sometimes two would be speaking at once, regardless of the chair. The speaker hammered away furiously, but it was hard to tell, unless you knew, whether he was beating up a revival or a retreat from destruction; as they cooled off their debative heat, there was always twenty or thirty ready to throw agitating fuel in the furnace. As they would cool down a whiff, mushroom-like risings, would be perceptible in four or five different parts of the spacious hall. I could make nothing out of what was going on, save willingness to talk instead of listening, and I left. One handsome and intelligent looking gentleman descended at the same time, which I learned to be the correspondent of the New York Tribune. I then took a curve like tour back, across the Seine, by the Tuillieries, Luxomburg, and back to the same part of the Boulevards, which was more crowded with fashion, than when I passed along in the forenoon, and went home. Night came on, and with it, the gayest time of Paris. The valet said I must go to Jardin mabeille, (a ball), I rode there. This is a nightly ball, but there was no less than fifty vehicles of different comforts, which showed that a great many foreigners were there, because Parisians generally prefer promenading when going to such a feast of pleasure. I paid two francs and went in.
It was a garden about a square block in size. In all parts of it was shrubbery of the most fragrant odors. There was an immense number of little walks, with neat rustic seats for lovers to caress in, from the disinterested eye; and on my first preambulation, I got lost, and intruded more than was polite, but I did not know the importance of this discretion, until I perilously saw the danger. Had I gone on without stopping, I would have led myself to the orchestra, where and when I could have taken part in the amusement to the approbation of all present. When I discovered that I did not know what I was about, I stopped quickly and looked scrutinizingly around those snug little bowers. All in a minute out came a “bower lover,” as furious as a cat. I asked him “where the ball was;” he discovered that I was no Frenchman, and could not have meant intrusion; he directed me to go straight ahead, and I left him in his bliss.
Like a round pigeon house on the end of pole, I pronounce the orchestra. A stair ran up to the pigeon house from the platform round the great pole, or post that supported it. A small enclosure was under the orchestra and occasionally the band would descend to the platform to play. Round this orchestra they danced. The spectators seemed to be exclusively foreigners; they made a ring around the gay lotharios as unbroken as the one they made around the orchestra. The bassy and fluty melodious Band, discoursed the sweetest waltz that ever tickled my admiration. Off they glided like a scared serpent, winding their curvy way as natural as if they were taking their chances. There they come! But there is some still going in the ranks, and there is still a vacancy. Twice they have made the circuit, and the hoop is complete. Now to me it is all dizziness, and it all looked to me as a moving body of muses from times of yore. Occasionally my eye would cling to a couple for an instant, but this was occasioned by the contrast between a large, fat, and heavy gentleman, that had become a troublesome neighbor to all that chose to get in his way. Whenever any of the lighter footed would discover their close proximity to his Appollo pedestals, like a shooting star they would flit away, and leave him monarch of all he surveyed.
I wish to describe a few of the most conspicuous, but I will wait for a quadrille, where I can get them to take their places in description.