Travellers' Stories

by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

Look up at the beautiful bas reliefs in bronze, on this noble column, giving the history of so many fierce battles and so much bloodshed, and at the military hero on the top, and then at these laughing, merry children at the foot, running after the tin carriages that go with the wind. Is it not a strange and moving contrast? Does it not tell a story that all of us hope may be one day true; when war shall belong only to history, and when peace shall possess the earth?

Around the base of this beautiful column many of those who served under Bonaparte, or who remember him with affection, hang wreaths and garlands as expressions of their tender remembrance. This is still done; these memorials are ever there. At one time this was forbidden by the government, but to no purpose. At last, an officer was stationed at the foot of the column with a water engine, and with orders to play it upon any one who should bring any votive offerings to the fallen hero. A lady, whose love and admiration could not be so intimidated, came the next day in her carriage, which she filled with wreaths of flowers, and stood up in it, and threw wreath after wreath at the foot of the column, crying out, as each one fell, "Will you play your engine upon me?" But not a drop of water was sent at her, and she deposited all her offerings, and went away unharmed. I suppose a Frenchman would sooner have been shot than have done any thing to quench the enthusiasm of this heroic woman.

One thing struck me much in Paris, and most agreeably, and that is the good appearance of the children. This is not confined to the rich; you will see a very poor woman leading her child, really well dressed. You never see boys idling in the streets; you never hear them swearing and quarrelling. If you ask a boy to show you the way, his manner of doing it would grace a drawing room. I am told that the French are never severe with their children; that the French nature will not bear it; that strong excitement makes the children ill; that the law of love is the only one they will bear.

Stop with me now on our walk, at this little low cart, just by the sidewalk; it is as you see larger than a common handcart, and much lower, and on four small wheels; it is full of china, all marked 13 sous. See how pretty these cups and saucers are. After your looking at all the pieces, the owner would say, "Bon jour" very kindly to you, if you took nothing, but we will take this pretty cup and saucer; as a remembrance of his little cart. As we walk along, we shall see many others, containing every thing you can imagine.

I bought many things in the streets,—combs, saucepans, clothes-brushes, &c. Look into this shop window; see these lovely flowers, and, in the midst of them, a small fountain is playing all the time to keep them fresh. Look at those immense bunches in the windows,—of pansies, violets, hyacinths of all colors, ixias, wall flowers, tulips, geraniums, narcissus; and O, this is not half the variety of flowers! look into the shop; there are bushels of them and other flowers, all ranged round the wall; the perfume salutes the most insensible passer-by; it tells of the songs of birds, and of the delights of summer time. You cannot resist its influence. Let us go in and look at the flowers. The person who keeps the shop has the manners of a lady; she wishes you good morning; and, if you do not behave just as you would if you entered a lady's parlor, you are set down as an American or Englishman, who does not know how to behave. When you leave the shop also, you must remember to say, "Bon jour," or you commit an offence. How kindly the lady who keeps this flower shop shows us all her flowers! how she seems to love them, as if they were her children! We must get a bouquet to show our gratitude for her kindness, though she would not demand it. At every street corner is a woman with a basket of violets and evergreens. She offers them in such a pretty way, taking care that you shall take their perfume. You cannot resist them.

Now, suppose we were taking a walk, some other morning. Before us is the "Place de la Concorde," all glistening in the spring sunlight. See, there, in the centre, is the Obelisk—a monument of the time of Sesostris, King of Egypt, erected by him before the great temple of Thebes more than three thousand years ago, or fifteen hundred and fifty years before Christ. This enormous stone, all of one piece, seventy-two feet high, seven feet and a half square at the base, of red granite, and covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, was given to the French government by the Viceroy of Egypt, in consideration of an armed and naval establishment which that government had helped him to form at Alexandria. Eight hundred men struggled for three months in Egypt, in the midst of all manner of hardships, building a road and constructing machinery to drag the obelisk, completely cased in wood, down to the Nile. It cost two millions of francs to place this monument where it now stands. This was done with great pomp and ceremony in October, 1836, the royal family and about a hundred and fifty thousand other people looking on.

Now try to place yourself in imagination at the foot of this great Obelisk of Luxor, mounted up as it is upon a single block of gray granite of France, covered all over with gilded engraving of the machinery used in placing the great thing where it is. The Place de la Concorde itself, which surrounds you, is eight sided; and if the excavations around it were filled with water, it would be an island, seven hundred feet or so across, and connected with the main land by four elegant little bridges. But instead of water, these "diggings" are beautifully filled with flower gardens. At the eight corners of the island are eight pavilions, as they are called; or great watch houses, of elegant architecture, occupied by the military or the police, as occasion requires. Each of these forms the base of a gigantic statue, representing one of the principal cities of France. It is as if the whole eight were sitting in friendly council for the good of Paris. How beautiful they are, with their grand expressionless faces, and their graceful attitudes, and their simple antique drapery. They are all sitting in their mural crowns,—the fortified cities on cannons, the commercial ones on bales of goods. Strasburg alone seems full of life. She has her arm akimbo, as if braving Germany, to which she once belonged. Look, north from the Obelisk, up the Rue de la Concorde, and the splendid church of the Madeleine bounds your sight. On your right are the Gardens of the Tuilleries; on your left are the Champs Elysees; behind you is the Chamber of Deputies. Both before and behind you, in the Place itself, you have a splendid fountain, each being a round basin, fifty feet in diameter, in which stands a smaller basin, with a still smaller above it, supported and surrounded by bronze figures of rivers, seas, genii of fruits, flowers, and fisheries, and all manner of gods of commerce and navigation, all spouting water like mad.

See the famous marble horses from Marly. How impatient they look to break away from the athletic arm which holds them! what life and spirit they show! how beautiful they are! Take one look now at the Arc de Triomphe; it is nearly two miles off, but looks very near. Now turn; and directly opposite, at some distance, you see what James Lowell calls the "Front door of the Tuilleries."

The gardens are full of beautiful children. Their mothers or nurses are sitting under the trees, while the children run about at will. There are thousands playing at ball, driving hoops, jumping ropes, shouting, laughing, merry as children will be and ought to be.

Let us take a stroll in the Champs Elysees. You have never seen any thing so beautiful, so captivating, as the scene. It seems like enchantment. All the world is here—young and old, poor and rich, fashionable and unfashionable. All for their amusement. Let us see what this group are looking at so earnestly. A number of wooden ponies are wheeled round and round, and each has a rosy-cheeked boy upon it. Here is another in which they go in boats; another in chairs. This amusement costs only two or three sous apiece to the children. The parents or the nurses stand around enjoying it almost as much as the children. Let us walk on. See that little fountain gleaming through the tender green of the young leaves as you see them in the pretty wood that forms a background to the picture. All along in the road you observe fine equipages of all sorts standing in waiting, while the gay world, or the poor invalids whom they brought to this place of enchantment, are walking about or sitting in chairs, courting health and amusement. Here is something still prettier than any thing you have seen—a beautiful little carriage that can hold four children and a driver, drawn by four white goats, with black horns and beards.