Travellers' Stories

by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

The French are peculiarly kind to animals. No law is necessary in France for the protection of animals from the cruelty of their masters. You meet men and women, very respectably dressed, leading dogs with the greatest care; and in the fashionable drives, every tenth carriage (it seemed to me) had a dog lying on the seat, or standing on his hind legs, looking out of the window. A friend told me that, when present at a grand review where there was a great crowd, she saw a woman, who could not get near enough to see the show, hold up her dog over the heads of the people, that he might at least have the pleasure of seeing what was going on.

I must tell you about the ceremony of making an archbishop, which we had the good fortune to witness. It took place at Notre Dame.

The nave of the church was full. Around the altar, all the priests and dignitaries of the church were seated; the officiating archbishop in a high seat, and an empty chair by his side for the new archbishop when finished and prepared for the honor. All the priests were in full dress. Their garments were stiff with gold and silver. My eyes were dazzled with their splendor.

Perfect silence prevailed, and the ceremony commenced. The priest, who was to be made into a bishop, had all sorts of things done to him. He knelt, he prayed, he was prayed over, he was read to, he had hands laid upon him, he was crossed; incense was thrown up, the organ played, and all the priests and bishops knelt and rose from their knees, and knelt and rose again, and again; high mass was said, and the show was very remarkable.

Once the poor mortal, who was to be consecrated, knelt, and a large book was put upon him, like a saddle. Finally they took him and tied napkins upon his arms and his neck, and then led him to a knot of priests a little out of my sight. In a few moments, he reappeared with all his canonicals on, except the mitre. Now he was brilliant indeed, loaded with gold ornaments, stiff with splendor. His face, I noticed, was very red, and he looked weary. I did not quite understand the tumbled towels; whether these were to catch the consecrating oil that they poured on his head, or whether they were emblematic of the filthy rags of this world, which he laid aside for the new and shining garments of perfect holiness, I could not find out. Now the new archbishop knelt again before the old archbishop, and the old one put the mitre upon the head of the new one. Then the old archbishop embraced and kissed the new, and after that all the other bishops, who, as the French say, assisted at the ceremony, performed the same act on both sides of his face. After this, the new archbishop and his holy brother walked side by side, followed by all the other bishops and priests, down from the altar among the audience; and the new dignitary gave his blessing to all the people.

I wish I could carry you with me to the palace at Versailles. The magnificent equestrian statue of Louis XIV., which you can see afar off as you approach, the noble statues in the grand court yard, and the ancient regal aspect of the whole scene, with its countless fountains and its seven miles of pictures, are beyond all description. As I stood lost in wonder and admiration, my friend, who introduced me to this world of wonders, pointed to a window in one corner of the building; there, she said, Louis XVI. passed much of his time making locks; and there, from that balcony, Marie Antoinette appeared with her children and the king, when she addressed the wild, enraged Parisian mob. We saw the private apartments of the unhappy queen, and the small door through which she escaped from the fury of the soldiers. We went to see the little Trianon which she had built for her amusement; a lovely place it is. Here she tried to put aside state and the queen, and be a happy human being.

Here Marie Antoinette had a laiterie, a milk house, where she is said to have made butter and cheese. Here she caused to be built twelve cottages after the Swiss fashion, and filled them with poor families whom she tried to make happy.

We went into her dairy. It was fit for a queen to make butter in. In the centre of the beautifully shaped room was a large oblong, white marble table; on each side were places for admitting the water, and under them beautiful marble reservoirs in the shape of shells, and, underneath, large slabs of white marble. All is still, all so chaste, so beautiful, all as it once was, and she, the poor sufferer, what a story of blighted hope and bitter sorrow! See her the night before her trial, which she knew would end in death, mending her own old shoes, that she might appear more decently. The solemn realities of life had come to her unsought.

I left Paris and travelled through Belgium to Cologne. The day I arrived was some holiday; so there was grand mass in the cathedral, and such music!—the immense building was filled with the sound. The full organ was played, and some of the priest singers took part. Never did music so overcome me. The sublime piece,—as I thought of Beethoven's, surely of some great composer,—performed in this glorious old cathedral, was beyond all that I had ever dreamt of. It seems to me that I might think of it again in my dying hour with delight. I felt as if it created a new soul in me. Such gushes of sweet sound, such joyful fulness of melody, such tender breathings of hope, and love, and peace, and then such floods of harmony filling all those sublime arches, ascending to the far distant roof and running along through the dim aisles—O, one must hear, to have an idea of the effect of such music in such a place.

At Bonn we took the steamer; the day was perfect, and our pleasure was full. You must see one of these fine old castles on the top of the beautiful hills—you must yourself see the blue sky through its ruined arches—you must see the vines covering every inch of the mountain that is not solid rock, and witness the lovely effect of the gray rock mingling with the tender green—you must hear the wild legend of the owner of the castle in his day of power, and feel the passage of time and civilization that has changed his fastness of strength and rapine to a beautiful adornment of this scene of peace and plenty, its glories all humbled, its terrors all passed away, and its great and only value the part it plays in a picture, and the lesson it preaches, in its decay, of the progress of justice and humanity.