Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)

by Frances Milton Trollope

I believe the French themselves generally consider us as having less claim to the reputation of musical amateurship than themselves; but, with much respect for their judgment on such subjects, I differ from them wholly in this. When has France ever shown, either in her capital or out of it, such a glorious burst of musical enthusiasm as produced the festivals of Westminster Abbey and of York?

It was not for the sake of encouraging an English school of music, certainly, that these extraordinary efforts were made. They were not native strains which rang along the vaulted roofs; but it was English taste, and English feeling, which recently, as well as in days of yore, conceived and executed a scheme of harmony more perfect and sublime than I can remember to have heard of elsewhere.

I doubt, too, if in any country a musical institution can be pointed out in purer taste than that of our ancient music concert. The style and manner of this are wholly national, though the compositions performed there are but partially so; and I think no one who truly and deeply loves the science but must feel that there is a character in it which, considering the estimation in which it has for so many years been held, may fairly redeem the whole nation from any deficiency in musical taste.

There is one branch of the "gay science," if I may so call it, which I always expect to find in France, but respecting which I have hitherto been always disappointed: this is in the humble class of itinerant musicians. In Germany they abound; and it not seldom happens that their strains arrest the feet and enchant the ear of the most fastidious. But whenever, in France, I have encountered an ambulant troubadour, I confess I have felt no inclination to linger on my way to listen to him. I do not, however, mean to claim much honour for ourselves on the score of our travelling minstrels. If we fail to pause in listening to those of France, we seldom fail to run whenever our ears are overtaken by our own. Yet still we give strong proof of our love of music, in the more than ordinary strains which may be occasionally heard before every coffee-house in London, when the noise and racket of the morning has given place to the hours of enjoyment. I have heard that the bands of wind instruments which nightly parade through the streets of London receive donations which, taken on an average throughout the year, would be sufficient to support a theatre. This can only proceed from a genuine propensity to being "moved by concord of sweet sounds;" for no fashion, as is the case at our costly operas, leads to it. On the contrary, it is most decidedly mauvais ton to be caught listening to this unexclusive harmony; yet it is encouraged in a degree that clearly indicates the popular feeling.

Have I then proved to your satisfaction, as completely as I undoubtedly have to my own, that if without a national music, at least we are not without a national taste for it?

LETTER LVI.

The Abbé Deguerry.—His eloquence.—Excursion across the water.—Library of Ste. Geneviève.—Copy-book of the Dauphin.—St. Etienne du Mont.—Pantheon.

The finest sermon I have heard since I have been in Paris—and, I am almost inclined to think, the finest I ever heard anywhere—was preached yesterday by the Abbé Deguerry at St. Roch. It was a discourse calculated to benefit all Christian souls of every sect and denomination whatever—had no shade of doctrinal allusion in it of any kind, and was just such a sermon as one could wish every soi-disant infidel might be forced to listen to while the eyes of a Christian congregation were fixed upon him. It would do one good to see such a being cower and shrink, in the midst of his impotent and petulant arrogance, to feel how a "plain word could put him down."

The Abbé Deguerry is a young man, apparently under thirty; but nature seems to have put him at once in possession of a talent which generally requires long years to bring to perfection. He is eloquent in the very best manner; for it is an eloquence intended rather to benefit the hearer than to do honour to the mere human talent of the orator. Beautifully as his periods flowed, I felt certain, as I listened to him, that their harmonious rhythm was the result of no study, but purely the effect, unconsciously displayed, of a fine ear and an almost unbounded command of language. He had studied his matter,—he had studied and deeply weighed his arguments; but, for his style, it was the free gift of Heaven.