January 14th.
To-day I visited some new buildings; among others the Bourse. It is surrounded with a stately colonnade, whose magnitude and total effect is imposing; but the long narrow-arched windows behind the pillars are in very bad taste. Modern necessities harmonize ill with ancient architecture. The interior is grand, and the illusion produced by the painting on the roof complete: you would swear they were bas-reliefs,—and very bad ones.
I remarked to-day for the first time how much the Boulevards are improved by the removal of several houses: the Portes St. Martin and St Dénis are seen to much greater advantage than before. Louis the Fourteenth deserves these monuments; for in truth, all that is grand and beautiful in Paris may be ascribed to him or to Napoleon. The rows of trees have been carefully preserved; and not, as on the Dönhofsplatz in Berlin, large trees cut down and little miserable sticks planted in their stead. The numerous ‘Dames blanches’ and Omnibuses have a most singular appearance. These are carriages containing twenty or thirty persons: they traverse the Boulevards incessantly, and convey the weary foot-passenger at a very moderate price. These ponderous machines are drawn by three unfortunate horses. In the present slippery state of the pavement I have several times seen all three fall together. It is said that England is the hell of horses: if, however, the metempsychosis should be realized, I beg leave to be an English horse rather than a French one. It rouses one’s indignation to see how these unhappy animals are often treated, and it were to be wished that the police would here, as in England, take them under its protection. I remember once to have seen a poor hackney-coach horse maltreated by a coachman in London. “Come with me,” said the Englishman with whom I was walking; “you shall soon see that fellow punished.” He very coolly called the man and ordered him to drive to the nearest police office. He alighted, and accused the coachman of having wantonly maltreated and tortured his horse. I was called on to give evidence to the same effect; and the fellow was sentenced to pay a considerable fine; after which we made him drive us back:—you may imagine his good humour.
Omnibuses are to be found in other parts of the city, and the longest ‘course’ costs only a few sous.—I know few things more amusing than to ride about in them in an evening, without any definite aim, and only for the sake of the rich caricatures one meets with, and the odd conversations one hears. I was often tempted to believe that I was at the Variétés; and I recognised the originals of many of Brunets and Odry’s faithful portraits. You know how much I like to wander about the world thus, an observer of men and manners; especially of the middle classes, among whom alone any characteristic peculiarities are now-a-days to be found, and who are also the happiest,—for the medal is completely reversed. The middle classes, down to the artisan, are now the really privileged, by the character of the times and of public opinion. The higher classes find themselves, with their privileges and pretensions, condemned to a state of incessant opposition and humiliation. If their claims be adequately supported by wealth, their condition is tolerable; though even then, from ostentation,—the hereditary vice of those among the rich who are not slaves to avarice,—their money procures them far less substantial enjoyment than it does to those a step or two below them. If their rank is not upheld by property, they are of all classes in society,—except criminals and those who suffer from actual hunger,—the most pitiable.
Every man ought therefore maturely to estimate his position in the world, and to sacrifice nothing to vanity or ambition; for no epoch of the world was ever less fertile in rewards for such deference to the bad and frivolous part of public opinion. I do not mean, of course, the ambition of true merit, which is rewarded by its own results, and can be adequately rewarded by them alone. We nobles are now cheaply instructed in wise forbearance and practical philosophy of every kind;—and Heaven be thanked!
With such thoughts I arrived in a ‘Dame blanche’ at Franconi’s theatre, to which a blind man might find his way by the scent. The performances are certainly in odiously bad taste, and a public which had no better amusements must end by becoming but one degree above the animals they look at. I speak of the senseless dramatic pieces acted here;—the mere feats of activity and skill are often very interesting. I was particularly delighted with the slack rope-dancer called Il Diavolo, who outdoes all his competitors as completely as Vestris surpasses his. A finer form, greater agility and steadiness and more finished grace, are hardly conceivable. He is the flying Mercury descended again on earth in human shape; the air appears his natural element, and the rope a mere superfluity, with which he enwreathes himself as with a garland. You see him at an enormous height lie along perfectly at his ease when the rope is in full swing; then float close to the boxes with the classic grace of an antique; then, with his head hanging down and his legs upwards, execute an ‘entrechat’ in the clouds of the stage-heaven. You may suppose that he is perfect master of all the ordinary tours de force of his art. He really deserves his name; ‘Il Diavolo non può far’ meglio.’
Jan. 14th.
As appendix to my yesterday’s letter, I bought you a ‘Dame blanche’ filled with bonbons; and, as a present for Mademoiselle H—— next Christmas, a bronze pendule with a running fountain at its foot, and a real working telegraph on the top. Tell her she may use the latter to keep up conversations which none but the initiated can understand. Paris is inexhaustible in such knicknacks: they are generally destined for foreigners; the French seldom buy them, and think them, justly enough, ‘de mauvais goût.’
To have done with theatres I visited three this evening. First I saw two acts of the new and most miserable tragedy, Isabelle de Bavière, at the Théatre Français. My previous impressions were confirmed; and not only were the performers (with the exception of Joanny, who acted the part of Charles the Sixth pretty well) mediocrity itself, but the costumes, scenery, and all the appointments were below those of the smallest theatre on the Boulevards. The populace of Paris was represented by seven men and two women; the ‘Pairs de France’ by three or four wretched sticks, literally in rags, with gold paper crowns on their heads, like those in a puppet-show. The house was empty, and the cold insufferable. I drove as quickly as I could to the ‘Ambigu Comique,’ where I found a pretty new house with very fresh decorations. As interlude, a sort of ballet was performed, which contained not a bad parody on the German Landwehr, and at any rate was not tiresome. I could not help wondering, however, that the French do not feel about the Landwehr and the Prussian horns, as the Burgundians did about the Alp horns of the Swiss, whose tones they were not particularly fond of recalling; for, as the Chronicle says, ‘à Granson les avoient trop ouis.’
My evening closed with the Italian Opera. Here you find the most select audience; it is the fashionable house. The theatre is prettily decorated, the lighting brilliant, and the singing exceeds expectation. Still it is curious, that even with a company composed entirely of Italians the singing is never the same,—there is never that complete and inimitable whole, which you find in Italy: their fire seems chilled in these colder regions,—their humour dried up; they know that they shall be applauded, but that they no longer form one family with the audience; the buffo, as well as the first tragic singer, feels that he is but half understood, and, even musically speaking, but half felt. In Italy the Opera is nature, necessity; in Germany, England, and France, an enjoyment of art, or a way of killing time.