His Majesty had on several occasions, in former interviews, spoken of the great interest of the scenes of the early history of the French colonies of America, and French explorations and discoveries in those regions, and the subject was now resumed again, as one of peculiar interest, affording some of the finest scenes for the pencil of the artist, which he thought I was peculiarly qualified to illustrate. Additional anecdotes of his rambling life in America were very humorously related; and after the interview I returned to my painting-room, and continued happily engaged at my other pictures, with my familiar sweet smiles and caresses about me.
As a painter often works at his easel with a double thought, one upon the subject he is creating upon the canvas, and the other upon the world that is about him, I kept constantly at work, and pleasantly divided my extra thoughts upon the amusing little tricks that were being played around me, and the contemplation of scenes and events of my life gone by. I ran over its table of contents in this way: “My native valley of Wyoming—the days and recollections of my earliest boyhood in it—my ten years in the valley of the Oc-qua-go, where I held alternately the plough, my rifle, and fishing-tackle—my five years at the classics—my siege with Blackstone and Coke upon Littleton—my three years’ practice of the law in the Courts of Pennsylvania—the five years’ practice of my art of portrait-painting in Philadelphia—my eight years spent amongst the Indian tribes of the prairies and Rocky Mountains—and, since that, my eight years spent in the light of the refined and civilized world, where I have been admitted to Palaces, and into the society of Kings, Queens, and Princes—and now at my easel, in my studio, with my dear little babes around me, thanking Him who has blessed me with them, and courage and health, through all the vicissitudes of my chequered life, and now with strength to stand by and support and protect them.”
I thought also of the King, the wonderful man, with whose benignant and cheerful face I had been so often conversing; whose extraordinary life had been so much more chequered than my own; many of whose early days had been spent on the broad rivers and amongst the dense and gloomy forests of my own country; who, driven by political commotions from his native land, sought an asylum in the United States of America, and there, in the youthful energy of his native character, 52 years ago, crossed and re-crossed the Alleghany Mountains, descended the Ohio river 600 miles in his simple and rickety pirogue, and from the mouth of the Ohio to New Orleans, 1000 miles on the muddy waves of the Mississippi, amidst its dangerous snags and sand-bars, when the banks of those two mighty rivers were inhabited only by savages, whose humble wigwams he entered, and shared their hospitality; who afterwards visited the shores of Lake Erie, and also the Falls of Niagara, before the axe of sacrilegious man had shorn it of its wild and native beauties; who visited the little commencement of the town of Buffalo and the village of the Seneca Indians; who paddled his canoe 90 miles through the Seneca Lake to Ithaca, and from thence travelled by an Indian’s path, with his knapsack on his back, to the Susquehana river, which he descended in an Indian canoe to Wyoming, my native valley; and then on foot, with his knapsack again upon his back, crossed the Wilkesbarre and Pokono Mountains to Easton and Philadelphia; and who consequently thus knew, 52 years ago, more of the great western regions of America, and of the modes of its people, than one of a thousand Americans do at the present day.
I contemplated the character of this extraordinary man, reared in the luxuries of Palaces, thrown thus into the midst of the vast and dreary forests of the Mississippi, launching his fragile boat and staking his life upon its dangerous waves, and laying his wearied limbs upon its damp and foggy banks at night, amidst the howling wolves and rattlesnakes and mosquitoes; and after that, and all these adventures, called, in the commotions of his country, to mount the throne and wield the sceptre over one of the greatest and most enlightened nations of the earth. I beheld this great man in these strange vicissitudes of life, and France, whose helm he took in the midst of a tempest, now raised to the zenith of her national wealth and glory, after 17 years of uninterrupted peace and prosperity. I contemplated the present wealth and health of that nation and her institutions, her grand internal improvements, and cultivation of science and the arts; and I reflected also, with equal pleasure and surprise, on what I had seen with my own eyes, the greatness of soul of that monarch as he was taking the poor Indians of the forest by the hand in his Palace, and expressing to them the gratitude he never yet had lost sight of, that he bore them for the kindness with which their tribes everywhere treated him when he entered their wigwams, hungry, on the banks of the Mississippi and the great lakes in America. He had the frankness and truthfulness to tell them that “he loved them,” for the reasons he had given, and the kindness of heart to convince them of his sincerity in the way that carries the most satisfactory conviction to the mind of an Indian as well as it often does to that of a white man.
These contemplations were rapid and often repeated, and there were many more; and they never passed through my mind without compelling me to admire and revere the man whose energy of character and skill have enabled him, with like success, to steer his pirogue amidst the snags of the Mississippi, and at the helm of his nation, to guide her out of the tempest of a revolution, and onward, through a reign of peace and industry, to wealth and power, to which she never before has attained.
In the midst of such reflections I often strolled alone in a contemplative mood through the wilderness throngs of the Boulevards—the great central avenue and crossing-place—the aorta of all the circulating world—to gaze upon the endless throng of human beings sweeping by me, bent upon their peculiar avocations of business or of pleasure—of virtue or of vice; contrasting the glittering views about me with the quiet and humble scenes I had witnessed in various parts of my roaming life.
In the midst of this sweeping throng, knowing none and unknown, I found I could almost imagine myself in the desert wilderness, with as little to disturb the current of contemplative thoughts as if I were floating down the gliding current of the Missouri in my bark canoe, in silent contemplation of the rocks and forests on its banks.
In a different mood, also, I as often left my easel and mingled with the throng, with my little chattering children by my side, forgetting to think, and with eyes like theirs, scanned the thousands and tens of thousands of pretty things displayed in the shops, and whiled away in perfect bliss, as others do, an hour upon the pavements of the Boulevards.
The reader has learned, from various books, the features of this splendid scene, with all its life and din and glittering toys, and of Paris, with its endless mysteries, and beauties, and luxuries, and vices, which it is not the province of this work to describe; but from all that he has read he may not yet know how completely he may be lost sight of in the crowds of the Boulevards, and what positive retirement he may find and enjoy, unknowing and unknown, if he wishes to do so, in his apartments in the centre of Paris, where his neighbours are certainly the nearest and most numerous in the world.
In London and New York one often thinks it strange that he knows not his neighbours by the side of him; but in Paris, those on the sides are seldom taken into consideration as such, and so little do people know of, or care for, each other’s business, that few have any acquaintance with their neighbours above and below them.