Paris, since the time to which my account of it refers, has been improved and increased. It is the lot of all old cities in a state of great prosperity to have a new town built near them: of this London, Edinburgh, Marseilles, Lyons, Bath, and Liverpool are examples. "Mend you?" said the chairman to Mr. Pope, in reply to his accustomed exclamation,—"God mend me," "Mend you? it would not be half the trouble to make another." Old Paris is, however, worth mending: the case is by no means so desperate as that of a deformed man like Pope. They have begun to make trottoirs. When I was in Paris, the trottoirs being paved like the middle of the street, persons on foot had no inducement to walk on them in preference to the middle of the street; people exposed merchandises there, roasted coffee, blacked shoes, or played at cards: the cabriolets ran along them where there was a vacant space, sometimes where there was no vacant space at all. When the trottoirs shall be such as carriages cannot drive on, the foot passengers will occupy them, and the encumbrances, above-mentioned, will be removed of course.
I went up to a man who was cleaning a lantern in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, and made him understand that I wished to be instructed in what manner the popular sentence of condemnation "à la lanterne" was executed in the beginning of the revolution. I had remarked, that he was old enough to have remembered such scenes; when near him, I saw a face that testified that he had in all probability been an agent in them: he told me drily, "On ôte la lanterne, et on monte l'homme à sa place."[23] He spoke in the present tense, be it observed: the recollection of such achievements was fresh in his mind, and he showed no symptom that it was unpleasant to him. These lanterns have a cumbrous and heavy appearance in the day time; and hanging over the middle of the street, they stop all passing while they are cleaned or lighted. They have begun to light the streets of Paris with gas: the pipes, I am informed, are not air-tight; but, once undertaken, this enterprise will no doubt be soon brought to perfection, as well as others already in contemplation.
Paris, in the old parts of it, is, as the French express it, mal percée. The way to remedy this evil is obvious. I will venture to suggest one improvement,—that the Rue St. Honoré be continued, no matter whether in a straight or curved line, through the streets of St. Denis and St. Martin, by piercing these two streets, to the line of streets which lead to the Place de l'Elephant and the Rue du Fauxbourg St. Antoine.
I will also take the liberty of hinting that a populous city can well afford to keep its streets clean: the streets themselves pay this expense; and the greater the quantity of dirt, the better they defray it. I have sometimes passed into the most thickly-inhabited parts of the city of London, and have been surprised to observe the streets to be cleaner than in Mary-la-bonne and at the west end of the town, where the population is less condensed. The reason is plain: it oftener becomes worth while to carry away the material of the dung-heap from the streets of the city, than from the quarter where they are wider in proportion to the population. But every parish of the English capital receives a sum towards its poor-rate, in exchange for the privilege of cleaning its streets. At Paris nothing is wanting but a réglement de police.
Paris is extending itself, towards the west and the north especially: in time, the Boulevard without the walls may become a second interior Boulevard. While I doubted whether I should continue in Paris, or go to live in a provincial town, I looked at several hotels, houses with a porte cochére,[24] in the Fauxbourg St. Germain: the rent demanded for these was three or four thousand francs: at present they are let for ten thousand francs a year. The speculators in building, of course, find their profit in what they undertake so largely.
I congratulated those who had visited Paris in 1814. Many highly estimable works of art of the French school begin however now to supply the place of those taken away by their old owners. English travellers in France, and those with whom they have to do, understand each other better than at the time when I began my journey; and more accommodations to the English taste are provided. The rivalry between France and England will subsist as long as the geographical position of the two countries: but no people are more willing than the French, in ordinary cases, and when not stimulated by strong incitements, to distinguish between the nation and the individual. Thus far we may all be cosmopolites; though nations be divided, let men be united. Indeed, I observed a sensible difference in the behaviour of my neighbours at Avignon, from the day which Louis XVIII. wisely declared to be the happiest of his life,—when no banner but that of France floated within its territory.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Look at that little god-dem who is drawing.
[21] What is your price, Sir?
[22] They do not say, "god-dem" any longer; they say "speculation."