Paris, Thursday, June 12, 1851.
A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and "Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops, "restaurants," "cafés," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him: he reads his newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c. which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18¾ cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a man of wealth, or one who can support her in luxury and idleness, is the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly designated, involve the idea of demoralization—no man would apply them to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris—that is, they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe. Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this, and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself.
SIGHTS OF PARIS.
The first object of interest I saw in Paris was the Column of Napoleon in the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn of the morning of my arrival. This gigantic Column, as is well known, was formed of cannon taken by the Great Captain in the several victories which irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was Emperor of France and virtually of the Continent. His Statue crowns the pyramid; it was pulled down while the Allied Armies occupied Paris, and a resolute attempt was made to prostrate the Column also, but it was too firmly rooted. The Statue was not replaced till after the Revolution of 1830. The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the stately Column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should not regard it very highly.
Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting, is the Obelisk of Luxor, which for thousands of years had overshadowed the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late Pacha of Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near the Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which impressed me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with mysterious inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four thousand years, yet seem as fresh and clear as though chiseled but yesterday. The removal entire of this bulk of many thousand tuns from Egypt to Paris is one of the most marvelous achievements of human genius, and Paris has for me no single attraction to match the Obelisk of Luxor.
The Tuileries strikes me as an irregular mass of buildings with little pretensions to Architectural beauty or effect. It has great capacity, and nothing more. The Louvre is much finer, yet still not remarkable, but its wealth of Paintings by the Great Masters of all time surprised as well as delighted me. I never saw anything at all comparable to it. But of this another time.
THE FRENCH OPERA.
Paris, Monday, June 9, 1851.
Having the evening on my hands, I have spent a good share of it at the Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National institution, but a National trait, and as such I visited it.
The house is very spacious, admirably planned, superbly fitted up, and every way adapted to its purpose; the charges moderate; the audience large and well dressed; the officers and attendants up to their business, and everything orderly and quiet. The play was Scribe's "L'Enfant Prodigue" (The Prodigal Son), which in England they soften into "Azael the Prodigal," but here no such euphemism is requisite, and indeed I doubt that half who witness it suspect that the idea is taken from the Scriptures. The idea, however, is all that is so borrowed. There were no great singers included in the cast for this evening, not even Alboni who remains here, while most of her compeers are in London. I am a poor judge, but I should say the music is not remarkable.