I had a very warm letter of recommendation to Monsieur Jaumard from Professor Carl Ritter, of Berlin. Monsieur Jaumard received me in the kindest manner, and invited me to be present at the sitting. I was introduced by the celebrated geographer, Monsieur Malte-Brun. A place was assigned to me at some distance from the table. At the commencement of the sitting the president made a speech in which he introduced me to the society, said a few words respecting my travels, and concluded by proposing that I should be received as an honorary member. The assembled members held up their hands in assent, and my admission was carried without a dissentient voice.
I was as much gratified as astonished at this distinction, which I had not anticipated in the least; my pleasure was all the greater from the fact that my old tutor, who had taught me history and geography, officiated as corresponding member of this same society. The president rose, and led me from my place to the table, at which I now took my place as a member, amid the cordial congratulations of the whole company.
I immediately consulted the gentlemen present with respect to my intention of undertaking a voyage to Madagascar: they were unanimous in thinking the plan quite impracticable under existing circumstances. During my stay in Holland I had already gleaned from newspaper reports that the French government intended sending a squadron to Madagascar, and that a serious war was considered imminent. I now learned some farther particulars. The French have for centuries possessed a little island, called St. Maria, on the coast of Madagascar. In the time of the late king Radama they succeeded in obtaining a footing in Madagascar itself by acquiring a district in the Bay of Vanatobé. In this district there is a rich depôt for coals; and the French employ 180 colored workmen, Indians, negroes, etc., from the Mauritius, under the superintendence of three white men. On the accession of Queen Ranavola, after the death of Radama, the new sovereign ordered these people to evacuate the district. They refused to obey the mandate, as they considered the place to be the property of the French government. Hereupon the queen sent 2000 soldiers, who fell upon the community, killed two white men and a hundred negroes, and dragged away the rest and sold them as slaves. The French government naturally demanded satisfaction, though there was little chance of obtaining justice without resorting to violent measures; and thus every one was prepared, as I have said, for the breaking out of a serious war.
Wherever I made inquiries, these reports were confirmed; and I consequently found myself compelled, if not to give up the plan of my journey, at all events to modify it. As a matter of precaution, I took with me a letter of recommendation from the French Admiralty to the commanders of their vessels on foreign stations. I was asked to wait for the return of the emperor, who had gone to some bathing-place, that I might be introduced to him; but that would have kept me too long; and I quitted Paris with my business in a very unfinished state.
The few days which I spent in this great city I utilized as much as possible in getting at least a glance at its many objects of interest. Of course I should not dream of giving an accurate description of what I saw. The rage for traveling is so universal at the present day, and the facilities for getting over hundreds of miles of ground, at least in Europe, in a few days’ time, are so great, that a large majority of my readers have probably been to Paris themselves; and those who have not seen the great city are sure to know, from the descriptions of other travelers, as much as I could tell them about it. I will, therefore, only describe in a very few words the impressions I carried away with me.
London and Paris differ as widely from one another as the English character from the French. In both cities there is plenty of life and bustle; but one can see at the first glance that in Paris it is not all, as in London, a business life. One does not see those rigid self-contained figures, wending their way with restless steps, careless of all that is passing around them, and seeming to consider every wasted minute as an irreparable loss. In Paris, lounging seems the order of the day, and even the bustling man of business finds time to greet his friends and exchange a few words with them, and to pause, moreover, for a few minutes in front of this or that shop, and admire the wares displayed with such really wonderful taste in the window.
The houses themselves don’t look so grave as the London domiciles. They are of large size (for in some more than thirty families live), and are not nearly so much blackened by coal-smoke as the London houses are. The doors are all open, and afford a view into neat court-yards, which are sometimes adorned with flowers—decidedly a more agreeable aspect than the tightly-closed doors of London, which seem to give the houses an uninhabited look.
In the evening the difference is most perceptible, for then the characteristic restlessness and love of pleasure inherent in the French display themselves in full force. All the streets, the public squares, the places of amusement, are equally crowded; and the Englishman, accustomed to spend his evenings in the family circle, by the fireside, for seven or eight months in the year, and in the garden of his cottage during the remaining four or five, might fancy, on first seeing the pressure and crush in the streets of Paris, that some public festival was being celebrated.
The centres of all this life are the Boulevards; and very bright and fairy-like is the scene there, on a fine summer evening, with their magnificent cafés standing wide open, and splendid shops, bright as day with the glare of thousands of gas-lamps, and with their motley crowd of carriages in the roads and of pedestrians, either wandering to and fro on the broad pavements, or sitting at neat little tables in front of the coffee-houses.
The Champs Elysées are no less attractive, though they scarcely realize their name of fields; for, except in the short space between the Place de la Concorde and the Rondpoint, trees and grass-plots have begun to vanish rather rapidly, to be replaced by handsome houses and hotels. The view in the Champs Elysées is closed by one of the finest monuments of modern architecture—the Arc de l’Etoile—a colossal triumphal arch, built by Napoleon the Great, in the style of the Roman gate of Septimius Severus. The chief victories of the great conqueror are sculptured with exquisite skill on this monument.