The internal transportation of France, where the lines of the rivers are not followed, is carried on, almost exclusively, in enormous carts, drawn by six and even eight heavy horses, harnessed in a line. The burthen is often as large as a load of hay, not quite so high, perhaps, but generally longer, care being had to preserve the balance in such a manner as to leave no great weight on the shaft horse. These teams are managed with great dexterity, and I have often stopped and witnessed, with admiration, the entrance of one of them into a yard, as it passed from a crowded street probably not more than thirty feet wide. But the evolutions of the diligence, guided as it chiefly is by the whip, and moving on a trot, are really nice affairs. I came from La Grange, some time since, in one, and I thought that we should dash everything to pieces in the streets, and yet nothing was injured. At the close of the journey, our team of five horses, two on the pole and three on the lead, wheeled, without breaking its trot, into a street that was barely wide enough to receive the huge vehicle, and this too without human direction, the driver being much too drunk to be of any service. These diligences are uncouth objects to the eye; but, for the inside passengers, they are much more comfortable, so far as my experience extends than either the American stage or the English coach.
The necessity of passing the barrière two or three times a day, has also made me acquainted with the great amount of drunkenness that prevails in Paris. Wine can be had outside of the walls, for about half the price which is paid for it within the town, as it escapes the octroi, or city duty. The people resort to these places for indulgence, and there is quite as much low blackguardism and guzzling here, as is to be met with in any sea-port I know.
Provisions of all sorts, too, are cheaper without the gates, for the same reason; and the lower classes resort to them to celebrate their weddings, and on other eating and drinking occasions. "Ici on fait festins et noces,"[23] is a common sign, no barrier being without more or less of these houses. The guinguettes are low gardens, answering to the English tea-gardens of the humblest class, with a difference in the drinkables and other fare. The base of Montmartre is crowded with them.
[Footnote 23: Weddings and merry-makings are kept here.]
One sometimes meets with an unpleasant adventure among these exhilarated gentry; for, though I think a low Frenchman is usually better natured when a little grisé than when perfectly sober, this is not always the case. Quite lately I had an affair that might have terminated seriously, but for our good luck. It is usual to have two sets of reins to the cabriolets, the horses being very spirited, and the danger from accidents in streets so narrow and crowded being great. I had dined in town, and was coming out about nine o'clock. The horse was walking up the ascent to the Barrière de Clichy, when I observed, by the shadow cast from a bright moon, that there was a man seated on the cabriolet, behind. Charles was driving, and I ordered him to tell the man to get off. Finding words of no effect, Charles gave him a slight tap with his whip. The fellow instantly sprang forward, seized the horse by the reins, and attempted to drag him to one side of the road. Failing in this, he fled up the street. Charles now called out that he had cut the reins. I seized the other pair and brought the horse up, and, as soon as he was under command, we pursued our assailant at a gallop. He was soon out of breath, and we captured him. As I felt very indignant at the supposed outrage, which might have cost, not us only, but others, their lives, I gave him in charge to two gendarmes at the gate, with my address, promising to call at the police office in the morning.
Accordingly, next day I presented myself, and was surprised to find that the man had been liberated. I had discovered, in the interval, that the leather had broken, and had not been cut, which materially altered the animus of the offence, and I had come with an intention to ask for the release of the culprit, believing it merely a sally of temper, which a night's imprisonment sufficiently punished; but the man being charged with cutting the rein, I thought the magistrate had greatly forgotten himself in discharging him before I appeared. Indeed I made no scruple in telling him so. We had some warm words, and parted. I make no doubt I was mistaken for an Englishman, and that the old national antipathy was at work against me.
I was a good deal surprised at the termination of this, my first essay in French criminal justice. So many eulogiums have been passed on the police, that I was not prepared to find this indifference to an offence like that of wantonly cutting the reins of a spirited cabriolet horse, in the streets of Paris; for such was the charge on which the man stood committed. I mentioned the affair to a friend, and he said that the police was good only for political offences, and that the government rather leaned to the side of the rabble, in order to find support with them, in the event of any serious movement. This, you will remember, was the opinion of a Frenchman, and not mine; for I only relate the facts (one conjecture excepted), and to do justice to all parties, it is proper to add that my friend is warmly opposed to the present régime.
I have uniformly found the gendarmes civil, and even obliging; and I have seen them show great forbearance on various occasions. As to the marvellous stories we have heard of the police of Paris, I suspect they have been gotten up for effect, such things being constantly practised here. One needs be behind the curtain, in a great many things, to get a just idea of the true state of the world. A laughable instance has just occurred, within my knowledge, of a story that has been got up for effect. The town was quite horrified lately, with an account, in the journals, of a careless nurse permitting a child to fall into the fossé of the great bears, in the Jardin des Plantes, and of the bears eating up the dear little thing, to the smallest fragment, before succour could be obtained. Happening to be at the garden soon after, in the company of one connected with the establishment, I inquired into the circumstances, and was told that the nurses were very careless with the children, and that the story was published in order that the bears should not eat up any child hereafter, rather than because they had eaten up a child heretofore!
LETTER XVIII.
Personal Intercourse.—Parisian Society and Hospitality.—Influence of
Money.—Fiacres.—M. de Lameth.—Strife of Courtesy.—Standard of
Delicacy.—French Dinners.—Mode of Visiting.—The Chancellor of
France.—The Marquis de Marbois.—Political Côteries.—Paris Lodgings.
—A French Party.—An English Party.—A splendid Ball.—Effects of good
Breeding.—Characteristic Traits.—Influence of a Court.