Recollections of Europe

by James Fenimore Cooper

I was at a small dinner given by the Comte de Ségur, just before we went to Lagrange, and at which General Lafayette and M. Alexander de Lameth were also guests. The three had served in America, all of them having been colonels while little more than boys. In the course of the conversation, M. de Lameth jokingly observed that the Americans paid the greater deference to General Lafayette because he was a Marquis. For a long time there had been but one Marquis in England (Lord Rockingham), and the colonist appreciating all other Marquises by this standard, had at once thought they would do no less than make the Marquis de Lafayette a general. "As for myself, though I was the senior colonel, and (as I understood him to say) his superior in personal rank, I passed for nobody, because I was only a chevalier." This sally was laughed at, at the time, though there is something very unsettled in the use of those arbitrary personal distinctions on which the French formerly laid so much stress. I shall not attempt to explain them. I contented myself by whispering to M. de Lameth, that we certainly knew very little of such matters in America, but I questioned if we were ever so ignorant as to suppose there was only one Marquis in France. On the contrary, we are little too apt to fancy every Frenchman a Marquis.

There was formerly a regular parish church attached to the chateau, which is still standing. It is very small, and is within a short distance of the gateway. The congregation was composed solely of the inhabitants of the chateau, and the people of the farm. The church contains epitaphs and inscriptions in memory of three of the D'Aubussons whose hearts were buried here, viz. Leon, Comte de Lafeuillade, a lieutenant-general; Gabriel, Marquis de Montargis; and Paul D'Aubussons, a Knight of Malta; all of whom were killed young, in battle.

The General has about three hundred and fifty acres in cultivation, and more than two in wood, pasture, and meadow. The place is in very excellent condition, and seems to be well attended to. I have galloped all over it, on a little filly belonging to one of the young gentlemen, and have found beauty and utility as nicely blended, as is often to be met with, even in England, the true country of fermes ornées, though the name is imported.

The third day of our visit, we all drove three or four leagues across the country, to see an old ruin of a royal castle called Vivier. This name implies a pond, and sure enough we found the remains of the buildings in the midst of two or three pools of water. This has been a considerable house, the ruins being still quite extensive and rather pretty. It was originally the property of a great noble, but the kings of France were in possession of it, as early as the year 1300. Charles V. had a great affection for Vivier, and very materially increased its establishment. His son, Charles VI. who was at times deranged, was often confined here, and it was after his reign, and by means of the long wars that ravaged France, that the place came to be finally abandoned as a royal abode. Indeed, it is not easy to see why a king should ever have chosen this spot at all for his residence, unless it might be for the purpose of hunting, for even now it is in a retired, tame, and far from pleasant part of the country.

There are the ruins of a fine chapel and of two towers of considerable interest, beside extensive fragments of more vulgar buildings. One of these towers, being very high and very slender, is a striking object; but, from its form and position, it was one of those narrow wells that were attached to larger towers, and which contained nothing but the stairs. They are commonly to be seen in the ruins of edifices built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in France; and what is worthy of remark, in several instances, notwithstanding their slender forms, I have met with them standing, although their principals have nearly disappeared. I can only account for it, by supposing that their use and delicacy of form have required more than ordinary care in the construction.

The ruins of Vivier belong to M. Parquin, a distinguished lawyer of Paris. This gentleman has a small country-house near by, and General Lafayette took us all to see him. We found him at home, and met, quite as a matter of course, with a polite reception. M. Parquin gave us much curious information about the ruin, and took us to see some of the subterraneous passages that he has caused to be opened.

It is thought that some of these artificial caverns were prisons, and that others were intended merely as places for depositing stores. The one we entered was of beautiful masonry, vaulted with the nicest art, and seemed to communicate with the ruins although the outlet was in the open field, and some distance from the walls. It might have been intended for the double purpose of a store-house and an outlet; for it is rare to meet with a palace, or a castle, that has out, more or less, of these private means of entrance and retreat. The Tuileries is said to abound with them, and I have been shown the line of an under-ground passage, between that palace and one of the public hotels, which must be fully a quarter of a mile in length.

Dulaure gives an extract from a report of the state of the Chateau of Vivier, made about the year 1700, with a view to know whether its conditions were such as to entitle the place to preserve certain of its privileges. In this document, the castle is described as standing in the centre of a marsh, surrounded by forest, and as so remote from all civilization, as to be nearly forgotten. This, it will be remembered, is the account of a royal abode, that stands within thirty miles of Paris.

In the very heart of the French capital, are the remains of an extensive palace of one of the Roman Emperors, and yet it may be questioned if one in a thousand, of those who live within a mile of the spot, have the least idea of the origin of the buildings. I have inquired about it, in its immediate neighbourhood, and it was with considerable difficulty I could discover any one who even knew that there was such a ruin at all, in the street. The great number of similar objects, and the habit of seeing them daily, has some such effect on one, as the movement of a crowd in a public thoroughfare, where images pass so incessantly before the eye, as to leave no impression of their peculiarities. Were a solitary bison to scamper through the Rue St. Honoré, the worthy Parisians would transmit an account of his exploits to their children's children, while the wayfarer on the prairies takes little heed of the flight of a herd.

As we went to Lagrange, we stopped at a tavern, opposite to which was the iron gate of a small chateau. I asked the girl who was preparing our goûter, to whom the house belonged. "I am sorry I cannot tell you, sir," she answered; and then seeing suspicion in my face, she promptly added—"for, do you see, sir, I have only been here six weeks." Figure to yourself an American girl, set down opposite an iron gate, in the country, and how long do you imagine she would be ignorant of the owner's name? If the blood of those pious inquisitors, the puritans, were in her veins, she would know more, not only of the gate, but of its owner, his wife, his children, his means, his hopes, wishes, intentions and thoughts, than he ever knew himself, or would be likely to know. But if this prominent love of meddling must of necessity in its very nature lead to what is worse than contented ignorance, gossiping error, and a wrong estimate of our fellow-creatures, it has, at least, the advantage of keeping a people from falling asleep over their everyday facts. There is no question that the vulgar and low-bred propensity of conjecturing, meddling, combining, with their unavoidable companion, inventing, exist to a vice, among a portion of our people; but, on the other hand, it is extremely inconvenient when one is travelling, and wishes to know the points of the compass, as has happened to myself, if he should ask a full-grown woman whereabouts the sun rises in that neighbourhood, he is repulsed with the answer, that—"Monsieur ought to know that better than a poor garden-woman like me!"