LETTER V.
The Tuileries—The Gardens—The Statues—The Cabinets de Lecture—The King’s Band—Regulations of the Gardens—Yankee modesty—The English Parks—Proper estimate of riches—Policy of cultivating a taste for innocent pleasures—Advantages of gardens—Should be made ornamental—Cause of the French Revolution—Mr. Burke’s notion of the English Parks—Climate of France.
Paris, July 24th, 1835.
I am going now to escort you to the Tuileries, for which you must scramble through a few filthy lanes a quarter of a mile towards the south-west. Who would live in this rank old Paris if it were not for its gardens? This garden is in the midst of the city, and contains near a hundred acres of ground. It has the Seine on the south side; the Palace of the Tuileries on the east; and on the north, the beautiful houses of the Rue Rivoli, the street intervening; and on the west, the Place Louis XV. between it and the Champs Elysées. The whole is enclosed with an iron railing tipped with gold near the Palace, and terraces, having a double row of tile trees are raised along the north and south sides. A beautiful parterre is spread out in front of the Palace, of oranges, red-rosed laurels, and other shrubs, with a reservoir, jets d’eaux, vases, and statues. The chief walks also have orange-trees on both margins during the summer, and one of these, as wide as Chestnut-street, runs from the centre pavilion of the palace through the middle of the garden, and continuing up through the Champs Elysées to the Barrière de l’Etoile, terminates in a full view of the great triumphal arch of Napoleon. In the interior are plots of woodland, and chairs, upon which, at two sous the sitting, you may repose or read in the shade, and little cabinets, which offer you for a sou your choice of the newspapers. The area is of hard earth and gravel, relieved here and there by enclosures of verdure; and on the west end, an octagonal lake is inhabited by swans, and fishes, and river gods, and a fountain is jetting its silvery streams in the air. This is the garden of the Tuileries. The whole surface is sprinkled with heathen mythology. Hercules strangles the Hydra, Theseus deals blows to the Minotaur, Prometheus sits sullen on his rock, and Antinous is mad to see his own gardens outdone, and the Pius Æneas, little Jule by the hand, bears off his aged parent upon his shoulders. Venus, too, looks beautiful on the back of a tortoise, and Ceres is beautiful, her head coiffed in the latest fashion with sheaves of wheat.
On the side next the palace, you will see a knife-grinder, whom everybody admires, and statues of ancient heroes and statesmen majestic on their pedestals,—Pericles, Cincinnatus, Scipio, Cæsar, and Spartacus. You may imagine what life these images, set out alone and in groups through the garden, give to the perspective. The whole scene is as beautiful as my description of it is detestable. The French are justly proud of this garden, and are every year increasing the quantity of its statuary: it will become at length one of the splendid galleries of the capital; its silent lessons improving the public taste in the arts and elegances of life: how much better than the lessons of the schools! I like to see, in spite of English authority, a good deal of art in a city garden; a rude and uncivilized field seems to me no more appropriate there than a savage and unpolished community.
In this garden, there is no drinking, no smoking, no long faces waiting the preliminary soups, or turning up of noses over the relics of a departed dinner. It is a spot sacred to the elegant and intellectual enjoyments. The great walks are filled every fine evening with a full stream of fashionable company, and that near the Rue Rivoli has always a hedge of ladies extending along each margin, the third of a mile. In another section, a thousand or two of children are engaged in their infantine sports, and their army of nurses are gathering also a share of the health and amusements. Here are the most graceful little mothers, and children, and nurses, in the world; I will send you over one of each, some of these days, for a pattern.
How delightful to walk of an early morning amidst this silent congregation of statues of eminent men, of heroes, and mythological deities. I often rise with the first dawn for the sole luxury of this enjoyment. Very early, the Cabinet de Lecture opens its treasures to the anxious politicians, who sit retired here and there through the shady elms. One, with a doctrinal air, spreads open the “Journal des Débats;” reads, ruminates, ponders, and now and then writes down an idea on his tablets; another pours out his whole spirit through his tangled hair and grisly mustachios, devouring the “National;” he rises sometimes, clenches his two fists, and sits down again; and a third, in a neat and venerable garb, a snuff-coloured coat and tie-wig, his handkerchief and snuff-box at his side (from the Faubourg St. Germain), lays deliberately upon his lap the “Quotidienne.” And here and there you will see a diligent school boy preparing his college recitations; perusing his Ovid at the side of a Daphne and Apollo, or by a group of Dryades skulking behind an oak, or of Naiades plunging into a fountain.
You will see one individual upon the southern terrace, his hands clasped, walking lonely, or standing still, his eyes stretched towards the west, till a tear steals down his cheeks. He is a stranger, and a thousand leagues of ocean yawn between him and his native country! I love this terrace of all things; it has a look towards home. When I receive your letters, I come here to read them; and when a pretty woman honours me with her company, why we come hither together, and in this shady bower, I tell her of our squaw wives and the little pappooses, until the sun fades away in the west.
All day long, this elegant saloon has its society, and a lady can walk in it, unaccompanied, when and whither she pleases. Every day is fashionable, but some more than others, and from four till six are the fashionable hours. The crowd by degrees thickens, the several groups are formed, and towards four the panorama is complete. This is the time that one stands gaping at the long file of ladies upon each side of the wide walk, or that one strolls up and down eyeing them along the intervening avenue, or airs or fans one’s idle minutes upon the terrace overlooking this scene of enchantment. I never venture in here, without saying that part of the Lord’s prayer about temptation, which I used to leave out in the Coal Region.
At length, the day is subdued, and the long glimmering twilight, peculiar to these northern climates, wanes away gently into night. Then the king’s band strikes up its concert from the front of the palace, and then you will see the gravelled walk leading to the steps of the royal residence, and the transversal alley, filled with ten thousand listeners, bound in the spell of Rossini and Mozart for an hour; an hour, too, in which the air has a more balmy fragrance, and the music a more delicious harmony.