I went to see that famous piece of venerable antiquity, the Cathedral. You have its picture in all the “Penny Magazines.” Our guide, who knows it by heart, told us his tale as follows:—“Gentlemen, this is the tomb of Rollo, first duke of Normandy; no horse could carry him; had to walk on foot; died 917. Gentlemen, this is William Longsword, his son and successor; was on the point of taking the frock to be a monk, but was basely assassinated by Arnaud, Count of Flanders.” (And the devil a monk was he.) “Gentlemen, this is Pierre de Breze, Grand Seneschal of Anjou and Normandy; fell in the battle of Montilherry, 1467; and this is John, Duke of Bedford, Viceroy of Normandy, who died in 1438. In this tomb, gentlemen (come a little nearer)—in this tomb is deposited the heart of Richard Cœur de Lion! (a tremor ran through our bones.) His heart is in this tomb, his brains are in Poictiers, and the other parts of him in Kent, in Great Britain. The man who took out his brains died of it. This is the last man Richard killed, and he had killed more than one.” Here our Cicerone ran down, and his features, just now so animated, were suddenly collapsed, the natural effect of inspiration.
We looked then at the great bell, and the organs, and the statues of saints, most of them mutilated in the Revolution. One, without a nose, they told us was St. Dunstan; the Devil and the Jacobins having retaliated. There is a headless trunk, too, they might very well pass for St. Denis. One of the remarkable features of this church is the painting on glass, representing scriptural scenes, of which the colours seem to have grown more vivid by time, though time has destroyed the secret of their composition. The architecture is Gothic, and the grandest specimen of this order in France. Its immense fluted columns, near a hundred feet high and ten or twelve in diameter—its images of Christ and the Virgin, and the pictures of the apostles and saints, are both sublime and beautiful. The lightning has thought it worthy of a visit, and has overturned one of its huge towers.
Poor Joan of Arc! Here is her monument in the midst of the market square, where she was burnt. It is a pedestal of twenty feet, surmounted by her statue. Alongside of this trophy of French and English barbarism, instead of blushing for shame, they shew you, for sixpence, the room in which she was imprisoned. It is damp, and has only glimmerings of light, and is altogether a horrid remnant of antiquity. Farewell to Rouen.
LETTER II.
Paris—Street Cries—St. Roch—The Boulevards—Parisian Lodgings—Manner of Living—The Grand Opera—Taglioni—The Public Gardens—The Guinguettes—Dancing, the characteristic amusement of the French—Sunday Dances—Dancing defended, from classical authority.
Paris, July 4th, 1835.
When one has travelled all night in a French diligence in the dog-days, and is set down next morning in the “Place Notre Dame des Victoires,” three thousand miles from one’s home—oh dear! one has much less pleasure in the aspect of the great city than one expected. Voilà Paris! said the “conducteur,” announcing our approach; each one half opening his eyes, and then closing them suddenly. Four gentlemen and two ladies in a diligence, bobbing their heads at each other about six of the morning; the hour in which sleep creeps so agreeably upon one’s senses, is an interesting spectacle. It was cruel to be interrupted in so tender an interview. Voilà Paris! was echoed a second time, so we awoke and looked out, except a lady, who reposed gently upon my left shoulder, who had seen Paris a thousand times, and had never slept with four gentlemen perhaps in her life. She lay still, I attentive not to awake her, until the ill-omened raven croaked a third time, Paris! A French gentleman now did the honours of the city to us strangers. “That, sir, is the ‘Invalids;’ see how the morning rays glitter from its gilded dome. And this, which peers so proudly over the Barrière de l’Etoile, is the grand Triumphal Arch of Napoleon;” and he read over the trophies—Marengo! Jena! Austerlitz! praised the sculpture and bas reliefs, and burst out into a great many tropes about French victories. We now passed down through the Champs Elysees, rolled along the beautiful Rue Rivoli, and arrived fast asleep upon the Place Notre Dame des Victoires. I advise you to sleep at St. Germains, where the steamboat will leave you, and come to Paris next morning with the imagination fresh for the enjoyment. To be wide awake improves wonderfully one’s capacity for admiration.
I stood and looked about, and I felt the spirit of manhood die away within me; and every other spirit, even curiosity. I would rather have seen one of your haycocks than the queen. But, fortunately, here is no time for reflection. You are immediately surrounded by a score of individuals, who greet you with hats in their hands and with great officiousness, offering you all at once their services. Some are exceedingly anxious you should lodge in their hotels: La plus jolie location de tout Paris—des chambres de toute beauté! and others are dying to carry your luggage; others again are eager to sell you their wares, and thrust a bit of soap, or a cane, or a pair of spectacles, in your face suddenly. I mistook this for an attempt at assassination. Next, I had to bow to my toes for a lodging. With the address of three hotels, a mile apart, I had to pick one out of the street. I advise you not to run about town till your porter’s charges are of greater amount than the value of your luggage, but to put yourself and your trunks in a hack, and you will have at least a ride for your money; besides, the driver is limited in his charges, and the porter is à discretion, and discretion is one of the dearest of the French virtues.
Who do you think I had for a fellow traveller? Your old acquaintance —— ——, who has lost his wife, and travels to dissipate his grief. He has not left off saying good things. He remarked that it was a bad day to go into Paris—the 4th of July; there would be such a crowd. Recollecting with what jubilee we celebrate this day at New York, he imagined how much greater must be the confusion at Paris. He feared we should have our brains knocked out by the mob. You can’t think what an advantage it is for one having but little of this commodity of brains, to travel into foreign countries; one grows into the reputation of a wit by not being understood. I do not mean to be arrogant in saying I am better versed, at least in our foreign relations, than my companion, and yet I was noticed on the way only as being of his suite, which I ascribe entirely to my capacity to express myself in a known tongue. As he did not speak French, I was mistaken for the interpreter to some foreign ambassador.
Paris is a wilderness of tall, scraggy, and dingy houses, of irregular heights and sizes, starting out impudently into the street, or retiring modestly, and without symmetry, a palace often the counterpart of a pig-sty, and a cathedral next neighbour to a hen-roost. The streets run zig-zag, and abut against each other as if they did not know which way to run. They are paved with cubical stones of eight and ten inches, convex on the upper surface like the shell of a terrapin; few have room for side-walks, and where not bounded by stores, they are dark as they were under king Pepin. Some of them seem to be water-tight. St. Anne, my first acquaintance, is yet clammy with mud after a week’s drought, and early in the morning when she gets up, she is filthy to a degree that is indecent. The etymology of Paris is mud; the etymology of the Bourbons is mud, and mud to the last note of time will be, Paris and the Bourbons.