November 1789. La Place des Victoires.—If Rowlandson's visits to Paris had produced no other memorial than his inimitable picture La Place des Victoires, Paris, we should be satisfied with the result of his familiarity with Parisian life at the period immediately antecedent to the Revolutionary era.
The study, as a whole, is one of the most memorable we can ascribe to his skilful hand and his remarkable powers of profitable observation. The Circus, built by Mansard, one of the features of Paris under the Grand Monarque, remains in all its freshness to the present day; but it has shared the fate a similar monument would have suffered had it remained in the busy precincts of the East of London. Finding itself in the heart, as it were, of the trading centre of the city, near the Bourse, and hedged and elbowed around by the warehouses and industries of the busy commercial population, it has undergone an indignity which would vex the spirit of its founder and make the shade of the little monarch, in honour of whose victories it was erected and christened, exclaim against the degeneracy which the taste of his countrymen has undergone, and he would probably deplore the concession to utilitarianism which has transmogrified the well-known spot. La Place des Victoires in its present aspect is curiously disguised by hideous placards; between each of the columns appear two or more humorous advertising boards, filling up the intermediate spaces, and inscribed with recommendations to purchasers to secure their wardrobe au bon Diable, and notices of a similar inviting character. Rowlandson has given a further indication of the Parisian centre—at the expense of topographical accuracy, it must be admitted—by introducing the towers of Notre Dame in a proximity somewhat closer than is legitimately warranted by the actual position of the mother church.
The monument, as seen in Rowlandson's veracious representation, is a splendid example of exaggerated glorification. The statue of a warrior—surely not intended to resemble the stout little monarch to whose glory it is dedicated—is trampling on an allegorical personage typifying the conquered enemies of France; while the figure of Fame, holding her trumpet ready to sound the victor's praises, is crowning the hero with a wreath. Four chained slaves, cast in bronze, indicative of Louis' triumphs, are shown at the base; these figures may now be seen in the Louvre. A courtier, or a disabled general, is pushed along in a ramshackle carriage, a sort of wheeled sedan, drawn by an old soldier, with two footmen to follow; the Frenchman is regarding the stupendous monument raised to the glories of the Grand Nation with rapturous devotion. An abbé, with his hands in an enormous muff, is passing, with his nose in the air; a coquette à la mode is leaning on his arm and raising her hood to shoot forth glances of fascination; a handsome young officer, wearing a monstrous queue, is launching an admiring look towards the fair beguiler; but her attention is engaged elsewhere, and the Parthian shot falls harmless. A shoeblack in the foreground is teaching a poodle to dance; the comical animal's head is decorated with an old peruke. A pair of extensive beaux of the period are seen saluting each other with elaborate bows which would have filled the late Mr. Simpson, M.C., with despair. In the right-hand corner is shown a monk (Sterne's original Brother Lorenzo), shrinking away from recollections of the past. A downright English John Bull, in huge riding-boots, and a pretty English girl, his companion, in a habit, lacking the surrounding enthusiasm, are looking at the monument with the indifference of travellers who are in duty bound to take note of all the sights, but who, beyond the principle involved, find small gratification in the ordeal; an English mastiff, the property of the strangers, is curiously regarding another exotic, an Italian greyhound. In the distance is shown a female porter and her donkey, followed by a procession of friars; a French nobleman and his lady are driving by in gallant state, with a Suisse and a whole string of genteel footmen clinging like flies behind their chariot.
As the founder took some pains to inform the world (that is to say, Paris, which, to Frenchmen under the reign of the Grand Monarque, meant the universe), this wonderful structure, à la gloire de Louis le Grand, was erected by the Duc de la Feuillade, one of the idols of his age, and first satellite to the Sun of Versailles; Peer and Marshal of France, Governor of the Dauphin, Colonel of the Guards, &c.—in every way a most distinguished person. The statue was erected in front of this eminent courtier's Paris mansion, the Hôtel de la Feuillade. The principle of its erection was ingenious, ostensibly commemorating the glories of his master, the 'father of his people, and the conductor of invincible armies;' the celebrity of the patriotic founder of this monument is barely of secondary prominence, since his name and various high offices, emblazoned on the same pile, were bequeathed at the same time to the everlasting regard of posterity. The perpetual durability of fame in this case was doomed to last one century, and no more: the calculations of the Marshal did not include the coming French Revolution. In the January of 1793, the 'grand nation' became intoxicated with a saturnalia of blood, in which they avenged imposts, burdens, and slavery—evils which they had suffered in the past—by sacrificing the descendant of le Grand Monarque, a passive victim, on the scaffold to the vicious legacies of his predecessors. The fury which had made a martyr of the king, whose chief enjoyment had been the alleviation of the condition of his subjects, taking a retrospective turn, vented its destructive rage on every relic which recalled the servitude of generations—after the slaughter of the living, the national vengeance was wreaked on inanimate objects, and very naturally the ill-advised monument of the Place des Victoires came in for an early share of attention; and the memorial bequeathed to the everlasting admiration of posterity was scattered to the winds in a manner which effectually defeated the intentions of the testator; the only wonder being how the bronze figures escaped the fate of the furnace, and were spared being converted into artillery.
Under the circumstances, of the complete disappearance of this triumph of servile adulation, it is interesting to recall, in a remote degree, the incidents which attended its foundation. In the letters of Madame de Sévigné we trace a picture indicative of the events; first we are introduced to the zeal displayed by the Duc de la Feuillade, that inveterate and unequalled courtier, and his passion for raising monuments to the glorification of his master and himself. We follow the Marshal's first intentions, and are told how they were modified; we notice the erection of the pedestrian statue, with its glaring anomalies, sent to adorn the gardens of Versailles; and then we are instructed how the sculptor, Van den Bogaert—who, in compliment to his patrons, had changed his name to de Desjardins—was entrusted with the execution of the extraordinary conception which was to shed a lustre on the Place des Victoires to perpetuity.
Lettre DCC. de Madame de Sévigné au Comte de Bussy, à Paris, ce 20 Juillet, 1679.—'.... Il vous dira les nouvelles et les préparatifs du mariage du Roi d'Espagne, et du choix du Prince et de la Princesse d'Harcourt pour la conduite de la reine d'Espagne à son époux, et la belle charge que le roi a donnée à M. de Marsillac, sans préjudice de la première; et du démêlé du Cardinal de Bouillon avec M. de Montausier, et comme M. de La Feuillade, courtisan passant tous les courtisans passés, a fait venir un bloc de marbre qui tenoit toute la rue Saint Honoré: et comme les soldats qui le conduisoient ne vouloient point faire place au carosse de M. le Prince qui étoit dedans, il y eut un combat entre les soldats et les valets de pied: le peuple s'en mêla, le marbre se rangea, et le prince passa. Ce prélat vous pourra conter encore que ce marbre est chez M. de La Feuillade, qui fait ressusciter Phidias ou Praxitèle pour tailler la figure du roi à cheval dans ce marbre, et comme cette statue lui coûtera plus de trente mille écus.' [35]
In a footnote, by the editor, we are further enlightened on the use to which this marble was finally applied, by order of the Duke de la Feuillade:—
'La Feuillade changea d'avis et fit sortir du bloc de marbre en question une statue pédestre qui prêtoit à la critique, par le mélange bizarre du costume romain recouvert du manteau royal françois. Cette statue du ciseau de Desjardins (autrement Van den Bogaert) a été placée à l'Orangerie de Versailles.'