At the distribution of prizes to the school, in which Mazzini and Mariotti took part, some of the Polish exiles also being present, she seemed to see "a planting of the kingdom of Heaven."
Margaret saw a good deal of James Garth Wilkinson, who later became prominent as the author of the work entitled "The Human Body in its Relation to the Constitution of Man." She found in him "a sane, strong, and well-exercised mind, but in the last degree unpoetical in its structure." Dr. Wilkinson published, years after this time, a volume of verses which amply sustains this judgment.
"Browning," she writes, "has just married Miss Barrett, and gone to Italy. I may meet them there." Hoping for a much longer visit at some future time, and bewildered, as she says, both by the treasures which she had found, and those which she had not had opportunity to explore, Margaret left London for its social and æsthetic antithesis, Paris.[189]
CHAPTER XI.
PARIS.—MARGARET'S RECEPTION THERE.—GEORGE SAND.—CHOPIN.—RACHEL.—LAMENNAIS.—BÉRANGER.—CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—BERRYER.—BALL AT THE TUILERIES.—ITALIAN OPERA.—ALEXANDRE VATTEMARE.—SCHOOLS AND REFORMATORIES.—JOURNEY TO MARSEILLES.—GENOA.—LEGHORN.—NAPLES.—ROME.
If the aspect of London society has changed greatly since Margaret's visit there in 1846, the Paris which she saw that winter may be said to exist no longer, so completely is its physiognomy transformed by the events of the last thirty-seven years. Like London, Paris had then some gems of the first water, to which nothing in the present day corresponds. Rachel was then queen of its tragic stage, George Sand supreme in its literary domain. De Balzac, Eugène Sue, Dumas père, and Béranger then lived and moved among admiring friends. Victor Hugo was in early middle age. Guizot was in his full prestige, literary and administrative. Liszt and Chopin held the opposite poles of the musical world, and[190] wielded, the one its most intense, the other its broadest power. The civilized world then looked to Paris for the precious traditions of good taste, and the city deserved this deference as it does not now.
The sense of security which then prevailed in the French capital was indeed illusory. The stable basis of things was already undermined by the dangerous action of theories and of thinkers. Louis Philippe was unconsciously nearing the abrupt close of his reign. A new chaos was imminent, and one out of which was to come, first a heroic uprising, and then a despotism so monstrous and mischievous as to foredoom itself, a caricature of military empire which for a time cheated Europe, and in the end died of the emptiness of its own corruption.
Into this Paris Margaret came, not unannounced. Her essay on American Literature, which had recently appeared in her volume entitled "Papers on Literature and Art," had already been translated into French, and printed in the "Revue Indépendante." The same periodical soon after published a notice of "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." Margaret enjoyed the comfortable aspect of the apartment which she occupied with her travelling-companions at Hôtel Rougemont, Boulevard Poissonière. She mentions the clock, mirror, curtained bed, and[191] small wood-fire which were then, and are to-day, so costly to the transient occupant.
Though at first not familiar with the sound of the French language, she soon had some pleasant acquaintances, and was not long in finding her way to the literary and social eminences who were prepared to receive her as their peer.
First among these she mentions George Sand, to whom she wrote a letter, calling afterwards at her house. Her name was not rightly reported by the peasant woman who opened the door, and Margaret, waiting for admittance, heard at first the discouraging words, "Madame says she does not know you." She stopped to send a message regarding the letter she had written, and as she spoke, Madame Sand opened the door and stood looking at her for a moment.