Malmaison was Josephine's, and is still Beauharnais's property, but is now occupied only by his steward. The place is very pretty—profusion of rhododendrons, as under-wood in the groves, on the grass, beside the rivers, everywhere, and in the most luxuriant flower. Poor Josephine! Do you remember Dr. Marcet telling us that when he breakfasted with her, she said, pointing to her flowers: "These are my subjects; I try to make them happy."
The grounds are admirably well taken care of, but the solitude and silence and the continual reference to the dead were strikingly melancholy, even in the midst of sunshine and flowers, and the song of nightingales. In one pond we saw swimming in graceful desolate dignity two black swans, which, as rare birds, were once great favourites. Now they curve their necks of ebony in vain.
The grounds are altogether very small, and so is the house, but fitted up with exquisite taste. In the saloon is the most elegant white marble chimney-piece my eyes ever did or ever will behold, a present from the Pope to Beauharnais. The finest pictures have been taken from the gallery; the most striking that remains is one of General Dessain, reading a letter, with a calm and absorbed countenance—two mamelukes eagerly examining his countenance. In the finely parqueted floor great holes appear; the places from which fine statues of Canova's were, as the steward told us, dragged up for the Emperor of Russia. This the man told under his breath, speaking of his master and of the armies without distinctly naming any person, as John Langan used to talk of the robbles (rebels). You may imagine the feelings which made us walk in absolute silence through the library, which was formerly Napoleon's: the gilt N's and J's still in the arches of the ceiling: busts and portraits all round—that of Josephine admirable.
At St. Germain, that vast palace which has been of late a barrack for the English army, our female guide was exceedingly well informed; indeed, Francis I., Henry IV., Mary de Medicis, Louis XIV., and Madame de la Valliere seem to have been her very intimate acquaintances. She was in all their secrets: showed us Madame de la Valliere's room, poor soul! all gilt—the gilding of her woe. This gilding, by accident, escaped the revolutionary destruction. In the high gilt dome of this room, the guide showed us the trap-door through which Louis XIV. used to come down. How they managed it I don't well know: it must have been a perilous operation, the room is so high. But my guide, who I am clear saw him do it, assured me his Majesty came down very easily in his arm-chair; and as she had great keys in her hand, and is as large nearly as Mrs. Liddy, I did not hazard a contradiction or doubt.
Did you know that it was Prony who built the Pont Louis XVI.? Perronet was then eighty-four, and Prony worked under him. One night, when he had supped at Madame de Vindé's, he went to look at his bridge, when he saw—but I have not time to tell you that story.
During Buonaparte's Spanish War he employed Prony to make logarithm, astronomical, and nautical tables on a magnificent scale. Prony found that to execute what was required would take him and all the philosophers of France a hundred and fifty years. He was very unhappy, having to do with a despot who would have his will executed, when the first volume of Smith's Wealth of Nations fell into his hands. He opened on the division of Labour, our favourite pin-making: "Ha, ha! voilà mon affaire; je ferai mes calcules comme on fait les épingles!" And he divided the labour among two hundred men, who knew no more than the simple rules of arithmetic, whom he assembled in one large building, and there these men-machines worked on, and the tables are now complete.
PARIS,
June 9.
All is quiet here now, but while we were in the country there have been disturbances. Be assured that, if there is any danger, we shall decamp for Geneva.
June 22.