From earliest days every man seems to have caught the spirit of the man who came before, and to have perpetuated it; by adding his own distinctive yet always harmonious contribution to the gradual development of the whole. One built a stately avenue; another erected a church at the end; a third added a garden on the other side of the church, and terraces leading up to it; a fourth and fifth cut streets that should give from the remaining two sides into other flowery squares with their fine edifices. And so from every viewpoint, and from every part of the entire city, today we have an unbroken series of vistas—each one different and more charming than the last.
History has lent its hand to the process, too; and romance—it is not an insipid chain of flowerbeds we have to follow, but the holy warriors of Saint Louis, the roistering braves of Henry the Great, the gallant Bourbons, the ill-starred Bonapartes. These as they passed have left their monuments; it may be only in a crumbling old chapel or ruined tower, but there they are: eloquent of days that are dead, of a spirit that lives forever staunch in the heart of the fervent French people.
It comes over one overwhelmingly sometimes, in the midst of the careless gaiety of the modern city: the old, ever-burning spirit of rebellion and savage strife that underlies it all; and that can spring to the surface now on certain memorable days, with a vehemence that is terrifying. Look across the Pont Alexandre, at the serene gold dome of the Invalides, surrounded by its sleepy barracks. Suddenly you are in the fires and awful slaughter of Napoleon’s wars. The flower of France is being pitilessly cut down for the lust of one man’s ambition; and when that is spent, and the wail of the widowed country pierces heaven with its desolation, a costly asylum is built for the handful of soldiers who are left—and the great Emperor has done his duty!
Or you are walking through the Cité, past the court of the Palais de Justice. You glance in, carelessly—memory rushes upon you—and the court flows with blood, “so that men waded through it, up to the knees!” In the tiny stone-walled room yonder, Marie Antoinette sits disdainfully composed before her keepers; though her face is white with the sounds she hears, as her friends and followers are led out to swell that hideous river of blood.
A pretty, artificial city, Paris; good for shopping, and naughty amusements, now and then. History? Oh yes, of course; but all that’s so dry and uninspiring, and besides it happened so long ago.
Did it? In your stroll along the Rue Royale, among the jewellers’ and milliners’ shops and Maxim’s, glance up at the Madeleine, down at the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. Little over a hundred years ago, this was the brief distance between life and death for those who one minute were dancing in the “Temple of Victory,” the next were laying their heads upon the block of the guillotine. Can you see, beyond the shadowy grey pillars of the Temple, that brilliant circling throng within? The reckless-laughing ballet girl in her shrine as “Goddess,” her worshippers treading their wild measures among the candles and crucifixes and holy images, as though they are pursued? Look—a grim presence is at the door. He enters, lays a heavy hand upon the shoulder of a young and beautiful dancer. She looks into his face, and smiles. The music never stops, but goes more madly on; as the one demanded makes a low révérence, then rising, throws a kiss over her shoulder to her comrades who in turn salute her; calls a gay “Adieu!” and with the smile still terrible upon her lips—is gone.
Ah, but the French are different now, you say. Those were the aristocrats, the vieille noblesse; these modern Republicans are of another breed. And yet the same blood flows in their veins, the same scornful courage animates them—who, for example, leads the world in aviation?—and on days like the fourteenth of July (the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille), the common people at least show a patriotism no less fiery if less ferocious than they showed in 1789. Let us see if they are so different after all.
The first charge against the French invariably is that of artificiality. Anglo-Saxons admit them to be charming, of a delightful wit and keen intelligence; but, they immediately add, how deep does it go? Superficially, the Parisian is vastly agreeable; courteous to the point of extravagance, an accomplished conversationalist, even now and then with a flash of the profound. Probe him, and what do you find? A cynical, world-weary degenerate, who will laugh at you when your back is turned, and make love to your wife before your very eyes!
AN OPEN-AIR BALL ON THE 14TH JULY