The appearance of these troops on parade was such, that but for the traces which long exposure to all changes of weather had left on their countenances, it never could have been supposed that they had been engaged in long marches. They had always marched and fought in their great coats and small blue caps, carrying their uniforms in their knapsacks. On the night before they entered Paris, however, they put them on, and marched into the town in as fine parade order as that in which they had left Petersburg. The Parisians, who had been told that the allied armies were nearly annihilated, and only a wreck left, expressed their astonishment with their usual levity: "Au moins," said they, "C'est un beau debris."
While the uniforms, arms, and accoutrements of these troops were in the highest order, they seemed to take a pride in displaying the worn and faded standards, torn by the winds and pierced with bullets, under which they had served during the whole campaigns. Their services might also be judged of from the medals of the year 1812, which almost all the Russians bore, and to which all without distinction of rank are entitled, who were exposed to the enemy's fire during that campaign; and from the insignia of various orders, which in both the services extend to privates as well as officers. The effect of these honorary rewards on the minds of the men is certainly very great; and it is perhaps to be regretted that there is no institution of the same kind in the British service. The spirit of our soldiers, as all the world knows, needs no such stimulus; but if a measure of this kind could in any degree gratify their military feelings, surely their country owes them the gratification; and what can be more pleasing to a soldier than to see his officers and his Sovereign proud to display honours which he shares along with them? The Russians appear to set a value on these medals and decorations, which clearly shews the wisdom of the policy by which they were granted. Almost every wounded soldier wears them even when lying in hospital, and in the hour which teaches the insignificance of all the titles of kings, and all the treasures of the universe, he still rejoices, that he can lay these testimonies of his valour and fidelity beside the small crucifix which he brought with him from his home, and which, with a superstition that accords better with the true military spirit than the thoughtless infidelity of the French, he has carried in his bosom through all the chances of war.
CHAPTER III.
PARIS—ITS PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
With whatever sentiments a stranger might enter Paris at the time we did, his feelings must have been the same with regard to the monuments of ancient magnificence, or of modern taste, which it contained. All that the vanity or patriotism of a long series of Sovereigns could effect for the embellishment of the capital in which they resided; all that the conquests of an ambitious and unprincipled Army could accumulate from the spoils of the nations whom they had subdued, were there presented to the eye of the stranger with a profusion which obliterated every former prejudice, and stifled the feelings of national emulation in exultation at the greatness of human genius.
The ordinary buildings of Paris, as every traveller has observed, and as all the world knows, are in general mean and uncomfortable. The height and gloomy aspect of the houses; the narrowness of the streets, and the want of pavement for foot passengers, convey an idea of antiquity, which ill accords with what the imagination had anticipated of the modern capital of the French empire. This circumstance renders the admiration of the spectator greater when he first comes in sight of its public edifices; when he is conducted to the Place Louis Quinze, or the Pont Neuf, from whence he has a general view of the principal buildings of this celebrated capital. With the single exception of the view of London from the terrace of the Adelphi, there is no point in our own country where the effect of architectural design is so great as in the situations which have now been mentioned. The view from the former of these combines many of the most striking objects which Paris has to present. To the east, the long front of the Thuilleries rises over the dark mass of foliage which covers its gardens; to the south, the picturesque aspect of the town is broken by the varied objects which the river presents, and the fine perspective of the Bridge of Peace, terminating in the noble front of the palace of the Legislative Body; to the west, the long avenues of the Elysian Fields are closed by the pillars of a triumphal arch which Napoleon had commenced; while to the north, the beautiful façade of the Palace itself, leaves the spectator only room to discover at a greater distance the foundation of the Temple of Glory, which he had commenced, and in the execution of which he was interrupted by those ambitious enterprises to which his subsequent downfall was owing. To a painter's eye, the effect of the whole scene is increased by the rich and varied foreground which everywhere presents itself, composed of the shrubs with which the skirts of the square are adorned, and the lofty poplars which rise amidst the splendour of architectural beauty; while recent events give a greater interest to the spot from which this beauty is surveyed, by the remembrance, that it was here that Louis XVI. fell a martyr to the revolutionary principles, and that it was here that the Emperor Alexander and the other princes of Europe took their station, when their armies passed in triumph through the walls of Paris.
The view from the Pont Neuf, though not so striking upon the whole, embraces objects of greater individual beauty. The gay and animated quays of the city covered with foot-passengers, and with all the varied exhibitions of industrious occupation, which, from the warmth of the climate, are carried on in the open air;—the long and splendid front of the Louvre and Thuilleries;—the bold projection of the Palais des Arts, of the Hotel de la Monnaie, and other public buildings on the opposite side of the river;—the beautiful perspective of the bridges, adorned by the magnificent colonnade which fronts the Palace of the Legislative Body;—and the lofty picturesque buildings of the centre of Paris surrounding the more elevated towers of Notre Dame, form a scene, which, though less perfect, is more striking, and more characteristic, than the scene from the centre of the Place Louis Quinze, which has been just described. It conveys at once a general idea of the French capital; of that mixture of poverty and splendour by which it is so remarkably distinguished; of that grandeur of national power, and that degradation of individual importance, which marked the ancient dynasty of the French nation. It marks too, in a historical view, the changes of the public feeling which the people of this country have undergone, from the distant period when the towers of Notre Dame rose amidst the austerity of Gothic taste, and were loaded with the riches of Catholic superstition, to that boasted æra, when the loyalty of the French people exhausted the wealth and the genius of the country, to decorate with classic taste the residence of their Sovereigns; and lastly, to those later days, when the names of religion and of loyalty have alike been forgotten; when the national exultation reposed only on the trophies of military greatness, and the iron yoke of imperial power was forgotten in the monuments which record the deeds of imperial glory.
To the general observation on the inferiority of the common buildings in Paris, there are some remarkable exceptions. The Boulevards, the remains of the ancient ramparts of the city, are in general beautiful, from their circular form, from their uniform breadth, from the magnificence of the detached palaces with which they abound, and from the rows of fine trees with which they are shaded. In the skirts of the town, and more especially in the Fauxbourg St Germain, the beauty of the streets is greatly increased by the detached hotels or villas, surrounded by gardens, which are everywhere to be met with, in which the lilac, the laburnum, the Bois de Judeé, and the acacia, grow in the most luxuriant manner, and on the green foliage of which the eye reposes with singular delight amidst the bright and dazzling whiteness of the stone with which they are surrounded.
The Hotel des Invalides, the Chelsea Hospital of France, is one of the objects on which the Parisians principally pride themselves, and to which a stranger is conducted immediately after his arrival in that capital. The institution itself appears to be well conducted, and to give general satisfaction to the wounded men who have there found an asylum from the miseries of war. We were informed that these men live in habits of perfect harmony among each other; a state of things widely different from that of our veterans in Greenwich Hospital, and which is probably chiefly owing to the cheerfulness and equanimity of temper which form the best feature in the French character. There is something in the style of the architecture of this building, which accords well with the object to which it is devoted. The front is distinguished by a simple manly portico, and a dome of the finest proportion rises above its centre, which is visible from all parts of the city. This dome was gilded by order of Bonaparte: and however much a fastidious taste may regret the addition, it certainly gave an air of splendour to the whole, which was in perfect unison with the feelings of exultation which the sight of this monument of military glory was then fitted to awaken among the French people. The exterior of this edifice was formerly surrounded by cannon captured by the armies of France at different periods: and ten thousand standards, the trophies of victory during the wars of two centuries, waved under its splendid dome, and enveloped the sword of Frederic the Great, which hung from the centre, until the 31st of March 1814, when, as already observed, they were all burnt by order of Maria Louisa, to prevent their falling into the victorious hands of the allied powers.