As a Frenchman, I ought to say that it is not a small number of colossal fortunes, but the multiplicity of middling ones, that makes up the riches of a country. In every country passion is rare, and gallantry is more graceful and refined: in France, as a consequence, it has better fortune. This great nation, the first in the world,[6] has the same kind of aptitude for love as for intellectual achievements. In 1822 we have, to be sure, no Moore, no Walter Scott, no Crabbe, no Byron, no Monti, no Pellico; but we have among us more men of intellect, clear-sighted, agreeable and up to the level of the lights of this century, than England has, or Italy. It is for this reason that the debates in our Chamber of Deputies in 1822, are so superior to those in the English Parliament, and that when a Liberal from England comes to France, we are quite surprised to find in him several opinions which are distinctly feudal.
A Roman artist wrote from Paris:—
I am exceedingly uncomfortable here; I suppose it's because I have no leisure for falling in love at my ease. Here, sensibility is spent drop by drop, just as it forms, in such a way, at least so I find it, as to be a drain on the source. At Rome, owing to the little interest created by the events of every day and the somnolence of the outside world, sensibility accumulates to the profit of passion.
[1] G. Pecchio, in his very lively Letters to a beautiful young English woman, says on the subject of free Spain, where the Middle Ages are not a revival, but have never ceased to exist (p. 60): "The aim of the Spaniards was not glory, but independence. If the Spaniards had only fought for honour, the war had ended with the battle of Tudela. Honour is a thing of an odd nature—once soiled, it loses all its power of action. ... The Spanish army of the line, having become imbued in its turn with prejudices in favour of honour (that means having become modern-European) disbanded, once beaten, with the thought that, with honour, all was lost, etc."
[2] In 1620 a man was honoured by saying unceasingly and as servilely as he could: "The King my Master" (See the Memoirs of Noailles, Torcy and all Lewis XIV's ambassadors). Quite simple—by this turn of phrase, he proclaims the rank he occupies among subjects. This rank, dependent on the King, takes the place, in the eyes and esteem of these subjects, of the rank which in ancient Rome depended on the good opinion of his fellow-citizens, who had seen him fighting at Trasimene and speaking in the Forum. You can batter down absolute monarchy by destroying vanity and its advance works, which it calls conventions. The dispute between Shakespeare and Racine[(28)] is only one form of the dispute between Louis XIV and constitutional government.
[3] It can only be estimated in unpremeditated actions.
[4] Miss O'Neil, Mrs. Couts, and most of the great English actresses, leave the stage in order to marry rich husbands.
[5] One can allow women gallantry, but love makes them laughed at, wrote the judicious Abbé Girard in Paris in 1740.
[6] I want no other proof than the world's envy. See the Edinburgh Review for 1821. See the German and Italian literary journals, and the Scimiatigre of Alfieri.