A week later arrives a review of the dramatic pieces then performing at the Paris Theatres, with a sketch of Ligier in the character of Richard in 'Les Enfants d'Édouard;' a wonderful stagey figure, not unlike some of the theatrical souvenirs in the early part of this volume. The sinister monarch wears the traditional ermine-bound cloak, with a fierce feather in his hat; he sports trunks (on the left knee is the order of the garter) and pointed shoes; his right hand grasps a dagger; his lank locks are turned over his ears, giving his face a sufficiently ruffianly character, which is intensified by a scowling eye, and a set mouth in Kean's best manner.
The young artist also paid a visit to some savages, the 'Charruas,' South American Indians, who were then lionising in Paris. The correspondent sends his readers a translation of an extravagant article of the flowery order, written by Jules Janin, under the inspiration of having been to see the noble aborigines, concerning whom the English journalist romantically adds, 'They play cards all day, laugh, eat raw beef, and drink all they can get.'
In the July following it was determined by the French ministry to throw a sop to popularity by crowning the column in the Place Vendôme with the new statue of Napoleon—the very figure which has since known such vicissitudes. Their Paris correspondent sent the 'National Standard' a sketch of the figure of the Emperor; and in the same number occurs a spirited article, describing the first interview of the statue with his gallant countrymen.
'The Little Corporal, in his habit of war, puts his bronze glass to his bronze eye, and after some usual preliminaries, proceeds to address la grande nation: "I thank you for having placed me in a situation so safe, so commanding, and so salubrious: from this elevation I can look on most parts of your city. I see the churches empty, the prisons crowded, the gambling-houses overflowing. Who, with such sights before him as these, gentlemen, and you, would not be proud of the name of Frenchmen?" (Great cheers.) "I apprehend that the fat man with the umbrella, whom I see walking in the gardens of the Tuileries, is the present proprietor. May I ask what he has done to deserve such a reward from you? Does he found his claim on his own merits, or on those of his father?" (A tremendous row in the crowd; the police proceed to empoigner several hundred individuals.) "Go your ways" (said the statue, who was what is vulgarly called a dab at an impromptu), "go your ways, happy Frenchmen! You have fought, you have struggled, you have conquered: for whom? for the fat man with the umbrella!"' The Emperor, in continuation of his speech, observes: 'I perceive by your silence that his words carry conviction;' when he stops to make the discovery that there is not a single person left in the Place Vendôme, his entire audience having been carried off by the police.
Later on, the journal seems to languish; the portraits still occur at intervals. Mr. Crockford, of gaming reputation, was flattered with a cut of his effigy, just about the time a paper-raid was raised against the 'play-hells' in the sweeping columns of 'Fraser;' 'Crock' is complimented with some lines, 'more free than welcome,' alluding to 'his eye of a whiting, and mouth of a cod,' and referring to his old trade of fishmonger; the lines, which are signed L. E. U., add, 'he now sticks to poultry, to pigeons, and rooks.'
'Yet he still makes a cast, and not seldom a haul,
Still angles for flats, and still nets what he can,
And shows, every night, 'mid his shoal great and small,
The trick how a gudgeon is made of a man.'
It is presumable that the Paris correspondent did not abandon his paper; he sends more cuts, and foreign letters from all parts, full of the most interesting private intelligence; and notably one from 'Constantinople,' supplying an imaginative gossiping exposure of all the complicated intrigues discernible to those who may be behind the scenes at the Porte; and last, but by no means least, he sends them one of the capital stories which he afterwards reprinted, with fresh illustrations, in the 'Paris Sketch Book,'—even the 'Devil's Wager,' with a strikingly original sketch of Sir Rollo in his desperate travels to redeem his soul, borne through the clouds with, for greater security, the tail of Mercurius unpleasantly curled round the apoplectic throttle of his deceased highness the late Count of Chauchigny, &c. &c. The moral of this veracious tale was promised 'in several successive numbers;' but the wonderful story and its excellent illustration, superior we fancy to those in the collected series, were ineffectual to establish the success of the 'National Standard,' on which they were partially thrown away.