When these sapient guardians of the peace perceive that as many have been admitted as can possibly be squeezed into the building, they shut the doors; and the process of distribution goes on until the mass is equalized throughout the edifice; a task of no small difficulty, as the portions of the building contiguous to the doors are always densely packed at an early period, so that the greater number have to pass through these crowded centres to gain the remoter parts of the church. Meantime people chat, and look about them, amusing themselves as they best can; and the sonorous edifice echoes with the footsteps of the moving mass. But at length the noise subsides; the "organ utters its voices," and a hush, intense, unbroken, falls on the vast assembly. The glorious music peals through the vaulted aisles, and swells upward to the arching roof, pervading every nook and corner of the fane; and so perfect is the stillness that one would think the winged notes the only living things within its precincts.
On Friday last this annual solemnity was celebrated as usual at St. Eustache; the mass, composed by Adam, a very noble and beautiful composition, was admirably executed by a choir of two hundred and fifty singers, and a band of one hundred musicians, including the whole orchestra of the Opera Comique, and the best performers from the Italian opera. The solos were sung by Mesdames Grimm and Couraud, and by Bassine and Chapuis, the latter being one of the best tenors in the city. Some of the quartettes, with accompaniments of harps and wind instruments, were indescribably beautiful.
The Archbishop of Paris made an elegant little address, in which he spoke of art in Pagan and in Christian days, and of its mission in the present; and winding up with an appeal to the liberality of his hearers on behalf of the charitable idea which had prompted this performance. The Archbishop is a man of mild and grave countenance, but his dress was very inharmonious. He wore a surplice of very rich lace, a cape of violet silk, and a scarf richly embroidered in gold, which was all very pretty, but his arms and hands were encased in sleeves, finished with gloves, of scarlet cloth, which showed through the lace sleeves of the surplice, and gave the hands a very frightful appearance. He wore a little round cap on the top of his head, a golden crucifix on his bosom, and an enormous gold ring on his right hand. He spoke very slowly, screaming rather than speaking, in order to make himself heard in the distant parts of the building. The service lasted two hours, and yielded several thousand francs.
The Duchess of Narbonne, famed for her benevolence, was so desirous to aid on this occasion, that though unable, on account of her great age, to go among the crowd making the guest, as it is termed, she held a bag at one of the great doors, adding to the sum she thus received, a thousand francs as her own contribution, and a hundred francs for her chair, for which the ordinary price is two sous.
The musicians are not alone in their preparations for winter. The shopkeepers are just beginning the periodic display which betokens the coming on of the holidays: and conspicuous among the novelties whose appearance thus indicate the approach of Christmas, is a new style of porcelain, of English invention, which imitates with great success the antique marble vases, pitchers, &c., of classic days. Many of these objects are of great beauty; the creamy hue of the ware itself, slightly translucent, the graceful simplicity of their forms, and the delicate mouldings of classical designs in bass-relief with which they are adorned, producing an admirable effect, highly creditable to English taste.
While modern art is thus successfully emulating the symmetrical achievements of ancient times, a relic of great interest, recalling the romantic age of Spanish history, has just been unexpectedly brought to light. Some workmen, employed in making repairs in the Guildhall of Burgos, in Spain, have recently discovered the tomb of the Cid, so renowned in ancient story; a tomb whose very existence was unknown. An old chest, long considered as mere rubbish, and on which stood the antique chair from which, in other days, the Counts of Castille gave judgment, having been opened through the curiosity of these workmen, was found to contain the remains of Don Rodrigo Campeador, and his wife Chimena, immortalized in ancient legend, in the verses of Guilhen de Castro, of Corneille, and in our own days, in the graceful writings of Mrs. Hemans. The remains of the renowned hero and his beautiful spouse are to be removed to the church of San Gadeo, where a suitable monument will be erected to their memory.
The following incident, connected with the two prevailing manias of the day, lapdogs and balloon-ascensions, is just now amusing the gay circles of this gossiping capital.
It seems that Madame de N., the accomplished and beautiful wife of a triple millionaire of the quartier St. Honore, equally renowned for the charms of her wit, and for the intensity of her passion for the barking pets so dear to Parisian hearts, had taken a violent fancy (shared by half Paris) to a certain tiny gray spaniel, the property of one of the most admired of the innumerable representatives of Albion at this time here congregated, the beautiful and distinguished Lady R., whose intimacy was assiduously cultivated by Madame de N., all for the love of the little gray spaniel.
Sylphide, the spaniel in question, was in sooth well calculated to make havoc in hearts susceptible to canine charms. Her glossy fur, combed, bathed, and perfumed every day with the utmost care, was of the most delicate mouse-color, and softer than silk; her lustrous eyes sparkled like jewels, and her expressive face, with the delicate drooping ears that adorned her graceful head, were the realization of the most ideal dream of little-doggish beauty; her tail was perfection; her slender legs, in their light electric movements, hardly touched the ground; and the dainty way in which she raised her charming little paws from the sidewalk, when, by some rare chance (attired in her newest paletot of the finest merino, lined with wadded silk, and trimmed with a rich braid, her neck encircled with a silver collar, whose burnished chain was attached to her mistress's waist), she honored the sidewalk with their pressure, was so irresistibly bewitching, that all the fair round arms of Paris opened spontaneously at the sight, as though to offer a nestling-place to the little beauty, and raise her from a contact unworthy of so peerless a creature.
Any price, no matter how exorbitant, that could have been asked for this little paragon, Madame de N. would very gladly have paid; but, unhappily, Sylphide was not to be sold: Lady R. was very fond of her, and never seemed to understand the various hints thrown out from time to time, with the utmost tact and delicacy, but still quite intelligibly, by Madame de N.; and all that the latter could do was to bring her utmost power of petting to bear on the subject of her adoration, trusting to some unlooked-for stroke of good fortune to aid her in the accomplishment of her heart's desire.