A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

The Hague, October 21, 1902.

The English Channel is one of the oldest ferries in the world. For two thousand years and more, men have been crossing it in all sorts of craft, but they have never yet found a way to do it comfortably when the water is rough, as it generally is. Our experience made us doubt whether the modern steamers that ply between New Haven and Dieppe are a whit more comfortable than the galleys of Julius Cæsar. Our boat was mercilessly buffeted by the winds. She rolled and plunged in every direction. It seemed to us that her propeller was out of the water half the time. If seasickness really is good for people, this Channel should be called a health resort. All the members of our party were violently sick except myself. We felt sure we had discovered one of the reasons why the shore to which we looked so wistfully is called "the pleasant land of France." Any land would seem pleasant after that dreadful Channel. At last we reached it, pale and wretched. As we entered the mouth of the river at Dieppe the huge crucifix overhanging the harbor reminded us that we were now in a Roman Catholic country. And a "pleasant land" it is in many respects. Our railroad journey to Paris through the fair and fertile Valley of the Seine made that quite evident.

The External Beauty of the French Capital.

We secured quiet and comfortable quarters close to the lovely Madeleine Church and only two blocks from the Place de la Concorde, the finest square in Europe, with the Seine on one side, the Tuileries Gardens on another, the Champs Élysées leading from it in one direction, and the Rue de Rivoli in the other. London, as we have seen, is a dingy congeries of dingy towns built mostly of dingy bricks. Paris is sunny and bright, the streets are wide and clean, and the houses are uniformly handsome, being built of a light stone that gives the whole city an air of elegance. No doubt it is the most beautiful city in the world, it has a glitter and sparkle unmatched elsewhere,—but, gay as it seems, it has more suicides than any other city.

What we did not like about Paris.

We submitted to it, but could not enjoy the French custom of taking our morning rolls and coffee in bed. There are many other French customs constantly in evidence in Paris, but not to be described here, to which I trust our English and American people will never become accustomed. Modesty is not prominent among the virtues of the French, though of course there must be many good people among them. Vice flaunts itself more in Paris than in any city I have ever seen. There is a certain brazen shamelessness even in French art that one does not see in New York or London. But the collection in the Louvre is one of the richest aggregations of antiquarian and artistic objects in the world, and surely no museum was ever so splendidly housed. The Moabite Stone, the oldest extant Hebrew inscription, was one of the things that we made a point of seeing. As we passed to another part of the great building, we had the pleasure of seeing the celebrated DeWet and the other Boer generals who were visiting Paris at that time.

In the rear of the Louvre stands the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. It was from the bell-tower of this church that the signal was given for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. On the other side of the Rue de Rivoli, and in plain view of this fateful tower, stands the pure white marble statue of Admiral Coligni, the most illustrious victim of that fearful massacre. What France needs to-day is the influence of that Huguenot element which she slaughtered and expelled at that time.

The Huguenot Name and the Huguenot Character.

Several names which are now among the most illustrious in the history of the world were originally used as terms of reproach. When Abram left his home in Chaldea and crossed the great boundary stream between the East and the West and settled in Palestine, the Canaanites dubbed him "the Hebrew," that is, the man who crossed over the Euphrates—intruder, interloper. But for ages "Hebrew" has been the honored designation of one of the most gifted and enterprising of the races of mankind. It is not unlikely that the name "Christian" was first applied in a contemptuous sense to the disciples of our Lord at Antioch. It is well known that the name of "Methodist," which is now the honored designation of a large, active and devoted body of the people of God, was at first given to the followers of Wesley in a spirit of ridicule and derision. In like manner, the name "Huguenot," according to its most probable derivation from a French word meaning a kind of hobgoblin of darkness, a night-wanderer, was given to the Protestants of that country, because there were times in their early history when, for fear of persecution, they dared not meet except under cover of darkness. But this term of reproach has gathered about itself all the glory that belongs to genius and skill in the useful arts, to industry, thrift and purity in the home, to patriotic valor on the field of battle, and to unpurchasable and unconquerable devotion to principle, and is now a name that is venerated by every clear-headed and sound-hearted and well-informed and unprejudiced person in the world. It is a name which will wear forever the red halo of martyrdom. By the Massacre of St. Bartholomew alone thirty-five thousand names were added to the church's crimson roll of martyrs, with that of the great Admiral Coligni leading the list. By the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the refusal of Louis XIV. to tolerate any exercise of the Protestant religion in France, while at the same time punishing inexorably all who attempted to escape from France, nearly half a million Huguenots were driven into exile, sacrificing their homes, their property and their country rather than renounce their religion; and Sismondi estimates that some four hundred thousand others perished in prison, on the scaffold, at the galleys, and in their attempts to escape.

Palissy, the Potter.