[31] A Casinogesellschaft, still in existence (1908), was founded at Frankfort in 1805, with the object of uniting the aristocratic elements of the city, admittance being freely allowed to distinguished strangers, in particular to the envoys of the Bundestag. The Gesellschaft or club occupied spacious rooms in the house of the once famous tapissier and decorator Major Rumpf, grandfather of the German sculptor of the same name. That building, situated at the corner of the Rossmarkt, was demolished about 1880.—ED.
CHAPTER III
From Bruxelles to Paris—Restoration of Louis XVIII—The officers of the allied armies—The Palais Royal—The Louvre—Protest of the author against the proposed despoiling of the French Museums—Unjust strictures against Napoleon's military policy—The cant about revolutionary robberies—The Grand Opera—Monuments in Paris—The Champs Elysées—Saint-Cloud—The Hôtel des Invalides—The Luxembourg—General Labédoyère—Priests and emigrants—Prussian Plunder—Handsome behaviour of the English officers— Reminiscences of Eton—Versailles.
PARIS, August 3rd.
Here I am in Paris. I left Bruxelles the 29th July, stopped one night at Mons and passing thro' Valenciennes, Péronne and St Quentin arrived here on the third day. The villages and towns on the road had been pretty well stripped of eatables by the Allied army, as well as by the French, so that we did not meet with the best fare. In every village the white flag was displayed by way of propitiating the clemency of the Allies and averting plunder.
August 7th.
I have put up at the Hôtel de Cahors, Rue de Richelieu, where I pay five francs per diem for a single room; such is the dearness of lodgings at this moment. It is well furnished, however, with sofas, commodes, mirrors and a handsome clock and is very spacious withal, there being an alcove for the bed. This situation is extremely convenient, being close to the Palais Royal, Rue St Honoré, Théâtre Français, Louvre and the Tuileries on one side, and to the Grand Opera, the Théâtre Feydeau, the Italian Opera and the Boulevards on the other. The National Library is not many yards distant from my hotel, and a few yards from that en face is the Grand Opera house or Académie Royale de Musique.
This city is filled with officers and travellers of all kinds who have followed the army. The House of Legislature of the Hundred Days,—as it is the fashion to style Napoleon's last reign—dissolved themselves on the demand of a million of francs as a war contribution made by Marshall Blucher. Louis XVIII has been hustled into Paris, and now occupies the throne of his ancestors under the protection of a million of foreign bayonets, and the bannière des Lis has replaced the tricolor on the castle of the Tuileries. A detachment of the British army occupies Montmartre, where the British flag is flying, and in the Champs Elysées and Bois de Boulogne are encamped several brigades of English and Hanoverians. The Sovereigns of Russia, Austria and Prussia are expected and then it is said that the fate of France will be decided. The Army of the Loire has at length made its submission to the King, after stipulating but in vain for the beloved tricolor. Report says it is to be immediately dissolved and a new army raised with more legitimate inclinations. Should the King accede to this, France will be completely disarmed and at the mercy of the Allies, and the King himself a state prisoner. The entrance into Paris, thro' the Faubourg St Denis, does not give to the stranger who arrives there for the first time a great idea of the magnificence of Paris; he should enter by the Avenue de Neuilly or by the Porte St Antoine, both of which are very striking and superb.
Now you must not expect that I shall or can give you a description of all the fine things that I have seen or am about to see, for they have been so often described before that it would be a perfect waste of time, and I can do better in referring you at once to the Guide des Voyageurs à Paris; so that I shall content myself with merely indicating these objects which make the most impression on me.
My first visit was, as you will have no doubt guessed, to the Palais Royal: there I breakfasted, there I dined, and there I passed the whole day without the least ennui. It is a world in itself. It swarms at present with officers of the Allied army. The variety of uniforms adds to the splendour and novelty of the scene. The restaurants and cafés are filled with them. The Palais Royal is certainly the temple of animal gratification, the paradise of gastronomes. The officers are indulging in all sorts of luxury, revelling in Champaign and Burgundy, in all the pleasures of the belly, as well as in iis quae sub ventre sunt. 'Twill be a famous harvest for the restaurateurs and for the Cyprians who parade up and down the Arcades, sure of a constant succession of suitors. In fact, whatever be the taste of a man, whether sensual or intellectual or both, he can gratify himself here without moving out of the precincts of the Palais Royal. Here are cafés, restaurants, shops of all kinds whose display of clocks, jewellery, stuffs, silks, merchandize from all parts of the world, is most brilliant and dazzling; here you find reading-rooms where newspapers, reviews and pamphlets of all tongues, nations and languages are to be met with; here are museums of paintings, statues, plans in relief, cosmoramas; here are libraries, gaming houses, houses of fair reception; cellars where music, dancing and all kinds of orgies are carried on; exhibitions of all sorts, learned pigs, dancing dogs, military canary birds, hermaphrodites, giants, dwarf jugglers from Hindostan, catawbas from America, serpents from Java, and crocodiles from the Nile. Here, so Kotzebue has calculated, you may go through all the functions of life in one day and end it afterwards should you be so inclined. You may eat, drink, sleep, bathe, go to the Cabinet d'aisance, walk, read, make love, game and, should you be tired of life, you may buy powder and ball or opium to hasten your journey across Styx; or should you desire a more classic exit, you may die like Seneca opening your veins in a bath. Deep play goes forward day and night, and I verily believe there are some persons in Paris who never quit these precincts. The restaurants and cafés are most brilliantly fitted up. One, Le Café des Mille Colonnes, so called from the reflection of the columns in the mirrors with which the wainscoat is lined, boasts of a limonadière of great beauty. She is certainly a fine woman, dresses very well, as indeed most French women do, and has a remarkably fine turned arm which she takes care to display on all occasions. I do not, however, perceive much animation in her; she always appears the same, nor has she made any more impression on me—tho' I am of a very susceptible nature in this particular—than a fine statue or picture would do. There she sits on a throne and receives the hommage and compliments of most of the visitors and the money of all, which seems to please her most, for she receives the compliments which are paid her with the utmost sang-froid and indifference, and the money she takes especial care to count. English troops, conjointly with the National Guard, do duty at the entrance of the Palais Royal from the Rue St Honoré; and it became necessary to have a strong guard to keep the peace, as frequent disputes take place between the young men of the Capital and the Prussian officers, against whom the French are singularly inveterate.