The Crayon Papers: Sketches in Paris in 1825
Sketches in Paris in 1825
FROM THE TRAVELING NOTE-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.
A Parisian hotel is a street set on end, the grand staircase forming the
highway, and every floor a separate habitation. Let me describe the one in
which I am lodged, which may serve as a specimen of its class. It is a huge
quadrangular pile of stone, built round a spacious paved court. The ground
floor is occupied by shops, magazines, and domestic offices. Then comes the
_entre-sol_, with low ceilings, short windows, and dwarf chambers;
then succeed a succession of floors, or stories, rising one above the
other, to the number of Mahomet's heavens. Each floor is like a distinct
mansion, complete in itself, with ante-chamber, saloons, dining and
sleeping rooms, kitchen and other conveniences for the accommodation of a
family. Some floors are divided into two or more suites of apartments. Each
apartment has its main door of entrance, opening upon the staircase, or
landing-places, and locked like a street door. Thus several families and
numerous single persons live under the same roof, totally independent of
each other, and may live so for years without holding more intercourse than
is kept up in other cities by residents in the same street.
Like the great world, this little microcosm has its gradations of rank and
style and importance. The _Premier_, or first floor, with its grand
saloons, lofty ceilings, and splendid furniture, is decidedly the
aristocratical part of the establishment. The second floor is scarcely less
aristocratical and magnificent; the other floors go on lessening in
splendor as they gain in altitude, and end with the attics, the region of
petty tailors, clerks, and sewing-girls. To make the filling up of the
mansion complete, every odd nook and corner is fitted up as a _joli petit
appartement � gar�on_ (a pretty little bachelor's apartment), that is to
say, some little dark inconvenient nestling-place for a poor devil of a
bachelor.
The whole domain is shut up from the street by a great
_porte-coch�re_, or portal, calculated for the admission of carriages.
This consists of two massy folding-doors, that swing heavily open upon a
spacious entrance, passing under the front of the edifice into the
courtyard. On one side is a spacious staircase leading to the upper
apartments. Immediately without the portal is the porter's lodge, a small
room with one or two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the
_concierge_, or porter and his family. This is one of the most
important functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus of the
establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his knowledge and
consent. The _porte-coch�re_ in general is fastened by a sliding bolt,
from which a cord or wire passes into the porter's lodge. Whoever wishes to
go out must speak to the porter, who draws the bolt. A visitor from without
gives a single rap with the massive knocker; the bolt is immediately drawn,
as if by an invisible hand; the door stands ajar, the visitor pushes it
open, and enters. A face presents itself at the glass door of the porter's
little chamber; the stranger pronounces the name of the person he comes to
seek. If the person or family is of importance, occupying the first or
second floor, the porter sounds a bell once or twice, to give notice that a
visitor is at hand. The stranger in the meantime ascends the great
staircase, the highway common to all, and arrives at the outer door,
equivalent to a street door, of the suite of rooms inhabited by his
friends.
Beside this hangs a bell-cord, with which he rings for admittance.
When the family or person inquired for is of less importance, or lives in
some remote part of the mansion less easy to be apprised, no signal is
given. The applicant pronounces the name at the porter's door, and is told,
_"Montez au troisi�me, au quatri�me; sonnez � la porte � droite ou �
gauche."_ ("Ascend to the third or fourth story; ring the bell on the
right or left hand door"); as the case may be.
The porter and his wife act as domestics to such of the inmates of the
mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms,
lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they
receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with
the servants of the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the incomers
and outgoers, are thus enabled, by hook and by crook, to learn the secrets
and domestic history of every member of the little territory within the
_porte-coch�re_.
The porter's lodge is accordingly a great scene of gossip, where all the
private affairs of this interior neighborhood are discussed. The courtyard,
also, is an assembling place in the evenings for the servants of the
different families, and a sisterhood of sewing girls from the entre-sols
and the attics, to play at various games, and dance to the music of their
own songs, and the echoes of their feet, at which assemblages the porter's
daughter takes the lead; a fresh, pretty, buxom girl, generally called
"_La Petite_," though almost as tall as a grenadier. These little
evening gatherings, so characteristic of this gay country, are countenanced
by the various families of the mansion, who often look down from their
windows and balconies, on moonlight evenings, and enjoy the simple revels
of their domestics. I must observe, however, that the hotel I am describing
is rather a quiet, retired one, where most of the inmates are permanent
residents from year to year, so that there is more of the spirit of
neighborhood than in the bustling, fashionable hotels in the gay parts of
Paris, which are continually changing their inhabitants.
MY FRENCH NEIGHBOR
I often amuse myself by watching from my window (which, by the bye, is
tolerably elevated) the movements of the teeming little world below me; and
as I am on sociable terms with the porter and his wife, I gather from them,
as they light my fire, or serve my breakfast, anecdotes of all my fellow
lodgers. I have been somewhat curious in studying a little antique
Frenchman, who occupies one of the _jolie chambres � gar�on_ already
mentioned. He is one of those superannuated veterans who flourished before
the revolution, and have weathered all the storms of Paris, in consequence,
very probably, of being fortunately too insignificant to attract attention.
He has a small income, which he manages with the skill of a French
economist; appropriating so much for his lodgings, so much for his meals;
so much for his visits to St. Cloud and Versailles, and so much for his
seat at the theater. He has resided in the hotel for years, and always in
the same chamber, which he furnishes at his own expense. The decorations of
the room mark his various ages. There are some gallant pictures which he
hung up in his younger days; with a portrait of a lady of rank, whom he
speaks tenderly of, dressed in the old French taste; and a pretty opera
dancer, pirouetting in a hoop petticoat, who lately died at a good old age.
In a corner of this picture is stuck a prescription for rheumatism, and
below it stands an easy-chair. He has a small parrot at the window, to
amuse him when within doors, and a pug dog to accompany him in his daily
peregrinations. While I am writing he is crossing the court to go out. He
is attired in his best coat, of sky-blue, and is doubtless bound for the
Tuileries. His hair is dressed in the old style, with powdered ear-locks
and a pig-tail. His little dog trips after him, sometimes on four legs,
sometimes on three, and looking as if his leather small-clothes were too
tight for him. Now the old gentleman stops to have a word with an old crony
who lives in the entre-sol, and is just returning from his promenade. Now
they take a pinch of snuff together; now they pull out huge red cotton
handkerchiefs (those "flags of abomination," as they have well been called)
and blow their noses most sonorously. Now they turn to make remarks upon
their two little dogs, who are exchanging the morning's salutation; now
they part, and my old gentleman stops to have a passing word with the
porter's wife; and now he sallies forth, and is fairly launched upon the
town for the day.
No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in
measuring and portioning out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.
The old gentleman in question has his exact hour for rising, and for
shaving himself by a small mirror hung against his casement. He sallies
forth at a certain hour every morning to take his cup of coffee and his
roll at a certain cafe, where he reads the papers. He has been a regular
admirer of the lady who presides at the bar, and always stops to have a
little _badinage_ with her _en passant_. He has his regular walks
on the Boulevards and in the Palais Royal, where he sets his watch by the
petard fired off by the sun at midday. He has his daily resort in the
Garden of the Tuileries, to meet with a knot of veteran idlers like
himself, who talk on pretty much the same subjects whenever they meet. He
has been present at all the sights and shows and rejoicings of Paris for
the last fifty years; has witnessed the great events of the revolution; the
guillotining of the king and queen; the coronation of Bonaparte; the
capture of Paris, and the restoration of the Bourbons. All these he speaks
of with the coolness of a theatrical critic; and I question whether he has
not been gratified by each in its turn; not from any inherent love of
tumult, but from that insatiable appetite for spectacle which prevails
among the inhabitants of this metropolis. I have been amused with a farce,
in which one of these systematic old triflers is represented. He sings a
song detailing his whole day's round of insignificant occupations, and goes
to bed delighted with the idea that his next day will be an exact
repetition of the same routine:
"Je me couche le soir,
Enchant� de pouvoir
Recommencer mon train
Le lendemain
Matin."* * * * *
THE ENGLISHMAN AT PARIS
In another part of the hotel a handsome suite of rooms is occupied by an
old English gentleman, of great probity, some understanding, and very
considerable crustiness, who has come to France to live economically. He
has a very fair property, but his wife, being of that blessed kind compared
in Scripture to the fruitful vine, has overwhelmed him with a family of
buxom daughters, who hang clustering about him, ready to be gathered by any
hand. He is seldom to be seen in public without one hanging on each arm,
and smiling on all the world, while his own mouth is drawn down at each
corner like a mastiff's with internal growling at everything about him. He
adheres rigidly to English fashion in dress, and trudges about in long
gaiters and broad-brimmed hat; while his daughters almost overshadow him
with feathers, flowers, and French bonnets.
He contrives to keep up an atmosphere of English habits, opinions, and
prejudices, and to carry a semblance of London into the very heart of
Paris. His mornings are spent at Galignani's news-room, where he forms one
of a knot of inveterate quidnuncs, who read the same articles over a dozen
times in a dozen different papers. He generally dines in company with some
of his own countrymen, and they have what is called a "comfortable sitting"
after dinner, in the English fashion, drinking wine, discussing the news of
the London papers, and canvassing the French character, the French
metropolis, and the French revolution, ending with a unanimous admission of
English courage, English morality, English cookery, English wealth, the
magnitude of London, and the ingratitude of the French.
His evenings are chiefly spent at a club of his countrymen, where the
London papers are taken. Sometimes his daughters entice him to the
theaters, but not often. He abuses French tragedy, as all fustian and
bombast, Talma as a ranter, and Duchesnois as a mere termagant. It is true
his ear is not sufficiently familiar with the language to understand French
verse, and he generally goes to sleep during the performance. The wit of
the French comedy is flat and pointless to him. He would not give one of
Munden's wry faces or Liston's inexpressible looks for the whole of it.
He will not admit that Paris has any advantage over London. The Seine is a
muddy rivulet in comparison with the Thames; the West End of London
surpasses the finest parts of the French capital; and on some one's
observing that there was a very thick fog out of doors: "Pish!" said he,
crustily, "it's nothing to the fogs we have in London."
He has infinite trouble in bringing his table into anything like conformity
to English rule. With his liquors, it is true, he is tolerably successful.
He procures London porter, and a stock of port and sherry, at considerable
expense; for he observes that he cannot stand those cursed thin French
wines, they dilute his blood so much as to give him the rheumatism. As to
their white wines, he stigmatizes them as mere substitutes for cider; and
as to claret, why, "it would be port if it could." He has continual
quarrels with his French cook, whom he renders wretched by insisting on his
conforming to Mrs. Glass; for it is easier to convert a Frenchman from his
religion than his cookery. The poor fellow, by dint of repeated efforts,
once brought himself to serve up _ros bif_ sufficiently raw to suit
what he considered the cannibal taste of his master; but then he could not
refrain, at the last moment, adding some exquisite sauce, that put the old
gentleman in a fury.
He detests wood-fires, and has procured a quantity of coal; but not having
a grate, he is obliged to burn it on the hearth. Here he sits poking and
stirring the fire with one end of a tongs, while the room is as murky as a
smithy; railing at French chimneys, French masons, and French architects;
giving a poke at the end of every sentence, as though he were stirring up
the very bowels of the delinquents he is anathematizing. He lives in a
state militant with inanimate objects around him; gets into high dudgeon
with doors and casements, because they will not come under English law, and
has implacable feuds with sundry refractory pieces of furniture. Among
these is one in particular with which he is sure to have a high quarrel
every tune he goes to dress. It is a _commode_, one of those smooth,
polished, plausible pieces of French furniture that have the perversity of
five hundred devils. Each drawer has a will of its own, will open or not,
just as the whim takes it, and sets lock and key at defiance. Sometimes a
drawer will refuse to yield to either persuasion or force, and will part
with both handles rather than yield; another will come out in the most coy
and coquettish manner imaginable; elbowing along, zig-zag; one corner
retreating as the other advances; making a thousand difficulties and
objections at every move; until the old gentleman, out of all patience,
gives a sudden jerk, and brings drawer and contents into the middle of the
floor. His hostility to this unlucky piece of furniture increases every
day, as if incensed that it does not grow better. He is like the fretful
invalid who cursed his bed, that the longer he lay the harder it grew. The
only benefit he has derived from the quarrel is that it has furnished him
with a crusty joke, which he utters on all occasions. He swears that a
French _commode_ is the most _incommodious_ thing in existence,
and that although the nation cannot make a joint-stool that will stand
steady, yet they are always talking of everything's being
_perfection�e_.
His servants understand his humor, and avail themselves of it. He was one
day disturbed by a pertinacious rattling and shaking at one of the doors,
and bawled out in an angry tone to know the cause of the disturbance.
"Sir," said the footman, testily, "it's this confounded French lock!" "Ah!"
said the old gentleman, pacified by this hit at the nation, "I thought
there was something French at the bottom of it!"
* * * * *
ENGLISH AND FRENCH CHARACTER
As I am a mere looker on in Europe, and hold myself as much as possible
aloof from its quarrels and prejudices, I feel something like one
overlooking a game, who, without any great skill of his own, can
occasionally perceive the blunders of much abler players. This neutrality
of feeling enables me to enjoy the contrasts of character presented in this
time of general peace, when the various peoples of Europe, who have so long
been sundered by wars, are brought together and placed side by side in this
great gathering-place of nations. No greater contrast, however, is
exhibited than that of the French and English. The peace has deluged this
gay capital with English visitors of all ranks and conditions. They throng
every place of curiosity and amusement; fill the public gardens, the
galleries, the cafes, saloons, theaters; always herding together, never
associating with the French. The two nations are like two threads of
different colors, tangled together but never blended.
In fact they present a continual antithesis, and seem to value themselves
upon being unlike each other; yet each have their peculiar merits, which
should entitle them to each other's esteem. The French intellect is quick
and active. It flashes its way into a subject with the rapidity of
lightning; seizes upon remote conclusions with a sudden bound, and its
deductions are almost intuitive. The English intellect is less rapid, but
more persevering; less sudden, but more sure in its deductions. The
quickness and mobility of the French enable them to find enjoyment in the
multiplicity of sensations. They speak and act more from immediate
impressions than from reflection and meditation. They are therefore more
social and communicative; more fond of society, and of places of public
resort and amusement. An Englishman is more reflective in his habits. He
lives in the world of his own thoughts, and seems more self-existent and
self-dependent. He loves the quiet of his own apartment; even when abroad,
he in a manner makes a little solitude around him by his silence and
reserve; he moves about shy and solitary, and, as it were, buttoned up,
body and soul.
The French are great optimists; they seize upon every good as it flies, and
revel in the passing pleasure. The Englishman is too apt to neglect the
present good, in preparing against the possible evil. However adversities
may lower, let the sun shine but for a moment, and forth sallies the
mercurial Frenchman, in holiday dress and holiday spirits, gay as a
butterfly, as though his sunshine were perpetual; but let the sun beam
never so brightly, so there be but a cloud in the horizon, the wary
Englishman ventures forth distrustfully, with his umbrella in his hand.
The Frenchman has a wonderful facility at turning small things to
advantage. No one can be gay and luxurious on smaller means; no one
requires less expense to be happy. He practices a kind of gilding in his
style of living, and hammers out every guinea into gold leaf. The
Englishman, on the contrary, is expensive in his habits, and expensive in
his enjoyments. He values everything, whether useful or ornamental, by what
it costs. He has no satisfaction in show, unless it be solid and complete.
Everything goes with him by the square foot. Whatever display he makes, the
depth is sure to equal the surface.
The Frenchman's habitation, like himself, is open, cheerful, bustling, and
noisy. He lives in a part of a great hotel, with wide portal, paved court,
a spacious dirty stone staircase, and a family on every floor. All is
clatter and chatter. He is good-humored and talkative with his servants,
sociable with his neighbors, and complaisant to all the world. Anybody has
access to himself and his apartments; his very bedroom is open to visitors,
whatever may be its state of confusion; and all this not from any
peculiarly hospitable feeling, but from that communicative habit which
predominates over his character.
The Englishman, on the contrary, ensconces himself in a snug brick mansion,
which he has all to himself; locks the front door; puts broken bottles
along his walls, and spring guns and man-traps in his gardens; shrouds
himself with trees and window-curtains; exults in his quiet and privacy,
and seems disposed to keep out noise, daylight, and company. His house,
like himself, has a reserved, inhospitable exterior; yet whoever gains
admittance is apt to find a warm heart and warm fireside within.
The French excel in wit, the English in humor; the French have gayer fancy,
the English richer imagination. The former are full of sensibility; easily
moved, and prone to sudden and great excitement; but their excitement is
not durable; the English are more phlegmatic; not so readily affected, but
capable of being aroused to great enthusiasm. The faults of these opposite
temperaments are that the vivacity of the French is apt to sparkle up and
be frothy, the gravity of the English to settle down and grow muddy. When
the two characters can be fixed in a medium, the French kept from
effervescence and the English from stagnation, both will be found
excellent.
This contrast of character may also be noticed in the great concerns of the
two nations. The ardent Frenchman is all for military renown; he fights for
glory, that is to say, for success in arms. For, provided the national flag
is victorious, he cares little about the expense, the injustice, or the
inutility of the war. It is wonderful how the poorest Frenchman will revel
on a triumphant bulletin; a great victory is meat and drink to him; and at
the sight of a military sovereign, bringing home captured cannon and
captured standards, he throws up his greasy cap in the air, and is ready to
jump out of his wooden shoes for joy.
John Bull, on the contrary, is a reasoning, considerate person. If he does
wrong, it is in the most rational way imaginable. He fights because the
good of the world requires it. He is a moral person, and makes war upon his
neighbor for the maintenance of peace and good order, and sound principles.
He is a money-making personage, and fights for the prosperity of commerce
and manufactures. Thus the two nations have been fighting, time out of
mind, for glory and good. The French, in pursuit of glory, have had their
capital twice taken; and John, in pursuit of good, has run himself over
head and ears in debt.
* * * * *
THE TUILERIES AND WINDSOR CASTLE
I have sometimes fancied I could discover national characteristics in
national edifices. In the Chateau of the Tuileries, for instance, I
perceive the same jumble of contrarieties that marks the French character;
the same whimsical mixture of the great and the little; the splendid and
the paltry, the sublime and the grotesque. On visiting this famous pile,
the first thing that strikes both eye and ear is military display. The
courts glitter with steel-clad soldiery, and resound with the tramp of
horse, the roll of drum, and the bray of trumpet. Dismounted guardsmen
patrol its arcades, with loaded carbines, jingling spears, and clanking
sabers. Gigantic grenadiers are posted about its staircases; young officers
of the guards loll from the balconies, or lounge in groups upon the
terraces; and the gleam of bayonet from window to window, shows that
sentinels are pacing up and down the corridors and ante-chambers. The first
floor is brilliant with the splendors of a court. French taste has tasked
itself in adorning the sumptuous suites of apartments; nor are the gilded
chapel and the splendid theater forgotten, where piety and pleasure are
next-door neighbors, and harmonize together with perfect French
_bienseance_.
Mingled up with all this regal and military magnificence is a world of
whimsical and make-shift detail. A great part of the huge edifice is cut up
into little chambers and nestling-places for retainers of the court,
dependents on retainers, and hangers-on of dependents. Some are squeezed
into narrow entre-sols, those low, dark, intermediate slices of apartments
between floors, the inhabitants of which seem shoved in edgewise, like
books between narrow shelves; others are perched like swallows, under the
eaves; the high roofs, too, which are as tall and steep as a French cocked
hat, have rows of little dormant windows, tier above tier, just large
enough to admit light and air for some dormitory, and to enable its
occupant to peep out at the sky. Even to the very ridge of the roof may be
seen here and there one of these air-holes, with a stove pipe beside it, to
carry off the smoke from the handful of fuel with which its weazen-faced
tenant simmers his _demi-tasse_ of coffee.
On approaching the palace from the Pont Royal, you take in at a glance all
the various strata of inhabitants; the garreteer in the roof; the retainer
in the entre-sol; the courtiers at the casements of the royal apartments;
while on the ground-floor a steam of savory odors and a score or two of
cooks, in white caps, bobbing their heads about the windows, betray that
scientific and all-important laboratory, the Royal Kitchen.
Go into the grand ante-chamber of the royal apartments on Sunday and see
the mixture of Old and New France; the old emigr�s, returned with the
Bourbons; little withered, spindle-shanked old noblemen, clad in court
dresses, that figured in these saloons before the revolution, and have been
carefully treasured up during their exile; with the solitaires and _ailes
de pigeon_ of former days; and the court swords strutting out behind,
like pins stuck through dry beetles. See them haunting the scenes of their
former splendor, in hopes of a restitution of estates, like ghosts haunting
the vicinity of buried treasure; while around them you see the Young
France, that have grown up in the fighting school of Napoleon; all equipped
_en militaire_; tall, hardy, frank, vigorous, sunburned,
fierce-whiskered; with tramping boots, towering crests, and glittering
breast-plates.
It is incredible the number of ancient and hereditary feeders on royalty
said to be housed in this establishment. Indeed all the royal palaces
abound with noble families returned from exile, and who have
nestling-places allotted them while they await the restoration of their
estates, or the much-talked-of law indemnity. Some of them have fine
quarters, but poor living. Some families have but five or six hundred
francs a year, and all their retinue consists of a servant-woman. With all
this, they maintain their old aristocratical hauteur, look down with vast
contempt upon the opulent families which have risen since the revolution;
stigmatize them all as _parvenues_ or upstarts, and refuse to visit
them.
In regarding the exterior of the Tuileries, with all its outward signs of
internal populousness, I have often thought what a rare sight it would be
to see it suddenly unroofed, and all its nooks and corners laid open to the
day. It would be like turning up the stump of an old tree, and dislodging
the world of grubs, and ants, and beetles lodged beneath. Indeed there is a
scandalous anecdote current that in the time of one of the petty plots,
when petards were exploded under the windows of the Tuileries, the police
made a sudden investigation of the palace at four o'clock in the morning;
when a scene of the most whimsical confusion ensued. Hosts of supernumerary
inhabitants were found foisted into the huge edifice; every rat-hole had
its occupant; and places which had been considered as tenanted only by
spiders were found crowded with a surreptitious population. It is added
that many ludicrous accidents occurred; great scampering and slamming of
doors, and whisking away in nightgowns and slippers; and several persons,
who were found by accident in their neighbors' chambers, evinced
indubitable astonishment at the circumstance.
As I have fancied I could read the French character in the national palace
of the Tuileries, so I have pictured to myself some of the traits of John
Bull in his royal abode of Windsor Castle. The Tuileries, outwardly a
peaceful palace, is in effect a swaggering military hold; while the old
castle, on the contrary, in spite of its bullying look, is completely under
petticoat government. Every corner and nook is built up into some snug,
cozy nestling place, some "procreant cradle," not tenanted by meager
expectants or whiskered warriors, but by sleek placemen; knowing realizers
of present pay and present pudding; who seem placed there not to kill and
destroy, but to breed and multiply. Nursery maids and children shine with
rosy faces at the windows, and swarm about the courts and terraces. The
very soldiers have a pacific look, and when off duty may be seen loitering
about the place with the nursery-maids; not making love to them in the gay
gallant style of the French soldiery, but with infinite bonhomie aiding
them to take care of the broods of children.
Though the old castle is in decay, everything about it thrives; the very
crevices of the walls are tenanted by swallows, rooks, and pigeons, all
sure of quiet lodgment; the ivy strikes its roots deep in the fissures, and
flourishes about the mouldering tower. [Footnote: The above sketch was
written before the thorough repairs and magnificent additions that have
been made of late years to Windsor Castle.] Thus it is with honest John;
according to his own account, he is ever going to ruin, yet everything that
lives on him thrives and waxes fat. He would fain be a soldier, and swagger
like his neighbors; but his domestic, quiet-loving, uxorious nature
continually gets the upper hand; and though he may mount his helmet and
gird on his sword, yet he is apt to sink into the plodding, painstaking
father of a family; with a troop of children at his heels, and his
womenkind hanging on each arm.
THE FIELD OF WATERLOO
I have spoken heretofore with some levity of the contrast that exists
between the English and French character; but it deserves more serious
consideration. They are the two great nations of modern times most
diametrically opposed, and most worthy of each other's rivalry; essentially
distinct in their characters, excelling in opposite qualities, and
reflecting luster on each other by their very opposition. In nothing is
this contrast more strikingly evinced than in their military conduct. For
ages have they been contending, and for ages have they crowded each other's
history with acts of splendid heroism. Take the Battle of Waterloo, for
instance, the last and most memorable trial of their rival prowess. Nothing
could surpass the brilliant daring on the one side, and the steadfast
enduring on the other. The French cavalry broke like waves on the compact
squares of English infantry. They were seen galloping round those serried
walls of men, seeking in vain for an entrance; tossing their arms in the
air, in the heat of their enthusiasm, and braving the whole front of
battle. The British troops, on the other hand, forbidden to move or fire,
stood firm and enduring. Their columns were ripped up by cannonry; whole
rows were swept down at a shot; the survivors closed their ranks, and stood
firm. In this way many columns stood through the pelting of the iron
tempest without firing a shot; without any action to stir their blood or
excite their spirits. Death thinned their ranks, but could not shake their
souls.
A beautiful instance of the quick and generous impulses to which the French
are prone, is given in the case of a French cavalier, in the hottest of the
action, charging furiously upon a British officer, but perceiving in the
moment of assault that his adversary had lost his sword-arm, dropping the
point of his saber, and courteously riding on. Peace be with that generous
warrior, whatever were his fate! If he went down in the storm of battle,
with the foundering fortunes of his chieftain, may the turf of Waterloo
grow green above his grave! and happier far would be the fate of such a
spirit, to sink amid the tempest, unconscious of defeat, than to survive
and mourn over the blighted laurels of his country.
In this way the two armies fought through a long and bloody day. The French
with enthusiastic valor, the English with cool, inflexible courage, until
Fate, as if to leave the question of superiority still undecided between
two such adversaries, brought up the Prussians to decide the fortunes of
the field.
It was several years afterward that I visited the field of Waterloo. The
plowshare had been busy with its oblivious labors, and the frequent harvest
had nearly obliterated the vestiges of war. Still the blackened ruins of
Hoguemont stood, a monumental pile, to mark the violence of this vehement
struggle. Its broken walls, pierced by bullets, and shattered by
explosions, showed the deadly strife that had taken place within; when Gaul
and Briton, hemmed in between narrow walls, hand to hand and foot to foot,
fought from garden to courtyard, from courtyard to chamber, with intense
and concentrated rivalship. Columns of smoke turned from this vortex of
battle as from a volcano: "it was," said my guide, "like a little hell upon
earth." Not far off, two or three broad spots of rank, unwholesome green
still marked the places where these rival warriors, after their fierce and
fitful struggle, slept quietly together in the lap of their common mother
earth. Over all the rest of the field peace had resumed its sway. The
thoughtless whistle of the peasant floated on the air, instead of the
trumpet's clangor; the team slowly labored up the hillside, once shaken by
the hoofs of rushing squadrons; and wide fields of corn waved peacefully
over the soldiers' graves, as summer seas dimple over the place where many
a tall ship lies buried.
* * * * *
To the foregoing desultory notes on the French military character, let me
append a few traits which I picked up verbally in one of the French
provinces. They may have already appeared in print, but I have never met
with them.
At the breaking out of the revolution, when so many of the old families
emigrated, a descendant of the great Turenne, by the name of De Latour
D'Auvergne, refused to accompany his relations, and entered into the
Republican army. He served in all the campaigns of the revolution,
distinguished himself by his valor, his accomplishments, and his generous
spirit, and might have risen to fortune, and to the highest honors. He
refused, however, all rank in the army, above that of captain, and would
receive no recompense for his achievements but a sword of honor. Napoleon,
in testimony of his merits, gave him the title of Premier Grenadier de
France (First Grenadier of France), which was the only title he would ever
bear. He was killed in Germany, in 1809 or '10. To honor his memory, his
place was always retained in his regiment, as if he still occupied it; and
whenever the regiment was mustered, and the name of De Latour D'Auvergne
was called out, the reply was, "Dead on the field of honor!"
* * * * *
PARIS AT THE RESTORATION
Paris presented a singular aspect just after the downfall of Napoleon, and
the restoration of the Bourbons. It was filled with a restless, roaming
population; a dark, sallow race, with fierce mustaches, black cravats, and
feverish, menacing looks; men suddenly thrown out of employ by the return
of peace; officers cut short in their career, and cast loose with scanty
means, many of them in utter indigence, upon the world; the broken elements
of armies. They haunted the places of public resort, like restless, unhappy
spirits, taking no pleasure; hanging about, like lowering clouds that
linger after a storm, and giving a singular air of gloom to this otherwise
gay metropolis.
The vaunted courtesy of the old school, the smooth urbanity that prevailed
in former days of settled government and long-established aristocracy, had
disappeared amid the savage republicanism of the revolution and the
military furor of the empire; recent reverses had stung the national vanity
to the quick; and English travelers, who crowded to Paris on the return of
peace, expecting to meet with a gay, good-humored, complaisant populace,
such as existed in the time of the "Sentimental Journey," were surprised at
finding them irritable and fractious, quick at fancying affronts, and not
unapt to offer insults. They accordingly inveighed with heat and bitterness
at the rudeness they experienced in the French metropolis; yet what better
had they to expect? Had Charles II. been reinstated in his kingdom by the
valor of French troops; had he been wheeled triumphantly to London over the
trampled bodies and trampled standards of England's bravest sons; had a
French general dictated to the English capital, and a French army been
quartered in Hyde Park; had Paris poured forth its motley population, and
the wealthy bourgeoise of every French trading town swarmed to London;
crowding its squares; filling its streets with their equipages; thronging
its fashionable hotels, and places of amusements; elbowing its impoverished
nobility out of their palaces and opera-boxes, and looking down on the
humiliated inhabitants as a conquered people; in such a reverse of the
case, what degree of courtesy would the populace of London have been apt to
exercise toward their visitors? [Footnote: The above remarks were suggested
by a conversation with the late Mr. Canning, whom the author met in Paris,
and who expressed himself in the most liberal way concerning the
magnanimity of the French on the occupation of their capital by strangers.]
On the contrary, I have always admired the degree of magnanimity exhibited
by the French on the occupation of their capital by the English. When we
consider the military ambition of this nation, its love of glory; the
splendid height to which its renown in arms had recently been carried, and
with these, the tremendous reverses it had just undergone; its armies
shattered, annihilated; its capital captured, garrisoned, and overrun, and
that too by its ancient rival, the English, toward whom it had cherished
for centuries a jealous and almost religious hostility; could we have
wondered if the tiger spirit of this fiery people had broken out in bloody
feuds and deadly quarrels; and that they had sought to rid themselves in
any way of their invaders? But it is cowardly nations only, those who dare
not wield the sword, that revenge themselves with the lurking dagger. There
were no assassinations in Paris. The French had fought valiantly,
desperately, in the field; but, when valor was no longer of avail, they
submitted like gallant men to a fate they could not withstand. Some
instances of insult from the populace were experienced by their English
visitors; some personal rencontres, which led to duels, did take place; but
these smacked of open and honorable hostility. No instances of lurking and
perfidious revenge occurred, and the British soldier patroled the streets
of Paris safe from treacherous assault.
If the English met with harshness and repulse in social intercourse, it was
in some degree a proof that the people are more sincere than has been
represented. The emigrants who had just returned were not yet reinstated.
Society was constituted of those who had flourished under the late regime;
the newly ennobled, the recently enriched, who felt their prosperity and
their consequence endangered by this change of things. The broken-down
officer, who saw his glory tarnished, his fortune ruined, his occupation
gone, could not be expected to look with complacency upon the authors of
his downfall. The English visitor, flushed with health, and wealth, and
victory, could little enter into the feelings of the blighted warrior,
scarred with a hundred battles, an exile from the camp, broken in
constitution by the wars, impoverished by the peace, and cast back, a needy
stranger in the splendid but captured metropolis of his country.
"Oh! who can tell what heroes feel,
When all but life and honor's lost!"
And here let me notice the conduct of the French soldiery on the
dismemberment of the army of the Loire, when two hundred thousand men were
suddenly thrown out of employ; men who had been brought up to the camp, and
scarce knew any other home. Few in civil, peaceful life, are aware of the
severe trial to the feelings that takes place on the dissolution of a
regiment. There is a fraternity in arms. The community of dangers,
hardships, enjoyments; the participation in battles and victories; the
companionship in adventures, at a time of life when men's feelings are most
fresh, susceptible, and ardent, all these bind the members of a regiment
strongly together. To them the regiment is friends, family, home. They
identify themselves with its fortunes, its glories, its disgraces. Imagine
this romantic tie suddenly dissolved; the regiment broken up; the
occupation of its members gone; their military pride mortified; the career
of glory closed behind them; that of obscurity, dependence, want, neglect,
perhaps beggary, before them. Such was the case with the soldiers of the
army of the Loire. They were sent off in squads, with officers, to the
principal towns where they were to be disarmed and discharged. In this way
they passed through the country with arms in their hands, often exposed to
slights and scoffs, to hunger and various hardships and privations; but
they conducted themselves magnanimously, without any of those outbreaks of
violence and wrong that so often attend the dismemberment of armies.
* * * * *
The few years that have elapsed since the time above alluded to, have
already had their effect. The proud and angry spirits which then roamed
about Paris unemployed begins to recover its old channels, though worn
deeper by recent torrents. The natural urbanity of the French begins to
find its way, like oil, to the surface, though there still remains a degree
of roughness and bluntness of manner, partly real, and partly affected, by
such as imagine it to indicate force and frankness. The events of the last
thirty years have rendered the French a more reflecting people. They have
acquired greater independence of mind and strength of judgment, together
with a portion of that prudence which results from experiencing the
dangerous consequences of excesses. However that period may have been
stained by crimes, and filled with extravagances, the French have certainly
come out of it a greater nation than before. One of their own philosophers
observes that in one or two generations the nation will probably combine
the ease and elegance of the old character with force and solidity. They
were light, he says, before the revolution; then wild and savage; they have
become more thoughtful and reflective. It is only old Frenchmen, nowadays,
that are gay and trivial; the young are very serious personages.
* * * * *
P.S.--In the course of a morning's walk, about the time the above remarks
were written, I observed the Duke of Wellington, who was on a brief visit
to Paris. He was alone, simply attired in a blue frock; with an umbrella
under his arm, and his hat drawn over his eyes, and sauntering across the
Place Vendome, close by the Column of Napoleon. He gave a glance up at the
column as he passed, and continued his loitering way up the Rue de la Paix;
stopping occasionally to gaze in at the shop-windows; elbowed now and then
by other gazers, who little suspected that the quiet, lounging individual
they were jostling so unceremoniously was the conqueror who had twice
entered their capital victoriously; had controlled the destinies of the
nation, and eclipsed the glory of the military idol, at the base of whose
column he was thus negligently sauntering.
Some years afterward I was at an evening's entertainment given by the duke
at Apsley House, to William IV. The duke had manifested his admiration of
his great adversary, by having portraits of him in different parts of the
house. At the bottom of the grand staircase stood the colossal statue of
the emperor, by Canova. It was of marble, in the antique style, with one
arm partly extended, holding a figure of victory. Over this arm the ladies,
in tripping upstairs to the ball, had thrown their shawls. It was a
singular office for the statue of Napoleon to perform in the mansion of the
Duke of Wellington!
"Imperial Caesar dead, and turned to clay," etc., etc.
* * * * *
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