Part 12

Such innocent diversions reminded us of the old days of France, when the country people were remarkable for their innocent gaiety and good-natured mirth; as the sweet poet sings:

“Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleased with itself, whom all the world can please, Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skilled in jestic lore, Has frisked beneath the burden of fourscore.”

GOLDSMITH’S _Traveller_.

XXIII

THE PANTHEON AND ITS LIBRARY. HALLE AU BLED. THE SORBONNE. OBSERVATIONS

In 1793 a visit to the Pantheon in the Rue St. Jacques was considered a duty for every patriot, who thus made a pilgrimage to the shrines of the departed saints of Liberty. It was an affecting sight to behold the regenerated children of freedom besmeared with blood and their feverish heads covered with _bonnets rouges_, descending into the vaults where the remains of their Satanic hierarchs reposed, and invoking, by the glimmering light of funeral torches, the shades of Marat and le Pelletier,[1] St. Fargeon.

In the more rational and early part of the Revolution this place was consecrated to the memory of those who by their genius, their discoveries, or their civil and military services, had contributed to raise the prosperity of their country. France, in St. Denis, possessed a Royal Mausoleum, but she was destitute of a cemetery for her national benefactors, and nothing could therefore be more laudable than the appropriation of the vaults (for this purpose) of one of the finest churches in Christendom, and accordingly this church of St. Geneviève was selected for this purpose. But this Christian temple was soon converted into a temple of Paganism, and its name changed to a heathen one, while instead of becoming an offertory to genius, its vaults became the receptacle of the bodies of bloody-minded maniacs.

I remember to have seen the tombs of Voltaire[1] and Mirabeau at the extremity of these caverns, and they were the _only great men_ who, in 1792, were judged worthy of being pantheonised. The remains of the latter were soon disturbed, for after the deposition of the King, he was suspected of being a Royalist and therefore a traitor to that Republic which, at the time of his death, was nonexistent. The relics of the Man of the People were therefore removed and flung into the Seine. But the ashes of Voltaire, the economist of monarchical government, the flatterer of kings, a determined aristocrat and a man who entertained as hearty a contempt for republican institutions as does Bonaparte himself, were left to moulder undisturbed.

[Sidenote: VOLTAIRE]

If I am not mistaken, Voltaire would, I am persuaded, had he lived in these times, have been the panegyrist of Bonaparte. Such a man as the First Consul would have captured the senses of the Philosopher of Fernay, and the declarations of this affected Mussulman delighted the eulogist of Mahomet.

Whoever is acquainted with the writings of Voltaire must perceive that the vivacity of his imagination carries him beyond himself. Acute, penetrating and ingeniously sceptical, no man was more easily deceived by appearances. A successful usurper and a great man were, in his mind, identical; with him goodness and greatness were correlative terms. The vilest scoundrel on earth, if possessed of Imperial power, is a great man. Hence we find Voltaire calumniating Constantine because he was a convert to Christianity and complimenting the most perfidious, cruel and barbarous conquerors because they were not Christians; extolling the licentious despotism of a puny tyrant of France, because infidelity flourished in his court and camp and publicly avowing that no conqueror existed without being at the same time a man of good understanding.

The legislators of modern France, I am convinced, never read with any attention the works of Voltaire, much less penetrated the spirit and object of his compositions. They denominated him a Republican simply because Condorcet[1] commented on Voltaire’s atheistical doctrines from the tribune of the Convention, and because they were not able to distinguish a desire to sap the foundations of Christian belief from a love of anarchy and misrule. Voltaire was the champion of kings, but the implacable enemy of priests.

From the private correspondence of Voltaire, it is evident he held in utter contempt the applause of the multitude. He aspired to obtain the suffrages of the great and to make proselytes of kings, countries, statesmen, women who possessed an influence over public men, and these personages he flattered unceasingly. The _kind_ of revolution he wanted to establish was as distinct from Jacobinism as true liberty from licentiousness. I do not wish it to be understood from this remark that I approve of the work of Voltaire, nor do I deny that he planted the seeds of that irreligious movement which in France has proved a powerful auxiliary to political disorder. Voltaire neither loved nor understood liberty, he treated with contempt the Parliaments and States-General of France; he apostrophised civil despotism wherever it despises religion, and criticised Montesquieu without understanding him.

Such was the man whose bones were unmolested, while the great advocate of Public Freedom was committed to the muddy waters of the Seine. I have had many conversations with Mirabeau, and I am certain that although no Republican, he did not detest a Republican system of government. The portals of the Pantheon, after the removal of the body of Mirabeau, were opened to receive the corrupt carcase of that miserable little demoniac, Marat, and a multitude of other sages, who had rendered themselves, by their villainies, their buffooneries and their insanities, worthy of immortality. Later on Marat was unpantheonised and tossed into the public sewer, and I apprehend the greater number of the men whom their grateful country has canonised in this polluted Temple have been served a similar trick; for upon inquiring on our visit there we learnt that there were _no_ immortals at present in preservation.

There is nothing, therefore, now (1802) to be seen in Ste. Geneviève but ruins; it has sunk considerably, and fresh supports have been placed to the foundations. The edifice, commenced thirty years ago, is not finished. We were warned it was not safe to traverse the interior; we did, however, cross two of the naves, though repeatedly warned to desist. Behind the church is the cloister, in which there is a library of 30,000 volumes open all day for the use of the public. It is kept in great order and decorated with a multitude of busts of the literati of France, and at the extremity is a glass case containing a model of the city of Rome.

Dannon, an ex-legislator, is the principal librarian.

The next object we visited was the Halle au Bled, or corn market. This is a very interesting place--both on account of the different species of corn offered for sale and of the vast cupola which covers the whole of the market. This cupola is the largest in France, and its diameter is 120 feet--only 13 feet less than that of the Pantheon at Rome, considered the greatest in the world. The vast Doric column employed the genius of Catherine de Medici, who believed in both astrology and magic. There are several allegorical figures upon it which denote the Queen’s widowhood. The world cannot produce such another extraordinary spectacle. The dome is constructed with finely ornamented wood, and so contrived that each partition is supported by another; there are no pillars used to uphold the fabric.

[Sidenote: SORBONNE AND OBSERVATORY]

The word Sorbonne recalls to my mind that of the Inquisition. In the hall of these controversialists, it has solemnly been discussed whether black was not white, assassination has been alternately extolled and condemned. The same doctrines have been deemed heretical and orthodox, according to the circumstances of the times. I have no other word to say respecting the Sorbonne, except that it exhibits nothing now but bare walls and ruins, and is scarcely worth the trouble of a visit.

The National Observatory is situated near the Rue S. Jacques; it was erected by Perrault, who was a better architect than an astronomer. The meridian line is traced along the great hall of the first storey. Under the edifice are subterranean caves or catacombs, which form a labyrinth from which no stranger can hope to extricate himself without the services of a guide.

The rooms are bare and destitute of furniture or accommodation for those who ought to assemble in them.

Cassini, the able director under the Royal Government, was driven away by the Revolution. No leading astronomers go to this Observatory.

From the top of the building we had a magnificent view of Paris and its environs.

The astronomical instruments are stationed in the great hall, but on account of the absence of the officials connected with the building we were unable to examine them or to see the immense telescope. Upon the whole this edifice is, like all French public buildings, superior in architecture to anything of the kind in England, but greatly inferior in _utility_, and far less calculated to answer its object than that at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, was under the direction of Dr. Maskelyne.[1]

XXIV

EXCURSION TO ST. CLOUD. PORCELAIN MANUFACTORY AT SÈVE. A DUEL

Queen Marie Antoinette paid dearly for the vast sums expended upon this palace. A fourth part of the money expended upon St. Cloud would have sufficed to purchase by bribery all the demagogues of France.

This place derives its name from a very remote antiquity. When the grandsons of Clovis and Ste. Clotilde were murdered by their ambitious and unnatural uncles, one (Cleodold) escaped, and was conveyed by his nurse to a secret place, where he was educated for the priesthood. He eventually founded a monastery in the vicinity of Paris, called after him St. Cleodold or St. Cloud. In later years a Royal château was built upon the same site. Before the Revolution his tomb was still preserved, inscribed with a very ancient epitaph.

St. Cloud is about six miles from Paris. The château stands upon an eminence commanding a full view of the capital and adjacent country; and the Seine, which widens at this point, meanders slowly beside the grove of trees planted along the banks. During the life of the Queen, the paintings in the gallery, the magnificence of the furniture in all the apartments, and the beauty of the walks, waters and cascades, made St. Cloud a most attractive spot. But the paintings and furniture were destroyed, and the place is now fitted up in a most costly style for the residence of the First Consul.

It is his intention to hold his Court here occasionally, and to enrich it with some choice pictures from the gallery in the Louvre. I have been informed that he intends to make it the depôt for all the gold and silver utensils which he stole out of private houses during the campaign in Italy.

[Sidenote: ST. CLOUD]

A considerable quantity of Church plate which he purloined he has sent to a silversmith’s to be melted, and afterwards wrought into salvers and other domestic vessels, marked with his initials, so that the Consular family will always be served upon gold and silver plates and dishes.

The cascades of St. Cloud are perfectly preserved, and they play once a month for the amusement of the Parisian populace. The expense of these exhibitions amounts to £12,750 per annum. The waterworks of Marli, which originally cost £200,000 sterling, are to be destroyed in order to increase the celebrity of those which ornament the Consular residence.

I have more than once had occasion to animadvert on the facilities open to licentiousness and debauchery in almost every place of public resort in Paris. There is a circumference of wickedness traced within twelve miles of this metropolis, seemingly on purpose to prevent unwary youth from escaping the bonds of infection. No repose or time for reflection is allowed to the voluptuous inhabitant of Paris. Of this melancholy truth the detail of what I saw in the village of St. Cloud is a proof.

This place being in the vicinity of Paris, and only a pleasant promenade from that capital, it is frequented by the Sunday devotees of pleasure. It is chiefly the resort of young persons of both sexes, who, after wandering about the charming walks, retire to an auberge at the foot of the bridge where there are a number of little hermitages in which they procure refreshments. These hermitages, though in the style of English tea-gardens, are refinements on the dull insipid morality of British rural architecture, because in France it is a prevailing maxim that elegant vice is preferable to dull virtue.

Into one of these little boxes we were ushered for the purpose of taking refreshment. After we had rested awhile I perceived a small door which excited my curiosity; I opened it, when, behold!... Confounded at what I saw, I resolved to find out whether we might not have been introduced into this hut by mistake; but, after examining at least twenty others, I found they were precisely upon the same plan and with the same views, only a few of them surpassed the others in decoration and scenery.

I inquired of the mistress of the place why so many little bedrooms were annexed to these boxes; she replied coolly that they were for the accommodation of such ladies and gentlemen who came to St. Cloud, and who desired a private _tête-à-tête_.

We then visited the celebrated porcelain manufactory of Sève, which is at all times open to public inspection. The range of apartments in which the porcelain is exhibited is extensive. A few groups of figures are in glass cases, but all the other articles exposed to the touch of the visitor. The price is affixed to each article, and no abatement whatever is made to purchasers.

The trade in porcelain, we are told, has for long been dull and heavy, but it is expected the general peace will open a vent for the sale of these articles.

The highest price of any article we saw was £20 sterling for a single plate, a price we thought exorbitant.

I maintain that the porcelain manufactured at Derby will stand a comparison with that at Sève. If the latter be more pellucid and delicate in its white colour, the finishing of the figures is equal, if not superior, at the former. I saw some years ago at Derby a dessert service manufactured for the Prince of Wales, and I did not find anything so beautifully executed at Sève.

[Sidenote: NEGLECT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION]

We thoroughly examined this elegant exhibition, and were received with great politeness and attention. We then returned by the walks of St. Cloud, and drove off to Paris through the Bois de Boulogne.

On our way we saw several persons carrying the dead body of General d’Estaing,[1] who had just been shot by General Regnier[1] in a duel. The cause of the quarrel arose in Egypt, where both officers served with distinction. D’Estaing was an able man, and is much regretted; but Regnier is possessed of very splendid abilities and an acute and penetrating genius, as is shown in the admirable account he has sent the Agricultural Society concerning the state of agriculture in Egypt. This unfortunate affair does not excite the sensation here that the death of a fighting booby does in London. Duelling is by no means so frequent as under the Monarchy, the point of honour being little understood by the Republican nobles.

XXV

ESTABLISHMENTS FOR PUBLIC INSTRUCTIONS. THE MILITARY SCHOOL. THE CHAMPS DE MARS. THE GOBELIN MANUFACTORY. THE HÔTEL DE VILLE AND THE GARDE MEUBLE

In old France there were more universities, colleges and public schools than in any other part of the world. All these were overthrown by the Jacobin Revolution, and the funds allotted to their support squandered on the adventurers who figured and still figure on the theatre of the French Republic.

To this hour there is no general plan of education in the country. There are only three central schools in Paris, and their organisation is essentially defective.

Abstract sciences and history fill up the whole course of education until the pupil is eighteen years of age.

Geography is not taught; there is no professor of foreign languages, and only one lecturer upon the ancient and classical tongues, who once a week reads aloud a discourse rather for his own amusement than for the advantage of his pupils.

In consequence of these arrangements the understanding of the scholar is never exercised. To teach the abstract sciences to boys merely by reading dissertations to them is much the same as to attempt the demonstration of a problem by Euclid without pen, ink or paper.

These central schools therefore are no manner of use, they only serve as a parade of useless erudition on the part of the professor, and nurse consummate ignorance and vanity in the students who attend them.

However, when the pupils have somehow or other gone through their classes, they are removed to the Polytechnic school, which is the Parisian University.

About 400 boys are here finishing at this Polytechnic school, laboratories, mechanical workshops and philosophical apparatus are provided for the use of the pupils.

If a young person is ambitious of acquiring the elements of science, he must work at home and pay his own masters, for the central schools cannot possibly render him any useful assistance. When he has educated himself he may possibly derive some advantage from attending the lectures of certain Professors. They are the following. In the Geographical School, the science of geography is well taught, but only twenty pupils are admitted to this establishment. The School of Roads and Bridges is also a very useful institution. It was founded by M. Prony[1] during the Monarchy, thirty-six Polytechnicians are received into this school. The School of Naval Architecture is also an institution of the old Monarchy. The School of Medicine contains 1000 students, twenty professors, a modeller in wax and a designer. There is a school of pharmacy, a mineral school and a veterinary school at Alfort near Charenton.

But the most important college still remaining is the “Collège de France,” Place de Cambrai, which has survived the storms of the Revolution and retains its ancient reputation. It has seventeen professors, who are all men of the greatest merit and celebrity in the Republic of letters.

[Sidenote: CHAMP DE MARS]

Lalande, perhaps the ablest astronomer in Europe, is the professor of astronomy; la Croix, a profound geometrician, professor of mathematics; and my estimable and revered friend, de la Metherie, professor of natural history.

These different colleges are supported entirely at the expense of the State; the professors are paid out of the public revenues, and students of all ages and countries permitted to consult and attend their lectures free of any expense.

But these establishments are not in the least suitable for those who have not long overstepped the boundaries of elementary knowledge, and they are beyond the reach of juvenile or vulgar understandings.

The Ecole Militaire, erected in 1751, after the designs of Gabriel, did not suffer as a building during the Revolution, because it was used as a barrack for the troops of the Convention.

It is now converted into a barrack for the Consular Horse Guards commanded by Eugène Beauharnais.

We were permitted to walk round the piazzas that encircle the court, beneath which soldiers were sleeping in groups. So solemn a silence reigned through the building we might have fancied ourselves in a Benedictine monastery.

The Champs de Mars is by many people mistaken for a Campus Martius, but the origin of its designation is taken from the fact that this spot was in early ages used for the holding of those assemblies of the people which were precursors of the more modern Parliaments. As these meetings were usually held in the month of March, the places where they were held were termed the Fields of March. This great enclosure is now one of the dullest and least frequented spots in Paris. Formerly the Altar of Federation stood in its centre, but that, with every other ornament of the Revolution, is now levelled with the ground.

But when we reflect upon the many philosophical, conventional and dictatorial antics which have been exhibited and practised here within the last decade, it is worth the trouble of visiting this place.

All the blasphemous pantomimes which were performed in commemoration of the sanguinary freaks of the Republic were represented on the Champs de Mars.

The pencil of David has been often employed on the scenery, and the pen of Chenier ran with blood as he composed the pæans of Jacobinism.

It was here also that Robespierre, with a lighted torch, set fire to the altar to the Etre Suprème, while the people shouted “Vive Robespierre! Vive la Convention!” All this sounds like fiction, and yet it all took place on this very field.

The manufactory of Gobelins still exists, though its productions past and present are in no request and have grown out of fashion.

During the Monarchy it was a most thriving and prosperous industry, and a vast number of workmen were employed there. The different apartments contain many beautiful tapestries, taken from original paintings by great French artists, but they find no purchasers.

Nothing can be more exquisite than the colouring and exquisite workmanship of the articles produced here; a single piece requires two or three years’ labour. The workmen are not paid more than three shillings a day for their sedentary and difficult occupation. This is accounted for by the fact that the Government supports the manufactory, and that there is no sale whatever for the works.

Fashions are changing constantly, and perhaps the Gobelins may again have its day. Gilles Gobelins, a celebrated dyer, erected the manufactory during the reign of Francis I.

[Sidenote: HÔTEL DE VILLE]

The Hôtel de Ville is worthy of a traveller’s attention on account of its antiquity and its having been the focus of many extraordinary events. It was built in the middle of the sixteenth century and contains a great number of apartments. After August 10, 1792, all the ancient inscriptions and ornaments were taken down and either removed or destroyed. When the King was brought to Paris from Versailles by the mob, prepared and hired for that purpose, he was exhibited at one of the windows to the populace; and Monsieur Bailly, the Mayor, informed him that it was a fine day, and presented him with the National cockade instead of a bouquet.

This is the place where Robespierre first took refuge when he had been outlawed, and in front of it is the lamp iron from which so many victims have been suspended. Here the red flag, with the inscription _Citoyens, la patrie est en danger!_ was first unfurled, to serve as the signal for massacre, and here the guillotine is preserved for the inspection of the curious.