Part 4
After Bréteuil the country becomes flat and the soil chalky. We changed horses at Wavigny, St. Just and Clermont, the latter being twenty-seven miles from Bréteuil. The road was paved and in excellent order, the country pleasing and fertile, and woods frequent.
[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO CHANTILLY]
A little before we reached Clermont we passed the grounds and plantations of the Duke de FitzJames.[1] The elegant Château was completely destroyed by the Revolutionists, and is at this time a heap of ruins. But the name of the duke has just been erased from the list of émigrés, and all his estates restored to him. He is now in Paris, making arrangements for his future life. The return of their old master is eagerly awaited by the country people, and it is hoped that this beautiful spot will once more flourish.
At Clermont there is a manufactory of painted linen; the environs of the town are gay and picturesque, the neighbouring hills afford several pleasing landscapes, and the culture of the vine gave a charming variety to the scenery. To the left is Liancourt, the magnificent seat of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.[1] This nobleman, well known for his useful writings on agricultural subjects and his travels in North America, has returned from exile, and is improving and embellishing his patrimonial estate.
Cultivation here is more diversified than in the northern Department, through which we have just travelled. Besides vineyards there are fields of lucerne, wheat, clover and corn, and a large quantity of fruit trees. From Longueville, the next post town, we had a delightful ride through the park of Chantilly. On our arrival at Chantilly we slept at the post-house, where a neatness prevailed we had not yet observed in France. The kitchen and stables, usually filthy in a French establishment, were clean and well arranged.
On the next morning we sent to see Chantilly, so famed for its magnificent gardens and for the heroes of Montmorency and Condé who have inhabited it. Alas! it is now one vast heap of ruins. After the fatal August 1792, a horde of Paris miscreants ransacked, pillaged and destroyed the greater part of the chefs d’œuvres of art. The servants, faithful to their ancient master, concealed a number of valuable articles in the woods, and found means to convey most of them to the Prince de Condé.
Of the fidelity and affection of the Prince’s domestics we heard a great deal, and nothing can exceed the respect in which his memory is held by the villagers. On more than one occasion we saw the honest tear start from their eyes at the mention of his name, and the solicitude they expressed for his welfare and their many tender inquiries respecting his present situation in England, convinced us these poor people were sensible they had lost their best friend. When I told them the Prince de Condé[1] lived near London, and was in fairly easy circumstances and kindly received by the King and Royal Family and by the Ministers of State, they were so greatly affected as to excite in our minds a sympathetic emotion of soul, and on the ruins of the Château of Chantilly, on the very spot where once stood the statue of the Great Condé, we shed tears over the fate of his forsaken and proscribed descendant.
No one can be sensible of the desolation of Chantilly unless they saw the gardens, _jets d’eau_ and variegated plantations there previous to 1792.
The Palace is now completely destroyed, there is not even a vestige remaining, all is ruin. As we approached its sight several troops of cavalry were exercising on the lawn. The stables, upon the left, have escaped the fury of the Revolutionists. It is a magnificent building, with all the appearance of a Palace itself. It was originally built for 240 horses. But 400 animals belonging to the Chasseurs stationed at Chantilly are now quartered there without inconvenience.
It is an immense oblong, well paved, with mangers and racks on either side. In the centre is a spacious dome with several apartments now occupied by the smiths of the regiment. All the stags’ heads which ornamented the interior of the building have been struck off, only stumps being left behind. There was formerly a pretty emblematical figure over the reservoir of water under the dome, this has been completely annihilated.
[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO CHANTILLY]
To the left of the stables is the _ménage_, an open circular piece of ground, encircled by Doric pillars. Here we found the subaltern officers of the regiment instructing their men in the art of riding. The French soldiers, in general, keep their seats well, but their position does not appear so easy as that of the English. They ridicule our long trot as ungraceful, perhaps with some reason; but horses and riders using it are better able to support a long journey than a Frenchman, erect as a post, jogging on a dancing horse.
On one side of the _ménage_ is the court for carriages and grooms, and a few yards behind the tennis court, as large as the one at Versailles, enclosed in a noble stone building. A merchant has purchased this place, and is resolved to reconvert it to its original purpose. From these edifices, which are all in fair order, we advanced to the scene of horror. The Palace is a heap of ruins; it was purchased by two persons, who demolished it for the sake of the materials, which they sold for above ten times the original purchase money. It is just the name of these Vandals should descend to posterity, they are Damois, an ironmonger of the Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris, and Boulet, a carpenter of Compiègne.
The Château d’Enghien has escaped, and is now used as a barrack for Chasseurs. The Château of the Duc de Bourbon, where the family, except on State occasions, formerly resided, was in the days of the Revolutionary Tribunal converted into a prison, 750 prisoners were therein confined; men and women intentionally herded together in the same apartments, in defiance of decency. The Château of Bourbon has been completely stripped of decorations and furniture, only the bare walls remain. The beautiful bridge of La Volière, which formed the communication between the Palace and the Island of Love, was broken down lest the prisoners should escape over it.
We traversed the lonely apartments, and were shown the study of the exiled Prince de Condé, a room the former beauty of which the mutilated paintings still remaining gave a lively idea. The gallery of Conquest, formerly filled with pictures representing the achievements of Montmorencies and Condés, exhibits now merely a dead wall. As we descended the staircase we observed the walls covered by inscriptions of the names of prisoners, often accompanied by verses alluding to their forlorn condition.
The gallery of marble vases opposite to the Pavilion of Apollo, consisting of twenty-two rams’ heads, which spouted into basins beneath them, is utterly destroyed. The Island of Love is a bog, and the Pavilion of Venus no more.
At the foot of the grand staircase was once a _jet d’eau_, remarkable for its size and beauty. It had a superb marble column in the centre, around which swans sailed in majestic order, while immense quantities of tench played upon the surface of the water. The column, the _jet d’eau_ and the swans have vanished--the water drawn off and the tench devoured by the Revolutionary army. The romantic cottage by the mill has been pulled down--the carcase of the dairy is still standing, but every article it contained was pillaged, for our guide remarked, “The Jacobins never slept as long as there was anything left to seize.” The small cascade, situated opposite the menagerie, was demolished for the sake of the leaden pipes, profitable articles of sale, indeed _all_ the leaden conduits were removed, so that the numerous communications between the different reservoirs of water and the court being destroyed, the waters in rainy weather overflow their basins and pour upon the adjacent ground. Every step we went we trod in water, and to this circumstance the wretched appearance of the Island of Love is due.
[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO CHANTILLY]
There was formerly a great menagerie on the opposite side of the court. The Revolutionary army condemned to death the beasts and birds which inhabited it, on the ground that they were agents in the alleged conspiracy of Condé to starve the people. But as they were apprehensive these animals might make a rally, and feeling their courage unequal to the shock of a pitched battle, and being afraid to butcher the animals in detail, they stationed a couple of pieces of artillery on the neighbouring height, and the onslaught commenced. A heavy fire was opened on the imprisoned sovereigns of the forest by the sovereign people--after a breach had been effected the drums beat a general charge, the centre of the Revolutionary army advanced, bayonets fixed, while the right and left wings kept up a smart fire of musketry upon the invisible enemy. The army entered the breach, and the whole garrison being put to the sword, the majesty of the people shone forth in all its glory.
A person who was an eye-witness of the affair described to me in detail this patriotic act of carnage.
At the end of the great court a place was erected by the Prince of Condé for the accommodation of the sick who resorted there to drink the water of a mineral spring. The spring is filled up, and four mills for boring cannon supplant the building. The violence of destruction was so great that the source of these mineral waters cannot now be traced. The immense kitchen garden has been preserved, and the house, which once belonged to Monsieur Hatorme, steward or _homme d’affaires_ of the Prince. It is now inhabited by Damois, the ironmonger, one of the Vandals who bought and destroyed the Château. When the Jacobins came to murder Monsieur Hatorme he fortunately escaped by a small secret door at the back of the house.
No better idea can be given of the general horror and desolation effected everywhere by the Revolutionists than a sight of Chantilly. Thistles and grass cover every part of the gardens, here and there a few solitary tulips peep out of the earth. The fox that peeped through the crevices of the desolate Castle of Ossian could not give a more faithful conception of ruin than those lonely and deserted flowers.
It would not be amiss to give here a description of Chantilly, given fifteen years ago by that acute and intelligent traveller, Mr. Arthur Young:
“Chantilly! Magnificence is its reigning character. The Château is great and imposing. The gallery of the great Condé’s victories and the cabinet of natural history, rich in fine specimens, most advantageously arranged, demand particular notice. The stable exceeds anything of the kind I have ever seen. It is 580 feet long and 40 broad, and is filled with 240 English horses. I came to Chantilly prepossessed against the idea of a court, but the one here is striking, and gives the effect which magnificent scenes impress. This arises from extent and from the right lines of the water uniting with the regularity of the object in view. Lord Kaimes says the part of a garden contiguous to a house should partake of the regularity of the building. The effect here is lessened by the _parterre_ before the Castle, in which the divisions and the diminutive _jets d’eau_ do not correspond in size with that of the court.
“The menagerie is very pretty, and exhibits a prodigious quantity of domestic poultry from every part of the world, one of the best objects to which a menagerie can be applied. The _hameau_ contains an imitation of an English garden. The most English idea I saw was the lawn in front of the stables; it is large, of good verdure and well kept. The labyrinth, the only complete one I have ever seen. In the Sylvae are many fine and scarce plants. The great beech is the finest I ever saw, straight as an arrow, between eighty and ninety feet in height and twelve feet in diameter, five feet from the ground. Two others near it are almost equal to this superb tree.”
We were accompanied as guide at Chantilly by a man named Touret, formerly _garde de chasse_ to the Prince. He is a very sensible and good-natured man. He was accused of an attachment to his ancient master, and for that crime pursued by the Jacobins with unrelenting vigour. He was compelled to fly into the woods, where he subsisted on acorns, nuts and berries for several days, and concealed himself in secluded haunts, which from his former situation as gamekeeper were known to him.
[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO CHANTILLY]
The contrast between this poor faithful fellow and that of Hautoir, administrator of the district of Genlis, is great. The former, like Shakespeare’s Adam, fled to the woods for the love he bore his master; the latter is an ungrateful miscreant, who rioted on the spoils of his ancient patron. The Prince of Condé had granted to this fellow, who was originally a grocer, every species of parental favour and indulgence. In return for these acts of kindness Hautoir marched at the head of the Revolutionary army to the superb Château, opened it to the ravages of those sanguinary vagabonds, and affixed the municipal seal on the doors of his former benefactor.
Fanaticism in those awful days transported many individuals to the commission of outrages of which I have heard them now express the deepest and most heartfelt repentance. This rogue could only plead a thirst for pillage, which very shortly afterwards was signally proved by his being publicly detected in a particularly mean theft.
The Bishop of Châlons had a pretty pavilion on the lawn, which I have already described. This prelate was compelled to fly, and his retreat occupied by Jacobins. His property was seized and advertised for sale. Hautoir,[1] as administrator of the district, superintended the business.
While he was announcing the business of the day he was detected with having in his pocket a valuable snuffbox belonging to the Bishop, which he had stolen from the cabinet of the ecclesiastic when placing seals on the property. He was not arrested owing to his position as a Revolutionary delegate, but he was severely hissed at the auction, deprived of his position, and now resides in obscurity at Morli la Ville.
After having taken leave of Touret, who had attended us from morning till night during our three days’ excursions in the immense Forest of Chantilly, which, with its territorial domains, extends to more than one hundred miles in circumference, we drove from a spot where, from the charms of the surrounding country, the serenity of the season and the uncommon attractions of all around us, we had passed the sweetest days of melancholy we had ever experienced.
VII
JOURNEY TO S. DENYS, DESCRIPTION OF THAT PLACE AND THE FEUDAL CASTLE OF ECOUEN. ARRIVAL IN PARIS
The road to Luzarches from Chantilly is exceedingly pretty. After passing through part of the Forest we entered upon a magnificent paved road, bordered by trees and lands, which exhibited on either side a _little_ better cultivation than those we had hitherto passed.
Luzarches is seven miles from Chantilly. We were compelled to stop for some time at a miserable inn in this wretched town. One of the wheels of our carriage was broken, and it was necessary to have it repaired. In a miserable room, containing two dirty beds, cold and famished (for we could not touch a morsel that was brought to us), we remained seven hours. The wheel being repaired we proceeded to Ecouen and from thence to S. Denys, but we quitted the public road for the purpose of visiting the Castle of Ecouen, built by Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France. The Château is completely stripped of furniture, even the tapestry being torn away. Two hundred unhappy Vendéans were imprisoned here. It was converted later into a military hospital. Upon the whole nothing is now left of this stately Castle but the walls. It stands on an eminence and commands an extensive prospect. There is a large kitchen garden in front of the grand entrance. A Swiss, formerly in the service of Spain during the siege of Gibraltar, is entrusted with the care of the place. He conducted us over every part of the Castle.
[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO S. DENYS]
It has all the appearance of a modern prison, and does not convey that appearance of feudal grandeur which distinguishes the Castles on the banks of the Danube and the Rhine.
We arrived at a late hour at the S. Denys post-house, where we were well lodged and comfortably entertained, and early the next day went to visit the Cathedral.
My astonishment was great when the old Swiss, whom I remembered ten years before, opened the door, and I perceived this once beautiful gothic edifice was a heap of ruins. My guide entered into my sentiments of horror and disgust, and certainly did not spare the authors of this devastation. The tombs and mausoleums of the Kings and Queens of France, of Guesclin, of Turenne, and of the most illustrious warriors and great men, were deposited in various compartments of the Cathedral, and formed a striking and splendid decoration. But these, together with the oriflamme of Clovis, the sceptre and sword of Charlemagne, the portrait and sword of the Maid of Orleans, the bronze chair of Dagobert, the reliques and shrines, royal robes and crowns, ancient manuscripts and an immense number of curiosities, sacred and profane--now all vanished; some destroyed: others, by the industry of Monsieur Le Noir, removed to the museum of French monuments in Paris. The Cathedral is unroofed, and it is fraught with peril to traverse any part of it, for stones are continually falling. Our Swiss described with minute precision where every tomb stood, from Pepin to Louis XV. A small room formerly used as a sacristy our pious guardian had converted into an ossory. And here lay in one indistinguished heap the bones of kings, princes and heroes, who for ages had slept undisturbed in the mansions of death. I inquired into the cause of all this ruthless destruction, and was told that the Revolutionary Committee of S. Denys, composed of twelve citizens, six of whom were labouring men, decreed that this ancient and noble ornament of their town should be pulled to pieces for the sake of the lead and iron it contained. Their determination was carried into effect, on the plea that arts and science were of no utility to mankind, and that respect for the habitations of the dead was a mark of puerile superstition. At that time Lavoisier was executed, being told at his trial that the French Republic stood in no need of chemists. After we had quitted the Cathedral we visited the chapel of Mesdames de France. When we entered Divine service was being celebrated therein. The chapel has been stripped of all its ornaments, and was scarcely worth the trouble of a walk to visit it.
S. Denys is not distant more than four miles from Paris.
The approach to the capital is through a wide and magnificent paved road, bordered with double rows of trees, on either side of which are extensive and well-cultivated fields of corn and other grain; but none of those neat and diversified habitations are seen which in our country denote the fruits of commercial industry and mercantile opulence. For that order of men, whom we in England denominate country squires or persons living on their own small estates, the Republic has done nothing; in truth, there are no such persons in France, neither are there any country houses erected with a view to their being inhabited by such a description of beings, much less by merchants and tradesmen. In the “great nation” nothing is so conspicuous as disparity or in other words inequality. Magnificence and filth, opulence and beggary are beside each other. There is no medium in France; in fact, the great middle class which in our country intervenes between rich and poor and forms the solid Doric pillar of society, is unknown in any European country but Great Britain. This class is the most substantial boon for the consolidation of an enlightened form of government; it is the nursery of statesmen, freedom, and equal laws; to the want of it France may ascribe the origin of the greater part of her misfortunes, to the possession of it England is indebted for her independence, her regulated power, and her system of jurisprudence.
[Sidenote: JOURNEY TO S. DENYS]
Rational liberty can never flourish where there are no classes but high and low. Laws can never be executed, except by the point of the bayonet, in any State where a numerous body of men do not exist who are sufficiently independent to prevent the oppressions of the great from trampling the poor under foot and sufficiently strong to repress the reaction of the poor on the property and security of the great.
Every thinking Englishman must feel the dissolution of this middling order of men would transform the State into an absolute military power, or, what is worse, a tyrannical and licentious democracy. This argument finds an apt illustration in a great commercial city which is under aristocratic government. Hamburg, by the encouragement afforded to that body, is one of the best regulated cities of Europe. Multitudes of country seats belonging to traders are scattered plentifully on the banks of the Elbe; and even Denmark, although a purely absolute monarchy, owes much of its happiness and strength to the importance attached to this order of men--an order which in France has never so far existed. Hence during the old monarchy despotism wantoned in power, or was mildly exercised according to the views and inclinations of the rulers, while during every stage of the Republic the leaders of the people, drunk with authority, wallowed in the blood of their fellow citizens. At this very moment an absolute military despot is governing the country, and the people are, as before, mere slaves, insecure of property or personal security.
The entrance to Paris from S. Denys is not calculated to give a foreigner a favourable idea of the capital. The city has every appearance of filth and poverty, and the Triumphal Arch or Porte S. Denys, under which we passed, has such a sombre cast as to give the traveller the impression that he is going into the courtyard of a prison. I ordered the postillion to drive to the hotel in the Rue Coquenon, where I resided in 1792 and 1793, and where I had left all my books.
When we arrived there I saw written in large letters over the _porte-cochère_ “_Maison de Commission_.” I alighted and inquired what had become of the former proprietor. I was told that he had been guillotined. We then drove to the Hôtel Morigny, where I afterwards learnt a celebrated Corsican, when times went hard with him, lodged in a small apartment at seven shillings per week. There were, however, no rooms vacant, we therefore took up our lodgings at the Coq Heron--an hotel lately established and kept by an Englishman named Guillandeau, the greatest blackguard in Christendom.
We afterwards removed to private apartments in the Rue Mirabeau, _ci-devant_ Chaussée d’Antin.
VIII
A DESCRIPTION OF THE _MODE_