Part 4

The province of Normandy is celebrated for its picturesque beauty, but I had no conception before of the _cultivated_ picturesque of an old country. I have been a great scenery-hunter in America, and my eye was new, like its hills and forests. The massive, battlemented buildings of the small villages we passed through, the heavy gateways and winding avenues and antique structure of the distant and half-hidden châteaux, the perfect cultivation, and, to me, singular appearance of a whole landscape without a fence or a stone, the absence of all that we define by _comfort_ and _neatness_, and the presence of all that we have seen in pictures and read of in books, but consider as the representations and descriptions of ages gone by--all seemed to me irresistibly like a dream. I could not rub my hand over my eyes, and realize myself. I could not believe that, within a month's voyage of my home, these spirit-stirring places had stood all my lifetime as they do, and have--for ages--every stone as it was laid in times of worm-eaten history--and looking to my eyes now as they did to the eyes of knights and dames in the days of French chivalry. I looked at the constantly-occurring ruins of the old priories, and the magnificent and still-used churches, and my blood tingled in my veins, as I saw, in the stepping-stones at their doors, cavities that the sandals of monks, and the iron-shod feet of knights in armor a thousand years ago, had trodden and helped to wear, and the stone cross over the threshold, that hundreds of generations had gazed upon and passed under.

By a fortunate chance the postillion left the usual route at Balbec, and pursued what appeared to be a bye-road through the grain-fields and vineyards for twenty or twenty-five miles. I can only describe it as an uninterrupted green lane, winding almost the whole distance through the bosom of a valley that must be one of the very loveliest in the world. Imagine one of such extent, without a fence to break the broad swells of verdure, stretching up from the winding and unenclosed road on either side, to the apparent sky; the houses occurring at distances of miles, and every one with its thatched roof covered all over with bright green moss, and its walls of marl interlaid through all the crevices with clinging vines, the whole structure and its appurtenances faultlessly picturesque, and, when you have conceived a valley that might have contented Rasselas, scatter over it here and there groups of men, women, and children, the Norman peasantry in their dresses of all colors, as you see them in the prints--and if there is anything that can better please the eye, or make the imagination more willing to fold up its wings and rest, my travels have not crossed it. I have recorded a vow to walk through Normandy.

As we approached Rouen the road ascended gradually, and a sharp turn brought us suddenly to the brow of a steep hill, opposite another of the same height, and with the same abrupt descent, at the distance of a mile across. Between, lay Rouen. I hardly know how to describe, for American eyes, the peculiar beauty of this view; one of the most exquisite, I am told, in all France. A town at the foot of a hill is common enough in our country, but of the hundreds that answer to this description, I can not name one that would afford a correct comparison. The nice and excessive cultivation of the grounds in so old a country gives the landscape a complexion essentially different from ours. If there were another Mount Holyoke, for instance, on the other side of the Connecticut, the situation of Northampton would be very similar to that of Rouen; but, instead of the rural village, with its glimpses of white houses seen through rich and luxurious masses of foliage, the mountain sides above broken with rocks, and studded with the gigantic and untouched relics of the native forest, and the fields below waving with heavy crops, irregularly fenced and divided, the whole picture one of an overlavish and half-subdued Eden of fertility--instead of this I say--the broad meadows, with the winding Seine in their bosom, are as trim as a girl's flower-garden, the grass closely cut, and of a uniform surface of green, the edges of the river set regularly with willows, the little bright islands circled with trees, and smooth as a lawn; and instead of green lanes lined with bushes, single streets running right through the unfenced verdure, from one hill to another, and built up with antique structures of stone--the whole looking, in the _coup d'oeil_ of distance, like some fantastic model of a town, with gothic houses of sand-paper, and meadows of silk velvet.

You will find the size, population, etc., of Rouen in the guide-books. As my object is to record impressions, not statistics, I leave you to consult those laconic chronicles, or the books of a thousand travellers, for all such information. The Maid of Orleans was burnt here, as you know, in the fourteenth century. There is a statue erected to her memory, which I did not see, for it rained; and after the usual stop of two hours, as the barometer promised no change in the weather, and as I was anxious to be in Paris, I took my place in the night diligence and kept on.

I amused myself till dark, watching the streams that poured into the broad mouth of the postillion's boots from every part of his dress, and musing on the fate of the poor Maid of Orleans; and then, sinking down into the comfortable corner of the _coupé_, I slept almost without interruption till the next morning--the best comment in the world on the only _comfortable_ thing I have yet seen in France, a diligence.

It is a pleasant thing in a foreign land to see the familiar face of the sun; and, as he rose over a distant hill on the left, I lifted the window of the _coupé_ to let him in, as I would open the door to a long-missed friend. He soon reached a heavy cloud, however, and my hopes of bright weather, when we should enter the metropolis, departed. It began to rain again; and the postilion, after his blue cotton frock was soaked through, put on his greatcoat over it--an economy which is peculiarly French, and which I observed in every succeeding postilion on the route. The last twenty-five miles to Paris are uninteresting to the eye; and with my own pleasant thoughts, tinct as they were with the brightness of immediate anticipation, and an occasional laugh at the grotesque figures and equipages on the road, I made myself passably contented till I entered the suburb of St. Denis.

It is something to see the outside of a sepulchre for kings, and the old abbey of St. Denis needs no association to make a sight of it worth many a mile of weary travel. I could not stop within four miles of Paris, however, and I contented myself with running to get a second view of it in the rain while the postilion breathed his horses. The strongest association about it, old and magnificent as it is, is the fact that Napoleon repaired it after the revolution; and standing in probably the finest point for its front view, my heart leaped to my throat as I fancied that Napoleon, with his mighty thoughts, had stood in that very spot, possibly, and contemplated the glorious old pile before me as the place of his future repose.

After four miles more, over a broad straight avenue, paved in the centre and edged with trees, we arrived at the port of St. Denis. I was exceedingly struck with the grandeur of the gate as we passed under, and, referring to the guide-book, I find it was a triumphal arch erected to Louis XIV., and the one by which the kings of France invariably enter. This also was restored by Napoleon, with his infallible taste, without changing its design: and it is singular how everything that great man touched became his own--for, who remembers for whom it was raised while he is told who employed his great intellect in its repairs?

I entered Paris on Sunday at eleven o'clock. I never should have recognized the day. The shops were all open, the artificers all at work, the unintelligible criers vociferating their wares, and the people in their working-day dresses. We wound through street after street, narrow and dark and dirty, and with my mind full of the splendid views of squares, and columns, and bridges, as I had seen them in the prints, I could scarce believe I was in Paris. A turn brought us into a large court, that of the Messagerie, the place at which all travellers are set down on arrival. Here my baggage was once more inspected, and, after a half-hour's delay, I was permitted to get into a _fiacre_, and drive to a hotel. As one is a specimen of all, I may as well describe the _Hotel d'Etrangers_, Rue Vivienne, which, by the way, I take the liberty at the same time to recommend to my friends. It is the precise centre for the convenience of sight-seeing, admirably kept, and, being nearly opposite Galignani's, that bookstore of Europe, is a very pleasant resort for the half hour before dinner, or a rainy day. I went there at the instance of my friend the _diplomat_.

The _fiacre_ stopped before an arched passage, and a fellow in livery, who had followed me from the Messagerie (probably in the double character of porter and police agent, as my passport was yet to be demanded), took my trunk into a small office on the left, over which was written "_Concierge_." This person, who is a kind of respectable doorkeeper, addressed me in broken English, without waiting for the evidence of my tongue, that I was a foreigner, and, after inquiring at what price I would have a room, introduced me to the landlady, who took me across a large court (the houses are built _round_ the yard always in France), to the corresponding story of the house. The room was quite pretty, with its looking-glasses and curtains, but there was no carpet, and the fireplace was ten feet deep. I asked to see another, and another, and another; they were all curtains and looking-glasses, and stone-floors! There is no wearying a French woman, and I pushed my modesty till I found a chamber to my taste--a nutshell, to be sure, but carpeted--and bowing my polite housekeeper out, I rang for breakfast and was at home in Paris.

There are few things bought with money that are more delightful than a French breakfast. If you take it at your room, it appears in the shape of two small vessels, one of coffee and one of hot milk, two kinds of bread, with a thin, printed slice of butter, and one or two of some thirty dishes from which you choose, the latter flavored exquisitely enough to make one wish to be always at breakfast, but cooked and composed I know not how or of what. The coffee has an aroma peculiarly exquisite, something quite different from any I ever tasted before; and the _petit-pain_, a slender biscuit between bread and cake, is, when crisp and warm, a delightful accompaniment. All this costs about one third as much as the beefsteaks and coffee in America, and at the same time that you are waited upon with a civility that is worth three times the money.

It still rained at noon, and, finding that the usual dinner hour was five, I took my umbrella for a walk. In a strange city I prefer always to stroll about at hazard, coming unawares upon what is fine or curious. The hackneyed descriptions in the guidebooks profane the spirit of a place; I never look at them till after I have found the object, and then only for dates. The Rue Vivienne was crowded with people, as I emerged from the dark archway of the hotel to pursue my wanderings.

A walk of this kind, by the way, shows one a great deal of novelty. In France there are no shop-_men_. No matter what is the article of trade--hats, boots, pictures, books, jewellery, anything or everything that gentlemen buy--you are waited upon by girls, always handsome, and always dressed in the height of the mode. They sit on damask-covered settees, behind the counters; and, when you enter, bow and rise to serve you, with a grace and a smile of courtesy that would become a drawing-room. And this is universal.

I strolled on until I entered a narrow passage, penetrating a long line of buildings. It was thronged with people, and passing in with the rest, I found myself unexpectedly in a scene that equally surprised and delighted me. It was a spacious square enclosed by one entire building. The area was laid out as a garden, planted with long avenues of trees and beds of flowers, and in the centre a fountain was playing in the shape of a _fleur-de-lis_, with a jet about forty feet in height. A superb colonnade ran round the whole square, making a covered gallery of the lower story, which was occupied by shops of the most splendid appearance, and thronged through its long sheltered _pavès_ by thousands of gay promenaders. It was the far-famed _Palais Royal_. I remembered the description I had heard of its gambling houses, and facilities for every vice, and looked with a new surprise on its Aladdin-like magnificence. The hundreds of beautiful pillars, stretching away from the eye in long and distant perspective, the crowd of citizens, and women, and officers in full uniform, passing and re-passing with French liveliness and politeness, the long windows of plated glass glittering with jewellery, and bright with everything to tempt the fancy, the tall sentinels pacing between the columns, and the fountain turning over its clear waters with a fall audible above the tread and voices of the thousands who walked around it--who could look upon such a scene and believe it what it is, the most corrupt spot, probably, on the face of the civilized world?

LETTER V.

THE LOUVRE--AMERICANS IN PARIS--POLITICS, ETC.

The salient object in my idea of Paris has always been the Louvre. I have spent some hours in its vast gallery to-day and I am sure it will retain the same prominence in my recollections. The whole palace is one of the oldest, and said to be one of the finest, in Europe; and, if I may judge from its impressiveness, the vast inner court (the _façades_ of which were restored to their original simplicity by Napoleon), is a specimen of high architectural perfection. One could hardly pass through it without being better fitted to see the masterpieces of art within; and it requires this, and all the expansiveness of which the mind is capable besides, to walk through the _Musée Royale_ without the painful sense of a magnificence beyond the grasp of the faculties.

I delivered my passport at the door of the palace, and, as is customary, recorded my name, country, and profession in the book, and proceeded to the gallery. The grand double staircase, one part leading to the private apartments of the royal household, is described voluminously in the authorities; and, truly, for one who has been accustomed to convenient dimensions only, its breadth, its lofty ceilings, its pillars and statuary, its mosaic pavements and splendid windows, are enough to unsettle for ever the standards of size and grandeur. The strongest feeling one has, as he stops half way up to look about him, is the ludicrous disproportion between it and the size of the inhabiting animals. I should smile to see any man ascend such a staircase, except, perhaps, Napoleon.

Passing through a kind of entrance-hall, I came to a spacious _salle ronde_, lighted from the ceiling, and hung principally with pictures of a large size, one of the most conspicuous of which, "The Wreck," has been copied by an American artist, Mr. Cooke, and is now exhibiting in New York. It is one of the best of the French school, and very powerfully conceived. I regret, however, that he did not prefer the wonderfully fine piece opposite, which is worth all the pictures ever painted in France, "The Marriage Supper at Cana." The left wing of the table, projected toward the spectator, with seven or eight guests who occupy it, absolutely stands out into the hall. It seems impossible that color and drawing upon a flat surface can so cheat the eye.

From the _salle ronde_, on the right opens the grand gallery, which, after the lesson I had just received in perspective, I took, at the first glance, to be a painting. You will realize the facility of the deception when you consider, that, with a breadth of but forty-two feet, this gallery is one thousand three hundred and thirty-two feet (more than a quarter of a mile) in length. The floor is of tesselated woods, polished with wax like a table; and along its glassy surface were scattered perhaps a hundred visiters, gazing at the pictures in varied attitudes, and with sizes reduced in proportion to their distance, the farthest off looking, in the long perspective, like pigmies of the most diminutive description. It is like a matchless painting to the eye, after all. The ceiling is divided by nine or ten arches, standing each on four Corinthian columns, projecting into the area; and the natural perspective of these, and the artists scattered from one end to the other, copying silently at their easels, and a soldier at every division, standing upon his guard, quite as silent and motionless, would make it difficult to convince a spectator, who was led blindfold and unprepared to the entrance, that it was not some superb diorama, figures and all.

I found our distinguished countryman, Morse, copying a beautiful Murillo at the end of the gallery. He is also engaged upon a Raffaelle for Cooper, the novelist. Among the French artists, I noticed several soldiers, and some twenty or thirty females, the latter with every mark in their countenances of absorbed and extreme application. There was a striking difference in this respect between them and the artists of the other sex. With the single exception of a lovely girl, drawing from a Madonna, by Guido, and protected by the presence of an elderly companion, these lady painters were anything but interesting in their appearance.

Greenough, the sculptor, is in Paris, and engaged just now in taking the bust of an Italian lady. His reputation is now very enviable; and his passion for his art, together with his untiring industry and his fine natural powers, will work him up to something that will, before long, be an honor to our country. If the wealthy men of taste in America would give Greenough liberal orders for his time and talents, and send out Augur, of New Haven, to Italy, they would do more to advance this glorious art in our country, than by expending ten times the sum in any other way. They are both men of rare genius, and both ardent and diligent, and they are both cramped by the universal curse of genius--necessity. The Americans in Paris are deliberating at present on some means for expressing unitedly to our government their interest in Greenough, and their appreciation of his merit of public and private patronage. For the love of true taste, do everything in your power to second such an appeal when it comes.

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It is a queer feeling to find oneself a _foreigner_. One cannot realize, long at a time, how his face or his manners should have become peculiar; and, after looking at a print for five minutes in a shop window, or dipping into an English book, or in any manner throwing off the mental habit of the instant, the curious gaze of the passer by, or the accent of a strange language, strikes one very singularly. Paris is full of foreigners of all nations, and of course, physiognomies of all characters may be met everywhere, but, differing as the European nations do decidedly from each other, they differ still more from the American. Our countrymen, as a class, are distinguishable wherever they are met; not as Americans however, for, of the habits and manners of our country, people know nothing this side the water. But there is something in an American face, of which I never was aware till I met them in Europe, that is altogether peculiar. The French take the Americans to be English: but an Englishman, while he presumes him his countryman, shows a curiosity to know who he is, which is very foreign to his usual indifference. As far as I can analyze it, it is the independent self-possessed bearing of a man unused to look up to any one as his superior in rank, united to the inquisitive, sensitive, communicative expression which is the index to our national character. The first is seldom possessed in England but by a man of decided rank, and the latter is never possessed by an Englishman at all. The two are united in no other nation. Nothing is easier than to tell the rank of an Englishman, and nothing puzzles a European more than to know how to rate the pretensions of an American.

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