Part 2

In Paris, the meanest hovels are striving which shall be nearest the church. Notre Dame is a venerable and noble lady, with a brood of filthy and ragged children about her. We have the same ungracious image often in America. In Philadelphia, there is but a step from St. Stephens’ to the Stews. This is chiefly caused by the vicinity of grave yards; a senseless arrangement, which has happily grown out of fashion in this country. It is deplorable that we should patronize every silly practice that Europe is shaking off.

The fashionable church, of all the churches, is St. Roch’s, of which I have spoken in a former letter. To this, the old lady queen, and the little queenies, and all the prettiest women of Paris, come to be blessed every Sunday. A fine woman is a hymn to the Deity, said some old philosopher. If you wish to see a great number of these hymns, praising most eloquently the workmanship of their divine Author, come to St. Roch’s about twelve. A priest told me there was more merit in saving a pretty woman than an ugly one, on account of the enormity of her temptations; an ugly one goes to heaven of herself. The skill of the musician makes the only distinction between the hallelujahs of St. Roch’s, and the addios of the Italien.

While on the chapter of churches, I must not forget the Cathedral of St. Denis, a few miles out of town, the burial place of the French kings. The village, which was built on account of the church, and its monastery, and the number of pilgrims that resorted there, is now as filthy and stupid as suburban villages always are. About ten thousand persons are doing penance by living there; enough to take them to heaven without any other effort. In 1436 it was taken and rifled by the English, who frightened the nuns desperately, and carried off their most precious things. A bit of the iron grate or gridiron on which St. Francis was burnt, and the prophet Isaiah’s bones, with not a few of the little nuns themselves, were amongst the articles stolen. The cathedral is gothic and magnificent. On the first floor, you will see the tomb of _Dagobert_, the founder; a splendid mausoleum of Francis I., in white marble, and opposite, the tomb of Louis XII., surmounted by the naked figures of the king and his consort in a recumbent posture, and the tomb of Henry de Valois, with the images of Henry II., and Queen Catharine de Medicis. In the centre of the basement, is a vault of octagonal shape, which contains the ashes of the monarchs all in a lump.

----“Dead but sceptered sovereigns, Who rule our spirits in their urns.”

These verses have lost their meaning: but the little urn saith “more than a thousand homilies.”

Around the circumference are cenotaphs, upon which the several kings repose in marble at the side of their marble wives. Two unanointed men were admitted amongst them; Duguesclin and Turenne. Bonaparte removed the latter to the Invalids, and Duguesclin was lost entirely in the Revolution. The convention issued a decree for the total destruction of this royal cemetery in 1793. The first graves examined were those of Henry IV., and Marshal Turenne. Both these heroes were as fresh, as the day they were killed, while all those who had died in the natural way, were in a state of dissolution. The kings were transferred to a vulgar grave, with the grass only of the field for a monument; the ghosts of the mighty Bourbons were turned loose to range upon the commons: the lead too was stripped from the cathedral to shoot the enemies of the Republic. The church was repaired by Napoleon, who destined it to be the burial place of “the Emperors.” _Diis aliter visum._ Fortune provided him a much more remarkable grave. Future ages will no doubt go on a pilgrimage to St. Helena; here he would have mingled with the rabble dust of the French kings.

The farther reparation of the church was reserved for the piety of Louis XVIII. I walked out to St. Denis as the saint did once himself, except that he carried his head under his arm. Returning home, as I was no saint, I got into a _coucou_ at the side of some queer old peasant women and heard their conversation. I am sorry the dignity of my subject does not allow me to report it to you in this letter.

Many others of these churches seem to me very entertaining, but I must postpone them to another time; with only a respectful look upon the great _St. Sulpice_ in front of my window, whose huge towers are staring me reproachfully in the face; and I must say a word in parting with the subject of the _Chapelle Expiatoire_ of the Madelaine. This chapel is placed over the ground in which reposed for twenty-two years the bodies of Louis XVI., and Marie Antoinette. The interior is in form of a cross. In the centre, is the altar, exactly over the spot in which the royal bodies were found, and in the lateral branches are their statues. The entrance through an alley of yew trees, sycamores and cypresses, gives it the air and solemnity of an antique tomb. It is the most mournful spot of all Paris. On the Sunday mornings, mass is said here with great solemnity; and early every day you will see a few persons kneeling in silent worship by the altar, or in solitary corners through the church.

The duties of the Catholic churches are administered by an Archbishop with an annual salary of 5,000 dollars; three vicars general, 800 dollars, and between two and three hundred priests at 300 dollars each. The grand Rabbin has 1200; the little Rabbins from one to four hundred, and a protestant clergyman has from two to six hundred dollars. So you see, the French patronize all sorts of religions, and Moses and St. Peter come in alike for their share of the church funds. But what a change of circumstances! The church revenue of France was, before the Revolution, twenty-seven millions of dollars; at present it is six millions. The clergy of old France exceeded four hundred thousand; of “young France,” they are rated at thirty thousand!

In the service of a French Catholic church, there are officers in a military costume; there are processions and pageantry, and loud and impassioned music. Every thing is prepared for vehement impressions, for theatric effect. I should like a religion intermediate between this Catholic vivacity and our Presbyterian dulness. Whoever believes that any association of men can be held together without forms and ceremonies has much yet to learn of the nature of his species, and whoever would dispense with even the forms which are ridiculous in society, would be himself the most ridiculous man in it. Still, some regard is to be had in this to the popular sentiment and spirit of the age.

There is certainly much absurd and trumpery ceremony kept up in this church, designed formerly for a mass of ignorant people, when the general sense of the world and the infidel propensities of the French have got far a-head of it. That Louis XVIII. should go all the way to Rheims and be greased with some drops saved from the Jacobins, of that same oil or “holy cream” brought by a dove from heaven to anoint king Pepin, was presuming too far upon the stupidity of the times. Surely the age of such nonsense and bigotry has gone by. The elevating the host and processions through the church, are neither solemn nor dignified, and what position has so little dignity as that of the priest kneeling at the altar, with a little boy holding up the tail of his surplice in the face of the congregation?

In these times of popular education, every body reads and reasons, and general learning, by cheap publications, is brought within every one’s reach. The common man, who is fed by twopenny knowledge, is almost as learned upon common affairs, as the gentleman who feasts upon his guinea a volume; so that a ceremony that was very solemn in the last age, may be very notable for its absurdity in this. Not half a century ago, a doctor of medicine did not visit a patient in this city unless his head was first wrapped in a huge wig--_perruque à trois marteaux_; and if he forgot his cane with the golden head he turned back for it, though his patient in the mean time should die. A ring too, with a diamond on his finger, and laced ruffles, were indispensable to his practice. In condemning this Catholic flummery, I do not go into the opposite Presbyterian extreme, and proscribe what is rational and sensible, the music, the paintings, and statuary. There is no more occasion in these times to take measures against idolatry than against witchcraft; and why deprive our churches of what gratifies the senses innocently, excites devotional feelings, and improves the taste and understanding?

But to keep a religion now in favour with the world, requires unexceptionable virtue on the part of those who administer its duties; and the celibacy of the priesthood seems to me directly adverse to such a requirement. It is not likely, that human nature will be controlled in one of her strongest impulses with impunity. When I see these rosy and smart looking priests, who haunt the churches, and reflect upon the penchant of the women for holy men, I cannot help wishing, for the sake of the catholic religion, that they were married. I would not go bail for any one of them under the merit of St. Anthony.

The intrigues and libertinism of the French and Italian clergy are matters of authentic history. There was a time when a cardinal’s hat depended on the patronage of the candidate’s mistresses. The Cardinals de Retz, Richelieu, Mazarin and Dubois were the notorious roués of the day. I see here every where a set of jovial-looking monks, with their caps over the right eye, who would drink your health in the sacristy. Besides, when the cares of men are limited to themselves, they lose some of the best qualities of the human heart; they become selfish. I never knew an old maid, a bachelor, or even a married woman without children, who was not an insupportable _egoist_, unless the affections nourished by matrimony were supplied from other sources; and the concern men have for their children brings out their religious as well as their social qualities into continual exercise. Not only the strongest defence against immorality, but the foundation of every public virtue is laid in the domestic affections. The Athenians would not allow any one to vote who had not a child; if I were pope, I would not permit any one to preach who had not a wife, and I would take one myself to set them the good example.

I am sorry the interior arrangements of our American churches, both catholic and protestant, are so opposed to architectural beauty. The pew has an air of habitation; it has the comfort, it has the sacredness of home. Families, accustomed to see each other, the year round, grow into acquaintance; and, even without the intercourse of words, experience the joy of a friendly meeting. The humble man, also, has the satisfaction, one day in seven, of seeing himself in company with those of better fortunes, on something like terms of equality. When one gets the apostles and all the saints on one’s side, one rises almost to the dignity of any body. A great man, too, can, in a church, associate a little with his inferiors without compromising his importance: all which is lost in this random and desultory way of sitting about upon chairs, as in the French churches.

A great evil of our American churches is, their great respectability, or exclusiveness. Here, being of a large size, and paid by government, the church is open to all the citizens, with an equal right and equal chance of accommodation. In ours, the dearness of pew-rent, especially in the Episcopal and Presbyterian, turns poverty out of doors. Poor people have a sense of shame; and I know many a one who, because he cannot go to church decently, will not go at all. This is an evil we must bear, to avoid the greater one of a church establishment. We suffer disadvantages, also, from want of religious uniformity. A thin settled community, which is just able to support one clergyman, starves three or four, or dispenses altogether with their services. A first-rate Methodist would rather not go to church at all, than take part in the litany; and what good Presbyterian, would not rather be d--d, ten times over, than be seen at a mass?

In a diversity of sects, also, we are given to dogmatise too much, and define articles of faith; to follow the letter rather than the spirit of religion. The French catholic believes (if he believes any thing) in the power of absolution, in the real presence, and in the infallibility of the pope; without inquiry into the absurdity of such belief, we dogmatise and doubt and reason ourselves into infidelity; and, though we can see no essential difference in the prayers and sermons of our different clergymen, we cling to our own, as indispensable to our salvation.

Our clergy, too, of the same denomination, are often falling into schisms, in which they too often show jealousy, malice, and other bad passions, which brings religion itself into disrepute. Are these things worse than the abuses and corruptions of undivided church establishments?

The manner of keeping Sunday is a subject of general censure amongst our American visitors at Paris. There is no visible difference between this day and the others, except that the gardens and public walks, the churches in the morning, and the ball-rooms and theatres in the evening, are more than usually crowded. In London, the bells toll on the Sunday most solemnly; the theatres and dancing rooms are silent, and all the shops (but the gin-shop) shut; yet the poor get drunk, and the equipages of the gentry parade their magnificence in Hyde Park, of a Sunday afternoon.

“How do you spend your Sundays,” said a Frenchman, condoling with another, “in America?” He replied: “_Monsieur, je prends médecine._” A Frenchman has a tormenting load of animal spirits that cannot live without employment: he has no idea of happiness in a calm; and it is not likely that he will remain _endimanché chez-lui_ during the twelve hours of the day, or that his Sunday evenings would be better employed than in the theatre and ball-room.

This is my opinion; but I have great doubts whether a man ought to have an opinion of his own, when it does not correspond with that of others, who are notoriously wiser than himself. I cannot easily persuade myself, that nature has intended the whole of this life to be given up to a preparation for the next, else had she not given us all these means of enjoyment, all these “delicacies of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits and flowers, walks and the melody of birds.”--Now this is enough about French churches.

LETTER XIII.

Père la Chaise.--Funeral of Bellini.--Grave-Merchants. Description of the Cemetery.--Graves of the Rich and the Poor.--The Fête des Morts.--Tomb of Abelard and Heloise.--Remarkable personages buried there.--The Aristocracy of the Grave.--Monument of Foy.--Inscription.--Grave yards in Cities and Towns.--French regulations for the inhumation of the dead.

Paris, October 29th, 1835.

I took advantage of a beautiful day, which peeped out yesterday, to pay my respects to _Père la Chaise_, and I am going to give you some account of this celebrated city of the dead. But what can I say? I feel scarce wit enough to talk about the weather, and I am going to tell you of that which all the world has described so beautifully. I know not the reason, but I have even less sense and imagination than usual, since I am in Paris. If it were not for Madame de Sevigné, and a few other such characters, I would lay the blame upon the heavy, unthinking and hazy influences of these northern climates. I followed the funeral of _Bellini_, the composer, author of Pirati, Puritani, and other first-rate operas. Is it not a pity to die with so much talent at twenty-nine, when so many fools live out their four-score? I do not recollect any thing that old Methusaleh said or did, with his nine hundred years; and he could not have made such an opera as Puritani, if he had lived as many more. He was accompanied (Bellini, I mean) by the music of all Paris; and the music of the spheres must have played, this day, a sweeter harmony.

The mass of Cherubini, so appropriate to the occasion, and so much better than the archbishop’s prayers, was forbidden by the archbishop, because it had feminine voices in it; and his worship would not have the chapel of the Invalids, all hung over so beautifully with bloody flags, profaned by musical women; not even by the exquisite Grisi. So we had the 39th Psalm. Don’t you think the spirit of the composer must have winced? But the march, with full band, along the Boulevards for several miles, and the end of the ceremony at Père la Chaise, were imposing. Speeches were pronounced in Italian and French by good orators; and, among the listeners, some of us were queens and princesses. The breezes whispered though the pines, and a thunder storm, as if expressly, came over the sun, and played bass in the clouds, and the clouds themselves wept as the grave closed upon Bellini.--I went to the Invalids, with a pretty English woman, one of his scholars, who wailed his loss inconsolably, and who, for certain, was in love with him. Women, you know, always fall in love with their music masters; Mary Queen of Scots, and the pretty Mrs. Thrale into the bargain.

This cemetery of Père la Chaise, thirty years ago, had fourteen tombs; it counts, in the present year, fifty thousand. Hundreds of architects, and sculptors, and statuaries, besides multitudes of labourers, find here a new source of occupation, and improvement in the arts; so that a goodly part of the present generation gets its living by the death of its predecessors. Here is a whole street of marble yards, which manufactures tombs for domestic and foreign commerce, near a mile long; and mighty heaps of bronze, granite and marble, exquisitely chiselled, recommending themselves to the notice of the public. Tombstones, urns, bronze gates, iron railings, crosses, pillars, pyramids, statues and all the furniture of the grave, are laid out, and exhibited here, as the merchandise of the shops and bazaars of the latest and newest fashions--“_Grand Magazin à la General Foy--à l’Abelard et Heloise_,” &c.; as in the city, “_Grand Magazin du Doge de Venise_,” and by trying to under-bury one another, they have reduced funeral expenses in every branch to their minimum;--there is, perhaps, no place in the world where one can die, and be buried so moderately, as in Paris. Here is one selling out at first cost, to close a concern; and another’s whole stock of tombs is brought to the hammer, by the death of the proprietor.

These grave-merchants used to follow the funeral processions, in swarms, to the verge of the tomb, offering to the mourners bills and advertisements, and specimens of their industry, but this emulation has been lately forbidden, by an order of police. These people have got, by professional habit, to think, like the philosophers, that the principal business of man, upon this earth, is to die. The staple of conversation is, the grave; and there is as much pedantry here about the dead people, as in the Latin Quarter there is about the dead languages.--“When do you think you can pay me that bill of marble, M. Grigou?”--“Ah, sir! business is very slack just now; and the season, you see, is almost over. M. Barbeau, I have been twenty years in the trade, and never saw such times. It really seems as if people had left off dying. But, if business becomes brisk, as we expect, towards Christmas, I will pay you off then; if not, you will have to wait till next August.---- When the cholera was here---- Helas! I fear we shall never see such times again.”--“_Eh bien, patience_, M. Grigou, we must hope for the best.”

They have here, too, a kind of Exchange, where they meet to see the state of the market--to see the newest fashions or inventions of urns and crosses, and other sepulchral images, and to read over the bills of mortality, as elsewhere one reads the price current. The joy of a death is, of course, proportionate to the worth, fashion and distinction of the individual who has died. When General Mortier was killed, on the 28th, stock rose one and a quarter.--“Well! what is there to-day?”--“Nothing!--and getting worse and worse!--but what can one expect else under such a detestable government? You remember how it was under the Restoration. Then we had such persons as Marshal Suchet, and Madame Demidoff to bury; now we bury nothing but the canaille. Even under Charles, we had some few nobles left, who could pay for a snug mausoleum; but what is a French nobleman now?--a poor, half-cut gentleman, with a ribbon in his button-hole, which he calls a decoration, and without money to pay the grave digger or the sexton.---- Ah! M. Grigou, things must have a change!”

The gate of the cemetery, which terminates the view at the end of this street, is surmounted by statuary, and is magnificent, like that of some great prince. It is always besieged by equipages, and vehicles of every kind, of the visiters, who are coming and going at all hours--all except one--his equipage goes home empty! Around this entrance is a great crowd of women, all over smiles, who offer you wreaths, chaplets, and crosses of orange blossom, amaranth, and other ever-green, very prettily interwoven, and they get a living by this little trade. As you ascend the hill, you see groups of visiters, noisy and talkative, who on entering are suddenly silent, struck with the awfulness of the place. A kind of death-chill runs through the blood. But after a closer view the mind becomes serene, and even roams with a delightful curiosity amongst the tombs.

Nearly all the ground is covered with small pines, and with fern, woodbines, and jessamines twisted into tufted thickets. There is quite a deficiency of cypress and willow, and hemlock; the vegetation is generally stinted in its growth, and looks forlorn enough indeed. Monuments of brightest marble and exquisite sculpture dazzle the eye on all sides; and there are smooth and gravelled walks, terraces, and flowery banks, paths winding along the hillside, and little scenery of every variety; and nature has borrowed so many ornaments from art, and wears them with so lively a grace, that one is disposed rather to admiration than to melancholy musings; one would think that Hymen and Cupid and not Death walked through her hills and valleys.