Part 10

Here is an Englishman, who has interrupted me at the very outset of this letter, and says I must dine with him at the “Garden of Plants.” He is a kind of public informer, and does the honours of Paris to us raw Yankees, just come over. He has on his left arm, a basket of provisions, a couple of claret-bottles exhibiting their slender necks over the margin of the basket, and on his right a lady, his sister, who is to accompany us. She is exceedingly pretty, with a complexion of drifted snow, and a rosiness of cheeks. I have no comparison, only strawberries and cream. She is not slow, neither, as English women generally, to shew her parts of speech. “Sir, it is as delightful and romantic a little spot as there is in the whole city. Only two centuries ago it was an open field, and the physician of Louis XIII. laid it out as a botanical garden; it now covers eighty-four acres, partly with wood. Wood is so delightful at this hot season. And there is now a botanic garden, besides immense conservatories; also, a splendid gallery of anatomy, of botany, and a menagerie; a library, too, of natural history, and laboratories, and an amphitheatre, in which there are annually thirteen courses of lectures. And then there is the School of Drawing and Painting, of Natural History, all gratuitous. We will just step into an omnibus on the Boulevards, and for six sous we shall be set down at the very gate. Oh, it is quite near, only two steps.” I resign myself to the lady. The excursion will perhaps furnish me, what I have great need of, a subject for this letter. Parisian civility never allows one place to be far from another. The French women, if the place should be at any considerable distance, cannot for their little souls tell you. It is always “two steps,” and under this temptation of “two steps” you are often seduced into a walk of several miles. If there is any one virtue in Paris more developed than another, it is that of shewing strangers the way. A French lady asked me the way to-day, in the street, and though I did not know it, I ran all about shewing her, out of gratitude. The strangers who reside here soon fall, by imitation, into the same kind of civility. The Garden of Plants is distant from my lodging about three miles. Adieu till to-morrow.

* * * * *

_August 15th._

The driver of a cab takes his seat at the side of his customer, and is therefore very civil, amiable, talkative, and a great rogue. The coachman, on the contrary, is a straight-up, selfish, and sulky brute, who has no complaisance for any one born of a woman; he is not even a rogue, for being seated outside, he has no communication with the passengers. He gives you back your purse if you drop it in his coach; he is the type of the omnibus-driver. You have your choice of the “Citadine,” which does not stop for way-passengers, but at its stations at half a mile; or the omnibus, which picks you up anywhere on the way. It sets off always at the minute, not waiting for a load; and then you have a “correspondence;” that is, you have a ticket from the conducteur at the end of one course, which gives you a passage, without additional charge, for the next. You go all round the world for six sous. You change your omnibus three times from the _Barrière du Trone_ to the _Barrière de l’Etoile_, which are at the east and west extremities of the city.

In Paris, everybody rides in an omnibus. The Chamber of Peers rides in an omnibus. I often go out in the one the king used to ride in before he got up in the world. I rode this morning between a grisette with a bandbox and a knight with a decoration. Some of the pleasantest evenings I have spent here were in an omnibus, wedged in between the easy _embonpoint_ of a healthy pair of Frenchwomen. If you get into melancholy, an omnibus is the best remedy you can imagine. Whether it is the queer shaking over the rough pavement I cannot say, but you have always an irresistible inclination to laugh. It is so laughable to see your face bobbing into the face of somebody else; it is so interesting, too, to know what one’s neighbours may be thinking about one; and then the strange people, and the strange rencontres. I often give six sous just for the comic effect of an omnibus. Precipitate jolts against a neighbour one never saw, as the ponderous vehicle rolls over the stones, gives agitation to the blood and brains, and sets one a thinking. And not the least part of the amusement is the getting in, especially if all the places but the back seat are filled. This back seat is always the last to have a tenant. It is a circular board of about six inches in diameter at the very farthest end, and to reach it you have to run the gauntlet between two rows of knees almost in contact; you set out, the omnibus setting out at the same time, and you get along sitting on a lady’s lap, now on this side, and now on that, until you arrive at your destination; and there you are set up on a kind of pivot to be stared at by seventeen pair of black eyes, ranged along the two sides of the omnibus.

The only evil I know of these vehicles is, that the seat being occupied by seven fat gentlemen, it may leave only six inches of space to a lady of two feet in diameter, so that she comes out compressed to such a degree as to require a whole day of the enlarging and tightening capacities of Madame Palmyre to get her back to her shapes; a worse evil is, that you often take an interest in a fellow-traveller, from whom you are in a few minutes to be separated, perhaps for ever.

We arrived at the garden just time enough before our repast to expatiate lightly upon its beauties. We visited first the Museum of Natural History, which occupies two stories of a building three hundred feet long. On the first floor are six rooms of geological and mineralogical collections; on the second, are quadrupeds, birds, insects, and all the family of the apes--two hundred specimens--and groups of crystals, porphyry, native gold and silver, rough and cut diamonds. Overlooking this whole animal creation is a beautiful statue of Venus Urania--_hominum divumque voluptas!_ In one apartment is a group of six thousand birds, in all their gay and glittering plumage; and there are busts about the room, in bronze, of Linnæus, Fourcroy, Petit, Winslow, Tournefort, and Daubenton.

Our American birds here have all got to be members of the Academy. You can know them only by their feathers. There would be no objection to call our noisy and stupid whip-poor-will, “caprimulgus vociferus,” but what do you think of calling our plain and simple Carolina wren, “troglodytus ludovicianus!”

The insects have a room also to themselves, very snug and beautiful, in cases, and sparkling like gems in all their variety of vivid and fantastic colours. We met here a naturalist, an acquaintance, who has lived the chief part of his life among spiders’ legs, and he explained to us the properties of the insects. He conversed upon their tenacity of life. He shewed us a mite that had lived three months glazed to a bit of glass, and a beetle which had been above three years without eating, and seemed not particular how long it lived; a spider, also, which had been kept one year on the same abstemious regimen, and yet was going on living as usual. Are you not ashamed, you miserable mortals, to be _outlived_ by a beetle? He shewed us, also, flies and spiders sepulchred in amber, perhaps since the days of Ninus--how much better preserved than the mummied ladies and gentlemen who have been handed down to us from the same antiquity.

This professor has been so long in the world of insects that he has taken a distaste to big things. I baited him with a whale and an elephant, but he would not bite. I knew once a botanist in America who had turned entirely into a flower, and I accompanied an entomologist of this kind to the brow of one of those cliffs which frown over the floods of the Susquehanna, where one could not read Milton, and there he turned up rotten logs for grubs and snails for his museum. It seems that even the study of nature, when confined to its minute particles, does not tend to enlarge or elevate the mind. I have observed that the practice even of hunting little birds, or fishing for minnows, gives little thoughts and appetites; so, to harpoon whales, chase deer, bears, wolves, and panthers, gives a disdain of what is trifling, and raises the mind to vast and perilous enterprises. The study of entomology, I mean the exclusive study, leaves, I presume, to the artist, about as big a soul as the beetle,

“or the wood-louse, That folds itself in itself for a house.”

There is a building apart also for the “Botanic Garden.” It has an herbal of twenty-five thousand species of plants. You will see here a very pretty collection of the mushrooms in wax--it is delightful to see the whole family together. The Cabinet of “Comparative Anatomy” has also separate lodgings. It contains skeletons of all animals compared with man and with one another, about twelve thousand preparations. It is a population of anatomies; it looks like Nature’s laboratory, or like the beginnings of creation, about the second or third day. Here are all the races which claim kindred with us, Tartar, Chinese, New Zealander, Negro, Hottentot, and several of our Indian tribes. Here is a lady wrapped in perpetual virginity and handed down to us from Sesostris, and the mummy of somebody’s majesty, that, divested of its wrappings, weighs eight pounds, that used to “walk about in Thebes’ streets three thousand years ago.”

We descanted much upon this wonderful school of nature--upon the varieties, analogies, and differences of the animal creation. “How strange that the Chinese should wear their cues on the top in that way!” said the lady. “How differently from us Europeans!” said the gentleman. “Only look at this dear little fish!” “Sister, don’t you think it is time to dine?”--And so we left the anatomical preparations for this more grateful preparation, the dinner. The great genius of this place, the Baron Cuvier, is defunct. He has now a place, for aught I know, among his own collections. Alas, the skeleton of a Baron! how undistinguishable in a Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy!

In roaming about, we examined superficially the garden, the largest part of which is occupied by the menagerie,--this is not the reason it is called the “Garden of Plants.” There are seventeen different inclosures, and in each a committee of the several races of animals; in one are the huge and pacific, as the elephants and bisons; in another, the domestic, as goats, sheep, and deer. The camels are turning a machine to supply water--they who were born to dispense with this element. In one you will see the wild and ferocious beasts and their dens, as bears, tigers, hyenas, and wolves; and there is another containing the vultures, eagles, &c. The monkies are a beautiful family, about two hundred in number--their expression such as becomes sisters. The remainder of the garden also is divided into various apartments; one is a botanic garden, with six thousand five hundred species of plants; another is a collection of different soils and manures; another contains a specimen of every kind of hedge, fence, or ditch; another every culinary vegetable used for the food of man; and another is a piece of water appropriated to aquatic plants.

The whole establishment contains five hundred and twenty-six thousand species of plants, minerals, and animals. In the hot-houses and conservatories are ten thousand different species of vegetables. In the midst of the birds you see the eagle; of the quadrupeds, his shaggy majesty, the king of the beasts; and I observed that sober cacique, the llama, reclining amongst his native trees. The most extraordinary of these animals (though nothing is extraordinary in Paris for a long time) is the giraffe. On her arrival, the professors and high dignitaries of the state went out to meet her at many days’ journey from the capital, and deputations from all the departments. She was attended by grooms and footmen, and “gentlemen of the bed-chamber,” from her native country; and an African cow supplied her with African milk. An antelope and three goats followed in an open barouche. She was formally invited to visit the Archbishop at his country seat near Lyons, but refused; whereupon his eminence, yielding to her claims of respect, went out to meet her, and was upset, his coach taking fright at the strange animal; _et voilà son aristocratie par terre_!

A military escort also proceeded from Paris, with members of the Institute and other learned bodies, which met her at Fontainebleau; and her entrance to the garden was a triumphal procession. The curiosity of the public had now risen to its height, (and there is no place where it can rise higher than in Paris.) From ten to twenty thousand persons poured into this garden daily. Fresh portraits by eminent artists, and bulletins of everything she did remarkable, were published weekly. All the bonnets, and shoes, and gloves, and gowns--every species of apparel--was made “_à la giraffe_;” quadrilles were danced “_à la giraffe_;” _café-au-lait_ was made “_à la giraffe_.” She has large black eyes, and pretty eye-lashes, and the mouth is very expressive. In philosophy, she is a Pythagorean, and eats maize and barley, and is very fond of roses; in religion, she is a Saint Simonian. She takes an airing every morning in the park in fine weather, and wears flannel next her skin in winter.

Our guide now mounted up, we following, by a spiral walk, to the summit of a hill, where there is a fine panoramic view of the city. In the centre of the spire is a little open kiosk, where we found seats, and a girl entertained us with choice sights through a telescope, at two sous a look. At length, after several little searches for a convenient place, we sat ourselves down underneath a hospitable tree, which, from its solemn and venerable aspect, and from my biblical recollections alone, I knew to be the cedar of Lebanon. Here our dinner was spread upon the earth. At the bottom of the hill is a dairy, which supplied milk, honey, eggs, fruit, and coffee, with the services of the dairy-maid; and, like our great ancestor, being seated amidst creation, we partook with grateful hearts our excellent repast, the enjoyment being enhanced by occasional conversation.

“How I should like to pay a visit to your country!”

“It would give us great pleasure, madam, if you would come over.”

“And I also. The truth is, I have a hearty contempt for these d--d monkey French people! I can’t tell why I ever came amongst them.”

“How long have you been here, sir?”

“Twenty years. But what terrible accounts are coming over about your riots!--why, you hang people up there, I see, without a trial!”

“No; we try them after they are hung!”

“Oh dear! I should never be able to sleep quiet in my bed!”

“The fact is, a republic won’t do.”

“Oh dear no; why cousin writes us from New York that he is coming back; and he says if things go on so, Europeans will leave off emigrating; that will be bad, won’t it? (Do let me help you to a little tongue.) But perhaps things will go better; America’s so young yet, isn’t she? And then your temperance societies are doing a deal of good; I read about them this morning. I am very particular about temperance; (you have nothing in your glass!) and then what Fanny Kemble says about the bugs--”

“Yes, and the fleas and mosquitoes too! Why it seems to me you can’t have need of any other kind of _flea_-bottomy.”

“Oh fie, brother!--I declare I like the Americans very much; they are so good natured. Only look at that dear little hen! Have you any muffled hens in your country--any bantams?” Thus a whole hour rolled by unheeded in this delightful interchange of sentiment; and the universe was created in vain for any notice we took of it till the end of the dinner. I now turned up my eyes upon the hospitable branches which had afforded us protection during this repast.

The verdure of this tree is perpetual, and its branches, which are fashioned like the goose-quill, are spread out horizontally to cover an immense space. It pushes them from the trunk gradually upwards, and their outward extremity is bent gently towards the earth, so that the shelter is complete, the rain running down the trunk or from the tip of these branches. You would easily know it was intended as a shelter. From its connexion with sacred history, its venerable appearance, and extraordinary qualities, it is the most remarkable tree that grows upon the earth, and there is scarce any relic of the Holy Land more sacred. It is sung by Isaiah and Solomon: “Justus florebit sicut cedrus Libani.” “The glory of Lebanon, the beauty of Carmel, and the abundance of Sharon.”

It does not suffer the presence of any other tree, nor does the smallest blade of grass presume to vegetate in its presence. It served to build the splendid temples of David and Solomon; also Diana’s Temple at Ephesus, Apollo’s at Utica; and the rich citizens of Babylon employed it in the construction of their private dwellings. Its wood is the least corruptible substance of the vegetable world. In the temple at Utica, it has been found pure and sound after two thousand years. Its saw-dust was one of the ingredients used to embalm the dead in Egypt, and an oil was extracted from it for the preservation of books. Its gum, too, is a specific for several diseases. Since this cedar lives in cold climates, and in unholy as well as holy lands, why does not some one induce it to come and live amongst us? This was brought to the garden by Jussieu in 1734.

It is a pity such gardens as these are not the growth of republics. What an ornament to a city! At the same time, what a sublime and pathetic lesson of religious and virtuous sentiment! What more can all the records, and commentaries, and polemics of theology teach us than this? My next visit here shall be alone. Alone, I could have fancied myself a patriarch, reclining under this tree. These camels on their tread-mill I could have turned into caravans, rich with spices of Arabia. I could have seen Laban’s flock in these buffaloes of the Missouri, and Rachel herself in the dairy-maid. If you take a woman with you, you must neglect the whole three kingdoms for her, and she will awake you in your most agreeable dreams; whilst you are admiring the order and beauty which reigns throughout creation, she will stick you down to a muffled hen, or a johnny-jump-up; and while you are seated at the side of Jacob, or of some winged angel, she will make you admire the “goldfinches, the chaffinches, the bullfinches, and the greenfinches.”

* * * We will now adjourn from the “King’s Garden” to my apartments in the Rue St. Anne, where I must leave you, you know how reluctantly, till to-morrow. I am invited out by Mr. P----, one of the bravest men of the world, from the Mississippi, who is just going home, and in the grief of separation has called his friends around him at the _Hotel des Princes_, to dine. I must trust to the events of a new day to fill this remaining sheet.

* * * * *

_Rue St. Anne, August 15th._

I have not the courage to describe our gorgeous banquet; I have an excessive head-ache. Though I eat of nothing but the soup, and the fish, and game, and of the roasts, and ragouts, and side dishes, and then the dessert,--drank scarcely anything but burgundy, medoc, and champagne, and some coffee, and liqueur, yet I feel quite ill this morning. If one should die of the stomach-ache by eating a gooseberry pie, I wonder if it is suicide? However, if you want to eat the best dinners in the world, I recommend you to the _Hotel des Princes_, and the acquaintance of Mr. P. of the Mississippi.

It is very much to be feared that in cookery, especially the transcendant branches, we shall long remain inferior to these refined French people. We have no class of persons who devote their whole minds to the art, and there is nothing to bring talents out into exercise and improvement. If any one does by force of nature get “out of the frying pan,” who is there to appreciate his skill? He lives, like Bacon, in advance of his age, and even runs the risk of dying of hunger in the midst of his own dishes. Besides, in America, in cooking, as all things else, we weaken our genius by expansion. The chief cook in this “Hotel of the Princes” has spent a long life upon a single dish, and by this speciality, has not only ripened his talent unto perfection but has brought a general reputation to the house--as you have seen persons, by practising a single virtue, get up a name for all the rest. The English, too, are mere dabblers in this science. A French artist, to prepare and improve his palate, takes physic every morning; whereas an Englishman never sees the necessity of taking medicine unless he is sick, (“_que lorsqu’il est malade!_”) his palate becomes indurated (“_aussi insensible que le conscience d’un vieux juge_.”) In this country, if a dish miss, or is underdone, do you believe that the cook survives it? No! he despises the ignominious boon of life without reputation--he dies! The death of Vatel is certainly one of the most pathetic, as well as most heroic events, recorded in history. No epicure can read it without tears.--“_Votre bonté_,” he said to the Prince, who sought to console him, “_Votre bonté m’achève!--je sais ... je sais que le rôti a manqué à deux tables!_” He then retired to his room--I cannot go on. I refer you to Madame de Sevigné, who has given a full account of the man’s tragical end.

I do not, however, approve of French gastronomy in everything. The cruelty exercised upon the goose is most barbarous. They recollect that a goose once brought ruin upon their ancestors in the Capitol, and they have no humanity for geese ever since. They formerly nailed the wretch by the feet to a plank, then crammed it, and deprived it of water, and exposed it to a hot fire (_où elle passait une vie assez malheureuse_) until the liver became nearly as large as the goose, which, being larded with truffles, and covered with a broad paste, bore the name of the inventor with distinction through the whole earth.