AIX TO PARIS
There is no need of telling how disgusted I became with Aix-les-Bains and all that in it is, after a short residence there. How I hated those straw-hatted people who beset the baths from the earliest flush of the aurora! How I detested those fellows who were constantly pestering me with offers (highly advantageous, without doubt) of donkeys whereon to ride, when they knew that I didn't want one! How I abominated the sight of a man (who seemed to haunt me) in a high velvet-collared coat and a bell-crowned hat just overtopping an oily-looking head of hair and bushy whiskers – who looked, for all the world, as if he were made up for Sir Harcourt Courtly! How maliciously he held on to the newspapers in the café! How constantly he sat there and devoured all the news out of them through the medium of a double tortoise-shell eye-glass, which always seemed to be just falling off his nose! How I abhorred the sight of those waiters, who looked as if the season were a short one, and time (as B. Franklin said) was money! How stifling was the atmosphere of that "seven-by-nine" room for which I had to pay so dearly! How hot, how dusty, how dull it was, I need not weary you by telling; suffice it to say, that I never packed my trunk more willingly than when I left that village. I am very glad to have been there, however, for the satisfaction I felt at leaving the place is worth almost any effort to obtain. The joy of departure made even the exorbitant bills seem reasonable; and when I thought of the stupidity and discomfort I was escaping from, I felt as if, come what might, my future could only be one of sunshine and content. Aix-les-Bains is one of the pleasantest places to leave that I have ever seen. I can never forget the measureless happiness of seeing my luggage ticketed for Paris, and then taking my seat with the consciousness that I was leaving Aix (not aches, alas!) behind me.
The Lake of Bourget was as beautiful and smiling as before – only it did seem as if the sun might have held in a little. He scorched and blistered the passengers on that steamboat in the most absurd manner. He seemed never to have heard of Horace, and was consequently entirely ignorant of the propriety of maintaining a modus in his rebuses. The scenery along the banks of the Rhone had not changed in the least, but was as romantic and theatrical as ever. At Culoz I was glad to get on shore, for like Hamlet, I had been "too much i' the sun"; so I left the "blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone," (which the late Lord Byron, with his usual disregard of truth, talks about, and which is as muddy as a Medford brick-yard,) and took refuge in the hospitality of a custom house. Here I fell into a meditation upon custom house officers. I wonder whether the custom house officers of France are in their leisure hours given to any of the vanities which delight their American brethren. There was one lean, thoughtful-looking man among those at Culoz who attracted my attention. I tried ineffectually to make out his bent from his physiognomy. I could not imagine him occupying his leisure by putting any twice-told tales on paper – or cultivating Shanghai poultry – or riding on to the tented field amid the roar of artillery at the head of a brigade of militia, – and I was obliged, in the hurry of the examination of luggage, to give him up.
I had several times, during the journey from Aix, noticed a tall, eagle-eyed man, in a suit of gray, and wearing a moustache of the same colour, and while we were waiting for the train at Culoz, I observed that he attracted a great deal of attention: his bearing was so commanding, that I had set him down as being connected with the military interest, before I noticed that he did not bear arms, for the left sleeve of his coat hung empty and useless by his side; so I ventured to inquire concerning him, and learned that I was a fellow-traveller of Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers. I must do him the justice to say that he did not look like a man who would leave his arms on the field.
We were soon whirling, and puffing, and whistling along through the tame but pleasing landscape of France. Those carefully-tilled fields, those vineyards almost overflowing with the raw material of conviviality, those interminable rows of tall trees which seem to give no shade, those farm-houses, whose walls we should in America consider strong enough for fortifications, those contented-looking cattle, those towns that seem to consist of a single street and an old gray tower, with a dark-coloured conical top, like a candle extinguisher, – all had a good, familiar look to me; and the numerous fields of Indian corn almost made me think that I was on my way to Worcester or Fitchburg. I stopped for a while at Macon, (a town which I respect for its contributions to the good cheer of the world,) and hugely enjoyed a walk through its clean, quiet streets. While I was waiting at the station, the express train from Paris came along; and many of the passengers left their places (like Mr. Squeers) to stretch their legs. Among them was a man whose acquisitive eye, black satin waistcoat, fashionable hat, (such as no man but an American would think of travelling in,) and coat with the waist around his hips, and six or eight inches of skirt, immediately fixed my attention. Before I thought, he had asked me if I could speak English. I set him at his ease by answering that I took lessons in it once when I was young, and he immediately launched out as follows: "Well, this is the cussedest language I ever did hear. I don't see how in the devil these blasted fools can have lived so long right alongside of England without trying to learn the English language." The whistle of the engine cut short the declaration of his sentiments, and he was whizzing on towards Lyons a moment after. Whoever that man may have been, he owes it to himself and his country to write a book. His work would be as worthy of consideration as the writings of two thirds of our English and American travellers, who think they are qualified to write about the government and social condition of a country because they have travelled through it. Fancy a Frenchman, entirely ignorant of the English tongue, landing at Boston, and stopping at the Tremont House or Parker's; he visits the State House, the Athenæum, Bunker Hill, the wharves, &c. Then on Sunday he wishes to know something about the religion of these strange people; so he goes across the street to the King's Chapel, and finds that it is closed; so he walks down the street in the burning sun to Brattle Street, where he hears a comfortable, drony kind of sermon, which seems to have as composing an effect upon the fifty or a hundred persons who are present as upon himself. In the afternoon he finds his way to Trinity Church, (somebody having charitably told him that that is the most genteel place,) and there he hears "our admirable liturgy" sonorously read out to twenty or thirty people, all of whom are so engrossed in their devotions that the responses are entirely neglected. Having had enough of what the Irishman called the English lethargy, he returns to his lodgings, and writes in his note-book that the Americans seldom go to church, and when they do, go there to sleep in comfortable pews. Then he makes a little tour of a fortnight to New Haven, Providence, Springfield, &c., and returns to France to write a book of travels in New England. And what are all his observations worth? I'll tell you. They are worth just as much, and give exactly as faithful a representation of the state of society in New England, as four fifths of the books written by English and American travellers in France, Spain, and Italy, do of the condition of those countries.
I have encountered many interesting studies of humanity here on the continent in my day. I have met many people who have come abroad with a vague conviction that travel improves one, and who do not see that to visit Europe without some preparation is like going a-fishing without line or bait. They appear to think that some great benefit is to be obtained by passing over a certain space of land and water, and being imposed upon to an unlimited extent by a horde of commissionnaires, ciceroni, couriers, and others, who find in their ignorance and lack of common sense a source of wealth. I met, the other day, a gentleman from one of the Western States, who said that he was "putting up" at Meurice's Hotel, but didn't think much of it; if it had not been for some English people whom he fell in with on the way from Calais, he should have gone to the Hôtel de Ville, which he supposed, from the pictures he had seen, must be a "fust class house"! I have within a few hours seen an American, who could not ask the simplest question in French, but thinks that he shall stop three or four weeks, and learn the language! I have repeatedly met people who told me that they had come out to Europe "jest to see the place." But it is not alone such ignoramuses as these who merit the pity or contempt of the judicious and sensible. Their folly injures no one but themselves. The same cannot be said, however, of the authors of the numerous duodecimos of foreign travel which burden the booksellers' counters. They have supposed that they can sketch a nation's character by looking at its towns from the windows of an express train. They presume to write about the social life of France or Italy, while they are ignorant of any language but their own, and do not know a single French or Italian family. Victims of a bitter prejudice against those countries and their institutions, they are prepared beforehand to be shocked and disgusted at all they see. Like Sterne's Smelfungus, they "set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object they pass by is discoloured or distorted." Kenelm Digby wisely remarks that one of the great advantages of journeying beyond sea, to a man of sense and feeling, is the spectacle of general travellers: "it will prevent his being ever again imposed upon by these birds of passage, when they record their adventures and experience on returning to the north."
Dijon is a fine old city. Every body knows that it used to be the capital of Burgundy, but to the general reader it is more particularly interesting as being the place to which Mrs. Dombey and Mr. Carker fled after the elopement. There is a fine cathedral and public library, and the whole place has an eminently Burgundian flavour which makes one regret that he got tired so soon when he tried to read Froissart's Chronicles. There is a church there which was desecrated during the old revolution, and is now used as a market-house. It bears an inscription which presents a satirical commentary on its recent history: "Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuæ!" The Dijon gingerbread (which the people, in their ignorance and lack of our common school advantages, call pain d'épice) would really merit a diploma from that academy of connoisseurs, the Massachusetts House of Representatives. But Dombey and Dijon are all forgotten in our first glimpse of the "gay capital of bewildering France." There lay Paris, sparkling under the noonday sun. The sight of its domes and monuments awoke all my fellow-travellers: shabby caps and handkerchiefs were exchanged for hats and bonnets, which gave their wearers an air of respectability perfectly uncalled for. We were soon inside the fortifications, which have been so outgrown by the city that one hardly notices them; and, after the usual luggage examination, I found myself in an omnibus, and once more on the Boulevards.
And what a good, comfortable home-feeling it was! There were the old, familiar streets, the well-known advertisements, painted conspicuously, in blue, and green, and gold, on what would else have been a blank, unsightly wall, and inviting me to purchase cloths and cashmeres; there were the same ceaseless tides of life ebbing and flowing through those vast thoroughfares, the same glossy beavers, the same snowy caps and aprons, the same blouses, the same polite, s'il vous-plaît, pardon, m'sieur, take-it-easy air, that Paris, as seen from an omnibus window, always presents. We rolled through the Rue St. Antoine, and it was hard to realize that it had ever been the theatre of so much appalling history. I tried to imagine the barricades, the street ploughed up by artillery, and that heroic martyr, Archbishop Affre, falling there, and praying that his blood might be the last shed in that fratricidal strife; but it was useless; the lively present made the past seem but the mere invention of the historian. All traces of the frightful scenes of 1848 have been effaced, and the facilities for barricades have been disposed of in a way that must make red republicanism very disrespectful to the memory of MacAdam. As we passed a church in that bloody locality, a wedding party came out; the bridegroom looked as if he had taken chloroform to enable him to get through his difficulties, and the effect of it had not entirely passed off. The bride (for women, you know, have greater power of endurance than men) seemed to take it more easily, and, beaming in the midst of a sort of wilderness of lace, and gauze, and muslin, like a lighthouse in a fog, she tripped briskly into the carriage, with a bouquet in her hand, and happiness in her heart. Before the bridal party got fairly out of sight, a funeral came along. The white pall showed that it was a child who slept upon the bier; for the Catholic church does not mourn over those who are removed from the temptations of life before they have known them. The vehicles all gave way to let the little procession pass, the hum seemed to cease for a moment, every head was uncovered, even the porter held his burden on his shoulder with one hand that he might pay his respects to that sovereign to whom even republicans are obliged to bow, and the many-coloured hats of the omnibus drivers were doffed. I had often before noticed those striking contrasts that one sees in a capital like Paris; but to meet such a one at my very entrance impressed me deeply. Such is Paris. You think it the liveliest place in the world, (and so it is;) but suddenly you come upon something that makes you thoughtful, if it does not sadden you. Life and death elbow and jostle each other along these gay streets, until it seems as if they were rivals striving to drive each other out. I entered a church a day or two since. There was a funeral at the high altar. The black vestments and hangings, the lighted tapers, the solemn chant of the De profundis were eloquent of death and what must follow it. I was startled by hearing a child's cry, and looking round into the chapel which served as a baptistery, there stood two young mothers who had just received their infants from that purifying laver which made them members of the great Christian family. I never before had that beautiful thought of Chateaubriand's so forced upon me – "Religion has rocked us in the cradle of life, and her maternal hand shall close our eyes, while her holiest melodies soothe us to rest in the cradle of death."
There are, without doubt, many persons, who can say that in their pilgrimage of life they have truly "found their warmest welcome at an inn." My experience outstrips that, for I have received one of my most cordial greetings in a café. The establishment in question is so eminently American, that I should feel as if I had neglected a sacred duty, if I did not describe it, for the benefit of future sojourners in the French capital, who are hereby requested to overhaul their memorandum books and make a note of it. It does not boast the magnificence and luxury of the Café de Paris, Véry's, the Trois Frères Provençaux, nor of Taylor's; nor does it thrust itself forward into the publicity of the gay Boulevards, or of the thronged arcades of the Palais Royal. It does not appeal to those who love the noise and dust of fashion's highway; for them it has no welcome. But to those who love "the cool, sequestered path of life," it offers a degree of quiet comfort, to which the "slaves of passion, avarice, and pride," who view themselves in the mirrors of the Maison Dorée, are strangers. You turn from the Boulevard des Italiens into the Rue de la Michodière, which you perambulate until you come to number six, where you will stop and take an observation. Perhaps wonder will predominate over admiration. The front of the establishment does not exceed twelve feet in width, and the sign over the door shows that it is a Crêmerie. The fact is also adumbrated symbolically by a large brass can, which is set over the portal. In one of the windows may be observed a neatly-executed placard, to this effect: —
Aux Américains
Spécialité
Pumpkin Pie
"Enter – its vastness overwhelms thee not!" On the contrary, having passed through the little front shop, you stand in a room ten or twelve feet square – just the size of Washington Irving's "empire," in the Red Horse Inn, at Stratford. This little room is furnished with two round tables, a sideboard, and several chairs, and is decorated with numerous crayon sketches of the knights of the aforesaid round tables. You make the acquaintance of the excellent Madame Busque, and order your dinner, which is served promptly and with a motherly care, which will at first remind you of the time when your bib was carefully tied on, and you were lifted to a seat on the family Bible, which had been placed on a chair, to bring the juvenile mouth into proper relations with the table.
Nothing can surpass the home feeling that took possession of me when I found myself once more in Madame Busque's little back room at No. 6, Rue de la Michodière. How cordial was that estimable lady's welcome! She made herself as busy as a cat with one chicken, and prepared for me a "tired nature's sweet restorer" in the shape of one of her famous omelets. The old den had not changed in the least. Madame Busque used to threaten occasionally to paint it, and otherwise improve and embellish it; but we always told her that if she did any thing of that kind, or tried to render it less dingy, or snug, or unpretending, we would never eat another of her pumpkin pies. Not all the mirrors and magnificence of the resorts of fashion can equal the quiet cosiness of Madame Busque's back room. You meet all kinds of company there. The blouse is at home there, as well as its ambitious cousin, the broadcloth coat. Law and medicine, literature and art, pleasure and honest toil, meet there upon equal terms. Our own aristocratic Washington never dreamed of such a democracy as his calm portrait looks down upon in that room. Then we have such a delightful neighbourhood there. I feel as if the charcoal woman of the next door but one below was some relation to me – at least an aunt; she always has a pleasant word and a smile for the frequenters of No. 6; and then it is so disinterested on her part, for we can none of us need any of her charcoal. I hope that no person who reads this will be misled by it, and go to Madame Busque's crêmerie expecting to find there the variety which the restaurants boast, for he will be disappointed. But he will find every thing there of the best description. My taste in food (as in most other matters) is a very catholic one: I can eat beef with the English, garlic and onions with the French, sauerkraut with the Germans, macaroni with the Italians, pilaf with the Turks, baked beans with the Yankees, hominy with the southerners, and oysters with any body. But as I feel age getting the better of me day by day, I think I grow to be more and more of a pre-Raphaelite in these things. So I crave nothing more luxurious than a good steak or chop, with the appropriate vegetables; and these are to be had in their perfection at Madame Busque's. My benison upon her!
The canicular weather I suffered from in the south followed me even here. I found every body talking about the extraordinary chaleur. Shade of John Rogers! how the sun has glared down upon Paris, day after day, without winking, until air-tight stoves are refrigerators compared to it, and even old-fashioned preaching is outdone! How the asphalte sidewalks of the Boulevards have melted under his rays, and perfumed the air with any thing but a Sabæan odour! The fragrance of the linden trees was entirely overpowered. The thought of the helmets of the cavalry was utterly intolerable. Tortoni's and the cafés were crowded. Great was the clamour for ices. Greater still was the rush to the cool shades of the public gardens, or the environs of Bougival and Marly. At last, the welcome rain came hissing down upon these heated roofs; and malheur to the man who ventures out during these days without his umbrella. It has been a rain of terror. It almost spoilt the great national fête of the 15th; but the people made the best of it, and, between the free theatrical performances at sixteen theatres, the superb illuminations, and the fireworks, seemed to have a very merry time. I went in the morning to that fine lofty old church, (whose Lady Chapel is a splendid monument of Couture's artistic genius,) St. Eustache, where I heard a new mass, by one M. L'Hôte. It was well executed, and the orchestral parts were particularly effective. After the mass, the annual Te Deum for the Emperor was sung. The effect of the latter was very grand; indeed, when it was finished, I was just thinking that it was impossible for music to surpass it, when the full orchestra and two organs united in a burst of harmony that almost lifted me off my feet. I recognized the old Gregorian anthem that is sung every Sunday in all the churches, and when it had been played through, the trumpets took up the air of the chant, above the rest of the accompaniment, and the clear, alto voice of one of those scarlet-capped choir-boys rang out the words, Domine, salvum fac imperatorem nostrum, Napoleonem, in a way that seemed to make those old arches vibrate, and wonderfully quickened the circulation in the veins of every listener. It was like the gradual mounting and heaving up of a high sea in a storm on the Atlantic, which, when it has reached a pitch you thought impossible, curls majestically over, and, breaking into a creamy foam, loses itself in a transitory vision of emerald brilliancy, that for the moment realizes the most gorgeous and improbable fables of Eastern luxury. It made even me, notwithstanding my prejudices in favour of republicanism, forget the spread eagle, and my free (and easy) native land, and for several hours I found myself singing that solemn anthem over in a most impressive manner. Vive l'Empereur!