Part 6

The Parisians are distinguished by their loquacity. Having occasion to employ a hair-cutter, I was quite stunned by his volubility of tongue. King Archelaus would find it difficult to be suited here; for being asked how he would have his hair cut, he answered--"silently."

After many ineffectual attempts, I at last succeeded in satisfying my curiosity by seeing the assembly of the Legislative Body. The building is one of the greatest ornaments of which Paris can boast; it was chiefly the work of Buonaparte, who was satisfied to lodge these gentlemen in a palace, provided they did not interfere in the government of their country. I was not gratified in proportion to the trouble I had in getting into the hall, by the short and uninteresting debate which ensued. This House was occupied during the greatest part of my stay in Paris in discussing the forms proper to be observed when the king meets the peers and commons.

The deputies object, that the king should himself desire the peers to be seated, and that they should only receive that permission through the medium of the chancellor: how the point has been decided, I have not been since informed.

The weather was intensely hot during part of my stay at Paris, the quicksilver being occasionally at 26° Réaumur, equal to 90° of Fahrenheit's scale, and the sky without a cloud, there not being, in general, such a cloud of smoke over Paris as generally obscures the atmosphere of London. Yet, I believe, the best accounts allow that London is to the full as healthy a city as Paris, and if cleanliness is conducive to health the point can admit of little doubt. During part of this oppressive weather, I used generally to resort, about mid-day, to the gallery of the Louvre, being anxious to take every opportunity of contemplating its superb collection of the works of art. There, notwithstanding the number of visitors, the marble floors and ventilators rendered the air much more cool than it was out of doors. I generally set out on my rambles through the city at as early an hour as custom would permit, and in the evening, often joined the pedestrians in the gardens of the Tuilleries, which were always thronged with company of all descriptions. There are a vast number of chairs under the trees, and their proprietors demand one or two sous for the right of sitting in them. I have been assured that this inconsiderable charge procures a total by no means contemptible.

I sometimes extended my walk into the Champs Elysées, which extend a long way beyond the Place de Louis XV. Its avenues are lighted like the streets of Paris, by lanthorns, suspended across them by ropes and pulleys, which give a stronger light than our lamps, but do not seem equally secure. At the end of the centre avenue, which runs in a straight line from the grand entrance to the Tuilleries, Buonaparte had lately begun a triumphal arch to commemorate the victories of his armies; and still further, exactly opposite the bridge of Jena, he caused a vast number of houses to be destroyed, to make way for a projected palace for the King of Rome. The foundations only of this edifice had been laid before the overthrow of Buonaparte, and this large plot of ground now presents a scene of waste and desolation.

The present government, which will not prosecute so expensive and useless an undertaking, will still have to make compensation to the owners of the buildings of which only the ruins remain.

The quarter of St. Antoine is celebrated in the annals of the Revolution; and, indeed, there are but few parts of Paris, which do not recall to one's mind some of those scenes so disgraceful to humanity of which it was the great theatre. The Place Royale in this district is only remarkable, for having been built by Henry IV.: it forms a square with a small garden in the centre, but has long ceased to be a fashionable residence. In Paris there are no squares similar in plan to those in London, but occasionally one sees places formed by the junction of streets, &c. The town-house is a large, and as I think, a tasteless Gothic edifice; and in the Place de Grève stood that guillotine which deprived such incredible multitudes of their lives. At one period of the Revolution every successful faction in turn, endeavoured, as it should seem, to exterminate its enemies, when it succeeded in possessing itself of the supreme power, which then chiefly consisted in the command of this formidable instrument; and these successive tyrants, like Sylla, were often in doubt whom they should permit still to remain alive.

I do not know that the invention of the guillotine, is to be ascribed to the ingenuity of the French, but they will for ever remain obnoxious to the charge of the most dreadful abuse of it. I have heard it stated that, so late as the reigns of Elizabeth, and James the First, an instrument similar to the guillotine, was used for the execution of offenders in the vicinity of Hardwicke Forest, in Yorkshire.

The Boulevards are now merely very spacious streets, with avenues of trees at the sides, but formerly they were the boundaries of the city. They form a fashionable promenade for the Parisians, and abound with horsemen and carriages more than any other quarter of the town. Along the Boulevard Poissonnier are some of the handsomest houses in Paris. I dined with a family in one of them which commands a very cheerful scene. There are here, as in the Palais Royal, a vast number of coffee-houses, billiard-tables, and restaurateurs. The price of a dinner differs little from what is usually paid in London, but bread is about half the price, and there is a great saving in the charge for wine, with this additional advantage, that it is generally of much better quality than can be met with in London for double the price; as the heavy duties on importing French wines necessarily induces their adulteration. A stranger to French manners, is surprised at seeing ladies of respectability frequenting coffee-houses and taverns, which they do as matter of course;--so powerful are the habits in which we have been educated.

After the Boulevards, the Rue Royale and the Rue de Rivoli are the handsomest in Paris. The last named is far from being completed, and runs in a line, facing the gardens of the Tuilleries; in these two streets there is a division to protect foot passengers, but they are not flagged.

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CHAP. IV.

The Royal Hotel of the Invalids, is one of the principal establishments in Paris, which claims the attention of the stranger, and I accordingly went to view it with a party of friends. The principal court has just resumed the title of Royal, but we could easily distinguish that it had been a few months since dignified by that of Imperial. Indeed, all over Paris, this change is very perceptible. The last letters are often in the old gilding, and the first part of the style only altered, as the French do not, in general, like to do more than is necessary, and but seldom condemn a house, but continue to patch it up in some manner, so as to make it last a little longer, which accounts for the appearance of antiquity which generally distinguishes their towns.

But to return to the Invalids. The establishment is said to be calculated to accommodate 5000 men; but we found upon inquiry, that the number then actually maintained did not exceed 3600. As it was their dinner hour, we went into their refectory; each man has a pint of the vin ordinaire, (the general price of which is from ten to twenty sous the bottle;) but I doubt whether it would be received as a substitute for malt liquor either at Chelsea or Kilmainham. The church of this establishment, is one of the most splendid in the capital. The ex-Emperor caused monuments to be erected here to Vauban and Turenne. The latter, by a special mark of the favour of Lewis XIV. had been interred in the royal vault at St. Denis; but his remains now rest here; and the monument is worthy of so distinguished a general. That to Vauban, on the opposite side, is by no means equally elegant.

The elevation of the dome of this church, exceeds that of any other building in Paris; and the French boast, that it rises to a greater height than St. Paul's Cathedral in London; but this I do not think is the case, although the point is of little moment. M. Dutens gives us the following scale of the comparative elevation of some of the highest buildings in the world.

Toisei.

The highest Pyramid 77½

Strasburg Cathedral to the top of the vane 71¾

St. Peter's at Rome, to the summit of the cross 68

Church of the Invalids at Paris to the vane 54

St. Paul's Cathedral, London, to the top of the Cross 53

The interior of the dome of the Invalids is handsomely painted; but the exterior exhibits what I must consider as a very misplaced species of decoration for a place of this nature, being completely gilt, pursuant to an order of Buonaparte, dated, as I have been informed by good authority, from Moscow. This decoration has, as can well be supposed, cost vast sums, but it probably obtained for the ex-Emperor that eclat, by which he constantly sought to please the vanity of the Parisians. Many of his decrees for the embellishment of their city, being dated from Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid, he sought to astonish the multitude, by attempting to accomplish in a few years, what it would in general require an age to effect. Perhaps, calculating on the instability of his power, he hastened the construction of whatever might render it famous. A French writer observes, "Il vouloit courir à cheval à la postérité."

Near the Invalids there is a Military School for 500 children; and near the Champ de Mars are two large barracks. Indeed, Paris abounds with them, as the military power has long been predominant in France. The Champ de Mars is only celebrated in the history of the Revolution; its present appearance is by no means interesting. In this vicinity is the Place de Grenelle, famous for being the spot where military executions used to take place. One of the last victims who perished here, was the unfortunate General Mallet, who whilst the oppressor of his country was still contemplating the devastation which he had occasioned in Russia, sought to deliver France from so galling a yoke; and he is said to have been possessed of many of the qualities necessary for so honourable and arduous an undertaking; but the reign of Buonaparte was still to continue for eighteen months longer; and he who had the resolution to attempt, had not the satisfaction of seeing, its subversion. In his way to the place of execution, being assailed by a hired mob with cries of 'Vive l'Empereur,' "yes, yes!" said the General, "cry "long live the Emperor" if you please, but you will only be happy when he is no more." He would not suffer his eyes to be covered; and displayed in his last moments a fortitude, that will cause his memory to be long revered by the enemies of despotic power.

The Museum of French Monuments is one of the numerous institutions produced by the Revolution. This place contains a collection of those tombs which escaped the fury of a Revolution that at once proscribed both royalty and religion. They were deposited here as models of art, which did honour to the republic, by proving the genius of its statuaries and sculptors, (the works being classed according to the centuries in which they were made;) and as the busts of the most celebrated and declared enemies of Christianity, are every-where interspersed, the design seems obviously to have been to inculcate the principles which they inculcated; if, indeed, they acted upon any principle, each fearing to acknowledge the superiority of the other. To doubt was their criterion of wisdom (but although Hume said, that even when he doubted, he was in doubt whether he doubted or not, he does not appear to have once doubted that he was wrong in his attacks on religion,) and they only united in ridiculing that belief in a Supreme Being, which has been received, as it were instinctively, by all nations, however savage, and which has been the consolation of the best and wisest of mankind.

Any believer in religion, or any one who has not by perverted reasoning, brought his mind really to doubt its divine truths, (for men are but too apt to admit even the arguments of absurdity, when they tend to absolve them from duties, which they would avoid,) cannot but experience a sentiment of regret at this violation of the ancient consecrated burial places, (where the contemplation of these emblems of mortality was calculated to inspire a beneficial awe;) and of sorrow, that as religion is by law restored in France, these monuments, many of which have been taken from the royal burying place of St. Denis, should not be replaced in the churches from which they were taken in those calamitous times.

I here saw the tomb of Cardinal Richelieu, which was originally in the college of the Sorbonne. It is the work of the celebrated Gerardin, and is a fine piece of sculpture. Many of the other monuments are very elegant; but it would be tedious to enter into further details.

In walking through the Rue Colbert, a French gentleman of my acquaintance pointed out to me the house in which Louvois had resided, and declared his opinion, that that minister had proved one of the greatest causes of the ruin of France; he followed up his assertion by a declamation of such length, that I shall not attempt to collect his arguments, but leave my readers to come to their own conclusions on the subject.

I had intended visiting those vast catacombs which extend under a great part of Paris, and which now serve as burial places, but was induced to desist from the undertaking by the advice of a person who had made the experiment, and had suffered much more from the state of the air in those caverns, than he had been gratified by the curiosity of the scene. I was in the evening induced to visit a scene of a very different nature, and accompanied a party to the Gardens of Tivoli, in the Rue Lazare. This was, before the Revolution, the property of M. Boutin, formerly treasurer of the marine, who had spared no expense in it's decoration. The extent is about fourteen acres, and it much resembles Vauxhall.