Part 3 (2/2)

Speaking of picture galleries, we spent a pleasant hour in the gallery of the Luxembourg--a collection of paintings made up from the works of living artists, and of those who have been less than a year deceased. It is sufficiently small to be enjoyable. There is something positively oppressive in the vastness of many of these galleries. You feel utterly unequal to them; as though the finite were about to attempt the comprehension of the infinite. One picture here, by Ary Scheffer, was exhibited in America, a few years since. It is the head and bust of a dead youth in armor--a youth with a girlish face. There are others by Henri Scheffer, Paulin Guerin, and a host more I will not name. One, a scene in the Conciergerie, ”Reading the List of the Condemned to the Prisoners,” by Muller, haunted me long after the doors had swung together behind us. The palace of the Luxembourg, small, remarkable for the beauty of its architecture and charming garden, built for that graceless regent, Marie de Medici, is now the residence of the president of the Senate; and indeed the Senate itself meets here. We were shown through the rooms open to the public, the private apartments of Marie de Medici among them, in one of which was a bust of the regent. The garden, like all gardens, is filled with trees and shrubs, flowers and fountains, but yet with a certain charm of its own. The festooning of vines from point to point was a novelty to us, as was the design of one of the fountains. Approaching it from the rear, we thought it a tomb,--perhaps the tomb of Marshal Ney, we said, whose statue we were seeking. It proved to be an artificial grotto, and within it, sprinkled with the spray of the fountain, embowered in a ma.s.s of glistening, green ivy, reclined a pair of pretty, marble lovers; peering in upon them from above, scowled a dreadful ogre--a horrible giant. The whole effect, coming upon it unexpectedly, was startling.

We had a tiresome search for this same statue of Marshal Ney. We chased every marble nymph in the garden, and walked and walked, over burning pebbles and under a scorching sun, until we almost wished he had never been shot. At last, away beyond the garden, out upon a long avenue, longer and hotter if possible than the garden paths, we found it,--erected upon the very spot where he was executed. He stands with arm outstretched, and mouth opened wide, as though he were yawning with the wearisomeness of it all. It is a pity that he should give way to his feelings so soon, since he must stand there for hundreds of years to come. The guide-books say he is represented in the act of encouraging his men. They must have been easily encouraged.

Of the out-door gay life by gas-light, we saw less than we had hoped to see in the French capital. The season was unusually cold and wet, and most of the time it would have required the spirit of a martyr to sip coffee upon the sidewalk. One garden concert we did attend, and found it very bright and fairy-like, and all the other adjectives used in this connection. We sat wrapped in shawls, our feet upon the rounds of the chair before us, and s.h.i.+vered a little, and enjoyed a great deal. We went one night--in most orthodox company--to the Cirque de l'Imperatrice, a royal amphitheatre with handsome horses, pretty equestriennes, and a child balanced and tossed about on horseback, showing a frightened, painful smile, which made of the man who held her a Herod in our eyes. A girl very rich in paint and powder, but somewhat dest.i.tute in other particulars, skipped and danced upon a slack rope in a most joyous and airy manner. When we came out, a haggard woman, with an old, worn face, was crouching in a little weary heap by the door that led into the stables, wrapped in an old cloak; and that was our dancing girl!

We went to the opera, too; it was Les Huguenots. To this day I cannot tell who were the singers. I never knew, or thought, or cared. And the bare shoulders flas.h.i.+ng with jewels in the boxes around us, the _claqueurs_ in the centre, hired to applaud, clapping their hands with the regularity of clock-work, the empty imperial box, were nothing to the sight of Paris portrayed within itself. You know the familiar opera; do think how strange it was to see it in Paris; to look upon the stage and behold the Seine and the towers of Notre Dame; the excited populace rising up to slay and to be slain, with all the while this same fickle French people serenely smiling, and chatting, and looking upon it--the people who were even then ready at a word to reenact the same scenes for a different cause. Just outside, only a day or two before, something of the same spirit, portrayed here for our amus.e.m.e.nt, had broken out again in the election riots. And we remembered that, as we drove around the corner to the opera house, mounted soldiers stood upon either side, while every other man upon the street was the eye, and ear, and arm of the emperor, who knew that the very ground beneath his fair, white city tottered and reeled.

We saw the emperor and empress one day, after having looked for them long and in vain upon the Champs Elysees, and in the Bois de Boulogne where gay Paris disports itself. It was the morning after the riot, when they drove unattended, you will remember, through the streets where the rioters had gathered. We were in one of the shops upon the Rue de Rivoli. Just across the way rose the Tuileries from the sidewalk. A crowd began to collect about the open archway through the palace, which affords entrance and egress to the great square around which the palace is built. ”What is it?” we asked of the voluble Frenchman who was gradually persuading us that bra.s.s was gold. ”L'Empereur,” he replied; which sent us to the sidewalk, and put from our minds all thoughts of oxidized silver and copper-colored gold. Just within the arch paced a lackey in livery of scarlet and gold, wearing a powdered wig and general air of importance. On either side, the sentries froze into position. The _gendarmes_ shouted and gesticulated, clearing the streets. A mounted attendant emerged from the archway; there followed four bay horses attached to a plain, dark, open carriage; upon the front seat were two gentlemen, upon the back, a gentleman with a lady by his side. His hair was iron gray, almost silvery. He turned his face from us as he raised his hat gravely to the crowd, displaying a very perceptible bald spot upon the back of his head as he was whizzed around the corner and down the street. And that was Napoleon III. We saw no American lady in Paris dressed so simply as the empress. Something of black lace draped her shoulders; a white straw bonnet, trimmed with black, with a few pink roses resting upon her hair, crowned her head. She bowed low to the right and left, with a peculiar, graceful motion, and a smile upon the face a little worn and pale, a little faded,--but yet the face we all know so well. Beautiful Spanish woman, whose face was your fortune, though you smiled that day upon the people, your cheeks were pale, your eyes were full of tears.

There is nothing more wonderful in Paris than the tomb prepared to receive the remains of the first Napoleon, in the chapel of the Hotel des Invalides; fitting, it would seem to be, that he should rest here among his old soldiers. We left the carriage at the gateway, and crossed the open court, mounted the wide steps, followed the half dozen other parties through the open doors, and this was what we saw. At the farther end of the great chapel or church, an altar, approached by wide, marble steps; gilt and candles embellished it, and a large, gilt cross upon it bore an image of the crucified Lord. All this was not unlike what we had seen many times. But four immense twisted columns rose from its four corners--columns of Egyptian marble, writhing like spotted serpents.

They supported a canopy of gold, and the play of lights upon this, through the stained windows above and on either side, was indescribable.

As we entered the door, darkness enveloped it, save where an invisible sun seemed to touch the roof of gold and rest lightly upon the pillars; an invisible sun, indeed, for, without, the sky was heavy with clouds.

As we advanced, this unearthly light touched new points--the gilded candlesticks, the dying Saviour, but above all the writhings of these monster serpents, until the whole seemed a thing of life, a something which grew and expanded every moment, and was almost fearful to look upon. Filling the centre of the chapel was a circular marble wall breast-high. Do you remember, in going to the old Senate chamber at Was.h.i.+ngton, after pa.s.sing through the rotunda, the great marble well-curb down which you could look into the room below? This was like that, only more vast. Over it leaned a hundred people, at least, gazing down upon what? A circular, roofless room, a crypt to hold a tomb; each pillar around its circ.u.mference was the colossal figure of a woman; between these hung the tattered tri-colors borne in many a fierce conflict, beneath the burning suns of Egypt and over the dreary snows of Russia, with seventy colors captured from the enemies of France. A wreath of laurel in the mosaic floor surrounded the names Austerlitz, Marengo, Friedland, Jena, Wagram, Moscow, and Pyramids, and in the centre rose the sarcophagus of Finland granite, prepared to hold the body of him whose ambition knew no bounds. The letter N upon one polished side was the only inscription it bore. He who wrote his name in blood needed no epitaph. The entrance to this crypt is through bronze doors, behind the altar, and gained by pa.s.sing under it. On either side stood a colossal figure in bronze; kings they seemed to be, giant kings, in long black robes and with crowns of black upon their heads. One held, upon the black cus.h.i.+on in his hands, a crown of gold and a golden sword; the other, a globe crowned with a cross and a golden sceptre. They were so grand, and dark, and still, they gazed upon us so fixedly from out their great, grave eyes, that I felt a chill in all my bones. They guard his tomb. They hold his sword and sceptre while he sleeps. I almost expected the great doors to swing open at the touch of his hand, and to see him come forth. Over these doors were his own words: ”I desire that my ashes may repose upon the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people I have loved so well.” On either side, as we came out, we read upon the tombs the names of Bertrand and Duroc,--faithful in death!

We wondered idly whose remains were guarded in the simple tomb near the door. It was surrounded by an iron railing, and bore no inscription. Who can it be, we said, that is nameless here among the brave? Little did we imagine at the time that here rested the body of the great Napoleon, as it was brought from St. Helena; but his spirit seemed to pervade the very atmosphere, and we came out into the gloom of the day as though we had, indeed, come from the presence of the dead.

CHAPTER VII.

SIGHTS IN THE BEAUTIFUL CITY.

The Gobelin tapestry.--How and where it is made.--Pere la-Chaise.--Poor Rachel!--The baby establishment.--”Now I lay me.”--The little mother.--The old woman who lived in a shoe.--The American chapel.--Beautiful women and children.--The last conference-meeting.--”I'm a proof-reader, I am.”

BY no means least among the places of interest in Paris is the manufactory of the Gobelin tapestry which serves to adorn the walls of the palace _salons_. O, these long, tiresome _salons_, which must be visited, though your head is ready to burst with seeing, your feet to drop off with sliding and slipping over the polished floors. The wicked _stand_ upon slippery places, and nothing so convinced us of the demoralizing effect of foreign travel as our growing ability to do the same. When you have seen one or two, you have seen all. There may be degrees in gorgeous splendor, but we were filled with all the appropriate and now-forgotten emotions at sight of the first, and one cannot be more than full. Many of the old palace apartments are dull and dingy beyond belief, by no means the marble halls of our dreams; but of the others let me say something once for all. Under your feet is the treacherous, bare floor of dark wood, laid in diamonds, squares, &c.; over your head, exquisite frescoes of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, and all manner of unearthly and impossible beings enveloped in clouds by the bale,--usually an apotheosis of some king or queen, or both, and, as a rule, of the most wicked known at that time. The Medici were especially glorified and raised above the flesh,--and they had need to be. On every side pictures in Gobelin tapestry, framed into the walls, often so large as to cover the entire s.p.a.ce from corner to corner, from cornice to within a few feet of the floor, and in this latter s.p.a.ce doors, formed of a panel sometimes, for the entrance and egress of servants. Imagine, with all this, the gilt, and stucco, and wood-carving; the flowers, and arabesques, and entwined initials; the ma.s.sive chandeliers, with glittering pendants; the mantels of rare marbles, of porphyry, and malachite; the cabinets, and tables, and escritoires of marqueterie and mosaic; the gilded chairs, stiff and stark, richly covered; the bronzes, vases, and curious clocks: and over all the air of having never been used from all time, and of continuing to be a bare show to all eternity,--and you have a faint conception of the _salons_ of half the palaces.

As for the tapestry, pray don't confound it with the worsted dogs and Rebekahs-at-the-Well with which we sometimes adorn (?) our homes, since one would never in any way suggest the other. In these every delicate line is faithfully reproduced, and the effect exactly that of an oil painting. After long years the colors fade; and we were startled sometimes, in the old palaces, to come upon one of these gray shadows of pictures, out from which, perhaps, a pair of wonderful eyes alone would seem to s.h.i.+ne. In old times the rough walls of the grim prison palaces were hung with tapestry wrought by the fair fingers of court ladies, the designs of tournament and battle being rudely sketched by gay gallants. Many a bright dream was worked into the canvas, I doubt not, never found upon the pattern; many a sweet word said over the task that beguiled the dull hours, and kept from mischief idle hands. But in the reign of Louis XIV. the art of weaving tapestry was brought from Flanders, and a manufactory established on the outskirts of Paris which still remains. To visit it a pa.s.s is required. Accordingly we addressed a note of solicitation to some high official, and in due time came a permit for Madame K. and family; and an ill-a.s.sorted family we must have appeared to the official at the gate. There were the rooms, hung with specimens of the tapestry, for which we did not care, and then the six devoted to the weaving; long, low, and narrow they were, with hand-looms ranged down one side. Through the threads of the warp we could see the weavers sitting behind their work, each with his box of worsteds and pattern beside him. The colors were wound upon quills, numbers of which hung, each by its thread, from the half-completed work. Taking one of these in one hand, the workman dexterously separated the threads of the warp with the other, and pa.s.sed the quill through, pressing down the one st.i.tch thus formed with its pointed end. You can imagine how slow this work must be. How tiresome a task it is to delight the eyes of princes!

The making of carpets, which has been recently added, is equally tiresome. This, too, is hand work, they being woven in some way over a round stick, and then cut and trimmed with a pair of shears. To make one requires from five to ten years, and their cost is from six to twenty thousand dollars. About six hundred weavers are said to be here, though we saw but a small proportion of that number. They receive only from three to five hundred dollars a year, with a pension of about half as much if they are disabled.

From the Gobelins we drove across the Seine again, and out to Pere la-Chaise, where stood once the house of the confessor of Louis XIV., from whom the cemetery takes its name, the Jesuit priest through whose influence the edict of Nantes was revoked. A kind of ghastly imitation of life it all seemed--the narrow houses on either side of the paved streets, that were not houses at all, hung with dead flowers and corpse-like wreaths, stained an unnatural hue. We peered through the bars of the locked gate opening into the Jews' quarter, trying to distinguish the tomb where lie the ashes of a life that blazed, and burned itself out. Poor Rachel! Through the solemn streets, among the quiet dwellings of the noiseless city, whence comes no sound of joy or grief, where they need no candle, neither light of the sun, we walked a while, then plucked a leaf or two, and came away.

One day, when the sun lay hot upon the white streets of the beautiful city, we searched among the shops of the crooked Faubourg St. Honore for a number forgotten now, and the Creche, where the working mothers may leave their children during the day. In another and more quiet street we found it. We pulled the bell before a ma.s.sive gateway; the wide doors opened upon a smiling portress, who led the way across the paved court to the house, where she pointed up some stairs, and left us to mount and turn until it was no longer possible, until a confusion of doors barred our way, when we rapped upon one. Another was opened, and we found ourselves among the babies. There were, perhaps, twenty in all, the larger children being in the school-room below; but even twenty toddling, rolling babies, looking so very like the same image done in putty over and over again, appears an alarming and unlimited number when taken in a body. They rolled beneath our feet, they clung to our skirts, they peeped out, finger in mouth, from behind the doors, they kicked pink toes up from the swinging cradles, and in fact, like the clansmen of Rhoderic Dhu, appeared in a most startling manner from the most unexpected places. Plump little things they were, encased in sh.e.l.ls of blue-checked ap.r.o.ns, from the outer one of which they were surrept.i.tiously slipped upon our entrance to disclose a fresher one beneath. How long this process could have continued with a similar happy result, we did not inquire. Every head was tied up in a tight little night-cap, giving them the appearance of so many little bag puddings.

Every face was a marvel of health and contentment, with one kicking, screaming exception upon the floor. ”Eengleesh,” explained the Sister of Charity who seemed to have them in charge, giving a sweeping wipe to the eyes, nose, and mouth, gradually liquidizing, of this one, and trying in vain to pacify a nature that seemed peaceless. Who was its mother, or how the little stranger chanced to be here, we did not learn. On either side of the long, narrow room hung the white-curtained cradles, each with its pretty, pink quilt. At one end was an altar, most modest in its appointments, consisting of hardly more than a crucifix and a vase of flowers upon the mantel. As we entered the room, the sister stood before it with a circle of white caps and blue checked ap.r.o.ns around her, a circle of little clasped hands, of upturned eyes and lisping lips, repeating what might have been, ”Now I lay me,” for anything we knew.

Our entrance brought wandering eyes and thoughts.

At the opposite end of the room, a wide, long window swung open, revealing a pleasant garden down below, all green and blossoming, with an image of the Virgin half hid among the vines. Cool, and fresh, and green it seemed after the glare of the hot streets, a pleasant picture for the baby eyes. Out from this window the little feet could trot upon the guarded roof of a piazza. A little chair, a broken doll, and limbless horse here were familiar objects to the eyes of the mothers in our party, and when two children seized upon one block with a determination which threatened a breach of the peace, we were convinced that even baby nature was the same the world over. Supper time came, and the children were gathered together in a small room, before the drollest little table imaginable--a kind of elongated doughnut, raised a foot from the floor, with a circular seat around it. All the little outer sh.e.l.ls of blue check were slipped on, all the little fat bodies lifted over and set into their places, to roll off, or about, at will. A grace was said, to us, I think, since all the little eyes turned towards us, and a plate of oatmeal porridge put before each one. Some ate with a relish, and a painful search over the face with a spoon for the open, waiting mouth; some leaned back to stare at the company; and others persisted in dipping into the dish of their next neighbor. One little thing, hardly more than a year old, drew down the corners of her mouth in a portentous manner, when the motherly one beside her, of the advanced age of three years, perhaps, rapped on the table with her spoon, and patted the doleful little face, smiling all the while, until she actually drew out smiles in return. The dear little mother! An attendant with a homely face, creased into all manner of good-natured lines, resolved herself into the old woman who lived in a shoe, holding two babies and the porridge dish in her lap, balancing one upon the end of the low bench beside her, while two or three more stood at her knee, clinging to her ap.r.o.n. It was like a nest of open-mouthed birdlings.

Blessings on the babies, and those, whether of our faith or not, who teach and care for them, we thought, as we came away. ”Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me,” said the Master.

Although I said nothing of our church-going in London, I cannot pa.s.s over our American chapel in Paris, with its carved, umbrella-like canopy, shading the good Dr. R., who did so much socially, as well as spiritually, for Americans there. Here came many whose names are well known; among them our minister to France, an elderly gentleman of unpretending dress and manner, with a kindly, care-worn face. And here gathered also a company of beautiful women and children, proving the truth of all that has been said of our countrywomen. A blending of all types were they, as our people are a blending of all nationalities, each more lovely than the other, and all making up a picture well worth seeing. I wish I might say as much for the opposite s.e.x. One gentleman, who wore a red rose always in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and turned his back upon the minister to stare at the women, had a handsome though _blase_ face, and more than one head above the pews would have been marked anywhere; but the women and children bore away the palm. The delicate, sensitive faces which characterize American women, whether the effect of climate, manner of life, or of the nerves for which we are so celebrated, are found nowhere else, I am sure.

Besides the Sabbath services a weekly prayer-meeting was held here. They were singing some sweet familiar hymn as we entered one evening and took our place among the pilgrims and strangers like ourselves. It was the last gathering for the winter. Some were off for home, some for a summer of travel; only a few, with the pastor, were to remain. One followed another in words of retrospection, and regret at parting, until a pall settled over the little company--until even we, who had never been there before, wiped our eyes because of the general dolefulness. A hush and universal mistiness pervaded the air of the dimly-lighted house; the a.s.sembly seemed about to pa.s.s out of existence, Niobe-like. Then up rose Dr. R., the pastor. I wondered what he could say to add to the gloom; something like this, perhaps: ”Dear people, everybody is off; let us shut up the church, lock the door, and throw away the key. Receive the benediction.” But no; I wish you might feel the thrill that went through the little company as his words fell from his lips. I wish I dared attempt to repeat them. ”And now to you who go,” he said, at last, ”who take with you something of our hearts, be sure our prayers will follow you. Keep us in memory; but, above all, keep in memory your church vows.

Make yourselves known as Christians among Christians. And when you have reached home--the home to which our thoughts have so often turned together--let this be a lesson. When summer comes and you leave the city for the country, for the mountains, for the sea-side, take your religion with you. Search out some struggling little church with a discouraged pastor,--you'll not look far or long to find such a one,--and work for that, as you have worked for us. And one thing more; send your friends who are coming abroad to us. Send us the Christians, for we need them, and by all means send us those who are not Christians; they may need us; and the Lord bless you, and keep you in all your goings, and give you peace.”

Then the people gathered in knots for last words--for hand-clasps and good-byes. Now a spirit of peace and good will having fallen upon us with the pastor's benediction, we gazed wistfully upon the strangers in the hope of finding one familiar face; but there was none; so we came sorrowfully down the aisle. The door was almost reached when a sharp, tw.a.n.ging voice behind us began, ”I'm sent out by X. & Y., book publishers.” ”O,” said I to the friend at my side, ”I believe I will speak to that man. I know Mr. X., and I do so want to speak to somebody.” How he accomplished the introduction I cannot tell, but in a moment my hand was grasped by that of a stout little man, with bushy hair and twinkling eyes. ”Know Mr. X.? Mr. Q. X.?” he began. To tell the truth I had not that honor, my acquaintance having been with his brother; but there was no time to explain, and retreat was equally impossible; so I replied that my father knew him well; then thinking that something more was necessary to explain the sudden and intense interest manifested in his behalf, added, desperately, ”indeed, intimately.” To this he paid no manner of attention,--I doubt if he heard it,--but rattled on: ”Fine man, Mr. X., Mr. Q. X. Know Mr. Y.?

Fine man, Mr. Y.; been abroad a year; I'm goin' out to meet him, I am.

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