Part 5 (2/2)
In the event of an explosion, the liberal party will not want partizans, for France is crowded with refugees from tyranny, of every nation. The Poles are flocking hither every day, and the streets are full of their melancholy faces! Poor fellows! they suffer dreadfully from want. The public charity for refugees has been wrung dry long ago, and the most heroic hearts of Poland, after having lost everything but life, in their unavailing struggle, are starving absolutely in the streets. Accident has thrown me into the confidence of a well-known liberal--one of those men of whom the proud may ask a.s.sistance without humiliation, and circ.u.mstances have thus come to my knowledge, which would move a heart of stone. The fict.i.tious sufferings of ”Thaddeus of Warsaw,” are transcended in real-life misery every day, and by natures quite as n.o.ble. Lafayette, I am credibly a.s.sured, has antic.i.p.ated several years of his income in relieving them; and no possible charity could be so well bestowed as contributions for the Poles, starving in these heartless cities.
I have just heard that Chodsko, a Pole, of distinguished talent and learning, who threw his whole fortune and energy into the late attempted revolution, was arrested here last night, with eight others of his countrymen, under suspicion by the government. The late serious insurrection at Lyons has alarmed the king, and the police is exceedingly strict. The Spanish and Italian refugees, who receive pensions from France, have been ordered off to the provincial towns, by the minister of the interior, and there is every indication of extreme and apprehensive caution. The papers, meantime, are raving against the ministry in the most violent terms, and the king is abused without qualification, everywhere.
I went, a night or two since, to one of the minor theatres to see the representation of a play, which has been performed for the _hundred and second time_!--”Napoleon at Schoenbrun and St. Helena.” My object was to study the feelings of the people toward Napoleon II., as the exile's love for his son is one of the leading features of the piece.
It was beautifully played--most beautifully! and I never saw more enthusiasm manifested by an audience. Every allusion of Napoleon to his child, was received with that undertoned, gutteral acclamation, that expresses such deep feeling in a crowd; and the piece is so written that its natural pathos alone is irresistible. No one could doubt for an instant, it seems to me, that the entrance of young Napoleon into France, at any critical moment, would be universally and completely triumphant. The great cry at Lyons was ”_Vive Napoleon II.!_”
I have altered my arrangements a little, in consequence of the state of feeling here. My design was to go to Italy immediately, but affairs promise such an interesting and early change, that I shall pa.s.s the winter in Paris.
LETTER VI.
TAGLIONI--FRENCH STAGE, ETC.
I went last night to the French opera, to see the first dancer of the world. The prodigious enthusiasm about her, all over Europe, had, of course, raised my expectations to the highest possible pitch. ”_Have you seen Taglioni?_” is the first question addressed to a stranger in Paris; and you hear her name constantly over all the hum of the _cafes_ and in the crowded resorts of fas.h.i.+on. The house was overflowed. The king and his numerous family were present; and my companion pointed out to me many of the n.o.bility, whose names and t.i.tles have been made familiar to our ears by the innumerable private memoirs and autobiographies of the day. After a little introductory piece, the king arrived, and, as soon as the cheering was over, the curtain drew up for ”_Le Dieu et la Bayadere_.” This is the piece in which Taglioni is most famous. She takes the part of a dancing girl, of whom the Bramah and an Indian prince are both enamored; the former in the disguise of a man of low rank at the court of the latter, in search of some one whose love for him shall be disinterested. The disguised G.o.d succeeds in winning her affection, and, after testing her devotion by submitting for a while to the resentment of his rival, and by a pretended caprice in favor of a singing girl, who accompanies her, he marries her, and then saves her from the flames as she is about to be burned for marrying beneath her _caste_. Taglioni's part is all pantomime. She does not speak during the play, but her motion is more than articulate. Her first appearance was in a troop of Indian dancing girls, who performed before the prince in the public square.
At a signal from the vizier a side pavilion opened, and thirty or forty bayaderes glided out together, and commenced an intricate dance.
They were received with a tremendous round of applause from the audience; but, with the exception of a little more elegance in the four who led the dance, they were dressed nearly alike; and as I saw no particularly conspicuous figure, I presumed that Taglioni had not yet appeared. The splendor of the spectacle bewildered me for the first moment or two, but I presently found my eyes rivetted to a childish creature floating about among the rest, and, taking her for some beautiful young _eleve_ making her first essays in the chorus, I interpreted her extraordinary fascination as a triumph of nature over my unsophisticated taste; and wondered to myself whether, after all, I should be half so much captivated with the show of skill I expected presently to witness. _This was Taglioni!_ She came forward directly, in a _pas seul_, and I then observed that her dress was distinguished from that of her companions by its extreme modesty both of fas.h.i.+on and ornament, and the unconstrained ease with which it adapted itself to her shape and motion. She looks not more than fifteen. Her figure is small, but rounded to the very last degree of perfection; not a muscle swelled beyond the exquisite outline; not an angle, not a fault. Her back and neck, those points so rarely beautiful in woman, are faultlessly formed; her feet and hands are in full proportion to her size, and the former play as freely and with as natural a yieldingness in her fairy slippers, as if they were accustomed only to the dainty uses of a drawing-room. Her face is most strangely interesting; not quite beautiful, but of that half-appealing, half-retiring sweetness that you sometimes see blended with the secluded reserve and unconscious refinement of a young girl just ”out” in a circle of high fas.h.i.+on. In her greatest exertions her features retain the same timid half smile, and she returns to the alternate by-play of her part without the slightest change of color, or the slightest perceptible difference in her breathing, or in the ease of her look and posture.
No language can describe her motion. She swims in your eye like a curl of smoke, or a flake of down. Her difficulty seems to be to keep to the floor. You have the feeling while you gaze upon her, that, if she were to rise and float away like Ariel, you would scarce be surprised.
And yet all is done with such a childish unconsciousness of admiration, such a total absence of exertion or fatigue, that the delight with which she fills you is unmingled; and, a.s.sured as you are by the perfect purity of every look and att.i.tude, that her hitherto spotless reputation is deserved beyond a breath of suspicion, you leave her with as much respect as admiration; and find with surprise that a dancing girl, who is exposed night after night to the profaning gaze of the world, has crept into one of the most sacred niches of your memory.
I have attended several of the best theatres in Paris, and find one striking trait in all their first actors--_nature_. They do not look like actors, and their playing is not like acting. They are men, generally, of the most earnest, unstudied simplicity of countenance; and when they come upon the stage, it is singularly without affectation, and as the character they represent would appear. Unlike most of the actors I have seen, too, they seem altogether unaware of the presence of the audience. Nothing disturbs the fixed attention they give to each other in the dialogue, and no private interview between simple and sincere men could be more unconscious and natural.
I have formed consequently a high opinion of the French drama, degenerate as it is said to be since the loss of Talma; and it is easy to see that the root of its excellence is in the taste and judgment of the people. _They applaud judiciously._ When Taglioni danced her wonderful _pas seul_, for instance, the applause was general and sufficient. It was a triumph of art, and she was applauded as an artist. But when, as the neglected bayadere, she stole from the corner of the cottage, and, with her indescribable grace, hovered about the couch of the disguised Bramah, watching and fanning him while he slept, she expressed so powerfully, by the saddened tenderness of her manner, the devotion of a love that even neglect could not estrange, that a murmur of delight ran through the whole house; and, when her silent pantomime was interrupted by the waking of the G.o.d, there was an overwhelming tumult of acclamation that came from the _hearts_ of the audience, and as such must have been both a lesson, and the highest compliment, to Taglioni. An actor's taste is of course very much regulated by that of his audience. He will cultivate that for which he is most praised. We shall never have a high-toned drama in America, while, as at present, applause is won only by physical exertion, and the nice touches of genius and nature pa.s.s undetected and unfelt.
Of the French actresses, I have been most pleased with Leontine Fay.
She is not much talked of here, and perhaps, as a mere artist in her profession, is inferior to those who are more popular; but she has that indescribable something in her face that has interested me through life--that strange talisman which is linked wisely to every heart, confining its interest to some nice difference invisible to other eyes, and, by a happy consequence, undisputed by other admiration. She, too, has that retired sweetness of look that seems to come only from secluded habits, and in the highly-wrought pa.s.sages of tragedy, when her fine dark eyes are filled with tears, and her tones, which have never the out-of-doors key of the stage, are clouded and imperfect, she seems less an actress than a refined and lovely woman, breaking through the habitual reserve of society in some agonizing crisis of real life. There are prints of Leontine Fay in the shops, and I have seen them in America, but they resemble her very little.
LETTER VII.
JOACHIM LELEWEL--PALAIS ROYAL--PERE LA CHAISE--VERSAILLES, ETC.
I met, at a breakfast party, to-day, Joachim Lelewel, the celebrated scholar and patriot of Poland. Having fallen in with a great deal of revolutionary and emigrant society since I have been in Paris, I have often heard his name, and looked forward to meeting him with high pleasure and curiosity. His writings are pa.s.sionately admired by his countrymen. He was the princ.i.p.al of the university, idolized by that effective part of the population, the students of Poland; and the fearless and lofty tone of his patriotic principles is said to have given the first and strongest momentum to the ill-fated struggle just over. Lelewel impressed me very strongly. Unlike most of the Poles, who are erect, athletic, and florid, he is thin, bent, and pale; and were it not for the fire and decision of his eye, his uncertain gait and sensitive address would convey an expression almost of timidity.
His form, features, and manners, are very like those of Percival, the American poet, though their countenances are marked with the respective difference of their habits of mind. Lelewel looks like a naturally modest, shrinking man, worked up to the calm resolution of a martyr. The strong stamp of his face is devoted enthusiasm. His eye is excessively bright, but quiet and habitually downcast; his lips are set firmly, but without effort, together; and his voice is almost sepulchral, it is so low and calm. He never breaks through his melancholy, though his refugee countrymen, except when Poland is alluded to, have all the vivacity of French manners, and seem easily to forget their misfortunes. He was silent, except when particularly addressed, and had the air of a man who thought himself un.o.bserved, and had shrunk into his own mind. I felt that he was winning upon my heart every moment. I never saw a man in my life whose whole air and character were so free from self-consciousness or pretension--never one who looked to me so capable of the calm, lofty, unconquerable heroism of a martyr.
”Paris is the centre of the world,” if centripetal tendency is any proof of it. Everything struck off from the other parts of the universe flies straight to the _Palais Royal_. You may meet in its thronged galleries, in the course of an hour, representatives of every creed, rank, nation, and system, under heaven. Hussein Pacha and Don Pedro pace daily the same _pave_--the one brooding on a kingdom lost, the other on the throne he hopes to win; the Polish general and the proscribed Spaniard, the exiled Italian conspirator, the contemptuous Turk, the well-dressed negro from Hayti, and the silk-robed Persian, revolve by the hour together around the same _jet d'eau_, and costumes of every cut and order, mustaches and beards of every degree of ferocity and oddity, press so fast and thick upon the eye that one forgets to be astonished. There are no such things as ”lions” in Paris. The extraordinary persons outnumber the ordinary. Every other man you meet would keep a small town in a ferment for a month.
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