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The Paris Sketch Book

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> The Paris Sketch Book




"The crowd, which had been quite silent, retired, profoundly moved
by the sight it had witnessed. As at all executions, there was a
very great number of women present.

"Under the scaffold there had been, ever since the morning, a
coffin. The family had asked for his remains, and had them
immediately buried, privately: and thus the unfortunate man's head
escaped the modellers in wax, several of whom had arrived to take
an impression of it."

Down goes the axe; the poor wretch's head rolls gasping into the
basket; the spectators go home, pondering; and Mr. Executioner and
his aides have, in half an hour, removed all traces of the august
sacrifice, and of the altar on which it had been performed. Say,
Mr. Briefless, do you think that any single person, meditating
murder, would be deterred therefrom by beholding this--nay, a
thousand more executions? It is not for moral improvement, as I
take it, nor for opportunity to make appropriate remarks upon the
punishment of crime, that people make a holiday of a killing-day,
and leave their homes and occupations, to flock and witness the
cutting off of a head. Do we crowd to see Mr. Macready in the new
tragedy, or Mademoiselle Ellssler in her last new ballet and flesh-
colored stockinnet pantaloons, out of a pure love of abstract
poetry and beauty; or from a strong notion that we shall be
excited, in different ways, by the actor and the dancer? And so,
as we go to have a meal of fictitious terror at the tragedy, of
something more questionable in the ballet, we go for a glut of
blood to the execution. The lust is in every man's nature, more or
less. Did you ever witness a wrestling or boxing match? The first
clatter of the kick on the shins, or the first drawing of blood,
makes the stranger shudder a little; but soon the blood is his
chief enjoyment, and he thirsts for it with a fierce delight. It
is a fine grim pleasure that we have in seeing a man killed; and I
make no doubt that the organs of destructiveness must begin to
throb and swell as we witness the delightful savage spectacle.

Three or four years back, when Fieschi and Lacenaire were executed,
I made attempts to see the execution of both; but was disappointed
in both cases. In the first instance, the day for Fieschi's death
was, purposely, kept secret; and he was, if I remember rightly,
executed at some remote quarter of the town. But it would have
done a philanthropist good, to witness the scene which we saw on
the morning when his execution did NOT take place.

It was carnival time, and the rumor had pretty generally been
carried abroad that he was to die on that morning. A friend, who
accompanied me, came many miles, through the mud and dark, in order
to be in at the death. We set out before light, floundering
through the muddy Champs Elysées; where, besides, were many other
persons floundering, and all bent upon the same errand. We passed
by the Concert of Musard, then held in the Rue St. Honoré; and
round this, in the wet, a number of coaches were collected. The
ball was just up, and a crowd of people in hideous masquerade,
drunk, tired, dirty, dressed in horrible old frippery, and daubed
with filthy rouge, were trooping out of the place: tipsy women and
men, shrieking, jabbering, gesticulating, as French will do;
parties swaggering, staggering forwards, arm in arm, reeling to and
fro across the street, and yelling songs in chorus: hundreds of
these were bound for the show, and we thought ourselves lucky in
finding a vehicle to the execution place, at the Barrière d'Enfer.
As we crossed the river and entered the Enfer Street, crowds of
students, black workmen, and more drunken devils from more carnival
balls, were filling it; and on the grand place there were thousands
of these assembled, looking out for Fiaschi and his cortège. We
waited and waited; but alas! no fun for us that morning: no throat-
cutting; no august spectacle of satisfied justice; and the eager
spectators were obliged to return, disappointed of their expected
breakfast of blood. It would have been a fine scene, that
execution, could it but have taken place in the midst of the mad
mountebanks and tipsy strumpets who had flocked so far to witness
it, wishing to wind up the delights of their carnival by a
bonnebouche of a murder.

The other attempt was equally unfortunate. We arrived too late on
the ground to be present at the execution of Lacenaire and his co-
mate in murder, Avril. But as we came to the ground (a gloomy
round space, within the barrier--three roads lead to it; and,
outside, you see the wine-shops and restaurateurs' of the barrier
looking gay and inviting,)--as we came to the ground, we only
found, in the midst of it, a little pool of ice, just partially
tinged with red. Two or three idle street-boys were dancing and
stamping about this pool; and when I asked one of them whether the
execution had taken place, he began dancing more madly than ever,
and shrieked out with a loud fantastical, theatrical voice, "Venez
tous Messieurs et Dames, voyez ici le sang du monstre Lacenaire, et
de son compagnon he traître Avril," or words to that effect; and
straightway all the other gamins screamed out the words in chorus,
and took hands and danced round the little puddle.

O august Justice, your meal was followed by a pretty appropriate
grace! Was any man, who saw the show, deterred, or frightened, or
moralized in any way? He had gratified his appetite for blood, and
this was all. There is something singularly pleasing, both in the
amusement of execution-seeing, and in the results. You are not
only delightfully excited at the time, but most pleasingly relaxed
afterwards; the mind, which has been wound up painfully until now,
becomes quite complacent and easy. There is something agreeable in
the misfortunes of others, as the philosopher has told us. Remark
what a good breakfast you eat after an execution; how pleasant it
is to cut jokes after it, and upon it. This merry, pleasant mood
is brought on by the blood tonic.

But, for God's sake, if we are to enjoy this, let us do so in
moderation; and let us, at least, be sure of a man's guilt before
we murder him. To kill him, even with the full assurance that he
is guilty is hazardous enough. Who gave you the right to do so?--
you, who cry out against suicides, as impious and contrary to
Christian law? What use is there in killing him? You deter no one
else from committing the crime by so doing: you give us, to be
sure, half an hour's pleasant entertainment; but it is a great
question whether we derive much moral profit from the sight. If
you want to keep a murderer from farther inroads upon society, are
there not plenty of hulks and prisons, God wot; treadmills,
galleys, and houses of correction? Above all, as in the case of
Sebastian Peytel and his family, there have been two deaths
already; was a third death absolutely necessary? and, taking the
fallibility of judges and lawyers into his heart, and remembering
the thousand instances of unmerited punishment that have been
suffered, upon similar and stronger evidence before, can any man
declare, positively and upon his oath, that Peytel was guilty, and
that this was not THE THIRD MURDER IN THE FAMILY?




FOUR IMITATIONS OF BÉRANGER


LE ROI D'YVETOT.


Il était un roi d'Yvetot,
Peu connu dans l'histoire;
Se levant tard, se couchant tôt,
Dormant fort bien sans gloire,
Et couronné par Jeanneton
D'un simple bonnet de coton,
Dit-on.
Oh! oh! oh! oh! ah! ah! ah! ah!
Quel bon petit roi c'était là!
La, la.

Il fesait ses quatre repas
Dans son palais de chaume,
Et sur un âne, pas à pas,
Parcourait son royaume.
Joyeux, simple et croyant le bien,
Pour toute garde il n'avait rien
Qu'un chien.
Oh! oh! oh! oh! ah! ah! ah! ah! &c.
La, la.

Il n'avait de goût onéreux
Qu'une soif un peu vive;
Mais, en rendant son peuple heureux,
Il faux bien qu'un roi vive.
Lui-même à table, et sans suppôt,
Sur chaque muid levait un pot
D'impôt.
Oh! oh! oh! oh! ah! ah! ah! ah! &c.
La, la.

Aux filles de bonnes maisons
Comme il avait su plaire,
Ses sujets avaient cent raisons
De le nommer leur père:
D'ailleurs il ne levait de ban
Que pour tirer quatre fois l'an
Au blanc.
Oh! oh! oh! oh! ah! ah! ah! ah! &c.
La, la.

Il n'agrandit point ses états,
Fut un voisin commode,
Et, modèle des potentats,
Prit le plaisir pour code.
Ce n'est que lorsqu'il expira,
Que le peuple qui l'enterra
Pleura.
Oh! oh! oh! oh! ah! ah! ah! ah! &c.
La, la.

On conserve encor le portrait
De ce digne et bon prince;
C'est l'enseigne d'un cabaret
Fameux dans la province.
Les jours de fête, bien souvent,
La foule s'écrie en buvant
Devant:
Oh! oh! oh! oh! ah! ah! ah! ah!
Quel bon petit roi c'était là!
La, la.



THE KING OF YVETOT.


There was a king of Yvetot,
Of whom renown hath little said,
Who let all thoughts of glory go,
And dawdled half his days a-bed;
And every night, as night came round,
By Jenny, with a nightcap crowned,
Slept very sound:
Sing ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he!
That's the kind of king for me.

And every day it came to pass,
That four lusty meals made he;
And, step by step, upon an ass,
Rode abroad, his realms to see;
And wherever he did stir,
What think you was his escort, sir?
Why, an old cur.
Sing ho, ho, ho! &c.

If e'er he went into excess,
'Twas from a somewhat lively thirst;
But he who would his subjects bless,
Odd's fish!--must wet his whistle first;
And so from every cask they got,
Our king did to himself allot,
At least a pot.
Sing ho, ho! &c.

To all the ladies of the land,
A courteous king, and kind, was he;
The reason why you'll understand,
They named him Pater Patriae.
Each year he called his fighting men,
And marched a league from home, and then
Marched back again.
Sing ho, ho! &c.

Neither by force nor false pretence,
He sought to make his kingdom great,
And made (O princes, learn from hence),--
"Live and let live," his rule of state.
'Twas only when he came to die,
That his people who stood by,
Were known to cry.
Sing ho, ho! &c.

The portrait of this best of kings
Is extant still, upon a sign
That on a village tavern swings,
Famed in the country for good wine.
The people in their Sunday trim,
Filling their glasses to the brim,
Look up to him,
Singing ha, ha, ha! and he, he, he!
That's the sort of king for me.



THE KING OF BRENTFORD.

ANOTHER VERSION.


There was a king in Brentford,--of whom no legends tell,
But who, without his glory,--could eat and sleep right well.
His Polly's cotton nightcap,--it was his crown of state,
He slept of evenings early,--and rose of mornings late.

All in a fine mud palace,--each day he took four meals,
And for a guard of honor,--a dog ran at his heels,
Sometimes, to view his kingdoms,--rode forth this monarch good,
And then a prancing jackass--he royally bestrode.

There were no costly habits--with which this king was curst,
Except (and where's the harm on't?)--a somewhat lively thirst;
But people must pay taxes,--and kings must have their sport,
So out of every gallon--His Grace he took a quart.

He pleased the ladies round him,--with manners soft and bland;
With reason good, they named him,--the father of his land.
Each year his mighty armies--marched forth in gallant show;
Their enemies were targets--their bullets they were tow.

He vexed no quiet neighbor,--no useless conquest made,
But by the laws of pleasure,--his peaceful realm he swayed.
And in the years he reigned,--through all this country wide,
There was no cause for weeping,--save when the good man died.

The faithful men of Brentford,--do still their king deplore,
His portrait yet is swinging,--beside an alehouse door.
And topers, tender-hearted,--regard his honest phiz,
And envy times departed--that knew a reign like his.



LE GRENIER.


Je viens revoir l'asile où ma jeunesse
De la misère a subi les leçons.
J'avais vingt ans, une folle maîtresse,
De francs amis et l'amour des chansons
Bravant le monde et les sots et les sages,
Sans avenir, riche de mon printemps,
Leste et joyeux je montais six étages.
Dans un grenier qu'on est bien à vingt ans!

C'est un grenier, point ne veux qu'on l'ignore.
Là fut mon lit, bien chétif et bien dur;
Là fut ma table; et je retrouve encore
Trois pieds d'un vers charbonnés sur le mur.
Apparaissez, plaisirs de mon bel âge,
Que d'un coup d'aile a fustigés le temps,
Vingt fois pour vous j'ai mis ma montre en gage.
Dans un grenier qu'on est bien à vingt ans!

Lisette ici doit surtout apparaître,
Vive, jolie, avec un frais chapeau;
Déjà sa main à l'étroite fenêtre
Suspend son schal, en guise de rideau.
Sa robe aussi va parer ma couchette;
Respecte, Amour, ses plis longs et flottans.
J'ai su depuis qui payait sa toilette.
Dans un grenier qu'on est bien à vingt ans!

A table un jour, jour de grande richesse,
De mes amis les voix brillaient en choeur,
Quand jusqu'ici monte un cri d'allégresse:
A Marengo Bonaparte est vainqueur.
Le canon gronde; un autre chant commence;
Nous célébrons tant de faits éclatans.
Les rois jamais n'envahiront la France.
Dans un grenier qu'on est bien à vingt ans!

Quittons ce toit où ma raison s'enivre.
Oh! qu'ils sont loin ces jours si regrettés!
J'échangerais ce qu'il me reste à vivre
Contre un des mois qu'ici Dieu m'a comptés,
Pour rêver gloire, amour, plaisir, folie,
Pour dépenser sa vie en peu d'instans,
D'un long espoir pour la voir embellie,
Dans un grenier qu'on est bien à vingt ans!



THE GARRET.


With pensive eyes the little room I view,
Where, in my youth, I weathered it so long;
With a wild mistress, a stanch friend or two,
And a light heart still breaking into song:
Making a mock of life, and all its cares,
Rich in the glory of my rising sun,
Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.

Yes; 'tis a garret--let him know't who will--
There was my bed--full hard it was and small.
My table there--and I decipher still
Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall.
Ye joys, that Time hath swept with him away,
Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun;
For you I pawned my watch how many a day,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.

And see my little Jessy, first of all;
She comes with pouting lips and sparkling eyes:
Behold, how roguishly she pins her shawl
Across the narrow casement, curtain-wise;
Now by the bed her petticoat glides down,
And when did woman look the worse in none?
I have heard since who paid for many a gown,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.

One jolly evening, when my friends and I
Made happy music with our songs and cheers,
A shout of triumph mounted up thus high,
And distant cannon opened on our ears:
We rise,--we join in the triumphant strain,--
Napoleon conquers--Austerlitz is won--
Tyrants shall never tread us down again,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.

Let us begone--the place is sad and strange--
How far, far off, these happy times appear;
All that I have to live I'd gladly change
For one such month as I have wasted here--
To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power,
From founts of hope that never will outrun,
And drink all life's quintessence in an hour,
Give me the days when I was twenty-one!



ROGER-BONTEMPS.


Aux gens atrabilaires
Pour exemple donné,
En un temps de misères
Roger-Bontemps est né.
Vivre obscur à sa guise,
Narguer les mécontens:
Eh gai! c'est la devise
Du gros Roger-Bontemps.

Du chapeau de son père
Coîffé dans le grands jours,
De roses ou de lierre
Le rajeunir toujours;
Mettre un manteau de bure,
Vieil ami de vingt ans;
Eh gai! c'est la parure
Du gros Roger-Bontemps.

Posséder dans sa hutte
Une table, un vieux lit,
Des cartes, une flûte,
Un broc que Dieu remplit;
Un portrait de maîtresse,
Un coffre et rien dedans;
Eh gai! c'est la richesse
Du gros Roger-Bontemps.

Aux enfans de la ville
Montrer de petits jeux;
Etre fesseur habile
De contes graveleux;
Ne parler que de danse
Et d'almanachs chantans;
Eh gai! c'est la science
Du gros Roger-Bontemps.

Faute de vins d'élite,
Sabler ceux du canton:
Préférer Marguerite
Aux dames du grand ton:
De joie et de tendresse
Remplir tous ses instans;
Eh gai! c'est la sagesse
Du gros Roger-Bontemps.

Dire au ciel: Je me fie,
Mon père, à ta bonté;
De ma philosophie
Pardonne le gaîté
Que ma saison dernière
Soit encore un printemps;
Eh gai! c'est la prière
Du gros Roger-Bontemps.

Vous, pauvres pleins d'envie,
Vous, riches désireux,
Vous, dont le char dévie
Après un cours heureux;
Vous, qui perdrez peut-être
Des titres éclatans,
Eh gai! prenez pour maître
Le gros Roger Bontemps.



JOLLY JACK.


When fierce political debate
Throughout the isle was storming,
And Rads attacked the throne and state,
And Tories the reforming,
To calm the furious rage of each,
And right the land demented,
Heaven sent us Jolly Jack, to teach
The way to be contented.

Jack's bed was straw, 'twas warm and soft,
His chair, a three-legged stool;
His broken jug was emptied oft,
Yet, somehow, always full.
His mistress' portrait decked the wall,
His mirror had a crack;
Yet, gay and glad, though this was all
His wealth, lived Jolly Jack.

To give advice to avarice,
Teach pride its mean condition,
And preach good sense to dull pretence,
Was honest Jack's high mission.
Our simple statesman found his rule
Of moral in the flagon,
And held his philosophic school
Beneath the "George and Dragon."

When village Solons cursed the Lords,
And called the malt-tax sinful,
Jack heeded not their angry words,
But smiled and drank his skinful.
And when men wasted health and life,
In search of rank and riches,
Jack marked, aloof, the paltry strife,
And wore his threadbare breeches.

"I enter not the church," he said,
But I'll not seek to rob it;"
So worthy Jack Joe Miller read,
While others studied Cobbett.
His talk it was of feast and fun;
His guide the Almanack;
From youth to age thus gayly run
The life of Jolly Jack.

And when Jack prayed, as oft he would,
He humbly thanked his Maker;
"I am," said he, "O Father good!
Nor Catholic nor Quaker:
Give each his creed, let each proclaim
His catalogue of curses;
I trust in Thee, and not in them,
In Thee, and in Thy mercies!

"Forgive me if, midst all Thy works,
No hint I see of damning;
And think there's faith among the Turks,
And hope for e'en the Brahmin.
Harmless my mind is, and my mirth,
And kindly is my laughter:
I cannot see the smiling earth,
And think there's hell hereafter."

Jack died; he left no legacy,
Save that his story teaches:--
Content to peevish poverty;
Humility to riches.
Ye scornful great, ye envious small,
Come follow in his track;
We all were happier, if we all
Would copy JOLLY JACK.




FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS.


There are three kinds of drama in France, which you may subdivide
as much as you please.

There is the old classical drama, wellnigh dead, and full time too:
old tragedies, in which half a dozen characters appear, and spout
sonorous Alexandrines for half a dozen hours. The fair Rachel has
been trying to revive this genre, and to untomb Racine; but be not
alarmed, Racine will never come to life again, and cause audiences
to weep as of yore. Madame Rachel can only galvanize the corpse,
not revivify it. Ancient French tragedy, red-heeled, patched, and
be-periwigged, lies in the grave; and it is only the ghost of it
that we see, which the fair Jewess has raised. There are classical
comedies in verse, too, wherein the knavish valets, rakish heroes,
stolid old guardians, and smart, free-spoken serving-women,
discourse in Alexandrines, as loud as the Horaces or the Cid. An
Englishman will seldom reconcile himself to the roulement of the
verses, and the painful recurrence of the rhymes; for my part, I
had rather go to Madame Saqui's or see Deburau dancing on a rope:
his lines are quite as natural and poetical.

Then there is the comedy of the day, of which Monsieur Scribe is
the father. Good heavens! with what a number of gay colonels,
smart widows, and silly husbands has that gentleman peopled the
play-books. How that unfortunate seventh commandment has been
maltreated by him and his disciples. You will see four pieces, at
the Gymnase, of a night; and so sure as you see them, four husbands
shall be wickedly used. When is this joke to cease? Mon Dieu!
Play-writers have handled it for about two thousand years, and the
public, like a great baby, must have the tale repeated to it over
and over again.

Finally, there is the Drama, that great monster which has sprung
into life of late years; and which is said, but I don't believe a
word of it, to have Shakspeare for a father. If Monsieur Scribe's
plays may be said to be so many ingenious examples how to break one
commandment, the drame is a grand and general chaos of them all;
nay, several crimes are added, not prohibited in the Decalogue,
which was written before dramas were. Of the drama, Victor Hugo
and Dumas are the well-known and respectable guardians. Every
piece Victor Hugo has written, since "Hernani," has contained a
monster--a delightful monster, saved by one virtue. There is
Triboulet, a foolish monster; Lucrèce Borgia, a maternal monster;
Mary Tudor, a religious monster; Monsieur Quasimodo, a humpback
monster; and others, that might be named, whose monstrosities we
are induced to pardon--nay, admiringly to witness--because they are
agreeably mingled with some exquisite display of affection. And,
as the great Hugo has one monster to each play, the great Dumas
has, ordinarily, half a dozen, to whom murder is nothing; common
intrigue, and simple breakage of the before-mentioned commandment,
nothing; but who live and move in a vast, delightful complication
of crime, that cannot be easily conceived in England, much less
described.

When I think over the number of crimes that I have seen Mademoiselle
Georges, for instance, commit, I am filled with wonder at her
greatness, and the greatness of the poets who have conceived these
charming horrors for her. I have seen her make love to, and murder,
her sons, in the "Tour de Nesle." I have seen her poison a company
of no less than nine gentlemen, at Ferrara, with an affectionate son
in the number; I have seen her, as Madame de Brinvilliers, kill off
numbers of respectable relations in the first four acts; and, at the
last, be actually burned at the stake, to which she comes shuddering,
ghastly, barefooted, and in a white sheet. Sweet excitement of
tender sympathies! Such tragedies are not so good as a real,
downright execution; but, in point of interest, the next thing to
it: with what a number of moral emotions do they fill the breast;
with what a hatred for vice, and yet a true pity and respect for
that grain of virtue that is to be found in us all: our bloody,
daughter-loving Brinvilliers; our warmhearted, poisonous Lucretia
Borgia; above all, what a smart appetite for a cool supper
afterwards, at the Café Anglais, when the horrors of the play act
as a piquant sauce to the supper!

Or, to speak more seriously, and to come, at last, to the point.
After having seen most of the grand dramas which have been produced
at Paris for the last half-dozen years, and thinking over all that
one has seen,--the fictitious murders, rapes, adulteries, and other
crimes, by which one has been interested and excited,--a man may
take leave to be heartily ashamed of the manner in which he has
spent his time; and of the hideous kind of mental intoxication in
which he has permitted himself to indulge.

Nor are simple society outrages the only sort of crime in which the
spectator of Paris plays has permitted himself to indulge; he has
recreated himself with a deal of blasphemy besides, and has passed
many pleasant evenings in beholding religion defiled and ridiculed.

Allusion has been made, in a former paper, to a fashion that lately
obtained in France, and which went by the name of Catholic
reaction; and as, in this happy country, fashion is everything, we
have had not merely Catholic pictures and quasi religious books,
but a number of Catholic plays have been produced, very edifying to
the frequenters of the theatres or the Boulevards, who have learned
more about religion from these performances than they have
acquired, no doubt, in the whole of their lives before. In the
course of a very few years we have seen--"The Wandering Jew;"
"Belshazzar's Feast;" "Nebuchadnezzar:" and the "Massacre of the
Innocents;" "Joseph and his Brethren;" "The Passage of the Red
Sea;" and "The Deluge."

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