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The Paris Sketch Book

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




Thus it is that love, law, and physic combined, triumph over the
horrid machinations of this star-and-gartered libertine.

"Hermann l'Ivrogne" is another piece of the same order; and though
not very refined, yet possesses considerable merit. As in the case
of the celebrated Captain Smith of Halifax, who "took to drinking
ratafia, and thought of poor Miss Bailey,"--a woman and the bottle
have been the cause of Hermann's ruin. Deserted by his mistress,
who has been seduced from him by a base Italian Count, Hermann, a
German artist, gives himself entirely up to liquor and revenge: but
when he finds that force, and not infidelity, have been the cause
of his mistress's ruin, the reader can fancy the indignant ferocity
with which he pursues the infame ravisseur. A scene, which is
really full of spirit, and excellently well acted, here ensues!
Hermann proposes to the Count, on the eve of their duel, that the
survivor should bind himself to espouse the unhappy Marie; but the
Count declares himself to be already married, and the student,
finding a duel impossible (for his object was to restore, at all
events, the honor of Marie), now only thinks of his revenge, and
murders the Count. Presently, two parties of men enter Hermann's
apartment: one is a company of students, who bring him the news
that he has obtained the prize of painting; the other the
policemen, who carry him to prison, to suffer the penalty of
murder.

I could mention many more plays in which the popular morality is
similiarly expressed. The seducer, or rascal of the piece, is
always an aristocrat,--a wicked count, or licentious marquis, who
is brought to condign punishment just before the fall of the
curtain. And too good reason have the French people had to lay
such crimes to the charge of the aristocracy, who are expiating
now, on the stage, the wrongs which they did a hundred years since.
The aristocracy is dead now; but the theatre lives upon traditions:
and don't let us be too scornful at such simple legends as are
handed down by the people from race to race. Vulgar prejudice
against the great it may be; but prejudice against the great is
only a rude expression of sympathy with the poor; long, therefore,
may fat épiciers blubber over mimic woes, and honest prolétaires
shake their fists, shouting--"Gredin, scélérat, monstre de
marquis!" and such republican cries.

Remark, too, another development of this same popular feeling of
dislike against men in power. What a number of plays and legends
have we (the writer has submitted to the public, in the preeeding
pages, a couple of specimens; one of French, and the other of
Polish origin,) in which that great and powerful aristocrat,
the Devil, is made to be miserably tricked, humiliated, and
disappointed? A play of this class, which, in the midst of all its
absurdities and claptraps, had much of good in it, was called "Le
Maudit des Mers." Le Maudit is a Dutch captain, who, in the midst
of a storm, while his crew were on their knees at prayers,
blasphemed and drank punch; but what was his astonishment at
beholding an archangel with a sword all covered with flaming resin,
who told him that as he, in this hour of danger, was too daring, or
too wicked, to utter a prayer, he never should cease roaming the
seas until he could find some being who would pray to heaven for
him!

Once only, in a hundred years, was the skipper allowed to land for
this purpose; and this piece runs through four centuries, in as
many acts, describing the agonies and unavailing attempts of the
miserable Dutchman. Willing to go any lengths in order to obtain
his prayer, he, in the second act, betrays a Virgin of the Sun to a
follower of Pizarro: and, in the third, assassinates the heroic
William of Nassau; but ever before the dropping of the curtain, the
angel and sword make their appearance--"Treachery," says the
spirit, "cannot lessen thy punishment;--crime will not obtain thy
release--A la mer! à la mer!" and the poor devil returns to the
ocean, to be lonely, and tempest-tossed, and sea-sick for a hundred
years more.

But his woes are destined to end with the fourth act. Having
landed in America, where the peasants on the sea-shore, all dressed
in Italian costumes, are celebrating, in a quadrille, the victories
of Washington, he is there lucky enough to find a young girl to
pray for him. Then the curse is removed, the punishment is over,
and a celestial vessel, with angels on the decks and "sweet little
cherubs" fluttering about the shrouds and the poop, appear to
receive him.

This piece was acted at Franconi's, where, for once, an angel-ship
was introduced in place of the usual horsemanship.

One must not forget to mention here, how the English nation is
satirized by our neighbors; who have some droll traditions
regarding us. In one of the little Christmas pieces produced at
the Palais Royal (satires upon the follies of the past twelve
months, on which all the small theatres exhaust their wit), the
celebrated flight of Messrs. Green and Monck Mason was parodied,
and created a good deal of laughter at the expense of John Bull.
Two English noblemen, Milor Cricri and Milor Hanneton, appear as
descending from a balloon, and one of them communicates to the
public the philosophic observations which were made in the course
of his aërial tour.

"On leaving Vauxhall," says his lordship, "we drank a bottle of
Madeira, as a health to the friends from whom we parted, and
crunched a few biscuits to support nature during the hours before
lunch. In two hours we arrived at Canterbury, enveloped in clouds:
lunch, bottled porter: at Dover, carried several miles in a tide of
air, bitter cold, cherry-brandy; crossed over the Channel safely,
and thought with pity of the poor people who were sickening in the
steamboats below: more bottled porter: over Calais, dinner, roast-
beef of Old England; near Dunkirk,--night falling, lunar rainbow,
brandy-and-water; night confoundedly thick; supper, nightcap of
rum-punch, and so to bed. The sun broke beautifully through the
morning mist, as we boiled the kettle and took our breakfast over
Cologne. In a few more hours we concluded this memorable voyage,
and landed safely at Weilburg, in good time for dinner."

The joke here is smart enough; but our honest neighbors make many
better, when they are quite unconscious of the fun. Let us leave
plays, for a moment, for poetry, and take an instance of French
criticism, concerning England, from the works of a famous French
exquisite and man of letters. The hero of the poem addresses his
mistress--


Londres, tu le sais trop, en fait de capitale,
Est-ce que fit le ciel de plus froid et plus pâle,
C'est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard;
On s'y couche à minuit, et l'on s'y lève tard;
Ses raouts tant vantés ne sont qu'une boxade,
Sur ses grands quais jamais échelle ou sérénade,
Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter
Qui passent sans lever le front à Westminster;
Et n'était sa forêt de mâts perçant la brume,
Sa tour dont à minuit le vieil oeil s'allume,
Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illuminés bien plus,
Je dirais que, ma foi, des romans que j'ai lus,
Il n'en est pas un seul, plus lourd, plus léthargique
Que cette nation qu'on nomme Britannique!


The writer of the above lines (which let any man who can translate)
is Monsieur Roger de Beauvoir, a gentleman who actually lived many
months in England, as an attaché to the embassy of M. de Polignac.
He places the heroine of his tale in a petit réduit près le Strand,
"with a green and fresh jalousie, and a large blind, let down all
day; you fancied you were entering a bath of Asia, as soon as you
had passed the perfumed threshold of this charming retreat!" He
next places her--


Dans un square écarté, morne et couverte de givre,
Où se cache un hôtel, aux vieux lions de cuivre;


and the hero of the tale, a young French poet, who is in London, is
truly unhappy in that village.


Arthur dessèche et meurt. Dans la ville de Sterne,
Rien qu'en voyant le peuple il a le mal de mer
Il n'aime ni le Parc, gai comme une citerne,
Ni le tir au pigeon, ni le soda-water.

Liston ne le fait plus sourciller! Il rumine
Sur les trottoirs du Strand, droit comme un échiquier,
Contre le peuple anglais, les nègres, la vermine,
Et les mille cokneys du peuple boutiquier,

Contre tous les bas-bleus, contre les pâtissières,
Les parieurs d'Epsom, le gin, le parlement,
La quaterly, le roi, la pluie et les libraires,
Dont il ne touche plus, hélas! un sou d'argent!

Et chaque gentleman lui dit: L'heureux poète!


"L'heureux poète" indeed! I question if a poet in this wide world
is so happy as M. de Beauvoir, or has made such wonderful
discoveries. "The bath of Asia, with green jalousies," in which
the lady dwells; "the old hotel, with copper lions, in a lonely
square;"--were ever such things heard of, or imagined, but by a
Frenchman? The sailors, the negroes, the vermin, whom he meets in
the street,--how great and happy are all these discoveries! Liston
no longer makes the happy poet frown; and "gin," "cokneys," and the
"quaterly" have not the least effect upon him! And this gentleman
has lived many months amongst us; admires Williams Shakspear, the
"grave et vieux prophète," as he calls him, and never, for an
instant, doubts that his description contains anything absurd!

I don't know whether the great Dumas has passed any time in
England; but his plays show a similar intimate knowledge of our
habits. Thus in Kean, the stage-manager is made to come forward
and address the pit, with a speech beginning, "My Lords and
Gentlemen;" and a company of Englishwomen are introduced (at the
memorable "Coal hole"), and they all wear PINAFORES; as if the
British female were in the invariable habit of wearing this outer
garment, or slobbering her gown without it. There was another
celebrated piece, enacted some years since, upon the subject of
Queen Caroline, where our late adored sovereign, George, was made
to play a most despicable part; and where Signor Bergami fought a
duel with Lord Londonderry. In the last act of this play, the
House of Lords was represented, and Sir Brougham made an eloquent
speech in the Queen's favor. Presently the shouts of the mob were
heard without; from shouting they proceeded to pelting; and
pasteboard-brickbats and cabbages came flying among the
representatives of our hereditary legislature. At this unpleasant
juncture, SIR HARDINGE, the Secretary-at-War, rises and calls in
the military; the act ends in a general row, and the ignominious
fall of Lord Liverpool, laid low by a brickbat from the mob!

The description of these scenes is, of course, quite incapable of
conveying any notion of their general effect. You must have the
solemnity of the actors, as they Meess and Milor one another, and
the perfect gravity and good faith with which the audience listen
to them. Our stage Frenchman is the old Marquis, with sword, and
pigtail, and spangled court coat. The Englishman of the French
theatre has, invariably, a red wig, and almost always leather
gaiters, and a long white upper Benjamin: he remains as he was
represented in the old caricatures after the peace, when Vernet
designed him.

And to conclude this catalogue of blunders: in the famous piece of
the "Naufrage de la Meduse," the first act is laid on board an
English ship-of-war, all the officers of which appeared in light
blue or green coats (the lamp-light prevented our distinguishing
the color accurately), and TOP-BOOTS!


Let us not attempt to deaden the force of this tremendous blow by
any more remarks. The force of blundering can go no further.
Would a Chinese playwright or painter have stranger notions about
the barbarians than our neighbors, who are separated from us but by
two hours of salt water?




MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES.


The palace of Versailles has been turned into a bricabrac shop of
late years, and its time-honored walls have been covered with many
thousand yards of the worst pictures that eye ever looked on. I
don't know how many leagues of battles and sieges the unhappy
visitor is now obliged to march through, amidst a crowd of
chattering Paris cockneys, who are never tired of looking at the
glories of the Grenadier Français; to the chronicling of whose
deeds this old palace of the old kings is now altogether devoted.
A whizzing, screaming steam-engine rushes hither from Paris,
bringing shoals of badauds in its wake. The old coucous are all
gone, and their place knows them no longer. Smooth asphaltum
terraces, tawdry lamps, and great hideous Egyptian obelisks, have
frightened them away from the pleasant station they used to occupy
under the trees of the Champs Elysées; and though the old coucous
were just the most uncomfortable vehicles that human ingenuity ever
constructed, one can't help looking back to the days of their
existence with a tender regret; for there was pleasure then in the
little trip of three leagues: and who ever had pleasure in a
railway journey? Does any reader of this venture to say that, on
such a voyage, he ever dared to be pleasant? Do the most hardened
stokers joke with one another? I don't believe it. Look into
every single car of the train, and you will see that every single
face is solemn. They take their seats gravely, and are silent, for
the most part, during the journey; they dare not look out of
window, for fear of being blinded by the smoke that comes whizzing
by, or of losing their heads in one of the windows of the down
train; they ride for miles in utter damp and darkness: through
awful pipes of brick, that have been run pitilessly through the
bowels of gentle mother earth, the cast-iron Frankenstein of an
engine gallops on, puffing and screaming. Does any man pretend to
say that he ENJOYS the journey?--he might as well say that he
enjoyed having his hair cut; he bears it, but that is all: he will
not allow the world to laugh at him, for any exhibition of slavish
fear; and pretends, therefore, to be at his ease; but he IS afraid:
nay, ought to be, under the circumstances. I am sure Hannibal or
Napoleon would, were they locked suddenly into a car; there kept
close prisoners for a certain number of hours, and whirled along at
this dizzy pace. You can't stop, if you would:--you may die, but
you can't stop; the engine may explode upon the road, and up you go
along with it; or, may be a bolter and take a fancy to go down a
hill, or into a river: all this you must bear, for the privilege of
travelling twenty miles an hour.

This little journey, then, from Paris to Versailles, that used to
be so merry of old, has lost its pleasures since the disappearance
of the coucous; and I would as lief have for companions the statues
that lately took a coach from the bridge opposite the Chamber of
Deputies, and stepped out in the court of Versailles, as the most
part of the people who now travel on the railroad. The stone
figures are not a whit more cold and silent than these persons, who
used to be, in the old coucous, so talkative and merry. The
prattling grisette and her swain from the Ecole de Droit; the huge
Alsacian carabineer, grimly smiling under his sandy moustaches and
glittering brass helmet; the jolly nurse, in red calico, who had
been to Paris to show mamma her darling Lolo, or Auguste;--what
merry companions used one to find squeezed into the crazy old
vehicles that formerly performed the journey! But the age of
horseflesh is gone--that of engineers, economists, and calculators
has succeeded; and the pleasure of coucoudom is extinguished for
ever. Why not mourn over it, as Mr. Burke did over his cheap
defence of nations and unbought grace of life; that age of
chivalry, which he lamented, àpropos of a trip to Versailles, some
half a century back?

Without stopping to discuss (as might be done, in rather a neat and
successful manner) whether the age of chivalry was cheap or dear,
and whether, in the time of the unbought grace of life, there was
not more bribery, robbery, villainy, tyranny, and corruption, than
exists even in our own happy days,--let us make a few moral and
historical remarks upon the town of Versailles; where, between
railroad and coucou, we are surely arrived by this time.

The town is, certainly, the most moral of towns. You pass from the
railroad station through a long, lonely suburb, with dusty rows of
stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable beggars, idle
boys, and ragged old women under them. Behind the trees are gaunt,
mouldy houses; palaces once, where (in the days of the unbought
grace of life) the cheap defence of nations gambled, ogled,
swindled, intrigued; whence high-born duchesses used to issue, in
old times, to act as chambermaids to lovely Du Barri; and mighty
princes rolled away, in gilt caroches, hot for the honor of
lighting his Majesty to bed, or of presenting his stockings when he
rose, or of holding his napkin when he dined. Tailors, chandlers,
tinmen, wretched hucksters, and greengrocers, are now established
in the mansions of the old peers; small children are yelling at the
doors, with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle; damp rags are
hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the sun;
oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie
basking in the same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes
jingling down the wide pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment
over the dusty, thirsty stones.

After pacing for some time through such dismal streets, we
deboucher on the grande place; and before us lies the palace
dedicated to all the glories of France. In the midst of the great
lonely plain this famous residence of King Louis looks low and
mean.--Honored pile! Time was when tall musketeers and gilded
body-guards allowed none to pass the gate. Fifty years ago, ten
thousand drunken women from Paris broke through the charm; and now
a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it for a penny,
and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace.

We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are
portrayed in pictures and marble: catalogues are written about
these miles of canvas, representing all the revolutionary battles,
from Valmy to Waterloo,--all the triumphs of Louis XIV.--all the
mistresses of his successor--and all the great men who have
flourished since the French empire began. Military heroes are
most of these--fierce constables in shining steel, marshals in
voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in bearskin caps; some dozens
of whom gained crowns, principalities, dukedoms; some hundreds,
plunder and epaulets; some millions, death in African sands, or in
icy Russian plains, under the guidance, and for the good, of that
arch-hero, Napoleon. By far the greater part of "all the glories"
of France (as of most other countries) is made up of these military
men: and a fine satire it is on the cowardice of mankind, that they
pay such an extraordinary homage to the virtue called courage;
filling their history-books with tales about it, and nothing but
it.

Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the
walls with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of
any family but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It
has not been humbled to the ground, as a certain palace of Babel
was of yore; but it is a monument of fallen pride, not less awful,
and would afford matter for a whole library of sermons. The cheap
defence of nations expended a thousand millions in the erection of
this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the
intervals of their warlike labors, to level hills, or pile them up;
to turn rivers, and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and
construct smooth terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew up
in a wilderness, and a stupendous palace in the garden, and a
stately city round the palace: the city was peopled with parasites,
who daily came to do worship before the creator of these wonders--
the Great King. "Dieu seul est grand," said courtly Massillon; but
next to him, as the prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his
vicegerent here upon earth--God's lieutenant-governor of the
world,--before whom courtiers used to fall on their knees, and
shade their eyes, as if the light of his countenance, like the sun,
which shone supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too dazzling to
bear.

Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?--
or, rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty
came out of his chamber, in the midst of his superhuman splendors,
viz, in his cinnamon-colored coat, embroidered with diamonds; his
pyramid of a wig,* his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches
from the ground, "that he scarcely seemed to touch;" when he came
out, blazing upon the dukes and duchesses that waited his rising,--
what could the latter do, but cover their eyes, and wink, and
tremble? And did he not himself believe, as he stood there, on his
high heels, under his ambrosial periwig, that there was something
in him more than man--something above Fate?


* It is fine to think that, in the days of his youth, his Majesty
Louis XIV. used to POWDER HIS WIG WITH GOLD-DUST.


This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days,
from his terrace before his gloomy palace of Saint Germains, he
could catch a glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire
of St. Denis, where his race lay buried, he would say to his
courtiers, with a sublime condescension, "Gentlemen, you must
remember that I, too, am mortal." Surely the lords in waiting
could hardly think him serious, and vowed that his Majesty always
loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight of that sharp
spire wounded his Majesty's eyes; and is said, by the legend, to
have caused the building of the palace of Babel-Versailles.

In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage,--with
guards, cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen,
lackeys, Fénélons, Molières, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys,
Louvois, Colberts,--transported himself to his new palace: the old
one being left for James of England and Jaquette his wife, when
their time should come. And when the time did come, and James
sought his brother's kingdom, it is on record that Louis hastened
to receive and console him, and promised to restore, incontinently,
those islands from which the canaille had turned him. Between
brothers such a gift was a trifle; and the courtiers said to one
another reverently:* "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my
right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." There was
no blasphemy in the speech: on the contrary, it was gravely said,
by a faithful believing man, who thought it no shame to the latter,
to compare his Majesty with God Almighty. Indeed, the books of the
time will give one a strong idea how general was this Louis-
worship. I have just been looking at one, which was written by an
honest Jesuit and Protégé of Père la Chaise, who dedicates a book
of medals to the august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go
almost as far in print. He calls our famous monarch "Louis le
Grand:--1, l'invincible; 2, le sage; 3, le conquérant; 4, la
merveille de son siècle; 5, la terreur de ses ennemis; 6, l'amour
de ses peuples; 7, l'arbitre de la paix et de la guerre; 8,
l'admiration de l'univers; 9, et digne d'en être le maître; 10, le
modèle d'un héros achevé; 11, digne de l'immortalité, et de la
vénération de tous les siècles!"


* I think it is in the amusing "Memoirs of Madame de Crequi" (a
forgery, but a work remarkable for its learning and accuracy) that
the above anecdote is related.


A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good honest judgment upon
the great king! In thirty years more--1. The invincible had been
beaten a vast number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an
artful old woman, who was the puppet of more artful priests.
3. The conqueror had quite forgotten his early knack of conquering.
5. The terror of his enemies (for 4, the marvel of his age, we
pretermit, it being a loose term, that may apply to any person or
thing) was now terrified by his enemies in turn. 6. The love of
his people was as heartily detested by them as scarcely any other
monarch, not even his great-grandson, has been, before or since.
7. The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send superb
ambassadors to kick their heels in Dutch shopkeepers' ante-
chambers. 8, is again a general term. 9. The man fit to be
master of the universe, was scarcely master of his own kingdom.
10. The finished hero was all but finished, in a very commonplace
and vulgar way. And 11. The man worthy of immortality was just at
the point of death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him; only
withered old Maintenon to utter prayers at his bedside, and
croaking Jesuits to prepare him,* with heaven knows what wretched
tricks and mummeries, for his appearance in that Great Republic
that lies on the other side of the grave. In the course of his
fourscore splendid miserable years, he never had but one friend,
and he ruined and left her. Poor La Vallière, what a sad tale is
yours! "Look at this Galerie des Glaces," cries Monsieur Vatout,
staggering with surprise at the appearance of the room, two hundred
and forty-two feet long, and forty high. "Here it was that Louis
displayed all the grandeur of royalty; and such was the splendor of
his court, and the luxury of the times, that this immense room
could hardly contain the crowd of courtiers that pressed around the
monarch." Wonderful! wonderful! Eight thousand four hundred and
sixty square feet of courtiers! Give a square yard to each, and
you have a matter of three thousand of them. Think of three
thousand courtiers per day, and all the chopping and changing of
them for near forty years: some of them dying, some getting their
wishes, and retiring to their provinces to enjoy their plunder;
some disgraced, and going home to pine away out of the light of the
sun;** new ones perpetually arriving,--pushing, squeezing, for
their place, in the crowded Galerie des Glaces. A quarter of a
million of noble countenances, at the very least, must those
glasses have reflected. Rouge, diamonds, ribbons, patches, upon
the faces of smiling ladies: towering periwigs, sleek shaven
crowns, tufted moustaches, scars, and grizzled whiskers, worn by
ministers, priests, dandies, and grim old commanders.--So many
faces, O ye gods! and every one of them lies! So many tongues,
vowing devotion and respectful love to the great king in his six-
inch wig; and only poor La Vallière's amongst them all which had a
word of truth for the dull ears of Louis of Bourbon.

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