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The Paris Sketch Book

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With that coat and wig, Cartouche left home, father, friends,
conscience, remorse, society, behind him. He discovered (like a
great number of other philosophers and poets, when they have
committed rascally actions) that the world was all going wrong, and
he quarrelled with it outright. One of the first stories told of
the illustrious Cartouche, when he became professionally and openly
a robber, redounds highly to his credit, and shows that he knew how
to take advantage of the occasion, and how much he had improved in
the course of a very few years' experience. His courage and
ingenuity were vastly admired by his friends; so much so, that, one
day, the captain of the band thought fit to compliment him, and
vowed that when he (the captain) died, Cartouche should infallibly
be called to the command-in-chief. This conversation, so
flattering to Cartouche, was carried on between the two gentlemen,
as they were walking, one night, on the quays by the side of the
Seine. Cartouche, when the captain made the last remark,
blushingly protested against it, and pleaded his extreme youth as
a reason why his comrades could never put entire trust in him.
"Psha, man!" said the captain, "thy youth is in thy favor; thou
wilt live only the longer to lead thy troops to victory. As for
strength, bravery, and cunning, wert thou as old as Methuselah,
thou couldst not be better provided than thou art now, at
eighteen." What was the reply of Monsieur Cartouche? He answered,
not by words, but by actions. Drawing his knife from his girdle,
he instantly dug it into the captain's left side, as near his heart
as possible; and then, seizing that imprudent commander,
precipitated him violently into the waters of the Seine, to keep
company with the gudgeons and river-gods. When he returned to
the band, and recounted how the captain had basely attempted to
assassinate him, and how he, on the contrary, had, by exertion of
superior skill, overcome the captain, not one of the society
believed a word of his history; but they elected him captain
forthwith. I think his Excellency Don Rafael Maroto, the
pacificator of Spain, is an amiable character, for whom history
has not been written in vain.

Being arrived at this exalted position, there is no end of the
feats which Cartouche performed; and his band reached to such a
pitch of glory, that if there had been a hundred thousand, instead
of a hundred of them, who knows but that a new and popular dynasty
might not have been founded, and "Louis Dominic, premier Empereur
des Français," might have performed innumerable glorious actions,
and fixed himself in the hearts of his people, just as other
monarchs have done, a hundred years after Cartouche's death.

A story similar to the above, and equally moral, is that of
Cartouche, who, in company with two other gentlemen, robbed the
coche, or packet-boat, from Melun, where they took a good quantity
of booty,--making the passengers lie down on the decks, and rifling
them at leisure. "This money will be but very little among three,"
whispered Cartouche to his neighbor, as the three conquerors were
making merry over their gains; "if you were but to pull the trigger
of your pistol in the neighborhood of your comrade's ear, perhaps
it might go off, and then there would be but two of us to share."
Strangely enough, as Cartouche said, the pistol DID go off, and No.
3 perished. "Give him another ball," said Cartouche; and another
was fired into him. But no sooner had Cartouche's comrade
discharged both his pistols, than Cartouche himself, seized with a
furious indignation, drew his: "Learn, monster," cried he, "not to
be so greedy of gold, and perish, the victim of thy disloyalty and
avarice!" So Cartouche slew the second robber; and there is no man
in Europe who can say that the latter did not merit well his
punishment.

I could fill volumes, and not mere sheets of paper, with tales of
the triumphs of Cartouche and his band; how he robbed the Countess
of O----, going to Dijon, in her coach, and how the Countess fell
in love with him, and was faithful to him ever after; how, when the
lieutenant of police offered a reward of a hundred pistoles to any
man who would bring Cartouche before him, a noble Marquess, in a
coach and six, drove up to the hotel of the police; and the noble
Marquess, desiring to see Monsieur de la Reynie, on matters of the
highest moment, alone, the latter introduced him into his private
cabinet; and how, when there, the Marquess drew from his pocket a
long, curiously shaped dagger: "Look at this, Monsieur de la
Reynie," said he; "this dagger is poisoned!"

"Is it possible?" said M. de la Reynie.

"A prick of it would do for any man," said the Marquess.

"You don't say so!" said M. de la Reynie.

"I do, though; and, what is more," says the Marquess, in a terrible
voice, "if you do not instantly lay yourself flat on the ground,
with your face towards it, and your hands crossed over your back,
or if you make the slightest noise or cry, I will stick this
poisoned dagger between your ribs, as sure as my name is Cartouche?"

At the sound of this dreadful name, M. de la Reynie sunk
incontinently down on his stomach, and submitted to be carefully
gagged and corded; after which Monsieur Cartouche laid his hands
upon all the money which was kept in the lieutenant's cabinet.
Alas! and alas! many a stout bailiff, and many an honest fellow of
a spy, went, for that day, without his pay and his victuals.

There is a story that Cartouche once took the diligence to Lille,
and found in it a certain Abbé Potter, who was full of indignation
against this monster of a Cartouche, and said that when he went
back to Paris, which he proposed to do in about a fortnight, he
should give the lieutenant of police some information, which would
infallibly lead to the scoundrel's capture. But poor Potter was
disappointed in his designs; for, before he could fulfil them, he
was made the victim of Cartouche's cruelty.

A letter came to the lieutenant of police, to state that Cartouche
had travelled to Lille, in company with the Abbé de Potter, of that
town; that, on the reverend gentleman's return towards Paris,
Cartouche had waylaid him, murdered him, taken his papers, and
would come to Paris himself, bearing the name and clothes of the
unfortunate Abbé, by the Lille coach, on such a day. The Lille
coach arrived, was surrounded by police agents; the monster
Cartouche was there, sure enough, in the Abbé's guise. He was
seized, bound, flung into prison, brought out to be examined, and,
on examination, found to be no other than the Abbé Potter himself!
It is pleasant to read thus of the relaxations of great men, and
find them condescending to joke like the meanest of us.

Another diligence adventure is recounted of the famous Cartouche.
It happened that he met, in the coach, a young and lovely lady,
clad in widow's weeds, and bound to Paris, with a couple of
servants. The poor thing was the widow of a rich old gentleman
of Marseilles, and was going to the capital to arrange with her
lawyers, and to settle her husband's will. The Count de Grinche
(for so her fellow-passenger was called) was quite as candid as the
pretty widow had been, and stated that he was a captain in the
regiment of Nivernois; that he was going to Paris to buy a
colonelcy, which his relatives, the Duke de Bouillon, the Prince
de Montmorency, the Commandeur de la Trémoille, with all their
interest at court, could not fail to procure for him. To be short,
in the course of the four days' journey, the Count Louis Dominic de
Grinche played his cards so well, that the poor little widow half
forgot her late husband; and her eyes glistened with tears as the
Count kissed her hand at parting--at parting, he hoped, only for a
few hours.

Day and night the insinuating Count followed her; and when, at the
end of a fortnight, and in the midst of a tête-à-tête, he plunged,
one morning, suddenly on his knees, and said, Leonora, do you love
me?" the poor thing heaved the gentlest, tenderest, sweetest sigh
in the world; and sinking her blushing head on his shoulder,
whispered, "Oh, Dominic, je t'aime! Ah!" said she, "how noble is
it of my Dominic to take me with the little I have, and he so rich
a nobleman!" The fact is, the old Baron's titles and estates had
passed away to his nephews; his dowager was only left with three
hundred thousand livres, in rentes sur l'état--a handsome sum, but
nothing to compare to the rent-roll of Count Dominic, Count de la
Grinche, Seigneur de la Haute Pigre, Baron de la Bigorne; he had
estates and wealth which might authorize him to aspire to the hand
of a duchess, at least.

The unfortunate widow never for a moment suspected the cruel trick
that was about to be played on her; and, at the request of her
affianced husband, sold out her money, and realized it in gold, to
be made over to him on the day when the contract was to be signed.
The day arrived; and, according to the custom in France, the
relations of both parties attended. The widow's relatives, though
respectable, were not of the first nobility, being chiefly persons
of the finance or the robe: there was the president of the court of
Arras, and his lady; a farmer-general; a judge of a court of Paris;
and other such grave and respectable people. As for Monsieur le
Comte de la Grinche, he was not bound for names; and, having the
whole peerage to choose from, brought a host of Montmorencies,
Créquis, De la Tours, and Guises at his back. His homme d'affaires
brought his papers in a sack, and displayed the plans of his
estates, and the titles of his glorious ancestry. The widow's
lawyers had her money in sacks; and between the gold on the one
side, and the parchments on the other, lay the contract which was
to make the widow's three hundred thousand francs the property of
the Count de Grinche. The Count de la Grinche was just about to
sign; when the Marshal de Villars, stepping up to him, said,
"Captain, do you know who the president of the court of Arras,
yonder, is? It is old Manasseh, the fence, of Brussels. I pawned
a gold watch to him, which I stole from Cadogan, when I was with
Malbrook's army in Flanders."

Here the Duc de la Roche Guyon came forward, very much alarmed.
"Run me through the body!" said his Grace, "but the comptroller-
general's lady, there, is no other than that old hag of a Margoton
who keeps the ----" Here the Duc de la Roche Guyon's voice fell.

Cartouche smiled graciously, and walked up to the table. He took
up one of the widow's fifteen thousand gold pieces;--it was as
pretty a bit of copper as you could wish to see. "My dear," said
he politely, "there is some mistake here, and this business had
better stop."

"Count!" gasped the poor widow.

"Count be hanged!" answered the bridegroom, sternly "my name is
CARTOUCHE!"



ON SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS.

WITH A PLEA FOR ROMANCES IN GENERAL.


There is an old story of a Spanish court painter, who, being
pressed for money, and having received a piece of damask, which he
was to wear in a state procession, pawned the damask, and appeared,
at the show, dressed out in some very fine sheets of paper, which
he had painted so as exactly to resemble silk. Nay, his coat
looked so much richer than the doublets of all the rest, that the
Emperor Charles, in whose honor the procession was given, remarked
the painter, and so his deceit was found out.

I have often thought that, in respect of sham and real histories, a
similar fact may be noticed; the sham story appearing a great deal
more agreeable, life-like, and natural than the true one: and all
who, from laziness as well as principle, are inclined to follow the
easy and comfortable study of novels, may console themselves with
the notion that they are studying matters quite as important as
history, and that their favorite duodecimos are as instructive as
the biggest quartos in the world.

If then, ladies, the big-wigs begin to sneer at the course of our
studies, calling our darling romances foolish, trivial, noxious to
the mind, enervators of intellect, fathers of idleness, and what
not, let us at once take a high ground, and say,--Go you to your
own employments, and to such dull studies as you fancy; go and bob
for triangles, from the Pons Asinorum; go enjoy your dull black
draughts of metaphysics; go fumble over history books, and dissert
upon Herodotus and Livy; OUR histories are, perhaps, as true as
yours; our drink is the brisk sparkling champagne drink, from the
presses of Colburn, Bentley and Co.; our walks are over such
sunshiny pleasure-grounds as Scott and Shakspeare have laid out for
us; and if our dwellings are castles in the air, we find them
excessively splendid and commodious;--be not you envious because
you have no wings to fly thither. Let the big-wigs despise us;
such contempt of their neighbors is the custom of all barbarous
tribes;--witness, the learned Chinese: Tippoo Sultaun declared that
there were not in all Europe ten thousand men: the Sklavonic
hordes, it is said, so entitled themselves from a word in their
jargon, which signifies "to speak;" the ruffians imagining that
they had a monopoly of this agreeable faculty, and that all other
nations were dumb.

Not so: others may be DEAF; but the novelist has a loud, eloquent,
instructive language, though his enemies may despise or deny it
ever so much. What is more, one could, perhaps, meet the stoutest
historian on his own ground, and argue with him; showing that sham
histories were much truer than real histories; which are, in fact,
mere contemptible catalogues of names and places, that can have no
moral effect upon the reader.

As thus:--


Julius Caesar beat Pompey, at Pharsalia.
The Duke of Marlborough beat Marshal Tallard at Blenheim.
The Constable of Bourbon beat Francis the First, at Pavia.


And what have we here?--so many names, simply. Suppose Pharsalia
had been, at that mysterious period when names were given, called
Pavia; and that Julius Caesar's family name had been John
Churchill;--the fact would have stood in history, thus:--


"Pompey ran away from the Duke of Marlborough at Pavia."


And why not?--we should have been just as wise. Or it might be
stated that--


"The tenth legion charged the French infantry at Blenheim; and
Caesar, writing home to his mamma, said, 'Madame, tout est perdu
fors l'honneur.'"


What a contemptible science this is, then, about which quartos are
written, and sixty-volumed Biographies Universelles, and Lardner's
Cabinet Cyclopaedias, and the like! the facts are nothing in it, the
names everything and a gentleman might as well improve his mind by
learning Walker's "Gazetteer," or getting by heart a fifty-years-
old edition of the "Court Guide."

Having thus disposed of the historians, let us come to the point in
question--the novelists.


On the title-page of these volumes the reader has, doubtless,
remarked, that among the pieces introduced, some are announced as
"copies" and "compositions." Many of the histories have,
accordingly, been neatly stolen from the collections of French
authors (and mutilated, according to the old saying, so that their
owners should not know them) and, for compositions, we intend to
favor the public with some studies of French modern works, that
have not as yet, we believe, attracted the notice of the English
public.

Of such works there appear many hundreds yearly, as may be seen by
the French catalogues; but the writer has not so much to do with
works political, philosophical, historical, metaphysical,
scientifical, theological, as with those for which he has been
putting forward a plea--novels, namely; on which he has expended a
great deal of time and study. And passing from novels in general
to French novels, let us confess, with much humiliation, that we
borrow from these stories a great deal more knowledge of French
society than from our own personal observation we ever can hope to
gain: for, let a gentleman who has dwelt two, four, or ten years in
Paris (and has not gone thither for the purpose of making a book,
when three weeks are sufficient--let an English gentleman say, at
the end of any given period, how much he knows of French society,
how many French houses he has entered, and how many French friends
he has made?--He has enjoyed, at the end of the year, say--


At the English Ambassador's, so many soirées.
At houses to which he has brought letters, so many tea-parties.
At Cafés, so many dinners.
At French private houses, say three dinners, and very lucky too.


He has, we say, seen an immense number of wax candles, cups of tea,
glasses of orgeat, and French people, in best clothes, enjoying the
same; but intimacy there is none; we see but the outsides of the
people. Year by year we live in France, and grow gray, and see no
more. We play écarté with Monsieur de Trêfle every night; but what
know we of the heart of the man--of the inward ways, thoughts, and
customs of Trêfle? If we have good legs, and love the amusement,
we dance with Countess Flicflac, Tuesday's and Thursdays, ever
since the Peace; and how far are we advanced in acquaintance with
her since we first twirled her round a room? We know her velvet
gown, and her diamonds (about three-fourths of them are sham, by
the way); we know her smiles, and her simpers, and her rouge--but
no more: she may turn into a kitchen wench at twelve on Thursday
night, for aught we know; her voiture, a pumpkin; and her gens, so
many rats: but the real, rougeless, intime Flicflac, we know not.
This privilege is granted to no Englishman: we may understand the
French language as well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can
penetrate into Flicflac's confidence: our ways are not her ways;
our manners of thinking, not hers: when we say a good thing, in the
course of the night, we are wondrous lucky and pleased; Flicflac
will trill you off fifty in ten minutes, and wonder at the bêtise
of the Briton, who has never a word to say. We are married, and
have fourteen children, and would just as soon make love to the
Pope of Rome as to any one but our own wife. If you do not make
love to Flicflac, from the day after her marriage to the day she
reaches sixty, she thinks you a fool. We won't play at écarté with
Trêfle on Sunday nights; and are seen walking, about one o'clock
(accompanied by fourteen red-haired children, with fourteen
gleaming prayer-books), away from the church. "Grand Dieu!" cries
Trêfle, "is that man mad? He won't play at cards on a Sunday; he
goes to church on a Sunday: he has fourteen children!"

Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise? Pass we on to our
argument, which is, that with our English notions and moral and
physical constitution, it is quite impossible that we should become
intimate with our brisk neighbors; and when such authors as Lady
Morgan and Mrs. Trollope, having frequented a certain number of
tea-parties in the French capital, begin to prattle about French
manners and men,--with all respect for the talents of those ladies,
we do believe their information not to be worth a sixpence; they
speak to us not of men but of tea-parties. Tea-parties are the
same all the world over; with the exception that, with the French,
there are more lights and prettier dresses; and with us, a mighty
deal more tea in the pot.

There is, however, a cheap and delightful way of travelling, that a
man may perform in his easy-chair, without expense of passports or
post-boys. On the wings of a novel, from the next circulating
library, he sends his imagination a-gadding, and gains acquaintance
with people and manners whom he could not hope otherwise to know.
Twopence a volume bears us whithersoever we will;--back to Ivanhoe
and Coeur de Lion, or to Waverley and the Young Pretender, along
with Walter Scott; up the heights of fashion with the charming
enchanters of the silver-fork school; or, better still, to the snug
inn-parlor, or the jovial tap-room, with Mr. Pickwick and his
faithful Sancho Weller. I am sure that a man who, a hundred years
hence should sit down to write the history of our time, would do
wrong to put that great contemporary history of "Pickwick" aside as
a frivolous work. It contains true character under false names;
and, like "Roderick Random," an inferior work, and "Tom Jones" (one
that is immeasurably superior), gives us a better idea of the state
and ways of the people than one could gather from any more pompous
or authentic histories.

We have, therefore, introduced into these volumes one or two short
reviews of French fiction writers, of particular classes, whose
Paris sketches may give the reader some notion of manners in that
capital. If not original, at least the drawings are accurate; for,
as a Frenchman might have lived a thousand years in England, and
never could have written "Pickwick," an Englishman cannot hope to
give a good description of the inward thoughts and ways of his
neighbors.

To a person inclined to study these, in that light and amusing
fashion in which the novelist treats them, let us recommend the
works of a new writer, Monsieur de Bernard, who has painted actual
manners, without those monstrous and terrible exaggerations in
which late French writers have indulged; and who, if he
occasionally wounds the English sense of propriety (as what French
man or woman alive will not?) does so more by slighting than by
outraging it, as, with their labored descriptions of all sorts of
imaginable wickedness, some of his brethren of the press have done.
M. de Bernard's characters are men and women of genteel society--
rascals enough, but living in no state of convulsive crimes; and we
follow him in his lively, malicious account of their manners,
without risk of lighting upon any such horrors as Balzac or Dumas
has provided for us.

Let us give an instance:--it is from the amusing novel called "Les
Ailes d'Icare," and contains what is to us quite a new picture of a
French fashionable rogue. The fashions will change in a few years,
and the rogue, of course, with them. Let us catch this delightful
fellow ere he flies. It is impossible to sketch the character in a
more sparkling, gentlemanlike way than M. de Bernard's; but such
light things are very difficult of translation, and the sparkle
sadly evaporates during the process of DECANTING.


A FRENCH FASHIONABLE LETTER.

"MY DEAR VICTOR--It is six in the morning: I have just come from
the English Ambassador's ball, and as my plans, for the day do not
admit of my sleeping, I write you a line; for, at this moment,
saturated as I am with the enchantments of a fairy night, all other
pleasures would be too wearisome to keep me awake, except that of
conversing with you. Indeed, were I not to write to you now, when
should I find the possibility of doing so? Time flies here with
such a frightful rapidity, my pleasures and my affairs whirl
onwards together in such a torrentuous galopade, that I am
compelled to seize occasion by the forelock; for each moment has
its imperious employ. Do not then accuse me of negligence: if my
correspondence has not always that regularity which I would fain
give it, attribute the fault solely to the whirlwind in which I
live, and which carries me hither and thither at its will.

"However, you are not the only person with whom I am behindhand: I
assure you, on the contrary, that you are one of a very numerous
and fashionable company, to whom, towards the discharge of my
debts, I propose to consecrate four hours to-day. I give you the
preference to all the world, even to the lovely Duchess of San
Severino, a delicious Italian, whom, for my special happiness, I
met last summer at the Waters of Aix. I have also a most important
negotiation to conclude with one of our Princes of Finance: but
n'importe, I commence with thee: friendship before love or money--
friendship before everything. My despatches concluded, I am
engaged to ride with the Marquis de Grigneure, the Comte de
Castijars, and Lord Cobham, in order that we may recover, for a
breakfast at the Rocher de Cancale that Grigneure has lost, the
appetite which we all of us so cruelly abused last night at the
Ambassador's gala. On my honor, my dear fellow, everybody was of a
caprice prestigieux and a comfortable mirobolant. Fancy, for a
banquet-hall, a royal orangery hung with white damask; the boxes of
the shrubs transformed into so many sideboards; lights gleaming
through the foliage; and, for guests, the loveliest women and most
brilliant cavaliers of Paris. Orleans and Nemours were there,
dancing and eating like simple mortals. In a word, Albion did the
thing very handsomely, and I accord it my esteem.

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