H. Sutherland Edwards

“ Love of pleasure, the attractions of society that luxury which had so long kept them at a respectful distance, now enervate their souls. They are men of society, men of fashion, runners after women, and themselves much run after. They are at every party, every entertainment; no supper is complete without them; they are sumptuously dressed, and have luxuriously furnished rooms. It was not by supping out every night in society that the Corneilles, the Molières, the La Fontaines, and the Boileaus composed those masterpieces which will constitute for ever their glory and the glory of France. ”

“ Owing to the varieties of dress already touched upon, a crowd in Paris presents a less gloomy, less monotonous appearance than the black-coated mobs of London; and in harmony with the greater relief afforded by the different colours of the costumes are the animated gestures of the persons composing the crowd. Observe, indeed, a mere group of persons conversing on no matter what commonplace subject, or idly chatting as they sip their coffee together on the boulevards, and they appear to be engaged in some violent dispute. ”

“ The present century has produced two generations of Paris Bohemians who have left their mark upon the history of arts and letters. The first had its cradle in a now demolished house of the Rue du Doyenné. Nothing could have been more sombre or depressing than this street, which was one of the ugliest in Paris. Yet the indomitable spirits who made it their haunt lived within sight of all that the most artistic and delicate imagination could desire. There were the remains of the Hôtel Rambouillet, in which French literature had, in its infancy, been nursed ”

“ Whilst the public complain loudly of such encroachments on the liberty of the playhouses, hear the apology set up by our belles: ‘What! will you, then, to oblige the canaille, compel me to hear out a whole play, when I am rich enough to see only the last scene? This is a downright tyranny! I protest! There is no police in France nowadays. Since I cannot have the comedians come to my own house, I will have the liberty to come in my plain deshabille, enjoy my arm-chair, receive the homage of my humble suitors, and leave the place before I am tired. ”

“ Let others, mere living machines, measure out their time by the hands of the clock, he, the philosophical rag-picker, works when he likes, rests when he likes, without recollections of yesterday or thoughts of the morrow. If the north wind is icy, he warms himself with a few glasses of camphor, or a cup of petit noir; if the heat inconveniences him, he throws off part of his rags, lies down beneath the shadow of his basket, and goes to sleep. If he is hungry, he hastens to earn a sou or two, and then feasts like a Lucullus on bread and Italian cheese. If he is ill, that matters nothing to him. ”

“ Finally La Fayette ascended the staircase, radiant, but full of emotion, and placing the point of his sword on the Altar of the Country, pronounced in a loud firm voice this sacred oath: “We swear to be for ever faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king; to maintain with all our power the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king; to protect the persons and property of all, and to remain united to all Frenchmen by the indissoluble bonds of fraternity.” ”

“ The history of Paris is the history of France itself. The decisive battles which brought the great civil and religious wars of the country to an end were fought outside or in the very streets of Paris. It was in Paris that the massacre of St. Bartholomew—darkest blot on the French annals—was perpetrated. The Revolution of 1789, again, was prepared and accomplished in the French capital; and, thenceforth, all those revolutions and coups d’état by which the government of the country was periodically to be changed had Paris for their scene. ”

“ The executioner is still regarded in France with much of the abhorrence which has always been felt for him; but although he is an outcast from the ordinary world, admission to churches, theatres, promenades, and public places generally is not to-day, as it once was, denied to him. Whenever his place becomes vacant there is a rush of candidates for it more multitudinous and more eager than for any other State office whatsoever. To be “Monsieur de Paris,” as the executioner is styled, seems the pinnacle of ambition with only too large a section of the public. ”

“ THERE is no monument of ancient Paris so interesting, by its architecture and its historical associations, as the Cathedral of Notre Dame; which, standing on the site of a Temple to Jupiter, carries us back to the time of the Roman domination and of Julius Cæsar. Here, eighteen centuries later, took place the most magnificent ceremony ever seen within the walls of the actual edifice: the coronation, that is to say, of the modern Cæsar, the conqueror who ascended the Imperial throne of France on the 2nd of December, 1804. ”

“ In London, it is true, such things have happened, and men of title have been known to adopt even less heroic methods of livelihood than that of driving a hackney vehicle for hire; they have—there is at least one contemporary instance—ground barrel-organs. But these are the very rarest exceptions; and in Paris, although it is not theoretically impossible for an aristocrat to find himself reduced to the basket and crook of the rag-picker, such a case would be an exception infinitely rarer still. So disgusting an occupation would be absolutely the last to which a ruined gentleman would resort. ”

“ So preposterous an attempt against our natural and civil rights serves only to expose to public hatred the wretches who dare thus far to encroach on man’s first privilege, that of thinking for himself. Reason daily gets ground, its powerful light shines to every eye, and all the witchcraft of tyranny cannot plunge it into utter darkness. In vain will despotism dread or persecute men of genius ”

“ The Opera of Paris passes in the capital for the most pompous, the most voluptuous, the most admirable spectacle that human art has ever invented. Its admirers declare it to be the most superb monument of the magnificence of Louis XIV., and one is not so free as you may think to express an opinion on such an important subject. ”

“ The first things to be reserved for the king are the Louvre and the Tuileries, monuments of grandeur and of indigence, whose plan, whose façades, are due to the genius of art, but whose completion has been neglected or rather forgotten by the wasteful carelessness of a few kings. Each generation expected to see this monument, worthy of Athens and of Rome, at last finished; but our kings, fearing the gaze of the people, went far from the capital to surround themselves with luxury, courtiers, and soldiers. ”

“ The plague of beggars is nothing, however, in these days, compared with what it was before the Revolution. “Who,” asks a writer of the latter part of the eighteenth century, “seeing the populace of Paris ever merry, and the rich glittering in all the gaudy pomp of luxury, would believe that the streets of the metropolis are infested with swarms of beggars, were not the eye at every turn of the street shocked with some distressing spectacle, truly disgusting to the sight of every stranger who is not lost to all sense of humanity? ”

“ Walking, which in London is so pleasant and so clean that ladies do it every day, is here a toil and a fatigue to a man, and an impossibility to a well-dressed woman. The coaches are numerous, and, what is much worse, there is an infinity of one-horse cabriolets, which are driven by young men of fashion and their imitators, alike fools, with such rapidity as to be real nuisances and render the streets exceedingly dangerous without an incessant caution. ”

“ It is impossible to be more humble, more audacious, more eager in view of obtaining a favour from the Court than were all our young lords to ensure themselves a place at the first representation of Figaro. More than one duchess considered herself too happy that day to find in the balconies, where ladies are seldom seen, a wretched stool side by side with Madame Duthé, Carline, and company. ”

“ From the rising of the sun to the extinction of the gas he is handling the money of others; he is a confidential servant, a cashier on a small scale. As to vigour of constitution, you will soon see how indispensable that is to the garçon. Day dawns, and late as he went to bed the night before, he has to rise betimes. At that hour there is hardly anyone awake in Paris but fruiterers, scavengers, and water-carriers; nevertheless he, the man of eloquence, who passes his time amongst epicures and who forms an indisputable part of the fashionable world, must tear himself from the luxury of repose. ”

“ Paris possesses one of the most ancient and one of the most characteristically modern churches in Europe—the venerable Notre-Dame, and in sharp contrast, the fashionable Madeleine, celebrated for the splendour of its essentially mundane architecture, the luxurious attire of its female frequenters, the beauty of its music, and the eloquence of its preachers. The first stone of Notre-Dame was laid, as Victor Hugo puts it, by Tiberius, who, recognising the site of the future cathedral as well-fitted for a temple, began by erecting an altar “to the god Cerennos and to the bull Esus.” ”

“ Under the monarchy the very tombs had learned to flatter the kings. Their haughtiness, their love of display, could not be subdued even on the theatre of death; and the sceptre-bearers who have {102} done so much harm to France and to humanity seem even in the grave to be proud of their vanished greatness. The powerful hand of the Republic must efface without pity those arrogant epitaphs and demolish those mausoleums which would revive the frightful recollections of the kings. ”

“ Hard by is the tomb of Vivant Denon. Upon it his statue, by Cartelier, stands, still smiling with that smile which, as a French historian has ingeniously said, “pleased, turn by turn, Louis XV., Mme. de Pompadour, Voltaire, Louis XVI., Robespierre, and Napoleon.”
The most sumptuous monument in the cemetery is that of the Russian Princess, Demidoff. Its height is prodigious. Its semi-Oriental architecture, at once severe and beautiful, is highly imposing. It consists of a rich temple adorned with ten columns of white Carrara marble, supporting a magnificent canopy. ”

“ It was at the Tuileries that the Committee of Public Safety held its meetings: that irresponsible body which struck so many and such sanguinary blows at the accomplices, real or imaginary, of invasion from abroad, and of insurrection at home. In the Tuileries gardens took place the festival of the Supreme Being, when proclamation was solemnly made, under the authority of Robespierre, that the French people believed in God and the immortality of the soul. “People of France,” cried Robespierre, between two executions, “let us to-day give ourselves up to the transports of pure unmingled joy. ”

“ The Théàtre Français is close to the Bourse, and the Bourse to the Boulevard des Italiens, which leads to the Opera by a line along which stand the finest hotels, the best restaurants in Paris. From the Opera it is no far cry to the Champs Élysées, the Hyde Park of Paris; while, going along the boulevards in the opposite direction, one comes step by step to a seemingly endless series of famous theatres. ”

“ Amongst the ancients there was a class of people that might be called poor, but none reduced to absolute indigence. The very slaves were clothed, fed, had their friends; nor does any historian say that the towns and streets were full of those wretched, disgusting objects which either excite pity or freeze charity itself: wretches covered with vermin did not then go about the streets uttering groans that reach the very heart, and exhibiting wounds that frighten the eye of every passenger. ”