Читать книгу Pencillings by the Way - Nathaniel Parker Willis - Страница 15

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MALIBRAN—PARIS AT MIDNIGHT—A MOB, ETC.

Our beautiful and favorite Malibran is playing in Paris this winter. I saw her last night in Desdemona. The other theatres are so attractive, between Taglioni, Robert le Diable (the new opera), Leontine Fay, and the political pieces constantly coming out, that I had not before visited the Italian opera. Madame Malibran is every way changed. She sings, unquestionably, better than when in America. Her voice is firmer, and more under control, but it has lost that gushing wildness, that brilliant daringness of execution, that made her singing upon our boards so indescribably exciting and delightful. Her person is perhaps still more changed. The round, graceful fulness of her limbs and features has yielded to a half-haggard look of care and exhaustion, and I could not but think that there was more than Desdemona's fictitious wretchedness in the expression of her face. Still, her forehead and eyes have a beauty that is not readily lost, and she will be a strikingly interesting, and even splendid creature, as long as she can play. Her acting was extremely impassioned; and in the more powerful passages of her part, she exceeded everything I had conceived of the capacity of the human voice for pathos and melody. The house was crowded, and the applause was frequent and universal.

Madame Malibran, as you probably know, is divorced from the man whose name she bears, and has married a violinist of the Italian orchestra. She is just now in a state of health that will require immediate retirement from the stage, and, indeed, has played already too long. She came forward after the curtain dropped, in answer to the continual demand of the audience, leaning heavily on Rubini, and was evidently so exhausted as to be scarcely able to stand. She made a single gesture, and was led off immediately, with her head drooping on her breast, amid the most violent acclamations. She is a perfect passion with the French, and seems to have out-charmed their usual caprice.

It was a lovely night, and after the opera I walked home. I reside a long distance from the places of public amusement. Dr. Howe and myself had stopped at a café on the Italian Boulevards an hour, and it was very late. The streets were nearly deserted—here and there a solitary cabriolet with the driver asleep under his wooden apron, or the motionless figure of a municipal guardsman, dozing upon his horse, with his helmet and brazen armor glistening in the light of the lamps. Nothing has impressed me more, by the way, than a body of these men passing me in the night. I have once or twice met the King returning from the theatre with a guard, and I saw them once at midnight on an extraordinary patrol winding through the arch into the Place Carrousel. Their equipments are exceedingly warlike (helmets of brass, and coats of mail), and, with the gleam of the breast-plates through their horsemen's cloaks, the tramp of hoofs echoing through the deserted streets, and the silence and order of their march, it was quite a realization of the descriptions of chivalry.

We kept along the Boulevards to the Rue Richelieu. A carriage, with footmen in livery, had just driven up to Frascati's, and, as we passed, a young man of uncommon personal beauty jumped out and entered that palace of gamblers. By his dress he was just from a ball, and the necessity of excitement after a scene meant to be so gay, was an obvious if not a fair satire on the happiness of the "gay" circle in which he evidently moved. We turned down the Passage Panorama, perhaps the most crowded thoroughfare in all Paris, and traversed its long gallery without meeting a soul. The widely-celebrated patisserie of Felix, the first pastry-cook in the world, was the only shop open from one extremity to the other. The guard, in his gray capote, stood looking in at the window, and the girl, who had served the palates of half the fashion and rank of Paris since morning, sat nodding fast asleep behind the counter, paying the usual fatiguing penalty of notoriety. The clock struck two as we passed the façade of the Bourse. This beautiful and central square is, night and day, the grand rendezvous of public vice; and late as the hour was, its pavé was still thronged with flaunting and painted women of the lowest description, promenading without cloaks or bonnets, and addressing every passer-by.

The Palais Royal lay in our way, just below the Bourse, and we entered its magnificent court with an exclamation of new pleasure. Its thousand lamps were all burning brilliantly, the long avenues of trees were enveloped in a golden atmosphere created by the bright radiation of light through the mist, the Corinthian pillars and arches retreated on either side from the eye in distinct and yet mellow perspective, the fountain filled the whole palace with its rich murmur, and the broad marble-paved galleries, so thronged by day, were as silent and deserted as if the drowsy gens d'armes standing motionless on their posts were the only living beings that inhabited it. It was a scene really of indescribable impressiveness. No one who has not seen this splendid palace, enclosing with its vast colonnades so much that is magnificent, can have an idea of its effect upon the imagination. I had seen it hitherto only when crowded with the gay and noisy idlers of Paris, and the contrast of this with the utter solitude it now presented—not a single footfall to be heard on its floors, yet every lamp burning bright, and the statues and flowers and fountains all illuminated as if for a revel—was one of the most powerful and captivating that I have ever witnessed. We loitered slowly down one of the long galleries, and it seemed to me more like some creation of enchantment than the public haunt it is of pleasure and merchandise. A single figure, wrapped in a cloak, passed hastily by us and entered the door to one of the celebrated "hells," in which the playing scarce commences till this hour—but we met no other human being.

We passed on from the grand court to the Galerie Nemours. This, as you may find in the descriptions, is a vast hall, standing between the east and west courts of the Palais Royal. It is sometimes called the "glass gallery." The roof is of glass, and the shops, with fronts entirely of windows, are separated only by long mirrors, reaching in the shape of pillars from the roof to the floor. The pavement is tesselated, and at either end stand two columns completing its form, and dividing it from the other galleries into which it opens. The shops are among the costliest in Paris; and what with the vast proportions of the hall, its beautiful and glistening material, and the lightness and grace of its architecture, it is, even when deserted, one of the most fairy-like places in this fantastic city. It is the lounging place of military men particularly; and every evening from six to midnight, it is thronged by every class of gayly dressed people, officers off duty, soldiers, polytechnic scholars, ladies, and strangers of every costume and complexion, promenading to and fro in the light of the cafés and the dazzling shops, sheltered completely from the weather, and enjoying, without expense or ceremony, a scene more brilliant than the most splendid ball-room in Paris. We lounged up and down the long echoing pavement an hour. It was like some kingly "banquet hall deserted." The lamps burned dazzlingly bright, the mirrors multiplied our figures into shadowy and silent attendants, and our voices echoed from the glittering roof in the utter stillness of the hour, as if we had broken in, Thalaba-like, upon some magical palace of silence.

It is singular how much the differences of time and weather affect scenery. The first sunshine I saw in Paris, unsettled all my previous impressions completely. I had seen every place of interest through the dull heavy atmosphere of a week's rain, and it was in such leaden colors alone that the finer squares and palaces had become familiar to me. The effect of a clear sun upon them was wonderful. The sudden gilding of the dome of the Invalides by Napoleon must have been something like it. I took advantage of it to see everything over again, and it seemed to me like another city. I never realized so forcibly the beauty of sunshine. Architecture, particularly, is nothing without it. Everything looks heavy and flat. The tracery of the windows and relievos, meant to be definite and airy, appears clumsy and confused, and the whole building flattens into a solid mass, without design or beauty.

I have spent the whole day in a Paris mob. The arrival of General Romarino and some of his companions from Warsaw, gave the malcontents a plausible opportunity of expressing their dislike to the measures of government; and, under cover of a public welcome to this distinguished Pole, they assembled in immense numbers at the Port St. Denis, and on the Boulevard Montmartre. It was very exciting altogether. The cavalry were out, and patroled the streets in companies, charging upon the crowd wherever there was a stand; the troops of the line marched up and down the Boulevards, continually dividing the masses of people, and forbidding any one to stand still. The shops were all shut, in anticipation of an affray. The students endeavored to cluster, and resisted, as far as they dared, the orders of the soldiery; and from noon till night there was every prospect of a quarrel. The French are a fine people under excitement. Their handsome and ordinarily heartless faces become very expressive under the stronger emotions; and their picturesque dresses and violent gesticulation, set off a popular tumult exceedingly. I have been highly amused all day, and have learned a great deal of what it is very difficult for a foreigner to acquire—the language of French passion. They express themselves very forcibly when angry. The constant irritation kept up by the intrusion of the cavalry upon the sidewalks, and the rough manner of dispersing gentlemen by sabre-blows and kicks with the stirrup, gave me sufficient opportunity of judging. I was astonished, however, that their summary mode of proceeding was borne at all. It is difficult to mix in such a vast body, and not catch its spirit, and I found myself, without knowing why, or rather with a full conviction that the military measures were necessary and right, entering with all my heart into the rebellious movements of the students, and boiling with indignation at every dispersion by force. The students of Paris are probably the worst subjects the king has. They are mostly young men of from twenty to twenty-five, full of bodily vigor and enthusiasm, and excitable to the last degree. Many of them are Germans, and no small proportion Americans. They make a good amalgam for a mob, dress being the last consideration, apparently, with a medical or law student in Paris. I never saw such a collection of atrocious-looking fellows as are to be met at the lectures. The polytechnic scholars, on the other hand, are the finest-looking body of young men I ever saw. Aside from their uniform, which is remarkably neat and beautiful, their figures and faces seem picked for spirit and manliness. They have always a distinguished air in a crowd, and it is easy, after seeing them, to imagine the part they played as leaders in the revolution of the three days.

Contrary to my expectation, night came on without any serious encounter. One or two individuals attempted to resist the authority of the troops, and were considerably bruised; and one young man, a student, had three of his fingers cut off by the stroke of a dragoon's sabre. Several were arrested, but by eight o'clock all was quiet, and the shops on the Boulevards once more exposed their tempting goods, and lit up their brilliant mirrors without fear. The people thronged to the theatres to see the political pieces, and evaporate their excitement in cheers at the liberal allusions; and so ends a tumult that threatened danger, but operated, perhaps, as a healthful vent for the accumulating disorders of public opinion.