Читать книгу Pencillings by the Way - Nathaniel Parker Willis - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Paris.—It seems to me as if I were going back a month to recall my departure from Havre, my memory is so clouded with later incidents. I was awaked on the morning after I had written to you, by a servant, who brought me at the same time a cup of coffee, and at about an hour before daylight we were passing through the huge gates of the town on our way to Paris. The whole business of diligence-travelling amused me exceedingly. The construction of this vehicle has often been described; but its separate apartments (at four different prices), its enormous size, its comfort and clumsiness, and, more than all, the driving of its postillions, struck me as equally novel and diverting. This last mentioned performer on the whip and voice (the only two accomplishments he at all cultivates), rides one of the three wheel horses, and drives the four or seven which are in advance, as a grazier in our country drives a herd of cattle, and they travel very much in the same manner. There is leather enough in two of their clumsy harnesses, to say nothing of the postillion's boots, to load a common horse heavily. I never witnessed such a ludicrous absence of contrivance and tact as in the appointments and driving of horses in a diligence. It is so in everything in France, indeed. They do not possess the quality as a nation. The story of the Gascoigne, who saw a bridge for the first time, and admired the ingenious economy that placed it across the river, instead of lengthwise, is hardly an exaggeration.

At daylight I found myself in the coupé (a single seat for three in the front of the body of the carriage, with windows before and at the sides), with two whiskered and mustached companions, both very polite, and very unintelligible. I soon suspected, by the science with which my neighbor on the left hummed little snatches of popular operas, that he was a professed singer (a conjecture which proved true), and it was equally clear, from the complexion of the portfeuille on the lap of the other, that his vocation was a liberal one—a conjecture which proved true also, as he confessed himself a diplomat, when we became better acquainted. For the first hour or more my attention was divided between the dim but beautiful outline of the country by the slowly approaching light of the dawn, and my nervousness at the distressing want of skill in the postillion's driving. The increasing and singular beauty of the country, even under the disadvantage of rain and the late season, soon absorbed all my attention, however, and my involuntary and half-suppressed exclamations of pleasure, so unusual in an Englishman (for whom I found I was taken), warmed the diplomatist into conversation, and I passed the three ensuing hours very pleasantly. My companion was on his return from Lithuania, having been sent out by the French committee with arms and money for Poland. He was, of course, a most interesting fellow-traveller; and, allowing for the difficulty with which I understood the language, in the rapid articulation of an enthusiastic Frenchman, I rarely have been better pleased with a chance acquaintance. I found he had been in Greece during the revolution, and knew intimately my friend, Dr. Howe, the best claim he could have on my interest, and, I soon discovered, an answering recommendation of myself to him.

The province of Normandy is celebrated for its picturesque beauty, but I had no conception before of the cultivated picturesque of an old country. I have been a great scenery-hunter in America, and my eye was new, like its hills and forests. The massive, battlemented buildings of the small villages we passed through, the heavy gateways and winding avenues and antique structure of the distant and half-hidden châteaux, the perfect cultivation, and, to me, singular appearance of a whole landscape without a fence or a stone, the absence of all that we define by comfort and neatness, and the presence of all that we have seen in pictures and read of in books, but consider as the representations and descriptions of ages gone by—all seemed to me irresistibly like a dream. I could not rub my hand over my eyes, and realize myself. I could not believe that, within a month's voyage of my home, these spirit-stirring places had stood all my lifetime as they do, and have—for ages—every stone as it was laid in times of worm-eaten history—and looking to my eyes now as they did to the eyes of knights and dames in the days of French chivalry. I looked at the constantly-occurring ruins of the old priories, and the magnificent and still-used churches, and my blood tingled in my veins, as I saw, in the stepping-stones at their doors, cavities that the sandals of monks, and the iron-shod feet of knights in armor a thousand years ago, had trodden and helped to wear, and the stone cross over the threshold, that hundreds of generations had gazed upon and passed under.

By a fortunate chance the postillion left the usual route at Balbec, and pursued what appeared to be a bye-road through the grain-fields and vineyards for twenty or twenty-five miles. I can only describe it as an uninterrupted green lane, winding almost the whole distance through the bosom of a valley that must be one of the very loveliest in the world. Imagine one of such extent, without a fence to break the broad swells of verdure, stretching up from the winding and unenclosed road on either side, to the apparent sky; the houses occurring at distances of miles, and every one with its thatched roof covered all over with bright green moss, and its walls of marl interlaid through all the crevices with clinging vines, the whole structure and its appurtenances faultlessly picturesque, and, when you have conceived a valley that might have contented Rasselas, scatter over it here and there groups of men, women, and children, the Norman peasantry in their dresses of all colors, as you see them in the prints—and if there is anything that can better please the eye, or make the imagination more willing to fold up its wings and rest, my travels have not crossed it. I have recorded a vow to walk through Normandy.

As we approached Rouen the road ascended gradually, and a sharp turn brought us suddenly to the brow of a steep hill, opposite another of the same height, and with the same abrupt descent, at the distance of a mile across. Between, lay Rouen. I hardly know how to describe, for American eyes, the peculiar beauty of this view; one of the most exquisite, I am told, in all France. A town at the foot of a hill is common enough in our country, but of the hundreds that answer to this description, I can not name one that would afford a correct comparison. The nice and excessive cultivation of the grounds in so old a country gives the landscape a complexion essentially different from ours. If there were another Mount Holyoke, for instance, on the other side of the Connecticut, the situation of Northampton would be very similar to that of Rouen; but, instead of the rural village, with its glimpses of white houses seen through rich and luxurious masses of foliage, the mountain sides above broken with rocks, and studded with the gigantic and untouched relics of the native forest, and the fields below waving with heavy crops, irregularly fenced and divided, the whole picture one of an overlavish and half-subdued Eden of fertility—instead of this I say—the broad meadows, with the winding Seine in their bosom, are as trim as a girl's flower-garden, the grass closely cut, and of a uniform surface of green, the edges of the river set regularly with willows, the little bright islands circled with trees, and smooth as a lawn; and instead of green lanes lined with bushes, single streets running right through the unfenced verdure, from one hill to another, and built up with antique structures of stone—the whole looking, in the coup d'œil of distance, like some fantastic model of a town, with gothic houses of sand-paper, and meadows of silk velvet.

You will find the size, population, etc., of Rouen in the guide-books. As my object is to record impressions, not statistics, I leave you to consult those laconic chronicles, or the books of a thousand travellers, for all such information. The Maid of Orleans was burnt here, as you know, in the fourteenth century. There is a statue erected to her memory, which I did not see, for it rained; and after the usual stop of two hours, as the barometer promised no change in the weather, and as I was anxious to be in Paris, I took my place in the night diligence and kept on.

I amused myself till dark, watching the streams that poured into the broad mouth of the postillion's boots from every part of his dress, and musing on the fate of the poor Maid of Orleans; and then, sinking down into the comfortable corner of the coupé, I slept almost without interruption till the next morning—the best comment in the world on the only comfortable thing I have yet seen in France, a diligence.

It is a pleasant thing in a foreign land to see the familiar face of the sun; and, as he rose over a distant hill on the left, I lifted the window of the coupé to let him in, as I would open the door to a long-missed friend. He soon reached a heavy cloud, however, and my hopes of bright weather, when we should enter the metropolis, departed. It began to rain again; and the postilion, after his blue cotton frock was soaked through, put on his greatcoat over it—an economy which is peculiarly French, and which I observed in every succeeding postilion on the route. The last twenty-five miles to Paris are uninteresting to the eye; and with my own pleasant thoughts, tinct as they were with the brightness of immediate anticipation, and an occasional laugh at the grotesque figures and equipages on the road, I made myself passably contented till I entered the suburb of St. Denis.

It is something to see the outside of a sepulchre for kings, and the old abbey of St. Denis needs no association to make a sight of it worth many a mile of weary travel. I could not stop within four miles of Paris, however, and I contented myself with running to get a second view of it in the rain while the postilion breathed his horses. The strongest association about it, old and magnificent as it is, is the fact that Napoleon repaired it after the revolution; and standing in probably the finest point for its front view, my heart leaped to my throat as I fancied that Napoleon, with his mighty thoughts, had stood in that very spot, possibly, and contemplated the glorious old pile before me as the place of his future repose.

After four miles more, over a broad straight avenue, paved in the centre and edged with trees, we arrived at the port of St. Denis. I was exceedingly struck with the grandeur of the gate as we passed under, and, referring to the guide-book, I find it was a triumphal arch erected to Louis XIV., and the one by which the kings of France invariably enter. This also was restored by Napoleon, with his infallible taste, without changing its design: and it is singular how everything that great man touched became his own—for, who remembers for whom it was raised while he is told who employed his great intellect in its repairs?

I entered Paris on Sunday at eleven o'clock. I never should have recognized the day. The shops were all open, the artificers all at work, the unintelligible criers vociferating their wares, and the people in their working-day dresses. We wound through street after street, narrow and dark and dirty, and with my mind full of the splendid views of squares, and columns, and bridges, as I had seen them in the prints, I could scarce believe I was in Paris. A turn brought us into a large court, that of the Messagerie, the place at which all travellers are set down on arrival. Here my baggage was once more inspected, and, after a half-hour's delay, I was permitted to get into a fiacre, and drive to a hotel. As one is a specimen of all, I may as well describe the Hotel d'Etrangers, Rue Vivienne, which, by the way, I take the liberty at the same time to recommend to my friends. It is the precise centre for the convenience of sight-seeing, admirably kept, and, being nearly opposite Galignani's, that bookstore of Europe, is a very pleasant resort for the half hour before dinner, or a rainy day. I went there at the instance of my friend the diplomat.

The fiacre stopped before an arched passage, and a fellow in livery, who had followed me from the Messagerie (probably in the double character of porter and police agent, as my passport was yet to be demanded), took my trunk into a small office on the left, over which was written "Concierge." This person, who is a kind of respectable doorkeeper, addressed me in broken English, without waiting for the evidence of my tongue, that I was a foreigner, and, after inquiring at what price I would have a room, introduced me to the landlady, who took me across a large court (the houses are built round the yard always in France), to the corresponding story of the house. The room was quite pretty, with its looking-glasses and curtains, but there was no carpet, and the fireplace was ten feet deep. I asked to see another, and another, and another; they were all curtains and looking-glasses, and stone-floors! There is no wearying a French woman, and I pushed my modesty till I found a chamber to my taste—a nutshell, to be sure, but carpeted—and bowing my polite housekeeper out, I rang for breakfast and was at home in Paris.

There are few things bought with money that are more delightful than a French breakfast. If you take it at your room, it appears in the shape of two small vessels, one of coffee and one of hot milk, two kinds of bread, with a thin, printed slice of butter, and one or two of some thirty dishes from which you choose, the latter flavored exquisitely enough to make one wish to be always at breakfast, but cooked and composed I know not how or of what. The coffee has an aroma peculiarly exquisite, something quite different from any I ever tasted before; and the petit-pain, a slender biscuit between bread and cake, is, when crisp and warm, a delightful accompaniment. All this costs about one third as much as the beefsteaks and coffee in America, and at the same time that you are waited upon with a civility that is worth three times the money.

It still rained at noon, and, finding that the usual dinner hour was five, I took my umbrella for a walk. In a strange city I prefer always to stroll about at hazard, coming unawares upon what is fine or curious. The hackneyed descriptions in the guidebooks profane the spirit of a place; I never look at them till after I have found the object, and then only for dates. The Rue Vivienne was crowded with people, as I emerged from the dark archway of the hotel to pursue my wanderings.

A walk of this kind, by the way, shows one a great deal of novelty. In France there are no shop-men. No matter what is the article of trade—hats, boots, pictures, books, jewellery, anything or everything that gentlemen buy—you are waited upon by girls, always handsome, and always dressed in the height of the mode. They sit on damask-covered settees, behind the counters; and, when you enter, bow and rise to serve you, with a grace and a smile of courtesy that would become a drawing-room. And this is universal.

I strolled on until I entered a narrow passage, penetrating a long line of buildings. It was thronged with people, and passing in with the rest, I found myself unexpectedly in a scene that equally surprised and delighted me. It was a spacious square enclosed by one entire building. The area was laid out as a garden, planted with long avenues of trees and beds of flowers, and in the centre a fountain was playing in the shape of a fleur-de-lis, with a jet about forty feet in height. A superb colonnade ran round the whole square, making a covered gallery of the lower story, which was occupied by shops of the most splendid appearance, and thronged through its long sheltered pavès by thousands of gay promenaders. It was the far-famed Palais Royal. I remembered the description I had heard of its gambling houses, and facilities for every vice, and looked with a new surprise on its Aladdin-like magnificence. The hundreds of beautiful pillars, stretching away from the eye in long and distant perspective, the crowd of citizens, and women, and officers in full uniform, passing and re-passing with French liveliness and politeness, the long windows of plated glass glittering with jewellery, and bright with everything to tempt the fancy, the tall sentinels pacing between the columns, and the fountain turning over its clear waters with a fall audible above the tread and voices of the thousands who walked around it—who could look upon such a scene and believe it what it is, the most corrupt spot, probably, on the face of the civilized world?