Читать книгу The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861 - Various - Страница 1

After General Lafayette's visit to the United States, in 1824, every American who went to France went with a firm conviction that he had a right to take as much as he chose of the old gentleman's time and hospitality, at his own estimate of their value. Fortunately, the number of travellers was not great in those days, although a week seldom passed without bringing two or three new faces to the Rue d'Anjou or La Grange. It was well both for the purse and the patience of the kind-hearted old man that ocean steamers were still a doubtful problem, and first-class packets rarely over five hundred tons.

It could hardly be expected that a boy of sixteen should have more discretion than his elders; and following the universal example of my countrymen, the first use that I made of a Parisian cabriolet was to drive to No. 6, Rue d'Anjou. The porte cochère was open, and the porter in his lodge,—a brisk little Frenchman, somewhat past middle age, with just bows enough to prove his nationality, and very expressive gestures, which I understood much better than I did his words; for they said, or seemed to say,—"The General is out, and I will take charge of your letter and card." There was nothing else for me to do, and so, handing over my credentials, I gave the rest of the morning to sightseeing, and, being a novice at it and alone, soon got tired and returned to my hotel.

I don't know how that hotel would look to me now; but to my untrained eyes of that day it looked wonderfully fine. I liked the name,—the Petit Hôtel Montmorenci,—for I knew enough of French history to know that Montmorenci had always been a great name in France. Then it was the favorite resort of Americans; and although I was learning the phrases in Blagdon as fast as I could, I still found English by far the most agreeable means of communication for everything beyond an appeal to the waiter for more wood or a clean towel. Table d'Hôte, too, brought us all together, with an abundant, if not a rich, harvest of personal experiences gathered during the day from every quarter of the teeming city. Bradford was there with his handsome face and fine figure,—an old resident, as it then seemed to me; for he had been abroad two years, and could speak what sounded to my ears as French-like as any French I had ever heard. Poor fellow! scarce three years had passed when he laid him down to his last sleep in a convent of Jerusalem, without a friend to smooth his pillow or listen to his last wishes. Of most of the others the names have escaped me; but I shall never forget how wide I opened my eyes, one evening, at the assertion of a new-comer, that he had done more for the enlightenment of France than any man living or dead. The incomparable gravity with which the assertion was made drew every eye to the speaker, who, after enjoying our astonishment for a while, told us that he had been the first to send out a whaler from Havre, and had secured almost a monopoly of the oil-trade. Some years afterwards I made a passage with his brother, and learned from him the history of this Yankee enterprise, which had filled two capacious purses, and substituted the harpoon for the pruning-knife, the whale-ship for the olive-orchard, in the very stronghold of the emblem of peace; and now the collier with his pickaxe has driven them both from the field. But the Petit Hotel Montmorenci did not wait for the change. Its broad court was never enlivened by gas. Its tables and mantels were decked to the last hour with the alabaster whiteness of those pure wax tapers which shed such a soft light upon your book, and grew up into such formidable items in your bills. A long passage—one of those luxuries of rainy, muddy Paris, lined with stores that you cannot help lingering over, if for nothing else, to wonder at the fertility of the human brain when it makes itself the willing minister of human caprice—covers the whole space which the hotel stood on, and unites the Neuve St. Marc with the once distant Boulevard.

As I passed the porter's lodge, he handed me a letter. The hand was one that I had never seen before; the address was in French; and the seal, red wax thinly spread, but something which had been put on it before it was cool had entirely effaced the impress: as I afterwards learned, it was the profile of Washington. I opened it, and judge my surprise and delight on reading the following words:—

"Paris, Thursday.

"I am very sorry not to have had the pleasure to see you when you have called this morning, my dear Sir. My stay in town will be short. But you will find me to-morrow from nine in the morning until twelve. I hope we shall see you soon at La Grange, which I beg of you to consider as your home, being that of your grandfather's most intimate friend and brother-in-arms.