University of Virginia Library

8. LETTER VIII.

I have met Dr. Bowring in Paris, and called upon
him to-day with Mr. Morse, by appointment. The
translator of the “Ode to the Deity” (from the Russian
of Derzzhavin) could not by any accident be an
ordinary man, and I anticipated great pleasure in his
society. He received us at his lodgings in the Place
Vendome. I was every way pleased with him. His
knowledge of our country and its literature surprised
me, and I could not but be gratified with the unprejudiced
and well-informed interest with which he discoursed
on our government and institutions. He expressed
great pleasure at having seen his ode in one
of our schoolbooks (Pierpont's Reader, I think), and
assured us that the promise to himself of a visit to
America was one of his brightest anticipations. This
is not at all an uncommon feeling, by the way, among
the men of talent in Paris; and I am pleasingly surprised,
everywhere, with the enthusiastic hopes expressed
for the success of our experiment in liberal
principles. Dr. Bowring is a slender man, a little
above the middle height, with a keen, inquisitive expression
of countenance, and a good forehead, from
which the hair is combed straight back all round, in
the style of the Cameronians. His manner is all life,
and his motion and gesture nervously sudden and angular.
He talks rapidly, but clearly, and uses beautiful
language—concise, and full of select expressions
and vivid figures. His conversation in this particular
was a constant surprise. He gave us a great deal of
information, and when we parted, inquired my route
of travel, and offered me letters to his friends, with a
cordiality very unusual on this side the Atlantic.

It is a cold but common rule with travellers in
Europe to avoid the society of their own countrymen.
In a city like Paris, where time and money
are both so valuable, every additional acquaintance,
pursued either for etiquette or intimacy, is felt, and
one very soon learns to prefer his advantage to any
tendency of his sympathies. The infractions upon
the rule, however, are very delightful, and at the general
reunion at our ambassador's on Wednesday evening,
or an occasional one at Lafayette's, the look of
pleasure and relief at beholding familiar faces, and
hearing a familiar language once more, is universal.
I have enjoyed this morning the double happiness of
meeting an American circle, around an American
breakfast. Mr. Cooper had invited us (Morse, the
artist, Dr. Howe, a gentleman of the navy, and myself).
Mr. C. lives with great hospitality, and in all
the comfort of American habits; and to find him, as
he is always found, with his large family about him,
is to get quite back to the atmosphere of our country.
The two or three hours we passed at his table were,
of course, delightful. It should endear Mr. Cooper
to the hearts of his countrymen, that he devotes all his
influence, and no inconsiderable portion of his large
income, to the encouragement of American artists. It
would be natural enough, after being so long abroad,
to feel or affect a preference for the works of foreigners;
but in this, as in his political opinions, most decidedly,
he is eminently patriotic. We feel this in
Europe, where we discern more clearly by comparison
the poverty of our country in the arts, and meet, at the
same time, American artists of the first talent, without
a single commission from home for original works,

copying constantly for support. One of Mr. Cooper's
purchases, the “Cherubs,” by Greenough, has been
sent to the United States, and its merit was at once
acknowledged. It was done, however (the artist, who
is here, informs me), under every disadvantage of feeling
and circumstances; and, from what I have seen
and am told by others of Mr. Greenough, it is, I am
confident, however beautiful, anything but a fair specimen
of his powers. His peculiar taste lies in a
bolder range, and he needs only a commission from
government to execute a work which will begin the
art of sculpture nobly in our country.

My curiosity led me into a strange scene to-day. I
had observed for some time among the affichés upon
the walls an advertisement of an exhibition of “fighting
animals,” at the Barriere du Combat. I am disposed
to see almost any sight once, particularly where
it is, like this, a regular establishment, and, of course,
an exponent of the popular taste. The place of the
“Combats des Animaux,” is in one of the most obscure
suburbs, outside the walls, and I found it with
difficulty. After wandering about in dirty lanes for
an hour or two, inquiring for it in vain, the cries of the
animals directed me to a walled place, separated from
the other houses of the suburb, at the gate of which a
man was blowing a trumpet. I purchased a ticket of
an old woman, who sat shivering in the porter's lodge;
and, finding I was an hour too early for the fights, I
made interest with a savage-looking fellow, who was
carrying in tainted meat, to see the interior of the establishment.
I followed him through a side gate, and
we passed into a narrow alley, lined with stone kennels,
to each of which was confined a powerful dog,
with just length of chain enough to prevent him from
reaching the tenant of the opposite hole. There were
several of these alleys, containing, I should think, two
hundred dogs in all. They were of every breed of
strength and ferocity, and all of them perfectly frantic
with rage or hunger, with the exception of a pair of
noble-looking black dogs, who stood calmly at the
mouths of their kennels: the rest struggled and howled
incessantly, straining every muscle to reach us, and
resuming their fierceness toward each other when we
had passed by. They all bore, more or less, the
marks of severe battles; one or two with their noses
split open, and still unhealed; several with their necks
bleeding and raw, and galled constantly with the iron
collar, and many with broken legs, but all apparently
so excited as to be insensible to suffering. After following
my guide very unwillingly through the several
alleys, deafened with the barking and howling of the
savage occupants, I was taken to the department of
wild animals. Here were all the tenants of the menagerie,
kept in dens, opening by iron doors upon the
pit in which they fought. Like the dogs, they were
terribly wounded; one of the bears especially, whose
mouth was torn all off from his jaws, leaving his teeth
perfectly exposed, and red with the continually exuding
blood. In one of the dens lay a beautiful deer,
with one of his haunches severely mangled, who, the
man told me, had been hunted round the pit by the
dogs but a day or two before. He looked up at us,
with his large soft eye, as we passed, and lying on the
damp stone floor, with his undressed wounds festering
in the chilly atmosphere of mid-winter: he presented
a picture of suffering which made me ashamed to the
soul of my idle curiosity.

The spectators began to collect, and the pit was
cleared. Two thirds of those in the amphitheatre
were Englishmen, most of whom were amateurs, who
had brought dogs of their own to pit against the regular
mastiffs of the establishment. These were despatched
first. A strange dog was brought in by the
collar, and loosed in the arena, and a trained dog let
in upon him. It was a cruel business. The sleek,
well-fed, good-natured animal was no match for the
exasperated, hungry savage, he was compelled to encounter.
One minute, in all the joy of a release from
his chain, bounding about the pit, and fawning upon
his master, and the next attacked by a furious mastiff,
who was taught to fasten on him at the first onset in a
way that deprived him at once of his strength; it was
but a murderous exhibition of cruelty. The combats
between two of the trained dogs, however, were more
equal. These succeeded to the private contests, and
were much more severe and bloody. There was a
small terrier among them, who disabled several dogs
successively, by catching at their fore-legs, and breaking
them instantly with a powerful jerk of his body
I was very much interested in one of the private dogs,
a large yellow animal, of a noble expression of countenance,
who fought several times very unwillingly,
but always gallantly and victoriously. There was a
majesty about him, which seemed to awe his antagonists.
He was carried off in his master's arms, bleeding
and exhausted, after severely punishing the best
dogs of the establishment.

The baiting of the wild animals succeeded the canine
combats. Several dogs (Irish, I was told), of a
size and ferocity such as I had never before seen,
were brought in, and held in the leash opposite the
den of the bear whose head was so dreadfully mangled.

The door was then opened by the keeper, but poor
bruin shrunk from the contest. The dogs became
unmanageable at the sight of him, however, and fastening
a chain to his collar, they drew him out by
main force, and immediately closed the grating. He
fought gallantly, and gave more wounds than he received,
for his shaggy coat protected his body effectually.
The keepers rushed in and beat off the dogs,
when they had nearly finished peeling the remaining
flesh from his head; and the poor creature, perfectly
blind and mad with pain, was dragged into his den
again, to await another day of amusement!

I will not disgust you with more of these details.
They fought several foxes and wolves afterward, and
last of all, one of the small donkeys of the country, a
creature not so large as some of the dogs, was led in,
and the mastiffs loosed upon her. The pity and indignation
I felt at first at the cruelty of baiting so unwarlike
an animal, I soon found was quite unnecessary.
She was the severest opponent the dogs had yet
found. She went round the arena at full gallop, with
a dozen savage animals springing at her throat, but
she struck right and left with her fore-legs, and at
every kick with her heels threw one of them clear
across the pit. One or two were left motionless on
the field, and others carried off with their ribs kicked
in, and their legs broken, while their inglorious antagonist
escaped almost unhurt. One of the mastiffs
fastened on her ear and threw her down, in the beginning
of the chase, but she apparently received no other
injury.

I had remained till the close of the exhibition with
some violence to my feelings, and I was very glad to
get away. Nothing would tempt me to expose myself
to a similar disgust again. How the intelligent and
gentlemanly Englishmen whom I saw there, and whom
I have since met in the most refined society of Paris,
can make themselves familiar, as they evidently were,
with a scene so brutal, I can not very well conceive.