University of Virginia Library

18. LETTER XVIII.

Cholera! Cholera! It is now the only topic.
There is no other interest — no other dread — no
other occupation, for Paris. The invitations for
parties are at last recalled — the theatres are at last
shut or languishing — the fearless are beginning to be
afraid — people walk the streets with camphor bags
and vinaigrettes at their nostrils — there is a universal
terror in all classes, and a general flight of all who
can afford to get away. I never saw a people so engrossed
with one single and constant thought. The
waiter brought my breakfast this morning with a pale
face, and an apprehensive question, whether I was
quite well. I sent to my boot-maker yesterday, and
he was dead. I called on a friend, a Hanoverian, one
of those broad-chested, florid, immortal-looking men,
of whose health for fifty years, violence apart, one is
absolutely certain, and he was at death's door with the
cholera. Poor fellow! He had fought all through
the revolution in Greece; he had slept in rain and
cold, under the open sky, many a night, through a ten
years' pursuit of the profession of a soldier of fortune,
living one of the most remarkable lives, hitherto, of
which I ever heard, and to be taken down here in the
midst of ease and pleasure, reduced to a shadow with
so vulgar and unwarlike a disease as this, was quite too
much for his philosophy. He had been ill three days
when I found him. He was emaciated to a skeleton
in that short time, weak and helpless, and, though he
is not a man to exaggerate suffering, he said he never
had conceived such intense agony as he had endured.
He assured me, that if he recovered, and should ever
be attacked with it again, he would blow out his brains
at the first symptom. Nothing but his iron constitution
protracted the disorder. Most people who are
attacked die in from three to twenty-four hours.

For myself, I have felt and still feel quite safe. My
rooms are in the airiest quarter of Paris, facing the
gardens of the Tuileries, with windows overlooking
the king's; and, as far as air is concerned, if his majesty
considers himself well situated, it would be quite
ridiculous in so insignificant a person as myself to be
alarmed. With absolute health, confident spirits, and
tolerably regular habits, I have usually thought one
may defy almost anything but love or a bullet. To-day,
however, there have been, they say, two cases
within the palace-walls, members of the royal household,
and Casimir Perier, who probably lives well and
has enough to occupy his mind, is very low with it,
and one cannot help feeling that he has no certain exemption,
when a disease has touched both above and
below him. I went to-day to the messagerie to engage
my place for Marseilles, on the way to Italy, but
the seats are all taken, in both mail-post and diligence,
for a fortnight to come, and, as there are no
extras in France, one must wait his turn. Having
done my duty to myself by the inquiry, I shall be content
to remain quiet.

I have just returned from a social tea-party at a
house of one of the few English families left in Paris.
It is but a little after ten, and the streets, as I came
along, were as deserted and still as if it were a city of
the dead. Usually, until four or five in the morning,
the same streets are thronged with carriages hurrying
to and fro, and always till midnight the trottoirs are
crowded with promenaders. To-night I scarce met a
foot-passenger, and but one solitary cabriolet in a walk
of a mile. The contrast was really impressive. The
moon was nearly full, and high in the heavens, and
the sky absolutely without a trace of a cloud; nothing
interrupted the full broad light of the moon, and the
empty streets were almost as bright as at noon-day;
and, as I crossed the Place Vendome, I could hear, for
the first time since I have been in Paris, though I
have passed it at every hour of the night, the echo of
my footsteps reverberated from the walls around. You
should have been in these crowded cities of Europe to
realize the impressive solemnity of such solitude.

It is said that fifty thousand people have left Paris
within the past week. Adding this to the thousand a
day who are struck with the cholera, and the attendance
necessary to the sick, and a thinned population
is sufficiently accounted for. There are, however,
hundreds ill of this frightful disease, whose cases are
not reported. It is only those who are taken to the
hospitals, the poor and destitute, who are numbered in
the official statements. The physicians are wearied
out with their private practice. The medical lectures
are suspended, and a regular physician is hardly to be
had at all. There is scarce a house in which some
one has not been taken. You see biers and litters
issuing from almost every gate, and the better ranks
are no longer spared. A sister of the premier, M.
Perier, died yesterday; and it was reported at the
Bourse, that several distinguished persons, who have
been ill of it, are also dead. No one feels safe; and
the consternation and dread on every countenance you
meet, is enough to chill one's very blood. I went out
to-day for a little exercise, not feeling very well, and I
was glad to get home again. Every creature looks
stricken with a mortal fear. And this among a French
population, the gayest and merriest of people under
all depressions ordinarily, is too strong a contrast not
to be felt painfully. There is something singular in
the air, too; a disagreeable, depressing dryness, which
the physicians say must change, or all Paris will be
struck with the plague. It is clear and cold, but almost
suffocating with dryness.

It is very consoling in the midst of so much that is
depressing, that the preventives recommended against
the cholera are so agreeable. “Live well,” say the
doctors, “and bathe often. Abstain from excesses,
keep a clear head and good spirits, and amuse yourself
as much and as rationally as possible.” It is a
very excellent recipe for happiness, let alone the cholera.
There is great room for a nice observance of this
system in Paris, particularly the eating and bathing.
The baths are delightful. You are received in handsome
saloons, opening upon a garden in the centre of
the building, ornamented with statues and fountains,
the journals lying upon the sofas, and everything arranged
with quite the luxury of a palace. The bathing-rooms
are furnished with taste; the baths are of
marble, and covered inside with spotlessly white linen
cloths; the water is perfumed, and you may lie and
take your coffee, or have your breakfast served upon
the mahogany cover which shuts you in — a union of
luxuries which is enough to enervate a cynic. When
you are ready to come out, a pull of the bell brings a
servant, who gives you a peignoir — a long linen wrapper,
heated in an oven, in the warm folds of which you
are enveloped, and in three minutes are quite dry. In
this you may sit, at your ease, reading, or musing, or
lie upon the sofa without the restraint of a tight dress,
till you are ready to depart; and then four or five
francs, something less than a dollar, pays for all.