University of Virginia Library

5. THE
VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

5. THE
VILLAGE OF AUTEUIL.

The sultry heat of summer always brings
with it, to the idler and the man of leisure, a
longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance
of the country. It is pleasant to interchange
the din of the city,—the movement of
the crowd,—and the gossip of society, with the
silence of the hamlet,—the quiet seclusion of
the grove, and the gossip of a woodland brook.
As is sung in the old ballad of Robin Hood,

It was a feeling of this kind, that prompted
me during my residence in the north of France
to pass one of the summer months at Auteuil
—the pleasantest of the many little villages
that lie in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis.
It is situated on the outskirts of the
Bois de Boulogne—a wood of some extent, in
whose green alleys the dusty cit enjoys the luxury
of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in
the morning to give each other satisfaction in
the usual way. A cross road, skirted with
green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall
poplars, leads you from the noisy highway of
St. Cloud and Versailles to the still retirement
of this suburban hamlet. On either side, the
eye discovers old chateaux amid the trees, and
green parks, whose pleasant shades recall a
thousand images of La Fontaine, Racine, and
Molière; and on an eminence overlooking the

windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful
though distant view of the domes and gardens
of Paris, rises the village of Passy, long the
residence of our countrymen Franklin and
Count Rumford.

I took up my abode at a Maison de Santé;
not that I was a valetudinarian,—but because
I there found some one to whom I could whisper,
`How sweet is solitude!' Behind the
house was a garden filled with fruit trees of
various kinds, and adorned with gravel walks,
and green arbors, furnished with tables and
rustic seats, for the repose of the invalid and
the sleep of the indolent. Here the inmates of
the rural hospital met on common ground, to
breathe the invigorating air of morning, and
while away the lazy noon or vacant evening
with tales of the sick chamber.

The establishment was kept by Dr. Dent-de-lion,
a dried up little fellow, with red hair,
a sandy complexion, and the physiognomy and
gestures of a monkey. His character corresponded
to his outward lineaments; for he had
all a monkey's busy and curious impertinence.
Nevertheless, such as he was, the village Æsculapius

strutted forth the little great man of
Auteuil. The peasants looked up to him as
to an oracle,—he contrived to be at the head
of every thing, and laid claim to the credit
of all public improvements in the village:—in
fine he was a great man on a small scale.

It was within the dingy walls of this little
potentate's imperial palace, that I chose my
country residence. I had a chamber in the
second story, with a solitary window, which
looked upon the street, and gave me a peep
into a neighbor's garden. This I esteemed
a great privilege; for, as a stranger, I desired
to see all that was passing out of doors,
and the sight of green trees, though growing
on another man's ground, is always a blessing.
Within doors,—had I been disposed to quarrel
with my household gods,—I might have taken
some objection to my neighborhood; for on
one side of me was a consumptive patient,
whose grave-yard cough drove me from my
chamber by day,—and on the other, an English
Colonel, whose incoherent ravings, in the delirium
of a high and obstinate fever, often broke
my slumbers by night. But I found ample

amends for these inconveniences in the society
of those, who were so little indisposed as hardly
to know what ailed them, and those, who in
health themselves, had accompanied a friend or
relative to the shades of the country in pursuit
of it. To these I am indebted for much courtesy;
and particularly to one, who, if these
pages should ever meet her eye, will not, I
hope, be unwilling to accept this slight memorial
of a former friendship.

It was, however, to the Bois de Boulogne,
that I looked for my principal recreation.
There I took my solitary walk, morning and
evening; or, mounted on a little mouse-colored
donkey, paced demurely along the woodland
pathway. I had a favorite seat beneath the
shadow of a venerable oak, one of the few
hoary patriarchs of the wood, which had survived
the bivouacs of the Allied Armies. It
stood upon the brink of a little glassy pool,
whose tranquil bosom was the image of a quiet
and secluded life, and stretched its parental
arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed
beneath it, for the accommodation of
the foot-traveller, or, perchance, some idle

dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round
with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain,
whose stillness was no longer broken by
the tap of the martial drum, nor the discordant
clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered
among its branches, it seemed to be holding
friendly colloquies with a few of its venerable
cotemporaries, who stooped from the opposite
bank of the pool, nodding gravely now and
then, and ogling themselves with a sigh in the
mirror below.

In this quiet haunt of rural repose, I used
to sit at noon,—hear the birds sing, and “possess
myself in much quietness.” Just at my
feet lay the little silver pool, with the sky and
the woods painted in its mimic vault, and occasionally
the image of a bird, or the soft watery
outline of a cloud, floating silently through its
sunny hollows. The water-lily spread its broad
green leaves on the surface, and rocked to
sleep a little world of insect life in its golden
cradle. Sometimes a wandering leaf came
floating and wavering downward, and settled
on the water; then a vagabond insect would
break the smooth surface into a thousand ripples,

or a green-coated frog slide from the
bank, and plump!—dive headlong to the bottom.

I entered, too, with some enthusiasm into
all the rural sports and merrimakes of the village.
The holidays were so many little eras
of mirth and good feeling; for the French
have that happy and sunshine temperament—
that merry-go-mad character,—which makes
all their social meetings scenes of enjoyment
and hilarity. I made it a point never to miss
any of the Fêtes Champêtres, or rural dances,
at the wood of Boulogne; though I confess it
sometimes gave me a momentary uneasiness to
see my rustic throne beneath the oak usurped
by a noisy group of girls, the silence and decorum
of my imaginary realm broken by music
and laughter, and, in a word, my whole kingdom
turned topsyturvy, with romping, fiddling,
and dancing. But I am naturally, and from
principle too, a lover of all those innocent
amusements, which cheer the laborer's toil,
and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel
of life, and help the poor man along with his
load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight

the rustic swain astride the wooden horse
of the carrousel, and the village maiden whirling
round and round in its dizzy car; or took
my stand on a rising ground that overlooked
the dance, an idle spectator in a busy throng.
It was just where the village touched the outward
border of the wood. There a little area
had been levelled beneath the trees, surrounded
by a painted rail, with a row of benches
inside. The music was placed in a slight
balcony, built around the trunk of a large tree
in the centre, and the lamps, hanging from the
branches above, gave a gay, fantastic and fairy
look to the scene. How often in such moments
did I recall the lines of Goldsmith, describing
those “kinder skies,” beneath which
“France displays her bright domain,” and feel
how true and masterly the sketch—

Nor must I forget to mention the Fête Patronale,—
a kind of annual fair, which is held
at mid-summer in honor of the patron saint of

Auteuil. Then the principal street of the village
is filled with booths of every description;
strolling players, and rope-dancers, and jugglers,
and giants, and dwarfs, and wild beasts,
and all kinds of wonderful shows excite the
gaping curiosity of the throng, and in dust,
crowds, and confusion the village rivals the capital
itself. Then the goodly dames of Passy
descend into the village of Auteuil;—then the
brewers of Billancourt, and the tanners of
Sèvres dance lustily under the greenwood tree;
—and then, too, the sturdy fish-mongers of
Brétigny and Saint-Yon regale their fat wives
with an airing in a swing, and their customers
with eels and craw-fish;—or as is more poetically
set forth in an old Christmas Carol,

I found another source of amusement in
observing the various personages that daily
passed and repassed beneath my window. The

character, which most of all arrested my attention,
was a poor blind fiddler, whom I first saw
chaunting a doleful ballad at the door of a small
tavern near the gate of the village. He
wore a brown coat out at elbows, the fragment
of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight
nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below
his calves. A little foraging cap, that had
long since seen its best days, set off an open,
good-humored countenance, bronzed by sun
and wind. He was led about by a brisk middle
aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes;
and a little bare-footed boy, with clear blue
eyes and flaxen hair, held a tattered hat in his
hand, in which he collected eleemosynary sous.
The old fellow had a favorite song, which he
used to sing with great glee to a merry, joyous
air, the burden of which ran “chantons
l'amour et le plaisir!”—let us sing of love
and pleasure. I often thought it would have
been a good lesson for the crabbed and discontented
rich man, to have heard this remnant of
humanity,—poor, blind, and in rags, and dependent
upon casual charity for his daily bread,
singing, in so cheerful a voice, the charms of
existence, and, as it were, fiddling life away
to a merry tune.

I was one morning called to my window by
the sound of rustic music. I looked out, and
beheld a procession of villagers advancing
along the road, attired in gay dresses, and
marching merrily on in the direction of the
church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage
festival. The procession was led by
a long orang-outang of a man, in a straw hat
and white dimity bob-coat, playing on an asthmatic
clarionet, from which he contrived to
blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeaking
off at right angles from his tune, and winding
up with a grand flourish on the guttural
notes. Behind him, led by his little boy,
came the blind fiddler, his honest features
glowing with all the hilarity of a rustic bridal,
and, as he stumbled along, sawing away
upon his fiddle till he made all crack again.
Then came the happy bridegroom, dressed in
his Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay
in his button-hole, and close beside him his
blushing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in
a white robe and slippers, and wearing a

wreath of white roses in her hair. The friends
and relatives brought up the procession; and
a troop of village urchins came shouting along
in the rear, scrambling among themselves for
the largess of sous and sugar-plums, that now
and then issued in large handfuls from the
pockets of a lean man in black, who seemed to
officiate as master of ceremonies on the occasion.
I gazed on the procession till it was out
of sight; and when the last wheeze of the clarionet
died upon my ear, I could not help thinking
how happy were they, who were thus to
dwell together in the peaceful bosom of their
native village, far from the gilded misery and
the pestilential vices of the town.

On the evening of the same day, I was sitting
by the window, enjoying the freshness of
the air, and the beauty and stillness of the
hour, when I heard the distant and solemn
hymn of the Catholic burial service, at first so
faintly and indistinct that it seemed an illusion.
It rose mournfully on the hush of evening,—
died gradually away,—then ceased. Then it
rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon
after a funeral procession appeared, and passed

directly beneath my window. It was led by a
priest, bearing the banner of the church, and
followed by two boys, holding long flambeaux
in their hands. Next came a double file of
priests in white surplices, with a missal in one
hand and a lighted wax taper in the other,
chaunting the funeral dirge at intervals,—now
pausing, and then again taking up the mournful
burden of their lamentation, accompanied
by others, who played upon a rude kind of
horn, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then
followed various symbols of the church, and
the bier, borne on the shoulders of four men.
The coffin was covered with a black velvet pall,
and a chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating
that the deceased was unmarried. A
few of the villagers came behind, clad in
mourning robes, and bearing lighted tapers.
The procession passed slowly along the same
street, that in the morning had been thronged
by the gay bridal company. A melancholy
train of thought forced itself home upon my
mind. The joys and sorrows of this world are
so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief
are brought so mournfully in contact! We
laugh while others weep,—and others rejoice
when we are sad! The light heart and the
heavy walk side by side, and go about together!
Beneath the same roof are spread the
wedding feast and the funeral pall! The bridal
song mingles with the burial hymn! One goes
to the marriage bed; another to the grave;
and all is mutable, uncertain and transitory!

It is with sensations of pure delight, that I
recur to the brief period of my existence, which
was passed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil.
There is one kind of wisdom, which we learn
from the world, and another kind, which can
be acquired in solitude only. In cities we
study those around us; but in the retirement of
the country we learn to know ourselves. The
voice within us is more distinctly audible in
the stillness of the place; and the gentler affections
of our nature spring up more freshly in
its tranquillity and sunshine,—nurtured by the
healthy principle, which we inhale with the
pure air, and invigorated by the genial influences,
which descend into the heart from the
quiet of the sylvan solitude around, and the
soft serenity of the sky above.