University of Virginia Library

11. LETTER XI.

I had the pleasure to-day of being introduced to
the young sculptor Foyetiér, the author of the new
statue on the terrace of the Tuileries. Aside from
his genius, he is interesting from a circumstance connected
with his early history. He was a herd-driver
in one of the provinces, and amused himself in his
leisure moments with the carving of rude images,
which he sold for a sous or two on market-days in the
provincial town. The celebrated Dr. Gall fell in with
him accidentally, and felt of his head, en passant. The
bump was there which contains his present greatness,
and the phrenologist took upon himself the risk of his
education in the arts. He is now the first sculptor,
beyond all competition, in France. His “Spartacus,”
the Thracian gladiator, is the admiration of Paris. It
stands in front of the palace, in the most conspicuous
part of the regal gardens, and there are hundreds of
people about the pedestal at all hours of the day.
The gladiator has broken his chain, and stands with
his weapon in his hand, every muscle and feature
breathing action, his body thrown back, and his right
foot planted powerfully for a spring. It is a gallant
thing. One's blood stirs to look at it. I think that
Forrest (however well he may be playing now in the
new tragedy, of which I see so much in the papers),
would get from it even a more intense conception of
the gladiator. If I had written such a play, I would
make the voyage of the Atlantic to see the character
thus bodied out.

Foyetiér is a young man, I should think about thirty.
He is small, very plain in appearance; but he
has a rapid, earnest eye, and a mouth of singular
suavity of expression. I liked him extremely. His
celebrity seems not to have trenched a step on the nature
of his character. His genius is everywhere allowed,
and he works for the king altogether, his majesty
bespeaking everything he attempts, even in the
model; but he is certainly, of all geniuses, one of the
most modest.

The celebrated Mars has come out from her retirement
once more, and commenced an engagement at the
Theatre Français. I went a short time since to see
her play in Tartuffe. This stage is the home of the
true French drama. Here Talma played when he and
Mademoiselle Mars were the delight of Napoleon and
of France. I have had few gratifications greater than
that of seeing this splendid woman reappear in the
place where she won her brilliant reputation. The
play, too, was Moliere's, and it was here that it was
first performed. Altogether it was like something
plucked back from history; a renewal, as in a magic
mirror, of glories gone by.

I could scarce believe my eyes when she appeared
as the “wife of Argon.” She looked about twenty-five.
Her step was light and graceful; her voice was
as unlike that of a woman of sixty as could well be
imagined; sweet, clear, and under a control which
gives her a power of expression I never had conceived
before; her mouth had the definite, firm play of youth;
her teeth (though the dentist might do that) were
white and perfect; and her eyes can have lost none
of their fire, I am sure. I never saw so quiet a player.
Her gestures were just perceptible, no more; and
yet they were done so exquisitely at the right moment
— so unconsciously, as if she had not meant them,
that they were more forcible than even the language
itself. She repeatedly drew a low murmur of delight
from the whole house with a single play of expression
across her face, while the other characters were speaking,
or by a slight movement of her fingers, in pantomimic
astonishment or vexation. It was really something
new to me. I had never before seen a first-rate
female player in comedy. Leontine Fay is inimitable
in tragedy; but, if there is any comparison between
them, it is that this beautiful young creature overpowers
the heart with her nature, while Mademoiselle
Mars satisfies the uttermost demand of the judgment
with her art.

I yesterday visited the house occupied by Franklin
while he was in France. It is one of the most beautiful
country residences in the neighborhood of Paris,
standing on the elevated ground of Passy, and overlooking
the whole city on one side, and the valley of
the Seine for a long distance toward Versailles on the
other. The house is otherwise celebrated. Madame
de Genlis lived there while the present king was her
pupil; and Louis the Fifteenth occupied it six months
for the country air, while under the infliction of the
gout — its neighborhood to the palace probably rendering
it preferable to the more distant chateaux of

St. Cloud or Versailles. Its occupants would seem
to have been various enough, without the addition of
a lieutenant general of the British army, whose hospitality
makes it delightful at present. The lightning-rod,
which was raised by Franklin, and which was the
first conductor used in France, is still standing. The
gardens are large, and form a sort of terrace, with the
house on the front edge. It must be one of the
sweetest places in the world in summer.

The great annual ball for the poor was given at the
Academie Royale, a few nights since. This is attended
by the king and royal family, and is ordinarily the
most splendid affair of the season. It is managed by
twenty or thirty lady-patronesses, who have the control
of the tickets; and, though by no means exclusive,
it is kept within very respectable limits; and, if
one is content to float with the tide, and forego dancing,
is an unusually comfortable and well-behaved
spectacle.

I went with a large party at the early hour of eight.
We fell into the train of carriages, advancing slowly
between files of dragoons, and stood before the door
in our turn in the course of an hour. The staircases
were complete orangeries, with immense mirrors at
every turn, and soldiers on guard, and servants in livery,
from top to bottom. The long saloon, lighted by
ten chandeliers, was dressed and hung with wreaths
as a receiving-room; and passing on through the spacious
lobbies, which were changed into groves of
pines and exotics, we entered upon the grand scene.
The coup d'œil would have astonished Aladdin. The
theatre, which is the largest in Paris, and gorgeously
built and ornamented, was thrown into one vast ballroom,
ascending gradually from the centre to platforms
raised at either end, one of which was occupied
by the throne and seats for the king's family and suite.
The four rows of boxes were crowded with ladies, and
the house presented, from the floor to the paradis, one
glittering and waving wall of dress, jewelry, and feathers.
An orchestra of near a hundred musicians occupied
the centre of the hall; and on either side of them
swept by the long countless multitudes of people,
dressed with a union of taste and show; while, instead
of the black coats which darken the complexion of a
party in a republican country, every other gentleman
was in a gay uniform; and polytechnic scholars with
their scarlet-faced coats, officers of the “National
Guard” and the “line,” gentlemen of the king's
household, and foreign ministers, and attaches, presented
a variety of color and splendor which nothing
could exceed.

The theatre itself was not altered, except by the
platform occupied by the king; it is sufficiently splendid
as it stands; but the stage, whose area is much
larger than that of the pit, was hung in rich drapery
as a vast tent, and garnished to profusion with flags
and arms. Along the sides, on a level with the lower
row of boxes, extended galleries of crimson velvet,
festooned with flowers. These were filled with ladies,
and completed a circle about the house of beauty and
magnificence, of which the king and his dazzling
suite formed the corona. Chandeliers were hung
close together from one end of the hail to the other.
I commenced counting them once or twice, but some
bright face flitting by in the dance interrupted me.
An English girl near me counted fifty-five, and I think
there must have been more. The blaze of light was
almost painful. The air glittered, and the fine grain
of the most delicate complexions was distinctly visible.
It is impossible to describe the effect of so much light
and space and music crowded into one spectacle. The
vastness of the hall, so long that the best sight could
not distinguish a figure at the opposite extremity, and
so high as to absorb and mellow the vibration of a
hundred instruments — the gorgeous sweep of splendor
from one platform to the other, absolutely drowning
the eye in a sea of gay colors, nodding feathers, jewelry,
and military equipment — the delicious music, the
strange faces, dresses, and tongues (one half of the
multitude at least being foreigners), the presence of
the king, and the gallant show of uniforms in his conspicuous
suite, combined to make up a scene more
than sufficiently astonishing. I felt the whole night
the smothering consciousness of senses too narrow —
eyes, ears, language — all too limited for the demand
made upon them.

The king did not arrive till after ten. He entered
by a silken curtain in the rear of the platform on which
seats were placed for his family. The “Vice le Roi”
was not so hearty as to drown the music, but his
majesty bowed some twenty times very graciously, and
the good-hearted queen courtsied, and kept a smile
on her excessively plain face, till I felt the muscles of
my own ache for her. King Philippe looks anxious.
By the remarks of the French people about me when
he entered, he has reason for it. I observed that the
polytechnic scholars all turned their backs upon him;
and one exceedingly handsome, spirited-looking boy,
standing just at my side, muttered a “sacré!” and bit
his lip, with a very revolutionary air, at the continuance
of the acclamation. His majesty came down,
and walked through the hall about midnight. His eldest
son, the Duke of Orleans, a handsome, unoffending-looking
youth of eighteen, followed him, gazing round
upon the crowd with his mouth open, and looking very
much annoyed at his part of the pageant. The young
duke has a good figure, and is certainly a very beautiful
dancer. His mouth is loose and weak, and his
eyes are as opaque as agates. He wore the uniform
of the Garde Nationale, which does not become him.
In ordinary gentleman's dress he is a very authentical
copy of a Bond-street dandy, and looks as little like a
Frenchman as most of Stultz's subjects. He danced
all the evening, and selected, very popularly, decidedly
the most vulgar women in the room, looking all the
while as one who had been petted by the finest women
in France (Leontine Fay among the number), might
be supposed to look under such an infliction. The
king's second son, the Duke of Nemours, pursued the
same policy. He has a brighter face than his brother,
with hair almost white, and dances extremely well.
The second daughter is also much prettier than the
eldest. On the whole, the king's family is very plain,
though a very amiable one, and the people seem attached
to them.

These general descriptions, are, after all, very vague.
Here I have written half a sheet with a picture in my
mind of which you are getting no semblable idea.
Language is a mere skeleton of such things. The
Academie Royale should be borne over the water like
the chapel of Loretto, and set down in Broadway with
all its lights, music, and people to give you half a notion
of the “Bal en faveur des Pauvres.” And so it
is with everything except the little histories of one's
own personal atmosphere, and that is the reason why
egotism should be held virtuous in a traveller, and the
reason why one can not study Europe at home.

After getting our American party places, I abandoned
myself to the strongest current, and went in
search of “lions.” The first face that arrested my
eye was that of the Duchess D'Istria, a woman celebrated
here for her extraordinary personal beauty.

Directly opposite this lovely dutchess, in the other
stage-box sat Donna Maria, the young Queen of Portugal,
surrounded by her relatives. The ex-emperess
her mother, was on her right, her grandmother on her
left, and behind her some half-dozen of her Portuguese
cousins. She is a little girl of twelve or fourteen,
with a fat, heavy face, and a remarkably pampered,
sleepy look. She was dressed like an old woman
and gaped incessantly the whole evening. The box

was a perfect blaze of diamonds. I never before realized
the beauty of these splendid stones. The necks,
heads, arms, and waists of the ladies royal were all
streaming with light. The necklace of the emperess
mother particularly flashed on the eye in every part of
the house. By the unceasing exclamations of the
women, it was an unusually brilliant show, even here.
The little Donna has a fine, well-rounded chin; and
when she smiled in return to the king's bow, I thought
I could see more than a child's character in the expression
of her mouth. I should think a year or two
of mental uneasiness might let out a look of intelligence
through her heavy features. She is likely to
have it, I think, with the doubtful fortunes that seem
to beset her.

I met Don Pedro often in society before his departure
upon his expedition. He is a short, well-made
man, of great personal accomplishment, and a very bad
expression, rather aggravated by an unfortunate cutaneous
eruption. The first time I saw him, I was induced
to ask who he was, from the apparent coldness
and dislike with which he was treated by a lady whose
beauty had strongly arrested my attention. He sat by
her on a sofa in a very crowded party, and seemed to
be saying something very earnestly, which made the
lady's Spanish eyes flash fire, and brought a curl of
very positive anger upon a pair of the loveliest lips
imaginable. She was a slender, aristocratic-looking
creature, and dressed most magnificently. After glancing
at them a minute or two, I made up my mind
that, from the authenticity of his dress and appointments,
he was an Englishman, and that she was some
French lady of rank whom he was particularly annoying
with his addresses. On inquiry, the gentleman
proved to be Don Pedro, and the lady the Countess
de Lourle, his sister! I have often met her since,
and never without wondering how two of the same
family could look so utterly unlike each other. The
Count de Lourle is called the Adonis of Paris. He
is certainly a very splendid fellow, and justifies the romantic
admiration of his wife, who married him clandestinely,
giving him her left hand in the ceremony,
as is the etiquette, they say, when a princess marries
below her rank. One can not help looking with great
interest on a beautiful creature like this, who has broken
away from the imposing fetters of a royal sphere,
to follow the dictates of natural feeling. It does not
occur so often in Europe that one may not sentimentalize
about it without the charge of affectation.

To return to the ball. The king bowed himself
out a little after midnight, and with him departed most
of the fat people, and all the little girls. This made
room enough to dance, and the French set themselves
at it in good earnest. I wandered about for an hour
or two; after wearying my imagination quite out in
speculating on the characters and rank of people whom
I never saw before an I shall probably never see again,
I mounted to the puradis to take a last look down upon
the splendid scene, and made my exit. I should
be quite content never to go to such a ball again,
though it was by far the most splendid scene of the
kind I ever saw.