University of Virginia Library

14. LETTER XIV.

It is March, and the weather has all the characteristics
of New-England May. The last two or three
days have been deliciously spring-like, clear, sunny,
and warm. The gardens of the Tuileries are crowded.
The chairs beneath the terraces are filled by the old
men reading the gazettes, mothers and nurses watching
their children at play, and, at every few steps,
circles of whole families sitting and sewing, or conversing,
as unconcernedly as at home. It strikes a
stranger oddly. With the privacy of American feelings,
we can not conceive of these out-of-door French
habits. What would a Boston or New York mother
think of taking chairs for her whole family, grown-up
daughters and all, in the Mall or upon the Battery,
and spending the day in the very midst of the gayest
promenade of the city? People of all ranks do it here.
You will see the powdered, elegant gentleman of the
ancien regime, handing his wife or his daughter to a
straw-bottomed chair, with all the air of drawing-room
courtesy; and, begging pardon for the liberty, pull his
journal from his pocket, and sit down to read beside
her; or a tottering old man, leaning upon a stout Swiss
servant girl, goes bowing and apologizing through the
crowd, in search of a pleasant neighbor, or some old
compatriot, with whom he may sit and nod away the
hours of sunshine. It is a beautiful custom, positively.
The gardens are like a constant fête. It is a holyday
revel, without design or disappointment. It is a
masque, where every one plays his character unconsciously,
and therefore naturally and well. We get
no idea of it at home. We are too industrious a nation
to have idlers enough. It would even pain most

of the people of our country to see so many thousands
of all ages and conditions of life spending day after day
in such absolute uselessness.

Imagine yourself here, on the fashionable terrace,
the promenade, two days in the week, of all that is distinguished
and gay in Paris. It is a short raised walk,
just inside the railings, and the only part of all these
wide and beautiful gardens where a member of the
beau monde is ever to be met. The hour is four, the
day Friday, the weather heavenly. I have just been
long enough in Paris to be an excellent walking dictionary,
and I will tell you who people are. In the
first place, all the well-dressed men you see are English.
You will know the French by those flaring
coats, laid clear back on their shoulders, and their
execrable hats and thin legs. Their heads are right
from the hair-dresser; their hats are chapeaux de soie,
or imitation beaver; they are delicately rouged, and
wear very white gloves; and, those who are with ladies,
lead, as you observe, a small dog by a string, or carry
it in their arms. No French lady walks out without
her lap-dog. These slow-paced men you see in brown
mustaches and frogged coats are refugee Poles. The
short, thick, agile looking man before us is General
— , celebrated for having been the last to surrender on
the last field of that brief contest. His handsome face
is full of resolution, and, unlike the rest of his countrymen,
he looks still unsubdued and in good heart.
He walks here every day an hour or two, swinging his
cane round his forefinger, and thinking, apparently, of
anything but his defeat. Observe these two young
men approaching us. The short one on the left, with
the stiff hair and red mustache, is Prince Moskowa,
the son of Marshal Ney. He is an object of more
than usual interest just now, as the youngest of the new
batch of peers. The expression of his countenance
is more bold than handsome, and indeed he is anything
but a carpet knight; a fact of which he seems,
like a man of sense, quite aware. He is to be seen at
the parties standing with his arms folded, leaning silently
against the wall for hours together. His companion
is, I presume to say, quite the handsomest man
you ever saw. A little over six feet, perfectly proportioned,
dark silken-brown hair, slightly curling about
his forehead, a soft curling mustache, and heard just
darkening the finest cut mouth in the world, and an
olive complexion, of the most golden richness and
clearness — Mr. — is called the handsomest man in
Europe. What is more remarkable still, he looks like
the most modest man in Europe, too; though, like
most modest looking men, his reputation for constancy
in the gallant world is somewhat slender. And here
comes a fine looking man, though of a different order
of beauty — a natural son of Napoleon. He is about
his father's height, and has most of his features, though
his person and air must be quite different. You see
there Napoleon's beautiful mouth and thinly chiselled
nose, but I fancy that soft eye is his mother's. He is
said to be one of the most fascinating men in France.
His mother was the Countess Walewski, a lady with
whom the emperor became acquainted in Poland. It
is singular that Napoleon's talents and love of glory
have not descended upon any of the eight or ten sons
whose claims to his paternity are admitted. And here
come two of our countrymen, who are to be seen constantly
together — Cooper and Morse. That is Cooper
with the blue surtout buttoned up to his throat, and
his hat over his eyes. What a contrast between the
faces of the two men! Morse, with his kind, open,
gentle countenance, the very picture of goodness and
sincerity; and Cooper, dark and corsair-looking, with
his brows down over his eyes, and his strongly lined
mouth fixed in an expression of moodiness and reserve.
The two faces, however, are not equally just to their
owners — Morse is all that he looks to be, but Cooper's
features do him decided injustice. I take a pride in
the reputation this distinguished countrymen of ours
has for humanity and generous sympathy. The distress
of the refugee liberals from all countries comes
home especially to Americans, and the untiring liberality
of Mr. Cooper particularly, is a fact of common
admission and praise. It is pleasant to be able to say
such things. Morse is taking a sketch of the Gallery
of the Louvre, and he intends copying some of the
best pictures also, to accompany it as an exhibition,
when he returns. Our artists do our country credit
abroad. The feeling of interest in one's country artists
and authors become very strong in a foreign land.
Every leaf of laurel awarded them seems to touch one's
own forehead. And talking of laurels, here comes
Sir Sidney Smith — the short, fat, old gentleman yonder,
with the large acquiline nose and keen eye. He
is one of the few men who ever opposed Napoleon
successfully, and that should distinguish him, even if
he had not won by his numerous merits and achievements
the gift of almost every order in Europe. He
is, among other things, of a very mechanical turn, and
is quite crazy just now about a six-wheeled coach,
which he has lately invented, and of which nobody
sees the exact benefit but himself. An invitation to
his rooms, to hear his description of the model, is
considered the last new bore.

And now for ladies. Whom do you see that looks
distinguished? Scarce one whom you would take
positively for a lady, I venture to presume. These
two, with the velvet pelisses and small satin bonnets,
are rather the most genteel-looking people in the garden.
I set them down for ladies of rank the first walk
I ever took here; and the two who have just passed
us, with the curly lap-dog, I was equally sure were persons
of not very dainty morality. It is precisely au
contrarie. The velvet pelisses are gamblers from Frascati's,
and the two with the lap-dog are the Countess
N. and her unmarried daughter — two of the most exclusive
specimens of Parisian society. It is very odd —
but if you see a remarkably modest-looking woman in
Paris, you may be sure, as the periphrasis goes, that
“she is no better than she should be.” Everything
gets travestied in this artificial society. The general
ambition seems to be, to appear that which one is not.
White-haired men cultivate their sparse mustaches,
and dark-haired men shave. Deformed men are successful
in gallantry, where handsome men despair.
Ugly women dress and dance, while beauties mope
and are deserted. Modesty looks brazen, and vice
looks timid; and so all through the calendar. Life
in Paris is as pretty a series of astonishments as an
ennuyé could desire.

But there goes the palace-bell — five o'clock! The
sun is just disappearing behind the dome of the “Invalides,”
and the crowd begins to thin. Look at the
atmosphere of the gardens. How deliciously the twilight
mist softens everything. Statues, people, trees,
and the long perspectives down the alleys, all mellowed
into the shadowy indistinctness of fairy-land.
The throng is pressing out at the gates, and the
guard, with his bayonet presented, forbids all re-entrance,
for the gardens are cleared at sundown. The
carriages are driving up and dashing away, and if you
stand a moment you will see the most vulgar-looking
people you have met in your promenade, waited for
by chasscurs, and departing with indications of rank in
their equipages, which nature has very positively denied
to their persons. And now all the world dines,
and dines well. The “chef” stands with his gold repeater
in his hand, waiting for the moment to decide
the fate of the first dish; the garçons at the restaurants
have donned their white aprons, and laid the silver
forks upon the napkins; the pretty women are
seated on their thrones in the saloons, and the interesting
hour is here. Where shall we dine? We will walk
toward the Palais Royal, and talk of it as we go along.

That man would “deserve well of his country” who
should write a “Paris Guide” for the palate. I would
do it myself if I could elude the immortality it would
occasion me. One is compelled to pioneer his own
stomach through the endless cartes of some twelve
eating-houses, all famous, before he half knows whether
he is dining well or ill. I had eaten a week at
Very's, for instance, before I discovered that, since
Pelham's day, that gentleman's reputation has gone
down. He is a subject for history at present. I was
misled also by an elderly gentleman at Havre, who
advised me to eat at Grignon's, in the Passage Virienne.
Not liking my first coquilles aux huitres, I made
some private inquiries, and found that his chef had
deserted him about the time of Napoleon's return
from Elba. A stranger gets misguided in this way.
And then, if by accident you hit upon the right house,
you may be eating a month before you find out the
peculiar triumphs which have stamped its celebrity.
No mortal man can excel in everything, and it is as
true of cooking as it is of poetry. The “Rochers de
Cancalee” is now the first eating-house in Paris, yet
they only excel in fish. The “Trois Freres Provencaux,”
have a high reputation, yet their cotelettes provencale
are the only dish which you can not get equally
well elsewhere. A good practice is to walk about in
the Palais Royal for an hour before dinner, and select
a master. You will know a gourmet easily — a man
slightly past the prime of life, with a nose just getting
its incipient blush, a remarkably loose, voluminous
white cravat, and a corpulence more of suspicion than
fact. Follow him to his restaurant, and give the gar
çon a private order to serve you with the same dishes
as the bald gentleman. (I have observed that dainty
livers universally lose their hair early.) I have been
in the wake of such a person now for a week or more,
and I never lived, comparatively, before. Here we
are, however, at the “Trois Freres,” and there goes
my unconscious model deliberately up stairs. We'll
follow him, and double his orders, and if we dine not
well, there is no eating in France.