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^ 32eiJ3 Sfieai frnm tfie 01TJ jFteltrs of Otontfnental 2Suroi>e.

FRESH GLEANINGS?

A NEW SHEAF FROM THE OLD FIELDS

Of Continental Europe.

ro?^''"^*A

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'Ta 6i. aXkoi Qv Karela^ovro, tovtuv fiv^firjv iroi'^ao/j.at.

Herod., lib. vi., cap. 52,

NEW YORK: 1851.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

CHARLES SCRIBNER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for tbe

Southern District of New York.

A NEW PREFACE.

W HEIST I came back from the Old World, Mahy, I dedicated to you, this first essay of my book-making life. The memory of the strange and brilliant things which had met me beyond the ocean, was hanging upon me very pleasantly ; — but, pleasanter still, there lingered in my mind a recol- lection of the sunny hours upon our farm-land in the valley of Elmgrove.

I am not sure if you have heard it, — ^but some readers have imagined that my talk of harvesting, and of the old farm-house, was a mere show of rhetoric. You know there was nothing but honesty in what I wrote you ; and that it was with a thrill of pleasure, I had no desire to conceal, that I wandered again through the woods and fields of my rough farm Under-the-HilL

vi ANew Preface.

!N'o, there was no rhetoric in my talk of the farm- land then, — whatever may belong to it now.

Then, Enrope was a memory — a blessed memory lifting my heart and hope : now, onr Farm-land deserted, — the oaks, shading a silent sward-land, — the elms, bowing to an untrodden lawn, are a memory also.

^Well, sweet memories make up the pleasure

of our life — for they nurse our hopes of sweet memories to come !

So, it is with blended recollections — bright and gorgeous ones of European temples and festivities, — gentle and soothing ones of the summer seasons at Elmgrove, that I write to-day this fragment of Pre- face, and inscribe again to you, this careless record of my first wandering.

I wish it was worthier of the world ; I wish it was worthier of you. But such as it is, with all its imperfections, I am certain that you will receive it graciously from one who hopes for your charity, and who is sure of your affection.

I had thought of running over the book again, and of crossing out what seemed to be the ebullitions of boyish and pedantic fancies. But I have not done

A JNew Pkeface. vii

it. I wished tliat the book should stand, a type of my first feeling. I conld perhaps have made it less obnoxious to the hard-sayings of the critics, and have woven a little more maturity of observation into its careless glimpses of the old-world life ; but I have chosen rather that it should carry all its old weakness with it. I have wished — though it may seem a selfish wish — to claim so much more of your indul- gence, as would sufiice to cover all its failings.

I know the claim^ will not be refused; and I know that you will be as willing now, as always, to excuse my defects, and to forget my errors.

I had undertaken. Mast, to write a Preface ; I have forgotten myself — to a letter. The only excuse I shall make, will be — ^to print it, and to send it to you,

With my kindest wishes,

IK. MAKYEL. New York, Ma/y 30, 1851.

1^

fj

PREFATORY LETTER

EAVEN bless you, Mary, with richer

sheaves than this !

You know that I had learned to use the sickle on our farm-land in the valley, before I went away ; — and could bind up the ears at harvest, with the stoutest of my men. Now here, I bring back .hese Gleanings from beyond the Waters : — I have plucked a grain-head here, and a grain-head there ; but only since I have come home, and only at your request, have I bound a few together in a Sheaf

Here it is, homely and rude as our pastures upon the hills : but it has a fragrance for me — dare I hope it can have as much for you ? In the binding up, it has made scenes come back, and stir my soul, as I thought it could not be stirred twice.

Prefatory Letter.

Yet is it useless — altogether useless — the effort

to make words paint the passions that blaze in a man's heart, as he wanders for the first time over the glorious old highways of Europe !

This sheaf, Mary, is a sheaf of tares.

You might pardon it: but there is that sly-faced step-dame — the Public — whom, as yet, I do not know at all, — whom as yet, I tremble to face ; and I fear greatly, that she will look with a colder eye than yours, over these Gleanings, thrown together with the same free and careless hand, with which I used to tie up the last sheaves before a shower.

But it is too late now to waver : and if I have not one kind look save yours, I hope I may have the cour- age to say, in the submissive spirit of Medea : —

Eatur — nihil recuso — merui.

Jirst Step tovoaxh tl)e (Honlincnt.

FIRST STEP TOWARD THE CONTINENT.

Paul Pry.

Y physician said I must quit England : so I put ten sovereigns in my pocket, and set off South- ward, through the summer county of Devonshire.

To-moiTow, thought I, — ^for it was the last staare

M

between Exeter and Torquay, and had grown so dark, that I could see no longer the pretty cottages along the way, — to-morrow, and I shall see strange faces and strange dresses, and listen to a strange language ; for by ten next morning, I hoped to rub my eyes open, in the Southern atmosphere of one of those little Norman Isles, which lie off the Northwest coast of France.

In the exhilaration of my spirits, I hinted as much to the coachman ; and asked, in the same breath, if we should be down in time for the steamer — a fact of which, how- ever, I felt as morally sure, as that the snug coach, Paul Pry, was then and there, toiling up the last range of hills that shuts off the view of the Channel waters.

4 Fresh Gleanings.

— What steamer, yer honor 1 — said the coachman.

— The steamer for Jersey, surely; it was stipulated, when 1 took my place, that we should not be too late for it.

— Egad ! that's a good 'un ; why, there's been no steamer, yer honor, these three months.

The serious air of the coachman did not leave me the benefit of a single doubt. The first moment my thoughts ran back, in no very Christian temper, to the man who had booked me at Exeter; the next, I was inside the coach, with my feet stretched over the front seat, thinking soberly of what should be done.

To go to Southampton for the Mail steamer would cost more money than I had left, and to cross the Channel in such \i\e, fishing-craft as might be in Torbay, would ex- pose one to ten thousand risks, and I had decided upon neither one thing nor the other, when the coach stopped at the door of the Royal Inn.

Torquay.

FTER a fortnight of rain in England — and whoever has been in England a fortnight has had just such experience — how like the dawning of some better world upon this, is a true sun-shiny day, when the sky is clear, the air warm and soft, and the sea, with a fleet of white sails shininsT on it, as blue as Heaven !

1 O R a U A Y. o

It was a day to make one feel at peace w-ith his species. I did not carry with me a single vengeful thought — not even for the man who had booked me at Exet^-r — as I walked out upon the quay before the inn door, as thor- oughly capable of enjoying the summer warmness as, any invahd of them all, who were sunning themselves on the sunny sides of nearly all the houses of the town.

For it is worth mentioning — that five-and-twenty

years ago, Torquay was as humble a little fishing-place as when Hany of Richmond landed in the bay with his army ; but it came to be known — some way or other — ^that nowhere on the British coasts were the winter suns so soft and warm ; and p-esto sprung forth little cottages and villas on every shelf of the hills, and the inns where one could buy only a stoup of fisherman's ale^ will now make you a bill as long as the bills at Bath.

The hills sweep round the bay so as to shut oft" every rude wind of the North ; and the sun goes glancing over their green sides — now here, now there — but never leaves them from morning till night. I lost myself wandering in the little valleys among them ; along the bosom of each were walks made, and from under the tangled limbs of fir-trees, I would now and then climb suddenly upon a level spot where the sunshine lay, and where sat a gem of a cottage ; and from the paling round the cottage, I would see the town lying along the lip of the bay under so new an aspect, that I would look two or three times before I could be sure that it was the same town of Tor- quay. Some old church tower that had grown familiar

6 Fresh Gleanings.

would have disappeared, and a new and taller tower would rise from the houses, that I did not know ; and as I went to other openings upon the hills, the old tower would come back, and the new one vanish — but always the bright waters of the bay sleeping below.

Here and there came upon me companies of invalids, luxuriating in the sun. One face I saw — that of a sick girl — comes to me now much oftener than it ought.

She was sitting in one of the little Bath chairs, and

a serving man was drawing her up the hill. Her mother was walking on one side, and her brother, or he may have been her lover, the other — if he was a lover, I pity him, for she must be dead before now. Her hair was flaxen, and once or twice she laid it back with a gentle motion, from her cheek ; her eye was bright — too bright, and swimming with a tender expression, that seemed to me a tender thankfulness for so glorious a day.

The man drew her to the edge of the cliff where I was standing, and her expression grew more earnest as she looked out over the sea, where the sun lay in a flood. There was no ripple — only a gentle waving motion that did not break the surface, but which at intervals came rocking up to the beach, and the low murmur it made, was all that broke the stillness.

The sick girl looked out upon the water — and from that turned to the face of her mother — and then to the face of the young man — and then to the sea again — and from tirat up to the sky — and her small hands met together, c>nd were clasped for a moment — and I thought a tear or two

The Inn by the Bridge. 7

fell from her eyes. 1 turned away as if I had seen noth- ing of it ; but I did see it, and it made a different man of me for a week.

1 had half a mind, forgetting the Doctor, to stop in Tor- quay. So I had a chat with my landlady. She would be charmed to have me for a lodger, and her terms were two guineas for board, a guinea more for room ; and for service — it should be left entirely to my discretion.

1 did not whistle, but slipped my hand into my

trowsers pocket, and tried to jingle the four sovereigns I had left, and pursed up my lips very tightly — in short, I must have made a very awkward appearance.

That very aftenioon I had paid my bill, and before night was sitting in the best parlor, up stairs, of a little inn at Paignton, the other side of the bay. So small was the inn, that the housemaid was sent off to the butcher's shop, to buy me a steak for supper — with this I took a tankard of ale, and before a grate full of coals sat dozing the night away, till the village clock struck eleven.

The Inn by the Bridge.

T WAS glad the coachman did not ask me where I was -*■ going, when I got upon the Plymouth coach next morning — ^for I could not have told him. We had not gone twenty miles before we entered the sweetest gem of a valley that could be found in all Devonshire ; and

8 Fresh Gleanings.

scarce had we entered it, before the coachman pointed out with his whip, a heavy, home-looking, stone mansion be- side the way, where, said he, in spring time — they take lodgers, who go trouting all down the valley.

— And if they take lodgers in spring, why not in winter, said I.

— Sure enough ; why not 1 said he.

So, when we were opposite, he reined up his horses, and I jumped down with my portmanteau in my hand. The good woman showed me into a snug little parlor, and the maid came in with a pan full of coals, and presently the grate was all in a glow, and the room dusted ; and for dinner, I was served with such old-fashioned apple- pies, and such luscious clotted cream, as are to be found nowhere else in England.

Ah, it was a rare time that, in the old inn at Erme-

bridge ! Out of one window I could see the stone arch that leaped the stream, over which the coaches thundered twice and three times a day ; and beyond it, the gray roofs of the village nestled together on the side of the valley, with the brown church tower, mossy and old, lifting above them — and beyond, the hills rising, and spreading into green grain fields. Out of the other window, that went down to the floor, I could step into a rich plat of grass, with trim walks in it, and laurels blossoming, and holding up their painted heads as proudly, as if the month were June, and not January. From the very edge of this little green spot stretched a pheasant wood — for how many miles over the hills, I do not know ; but T have walked myself tired in

The Inn by the Bridge. 9

it, and never found the end ; and sometimes the pheasants would steal out, and go stalking under the laurels, and stretch out a wing and a leg to sun, on a soft bit of the gravel ; but when I touched the window, they would whir away to the middle of the wood.

Stranger things happen every day, than that I should forget all about the instructions of Dr. Manifold, and loiter a whole week at Erme-bridge. I could make a very long story, if I chose, of my landlady's discourse — of the talk of the vdse ones of the village, as they happened in of an evening for a mug of toddy or a glass of my landlord's ale — of my rambles over the grounds of the Squire, whose cas- tellated mansion broke up into the sky, at the South end of the valley, with a score or more of chimney tops — of my stealing slyly upon herds of deer, to see them go gal- loping away like the wind — of the Sunday service at the church, where the Christmas-gi-eens were still hanging, a sprig of holly in each comer of the pews, and wreaths woven of fir-boughs and myitle hanging in dried festoons from the desk where the curate stood, (whose man-ser- vant would now and then shp into the inn with the paiish jug — as if the curate had not an equal right to the good things of life as any man of us all !) — but I have not the heart to make a long story of it ; for Ill-health, that had dogged me like a hound all the way down through the North of England, came here upon my track again. I got once more upon the Plymouth coach to give him a new chase; and as we rattled over the bridge, and I caught the last courtesy and the last smile of the landlady

10 Fresh Gleanings.

at the door, I vowed in my heart, that — if my wife were willing — I would spend my honey-moon at that same inn of Erme-bridge.

The Zebra.

IT was a wretched, rainy night ; and as I went about through the muddy and narrow streets, and under the black, overhanging gables of Plymouth, I fancied that all whom I met gliding about in cloaks, were worthy old Round-heads, making ready for the Mayflower. I felt that there was something half-kindred in our purpose ; for I was threading the slippery streets, in search of some craft to take me over to the Island of Jersey, out of the clutches of » Tyrant more ruthless than Charles and Laud together.

So I went splashing along, around sharp corners, and through ill-lighted ways, with my feelings so wrought up by crowding fancies and the sti'angeness of the scene — the distant lamps glimmering on the wet pavement — the rain-drops pattering on me from the quaint old blackened balconies — that once or twice, I caught my- self turning half round at sound of an approaching foot- fall, to see if a posse of King Charles's men were not upon my track; but they were not, and I found my way quietly enough down to the George and Dragon. — Just such a bit ?f a carousing inn it was, as would have re-

TheZebra. 1

joiced tlie heart of Roger Wildrake with a heaping tank- ard of sack. But though the meny old days of Wildrakes are gone, the days of sack-drinkers are not. The twofold \drtue is still recognized at the inn of the George and Dragon. The tap-room was fiill. They were sitting on wooden benches around a blazing fire in the grate — the half of them with pipes, and every man of them with his mug of ale.

For my own part, I like to see now and then such re- siduary customs of the Past ; and in an old lumbering town like Plymouth, it freshens memories, and makes an agreeable coincidence, and puts the quickest possible edge upon a man's c^petite for seeing and living over again the times that are gone. And if there are folks so stupidly sober as to question my habit in the thing, I shall enter no such plea as non jpeccatum est ; for in many a little inn along the Tweed have I drained a good tankard of home- brewed, and felt myself — not a whit the worse for it.

The landlord came out from behind his bar, where he stood between two rows of glittering tankards, and went down wdth me upon the Quay, in search of a skipper friend of his own, who was going on the morrow to Jer- sey. It was a little black, one-masted vessel we found, rocking just under the lee of the pier, and we had shout- ed a half dozen times before a stumpy figure put its head out of the forecastle, and told us the Zebra would sail at morning tide next day.

I promised to send my luggage to the Dragon, and the host of the Dragoii said it would be all right, I splashci

12 Fresh Gleanings.

home again, and dreamed all night of doublets, and striped hose, and Round-heads, and basket-hilts, and Old Noll, and Pym, and Plymouth Rock — and now and then, like a gleam of light breaking through the dreams, came a pleasant vision of sweet Alice Lee.

The tide came in, and the tide went out, and the sun got up to its highest ; still the Zebra lay just off the pier; and every time I met the Captain, who was a dapper little Islander, he would half embrace me in a perfect trans- port of excuses

I think I must have borne it very meekly, or his confi- dence in my forbearance would not have remained so un- shaken ; for he had repeated this manoeuvre I know not how many times, before we were fairly ready to set off. I had even taken a steak in the back parlor of the Dragon, and had gone up the heights above the town, to see through a glass, the waves dashing over the top of Eddy- stone, nine miles down the bay; and the sun had gone dowTi at the first clinck of the windlass, and the light was blazing on the end of the Breakwater, when we rounded it, and dropped down into the Sound.

There is nothing in a run across the English Channel, ipso facto, either curious, or worth the telling. But there I was, a sad wreck of an invalid, with two sovereigns in my pocket, a doctor's prescription, and a pill-box — with only so much dinner in my stomach, as I had picked up on ten minutes' notice in the back room of the Dragon — in a little forty-ton vessel, cutter-rigged — with a half-blooded Captain, A^ho had sprung a brandy -bottle in his berth, be-

The Zebra. 13

fore we were quit of Mt. Edgecombe — ^bound two or thi-ee hundred miles away, to a dot of an Island, so set around with barefaced and sunken rocks, that to make it in the best of weather, is like sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, amid the bowlings of Sea-green dogs *

For company, were forty fat sheep — a butcher — a Plymouth pilgiim, who was a shoemaker, and had a wife and nine children — a stone-cutter with his bride, going to try his new-knit fortunes in the Islands of the sea. Philippe was Captain, but stayed most of his time below, wrapped in a cloak; Bon, the mate, had but one hand, but he managed the tiller very well with his stump ; Tom was the only sailor aboard, and had it not been for him, I be- lieve I should never have lived to tell the story of the voy- age. Pierre wore a long dreadnought, spoke bad En- glish, built the fire, emptied the slops, and did the cooking. Beside myself, there was not another soul on board, ex- cept a small dog, who, before we had been out eight-and- twenty hours, became disgusted with appearances on deck, and went below, where he lay coiled up in a comer of the hold.

In the cabin were four berths : Philippe had one, the butcher another, the stone-cutter and wife (they took turns — so did we all before we got to Jersey) another, and myself the fourth. A stove and table filled up the middle. A light wind hardly kept the sail fiill down the Sound. — At ten it was calm, and the canvas flapped the mast. At

* ctBruleis canibus resonantia saxa. (JEn., lib. iii. 432.)

14 F R E S H G L E A N I N G S.

twelve we were dashing ahead merrily, and sheets of foam flew from the bow, all over the vessel : I wrung my Scotch cap dry, and put it on for a night-cap, and turned in.

I had not slept two hours, before I commenced dream- ing— dreaming, strange as it seems, now that I come to write it downi — about being in a tub of malt liquor ; and I had sunk so low, that it was just gurgling in my ears, when 1 woke up : 1 was as wet as if it had been no dream. The berth was soaking wet, and had soaked through three coats, and wet me to the skin. I staggered on deck — it was no drier there. The wind had hauled ahead, and the waves came driving at us, and licked us over, like hungiy dogs. I can not describe the action of ^the little craft as she tossed and plunged, and then leaped down into a dark trough of the howling waves. It was dreadful — I could not bear it. I tried to shake some of the water from me, and crawled below ; and took one of the Doctor's pills, and turned my head to the wall.

My thoughts were quick and active ; for the peltings of the wet, and a but-half-admitted sense of danger made me wakeful as the morning ; but my thoughts took one inevitable direction ; I could have pleaded in a period as long as the longest in one of Fenelon's sermons, and by half more eloquent, for a single half hour of quiet.

Oh, ye pleasant romancers about the gay life upon

the sea, — whose romances spend themselves in dreams and in longings, I wish you could have had the berth of this poor soul for an hour, that night in the Zebra !

If a man's thoughts are not lively enough lo run away

TheZebra. 15

fi-om his distresses, at such a time, there would be no hope for him — ^he would go down in son'ow to the gi'ave. Now, my thoughts were frolickuig through the green al- leys of England, and cottages sweet as love ever fancied, — when I was restored to present consciousness, by the ef- forts made to breathe an infernal smoke, that filled the whole cabin of the Zebra.

Pierre had come in, in his dreadnought, and was build- ing a fire in the stove. Presently he put over a pot of coffee ; and w^hen it had boiled, he generously offered it around at the berths, in a tin dipper. I was not sure — but thought I had seen the same dipper passed, in a hurried manner, from the berth of the stone-cutter's wife to the gangw^ay, in the first glimmer of the morning.

— No, thank ye — said I — too ungi^aciously, for afi;er all, thought I, it is only suspicion — corroborated, I must say, by the fact that the stone-cutter himself scrupulously abstained. The Captain, however, drank a full dipper of it; and if he did not relish it so much as his brandy, it was surely no fault of the dipper, which was as good a dipper, mechan- ically speaking, as one could wish for.

But the stone-cutter's wife was not the only one who proved unseaworthy ; for there were noises fi'om the berth of the butcher below me, that sounded like any thing else, more than the turning out of coffee.

By and by there was a slight scuffle on deck ; the Cap- tain was at the foot of the gangway, and Pierre at the top : — they passed down the drenched cobbler, and set him up in the lee comer ; the poor devil had not sti*ength

16 Fresh Gleanings.

to say any thing. Next they handed down his wife, and set her up to windward as a sort of bolster, to keep the old fellow from tumbling against the stove, at each lurch of the vessel. Next, they passed down one of the cob- bler's boys — then one of the cobbler's girls. I grew un- easy, but said nothing — I doubt if I could have said any thing.

They kept on passing them down — first a boy, then a girl — then a girl, and then a boy, until I had counted nine. They filled the floor like a mat, homespun — I tried to smile at the joke, but I could not. Through all this, the cobbler had not said a word — nor one of the children — nor the butcher — nor the stone-cutter's wife — nor I ; but I thought how it would be, for there was no room now to pass about the dipper; indeed I doubt if one of them could have carried a steady hand.

Presently there was a low ciy.

— Ma, Ma, tell Johnny

— Poor dear ! how can he help it — said Ma ; and the cobbler's wife made a hunied effort to clear a spot beside her ; — how could she hope it, wedged in as they were ]

The cobbler tried to recoil, but said not a word, though his mouth was full of bitterness — poor soul ! — so was his lap.

Now it happened just then, that my London beaver, which was upon a beam under the skylight, lurched over and fell among them. I would not have got dowm to pick it up, if it had been worth ten guineas. So it went bob- bing among them, striking one in the teeth, and another

The Zebra. 17

in the eyes, and once bui-jdng Johnny to the shoulders. There was a suffocating cry from under it, and by a sin- gle pinch of the thumb and finger, the cobbler's wife made a cocked hat of it ; still, flattened and shapeless, it went dri\dng round, nor stopped till PieiTe picked it up, and jammed it into his locker.

I gi-ew tired of all this. I do not like to confess to sea- sickness, but there was a feeling at my heart (it may have been the stomach, as I'm no anatomist) which played the veiy dickens with me. I got upon deck — I never knew how — but have a faint recollection of three or four of the cobbler's children squalling after me, as if they had been trodden on. I put an arm round the bulwarks, — begged Pierre to lay a tai-paulin over me, for it was raining in toiTents, and looked out upon the sea.

Now and then a wave would rise close beside the ves- sel, and a gust tear off its whole beaded top, and bring it — a long sheet of water — crackling and spattering over me. I would duck my gray wool cap under the tai-pau- lin, but no sooner out, than — whist came another scud, half blinding me with spray. A gull now and then would battle with the wind, but seemed sti'uggling to get to land. The clouds thickened gradually into darkness, for the sun was down ; — -ponto nox inctibat atra — black night brooded on the waters ; the very half line came to me, as I sat hug- ging the low bulwarks, and gasping between the gusts.

O ! terque, qiiaterqiie heati, you school-boys, who scan Virgil to the beats of the master's rod, though it be on your bare backs, rather than the thumps and dashings of

18 Fresh Gleanings.

a January gale upon the writhing carcass of that little floating Zebra — more headlong in its gallop than the wild- est that courses the plains of Timbuctoo !

There was no sleep that night. I did not go back to the cabin : I gave the mate a half-a-crown for his bunk, which was just within the gangway. True, the clothes smelled bad, but the cabin smelled infinitely worse.

No better sky opened on us next morning. Again the vile smoke filled the cabin ; again Pierre made the coffee ; again he passed the dipper. I was faint, for I had eaten nothing since the dinner in the parlor of the Dragon. I begged a bit of biscuit, munched it, and staggered forward to the water-cask. The butcher, too, had crawled on deck, but he said nothing to me (he knew my berth was over him) and I said nothing to him.

By noon a little sun showed itself. A London packet was beating down Channel. It scarce seemed to mind the sea that was tossing us about, as if we were not worth a reckoning. I would have given my two sovereigns, and my hat, and all I had, to have been on board of her.

The cobbler's boys crawled on deck. Pierre made a little broth, and I begged some, and ate it in a pint bowl that I had not seen before. Before dark, we had made the Island of Sark, but night came on black again, and in the morning, hungiy and faint, I crawled again upon the wet decks, to see — nothing but a great gi'ay waste of waters, dashing and lashing around us.

The sheep were almost dead, and so was I. There was not a quadrant on board, if there had been a sun to

TheZebra. 19

light it. The captain knew no more of navigation than the butcher; yet, there we were, tearing away at a deuce of a pace — PhiHppe in the rigging, and the one-handed man at the helm — Heaven only knew where. So we had run on till near noon, when we decided — and the butcher and I came into consultation — to put the vessel about. All was ready for the new move, when Philippe cried, land. As I had no more faith in the fellow's eyes, than I had in his conscience, I doubted still.

Soon, however, there was a blue lift in the horizon. An hour, and we made Guernsey and rounded it; then we made the highlands of St. John's and of G-rosnez ; and saw the tall belfiy of St. Owen ; and shot among the troubled waves, within two oars' length of the fearful Corbiere ; and passed La Moye, and ran under the shade of St. Brelades, and frightfully near La Fret ; and dashed round NoiiTnont tower — away through the broad bay of St. Aubins — under the scowling-guns of the castle — straight between the pier- heads of the dock of St. Hiliers.

1 will never go to sea again in a vessel of forty tons ;

— I vnll never sail again vdth such a half-blooded blade of a captain ; — I will never sail again with a cobbler who has a wife and nine children ; — I will never sail again with a butcher who does not know a coffee-cup from a wash- bowl ; but, the cruise in the Zebra being at an end, I can only say, — I will never, under favor of Heaven, make such another.

20 Fresh G:eanings.

Saint Hiliers.

TT was very odd, but even so, that Ill-health, which, as -*- I said, had dogged me all through England, lost the scent in some of those doublings upon the Channel ; and 1 felt myself a well man, (though a very weak one) at the first step I put upon the quay ; and tenfold so, when I had taken a good bath, and a good dinner in the neat little inn of ray host, upon the Place Royale.

My heart warms as I go back to the pleasant little city of St. Hiliers, picturesquely strewed along the sands of St. Aubin's bay, with grim and great Fort Regent scowling over it from the rock, — its houses lighted up by sunshine, its streets smooth and clean to a nicety — all of which I knew, and all the hucksters' shops and alleys, as well as 1 know the green, broad valley that stretches from my vnn- dow to-day. Morning after morning, in pleasant -w-inter time, have I wandered through the sti'eets of the Island city, busy and active, — and along the quays, where lie vessels from Rio and the Cape, and Newfoundland; and by the pretty cottages that sit upon the hills above the town, and out upon the long reach of pebbles, that connects Castle Elizabeth with the shore. There, they say, upon the rocky isle, an old hermit had his home ; I have laid myself down in the bed in the rock, where they say that the hermit laid 3 but the wild Normans as early as the tunes of

S A I N T H IL I £ R S. 21

Charles the Shnple, killed the poor anchorite, and now notliiug is left of him, but his hole in the rock, and his name — for his name was St. Hiher.

Pleasant memories hover about the old castle, for Wal- ter Raleigh was once its Governor, and had a snug room on the first floor, with — I dare say — many a good butt of sack on the floor below. Clarendon wrote a part of his history in some odd corner of the battlemented building. But the days of its glory are gone ; and the head-quarters of Charles the Second, who made the old walls shake with jolhty, have become a guard-room for half a dozen lazy fellows in gray coats and breeches, who keep up a clatter with pipes, and a few tumblers of weak wine. Age has worn sad furrows in its face, and a few guns from the prim-looking Fort Regent, upon the hill, would batter it down to the sea.

It is very sti'ange how this Island people, h'sdng as it were within hail of the coast of France, and speaking the Norman language, and living under Norman customs, should yet be the sturdiest loyalists, and the most con- summate haters of French rule, anywhere to be found in the dominions of her Britannic majesty. Time and time again, the French have struggled to possess the Island — twice have had armies upon it, but always have been driven back into the sea.

Now, little Martello towers line the whole shores, springing fi'om the rocks just off the land; and through- out the reign of Napoleon, a red light might have been seen in them all at night — for in each, two aitillery men boiled their pot for a week together.

22 FreshGleanings.

The last regular descent upon the city, or in fact upon any part of the Island, was somewhere about the year 1780 or '81.* Baron de Rullecourt landed one stormy night with seven hundred men, at a point of rocks within a half- hour's march of the town Square. Before light they had roused Major Corbet, the governor of the Island ; two tall French grenadiers served him as valets-de-chamhre, and marched him, arm in arm, upon the Place Royale. By this time the Islanders were awake, and were surprised to find seven hundred French soldiers marshaled in their quiet Square, and Major Corbet, in his night-cap, in the front ranks. Major Corbet, acting probably under advices of his French retainers, ordered the Island garrison to capit- ulate.

Major Pierson, the next in command, being thoroughly awake, declined compliance ; and by noon a thousand of the militia had crowded up all the little streets which lead off the Royal Square. Major Pierson was at the head of his company. The Frenchmen stood firai.

Major Corbet, shivering with the cold, for it was Jan- Mary, penned another and final order, as commander-in- chief. Major Pierson stuck the billet upon the point of his sword, and waved to his men to come forward.

Crack ! — went the French musketry.

Major Pierson fell dead, but his men bore up stoutly ; Baron de RuUecourt fell : the French ranks became thin-

* Fallo's History. Earlier attacks upon the islands are mentioned in Raleigh's History of the World; particu.arly that upon Sark — a curious story — in the time of Edward VI.

The Island of Jersey. 23

ned — the Islanders closed round them, hewing, and firing, and shouting. They beat them down, — they trampled them under foot, — they met in the middle. It was a rare time for the quiet little town of St. Hiliers. Only fifty got safely to their boats.

The Islanders speak of it now as a thing of yesterday. — Poor Major Pierson! says one.

— Et RuUecourt — le pauvre diahle ! says another ; and they show you the stone (I could see it fi'om my inn window) on which he fell fighting so bravely.

Making up, as they do, a family of themselves, apart from the rest of the world, it was curious to observe how their thoughts ran upon old themes. They were once, it is said, nearer the Main than now ; and this leads me

away from St. Hiliers — its inn — my host Monsieur B ,

his fat wife, and daughter, to take a rambling glance at the whole Island.

The Island op Jersey.

f I TRADITION — a pleasant old story-teller as ever -*- lived — says that the people of Normandy, once passed over to the Island of Jersey upon a bridge of a single plank, paying a small tribute to the Abbot of Coutance. If the method should be resumed, there would be needed a plank five leagues long — and the bishop must be toll-gatherer, for the abbot is dead.

24 FreshGleanings.

Perhaps it was when crossmg was so easy, that the fierce Normans made such terrible inroads upon the island, and upon all the neighboring parts of France — even to the gates of the palace of Charles the Simple, that this weak monarch proposed to Rollo, who called himself Duke of Normandy, this bargain : — Rollo was to have quiet possession of the islands of Sark, Aldemey, Guern- sey and Jersey, and all that part of France now called Noraiandy, with the king's daughter Gisla, into the bar- gain— provided he would neither ask, nor take any thing more. More of the king's daughters, Rollo, as a discreet prince (and tradition says thus much for him), probably never wanted; — for the same tradition says, Gisla was both old and ugly.

Yet, — so strange are the ways of Providence, — from this same match, brought into effect by so romantic at- tachments, is legitimately sprung His Royal Highness, Al- bert Prince of Wales. How much of the blood of Gisla or of Rollo, stirs up the little chubby rogue, at his hoop-driv- ing in the park behind the palace, it matters not to inquire.

A part of the bargain I had forgotten. — Rollo, on mar- rying his wife, was to become a Christian ; an odd way, it may seem to many, of promoting the Christian virtues in a man ; — but those were rude times. Rollo managed his new estates well ; he was both loved and feared. It was the custom of the humblest of the peasantry to call in the prince to settle their disputes ; " Rollo, Rollo, a Vaide mon prince .'" was the cry ; — and so often was it repeated, and S3 just were the Duke's decisions, that the

The Island OF Jersey. 25

cry became a part of their law. It went down to the people under succeeding monarchs — to the times of Robert the Magnificent, and William the Conqueror, and Henry ; and even still later, it had force in Normandy.

Apropos is this story, I have somewhere met with, of the burial of William the Conqueror,* whose ashes lie under the high arches of the Ahhaye mix homines at Caen.

The grave was dug, — -the monarch was in his coffin,

— the candles were burning, and the incense was rising. The dead monarch's son Henry, in armor, and his guards in glittering armor, stood looking on ;— -they raised the cof- fin to lower it in the grave, when suddenly, a voice fi'om beside the royal cortege cried,. — Ha Ro ! Ha Ro ! Ha Ro ! a Vaide mon prince !

The attendants set dovni the coffin on the pavement. Henry looked stem, but could not control the effect of the cry.

A peasant claimed the spot as his ; his evidence was made good by the concurrence of the bystanders ; and not till the money was counted him for the burial-spot, did the dead king find a place in his grave.

The strangest remains to be told : — the cry has still a sacred and binding force throughout the Island of Jersey — and the Clameur de Ha-ro fills pages of their books of law. Wo be to the aggressor who hears the cry, though Rollo has been dead a thousand years !

* Histoire des Franqais. — Sismondi. Mrs. Hemans has written Bome very pretty verses in connection with the same incident.

B

26 Fresh G l e * t^ ^ n g s

After Rollo, came seven Dukes, — then William, who fought at Hastings, where Hubert's grandsire drew a long- bow. William gave Jersey with the rest of Normandy to his son Robert — poor fellow — he had his eyes put out in Cardiffe Castle — a day's ride from Bristol ; and the phthis- icy old warder will tell you the story, if you go there, now.

Since that sad day, England's kings have been masters of Jersey, with the exception of a little time when Crom- well sent over his army, and subdued it. For the men of Jersey were great royalists, and Charles II. led a gay life there after running away from Worcester, or (Scott's version) after stealing out of Ditchley park, under advice of old Doctor Rochecliffe. And now they show you, wdth pitiable pride, — the table at which he sat, — the bed on which he slept (one of them), and speak of him (many of them) as a father.

Cromwell, however, conquered the Island, and Haines

was made Governor -but a truce to all this ; you will

find as much in your geographies. It gives one no clear idea of the beautiful, green, little Island of Jersey ;* so we

* I am not writing a geography, nor a gazetteer, I therefore put statistics all down in a note. — The Island is twelve miles long, by eight broad. Its population, in round numbers, is fifty thousand — of whom half are at St. Hiliers, and St. Aubins, — another little city opposite the first. Twenty thousand are engaged in agriculture. The language is indiiFerently — a French patois, and bad English. French is the lan- guage of the courts ; French and English of the churches. Over thirty thousand tons of shipping are owned by the inhabitants, and double the amount enters in a year. Exports are cows, cider, and potatoes — all

The Island OF Jersey. 27

will take a ramble together through the shaded lanes, and look out upon the fields.

In the first place, there remain upon the island the old Seigneuries ; nowhere else will you hear of the Lords of the Manor. The old feudal privileges have, it is true, mostly- gone by : still, enough remain to give their holders rank and name ; and the gems of the island are the old Manor- houses. Buried in trees, they are of quaint architecture, and you look up through long avenues upon their peaked gables, and brown faces half covered with ivy. There is the manor-house of Rozel, — a miniature castle, with a min- iature park about it, on which the deer are trooping ; and From its windows you look over St. Catharine's bay, and Archirondel tower — rising tall and weather-beaten out of the edge of the sea. There is the Seigneury of Trinity — a great, soberly mansion, whose walls the thick evergi'eens have made damp-looking and mossy, but within, it is ever cheerful as summer.

Nor are the Seigneuries all ; for the whole island is one great suburb. — Now we have a huge stone wall at our left, coming up to the very track of the carriage- wheels, — if track there could be upon the delightfully smooth roads : a little moss hangs in its crevices ; the edge of a mouldy thatch appears over one end. You enter by a high arch- way, over which are two hearts united, graven in the

excellent; imports — wines, grain, and fish. There are no duties. Exchange is in favor of Great Britian to the amount of a shilling in a pound.

28 F R E S H G L E A N I N G S.

Stone, and a date a century or two old ; the archway opens upon the cheerful, noisy court of a farmery; — on one side, facing the sun, are the cottage windows, and a gray thatch, thick and heavy, covers the roof; lines of hospitable-looking sheds, weighed down with thatch, flank the cottages, and the stables are opposite ; between are piles of straw, and ricks, and carts, and pigs — and ducks quacking, and an old woman in a short petticoat and a red turban. A black and white cat is sunning herself on a shelf by the door, and a big dog stalks lazily out, to give you a growl of salutation as you pass on your way.

Just by the farmery, looking over the hedge, you can see a dozen of the beautiful cows of Jersey feeding in the orchard ; and they will lift their heads, and turn their mild eyes upon you with a look that is half human. All the while the hedgerows on either side roll up in round, green mounds. The narrow space between is hard and smooth, and so winding that the view is always changing ; and if you spring for a moment to the top of the grassy knoll, where the hedge is thin, you will see such a carpet of greenness as will make the heart glad in win- ter; and beyond its limit, toppling out of the trees — a cot- tage, with so many roofs and angles, and windows and chimneys, as wouLl make the study of a painter ; — still be- yond, like the burrowings of a mole, follow those same green hedgerows, winding down to the sea, — which is not so far away, but that you can see the glisten of the water- drops and the shaking of the waves.

The Island OF J-ERSEY. 29

There is picturesqueness of another kind upon the island; — deep valleys, away by St. Maiy's toward the West, and hills pushing boldly into them, with untamed forests u their foreheads ; and upon the tops of some of them are standing Poquelays — so they call them — tall upright stones of the times of Druid worship.

There is the remnant upon the high cape of Grosnez, — a patch of a ruin, — about which more old wives' stories hang, than ivy-berries upon the wall.

There is tall Mont Orgueil, and its tall castle topping it — -just in that state of decay, that one loves to wander dreaming up its stairways ; — for the wooden wainscots are not yet mouldered, and you tread great oaken floors that shake and creak ; you climb tottering stair-cases in angles of the wall, and lo ! at the landing — the floors have fallen, and you look down a dizzy depth from chamber to dun- geon ; — you sit in an embrasure of the window of the great hall of the castle, as the sun goes down ; and the red light reflected from the waters, that rush thither and away upon the beach, checkers the heavy whited arches.

Stamp upon the floor, and the timbers tremble, and the echo rings ; — a great door slams below, and the crash comes bellowing into the hall ; — a little door slams above, and the ruin seems to shake ; a bat flies in at the door, and flies out at the window. As the twilight deepens, and gray turns to black in the corners of the hall, wild goblin dreams crowd over you ; — there is a laugh faint and low (for it comes from the boys of Gorey) —it is an imp in the shadow. Now it comes louder

30 FreshGleanings.

— hurra ! — it is Prince Rupert,* and Charley at their cups.

What a leer in the look of the prince, what a devil

in his eye ! A low shout again — Vive le Roi ! vive le Roi /

How the glasses jingle ! A bat flies in, and a bat flies

out. A laugh, low and meaning — Hist ! there is a

maid in the corner, and she looks — entreaty.

Clinck, clinck, go Prince Rupert's spurs, as he sets up a goblin dance.

King Charles laughs — what a laugh ! and his

sword goes click, click, against the heavy oak table as he reels with his glass.

— No, no ; it is not Charles, it is not Prince Rupert. It is Robertf of Normandy — ^for he built the castle — and his tread is heavy on the old floor, and his armor goes clank- ing— clanking.

But his eyes are out — Poor Robert ! Wicked Henry !

* Historical critics will quarrel with me for sending Prince Rupert to Jersey, where, so far as I know, he never set foot ; but if a man may poetize with a license, surely he may dream with a Hcense.

t Robert, eldest son of William the Conqueror (1100), was sup- posed to have been the builder of the castle. It wiU be remembered that Normandy pertained to him (vid. Turner) by his father's arrange- ment. It was purchased from him by William RufUs ; and the suc- ceeding monarch, Henry Beauclerc, the youngest brother, having conquered Robert, retained him prisoner in Cardiffe Castle in South Wales (where I had the pleasure of sitting in his dungeon), for twenty-eight years. And — the story rans — the prisoner's eyes were put out with a heated copper basin, by command of his brother.

LaHogueBie. 31

The sockets are deep and bare. 'Fore Heaven ! — his head is white : — it is a skull ! — and the skeleton — for it is a skeleton, and no armor — goes clanking — clanking, over the oaken floor.

1 said it was a place for dreams — for it was after

all, only the warder come with his keys, who tells us it is time to lock up the ruin.

La Hogue Bie*

/^ OING- home — to St. HiUers — from Mount Orgueil, ^^ by the way of St. Savior's, there may be seen over the hedge, a little to the right of the road — so near, that in the evening you would see it, and stand and stare — a tower, built upon a mound ; and the mound is cov- ered with trees, and the tower is covered with ivy. At night, you might fancy it a gi^eat giant, squat upon his haunches, with long green hair, waving to and ft-o in the wind.

* Legends somewhat similar to this are to be found in the collec- tion of MM. Grimm. This, however, as I received it, was uniformly without the machinery of the Gold bird, as in the " Deux Fr^res" (de Hesse et Paderbom), or of the Animals, as in " Brunnenhold mid Bmnnenstark," or " Gimtram und Waltram."

Something like the present is doubtless to be found in " Les Contes Populaires de la Normandie ;" though I have not been able to see a copy of that work-

32 Fresh Gleanings.

It is very old — so old, that tradition only assigns it a date of erection. It has passed through the hands of a great many owners, but has always been maintained in perfect repair. It is even held sacred by a great many upon the island : and throngs go to it upon Sundays — to wind up its shaded mound, to scramble through the little ruined chapel at its base, and to toil up its long flight of steps to look out upon the island. For nowhere do you see more of the island, or do you see it better; — the checkered fields, — the shining streaks of road, — the gi'een lines of hedges, — the high rock of Fort Regent, — the white city below it, are as plain as a painting to the eye. In a fair day, Guernsey can be seen, and the tall island of Sark ; and Eastward, over the glittering strip of ocean, looking hard and fixedly, one can see a narrow white point lifting above the horizon, and whoever you ask will tell you it is the tower of the cathedral of Coutances. And if you roll your eyes about like a stupid stranger, the same informant will very likely tell you the story of La Hogue Bie : — -a story that is in the mouths of all the old wives of Jersey. By many, too, it is implicitly believed, nor shall I take it upon myself to say that it is without reason.

Long time ago, and the marsh of St. Lauience upon the island of Jersey was infested with a great monster — dragon-shaped — possibly a sui-viving member of the great family of Iguanodi, of whose former existence Dr. Man- tell has established the proof — that devoured, without pity, men, women, and children. The bravest warriors

L A H O G U E B I E. 33

put on their armor and went out to fight the monster, but the monster devoured them. The boldest tried to waylay him at night as he came out from the marsh, but his red eye pierced the darkness, and when they saw it darting out gleams of light, and heard his huge body crackling over the shrubs, the boldest fled. A bullock was but a mouthful for the monster, and their flocks were all con sumed ; — the people lived in high stone houses for dread. And when their flocks were all killed, how could they live longer] They made companies and went out to meet the monster ; but a single sweep of his dragon tail swept down the foremost ranks.

Now in those times, there lived in Normandy, a most valiant knight, whose name was De Hambie. De Ham- bie had heard of the monster that spread such desolation over the fair island of Jersey, and he burned with desire to give battle to the Dragon.

So, one day, when the monster had gorged himself with the noblest flock in the island, and seemed to be sleeping upon the edge of the marsh, the islanders sent over a mes- senger to De Hambie, to come and slay it. De Hambie put on his armor and took his tried spear, and one attendant : — and his wife, who was young and beautiful, went with him as far as the Abbey of Coutances, and bade him adieu, in tears before the altar.

A whole day De Hambie fought with the monster : he broke his tried spear, and two other spears that his attendant had given him were broken — one only remained. Twice his shield had fallen clattering under the paw of

34 FreshGleanings.

the Dragon; — ^his mace was thrown, and the blood was oozing through the joints of his armor: his hand shook as he hfted his spear for the final throw.

St. Mary be praised ! it pierced the red eye of the

Dragon — through eye and through brain the roufyh boaj*- spear sped.

The monster howled ; — they say his howling was heard from Grosnez to Gorey ; he turned over and died.

De Hambie, worn out with fatigue, laid himself down to sleep. Dark pui'poses floated through the mind of his attendant as he stood beside him. He thought of the rich lands of De Hambie stretching through the fairest valley of Normandy ; — he thought of his castle so strong, and his larder so choicely stocked ; — he thought of his fair young wife. None but he had seen the monster slain; there would be none to dispute his tale. In an evil hour he smote his sleeping master, and De Hambie, who had slain the Dragon, was himself slain.

The treacherous servant went back with this lying story on his lips : — " Fair madam, the monster has slain the noble De Hambie, but I have slain the monster. With his last words, my noble master has commended his pool' servant to you." And, with his lying lips, he kissed the fair hands of the weeping widow. She mourned griev- ously ; — for De Hambie had been good — as he was valiant. She was grateful to the brave man who had slain the Dragon, for she believed the tale of the treacherous fol- lower, and in an evil hour, she gave him her hand and lands.

La Solitude. 35

A wicked conscience is never safe : * nemo malus felix^ — and the traitor babbled in his sleep.

The indignant woman plunged a sword in the heart of the faithless villain— the sword of her noble husband. She sought the spot on which De Hambie was slain so cruelly ; — she built a mound over the spot, and upon the mound a tower — so high she could see it from her window of the Abbey of Coutances.

The mound is covered with trees, and the tower is covered with ivy ;-^-you can see it a little upon the right of the road as you go from Mount Orgueil to St, Hiliers ; — ^they call it La Hogue Bje,

La Solitude.

IT was the name of the little cottage where I lived when at Jersey, — La Solitude. Monsieur de Grouchy could not have choser a better, if he had hunted through the whole vocabulary of names ; you turned off down a little by-way from the high road to St, Savior's to reach it. The very first time that I swung open the green gate that opens on the by-way, and brushed through the laurel bushes, and read the name modestly written over the door, and under the arbor that was flaunting in the dead of winter with rich green ivy leaves,-^my heart yearned toward it as toward a home.

There wei'e no round, chubby bright-eyed faces look-

33 Fr ES H GlE A N I N GS.

iiig out of the windows under the roof — not one, for my landlord and landlady were childless. It was, indeed, La Solitude. The noise from the road turned into a pleas- ant murmur before it reached the cottage, for it had to pass over the high wall of my neighbor's garden, and over his beds of cauliflowers, and his broad alleys trimmed with box.

Let us step up a moment into the little parlor upon

the first floor ; it would not be high enough to rank as sol in the atmosphere of St. Denis; — it matters not one straw, for I do so dearly love to wander in fancy ovei those humble wayside nooks in Europe, which I had learned to call, for ever so short a time, — my home, that I shall be eternally interrupting my story, to peep at them again and again.

The curtains are of dark-colored chintz, and there is a most capacious old-fashioned sofa, that is covered with the same ; the ceiling is low, but you need not stoop — for my landlady is none of the shortest, and on fete days she wears stupendous head-gear. The grate is English, and is glowing in good English fashion ; — a cozy arm-chair stands by the corner, and a round, heavy table in front ; and if it be four by the clock over the mantle, the table is cover- ed with a snow-v/hite cloth, and it is smoking and smell- ing savory with dinner; — on one corner a tall bottle of Medoc is standing sentinel, and over opposite — as a sort of reserve guard — more for appearances, than actual ser- vice— is a pot-bellied little decanter of Sherry. Under the window, — though yoii can scarce get your head out

LaSolitude. 37

for the trailing vines, is the green by-lane. Further down it, looking to the left, — is another cottage ; but you cannot see it — the trees are so thick ; I never sav\^ one of its in- mates ; but sometimes, just at dusk, I used to hear a pair of feet go pattering under my wdndow — they must have been small feet — and used to hear the snatch of a soft song — it must have been a young girl's voice ; and I often thought that I would ask my landlady, who lived in the cottage, but I came away and forgot it.

There stood another cottage at the mouth of the lane, where it left the highway. The very first morning T passed, a lady in a sun-bonnet was weeding a patch of flowers in the yard. — The next morning she wore a better bonnet ; and so, between seeing her one morning in one bonnet, and another mornins- in another — seeinor }ier face one morning, and her back the next — I came to be quite familiar with her appearance and attitudes, and 1 dare say, if I had stayed long enough, our acquaintance might in time, have ripened to something like chit-chat over the holly-hedge that bordered her garden.

But I was most familiar with my neighbors over the way, the other side of the lanej though I never remember to have met a single one of them, even in my walks through the town. The intimacy sprung up in their garden, and grew through my windows.

My landlady told me the occupants of the cottage were brothers — one a bachelor, and the other married ; and that his were the two children, I had seen tottling over the gravel-walks in the garden.

38 FreshGleanings.

But my landlady had not told me which was the mar- ried man, and which the Benedick. It put my ingenuity sadly to the test to establish the difference. They were not far from the same age — one a heavy, florid man, with a portly step — the other thin, not as tidily dressed, and shorter by an inch. They sometimes of a morning walk ed down the garden, and out at the green gate together, but oftener the thin man was first by a half hour at the least.

I tried to hang an opinion upon this, but could not. There was something, however, in their ways of shutting the door that gave me for a time strong hopes of determ- ining their respective conditions. The thin, pale man, uniformly shut the door very promptly, and occasionally with a slam ; the florid man, on the contrary, usually loit- ered in the half open door, while he was putting on his gloves, and then closed it very deliberately, but impress- ively, and walked down the garden, as if he were at peace with all the world. The man, thought I, who closes the door emphatically and promptly, and earliest by a half hour (for here, the first-mentioned observation comes in very gi-acefully to sustain the last) — as if the world in- doors were one thing to him, and the world out-of-doors quite another, must be the husband.

On the other hand, the man who loiters with the door half open, as if, I thought, the world within and the world without, were all one to him, must be — I was very sure of it — the bachelor brother.

The expression upon the countenance of the last, tend-

L A S O L I T U D E. 39

ed the more to confirm my opinion ; for, after observing it attentively every moniing for a w^eek, I could discover no expression at all, either of joy, sorrow^, disgust, or anxiety — one or other of w^hich, under the circumstances, would I thought, very natiu^ally sit upon the face of a husband.

The pale man seemed to me to have more thankfulness in his nature ; and as he felt first the fresh, cool air of the morning, I fancied that he breathed a sort of inw^ard thanksgiving to Heaven, for having made such a morning, and for having given him such a blessed opportunity to enjoy it ; — and surely, thought I, it is, or ought to be, char- acteristic of a married man, to be grateful for even the most trifling mercies of Heaven.

Toward noon, it always happened that a small boy with a basket, rung the bell at the green gate, and the raaid-of all-work ran out — always in the same pea-green dress, slip-shod — to bring back the steak, or joint, or brace of fowls, as the case might be.

At four precisely, the two brothers, arm in arm, enter the little green gate ; and four times out of five, it hap- pened that just at that hour, the two little children would be frolicking about the garden, and that both would set off on a canter dov^i toward the gate, shouting, I fancied, (for I could not hear,) at every jump, — " Papa — papa !"

The florid man uniformly stood still for the little girl to come up, and the pale man as uniformly advanced a step to catch the little boy in his arms.

Which was the papa ? — for my life I could not tell.

They walk together into the house ; presently the stout

40 FreshGleanings.

man appears with a knife in his hand — walks to the farther end of the garden, and cuts a huge bunch of celery — he then disappears, and I see no more of either till after dinner.

1 have finished my own, and am sitting before the

window, when out come the two brothers, and seat them- selves for a quiet smoke upon the bench beside the door, The stout man puffs slowly, and at long intervals, — and throws his head back against the wall — and clasps his hands across the lower button of his waistcoat — and puffs — and looks into the sky, as if it were all his own.

Happy man ! thought I, without care, without anxieties-^ your own robust, contented looks, are, after all, the best proof of your fortunate estate.

I could not help contrasting his free and easy appeal - ance with that of the poor man beside him. The puffs of this last were violent and irregular ; indeed, his cigar was gone, before that of the stout man was half consumed. I thought he gazed with a look of envy upon the careless air of the bachelor brother. Poor soul ! from my heart I pitied him.

— Meantime the children steal out; — the boy treads on the toes of the thin man, and the little girl (and it puzzled me for a while) covers the face of the stout man with kisses.

Once on a fair noon, after I had resided a fortnight at the cottage — the mother made her appearance with a babe of only six weeks old in her arms ; — this, I deter- mined, should be the test. She stood for a moment before the brothers, as if hesitating ; and then with a smile, 1 thought half of irony, she put it gently into the arms of

LaSolitude. 41

the thin man. He turned his eyes upward a moment — but whether to thank Heaven for having given him such a babe, or in a prayerful wish that Heaven would make it soon able to take care of itself, — I could not determine. The mother sits between the brothers, and talks vivaciously to one and the other — never seeming to have a single sen- timent of pity, for the sad wreck of a husband beside her. Now, whether the motion of the father's arms induced the sensations of sea-sickness, or whether the babe had been over-fed, it suddenly fell violently sick. The poor man jumped up, with an exclamation that reached my ear through the window. And — I could not have believed it, if I had not seen it with my own eyes — the mother and brother burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, at sight of the thin man and the sick baby. — It was wrong, — it was inhuman, but I could not help laughing at the poor devil myself; and I was the less disposed to resist, as I wanted to enjoy a kind of triumph over my landlady, who was but two years married, and who was taking the last dishes from the table.

— Ha, ha, said I, Madame, as she came and peeped over my shoulder — voyez vous, — this poor soul— ha, ha — his own child

— Monsieur ! interrupted Madame, looking me fixedly in the face.

— Eh, hien, Madame, je dis — 7nai — 7ie, Tie — que cepav/ore diahle — ce mari

— But, Monsieur, said Madame, the thin man is not the husband

42 F II R s ri G L E A N I N G s.

— And the stout man —

— Is Monsieur D , the husband of the lady, and the

father of those pretty children.

1 asked my landlady to draw the curtains, and

bring up candles.

But the time has come to leave Jersey ; and if it is ob- jected by any, that I give no sufficient account of the so- cial habits of the people, can I not point back triumphantly with the feather-end of my quill to the last three pages, where are drawn actual dagueneotypes of the inhabitants of as many cottages 1

Nay, more ; have I not, forgetting my native

modesty, peeped through the chintz curtains of my win- dow, and so exposed to the eye of the world, the domestic secrets of my neighbor's family ]

I can only add, that the people of the island are most easy and familiar in their social intercourse. There is about them a bonliommie, and he artfulness that makes one's feelings warm toward them. There are no foolish distinctions in their society ; mere rank is not insisted on ; and every where the stranger is received with a most affa- ble courtesy.

It was a night in early spring, on which I had arranged my leave-taking. Two months the cottage had been my home ; in that time, I had gained my health once more ; and in that time, too, had come to me — sad, sad news from over the ocean — and I had wept bitter tears at that home in the cottage.

But the parish clock of St. Hiliers has sti"uck

L A S 0 L I T C D E. 43

— the landlady caDs ; I snatch the curtain aside for a last look into my neighbor's garden; — the moon lights up pleasantly the brown face of the cottage, and silvers the box borders and the grayel- walks ; I give a hasty final ^ance around the paiior, — ^into fhe grate, burning so cheer- fiiDy ; and often since, — ^in the maisous gamies of Paris, — ^in the dirty inns of the Apennines, and in the splendid hotels of Vienna, hare I longed tor the quiet comforts of my little home at La SoHtmde.

2[t)e tUorlb of parts.

THE WORLD OF PARIS.

Land.

T WENT do\\^l to the lee side of the vessel, and -*- my eyes rested on a chalky line of shore that rose out of the water, four or five leagues away — Eastward. I knew it must be France.

The first sight of a strange country does, somehow or other, upset all of one's preconceived notions.

If a man gains knowledge fi-om Geogi'aphy, — he has the position, and shape, and boundaries, and running rivers of akingdominhis eye; if hehas loved History, — there sti-etch- es out under his mental vision, great battle-fields, and de- cayed castles, and scattered tombs of warriors and kings, and such gi'oups of battered turrets as are in thepictures of Froissart, and tracks of armies ; if he has striven after a Social and Literary idea of a kingdom, — such a kingdom as France — there are thronging in his thoughts — pageants, — brilliant interiors, — tall and princely foims of houses, in which Mesdames Maintenon and Ctfilanges may have

48 Fresh Gleanings.

made their wit to sparkle — golden hangings and luxurious lounges, and long wainscots, and big wigs of the time of the gallant Louis Quatorze — priests in embroidered robes, nuns in caps, — incense rising, — lofty spires of cathedrals a little of all this, hav3 been in my mind the night be- fore, and whisked through my dreams. But in the morn- ing, as I looked out Eastward, there was nothing of it at all ; — nothing but a low line of chalky shore, against which the green waves went splashing, in the same careless way in which they go splashing over our shores at home.

It seemed very odd to me that the land should be in- deed France : but it was ; — and the dirty little steamer " Southampton" was puffing nearer and nearer to it every moment.

A Norfolk country gentleman stood beside me, who like myself was visiting France for the first time ; and there was that upon his countenance, which told as plainly as words could tell it, that the same thoughts were passing through his mind, as were passing through mine. So we stood looking over the lee-rail together, scarce for a moment turning our eyes from the line of shore. Pres- ently we could see white buildings dotted here and there.

— Very odd-looking houses — said the Norfolk country gentleman, laying down his glass.

— Very odd — said I ; only meaning, however, to assent to the Englishman's idea of oddity, who counts every thing odd, that differs from what he has been used to see within the limits of his own Shire. It is quite beyond the com- prehension of a great man}' English country gentlemen,

Land. 49

how any people in the world can have tastes differing fi'om. their owti ; and wherever this difference exists in small things, or gi-eat, they think it exceeding odd.

I remember standing with such a man, on the Place be- fore St. Peter's, on a night of the Illumination. The

lesser white hghts had been burning an hour over frieze, and dome, and all, — so that the church seemed as if it had been painted with molten silver, upon a dark- blue waving curtain ; and when the clock struck the signal for the change, and the deep-red light flamed up around the cross and the ball, — and along every belt of the dome, — and blazed between the columns, — and ran like magic over the top of the facade, — and shot up its crackling tongues of flame around the whole sweep of the colonnade, and in every door-way — making the faces of the thirty thousand look- ers on as bright as if it was day — all upon the instant — 'Pon my soul, sir — said the man beside me — this is dev'Hsh odd !

— Dev'Hsh odd — thought I ; though I was not in the humor to say it.

But to return to the French shore : — the houses we saw, were of plain white walls, and roofed with tiles. They had not the rural attractiveness of English cottages — no French cottages have — ^but they were very plainly, substantial, serviceable affairs. Presently we could make out the forms of people moving about.

— Veiy odd-looking persons, those — said the Norfolk country gentleman, looking through his glass.

— Very odd — said I, looking in my turn; for I like to

C

50 Fresh Gleanings.

keep m "humor with the innocent fancies of a fellow-trav- eller. I knew the men of Norfolk did not wear such blue blouses as we saw ; but aside from this, I could not ob- serve any gi'eat difference between the French coastmen, and people I had seen in other parts of the world.

A little after, we made the light, and rounded the jetty, and saw groups of people, among whom we distinguished port officers and soldiers.

— Extraordinary looking fellows — said the Norfolk country gentleman.

— Very, said I — half seriously ; for the soldiers woro frock-coats and crimson trowsers, and most uncouth, barrel-shaped hats, and little dirty moustaches ; and had a swaggering, careless air, totally unlike the trim, soldier- like appearance of English troops.

In a few moments we ran up the dock, and caught glimpses of narrow, strange old streets ; and two of the gend^ armerie came up, arm in arm, and tipped their big chapeaux, and asked for our passports.

— How very absurd — said the Norfolk countiy gen- tleman, as he handed out his passport.

— Very — said I, as I gave up mine.

The quays were crowded with porters and hotel men, quan-eling for our luggage ; and here we first heard French talked at home.

— It strikes me it's a very odd language — said the Nor folk country gentleman.

— Very— said I ; and we stepped ashore in France.

Going INTO Paris. 51

Going into Paris.

MY Norfolk friend and I stop at the same house ; — and two or three mornings after, are upon the deck of the same steamer that fizzes up the Seine. Together we looked upon the checkered fields that spread over the rolling banks of the river, and the towers of old churches that were seated close down to the water. As the banks shut together above Quillebceuf, the villages thickened, and old timber houses, filled in with stone and mortar, stretched along the river. Now, we began to see those avenues, and trimmed tops of trees, which are recognized by French taste, ^ut which my Norfolk fi^iend persisted in calling most extraordinary aft'airs. Now, too, as we lay off the larger villages, began to show itself the listless, pleasure-loving air of the French peasantry. — The port- ers lay down their burdens, and lean against the houses to look at the steamer as it passes ; women in the doorways stand vnth their arms akimbo, and their round faces as free of thought, as if there were not a care, or a labor ir life. Now and then in a larger village, there is music upon the quay, and a crowd of boys, and women, ancT workmen, throng about it ; — the little drummer flourishei his sticks, with his head thrown one side, and an eye to the women, and our passing company ; — the fifer blows his very loudest, and I can see his foot beating time — the

!>2 Fresh G l e a n i n o 8.

girls, rosy and bright, look tenderly at them — look ten- derly at us ; the boys in their short, blue smock-frocks are gleeful as the music ; — the boat fizzes along ; — the group on the quay grows confused ; — the houses mingle into a patch of white upon the shore, with an old gi'ay towei among them ; and soon a turn in the ever-winding Seine shuts them wholly from our sight. So they pass us — wooded shores, glimpses of forests, dells opening up sweet landscapes — then change to banks rolling, and waving with ripened grain.

So we jDass Lillebonne, and most beautiful Caudebec, and the twin towers of Jumiege. They say that under these towers are the tombs of two princes, sons of Clovis II., and the story of them is, that they fought against their father. Their father took them prisoners, and in the night went into their dungeon with a swordsman, and cut the sinews of their arms and legs, as they lay in their chains ; — then bound them with cords, and put them in a little boat upon the swift-running Seine, to find their way to the sea. Away they went whirling over the greedy waters, — on and on, for there were not then many villages, nor many boats upon the river — a day and two nights they floated — their limbs bleeding, their mouths unfed — until the monks of Jumiege spied them over against their abbey and brought them to land, and tended them kindly till they died. And the monks cut their effigies on their tomb ; and the effigies, though worn and disfigured, are in the abbey yet, and you can read their sad epitaph —Les Enervk

G O I N G I N T O P A R 1 S. 53

But lo ! in the valley before us, the tall towers of

Rouen ! The Norfolk country gentleman thought it an odd old town, but stopped there to learn the odd lan- guage they spoke. I bade him adieu on the inn steps some days after, telling him that I went on to study at Paris — for which, I dare say, he thought me a very odd sort of person.

Away to the left of our track, in the plain, through which flows the Seine, after running hour upon hour through bellowing tunnels, and by chateaux upon heights — appears a tall cathedral spire, and a forest of turrets under it. I know it can be no other than St. Denis, the burial-place of the kings ; and by that sign I know that Paris, the capital city, is near by; for I remember how Froissart said, that when King John of France, brother of Edward, who died in England, was brought back for burial, the clergy of Paris " went on foot beyond St. Denis* to meet the bier."

And now, — out of the window, — as we glide round a curve high above the river and the plain, comes a view of the great capital — the longed-for Paris, gay Paris, la belle mile, enchanting city — lying in the clear sunshine stretched upon the plain ; — no mist lies over it — no folds of smoke rest on it — no cloud — no shadow of cloud : a glittering heap it lies — the Seine glittering in its midst The valley is a great savannah, here and there rolling uf

>ir John Froissart, Chap. 222, Book I.

54 i'' II C S II G L E A N I N (J S.

waves of hills, but nowliere is there sight of mountain ; fortresses pile up gray and old from the green bosom of the plain; but around, and back of all, the blue sky comes down and touches the tops of the vineyards that grow in the valley.

I see two old brown towers in the town rising above the houses, and know they must be the towers of Notre- Dame. I see a dome lifting above all other domes, and know it must be the dome des Invalides ; I see a great gray hulk of building, floating, as it were, in a sea of trees — I know it must be the old palace in its garden ; I see in the farthest cluster of the houses, where they al most fade into the horizon line, a pillar, and something glittering upon its top — a winged, gilded angel — and the angel stands upon the column where the tall and terrible Bastile stood. I see another shaft : it is a single stone, tapering and pointed, and there seems an open spot* around it where the sun shines on the pavement, and glistens, as it were, on two great globules of spray — I know it for the column of Luxor, and though it is a stone's throw away from the bank of the river, yet in the dark days of France, a stream of pure blood ran all the way from it, and urged its heavy, sluggish, damning curi'ent through the parapet wall, and fell splashing upon the thick, foul waters of the Seine!

Nothing can be imagined more luxurious in way of seat, than a first-class French car : you sit upon figured white silk

* Pldce de la Concorde. — The station of the guillotine during the Rel;^ of Terror.

G O I N G 1 N T O P A R I S. 55

or damask, and cushions yielding to your slightest move- ment ; — you have them at your side, you have them for youi- head ; — Brussels cai-pet to tread upon — silk curtains to shut out the sun ; and their consti-uction below, is such that you feel no jar, but seem to be smmming through the air.

All the French roads are well constructed ; I do not know that they are better essentially than the English — being very similar in general appearance ; but I had always a gi'eater feeling of safety in French caniages — owing, perhaps, to less rate of speed. The police regu • lations are admirably arranged and enforced. Speed averages from twenty to thirty miles the hour ; the en- gines have been, hitherto, mostly of English construction, but are now manufactured at Paris. There is, perhaps, less of travel upon the French railways than upon any of the Continent, and surely far less than upon those of Great Britain. The French travel very little for amuse- ment— ^very little in their own country for observation; this arises, in some measure, from the monotonous char- acter of their roads, offering little to arrest the attention of the ordinary observer, and still less to gratify the tastes of those so essentially politan in feeling as the French nation ; they find their resources in their capitals — they neither wish nor seek for better things : a few wander away during summer to the mountain towns of the Pyre- nees— a few to the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, and some to the sea ; but most content themselves best with the gay- eties and glitter of the city. Business negotiations are

53 F R E S II G L E A N I N G S.

arranged by the professed commercial travelers, and as a conseauence, the number of those traveling for business purposes is exceedingly limited.

That restless, moving, curious spirit virhich is driving Americans to every quarter of the earth, meets with no sympathy from a Frenchman ; it is a mystery tc^ him — he believes inquietude belongs to travel, and he can not con- ceive how any should enjoy inquietude. There belongs to this feeling none of the Briton's cherishment of home ; were it so, it would be irreconcilable with his turbulent, excitable, and rebellious spirit. It is because he is essen- tially gregarious in his nature, that the Frenchman can not understand how the separation or dispersion that is incident to travel, can be source of enjoyment. Even the wild turbulency to which his restless spirit is disposed, is but an extravaganza in his lifetime of pleasure, — but a new scene-shifting, without any change of theatre. Hence it is, that less will be seen of the French upon their highways of travel, than of any nation in Europe.

Returning now to the luxurious carriage, let the reader imagine himself, with all Paris in his eye, and with so much French on liis tongue, as will enable him to pro- nounce intelligibly the words Hotel Meurice ; and with so much understanding of all the questions that are addressed to him, whether, '* Oil logez vous V or " Comhien de malles avez vousV that he replies to one and all with the air of a man, who knows very well what he is talking about, Hotel Meurice — with such stock, I say, of ready conversa- tion on hand — le': the reader imagine himself hurtling over

GoingintoParis. 57

the last bridge on the railway from Rouen, to the capital city.

In the comer is a red-faced man in brown gaiters and plaid trowsers, and if your knowledge of French has led you to venture some trifling remark, it will have been met with an ominous shake of the head, that has made you inwardly curse your awkward pronunciation. And if, unfortunately, you shall have made a second venture, with a little previous practice under breath, you will have met with a still more ominous shake of the head, and a re- pulsive gesture that sets communication at defiance. Noi will you, perhaps, in your ignorance of dress and habi- tude, have suspected your companion for an Englishman, until you hear him utter a string of stout English oaths at the officers of the Octroi, who insist upon overhauling his luggage now, — for the third time.

Later experiences would teach you that a first class caniage is no place to study French habits, for the rea- son, that French travellers in general, are better consulters of economy, than to ride in them ; and further, that nine out of ten first class passengers are English, who will not speak French — often because they can not, and who do not speak English, because they will not. Can stronger reasons be imagined]

To return once more ; you cross the heavy, shaking timber bridge — you drive through the bellowing tunne"'3, and you come to a stop within the rich iron palisades j£ the Station of Paris. Eager, strange faces are looking through the barrier. You find your portmanteau upon

58 Fresh Gleanings.

the benches of the Octroi — you unlock wonderingly ; the long fingers of the officer probe it to the bottom.

— C^est Jlni, Monsieur — quelque chose avotre discretion? — says the Examiner ?

— Hotel Meurice.

The Examiner turns up his nose at you, as an incorri- gible dog.

The porter has caught your destination, and puts your portmanteau upon the Omnibus, and he has shown you a seat, and pulls off his hat — Le facteur — Monsieur — quel- que chose— four hoire ?

— Hotel Meurice.

The coachman cracks his whip ; the conductor takes his place.

— Mais, Monsieur — says the pleading facteur — quelque chose — quelqu^ argent 1

— Hotel Meurice,

— Que Diahle ! — Mais, Monsieur —

The thought occurs, that your pronunciation may be still misunderstood — and to be lost the first day in Paris ! You seize your pencil, and write in plain characters upon a leaf of your pocket-book — Hotel Meurice. You beckon to the desponding facteur — he gathers new energy — ^he reaches up his hand — you put in it the slip of paper.

— Sacr-r-r-r-r-r-r-e ! — says the man — you turn a corner, md the poor facteur has vanished. Your companions of lie omnibus are too well bred to smile; but they look {trongly tempted. How uncomfoi'table to be alone for *:he first time in Paris !

FirstScenes. 69

First Scenes.

T^THAT strange, red, waxed floors are these in the " * fifth story of the Hotel Meurice — and what a queer httle bed, in which a short man can not lie straight ! You open the window — they open like a door, the win- dows of Paris — and you look into the square court of the inn. It is clean, and brightly paved ; a travelling-caiTiage of huge dimensions, and becovered with trunks of evtery imaginable shape, is drawn up in one corner, and a cour- ier with a gilt band upon his hat is strutting back and forth. A knot or two of men, looking like as possible to the people you have left behind you in England, are talk- ing under the archway ; and though you can not hear the words they are using — the house is so high — yet surely there is no mistaking that genuine British laugh.

If you go below, you will see two or three men writing violently at the desks of the Bureau, and any one of them will address you in English. But it is in a strange accent, and the whole place seems strange. Step to the other side of the court, at the ringing of the bell, and you en- ter a rich saloon — Ja salle a manger. There is none of that huny of entrance that belongs to the dinner-call at home ; every one is quite easy — quite confident that there will be place, and that there will be time. Nor does one see the barbarous custom of our cities, of feeding the two sexes

60 Fresh G l i: .\ i\ i n g s.

apart ; but there are elegant ladies scattered up and down the table — the surest guaranties of good order, and of good breeding. It may be very well to say that the busi- ness habits of Americans require a haste and abruptness not compatible with the presence of the gentler sex ; but surely nothing so much as their absence makes a man forget those finer courtesies of the table, which much as any thing, in every country, mark the character of the gentleman. And I suggest, for whomever it may concern, if in this thing, the hot-brained haste of Americans should not give place to a cultivation of some of the more attract- ive graces of life]

There are English, indeed, who choose their own par- lors and seclusion, carrying abroad with them, in some measure through necessity, those habits of segregation which belong to their classes at home.

Flowers and fruits in pretty array stretch down the French table-d'hote, and the dishes surprisingly small, to one accustomed to American habits of abundance, are served by English-speaking waiters. There is a charm in the quiet and the nicety ; and there is an ease and free- dom, without vulgar familiarity, rarely seen in France, out of Paris, but which belong peculiarly to the first hotels of Switzerland, and the German baths.

After dessert, for there is little sitting over wine at a French table, one lounges into the coffee or smoking-room the other side of the court, or out under the arches of the Rue de Rivoli, or across thp way into the great garden of the Tiiileries, among t ^3 throngs that are wearing out

F I R R T S C E N E S. 61

the after-dinner hour, in gossiping under the lindens and among the oranges. Nursery-maids with flocks of chil- dren, old ladies with daughters, old men with canes, aie walking, sitting, laughing, reading — for the sun is yet a half a degree above the top of the distant Arc de I'Etoile. Its outline rises firm against the red evening sky. You can almost distinguish the sculptures of its cornice, though it is a mile away, and a sea of bright gi'een foliage is waving between. Or if you stand in the middle of the garden — in the middle of tl i entrance-way to the palace — you may see the whole arch from top to bottom, up a long, smooth avenue, whose further end is dotted with can-iages of a hundred sizes in the long perspective. The column of Luxor rises black in the middle scene ; group upon group of people pass out at the gateway — under the column — up the avenue ; all the while, the rustling of a tall fountain — the laughs of playing children, in your ear — all the while their bright faces and curling locks, and the sparkle of the water in your eye; and be- fore you, stretching out to where the arch, the monument of Napoleon's genius, strides upon the sky — is the brilliant perspective, as gay and wondrous with its moving multi- tudes as a dream.

Just at the left, upon entering the gate, over against the hotel, is a long, low, verandah-looking building, with swarms of people at round tables in fi-ont of it, where they are drinking little cups of coffee, with a thimble-full of brandy — and so dissipate an hour at the cheap rate of half-a-fr;.nc.

62 F R E 3 a G L E A N I N G S.

Let us walk up and sit down at one of the empty tables ■ —there is no one to stare at you, be as awkward as you may — your accent ludicrously strange ; you may spill your ice upon the ground — you may upset your chair — there is no one to smile at your clumsiness, and you feel that you are not among English — that you are not among Americans.

So we watch the swarm of persons grouping away

into the shadows of the trees, and the vast extent of the old gray palace, lengthening away into obscurity — as sombre and thought-stirring, seen thus for the first time in the dusk of evening, as has been its history. There are jour- nals scattered over the tables, if there were not richer interest in observing than in reading; and the evening drums are beating as the battalion moves down from the PMce Vendome, and their noise dies upon the ear, as they scatter over the city. The loungers lessen at the little tables — the crowd go out of the iron gates one by one, and the tall sentinels permit none to come in. The lamps of the Cafe, where I have been sitting, are put out — the white-aproned waiter gathers up the journals — and it is night in the garden, though in the city it has hardly be- gun.

At going out of the gate, is a man with a strange tin temple upon his back, covered with crimson satin, and from under each arm are peeping out silver-tipped water- spouts, like the keys of a Scotch bag-pipe, and he tinkles a bell, which means (for he says nothing) that for a couple of sous, he will draw you from his temple, a glass of what

F I R S T S C E N E 3. 63

he has the assurance to call lemonade. Perhaps an old woman is hanging off a yard or two, with a tray of very indigestible-looking cakes, which will be needed by who ever ventures the lemonade, and the last doubly needed, by whoever favors the old lady's cakes. There is an un- derstanding between the dealers. Gateways are favorite stations for them, and at all the gateways in Paris you may find them. Sometimes one saunters up the Boule- vard des Italiens — sometimes under the obelisk of Luxor, and on occasions they are adventurous enough to appear within the aristocratic precincts of the Place Vendome. Their customers are, — workpeople in blouses, — small and unruly boys, who are led about by nursery-maids, and families of provincial tourists.

I stroll along the heavy palisade of the garden, looking into the faces of the passers, and following with my eye the red, green, and blue lights of the heavy coaches for Neuilly, and Passy, and the Arch of Triumph, which go thundering by. As if in a quiet, but a strange dream, I wander on ; — here I meet a sergent-de-ville in his heavy chapeau, with his light long-sword, becoming his tall, erect figure ; — ^he gives me one glance — I can read in it — un Anglais — and he passes on ; but his presence, even for the moment, makes me feel safe. Before I am aware I am on the great, glittering Place de la Concorde ; — the lamps on their brazen columns are glittering on every side, and the giant fountains are throwing up with a roar their ton'ents of water. One way I catch a glimpse, through an avenue of lights, of the classic front of the Madeleine —

64 F R E S II G L E A N I N G S.

the other way, over the bridge, are the heavy coIutiitis of the Chamber of the Deputies ; and the obehsk, beneath vv^hich I stand, hfts its mysterious tapering finger into the blue heavens above me.

On this spot sprang up that quarrel betw^een the peo- ple and the soldiery in 1789, which ripened into the darkest days the modern world has known. Here had its station the dreadful guillotine; — down that avenue went the carts lumbering with the headless bodies of the dead ; — there, under those trees of the Champs Elysees, skulked the devils of the Reign of Terror to see the blood shed, a sacrifice to their madness ; — there skulked too, men with forms bent forward, and trembling with ea- gerness— ^looking at the up-turned faces of the dead ones, to see if by chance, there was the face of some brother, or son ; — there were the fiightfully pale faces of women, with eyes fixed and tearless — never lifting their feet from the wandering currents of blood — their natures changed by horror, in those days of the Reign of Terror.

Ah, Robespierre, and Danton, and brother Dumas,

and Desmoulins who gloated at the blood running here — devils as you were, and as you are — your own gory heads went tumbling and thumping after all, over these stones, and your dead tongues protruded, tasted the blood you had made to flow ! Poor Louis XVI. ! poor Marie An- toinette— so gentle — so beautiful — with such an impas- sioned eulogist as Burke — no sword sprung from its scab- bard to defend husband or wife on this temble spot ! The age of chivalry had gone.

FirstScenes. 65

Brissot, Charlotte Corday, Louis Duke of Or- leans, Marie Helene, — ^how little I thought, when read- ing your sad stories, that on my first night in Paris — so bright and beautiful a night as it was — I should stand upon the very spot where the clanging and glittering knife came dowTi upon your necks !

I remembered too, how at a later day — when the blood- stains were dried upon the spot, an altar* had been built, and the Austrians, and Prussians, and Russians had gath- ered here — and I thouffht how ^lorious a thing;' it must have been, to have listened to a Te Deum sung in the midst of them, and to have heard the click of ten thou- sand swords upon the pavement, as the armies knelt down in prayer !

With vague recollections haunting me, I wandered round and round the obelisk, and went down to tiie parapet wall by the Seine, and saw the dark shadow of the bridge, and the moon reflected in the water — never thinking now of the crowds passing me, — my thoughts busy with the past; but I noticed that the steps were growing fewer, and the moon was getting xiigher, as I strolled back to the Inn.

And these were the first scenes, and these my first thouofhts in Paris.

* 1814 L'Histoire de Napoleon

66 Fresh Gleaning B.

The Valet and the MERCHA^l•.

/k MONCt the first, and most interesting acquaintances -^-^ which the stranger finds at Paris, — and they may- be found in other parts of the world, — are the valets de place. The court and neighborhood of the Hotel Meu- rice, are, I am enabled to say fi-om experience, particu- larly favored in this respect. They talk English to a charm, — they can understand the very worst of French, and say with an air that goes quite to the heart: — Monsieur parle fort bien ; sa prononciation est vraimefnt cJiarmante.

How is there any resisting the advances of such a man % Besides, he knows the town throughout : — the best eating-houses — the best shops, and the churches to a fault. His conversation is piquant ; he overflows with a fund of light and lively anecdote; he is a perfect chroni- cler of dates and events — not barely those commonplace ones which have crept into printed histories, but his obsei-vations are more recondite ; what forsooth, cares he for such notable truths, as that in 1770 a thousand per- sons were crushed to death upon the Place de la Con- corde— or that a company of lancers were cut to pieces about the Porte St. Martin 1 But when he tells you, with all the energy of inspiration, some piivate details of the maseflcre of St. Bartholom.ew — or that the surgeons in the

The Valet and the Merchant. 67

Hotel Dieu cut off, regularly, two legs a-day before break- fast, and gives you sundry memoirs of the dead bodies at the Morgue — you may well congratulate yourself on find- ing so efficient an aid for exploring the wonders of Paris.

What is five francs a-day to a man of such resourceful spirit 1 You want a book — who can do without Galig- nani's Paris Gruide 1 He takes you to the first shop of the town, and at the naming of the price, your valet whispers you, in an under tone, and confidentially, — fery sheep — fery sheep indeed.

Meekly you pay the price, and as you go out, our shopkeeper puts a franc or two in the hands of the valet — which is neither here nor there. "Whatever may be wished, you vrill find the same obliging willingness on the part of the valet, and the same business knowledge of localities. You may find, indeed, from some good-natured friend or other, who knows the city better than yourself, that you have been paying double prices, no small part of which was in commissions to your valet ; and that you have been listening to a great many cock-and-bull sto- ries. But all this only adds to your lively experience of the gay capital, and should neither put you out of humor with yourself, or your worthy domestic ; — for to be out of humor with one's self, is always profitless ; — and to be out of humor with your conductor, would only give scope for renewed politeness in the form of apologies, on the part of that individual, — afford him some private amuse- ment, and in no way lessen his disposition to pursue a

68 Fresh Gleanings.

profession, in which he is duly educated, and for which he has been duly licensed.

Indeed, whoever passes three days for the first tune in Paris, without being thoroughly and effectually cheated, — so that he has an entire and vivid consciousness of his having been so cheated, — must be either subject to some strange mental hallucination which denies him the power of a perception of truth, or he is an extraordinary exception to all known rules. And the sooner a man learns this, and learns to take it good-naturedly, the better for his sleep, — and the better for his appetite. I thought two visits to the capital had opened my eyes to this ; yet, on the first morning after my last arrival in Paris, I was foolish enough to get angry, for only having to pay four francs for a bed — in which I could not sleep, and four more for bad ham, and wine which I could not drink. I tried to scold : — but it is what a man of shrewd- ness should never try to do at Paris, — most of all, for so ordinary a circumstance as being cheated : the Parisian smiles — and bows, and thinks you may have a colic ; but never once fancies a strangei- can be so foolish as to resent being cheated at Paris : — make a bow — thank the gar9on — ask for a match to light your cigar, and he will see you are a man who knows the world, and are to be respected accordingly.

To return to the valet, — the sooner one can get rid

of him the better. I remember crowding my way into a tent-booth on a fair-day at Strasburg, and waiting inside until an Amazon in short petticoats, had finished a

I

The Valet and the MERr'HANT. 69

fencing-match with a soldier of the gamson — to see a panoramic view of the chief cities of the world, among which were New York and New Haven. And on com- paring the canvas with my recollections, I think the burghers of Strasburg may have had very nearly as correct an idea of those American cities, as the stranger may have of Paris, who makes his point of observation the Hotel Meurice, and employs as exponents of the scene, (corresponding to the magnify ing-glasses of the panorama,) the English-speaking valeis-de-place. They will indeed, show the stranger the more prominent objects of curiosity — the technical " sights" of the city, the palaces, the churches, the galleries, — they may take him to some strange ball scenes at evening ; but of the lesser, every-day features — the unobtrusive things which give color to a correct picture of the Parisian world — - they will show little or nothing. What, pray — will the valet-guided stranger know of all the 7i6tels garnis, which make up the living quarters of thorough bred Parisians %

Or what of the families of concierges living — ten souls

— in a ready furnished room six feet by nine 1 What would he know of the world within a house, — each floor a country — each suite a town, as unknown to the next, as if one were in Mexico, and the other in Yucatan 1 What knows he of the whole world of restaurants scattered up and down, in which Prince and peasant find their dinner, — and where he may pay two sous or as many Napoleons; — and the cafes, from those brilliant with gold and mirrors to the dingy salons of St. Antcine ?

70 Fresh Gleanings.

What knows he of the eccentricities of cabmen, and the dealers in wines and small stores, and the students' dinners, and the garden of the Luxembourg — of the intricacies of the Palais Royal — or Bal Montesquieu ]

In short, he knows of nothing but the exteriors of things ; — nothing of the omnibus, but its noise — of the Boulevards, but their crowds — of the shops, but their prices — of the Chatelet, but its height — of the Latin quarter, but its mud — or of Montfaucon, but its smells.

There are indeed, many travellers, who content them- selves with the mere shadows of things, as it were — with seeing this palace or that palace — this assemblage or that ; who compares his daily observations with the printed data of his guide-book, caring for nothing beyond the coincidence of the two. I remember being in company with such a Vandal for a time in the south of Italy — a man who went to Virgil's tomb, out by the huge grotto of Persilippo, as he would go to take up a note of hand, — a man who ticked off, day by day, such objects of visit as Bale, or Herculanum, — Cape Mysene, and the Elysian Fields, — and slept a Christian sleep after it, as if he ha:J achieved the object of Travel! I rever want the con pany of such another.

Abjure then, I would say, the valet, and take instead the map, the dictionary, the grammar, and a pocket history. If there be possessed no knowledge of the language, there might be safely advised further, a gan*et upon the sixth floor, looking upon a small court — late hours (at home), and close study. Without a speaking

The Valet and the Merchant. 71

acquaintance with the language, one is obliged to give nimself up too much to the direction of others, — loses tho benefit of his own sagacity and observation, and exposes himself {experto crede) to almost innumerable vexations

Fancy, for instance, the absurdity of a man, with a

minimum of bad French, getting red in the face, and dis- puting prices with a Parisian shopkeeper ! And the shopkeeper is all politesse ; — there is no matter-of-fact disputing air about him; he catches your eye the very moment you enter ; he gives you a word of welcome, as if you were the dearest Mend on earth ; he shows you the best of his stock ; he is never ruffled ; dispute his terms and he puts on his blandest smile : — Trop clier 2 Bon Dieu ! c'est une plaisanterie, Monsieur, n'est ce pas 1 I sthink you pay forty times so much at Londres. Tene£ voyez-vous, ah ! sacre ! quelle ctoffe — la meilleure fahrique de la France — parole d'honneur, Monsieur, j^y perds — oui, j'y perds.

But if it be good philosophy to bear meekly with the cheateries of the shopmen — ^it is doubly so with the shop- girls.

The high-heeled shoes, and high head-gear, that turned the soul of poor Lawrence Sterne have, indeed, gone by; but the Grisette presides over gloves and silks yet, and whatever she may do with the heart-strings, she makes the purse-strings yield. You will find her in every shop of Paris — (except those of the exchange brokers, where are fat, middle-aged ladies, who would adorn the circles of Wall- street) — there she stands, with her hair laid smooth aa

72 F R E S H G L E A ^' I N G S.

her cheek, over her forehead — in the prettiest blue muslin dress you can possibly imagine, — a bit of narrow white lace running round the neck, and each little hand set off with the same — and a very witch at a bargain. — He who makes the shop-girl of Paris bate one jot of price, must needs have French at his tongue's end.

There may be two at a time, there may be six, she is nothing abashed ; she has the same pleasant smile — the same gentle courtesy for each, and her eye glances like thought from one to the other. You may laugh, — she will laugh back; you may chat, — she will chat back; you may scold, — she will scold back. She guesses your wants :— there they are, the prettiest gloves, she says, in Paris. You can not utter half a sentence, but she under- stands the whole ; you can not pronounce so badly, but she has your meaning in a moment. She takes down package upon package ; she measures your hand — ^lier light fingers running over yours, — Quelle jolie petite main I — She assists in putting a pair fairly on : — and how many pair does Monsieur wish '?

But one! — ah. Monsieur is surely joking. See

what pretty colors, — and she gathers a cluster in her fin- gers,— and so nice a fit, — and she takes hold of the glove upon your hand.

— Only two, ah, it is indeed too few, and so cheap.

Only fifteen francs for the six pair, — which is so little for Monsieur, — and she rolls them in a paper, looking you all the time fixedly in the eye. And there is no refusal ; and you slip the three pieces of money upon the counter, and

The Government of Paris. 73

slie drops them into the little drawer, and thanks you in a way that makes you think, as you go out, that you have been paying for the smiles, and nothing for the gloves. One wears out a great many gloves at Paris,

The Government of Paris.

4 S one lingers day after day, and week after week, -^■^ in a strange city, whose memories have belonged to his education, and whose memories haunt him night after night, as he feels that he is sleeping on the storied ground— as he lingers, I say, these pleasant dreamings vanish. It is hard to feel them slipping away day by day ; — it is a sad experience when you go by old Historic scenes, and realize first, that the busy world around you has swallowed up your sentiment, so that it ceases to kindle, and your eye wanders over them, as the veriest commonplaces of the day.

There is perhaps, some old, narrow street, with an- cient buildings rising high up on either side, and dismal alleys branching from it — so narrow, the sunlight scarce comes between ; and the street has a name — a famous name, that as you read it on the blackened corner, touches some chord of memory, like an electric shock. Straight- way the round, rough paving is forgotten ; — the prying, earnest faces are forgotten ; — all sense of danger is flung aside, and the tall buildings lean over to your earnest

D

74 FreshGleanings.

eye, full of tales of blood and slaughter ; you can not telJ if it be Froissart, — if it be Monstrelet, — if it be Jean des Ursins, who, in past days at school, or at home, had given you the key to the scene ; — you care not — for your brain is full of one wild, ^umultuous dream of memory. Recol- lections may be vague and misty ; but there is something, — some old fashion of the Soul, that keeps them stining ; and they change, and glitter, and fade — imagination all the while wrestling with the crowding shapes, to give them tangible forms and fixedness. Then it is a m.an exults, for the presence of that active mind that is in him, and "■ejoices, like a boy, in the scenes of his Travel.

But, as I said, these things go by. The old street — the naiTow street, comes in time to be a mere dirty alley ; — the sharp stones hurt your feet, and you look curiously at the faces in the windows. Then it is, too, that your thoughts begin to be busy with questionings about this modern lifetime. The Column that had awakened memories of battles, with stormy sounds of drums and fifes, and the flaky presence of plumes waving in the fight, begins to suggest inquiries about its size and construction. The streets that were the mere ground of barricades and murder, begin to be streets like those at home, with pavements and gas-lights. The house you live in, begins to be like a house in the New world — sub- ject to the same rules of construction and decay, and does not lose its idertity, as at first, in the sweet, crowded dream-land of the Old City.

You begin to inquire soberly about the reasons of

The Government of Paris. 75

things : — how it is, matters go on so quietly with a million of excitable Frenchmen ] — How it is you are safe in the midst of them — as safe or safer than at home 1 — In short, how the great machinery of the Paris world is working so noiselessly, and so effectually 1

You see a stone out of its place in the pavement, and a day does not pass, but a parcel of quiet workers, without any visible director, with pickaxes and shovels, restore the order. You see a man run down by one of the groaning Omnibusses — and appearing on the instant, you know not whence, are five or six men in military dress, who bear him carefully away for surgical treatment; and if no friends claim him, in two hours time, he is earned to one of those gi'eat Hospitals, where he has one of those beds, and a share of that attendance, which is daily bestowed upon seventeen thousand sick and home- less souls. You hear a disturbance — a slight quarrel in a thoroughfare — a few on-lookers collecting, and before you have noticed his approach, a man in military cap and with light sword, is among them, and takes one of the brawlers by the arm — he waves his hand to the crowd, and it disperses. How is it that one feels so secure against every annoyance in the city he has thought of, as the city of wickedness 1

The Municipal authority in the capital is the Prefect of the Department of the Seine, coiTesponding very nearly with the office of Mayoralty in the larger of the American cities. There is under him, a Council of Prefecture mode up into different administi'ations, having

76 Fresh Gleanings.

cognizance of various public affairs : — as for instance, of Roads and Public Works, of Public Instruction, of Departmental Taxes, of Post Offices, of the JPoste aux Chevaux. Beside this, there belongs to each of the twelv(3 Municipal arrondissements, corresponding to the wards of our cities, a mairie, (mayor) and two deputy- mayors ; these officers sit every day from two to four hours. But in addition to all this machinery of civil administration, and what comes more nearly under the eye of the stranger, is the Administration of the Police.

The head of tl is department is the Prefect of the Police, holding authority directly from the ministers of the crown. It is he, or some one of his thousand officials, that permits you to enter the city, — it is he who permits you to stay in it, and he who permits you to leave it.

He has control over the lodging-houses of the city, — over the porters, the hackmen, the boatmen, the dray- men ; — he has an eye to the markets, that weights are just, and that provisions are good ; — he fixes the price of bread ; — he controls bakers, and brokers, and baths ; — he is the great conservator of order, and it is he who makes the stranger's way safe in any part of Paris by night oi day. If you drive a cabriolet, he tells you what is to be paid ; if you ride to the Opera, he tells you the streets you are to pass through ; if you lose your way, he puts you right ; if you lose your money, he finds it for you ; if you break a law, he slips his arm in yours, and walks with you down to the Palais de Justice ; if you are trampled down in the street, he plucks you up, and gives

The Government of Paris. 77

you over to his surgeon ; if you tumble into the Seine, he kindly fishes you out, and carefully lays your body upon one of the slanting tables in La Morgue.

This same omnipresent officer presides every other Friday over a council of health, held by the first physi- cians and surgeons ; he gives to stranger-operatives their ceitificate of right to work at their respective callings. He has under him forty-eight commissaries — one in each of the quartiers, into which the twelve aiTondissements are divided. These are the special heads of their districts, and their houses may be distinguished along the Rue St. Martin and Rue Richelieu at night, by a crimson lantern burnino; at their doors-

o

Nor is this all; under the Prefect, and under the commissaries, are two thousand sergents-de-ville, who wear broad military chapeaux, and a light sword, and may be seen at all hours of the day, on the Boulevards, in the Garden, and the dirty alleys of the Cite.

Nor yet is this all ; — under the Prefect, and under the commissaiies, and holding humbler place than the ser- gents-de-ville, are the Municipal guard — three thousand picked men on foot, and seven hundred horse. The first are stationed in all the theatres at night — they patrol the streets — they rescue the injured ; and wherever there is a street disturbance, there you will see the black horse-hair plume of the mounted Municipal guard.

There are beside, hundreds of secret police in almost every station of life; and there are the *' officers of the peace" in their unsuspected citizen's dress. No portion of

78 FreshGleanings.

the capital is free from the presence of some officer of this mighty Pohce. Every theatre has its regular quota — every assembly has its spy.

You are going to the opera : — your carriage is stop- ped tv70 squares from the Opera-house, by a horseman in a glittering helmet, with black plumes weaving over it ; — he directs vv^ith his drawn sword the way the coachman is to take ; the order has been arranged and prescribed at the Prefecture of Police. Arrived at the door of the theatre, three or more of the mounted guard upon their black horses direct order upon driving away ; — it may snow, or it may rain — it may be early or late — still the stem-look- ing horsemen are there — their helmets and swords glitter- ing in the gas-light. You alight from your carriage, and a couple of the sergents-de-ville are loitering carelessly upon the steps ; — they run their eyes half-inquiringly over you, as you enter. Each side the little ticket-box is sta- tioned a soldier with musket, — two of the Municipal guard. You enter a passage sentinelled by another; and v^dthin, are three or four loitering at the doorways.

Perhaps there is a slight disturbance ; some brawler is in the house ; in that event, the soldier at the door disap- pears a moment ; — ^he comes again with four or five of his comrades ; — there is no need of excuses or promises now ; — the brawler goes out over benches and boxes. He is handed over to the sergent-de-ville. The sergent-de- ville calls a carriage, and the brawler rides to the Palaie de Justice.

Perhaps the disturbance is more general. The soldieri

The Government of Paris. 79

try to arrest it ; they press some down, they motion the others : but perhaps half the company are hissing and shouting so that the play can not go on. In this event — and it occurred during my last visit to Paris, — a plain- looking gentleman, dressed simply in black, with a bit of ribbon in one button-hole, leans over from one of the boxes, and tells the audience, in a quiet way, — if the noise does not cease, he shall order the theatre to be cleared.

There is no use in expostulation— still less in resist- ance— for the man in black, whom nobody knew till now, is a commissary of police— and in twenty minutes could order a thousand men upon the spot. The house was quiet in a moment, and the play went on.

For a rogue — merely morally speaking, there is no safer place than Paris. He may offend against every law of Grod and man, so it be not written in the books of the Prefect de Police, — -and he is secure, and he may hold his head with princes, and take the cushioned stalls at Notre- Dame, and dine at the Cafe de Paris, and rent the first loge at the Opera. But let him offend in the least the statutes, and there is no comer from Notre-Dame, to Mont Martre that can hold him. He may assume any disguise, and change it as he will — those men in the cocked hats, and with the straight swords, and worse still — those men in plain suits, whom nobody knows, will have their eyes and their hands upon him.

It is no use — the going backward, or forward, or talk- ing about rank, or money, or position ; — ^he may as well

80 Fresk Gleanings.

march at once quietly clown to the old Palais de Justice — walk straight into the court — take off his hat to the Com- missariot, and ask politely for a room on the first floor, a bottle of old Macon, and a few pipes.

There is something in the constant surveillance of such a police, not altogether reconcilable with an American's idea of freedom ; yet at the same time is there a secret and indefinable charm, in feeling the presence and secu- rity of order, — order unfailing and almost perfect. It makes up, indeed, a great part of the luxury of Paris life, — this quietude amid all the gayety. Nor is it wholly the false serenity, which hangs like a summer atmosphere over the scenes of Boccacio's story ; — it is guarantied by aiTns, and the nicety of complete military organization. It gives a home feeling in the gayest, and so to speak, most Cosmopolitan city of the world ; — and when I came back toward it, from the great Eastern cities — there was a yearning at my heart, as if it was half a home ; and I welcomed the broad chapeaux of the Sergents-de-ville, with a little of the same feeling, with which I welcomed, at a later day, — the high gateway, the wide-branching elms, the gray porch — covered with its gi'een, flowering creeper — of my country home.

Les Matsons Garnies. 81

Les Maisons Garnies.

'T'XTHAT visions of dimity curtains, and waxed

' ^ floors, and winding escaliers, and dark couits, and little conciergeries, and fat women with huge bunch- es of keys at their girdles, come up to ray mind's eye, in recalling a day's search through the furnished houses of Paris ! They are the homes of the native, and the homes of the stranger. — Not a quarter — not a street is without them. They are adapted to princes, and to the poorest; — ^from the first floor in the Rue Lafitte, to the fourth in the Rue des Mauvais Garcons. The order of the city at- taches also to them, and you may find in them tlie retire- ment of a home, in the midst of the bustle of a city.

You may, if it please you, know no one but your con- cierge, to whom you pay your bill, and who cleans your room. At meal times you go where you will.

The very search for such quarters as may please your fancy, offers a pleasant kaleidoscopic ^dew of Paris life ; — ^here is a busy valet-de-chambre, with a white apron> in the larger houses, who takes six steps at a jump, and in- sists upon the hon local ; — there, a prim little daughter of the concierge, trips a long way before you, and insists upon showing you every vacant room in the house ; and laughs at your bad French in a way that makes you talk infinitely worse — and throws open the window, and pulls

82 Fresh Gleanings.

back the muslin curtains — descanting all the while in the prettiest possible language upon the prospect. Then, again — obstinate old women with spectacles, who put down their knitting work, and drop tremendous courtesies — who would be charmed to have Monsieur for a lodger — who give the best of linen ; and who — say what you will — in- sist upon understanding you to accept their terms uncon- ditionally; and when you would undeceive them, over- whelm you with explications, that only make matters worse, and you are fain to make all sorts of excuses to be fairly rid of them. What array of broken promises and prices, of subterfuges and solicitations, throng over the memorial of a single day's search for lodgings !

And what a happy rest from all, on my first visit,

in the little, wax-floored, white-curtained chamber, on the second floor of a Tnaison particuliere under the shadow of the Cathedral of St. Roch !

There was a quiet old lady in the conciergerie, who made the bed, and brought up the water, and kindled the fire. And the corset-maker next door had all sorts of vis- itors ; and in the mourning shop opposite, every day the shop-girls new aiTanged the ?aces, and caps, and cross- barred muslins, so that I came lo be, in less than a month, a connoisseur of Modes. Many a quiet afternoon, too, have I leaned out of the window, and watched the goers- in at the Cathedral — up the same steps where was gath- ered, in .he unfortunate days of France, the ruthless lab- ble, to see poor Marie Antoinette go by to execution ; or looking the other way, I could see the gay throngs go

Les Maisons Garnies. 83

trooping through the garden of the Tuileiies ; and ever, at night, fi'om high over the weather-stained, bullet-scar- red front of the church, I used to hear the loud, frill- sounding bells chiming over the silent city. And their sounds so near, and so clear, crov^^ded strange dreams into my mind, and pleasant dreams, because they were wild and vivid, and I came to love the sounds of the bells> as a familiar lullaby.

-• fra le piu cai'e

Gioje del rnondo, e '1 suone delle campane,

The old Italian had listened to the sweet Florentine bells, and I — thanks to this wandering American spirit — have dreamed under those of San Giovanni, and of San Roch.

There attach other recollections to other neighborhoods in which I have been a sojourner. Who could forget the happy Madame C — ^ — , in the Rue Neuve St. Augustin, who serves her lodgers with coffee, up six pair of stairs, — sometimes at the hands of the little mischievous Pierre, in the blue smock-frock, and sometimes at the hands of the stumpy little girl who called her- — ma tante ?

There was, beside, the happy-looking shoemaker, in the dark comer of one of the many hotels of the Rue de la Harpe — and the little iron wicket with its tinkling bell, — and the dim corridor — and in the room at the end, sittine: before the meagre grate, the ever-cheerful Abbe G .

And it is in that old, quaint, dim quarter of the Sor- bonne where are naiTOw alleys and dirty, and student

84 Fresh Gleanings.

faces, and bent-over old men, and doubtful Restaurants, that one may learn fullest, the character of the furnished houses of the city. Once dwell in them for ever so little time, and you — if you have any thing like this madcap, truant fancy of mine — you are borne straight back to a crowded dream- land,— you tremble at the slam of your own door at night.

Oh, Philip de Comines — your secret chronicles of

kings are barren to the grouping fancies of a New-world dreamer, in some old maison garnie beyond the Seine !

What a history of mysteries might be made out of a single one in the old quarters of Paris ! What would I not give for the revelations of an octogenarian concierge in some of the hotels of the Rue de Seine, or of the An- cient Comedy !

Passing along the narrow sideways of either of these streets, or of the lesser ones which branch from them in every direction, and you will see, here and there, at each hand, heavy double doors opening upon a stone-paved, dismal, little court. In the farther corner is a dark, ill- lighted box, over the window of which, is wnttQiiConcierge- rie. An old man and his wife are sitting upon stools within ; perhaps they are stitching busily upon old clothes; or if it be four o'clock, they have their dinner — a savory mess, in one bowl between them. j!1 bed, dusty and dirty, fills up the farther side of the room; — a long line of keys hang under the window; — two or three old, torn books, and a half a page of a National, with a programme of the Opera Comique lie on the low table : a pen and ink, — ^a dog-leaved note-book,— .^a stone pitcher, and two tumblers

L E S M A I S O N S G A R N I E S. 85

— a gray cat squatted in the only spare chair, — a colored lithogi'aph of the Due d'Orleans, and a pewter crucifix in the corner, make up all the furnishings of the dismal little home of the concierge and his wife. If you are alodger, the man takes, mechanically, your key from its nail, and gives it you, with a good-day. — If a stranger in search of a home, the old lady gathers up five or six of the keys, and ushers you up dim staii'ways, and along ill-lighted corridors to the vacant rooms. The crooked and abi-upt turns con- found one ; the blind stau'-cases, the concealed doors, the windows looking — nowhere, the voluble strange-talking tongue of the old lady, and the jingling of her keys in the door-locks, all raise curiosity to the tip-toe.

Nor x'vdll your curiosity be satisfied, though you stop a month, or a year. The stair-cases are just as dim, and look as full of old men's tales ; — the corridors are just as sombre, — just as crooked ; — your neighbor's door opens and shuts in just such a silent way ; — the faces you meet upon the stairs, look just as strange and distant ; — the man in the chamber above you paces about in the same mysterious manner as when first you took the key at the Concierge- rie, and left your card for the police. You may sometimes catch a glimpse, by a half-opened door in the entresol of waxed floors, and glass ornaments of the mantel, and possibly of the maid scrubbing the table, — you never see more of its occupants. Sometimes you may see your neighbor — a tall man in a long cloak, opening his door — it is all you know of him. And perhaps, the concierge knows no more— except a name.

86 F R E

SH brLEANING

Sometimes you meet the garcon of a cook or baker in the court, with a cover in his hand that smells of dinner : he disappears down one of the corridors ■— you never know where. Sometimes you meet a fair-faced girl, and she goes tripping up the slanting and crooked stairway a long way before you — and as you pass, the doors' are all shut — not a lock stirs — not even her light foot-fall is to be heard. Sometimes, in the first blush of the morning, you may hear steps passing your door, — perhaps whispers, — you dress in haste to have a peep through the key-hole, — the gray corridor is empty, and still as death ; you look out the window — if by chance, it looks upon the court, — nothing is stirring. You go down the stairs at your breakfast time, in half expectation that your concierge's look will be full of revelations; — he bids you good-morning with the same nonchalance as on the first day you saw him, and takes your key and hangs it on its nail ; — and you stroll down the court, biting your lip. Sometimes, late at night, when you have been two hours asleep, you hear a heavy tramp come up the stairway, and a heavy foot go shaking the corridor ; — -tramp — tramp, it mounts the stairs at the end, — tramps-tramp, along the corridor above : who it is, where it goes, you know as little when you come away, as when you enter a Hotel Garni.

The month or the year ended, you pay your bill, — no- body is looking to see you off, — nobody knows you are going' — nobody knows you had come ; the concierge bids you bon-jour-^hangs your key on its peg, and all goes on as strangely, as silently, as raysterimis;l\ as before. Come

I

Les Maisons Garnies. 67

again in a year — come in two years — come in five years, and ten to one the same concierge is eating his dinner in

the corner yet. The old lady takes four or five keys

and shows you the vacant rooms; — the same leaning stairways — the same crooked corridors — the same steps in the morning — the same tramp at night — the same strange mystery confounds you as before.

The rooms I held on one of my visits to Paris, in the E,ue St. Thomas du Louato, though not so much in the strange, old quarter, as those of which I have been speaking, yet had a story-telling air of their own. The house was old, very old — so that the stair-cases were all upon a slant ; and the heavy, black stones of which they were formed, were in some places, sprung an inch or two from the wall, and disclosed yawning gaps. And the courts about the old house were dropped here and there, never, that I could discover, with any order ; — and the stairways led off so blindly in some directions, that I never had the courage to follow them to an end.

My rooms were near the top of the house ; I mounted five pair of stairs — went through a short corridor with a painted and waxed brick floor, where I entered the first of my suite. This was an anteroom, opening upon a narrow court, which had very nan'ow windows peep- ing into it, up and down. Out of the anteroom, opened a kitchen and pantry with all the cooking paraphernalia attached — these rooms looked into another court, still smaller and more dismal than the other. From the

83 F R E S II G L E A N I N G S,

kitchen opened a bedroom, in which there was no win- dow at all — simply a low, French bedstead, and mattrass. Beside the bedroom, ran a corridor from the anteroom, which conducted to my little parlor, with still another bedroom, and another court adjoining. The window of the parlor commanded a look over an angle of the Place du Carrousel, and the noise that came up from its pavement, was all that met my ear ; — since I was so far from the stair-case and corridor, that the steps of my fellow-lodgers were lost in coming through the long range of rooms, over which I held control. There were, however, plenty of lodgers ; — for I had met strange- looking people on the stairs, and seen them fingering the door-locks, and sometimes heard steps above me, toward midnight. Once or twice, too, from the win- dow of the wash-room, I had seen a grizzly face peep- ing out of a narrow slit, far above, in the court — but whose it was I never knew.

There is something that is the very reverse of cheer- fulness about empty rooms, and above all, — an empty kitchen ; — and when I heard, as I sometimes did, the most trifling noise about the old, ricketty grate at night, I have waked up with a start, and felt, — shamed as I am to confess it, — something very like fear.

My concierge was a brisk, little man, more communi- cative than most of his class, — who served as facteur to the neighborhood, and who came up at nine every morning to make my bed, and to wax my floors. I sometimes led him into conversation upon former occupants of the

StorycfLePvIerle. 89

house; but all I could gain from liim, only afforded strange, wild glimpses of the mysteriously moving and changing hotel life. Some things, however, that he told me of a lodger, two or three years before, in the very rooms I occupied, impressed me strongly at the time; and as they seem to offer good illustration of what I have said about the maison garnie, I shall take the liberty of setting them down here, at the risk of being thought too much of a Romancer.

Story of Le Merle.

/^NE September moraing, of 183-, — said he, — and a ^-^ Sergent-de-ville tapped at the little door of the Conciergerie, and handed a slip of paper to my wife, ask- ing, at the same time, if the persons whose names were written upon it, were lodgers in the house. My wife put on her spectacles, and read these names — Jean et Lucie Le Merle. There were no such persons among the lodgers.

The Sergent-de-ville asked if there had been such within the month past 1 My wife ran her eye over the little book she keeps for names — there were none like those upon liie slip of paper which the officer had handed her. He seemed disappointed: — ^he asked her the number of the house, and tj'3 name of the owner; and pulling a small tablet fron his pocket, compared, I

90 Fresh Gleanings.

suppose, what he had written, with the answers my wife

had given him. He still seemed dissatisfied, and wanted

to see my wife's book of names.

The Sergent-de-ville did not succeed in his search : — he ordered that any persons with such names coming within the month, should be immediately reported to the Prefect of the Police, — enjoined secrecy for the time, and went away, leaving the slip of paper, and a piece of five francs at the Conciergerie. The last day of the month my wife and I dined upon a Fricandeau de veau, au sauce tomate, — omelette au confiture, — a Strasburg pie, and drank the health of the Sergent-de-ville, with a bottle of Chablis wine. No lodgers of the names on the paper had come.

A year after, in the month of September, when we had quite forgotten the names,— the five fi'ancs, and the dinner, — and there came up to me in the court of the Messageries Generales, a pale, thin man, leading a little girl of ten years, and asked me to take his portmanteau to number 26 Rue St. Thomas du Louvre.

— Tres volontiers, Monsieur, — said I, — since it is my home.

My wife showed him the very rooms Monsieur occu- pies at present. He glanced over the little courts upon which the windows look, seemed satisfied with ap- pearances, and took the chambers. He handed my wife a card, on which was written — Jean Le Merle et Jille.

As I said, we had quite forgotten the Sergent-de-ville,

Stop, y of L e M e r l e. 91

and tlie incident of the last September. Still it occurred to us, that there was something about the name, which the new lodger had given, not unfamiliar. So one even- ing, we rummaged the book, to see if we had had no such lodger before. We could find none like it ; but just as we were shutting the book, and were wondering what made the name so familiar, a slip of paper fell out fi-om between the leaves, on which was v«T:-itten Jean et Lucie

Le Merle. On the instant, we remembered all about

the Sergent-de-ville and the five francs, and the dinner.

Here was one of the persons whom we were to have reported; — but the time had gone by, a full twelvemonth. Besides, it seemed to us that the poor man had suffered enough of disquietude already ; so we determined to send in the name as he had written it, with those of the other lodgers, — as is our usual way, without any mention of the occuiTence of the year before. The police, we thought, could not expect that five francs should make us, who see so many names, remember a single one, from one year's end to the other. Nor did we dare say any thing about the slip of paper to our new lodger ; in fact, we burnt it the same evening, and kept the matter wholly between ourselves.

The little girl who came with the new lodger was beau- tiful. She had long, black, glossy hair, that hung in curls over her neck, and an eye jet black, but with a strange look of sadness in it, for one so young. We saw little of her, however. Of a morning, they would go out togeth- er,— the httle girl clasping firmly the hand of the pale

92 F R E S II G L Fw\ N [ N G S.

gentleman, as if she were afraid to lose it one moment, and they would turn down across the crowded Pldce du Palais Royal, — and for two hours we would see no more of them. By and by they would saunter back, — the gentle- man would take his key, without passing a word with my wife, and no more would be seen of them, until two or three hours after noon. In passing by the barriers of the Tuileries at this hour, I have sometimes seen them sit- ting on a stone bench in the garden, or strolling under the trees, — and sometimes, though very rarely, I used to see the little girl playing with the other children about the gi'een boxes of the orange-trees. She was always dressed richly and prettily; and my wife used to wonder if she could aiTange her curls and her little gipsy bonnet so well, or if Monsieur himself arranged them for her. Often did the lodgers in the entresol, — an old man and his wife, who had lived in the same room for seven years, — ask who was the little black haired girl in the gipsy bon- net, that went tripping every day over the Place du Carrousel, clinging so firmly to the hand of the new lodger %

No one ever asked after Monsieur Le Merle ; — no let- ters ever came for Monsieur Le Merle. Once only, a package was left by a facteur, addressed simply " Le Merle, 26 St. Thomas du Louvre." The next morning, I saw a casket on the table, and afterward, on a day when it chanced to be open, I saw in it a rich pearl necklace. On Sundays, and on days of fete, the little girl wore it, and it was rich enough for a Countess.

Story of L e Merle. 93

Sometimes, when I was waxing the floors in the corri- dor, I heard snatches of a soft song from these rooms, and it seemed to me, though I do not certainly know, that it was in a strange language. My wife, too, has said, that the talk of the little girl had a strange accent, as if, some day, she had spoken in another tongue. Her eye, too, was larger, and fuller, and sadder, than are the eyes of Parisian girls, and seemed to belong to a country farther to the South. A few books were always lying on the table of Monsieur, but were all of them in French ; only once I saw upon the bureau a beautiful little volume with gold clasps, and a miniature of a lady in the cover, — and it was written in a language that I did not know. And once, only once that I remember, on a Sunday, when they went out — -Monsieur said to Notre-Dame — the little girl carried the book with the gold clasps, and wore the same day the beautiful pearl necklace. On some days, Monsieur would go out for a time alone ; and then we always noticed that the little girl, — whether from fear, or what I do not know, — took the key out of the door and fastened it from within.

Meantime we heard nothing from the police ; every thing went on quietly ; — we should have thought no more about Monsieur Le Merle than any other of our lodgers, had it not been for the dark-haired girl, who seemed to have no other friend in the world.

One day it happened, that Monsieur had been gone longer than his usual time, and my wife heard a gentle tap at the window of the Conciergerie. It was the little

94 Fresh Gleanings.

girl of the Attic ; — she had put on her bonnet, and cotiie alone down the stdrs ; — she was afraid, she said, to stay so long alone in the great chamber ; — she wanted to go out to find her papa. She did not know where he was gone, but she was sure she would find him. My wife persuaded her to put off her bonnet, and sit with her in the Conciergerie ; and when it grew late, and still Mon- sieur Le Merle did not come, I brought her some dinner from a Restaurant, but she would scarce eat any thing for her fear.

At length, just at dusk, and while Monsieur Le Merle was still away, a carriage drove up to the door, and tho footman tapped at the window-pane, and asked if it was 26 St. Thomas du Liouvrel

— Out, Monsieur,

— Madame wishes to see Lucie Le Merle.

— It is I — said the little girl : — till then we had not known her name. My wife led her out to the carriage. She said two ladies elegantly dressed were seated in it. One of them whispered a few words in the ear of Lucie. The poor child looked wonderingly in her face a moment — shook her head, and turning round to my wife, said — Qui est elle — Je ne sais pas — moi.

The lady whispered to the child again : — this time she touched a chord in the little girl's heart. A tear or two dropped from her young eyes — Qui etes vous, done, Ma- dame, dites moi, je vous en jprie.

The lady whispered something more in Lucie's ear — what it was, my wife could not hear. Our little lodger

StoryofLe Merle. 95

ran up stairs, and came down with the casket, which had stood always upon the table under the mirror, and caught up her bonnet from the Conciergerie, and presently was in the carriage with the ladies.

— Your father 1 — said my wife, doubtingly.

— Je vais le voir — said our little lodger, and the car- riage drove off, under the arch of the Louvre toward the Quay.

My wife and I were troubled : we sat up till midnight hoping to see Monsieur and the child again. I went up to lock the chamber, — on this table was lying the book with the gold clasps ; and it seemed to me, as I look- ed at it by the light of the candle, that there was some- thing in the face painted upon it, like that of the black- eyed girl. 1 undid the clasps, and found written on the first leaf — Lucie a sa Jille, Lucie.

The next morning appeared Monsieur Le Merle. His face was haggard, as if he had not slept. His first inqui- ries were for Lucie ; and when we had told to him all that had happened the day before, he was made frantic. That very afternoon, he made me go with him, and stop by him, upon a seat up the Champs Elysees, to see if by chance, I could detect the carriage, or the ladies who had taken his treasure from him. "We stopped until it was dark, but could see nothing of either.

The next morning a note was dropped through the window — by whom, my wife did not see, addressed simply Le Merle, and I remembered it was in the same hand,

96 F R E s n G L E A N I N G s.

— at least so it seemed to me, — with the hne on the first leaf of the book with the gold clasps.

Our lodger seemed startled when he read the note, — he paid us what was due for the rooms, and I took his portmanteau in the afternoon, and put it upon a coach in the Place du Palais Royal. He bade me good-day, slip- ped a piece of five irancs in my hand, and I shut the ioor oi xhe Jiacre.

That very evening, at a little past ten, as my wife and I were enjoying a small cup of cofFee, which we had ordered in from the Cafe du Danemarck, there was a slight tap at our window. It was a Sergent-de-ville. He handed us a slip of paper, and asked if the persons whose names were upon it, were lodgers at the house. My wife sat by the candle. She put on her spectacles and i-ead — Jean Le Merle etfiXle.

Odd things come in our way every day — what with changes of lodgers and bad characters — but this was very odd. We told the Sergent all we knew of our lodgers on this floor, and he took me with him to the Place du Palais Royal. We inquired of every cabman upon the stand, but not one could tell us any thing of Monsieur Le Merle. One only had seen me close the door of the coach ; but it was not now upon the stand, nor did he know the number. The Sergent-de-ville asked particulaily of the note of the moiTiing, but I could tell him nothing : — he left me.

About a month after, the Officer called at our door,

S T 0 R Y O F L E M E R L E. 97

and asked me to go wdth him over the Pont Neuf. On the way, he told me that a body had been found that mori^ng in the Seine, and in the coat pocket was found a note, crumpled and blurred, but they fancied they could make out the name — Le Merle. He led me straight to the Morgue. Three bodies were lying upon the tables, and a dozen or two of people were looking through the grating. The Sergent-de-ville pointed to me a body in the comer; — it must have been many days in the water. It was bloated to near twice its natural size, and the skin was of a dirty green color. Over the head of the body, against the wall, hung the simple dress of a gentleman — the dress that had been found on him. I could judge of nothing by the appearance of the body — it was a dreadful sight to look at.

The Sergent-de-^ille asked the officer to pass the coat through the gTating ; — as he did so, and I took hold of it, I felt something hard in the breast pocket, cmd putting my hand in, pulled out a small book with gold clasps. There had been a little miniature set in the binding, but the water had destroyed it. I opened

the clasps, and found on the first leaf — Lucie a sa

Jille, Lucie.

I was then sure it was the book I had seen upon this table. I feared that it was ti-uly the body of poor Le Merle, and told the Sergent-de-\nlle what I had known of the book. I ventured to ask him about Le Merle ; — Mon Dieu ! these officers of the Police have a short way

E

98 Fresh Gleanings

with them, Monsieur! — he gave me a piece of five francs, and said it v^^as all he vs^anted of me.

I felt a little sad when I got home about poor Le Merle — so did my wife. So at five o'clock, we spent the money of the Sergent for a good dinner of hceuf hraisc aux jpommes — two slices of melon, and a bottle of old Macon — c^est hon, Monsieur, ce vieux Macon — c^est trcs hon.

— Yes, said I, — but did you never hear again of the little Lucie?

— Jamais, Monsieur, jamais. My wife thought she saw her two years after, in a carnage, upon the Place de la Concorde ; she said that she had gi'own more beautiful, but looked more sad. She thought she could not have mistaken her large, full eye, and said she saw on her neck, the same brilliant chain of pearls that used to lie in the casket.

— I should like very much to know her history, — said I.

— Et moi aussi — said the little concierge, as he gath- ered up his brushes to go below: — Ah, elle etait char- mante, Monsieur, je vous assure; — and he lefi; me to think about the strange things he had told me, — things which I had not the least reason to distrust, since stranger ones are happening eveiy year, and every month, in the great world of Paris.

The Cafe.

The Cafe.

ORE can be learned of Parisian life and habits in one week at the Cafe, than in a year at your English Hotel. — To go to Paris without seeing the Cafe, would be like going to Egypt without seeing the Pyramids, or like going to Jerusalem, without once taiTying at the Holy Sepulchre. The Cafes are dis- tributed in every part of the French capital. They are the breakfast-houses of the inhabitants of the maison garnie : — but not like any other breakfast-houses on earth are those of Paris.

I remember, that in the old Geogi'aphies, the gayety of the French character used to be represented by a homely wood-cut, of a group of men and women dancing violently around a tree : — ^now, I can not imagine a better type of Parisian life and habitude, than would be an interior view of a Parisian Cafe, — with a gay and motley company loitering at the little marble tables, gossipping, — ^reading the journals, — and sipping theu' morning coffee.

The Parisian takes there his chocolate, and his paper — ^his half-cup and his cigar — ^his mistress and his ice ; the Provincial takes his breakfast and his National — his absinthe and his wife : even the English take there their Galignani and their eggs, and the German his beer and

100 FiiESH Gleanings.

his pipe. It is the arena of the public life of Paris. "What the Exchange is to a strictly commercial people, the Cafe is to the French people.

There the politics and amusements of the day meet discussion. Each table has its party, and so quietly is their conversation conducted, that the nearest neighbors are not disturbed. At one, — two in the dress of the Na- tional Guard are magnifying M. Thiers; and an old gen- tleman at the next table, with gold spectacles and a hooked nose, is dealing out anathemas upon his head.

Opposite the Porte St. Martin, whose foot ran blood during the three days of July, is the Cafe de Malte : there are more stylish cafes, but nowhere do they make better coffee between the Madaleine and the fountain of

the Chateau. There F and myself breakfasted many

a morning — strolling down from the Rue de Lancry, a half-mile upon the Boulevards — turning in at the corner door upon the Rue St. Martin — touching our hats to the little blue-dressed Grisette at the dais, who presided over spoons, sugar, and sous — and took our seats at one of the marble slabs, upon the crimson cushions.

We were, in general, but two of the forty frequenters of the Cafe de Malte.

Beside us, would be some Lieutenant in scarlet

breeches, blue coat, and ugly cap, — very like the tin-pail in which New England housewives boil their Indian-pud- dings— with his friend — some whiskerado, who is tickling his vanity by looking at his epaulettes, and listening ap- plausively to his critiques upon the army in Algiers.

The Cafe. 101

They are drinking a dose of absinthe to whet their appe tites for dinner — a thing only to be accounted for, from the fact that the Officer dines at mess, and so cares little how much he eats ; — and that the whiskerado has an in- vitation to dine with a friend, and so wishes — by double eating, to do away the necessity of dining to-moiTow. On another .side of us, is perhaps an old man of sixty, who wears a wig, and looks very wisely over the columns of the Presse, and occasionally very crossly at a small dog, which an old lady next him holds by a string, and which seems to be playing sundry amusing, and very innocent tricks over the old gentleman's boots.

The lady, — his neighbor, looks fondly at her dog, sip- ping now and then at her chocolate, — throwing bits of crumbs to her canine companion, — all the while looking anxiously at every new comer through her glasses — possibly watching for some old admirer ; — for no circum- stance, nor age, nor place, nor decrepitude can dissipate a French woman's vanity.

Another way, are three talkers — each with his half-cup, discussing the National. Their ages are from twenty to eighty. There are characters — from the impudent sans- culottes— to the dignified man of the school of the Girond.

Here is a man, just opposite, with dirty hands —

duty nails — uncombed hair, and dirty beard, who has finish- ed his coffee, and sits poring over a bit of music — altering notes, humming a tune, and drumming on the table with his fingers. He is doubtless an employe of the orchesti-a of the Theatre of the Porte St. Martin over the way.

102 Fresh Gleanings.

I, meantime, — over my coffee, rich as nectar, — a little pyramid of fresh radishes, — a neat stamped cake of yellow butter, and bread such as is comparable with nothing but itself, — am employing the intervals in study of the characters around me, or glancing through the windows upon the carts, and coaches, and omnibusses, and soldiers, and market-women, and porters, and gliding Grisettes, — all of which suck, like a whirlpool, around the angles of the Porte St. Martin.

Who that has seen the gay capital, knows not the Cafe de Paris 1 — at least its outward show of a summer's evening, when the Boulevard before it is full of loungers, and the salons fall within ; — and the Cafe Anglais upon the corner, — and the Vefour, — and the Rotonde of the Palais Royal 1

1 see before me, now, — though the hills and

woods of home are growing green around me, — the nice- looking, black-haired French girl of twenty, who used to come in, with her mamma, every morning, at eleven pre- cisely, to the Vefour, and hang her mischievous-looking, green sherd bonnet upon the wall above her head, and arrange the scattered locks, and smooth the plaits upon her forehead with the flat of her white, delicate hand, — giving, all the while, such side looks from under it, as utterly baffled the old lady's observation.

Do they take their coffee there yet 1 — and does the middle-aged man with the red moustache, who sat oppo- site, bow as graciously as ever — to Madame first, and to Mademoiselle last 1 — And does he steal the sly looks over

The Cafe. 103

the upper columns of the ConstitutioDel, as if all the news were centered along the top lines, — and as if I were not looking all the while between the rim of my coffee-bowl, and my eyebrows, for just such explications of Paris life?

And does the little, cock-eyed man at the De Lorme, who breakfasted on two chops and coffee, still keep Galignani till every English reader, and I among them, despaired 1

Even now, the reader has not half so definite an idea of a Paris cafe as I could wish he had — of the mirrors multiplying every thing to infinity — of the gilt cornices — of the sanded floors — of the iron-legged tables — of the Ger- man stove with its load of crockeiy — of the dais, with its pyi'amids of sugar — of the garcons in their white aprons, shouting to the little woman at the desk, — dixneuf- — qiiarante — treize — cinq francs — vingt-et-un — vingt-cinq.

If one wants coffee at near sunrise, or on to six or seven, he must not look for it in the more stylish cafes. He must find his way to the neighborhood of the dil- igence bureaux, or the Railway ; or he must dash boldly into the dim salons of St. Antoine, or beyond the Pont St. Michel, or round the Halle au Ble, or Marche des Innocens. There he will find men in blouses, — mechan- ics— country people, cab-drivers, and journeymen tail- ors, discussing the news of yesterday, or perhaps six — looking over the Constitution el of the day. Such men count by the thousands, and make up a large part of the tone of popular feeling, — vdth influence which, how- ever much it may be derided in the salon, is felt in the

104 Fresh Gleanings.

government, — an influence wliich, when inflamed, has brought King and Queen to execution.

And here I can not help indulging, for a moment,

in a quiet kind of triumph at thought of the liberty to mingle in all such scenes, which one possesses, who travels — as I liad the good fortune to travel — alone. He is bound to sustain no aristocratic family pretensions; — ^he is tied to no first floor at the hotel ; — he has to consult no fas- tidious taste, except his own ; — he bears about with him but a single pair of curious eyes, that do not blink at dirt or smoke, if they are only seeing some new phase of the strange world they have come to see ; — throwing off* the flimsy role of respectability, with a stout pair of English shoes he may wander over the city, mind- less of the mu d of St. Antoine, or the lie St. Louis.

Your traveling party are discussing over a cold break- fast in the salon of their hotel, — where they shall go, — what among the thousand sights they shall see, while I — two hours ago have finished my coffee at some quiet table of the town — it was a different one yesterday, it will be a different one still to-morrow, — and am ready for the glories of the Louvre, or the mass at Notre-Dame.

There are those whom the Cafe does not satisfy. Fat old Bourgeois from Lyons, — wool-merchants from Cha- 'eauroux, or apple-sellers of Normandy, are not con- tent with such mimicry of the provincial breakfast, whose abundance would rival a German dinner. Such — and American breakfast-eaters would come within the category, until Paris air has supplied Paris habits —

The Cafe. 105

must give their orders at home, or step into the Re- staurants within the Palais Royal, where morning meals of two dishes and dessert, and half a bottle of wine, are eaten for a franc and fift^' centimes, — and down the Rue St. Honore, real Enghsh breakfasts may be eaten for the same.

Does F , I wonder, remember the bread that used

to stand on end like a walking-stick, in one comer of the salon, at the boarding-place in the Rue Beaurigard — and the sour wine — and the old Madame with her snuff-box at her elbow, and her fingers and nose bebrowTied — and what a keen eye was hid under her spectacles, and what blue- looking milk, and what sad, sad chops, — and what a meek Monsieur — our old teacher — for help-meet '?

Yet it was passable, — for there was Mademoiselle, blithe as a ciicket all the day.

But there are better boarding-places than that in the Rue Beaurigard.

Pa?- exemjple, la Rue de Bussy.

How neatly httle Marie aiTanges the rooms — ^not a speck of dirt anywhere ; and for table management, who can surpass Madame C %

I shall see them all again by and by — at least I hope it, and hope for a deep, rich bowl in the Cafe Vefour, and a crisp little loaf of the Vienna bread, and the Jouraal, and sugared water, and all. It may be that on another visit, I may not be so free as at the last ; it may be, — since the Ameiican, like the Frenchman, is somewhat gregarious in his nature, — that incumbrances may lie in the way of

F*

i06 Fresh Gleanings.

a resumption of the old rambling humor ; — but sure I am, that now and then of a morning, I shall steal away from whatever pleasant or painful circumstances may environ me, and hunt up, with a child's mind, — the old scenes, — the youthful scenes, — the dearly-remembered scenes, — of which I am now writing.

After midday at the Cafe, the small half-cup gains upon the bowl of the morning; and for three hours after noon, there is a sensible falling off of visitors ; and the trim fresidente leaves her place to dress for the evening.

Then drop in the sorry old single men, and quarrelling maiTied men, and such curious observers as myself, to look at the fresh-faced, bright-eyed, neatly-dressed fair one who presides. As the hours pass, — after-dinner loungers come in : old women with white lap-dogs wad- dle to the tables, and take their thimble-full of coffee. The seats outside the door fill up; they laugh and lounge, and sip, and talk ; — some stroll away to the the- atres ; — their places fill up. The lamps are lit. Young men call for ices — old men call for punches. At half the tables is the rattle of dominoes. Nine, ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock come over the Paris world. The Omni- busses have stopped thundering by ; — the gargons put up the shutters. The people lounge away — not home — there is no such word in their language, but — chez eux.

So, another day is gone from their lifetime of pleasure, and they are twenty-four hours nearer the end.

The Restaurant. 107

The Restaurant.

fTHHE Parisian does not take his coffee at home, nor his -*■ dinner. The Frenchman is sociable to excess ; but his sociahties are all out-of-door sociahties. He will talk with you in the Diligence, — he wdll talk with you in the theati'e, or at the cafe, but you rarely see him at home. Friends meet at the Opera, — in the Garden of the Tuile- ries, or dine together at the Restaurant, — and ten to one, tliey do not know each other's lodgings.

Nothing is known practically, by the Parisian, of our glorious Saxon home-spirit — that spirit which finds its de- velopment around the domestic fireside. What such book as the " Winter Evenings at Home" is there, in the whole range of French hterature 1 — What such poem as the "Cotter's Saturday Night]" — What such home- painter — in verse, as Crabbe, — or in colors, as Wilkie 1

Christmas-dinner rejoicings, and the Yule-log — glori- ous tokens of the old Northern feeling, which we in our New-land, are by half too slack in sustaining — are to the Parisian, like the ballads of the Norsemen to unlearned eai-s.

Gro vrith your letter to a French gentleman of the Capi- tal, and he may overwhelm you with his protestations of friendship ;— he may invite you to his box at the Opera ; — he may ask you to dine with him at the Restaurant , but

1 08 F R E S H G L E A N I N G S.

you will rarely be asked to make part of his family circle. And this is not from distrust altogether — not that he holds his family too sacred ; — it is because his social feel- ings do not, like the Englishman's, and like the American's — centre there. They are too much out of doors. His pleasures are out of his own house, and to participate in them, you must go with him abroad.

His social spirit is of larger circumference than that belonging to the Anglo-Saxon blood, but it is less fixed and strong. Home is the place to make that spirit fixed, and strong, and pure. And as I recall now the seemingly superficial state of a Society, which has no such rallying point— I thank God that my lot is cast in a corner of the world, where such an institution is cherished. And if it were possible, without being too venturesome, I would break away from the thread of this foreign talk, to pro- test against the wrong doing of such as would lessen the attractions of Home, by introducing the public frivolities of the French school in their stead.

Nothing seems to me to have borne so strong a part in sustaining the integrity, and unity, and energy of the Brit- ish nation, as the firm cherishment of a Home feeling. The French have, indeed, a noisy love of country — ^but it is entirely separable from any domestic love. They wor- ship Jupiter — they have no Penates.

But to return : — some at Paris, whose means know no limit, will perhaps, dine in their own apartments, giving their orders to the Furnisher of the King, in the Palais Royal ; — before whose \\indows a crowd of soldiers

The Restaurant. 109

in crimson breeches, and of men in blouses, are always looking upon the swimming teiTapins, and the salmon, and the fruit of every name and country.

But, choosing to interpret the more general tone of the city habits, let us turn to the first of Restaurants — the Trois Freres — where go such misguided peers as would seem rich, and such rich, as would seern peers; — where go, in short, all who, by paying high, would wish to seem of the elite. No window in the Palais Royal shows richer stock of game and meats, than the Trois Freres.

Twenty francs will pay for an exceeding good dinner ; besides, one has the honor of looking upon men with red ribbons in their button-holes, and of ogling the prettiest Grisettes of Paris. As good dinners may be had elsewhere, it is true, — but the eclat of extravagance belongs to such as the Cafe de Paris, or Trois Freres. And really, it is surprising how much it aids a man's good opinion of hiinself, to be the envy of all the small boys with paper parcels, and hungry-looking newspaper venders, who see him going in or out of those brilliant Restaurants. The cooking is superb ; as Groldsmith used to say, — " they will make you five different dishes from a nettle-pot, and twice as many from a frog's haunches."

There are two or three along the Boulevard which rank little lower, — and there is the British Tavern, where mock-turtle is always ready, and where English ale may be drank, and English mustard eaten on English steaks — saving only the horse-radish.

The Parisian, however, is never too aristocratic to econo-

110 F R E 3 II Gleanings.

mize, and even at the Cafe de Paris, have I seen a dinner for two, ordered for five living souls — mother, father, maid, and children. How the five quotients out of these two dividends, with a hungry man for divisor, satisfy five stomachs, is a matter which one, who knows Paris better than myself, might be puzzled to answer. The steaks are none of the largest, as every man who has walked the Boulevard for an appetite very well knows ; indeed, I am inclined to think, that the higher the dinner ranks in fash- ion, the less it will rank in the scales.

Where do they give more heaping plates than at Martin's, under the shadow of the Odeon ] Yet there, a man may fill himself for his eighteen sous, and enjoy the society of professional men, at least, the neophytes, who cut into the fricandeaux, in a way that would do credit to the dissecting-room. True, the wainscoting is not of min-ors, and the cloths do not " smell of lavender," and the wine is neither old Macon, nor Madere, — and the stews are of doubtful origin; but here, as everywhere else, —

II saper troppo quasi sempre nuoce.

vireen-eyed persons say the same of Tavemier's stews ; but it can hardly be credited. Madame T. thrives too well, to have thriven on cat's flesh ; and there is surely nothing of the Grimalkin about the sparkling Demoiselle, who presides over apricots and oysters.

It is a splendid saloon on the first floor of the Palais

Royal, — overlooking the whole court, with its crowds of

The Restaurant. Ill

loungers, and lime-trees, and sparkling fountains, that has over its doors the name of Tavernier.

I have eaten a great many two-franc dinners at the neat, little tables, — of soup, three dishes, dessert and wine, and wish I had by me a bill of fare, to set down some among its hundred dishes. Still more, do I wish for some Cruikshank, who would drop in, just at this juncture, an illustration of the brilliant interior of that Palais Royal Restaurant, on a December evening at five.

How nicely would come into the foreground,

those two old men — Cheeryble Brothers — who have dined at the same table, at the same hour, and on nearly the same dishes — Martin tells me, for half a dozen years. One is as precise as a Mademoiselle of sixty; and the other wears always a happy, jovial, bachelor look. One tucks his napkin carefully unfolded in his vest; — the other wipes it with both hands across his mouth, and drops it carelessly in his lap. One eats weak broth ; — the other pea soup.

What a group would that long family of English make !

F win remember I am sure — and have a

hearty laugh at the remembrance, of the tall boy in the jacket, with a collar that covered his shoulders, — and of the red-faced Miss (Heaven spare us both again such co quetries of look!) by half longer than her dress, and who spoke execrable French. There was, besides, the oldest scion of the family, who stalked up to our fat Madame

112 Fresh Gleanings.

Tavernier every day for payment; no such hat was surely ever seen on the head of a Frenchman, and he V7ore a coat that pinched him under the arms.

— Sacre, — whispered the thick-moust ached man at the next table, — Quel Anglais ! — quel cliapeau ! — quel habit! — oh, Mon Dieu !

With yvhdX a calm dignity the manager used to pace up and down, with his napkin white as snow, folded over his left arai ! — and with what infinite grace did he meet the salutations of every new comer !

After a year's absence from Paris, on my return,

T went one day, for old remembrance' sake, into the gay Restaurant again. The Mends with whom I used to

dine were scattered. F , the companion of my Swiss

travel, was long ago gone home, and was breaking his bachelor bread in the quiet of New England. Sidney was boating it, with a Maltese dragoman, upon the " uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt." The last I had seen of Sorsby, was at Venice, where I went down with him to his gondola, and waved him a good-bye, as he glided off over the broad, shining Lagoon, — straight on for Padua.

The tables, however, were full. Old Madame Taver- nier still held the dais with the same expression of matronly rule as a twelvemonth back. Tavernier himself, though grown a trifle older, still kept his stand before the desk, and slid occasionally about, to say a word to some Did customer, or to show civilities to some new one. Mam'selle, the brunette, still presided over apricots and

The Restaurant. 113

oysters; even the old, white dog pattered about, soliciting favors, and came to give me a welcome, by rubbing against my leg.

The long Englishers were gone, I suspect, to summer at HaiTowgate, and to talk to the shabby gentility of that watering-place, about the delights of the Paris world. But the two old Cheeryble Brothers were at the same table yet — as happy, as precise as ever. What a mono- tone of life ! There, day after day, the host, for six or seven hours, had stirred about his hall, with his napkin on his arm, — the dame had held the same seat, — Mam'selle wore the same coquettish looks over her plums, — the old frequenters at the same hour, had puffed up the stairs, and ordered their little dinners, — while I had been counting cities instead of dishes, — had tiied the cooking of different nations, instead of different meats, — had coquetted with Nature, when and where she was prettiest, instead of ogling the brunette, or looking after tlie tidy Grisettes who eat their dinners at the Palais.

I came back from cities whose History furnishes theme for the frescoes on Western palaces — and there the occu- piers of the old Restaurant were still driving their gains, and discussing calves' head, and tomatoes.

114 Fresh Gleaning

Le GrRAND VaTEL.

f INHERE is, not far away from Taveriiier's — the oppo- -*- site side, Le Grand Vatel. There is something iike romance in eating under the name of such a patron of the Kitchen.

Vatel lived in the time of Louis XIV.,* when

flourished everything that could quicken appetite, and excite desire. Poor man — he did not see the end of it !

He had gone to Chantilly, to prepare a fete. The king arrived ; the supper was served. By some mistake, two tables were without roasts. It cut Vatel to the quick. — My honor is ruined — said he. Fortunately, the table of the king was served. This restored courage to poor Vatel. Still, for twelve nights he did not sleep. He told his friend Gourville, and Gourville told the Piince. The Prince came to console Vatel ; — nothing could be finer, said his Highness.

— Monseigneur, — replied Vatel, — your goodness over- powers me ; but I know very well that two of the tables were without roasts.

* Madame de Sevigne tells pleasantly the story of this mishap of Le Grand Vatel, — dont la bonne ttte itait capable de contenir tout le soin d'un itat. — The cooks of the present day guard as scrupulously their honor, as in the luxurious age of Vatel.

Le Grand Vat el. 116

A royal breakfast was to be served toward the close of the fete. Vatel was all anxiety. He had ordered the choicest dishes of the kingdom.

The morning came, and Vatel was up at four. All were asleep ; no one stirring, except one fish-dealer who brought two small parcels o^maree.

— Is this all, said Vatel.

— Yes sir, said the man; — not knowing that orders had been sent to every Port along the coast.

Vatel sought his friend. Gourville, said he, mon ami, I shall never survive this.

— Pooh, said Gourville.

Vatel went to his chamber, and placing his sword against the door, he pushed it through his body, and fell upon the floor.

ha mar^e arrives. They search for Vatel ; they go to his chamber ; they knock — there is no answer ; they break open the door. They find him bathed in blood, and stone dead.

— Pauvre Vatel ! said the Prince. And now they sell dinners for a franc and a half at the sign of Le Grand Vatel. I ate of maree at the little tables, but it was not fresh.

116 Fresh Gleanings.

.""heap Dinners.

ROWNE the philosopher, says, whatever may be a man's character, or complexion, or habits, he will

find a match for them in London. Whatever may be

a man's taste, or his means, he may find the gi'atification of them, at some rate, at Paris.

If the Palais Royal, from the little tobacco women to the furnisher of the King, be too extravagant for one's means ; — if he can neither pay two sous for his chair under the trees, nor take a six sous half-cup at the E,o- tonde, nor a dinner at such as the Grand Vatel, he finds another neighborhood that ranges lower ; but be sure, he will indulge himself, on Sunday afternoons, with the stone benches along the borders of the court, and very possibly, luxuriate in a cent cigar. Other days, he may be seen stealing his way cautiously down the Rue St. Honore, and turning into some of those streets that branch off toward the Quay, and the other side of the river. He knows every alley that ramifies from the street of the School of Medecine, and may even venture on fast-days, into the neighborhood of the long shadowing Pantheon.

And there may be picked up dinners, such as

they are, for twelve and eight sous, not a stone's throw from the towers of St. Sulpice.

And what shall be said of the chop-houses of St. Denis

C H E AP D I N N ER3. 117

and Mont Martre 1 Curious-looking chops, surely, that would puzzle a Cuvier to work on the skeleton of a beast that bleats or grunts ; — but cheap for all that — chop, po- tato, and bread, for five sous !

There may be seen luscious dinners at five, not far from the Pont St. Michel, and in the neighborhood of the Halle au Ble,— the building of the Medici Column.*

And in the Faubourg St. Martin — the number escapes my memory, but the police will direct the curious, and the savory smells will guide the hungry— there is a huge pot boiling from twelve to six, filled with such choice tit-bits as draw, every day, scores of adventurers. A huge iron fork lies across the mouth of the cauldron, and whoever wishes to make the venture, pays two sous for a strike. If he succeeds in transfixing a piece of beef — (or what passes for beef, in the dialect of the quartier) he has achieved his dinner, and at a low rate — albeit he has it in his fingers, without sauce or corrective.

Unfortunately, however, many poor fellows ruin their hopes by striking too strongly, and dashing all before them ; and they are mortified at seeing the fragments of some huge bit of meat which their energy has shat- tered, floating in savory morsels to the top.

They say Jhat once upon a time, there came up upon the end of the fork, after a vigorous thrust, a heavy, black-looking substance, which proved to be the

* James. I think, in one of his hundred romances, makes this Column notable. It was a part of the old Medici Palace.

118 Fresh Gleanings.

front of a soldier's cap. It came to the ears of the police, and a posse of officers came down upon the luck- less Restaurateur, and made seizure of all the bones about his establishment. For though there was no law forbidding use of hats for soups, yet suspicion was ex- cited of there being some missing man in the mess.

Indeed, as offering precedent for such suspicion, some of the old chronicles of Paris, soberly relate the following story : —

The Barber and the Cook.

~| N a certain rue of the He de la Cite, now nearly ■*- obliterated by changes, stood, many centuries ago, side by side, the houses of a b|^rber and of a pastry cook. Their situation was in the centre of the old world of fashion, and no barber shaved more faces, and no pastry cook sold more, or better pates, than the two neighbors. And they grew rich ; — so rich, that every one who knew anything of common tradesmen's gains, wondered at it.

The butchers wondered how the pastry cook made

so many pies, and bought so little meat. And, by and by, it was observed that many who went into the barber's shop to be shaved, never came out again. Then, on a sudden, the excited people said that the barber cut the throats of his customers, and that the pastry cook chopped them into pies.

The Modern Cook. 119

The Parisians are by no means fastidious in respect of their food; — nor were they so, if we may credit co- temporaneous writers, in the time of St. Louis ; — but even the Parisians were disgusted at the honible idea of eating the livers of their dirty neighbors, instead of those of Strasburg geese. The thought was no soonei suggested to that excitable populace, than they rushed en masse to the shops of the tradesmen — hung them upon poles before their own doors, and pulled down their dwellings.

If the Abbe G and myself were right in our inves- tigations,— an old lodging-house stands at present over the spot, where lived the murderous barber, and the can- nibal cook.

The Modern Cook.

f |1HE front of the soldier's cap, however, in the Fau- bourg St. Martin, proved a false alarm, since no human bones were found in the Restaurateur's collection, and no soldier was missing from the Casernes.

It is by no means reputable to be found venturing one's chance for dinner in such places ; and I was credibly assured that some medical students, and barbers had lost caste with their profession, for cultivating too gi-eat familiarity in such neighborhoods.

Better dinner?, and safer, may be had in the great

120 Fresh Gleanings.

square of the Marche des Iimoceiis. — What more gloiioua salon ! — the bright, blue sky of a Paris summer is over- head;— tall, old buildings lift theii' quaint gables, min- gled with elegant modeiTi fi'onts on every side ; — the fountain in the middle pours over in streaming floods, its bubbling and sparkling toiTents, making the air cool even in the heats of July; and around, are scattered rich stores of richest vegetables from the fine gardens of Normandy ; — and dotted among them are the people of Brittany in their queer caps and petticoats ; — and honest, ruddy faces that have ripened on the sunny banks of the Loire.

Just around the edge of the basin that catches within its lips of stone, the waiers of the fountain, are arranged some half dozen deal tables, and here and there pots are boiling, and bowls and spoons in readiness, and an old lady with a huge handkerchief upon her head, to serve you.

You will find beans, or potatoes, or meat, and you may have a bowl of either of the two first for a sou ; but bread and salt are extras ; — meat ranges a tiifle higher, and few but the aristocrats of the neighborhood presume upon the meat. No better place, for the price, can be found

in Paris ; — my investigations with the good Abbe G

have quite satisfied me on this point. If it rains, of course an umbrella must be earned, or the broth, which is not the least part of the dinner, will be cooled. One may end with a handful of lich plums, and as cheap as the broth.

The Modern Cook. 121

Outside the barriers of the Octroi,* up and down the Seine, and at the Bamer du Trone, are restaui*ants for such as choose to walk farther, and pay less : or who prefer a poor rabbit, to a fat cat. Little stands of fruit, and w'me, and cake, abound, where they escape the tithe of the tax-gatherei', and on Sundays are thronged by thousands from the Capital.

We have hardly yet done with dinners within the city. Many a poor fellow is, at this very hour, — five of the af- ternoon,— perspiring over a chafing-pan of coals, whose fumes escape at a broken pane of glass, and over which is sissing and steaming a little miserable apology for a rump-steak. I'hese are the single men, who wish to keep up appearances ; and you might see one of them upon the Boulevard, and never guess but he was a diner at a reputable restaurant ; — except you might ob- serve that his wristbands were turned carefully up out of

sigfht, and his collar covered with a black cravat.

Poor fellow ! he has no shirt,— though the coat is a good one in its way, and so wnth the hat.

On fete days he shows linen, and calls for a bottle of

* The city of Paris is surrounded by au iron palisade called the BaiT-ier, There are fifty entrances, some of them of splendid archi- tectural effect ; and at each is collected the so-called Octi'oi duty, on all consumable matter entering the capital. Every person entering is examined. Guizot himself stops his carriage and submits to offi- cial inspection. Nearly ten millions of dollars are realized annually from this source alone. It is strictly a Municipal tax, and obtains in all the lai-ge towns of France.

... F

122 Fresh Gleanings.

ordinary beer at one of the cafes up the Champs Elysees. On other days, his means oblige him to cut the restau- rants, and take a small cut of the butcher off the fore- quarter, and near the knuckle. Sometimes he takes the knuckle itself for a bit of soup ; and with a Httle potato, and parsley, and salt, followed by a piece of bread, it really makes a very palatable dinner.

There are poor artists, and Americans among them, who, for worthier motives than occasional dress, eat their dinners thus, rather than risk the doubtful meats in the lower class of restaurants. Indeed no dinner of ordinary bulk, ranging much under thirty sous, can be eaten in Paris without suspicion ; — unless, indeed, it be of those vegetable potages which are sei-ved up. under the rich old fountain of the Marche des Innocens.

None understand the economy of eating better than the French. A knuckle will serve a Frenchman farther than a haunch an ordinary man.

All the arts of securing nutrition from that which chem- ists might, by the weak tests of their laboratory, declare to have no nutritious matter at all, belong peculiarly to the alchemy of French cooking. There is no part of the brute structure, but yields something in the fomi of digest- ible dishes to their rigorous investigations.

Whatever will season a soup, or flavor a pudding, in the vegetable or animal world, is known. It has been submitted to their kitchen analysis ; and the synthesis — to use the language of the schools — is even more wonderful than the strange results of their analysis. Compounds

i

The Modern Cook. 123

without number, — amalgamations of qualities as opposite as nature could form them, — combination heaped upon combination, and a name for each successive product, chosen with the same skill that directs the formation of the object to be named : — so that, poor as the French language is in general terms, none is richer in table vo- cabulary ; and their omelette, EnidJ'ricandeau, and pate pass muster in nearly all the languages of Europe.

Many strangers in Paris search English restaurants, in the hope (a vain one) of finding the rich mottled beef of Hereford, or the banks of the Tweed. There was an old lady who cooked beef-sirloins, and made plum-pudding under the West side of the Madaleine ; and her tables were always full. The only real English roast beef in Paris, I found there ; they pretend to it at the Royal, and the British tavern ; but the meat has no smell of the shambles. I give the palm to the old lady; — Avithout, however, great cause to remember her little rooms with favor, since it was in them I lost a fair-made bet for a couple of bottles of Chablis.

I declared one day to my friend G that the red- faced man over opposite me was an Englishman. The evidence was, — ^lie ate mustard with his beef, and called for a hot plate. Could there be better 1

G said no ; thereupon we staked the wine, and ap- pealed across the table. The bet was lost : but the man had lived fifteen years in England.

We drank one bottle of the Chablis two evenings after, before the little grate, — in the room at the end of the long

124 Fresh Gleanings.

corridor, — in a hotel garni of the Rue de Seine ; — and friend

Abbe G ! — sitting there before your grate, — in your

room at the end of the corridor, — in the hotel garni of the dark Rue de Seine, — pray, when shall we drink the other ?

The Religion of Paris.

^ PEAKING of my friend the Abbe, brings to mind ^^ his character and pursuits. He used to remind me of that good Abbe of the He de France, who advised and condoled with the widowed mothers, and who figures in a long black robe, and broad-brimmed hat, in all the illus- trated copies of " Paul and Virginia." But, my friend did not wear habitually his Church uniform, for his care had been a large one in the country, and he had come like all Frenchmen to the city for relief: he has even ven- tured upon a nice haunch of mutton with me upon Fri- day. For all this, he had far higher respect, and love for the spirit and observances of the Religion of the Metropo- lis, than I ever had myself

Religion at Paris, always seemed to me more of a sen- timent than a principle : — that is to say, their Religion has more the liveliness of a feeling, than the earnestness of absorbing duty. Except at times of funeral, one sees few earnest faces in the Parisian churches ; they, the wor- shippers, do not leave wholly their gayety at the door.

The Religion of Paris. 125

They listen to the prayer and to the discourse, attentively — rarely can you see more of attention ; but it seemed to me always an attention fixed upon the eloquent lapse of words, or some sweet mental image of the Virgin ; — an attention made grateful by the presence of the pictures, and the groined arches overhead, and the fragrant odors of burning herbs ; — an attention, it may be most devout, with some fancied or real presence of God in the soul, — but very rarely the attention of what Protestants call " a broken and a contrite heart."

No people would be so intolerant of unadorned church- es and poor preaching, as the Parisians. Nor would they altogether fancy the scolding habit of the Scotch presby- ters ; they mean to be happier after a sei'vice than before it. Why a sad man should go to church to come away sadder, is what they can not comprehend. I remember that Madame de Sevigne, in one of her letters to her daughter, gives this admirable comment upon one of the sermons of the great men of her time : — " II fit le signe de la croix, il dit son texte ; il ne nous gronda point ; il ne nous dit point d'injures ; il nous pria de ne point craindre la mort, puis qu'elle etait le seul passage que nous eus-

sions pour ressuciter avec Jesus Christ nous fumes

tous contents^ Ninon d'Enclos might have heard the same doctrine, and said as much of it, and as truthfully. And it is true of a great many discourses, which have not the redeeming excellences of Bourdaloue.

There is no such thing as Religious bigotry known at Paris ; — this would seem strange to a man fresh fi-om such

126 Fresh Gleanings.

pleasant reading as the Chronicle of St. Bartholomew. St. Germain I'Auxerrois is still standing, and its tower is standing, from which, on that dreadful August night of 1572, went out the first signal for slaughter ; — but at the foot of it now, as you enter the door, an old man with a gray shock of hair is standing, and sprinkles Holy water on you, from his horse-hair brush. Innocent-looking priests glide up and down upon the pavement, and the sunlight streams through the stained windows, — and it seemed to me, as I saw it flickering in rainbow colors over the gray columns, — a sort of token, a new " cove- nant with promise" that no such Bartholomew slaugh- ters should come again.

Every man in Paris seems satisfied with his own Reli- gion, and very careless about his neighbor's. Every sect follows its peculiar observances without hindrance ; nay — the very church where the most zealous Calvinists worship, was gi'anted them by the crown, and enjoys a stipend from the Government. Scarce is there a Protes- tant church in the kingdom but receives some degree of administrative support. Even the first man in authority in the realm, — M. Guizot, is a Protestant. And amid all the hatred to which that minister is subjected, by his peace policy, one hears no odium thrown upon his Reli- gious belief. — This is a thing apart — a thing speculative — a thing for noble reflections — a thing to lend a little mys- tery to verse — a sublime episode to life — a thing to ren- der beauty attractive by adding devotional sentiment — a thing to add a little grace to companionship, by an un-

The Religion of Paris. 127

seen, Lut fully accredited tie ; — little else of Religion is recognize 1 at Paris*

The Sunday at Paris is richly illustrative of the Religious tendencies of the people. It is the festive day of the week. The authorities give their finest military displays in the court of the palace ;— the fountains of the G-arden play in their best style; — the shop windows wear their richest appearance ; — the theatres show their best pieces ; — and the galleries of art are crowded with their gayest company. Yet it is not forgotten by the Parisians that the day has a sacred purpose. At the morning mass, — at an hour when many good Protestant people are dallying with sleep, — the pavement of Notre- Dame, and the Madaleine is covered thick with kneeling worshippers, who say their beads, and say their prayers with the earnestness of true devotion.

I have many a time leaned against one of the beaded columns of the Madaleine, when the sun was just begin- ning to throw slanting rays through the windows of the roof, and listened meditatively to the broken chantings by the altar, or watched the comers, as they dipped their fingers in the Holy font, and stepped lightly along the marble floor, — crossing themselves as they passed opposite

* In his argument for the support of Christianity, Chateaubriand uses this remarkable language : — La Religion Chr^.tienne est la plus poitique, la plus humaine, la plus favorable a la liberte, aux arts et aux lettres, que le naonde modeme lui doit tout, depuis I'agriculture jusqu'aux sciences abstraites; depuis I'hospice pour les malhereux, jusqu'aux temples bdtis par Michel Ange, est decores par Raphael.

^28 Fresh Gleanings.

the altar, and bowing to the sacred image, — throwing a single rapid glance over the kneeling company, then ► stooped gently till their knees met the marble pavement, and began their silent "Worship.

Perhaps it would be some poor girl seizing those early hours, before the employ of the shop began, and hoping by favor of the Virgin, under whose image she prays, for a happy stroll at evening with her lover, under the trees of the Champs Elysees. Perhaps it is some lady in rich dress, with gold-clasped service book, — for there is this Religious beauty in the Catholic Church, that rank and wealth lose themselves amid the " crowd of witnesses," and there — the Countess kneels, with a begging woman kneeling beside her, — and they beg together for Grace.

Perhaps it is a gay postillion, in his crimson-faced coat, who now comes tip-toeing along, looking grave, and crossing himself, and kneeling in a humble place, and gazing steadfastly upon the image of Christ that is over the altar. For a little time, his soul seems absorbed in the view, but now his eye wanders over the frescoes of the ceiling, — the little bell tinkles, — ^he remembers himself, and bows his head. Now he rises and wanders stealthily to the door ; — dips his hand in the Holy water ; — turns his face to the Virgin, — bows, — goes softly out,-— and in an hour thereafter, is shouting French oaths to his horses, on his way to the borders of France.

Perhaps it is a stout Sergent-de-ville, striding about with his chapeau under his arm, that meets your eye. His looks wander over the kneeling forms. He is least

The Religion of Paris. 129

religious of all. If he prays, it is hurriedly, as if it were not his business, and he kneels, as if he rarely knelt. The people come and go, till the sun is fairly up in the sky, and the crowd disperses.

Sunday is the great day at the Cafe, and the Restau- rant; on no other day are their gains so great. The savings of the week are lavished upon the indulgences of Sunday. Whoever dines upon a knuckle other days, luxuriates in a fricandeau on the Diinanche. Whoever dines at moderate prices the six days, dines at the Trois Freres the seventh ; and who drinks ordinary wine the rest of the week, on Sunday orders the best.

The garden of the palace is full to ovei-flowing ; — Ver- sailles is crowded with Parisian company, and the Gallery of the Louvre on no other day is so thronged with visitors. The stall-men of the Champs Elysees, with their cakes, and games, and swings, drive their best bargains upon Sundays, — the necromancei's, and sleight- of-hand men under the trees, are always at work upon Sunday. The public balls are fullest; — soldiers are plentiest along the walks; — omnibusses charge double prices; — and the public conscience seems lighter upon Sunday than any day of the week.

Parisian Religion with all that is good in it, — and its tender devotional sentiment is good, and its charity and liberality are good, — ^has yet very little about it of that sturdy self-denial for " conscience' sake," which makes the Protestant Religionist moral. Indeed, so much is Religion at Paris a sentiment, and so little a principle.

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that it seems to adorn even profligacy; and the poor girl, thrown loose upon that luxuriously rolling tide of Paris life, with eyes tearful before the Virgin in Notre-Dame, — prays for constancy ; and would as soon be without her crucifix, as without her lover.

Of the priesthood, there are without doubt very many who are vicious, and perhaps as many — certainly many, who are pure. — There are, it may be, many worthy, and well-meaning souls, in valleys of New England — possibly in other valleys — looking ever on Papacy as a scarlet-clad harlot, or a spotted beast, who will not accept even my Protestant testimony, to the fact, that human sympathies sometimes dwell under a Papal priest- robe. Yet however sad the truth may seem, — it is even so. Nay, — Orthodoxy itself, sometimes lifts up its voice in Papal pulpits at Paris; and I am sure I have heard as honest doctrine as that