Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Moved by his eloquence the people decamped from the building, and left it in his hands. Empowered to make all such arrangements for its renovation and embellishment as his artistic taste should desire, he conducted important repairs in the building, rearranged the halls, had the pictures carefully examined, cleaned when necessary, and distributed in schools with scientific accuracy. He had an apartment prepared where are displayed those first sketches by distinguished masters, which form one of the most instructive departments of the Louvre to a student of art. The government seconded all his measures by liberal supplies of money; and the Louvre is placed in its present perfect condition by the thoughtful and cherishing hand of the republic.

  These facts have been communicated to me from a perfectly reliable source. As an American, and a republican, I cannot but take pleasure in them. I mention them because it is often supposed, from the destructive effects which attend the first advent of democratic principles where they have to explode their way into existence through masses of ancient rubbish, that popular liberty is unfavorable to art. It never could be so in France, because the whole body of the people are more thoroughly artistic in their tastes and feelings than in most countries. They are almost slaves to the outwardly beautiful, taken captive by the eye and the ear, and only the long association of beauty with tyranny, with suffering, want, and degradation to themselves, could ever have inspired any of them with even a momentary bitterness against it.

  JOURNAL — (CONTINUED.)

  Monday, June 13. Went this morning with H. and Mrs. C. to the studio of M. Belloc. Found a general assembly of heads, arms, legs, and every species of nude and other humanity pertaining to a studio; also an agreeable jumble of old pictures and new, picture frames, canvas, brushes, boxes, unfinished sketches, easels, palettes, a sofa, some cushions, a chair or two, bottles, papers, a stove rusty and fireless, and all things most charmingly innocent of any profane “clarin’ up times” whatsoever.

  The first question which M. Belloc proposed, with a genuine French air, was the question of “pose” or position. It was concluded that as other pictures had taken H. looking at the spectator, this should take her looking away. M. Belloc remarked, that M. Charpentier said H. appeared always with the air of an observer — was always looking around on every thing. Hence M. Belloc would take her “en observatrice, mais pas en curieuse” — with the air of observation, but not of curiosity.

  At it he went. I stood behind and enjoyed. Rapid creative sketching in chalk and charcoal. Then a chaos of colors and clouds, put on now with brushes, now with fingers. “God began with chaos,” said he, quoting Prudhon. “We cannot expect to do better than God.”

  With intensest enjoyment I watched the chaotic clouds forming on the canvas round a certain nucleus, gradually resolving themselves into shape, and lightening up with tints and touches, until a head seemed slowly emerging from amidst the shadows.

  Meanwhile, an animated conversation was proceeding. M. Belloc, in his rich, glorious French, rolling out like music from an organ, discussed the problems of his art; while we ever and anon excited him by our speculations, our theories, our heresies. H. talked in English, and Mrs. C. translated, and I put in a French phrase sidewise every now and then.

  By and by, M. Charpentier came in, who is more voluble, more ore rotundo, grandiose, than M. Belloc. He began panegyrizing Uncle Tom; and this led to a discussion of the ground of its unprecedented success. In his thirty-five years’ experience as a bookseller, he had known nothing like it. It surpassed all modern writers. At first he would not read it; his taste was for old masters of a century or two ago. “Like M. Belloc in painting,” said I. At length, he found his friend, M. Alfred de Musée, the first intelligence of the age, reading it.

  “What, you too?” said he.

  “Ah, ah!” said De Musée; “say nothing about this book! There is nothing like it. This leaves us all behind — all, all, miles behind!”

  M. Belloc said the reason was because there was in it more genuine faith than in any book. And we branched off into florid eloquence touching paganism, Christianity, and art.

  “Christianity,” M. Belloc said, “has ennobled man, but not made him happier. The Christian is not so happy as the old Greek. The old Greek mythology is full of images of joy, of lightness, and vivacity; nymphs and fauns, dryads and hamadryads, and all sportive creations. The arts that grow up out of Christianity are all tinged with sorrow.”

  “This is true in part,” replied H., “because the more you enlarge a person’s general capacity of feeling, and his quantity of being, the more you enlarge his capacity of suffering. A man can suffer more than an oyster. Christianity, by enlarging the scope of man’s heart, and dignifying his nature, has deepened his sorrow.”

  M. Belloc referred to the paintings of Eustache le Soeur, in the Louvre, in illustration of his idea — a series based on the experience of St. Bruno, and representing the effects of maceration and ghostly penance with revolting horrors.

  “This,” H. replied, “is not my idea of Christianity. Religion is not asceticism, but a principle of love to God that beautifies and exalts common life, and fills it with joy.”

  M. Belloc ended with a splendid panegyric upon the ancient Greeks, the eloquence of which I will not mar by attempting to repeat.

  Ever and anon H. was amused at the pathetic air, at once genuinely French and thoroughly sincere, with which the master assured her, that he was “désolé” to put her to so much trouble.

  As to Christianity not making men happier, methinks M. Belloc forgets that the old Greek tragedies are filled with despair and gloom, as their prevailing characteristic, and that nearly all the music of the world before Christ was in the minor scale, as since Christ it has come to be in the major. The whole creation has, indeed, groaned and travailed in pain together until now; but the mighty anthem has modulated since the cross, and the requiem of Jesus has been the world’s birthsong of approaching jubilee.

  Music is a far better test, moreover, on such a point, than painting, for just where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is most sublimely strong.

  Altogether this morning in the painter’s studio was one of the most agreeable we ever spent. But what shall I say then of the evening in a salon musicale; with the first violoncello playing in the world, and the Princess Czartoryski at the piano? We were invited at eight, but it was nine before we entered our carriage. We arrived at the hotel of Mrs. Erskine, a sister of Lord Dundalk, and found a very select party. There were chairs and sofas enough for all without crowding.

  There was Frankomm of the Conservatoire, with his Stradivarius, an instrument one hundred and fifty years old, which cost six thousand dollars. There was his son, a little lad of twelve, who played almost as well as his father. I wish F. and M. could have seen this. He was but a year older than F., and yet played with the most astonishing perfection. Among other things the little fellow performed a morceau of his own composition, which was full of pathos, and gave tokens of uncommon ability. His father gave us sonatas of Mozart, Chopin, &c., and a polonaise. The Princess Czartoryski accompanied on the piano with extraordinary ability.

  That was an evening to be remembered a lifetime. One heard, probably, the best music in the world of its kind, performed under prepared circumstances, the most perfectly adapted to give effect. There was no whispering, no noise. All felt, and heard, and enjoyed. I conversed with the princess and with Frankomm. The former speaks English, the latter none. I interpreted for H., and she had quite a little conversation with him about his son, and about music. She told him she hoped the day was coming when art would be consecrated to express the best and purest emotions of humanity. He had read Uncle Tom; and when he read it he exclaimed, “This is genuine Christianity”—”Ceci est la vraie Christianisme!”

  The attentions shown to H. were very touching and agreeable. There is nothing said or done that wearies or oppresses her. She is made to feel perfectly fr
ee, at large, at ease; and the regard felt for her is manifested in a way so delicate, so imperceptibly fine and considerate, that she is rather strengthened by it than exhausted. This is owing, no doubt, to the fact that we came determined to be as private as possible, and with an explicit understanding with Mrs. C. to that effect. Instead of trying to defeat her purpose, and force her into publicity, the few who know of her presence seem to try to help her carry it out, and see how much they can do for her, consistently therewith.

  Tuesday, June 14. To-day we dined at six P. M., and read till nine. Then drove to an evening salon — quite an early little party at Mrs. Putnam’s. Saw there Peter Parley and La Rochejaquelin, the only one of the old nobility that joined Louis Napoleon. Peter Parley is consul no longer, it seems. We discussed the empire a very little. “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” Opinions are various as the circles. Every circle draws into itself items of information, that tend to indicate what it wishes to be about to happen. Still, Peter Parley and I, and some other equally cautious people, think that this cannot always last. By this, of course, we mean this “thing” — this empire, so called. Sooner or later it must end in revolution; and then what? Said a gentleman the other day, “Nothing holds him up but fear of the RED.” [Footnote: That is, fear of the Red Republicans.]

  After chatting a while, Weston and I slipped out, and drove to the Jardin Mabille, a garden in the Champs Elysées, whither thousands go every night. We entered by an avenue of poplars and other trees and shrubs, so illuminated by jets of gas sprinkled amongst the foliage as to give it the effect of enchantment. It was neither moonlight nor daylight, but a kind of spectral aurora, that made every thing seem unearthly.

  As we entered the garden, we found flower beds laid out in circles, squares, lozenges, and every conceivable form, with diminutive jets of gas so distributed as to imitate flowers of the softest tints, and the most perfect shape. This, too, seemed unearthly, weird. We seemed, in an instant, transported into some Thalaba’s cave, infinitely beyond the common sights and sounds of every-day life. In the centre of these grounds there is a circle of pillars, on the top of each of which is a pot of flowers, with gas jets, and between them an arch of gas jets. This circle is very large. In the midst of it is another circle, forming a pavilion for musicians, also brilliantly illuminated, and containing a large cotillion band of the most finished performers.

  Around this you find thousands of gentlemen and ladies strolling singly, in pairs, or in groups. There could not be less than three thousand persons present. While the musicians repose, they loiter, sauntering round, or recline on seats.

  But now a lively waltz strikes the ear. In an instant twenty or thirty couples are whirling along, floating, like thistles in the wind, around the central pavilion. Their feet scarce touch the smooth-trodden earth. Round and round, in a vortex of life, beauty, and brilliancy they go, a whirlwind of delight. Eyes sparkling, cheeks flushing, and gauzy draperies floating by; while the crowds outside gather in a ring, and watch the giddy revel. There are countless forms of symmetry and grace, faces of wondrous beauty, both among the dancers and among the spectators.

  There, too, are feats of agility and elasticity quite aerial. One lithe and active dancer grasped his fair partner by the waist. She was dressed in a red dress; was small, elastic, agile, and went by like the wind. And now and then, in the course of every few seconds, he would give her a whirl and a lift, sending her spinning through the air, around himself as an axis, full four feet from the ground.

  Then the music ceases, the crowd dissolves, and floats and saunters away. On every hand are games of hazard and skill, with balls, tops, wheels, &c., where, for five cents a trial, one might seek to gain a choice out of glittering articles exposed to view.

  Then the band strike up again, and the whirling dance renews its vortex; and so it goes on, from hour to hour, till two or three in the morning. Not that we staid till then; we saw all we wanted to see, and left by eleven. But it is a scene perfectly unearthly, or rather perfectly Parisian, and just as earthly as possible; yet a scene where earthliness is worked up into a style of sublimation the most exquisite conceivable.

  Entrance to this paradise can be had for, gentlemen, a dollar; ladies, free. This tells the whole story. Nevertheless, do not infer that there are not any respectable ladies there. It is a place so remarkable, that very few strangers stay long in Paris without taking a look at it. And though young ladies residing in Paris never go, and matrons very seldom, yet occasionally it is the case that some ladies of respectability look in. The best dancers, those who exhibit such surprising feats of skill and agility, are professional — paid by the establishment.

  Nevertheless, aside from the impropriety inherent in the very nature of waltzing, there was not a word, look, or gesture of immorality or impropriety. The dresses were all decent; and if there was vice, it was vice masked under the guise of polite propriety.

  How different, I could not but reflect, is all this from the gin palaces of London! There, there is indeed a dazzling splendor of gas light. But there is nothing artistic, nothing refined, nothing appealing to the imagination. There are only hogsheads, and barrels, and the appliances for serving out strong drink. And there, for one sole end, the swallowing of fiery stimulant, come the nightly thousands — from the gay and well dressed, to the haggard and tattered, in the last stage of debasement. The end is the same — by how different paths! Here, they dance along the path to ruin, with flowers and music; there, they cast themselves bodily, as it were, into the lake of fire.

  Wednesday, June 15. Went in the forenoon to M. Belloc’s studio, and read while H. was sitting.

  Then we drove to Madame Roger’s, who is one of the leaders of Paris taste and legislation in dress, and who is said to have refused to work for a duchess who neglected to return her husband’s bow. I sat in the outer courts while some mysterious affairs were being transacted in the inner rooms of state.

  Then we drove to the Louvre, and visited the remains from Nineveh. They are fewer in number than those in the British Museum, which I have not yet seen. But the pair of human-headed, winged bulls are said to be equal in size to any.

  I was very much impressed, not only by the solemn grandeur of the thought that thirty centuries were looking down upon me out of those stony eyes, but by what I have never seen noticed, the magnificent phrenological development of the heads. The brow is absolutely prodigious — broad, high, projecting, massive. It is the brow of a divinity indeed, or of a cherub, which I am persuaded is the true designation of these creatures. They are to me but the earliest known attempts to preserve the cherubim that formed the fiery portals of the Eden temple until quenched in the Purges of the deluge.

  Out of those eyes of serene, benign, profound reflection, therefore, not thirty, but sixty centuries look down upon me. I seem to be standing at those mysterious Eden gates, where Adam and Eve first guided the worship of a world, amid the sad, yet sublime symbols of a previous existence in heavenly realms.

  After leaving the Louvre H. and I took a calèche, or open two-seat carriage, and drove from thence to the Madeleine, and thence the whole length of the Boulevards, circling round, crossing the Pont d’Austerlitz, and coming back by the Avenue de l’Observatoire and the Luxembourg.

  Then we saw theatres, the Port St. Denis, Port St. Martin, the site of the Bastille, and the most gay, beautiful, and bustling boulevards of the metropolis.

  As we were proceeding along the Boulevard des Italiens, I saw the street beginning to line with people, the cabs and carriages drawing to either side and stopping; police officers commanding, directing, people running, pushing, looking this way and that. “Qu’ y a-t-il?” said I, standing up by the driver—”What’s the matter?”

  “The emperor is coming,” said he.

  “Well,” said I, “draw to one side, and turn a little, so that we can see.”

  He did so, and H. and I both stood up, looking round. We saw several outriders in livery, on the full trot
, followed by several carriages. They came very fast, the outriders calling to the people to get out of the way. In the first carriage sat the emperor and the empress — he, cold, stiff, stately, and homely; she, pale, beautiful, and sad. They rode not two rods from us. There was not a hat taken off, not a single shout, not a “Vive l’Empereur? Without a single token of greeting or applause, he rode through the ever-forming, ever-dissolving avenue of people — the abhorred, the tolerated tyrant.” Why do they not cry out?” I said to the coachman, “Why do they not cry, ‘Vive l’Empereur’?” A most expressive shrug was the answer, and “I do not know. I suppose, because they do not choose.”

  Thursday, June 16. Immediately after breakfast we were to visit Chateau de Corbeville. The carriage came, and H., Mrs. C., and W. entered. I mounted the box with the “cocker,” as usual. To be shut up in a box, and peep out at the window while driving through such scenes, is horrible. By the way, our party would have been larger, but for the arrest of Monsieur F., an intimate friend of the family, which took place at five o’clock in the morning.