Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  He was here yesterday in fine spirits, and he and his wife were to have joined our party. His arrest is on some political suspicion, and as the result cannot be foreseen, it casts a shadow over the spirits of our household.

  We drove along through the bright, fresh morning — I enjoying the panorama of Paris exceedingly — to the Western Railway Station, where we took tickets for Versailles.

  We feel as much at home now, in these continental railroad stations, as in our own — nay, more so. Every thing is so regulated here, there is almost no possibility of going wrong, and there is always somebody at hand whose business it is to be very polite, and tell you just what to do.

  A very pleasant half hour’s ride brought us to Versailles. There we took a barouche for the day, and started for the chateau. In about an hour and a half, through very pleasant scenery, we came to the spot, where we were met by Madame V. and her daughter, and, alighting, walked to the chateau through a long avenue, dark with overarching trees. We were to have a second breakfast at about one o’clock in the day; so we strolled out to a seat on the terrace, commanding a fine and very extensive prospect.

  Madame V. is the wife of an eminent lawyer, who held the office of intendant of the civil list of Louis Philippe, and has had the settlement of that gentleman’s pecuniary affairs since his death. At the time of the coup d’état, being then a representative, he was imprisoned, and his wife showed considerable intrepidity in visiting him, walking on foot through the prison yard, amongst the soldiers sitting drunk on the cannon. At present Monsieur V. is engaged in his profession in Paris.

  Madame V. is a pleasant-looking French woman, of highly-cultivated mind and agreeable manners; accomplished in music and in painting. Her daughter, about fifteen, plays well, and is a good specimen of a well-educated French demoiselle, not yet out. They are simply ciphers, except as developed in connection with and behind shelter of their mother. She performed some beautiful things beautifully, and then her mother played a duet with her. We took a walk through the groves, and sat on the bank, on the brow of a commanding eminence.

  A wide landscape was before us, characterized by every beauty of foliage conceivable, but by none more admirable, to my eye, than the poplars, which sustain the same relation to French scenery that spruces do to that of Maine. Reclining there, we could almost see, besides the ancient territory of the Duke d’Orsay, the celebrated valley of Chartreuse, where was the famous Abbey of Port Royal, a valley filled with historic associations. If it had not been for a hill which stood in the way, we should have seen it. At our leisure we discussed painting. Before us, a perfect landscape; around us, a deep solitude and stillness, broken by the sighing of ancient aristocratic shades, and the songs of birds; within us, emotions of lassitude and dreamy delight.

  We had found a spot where existence was a blessing; a spot where to exist was enough; where the “to be” was, for a moment, disjoined from the inexorable “to do,” or “to suffer.” How agreeable to converse with cultivated and refined artistic minds! How delightful to find people to whom the beautiful has been a study, and art a world in which they could live, move, and have their being! And yet it was impossible to prevent a shade of deep sadness from resting on all things — a tinge of melancholy. Why? — why this veil of dim and indefinable anguish at sight of whatever is most fair, at hearing whatever is most lovely? Is it the exiled spirit, yearning for its own? Is it the captive, to whom the ray of heaven’s own glory comes through the crevice of his dungeon walls? But this is a digression. Returning, we examined the mansion, a fine specimen of the old French chateau; square-built, with high Norman roof, and a round, conical-topped tower at each corner. In front was a garden, curiously laid out in beds, and knots of flowers, with a fountain in the centre. This garden was enclosed on all sides by beech trees, clipped into lofty walls of green. The chateau had once been fortified, but now the remains of the fortifications are made into terraces, planted with roses and honeysuckles. Here we heard, for the first time in our lives, the nightingale’s song; a gurgling warble, with an occasional crescendo, à la Jenny Lind.

  At five we dined; took carriage at seven, cars at nine, and arrived in

  Paris at ten.

  Friday, June 17. At twelve o’clock I started for Versailles to visit the camp at Sartory, where I understood the emperor was to review the troops.

  At Versailles I mounted the top of an omnibus with two Parisian gentlemen. As I opened my umbrella one of them complimented me on having it. I replied that it was quite a necessary of life. He answered, and we were soon quite chatty. I inquired about the camp at Sartory, and whether the emperor was to be there. He said he had heard so.

  He then asked me if we had not a camp near London, showing that he took me for an Englishman. I replied that there was a camp there, though I had not seen it, and that I was an American. In reply he congratulated me that the Americans were far ahead of the English.

  I complimented him then in turn on Versailles and its galleries, and told him there was not a nation on earth that had such monuments of its own history and greatness. They were highly elated at this, and we rode along in the best possible humor together. Nothing will make a Frenchman thoroughly your friend sooner than heartily to praise his country. It is for this I love them.

  Arrived at Sartory I had a long walk to reach the camp; and instead of inquiring, as I ought to have done, whether the review was to take place, I took it for granted. I saw bodies of soldiers moving in various directions, officers galloping about, and flying artillery trundling along, and heard drums, trumpets, and bands, and thought it was all right.

  A fifteen minutes’ walk brought me to the camp, where tents for some twenty-five thousand whiten the plain far as the eye can reach. There, too, I saw distant masses of infantry moving. I might have known by their slouchy way that they were getting home from parade, not preparing for it. But I thought the latter, and lying down under a tree, waited for the review to begin.

  It was almost three o’clock. I waited and waited. The soldiers did not come. I waited, and waited, and waited. The soldiers seemed to have gone more and more. The throne where the emperor was to sit remained unoccupied. At last it was four o’clock. Thought I, I will just ask these redcaps here about this.

  “Messieurs,” said I, “will you be so good as to inform me if the emperor is to be here to-day?”

  “No,” they replied, “he comes on Sunday.”

  “And what is to be done here, then?” I asked.

  “Here,” they replied, “to-day? Nothing; c’est fini — it is all over. The review was at one o’clock.”

  There I had been walking from Versailles, and waiting for a parade some two hours after it was all over, among crowds of people who could have told me at once if I had not been so excessively modest as not to ask.

  About that time an American might have been seen precipitately seeking the railroad. I had not seen the elephant. It was hot, dusty, and there was neither cab nor calèche in reach.

  I arrived at the railroad station just in time to see the train go out at one end as I came in at the other. This was conducive to a frame of mind that scarcely needs remark. Out of that depot (it was half past four, and at six they dine in Paris) with augmented zeal and decision I pitched into a cab.

  “A l’autre station, vite, vite!” — To the other station, quick, quick! He mounted the box, and commenced lashing his Rosinante, who was a subject for crows to mourn over, (because they could hope for nothing in trying to pick him,) and in an ambling, scrambling pace, composed of a trot, a canter, and a kick, we made a descent like an avalanche into the station yard. There Richard was himself again. I assumed at once the air of a gentleman who had seen the review, and walked about with composure and dignity. No doubt I had seen the emperor and all the troops. I succeeded in getting home just in the middle of dinner, and by dint of hard eating caught up at the third course with the rest.

  That I consider a very white day. Some might call it green, but
/>   I mark such days with white always.

  In the evening we attended the salon of Lady Elgin, a friend of our hostess. Found there the Marquis de M., whose book on the spiritual rappings comes out next week. We conversed on the rappings ad nauseam.

  By the way, her ladyship rents the Hotel de la Rochefoucauld, in the

  Rue de Varenne, Faubourg St. Germain.

  St. Germain is full of these princely, aristocratic mansions. Mournfully beautiful — desolately grand. Out of the stern, stony street, we entered a wide, square court, under a massive arched gateway, then through the Rez-de-Chaussée, or lower suite of rooms, passed out into the rear of the house to find ourselves in the garden, or rather a kind of park, with tall trees, flooded in moonlight, bathed in splendors, and with their distant, leafy arches (cut with artistic skill) reminding one of a Gothic temple. Such a magnificent forest scene in the very heart of Paris!

  Saturday, June 18. After breakfast rode out to Arc de Triomphe — de l’Etoile, and thence round the exterior barriers and boulevards to Père la Chaise.

  At every entrance to the city past the barriers, (which are now only a street,) there is a gate, and a building marked “Octroi,” which means customs.

  No carriage can pass without being examined, though the examination is a mere form.

  Père la Chaise did not interest me much, except that from the top of the hill I gained a good view of the city. It is filled with tombs and monuments, and laid out in streets. The houses of the dead are smaller than the houses of the living, but they are made like houses, with doors, windows, and an empty place inside for an altar, crucifix, lamps, wreaths, &c. Tombs have no charm for me. I am not at all interested or inspired by them. They do not serve with me the purpose intended, viz., of calling up the memory of the departed. On the contrary, their memory is associated with their deeds, their works, the places where they wrought, and the monuments of themselves they have left. Here, however, in the charnel house is commemorated but the event of their deepest shame and degradation, their total vanquishment under the dominion of death, the triumph of corruption.

  Here all that was visible of them is insulted by the last enemy, in the deepest, most humiliating posture of contumely.

  From Père la Chaise I came home to dinner at six. H., meanwhile, had been sitting to M. Belloc.

  After dinner H. and the two Misses C. rode out to the Bois de

  Boulogne, the fashionable drive of Paris.

  We saw all the splendid turnouts, and all the not splendid. Our horse was noted for the springhalt. It is well to have something to attract attention about one, you know.

  Sabbath, June 19. After breakfast went with Miss W. to the temple St. Marie, to hear Adolphe Monod. Was able to understand him very well. Gained a new idea of the capabilities of the French language as the vehicle of religious thought and experience. I had thought that it was a language incapable of being made to express the Hebrew mind and feeling of Scripture. I think differently. The language of Canaan can make its way through all languages, and in the French it has a pathos, point, and simplicity which are wonderful. There were thoughts in the sermon which I shall never forget. I feel myself highly rewarded for going.

  The congregation was as large as the church could possibly hold, and composed of very interesting and intelligent-looking people. His subject was, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth willingly, and without upbraiding,” &c. It was most touchingly adapted to the wants of the unhappy French, and of all poor sinners; and it came home to me in particular, as if it had been addressed to me singly, so that I could not help crying.

  The afternoon and evening spent at home, reading. H. went in the morning with Madame de T. to the Catholic service, at the church St. Germaine l’Auxerrois, and her companion pointed out the different parts of the service.

  H. said she was moved with compassion towards these multitudes, who seem so very earnest and solemn. Their prayer books contain much that is excellent, if it was not mixed with so much that is idolatrous.

  Monday, June 20. Went to have our passport viséd. The sky was black, and the rain pouring in torrents. As I reached the quay the Seine was rushing dark, and turbidly foaming. I crept into a fiacre, and was amused, as we rattled on, to see the plight of gay and glittering Paris. One poor organ grinder, on the Pont National, sat with his umbrella over his head, and his body behind the parapet, grinding away, in the howling storm. It was the best use for a hand organ I ever saw. The gardens of the Tuileries presented a sorry sight. The sentries slunk within their boxes. The chairs were stacked and laid on their sides. The paths were flooded; and the classic statues looked as though they had a dismal time of it, in the general shower bath.

  My passport went through the office of the American embassy, prefecture of the police, and the bureau des affaires étrangères, and the Swiss legation, and we were all right for the frontier.

  Our fair hostesses are all Alpine mountaineers, posted up in mountain lore. They make you look blank one moment with horror at some escape of theirs from being dashed down a precipice; the next they run you a rig indeed over the Righi; anon you shamble through Chamounix, and break your neck over the Col-de-balme, and, before you are aware, are among the lacking at Interlachen.

  Wednesday, June 22. Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons sur Saone! After affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o’clock we were rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails, through Burgundy that was; I reading to H. out of Dumas’ Impressions de Voyage, going over our very route. We arrived at Chalons at nine in the evening, and were soon established in the Hotel du Park, in two small, brick-floored chambers, looking out upon the steamboat landing.

  Thursday, 23. Eight o’clock A. M. Since five we have had a fine bustle on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers, shaped, for all the world, like our last night’s rolls. One would think Ichabod Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the water. They ought to be swift. L’Hirondelle (the Swallow) flew at five; another at six. We leave at nine.

  Eleven o’clock. Here we go, down the Saone. Cabin thirty feet by ten, papered and varnished in invitation of maple. Ladies knitting, netting, nodding, napping; gentlemen yawning, snoring; children frolicking; dogs whining. Overhead a constant tramping, stamping, and screeching of the steam valve. H. suggests an excursion forward. We heave up from Hades, and cautiously thread the crowded Al Sirat of a deck. The day is fine; the air is filled with golden beams.

  More and more beautiful grows the scene as we approach the Rhone — the river broader, hills more commanding, and architecture tinged with the Italian. Bradshaw says it equals the Rhine.

  At Lyons there was a scene of indescribable confusion. Out of the hold a man with a rope and hook was hauling baggage up a smooth board. Three hundred people were sorting their goods without checks. Porters were shouldering immense loads, four or five heavy trunks at once, corded together, and stalking off Atlantean. Hatboxes, bandboxes, and valises burst like a meteoric shower out of a crater. “A moi, à moi!” was the cry, from old men, young women, soldiers, shopkeepers, and prêtres, scuffling and shoving together. Careless at once of grammar and of grace, I pulled and shouted with the best, till at length our plunder was caught, corded and poised on an herculean neck. We followed in the wake, H. trembling lest the cord should break, and we experience a pre-Alpine avalanche. At length, however, we breathed more freely in rooms au quatrième of Hotel de l’Univers.

  After dinner we drove to the cathedral. It was St. John’s eve. “At twelve o’clock to-night,” said H., “the spirits of all who are to die this year will appear to any who will go alone into the dark cathedral and summon them”! We were charmed with the interior. Twilight hid all the dirt, cobwebs, and tawdry tinsel; softened the outlines, and gave to the immense arches, columns, and stained windows a strange and thrilling beauty. The distant tapers, seeming remoter than reality, the kneeling crowds, the heavy vesper chime, all combined to realize, H. s
aid, her dreams of romance more perfectly than ever before. We could not tear ourselves away. But the clash of the sexton’s keys, as he smote them together, was the signal to be gone. One after another the tapers were extinguished. The kneeling figures rose; and shadowily we flitted forth, as from some gorgeous cave of grammarye.

  Saturday, June 25. Lyons to Genève. As this was our first experience in the diligence line, we noticed particularly every peculiarity. A diligence is a large, heavy, strongly-built, well-hung stage, consisting of five distinct departments, — coupé, berline, omnibus, banquette, and baggage top.

  After setting up housekeeping in our berline, and putting all “to rights,” the whips cracked, bells jingled, and away we thundered by the arrowy Rhone. I had had the idea that a diligence was a rickety, slow-moulded antediluvian nondescript, toiling patiently along over impassable roads at a snail’s pace. Judge of my astonishment at finding it a full-blooded, vigorous monster, of unscrupulous railway momentum and imperturbable equipoise of mind.

  Down the macadamized slopes we thundered at a prodigious pace; up the hills we trotted with six horses, three abreast; madly through the little towns we burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across the pebbled streets, and out upon the broad, smooth road again. Before we had well considered the fact that we were out of Lyons, we stopped to change horses. Done in a jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, bump, whirr, whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another change, and another.

  “Really, H.,” said I, “this is not slow. The fact is, we are going ahead. I call this travelling — never was so comfortable in my life.”

  “Nor I,” quoth she. “And, besides, we are unwinding the Rhone all along.”