Oh! could those orange-trees but speak! could they recount to us the scenes they have witnessed; could they describe to us all the beauties over whom they have shed their fragrant flowers — all the heroes, statesmen, poets, and princes who have stepped in courtly paces beneath their shade; what a world of witty wickedness, of solemn warning, and of sad reflection, we should have!
But though the orange-trees were mute, our old man talked enough for them all. He was a faithful servant to the old régime: and indeed it should seem that there is something in the air of Versailles favourable alike to orange-trees and loyalty; for never did I hear, while wandering amidst their aristocratic perfume, one word that was not of sound orthodox legitimate loyalty to the race for whose service they have for so many hundred years lived and bloomed. And still they blossom on, unscathed by revolution, unblighted though an usurper called them his; — happier in this than many of those who were once privileged to parade their dignity beneath their royal shade. The old servitors still move among these venerable vegetable grandees with the ceremonious air of courtiers, offering obsequious service, if not to the king himself, at least to his cousin-germans; and I am persuaded there is not one of these old serving-men, who wander about Versailles like ghosts revisiting the scenes of former happiness, who would not more humbly pull off his hat to François Premier or Louis le Grand in the greenhouse, than to any monarch of a younger race.
Napoleon has left less trace of himself and his giant power at Versailles than anywhere else; and the naïads and hamadryads still lift their sculptured heads with such an eternity of stately grace, as makes one feel the evanescent nature of the interlude that was played among them during the empire. It is of the old race of Bourbon that the whole region is redolent. “There,” said our old guide, “is the range of chambers that was occupied by the Queen ... those were the King’s apartments ... there were the royal children ... there Monsieur ... and there the Comte d’Artois.”
Then we were led round to the fatal balcony which overhangs the entrance. It was there that the fallen Marie Antoinette stood, her young son in her arms, and the doomed King her husband beside her, when she looked down upon the demons drunk with blood, who sought her life. I had heard all this hateful, but o’er-true history, more than once before on the same spot, and shortening the frightful detail, I hastened to leave it, though I believe the good old man would willingly have spent hours in dwelling upon it.
The day had been named as one on which the great waters were to play. But, little as Nature has to do with this pretty exhibition, she interfered on this occasion to prevent it. There was no water. The dry winter would, they told us, probably render it impossible to play them during the whole summer.
Here was another disappointment; but we bore it heroically, and after examining and much admiring the numberless allegories which people the grounds, and to the creation of which, a poet must have been as necessary as a sculptor, we adjourned to the Trianons, there to meditate on all the ceaseless vicissitudes of female influence from Maintenon to Josephine. It is but a sad review, but it may serve well to reconcile the majority of womankind to the tranquil dreaminess of obscurity.
The next thing to be done was dining — and most wretchedly done it was: but we found something to laugh at, nevertheless; for when the wine brought to us was found too bad to drink, and we ordered better, no less than four bottles were presented to us in succession, each one increasing in price, but being precisely of the same quality. When we charged the black-eyed daughter of the house with the fact, she said with perfect good-humour, but nowise denying it, that she was very sorry they had no better. When the bill was brought, the same damsel civilly hoped that we should not think ten sous (half-a-franc) too much to pay for having opened so many bottles. Now, as three of them were firmly corked, and carefully sealed besides, we paid our ten sous without any complaining.
The looking at a fête at St. Cloud made part of the business of the day; but in order to get there, we were obliged to mount into one of those indescribable vehicles by which the gay bourgeoisie of Paris are conveyed from palace to palace, and from guinguette to guinguette. We had dismissed our comfortable citadine, being assured that we should have no difficulty in finding another. In this, however, we were disappointed, the proportion of company appearing greatly to exceed that of the carriages which were to convey them, and we considered ourselves fortunate in securing places in an equipage which we should have scorned indignantly when we quitted Paris in the morning.
The whimsical gaiety of the crowd, all hurrying one way, was very amusing; all anxious to reach St. Cloud before the promised half-hour’s display of water-works were over; all testifying, by look, gesture, voice, and words, that light effervescence of animal spirits so essentially characteristic of the country, and all forming a moving panorama so gay and so bright as almost to make one giddy by looking at it.
Some among the capricious variety of vehicles were drawn by five or six horses. These were in truth nothing but gaily-painted waggons, hung on rude springs, with a flat awning over them. In several I counted twenty persons; but there were some few among them in which one or perhaps two seats were still vacant — and then the rapturous glee of the party was excited to the utmost by the efforts of the driver, as gay as themselves, to obtain customers to fill the vacancies.
Every individual overtaken on the road was invited by the most clamorous outcries to occupy the vacant seats. “St. Cloud! St. Cloud! St. Cloud!” shouted by the driver and re-echoed by all his company, rang in the startled ears of all they passed; and if a traveller soberly journeying in the contrary direction was met, the invitation was uttered with tenfold vehemence, accompanied by shouts of laughter; which, far from offending the party who provoked it, was invariably answered with equal frolic and fun. But when upon one occasion a carriage posting almost at full gallop towards Versailles was encountered, the ecstasy of mirth with which it was greeted exceeds description. “St. Cloud! St. Cloud! St. Cloud! — Tournez donc, messieurs — tournez à St. Cloud!” The shouts and vociferations were enough to frighten all the horses in the world excepting French ones; and they must be so thoroughly broken to the endurance of din, that there is little danger of their starting at it. I could have almost fancied that upon this occasion they took part in it; for they shook their ropes and their tassels, snorted and tossed, very much as if they enjoyed the fun.
After all, we, and many hundred others, arrived too late for the show, the supply of water failing even before the promised half-hour had elapsed. The gardens, however, were extremely full, and all the world looked as gay and as well-pleased as if nothing had gone wrong.
I wonder if these people ever grow old, — that is, old as we do, sitting in the chimney-corner, and dreaming no more of fêtes than of playing at blind-man’s-buff. I have certainly seen here, as elsewhere, men, and women too, grey-headed, and wrinkled enough to be as solemn as the most venerable judge upon the bench; but I never saw any that did not seem ready to hop, skip, jump, waltz, and make love.
LETTER XXI.
History of the Vicomte de B —— . His opinions. — State of France. — Expediency.
I have had a curious conversation this morning with an old gentleman whom I believed to be a thorough legitimate, but who turns out, as you will see, something else — I hardly know what to call it — doctrinaire I suppose it must be, yet it is not quite that either.
But before I give you his opinions, let me present himself. M. le Vicomte de B —— is a person that I am very sure you would be happy to know anywhere. His residence is not in Paris, but at a château that he describes as the most profound retirement imaginable; yet it is not more than thirty leagues from Paris. He is a widower, and his only child is a daughter, who has been some years married.
The history of this gentleman, given as he gave it himself, was deeply interesting. It was told with much feeling, some wit, and no prolixity. Were I, however, to attempt to repeat it to you in the same manner, it would becom
e long and tedious, and in every way as unlike as possible to what it was as it came fresh from the living fountain.
In brief, then, I will tell you that he was the younger son of an old and noble house, and, for seven years, page to Louis Seize. He must have been strikingly handsome; and young as he was at the time of the first revolution, he seems already to have found the court a very agreeable residence. He had held a commission in the army about two years, when his father, and his only brother, his elder by ten years, were obliged to leave the country, to save their lives.
The family was not a wealthy one, and great sacrifices were necessary to enable them to live in England. What remained became eventually the property of our friend, both father and brother having died in exile. With this remnant of fortune he married, not very prudently; and having lost his wife and disposed of his daughter in marriage, he is now living in his large dilapidated château, with one female servant, and an old man as major-domo, valet, and cook, who served with him in La Vendée, and who, by his description, must be a perfect Corporal Trim.
I would give a good deal to be able to accept the invitation I have received to pay him a visit at his castle. I think I should find just such a ménage as that which Scott so beautifully describes in one of his prefaces. But the wish is vain, such an excursion being quite impossible; so I must do without the castle, and content myself with the long morning visits that its agreeable owner is so kind as to make us.
I have seen him frequently, and listened with great interest to his little history; but it was only this morning that the conversation took a speculative turn. I was quite persuaded, but certainly from my own preconceived notions only, and not from anything I have heard him say, that M. de B —— was a devoted legitimate. An old noble — page to Louis Seize — a royalist soldier in La Vendée, — how could I think otherwise? Yet he talked to me as ... you shall hear.
Our conversation began by his asking me if I was conscious of much material change in Paris since I last visited it.
I replied, that I certainly saw some, but perhaps suspected more.
“I dare say you do,” said he; “it is what your nation is very apt to do: but take my advice, — believe what you see, and nothing else.”
“But what one can see in the course of a month or two is so little, and I hear so much.”
“That is true; but do you not find that what you hear from one person is often contradicted by another?”
“Constantly,” I replied.
“Then what can you do at last but judge by what you see?”
“Why, it appears to me that the better plan would be to listen to all parties, and let my balancing belief incline to the testimony that has most weight.”
“Then be careful that this weight be not false. There are some who will tell you that the national feeling which for so many centuries has kept France together as a powerful and predominating people is loosened, melted, and gone; — that though there are Frenchmen left, there is no longer a French people.”
“To any who told me so,” I replied, “I would say, that the division they complained of, arose not so much from any change in the French character, as from the false position in which many were unhappily placed at the present moment. Men’s hearts are divided because they are diversely drawn aside from a common centre.”
“And you would say truly,” said he; “but others will tell you, that regenerated France will soon dictate laws to the whole earth; that her flag will become the flag of all people — her government their government; and that their tottering monarchies will soon crumble into dust, to become part and parcel of her glorious republic.”
“And to these I should say, that they appeared to be in a very heavy slumber, and that the sooner they could wake out of it and shake off their feverish dreams, the better it would be for them.”
“But what would your inference be as to the state of the country from such reports as these?”
“I should think that, as usual, truth lay between. I should neither believe that France was so united as to constitute a single-minded giant, nor so divided as to have become a mass of unconnected atoms, or a race of pigmies.”
“You know,” he continued, “that the fashionable phrase for describing our condition at present is, that we are in a state of transition, — from butterflies to grubs, or from grubs to butterflies, I know not which; but to me it seems that the transition is over, — and it is high time that it should be so. The country has known neither rest nor peace for nearly half a century; and powerful as she has been and still is, she must at last fall a prey to whoever may think it worth their while to despoil her, unless she stops short while it is yet time, and strengthens herself by a little seasonable repose.”
“But how is this repose to be obtained?” said I. “Some of you wish to have one king, some another, and some to have no king at all. This is not a condition in which a country is very likely to find repose.”
“Not if each faction be of equal power, or sufficiently so to persevere in struggling for the mastery. Our only hope lies in the belief that there is no such equality. Let him who has seized the helm keep it: if he be an able helmsman, he will keep us in smooth water; — and it is no longer time for us to ask how he got his commission; let us be thankful that he happens to be of the same lineage as those to whose charge we have for so many ages committed the safety of our bark.”
I believe my countenance expressed my astonishment; for the old gentleman smiled and said,
“Do I frighten you with my revolutionary principles?”
“Indeed, you surprise me a little,” I replied: “I should have thought that the rights of a legitimate monarch would have been in your opinion indefeasible.”
“Where is the law, my good lady, that may control necessity?... I speak not of my own feelings, or of those of the few who were born like myself in another era. Very terrible convulsions have passed over France, and perhaps threaten the rest of Europe. I have for many years stood apart and watched the storm; and I am quite sure, and find much comfort in the assurance, that the crimes and passions of men cannot change the nature of things. They may produce much misery, they may disturb and confuse the peaceful current of events; but man still remains as he was, and will seek his safety and his good, where he has ever found them — under the shelter of power.”
“There, indeed, I quite agree with you. But surely the more lawful and right the power is, the more likely it must be to remain tranquil and undisputed in its influence.”
“France has no longer the choice,” said he, interrupting me abruptly. “I speak but as a looker-on; my political race is ended; I have more than once sworn allegiance to the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, and certainly nothing would tempt me to hold office or take oath under any other. But do you think it would be the duty of a Frenchman who has three grandsons native to the soil of France, — do you really think it the duty of such a one to invoke civil war upon the land of his fathers, and remembering only his king, to forget his country? I will not tell you, that if I could wake to-morrow morning and find a fifth Henry peacefully seated on the throne of his fathers, I might not rejoice; particularly if I were sure that he would be as likely to keep the naughty boys of Paris in order as I think his cousin Philippe is. Were there profit in wishing, I would wish for France a government so strong as should effectually prevent her from destroying herself; and that government should have at its head a king whose right to reign had come to him, not by force of arms, but by the will of God in lawful succession. But when we mortals have a wish, we may be thankful if the half of it be granted; — and, in truth, I think that I have the first and better half of mine to rejoice in. There is a stout and sturdy strength in the government of King Philippe, which gives good hope that France may recover under its protection from her sins and her sorrows, and again become the glory of her children.”
So saying, M. de B —— rose to leave me, and putting out his hand in the English fashion, added, “I am afraid you do n
ot like me so well as you did.... I am no longer a true and loyal knight in your estimation ... but something, perhaps, very like a rebel and a traitor?... Is it not so?”
I hardly knew how to answer him. He certainly had lost a good deal of that poetical elevation of character with which I had invested him; yet there was a mixture of honesty and honour in his frankness that I could not help esteeming. I thanked him very sincerely for the openness with which he had spoken, but confessed that I had not quite made up my mind to think that expediency was the right rule for human actions. It certainly was not the noblest, and therefore I was willing to believe that it was not the best.
“I must go,” said he, looking at his watch, “for it is my hour of dining, or I think I could dispute with you a little upon your word expediency. Whatever is really expedient for us to do — that is, whatever is best for us in the situation in which we are actually placed, is really right. Adieu! — I shall present myself again ere long; and if you admit me, I shall be thankful.”
So saying, he departed, — leaving us all, I believe, a little less in alt about him than before, but certainly with no inclination to shut our doors against him.
LETTER XXII.
Père Lachaise. — Mourning in public. — Defacing the Tomb of Abelard and Eloïsa. — Baron Munchausen. — Russian Monument. — Statue of Manuel.
Often as I have visited the enclosure of Père Lachaise, it was with feelings of renewed curiosity and interest that I yesterday accompanied thither those of my party who had not yet seen it. I was well pleased to wander once more through the cypress alleys, now grown into fine gloomy funereal shades, and once more to feel that wavering sort of emotion which I always experience there; — one moment being tempted to smile at the fantastic manner in which affection has been manifested, — and the next, moved to tears by some touch of tenderness, that makes itself felt even amidst the vast collection of childish superstitions with which the place abounds.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 522
