I have now known Paris a sufficient time to watch, with interest, the progress of the public works. The arch at the Barriere de Neuilly has, within my observation, risen several feet, and approaches its completion. The wing, a counterpart of the gallery, that is to enclose the Carrousel, and finally to convert the Louvre and the Tuileries into a single edifice, has advanced a long distance, and preparations are making to clear the area of the few buildings that still remain. When this design shall be executed, the Palace of the Kings of France will contain considerably more than a mile of continuous buildings, which will be erected around a large vacant area. The single room of the picture-gallery is of itself a quarter of a mile in length!

During the heat of the late finance discussion, all sorts of unpleasant things were said of America, for the money-power acts here as it does everywhere else, proving too strong even for French bon ton, and, failing of facts and logic, some of the government writers had recourse to the old weapon of the trader, abuse and vituperation. Among other bold assertions, one of them affirmed, with a view to disparage the vaunted enterprise of the Americans, that while they attempted so much in the way of public works, nothing was ever finished. He cited the Capitol, a building commenced in 1800, and which had been once destroyed by fire in the interval, as an example.

As one of the controversionalists, on this occasion, I certainly had no disposition to debase my mind, or to descend from the level of a gentleman who was compelled to bow before no political master, in order to retort in kind; but as is apt to be the case under provocations of this sort, the charge induced me to look about, in order to see what advantages the subjects of a monarchy possess over us in this particular. The result has made several of my French friends laugh, and acknowledge that they who "live in glass houses should not throw stones."

The new palace of the Louvre was erected more than two centuries since. It is a magnificent pile, surrounding a court of more than a quarter of a mile in circumference, possessing many good statues, fine bas-reliefs, and a noble colonnade. In some respects, it is one of the finest palaces in Europe. The interior is, however, unfinished, though in the course of slow embellishment. Now a principal and very conspicuous window, in the pavilion that caps the entrance to the Carrousel, is unglazed, the weather being actually excluded by the use of coarse unplaned boards, precisely in the manner in which one is apt to see a shingle palace embellished at home. One hundred francs would conceal this deformity.

The palace of the Tuileries was built by Catherine di Medici, who was dead before the present United States were first peopled. It is a lantern-like, tasteless edifice, composed of different pavilions, connected by corps de batimens of different sizes, but of pretty uniform ugliness. The stone of this vicinity is so easily wrought, that it is usual to set it up, in blocks, and to work out the capitals and other ornaments in the wall. On a principal portion of this palace, these unwrought blocks still remain, just enough being finished to tell the observer that the design has never been completed. I shall not go beyond the palaces to make out our case, though all Europe abounds with these discrepancies in taste, and with similar neglect. As a rule, I believe we more uniformly push through our public undertakings than any other people, though they are not always executed with the same taste, on the same scale, or as permanently, perhaps, as the public works that are undertaken here. When they yield profit, however, we need turn our backs on no nation.

It is a curious commentary on the change in the times, that Louis-Philippe has dared to do that which Napoleon, with all his power, did not deem it expedient to undertake, though it is known that he chafed under the inconvenience, which it was desirable to both to be rid of. Until quite lately, the public could approach as near the palace windows, as one usually gets to those of any considerable dwelling that stands on a common street. The Emperor complained that he could not look out of a window, into his own gardens, without attracting a crowd: under this evil, however, he reigned, as consul and emperor, fourteen years, for there was no obvious way of remedying it, but by taking possession of a part of that garden, which so long had been thrown open to the public, that it now considered it as its own. Sustained by the congregated wealth of France, and secretly by those nations with whom his predecessor had to contend, Louis-Philippe has boldly broken ground, by forming two little gardens beneath the palace windows, which he has separated from the public promenade by ditches and low railings, but which serves effectually to take possession, to keep the tiger at a distance, and to open the way for farther improvement. In the end there will probably be a wing of the palace thrown forward into the garden, unless, indeed, the whole of the present structure should be destroyed, to make place for one more convenient and of purer architecture.

Paris enjoys a high reputation for the style of its public edifices, and, while there is a very great deal to condemn, compared with other capitals, I think it is entitled to a distinguished place in this particular. The church of the Magdalen (Napoleon's Temple de la Gloire, on which the names of distinguished Frenchmen were to be embossed in letters of bronze), is one of the finest modern edifices of Europe. It is steadily advancing to completion, having been raised from beneath the cornices during my visit. It is now roofed, and they are chiseling the bas-reliefs on the pediment. The Gardes-Meubles, two buildings, which line one entire side of the Place Louis Seize, or de la Concorde, as it is now termed, and which are separated by the Rue Royale, are among the best structures of the town. Some of their ornaments are a little meretricious, but the prevalent French features of their architecture are more happy than common. Only one of these edifices belongs to the public, and is now the hotel of the Admiralty, the other having been erected for symmetry, though occupied as private dwellings, and actually private property. The Bourse, or Exchange, is another modern building that has an admirable general effect.

Of the private hotels and private gardens of Paris, a stranger can scarcely give a just account. Although it is now six years since I have been acquainted with the place, they occasion surprise daily, by their number, beauty, and magnificence. Relatively, Rome, and Florence, and Venice, and Genoa, may surpass it, in the richness and vastness of some of their private residences; but, Rome excepted, none of them enjoy such gardens, nor does Rome even, in absolute connection with the town abodes of her nobles. The Roman villas[15] are almost always detached from the palaces, and half of them are without the walls, as I have already described to you. The private gardens of Paris certainly cannot compare with these villas, nor, indeed, can those which belong to the public; but then there is a luxury, and a quiet, and a beauty, about the five or six acres that are so often enclosed and planted in the rear of the hotels here, that I do not think any other Christian city can show in equal affluence. The mode of living, which places the house between court and garden, as it is termed here, is justly esteemed the perfection of a town residence; for while it offers security, by means of the gate, and withdraws the building from the street—a desideratum with all above the vulgar—it gives space and room for exercise and beauty, by means of the verdure, shrubbery, trees, and walks. It is no unusual thing for the French to take their repasts, in summer, within the retirement of their gardens, and this in the heart of one of the most populous and crowded towns of Europe. The miserable and minute subdivisions of our own towns preclude the possibility of our ever enjoying a luxury as great, and yet as reasonable as this; and if, by chance, some lucky individual should find the means to embellish his own abode and his neighbourhood, in this way, some speculation, half a league off, would compel him to admit an avenue through his laurels and roses, in order to fill the pockets of a club of projectors. In America, everybody sympathises with him who makes money, for it is a common pursuit, and touches a chord that vibrates through the whole community; but few, indeed, are they who can enter into the pleasures of him who would spend it elegantly, rationally, and with good taste. If this were the result of simplicity, it would, at least, be respectable; but every one knows that the passion at home is for display—finery, at the expense of comfort and fitness, being a prevalent evil.

[Footnote 15: This word has a very different signification in Italian, from that which we have given it, in English. It means a garden in the country; the house not being necessarily any part of it, although there is usually a casino or pavilion.]

The private hotels are even more numerous than the private gardens, land not always having been attainable. Of course these buildings vary in size and magnificence, according to the rank and fortune of those who caused them to be constructed, but the very smallest are usually of greater dimensions than our largest town-houses, and infinitely better disposed; though we have a finish in many of the minor articles, such as the hinges, locks, and the wood-work in general, and latterly, in marbles, that is somewhat uncommon, even in the best houses of France; when the question, however, is of magnificence, we can lay no claim to it, for want of arrangement, magnitude, and space.

Many American travellers will render you a different account of these things, but few of our people stay long enough to get accurate notions of what they see, and fewer still have free access to the sort of dwellings of which I now speak.

These hotels bear the names of their several owners. In the instances of the high nobility, it was usual to build a smaller hotel, near the principal structure, which was inhabited by the inferior branches of the family, and sometimes by favoured dependants (for the French, unlike ourselves, are fond of maintaining the domestic relations to the last, several generations frequently dwelling under the same roof), and which it is the fashion to call the petit hotel.

Our first apartments were in one of these petits hotels, which had once belonged to the family of Montmorency.[16] The great hotel, which joined it, was inhabited, and I believe owned, by an American, who had reversed the usual order of things by coming to Europe to seek his fortune. Our next abode was the Hotel Jumilliac, in a small garden of a remote part of the Faubourg St. Germain. This was a hotel of the smaller size, and our apartments were chiefly on the second floor, or in what is called the third story in America, where we had six rooms besides the offices. Our saloon, dining-room, &c. had formerly been the bed-chamber, dressing-room, and ante-chamber of Madame la Marquise, and gave one a very respectful opinion of the state of a woman of quality, of a secondary class, though I believe that this family too was highly allied. From the Rue St. Maur, we went into a small country-house on the bank of the Seine, about a league from the gates of Paris, which, a century since, was inhabited by a Prince de Soubise, as grand veneur of Louis XV, who used to go there occasionally, and eat his dinner, in a very good apartment, that served us for a drawing-room. Here we were well lodged, having some two or three-and-twenty well-furnished rooms, offices included. From this place we went into the Rue des Champs-Elysees, where we had a few rooms in a hotel of some size. Oddly enough, our predecessor in a portion of these rooms was the Prince Polignac, and our successor Marshal Marmont, two men who are now proscribed in France. We have been in one or two apartments in nameless edifices since our return from Germany, and we are now in a small hotel in the Rue St. Dominique, where in some respects we are better lodged than ever, though compelled to occupy three floors. Here the salon is near thirty feet in length, and seventeen high. It is panelled in wood, and above all the doors, of which, real and false, there are six, are allegories painted on canvass, and enclosed in wrought gilded frames. Four large mirrors are fixtures, and the windows are vast and descend to the floor. The dining-room, which opens on a garden, is of the same size, but even loftier. This hotel formerly had much interior gilding, but it has chiefly been painted over. It was built by the physician of the Duc d'Orleans, who married Madame de Montesson, and from this fact you may form some idea of the style maintained by the nobles of the period; a physician, at that time, being but a very inferior personage in Europe.

[Footnote 16: This ancient family still exists, though much shorn of its splendour, by the alienation of its estates, in consequence of the marriage of Charlotte de Montmorency, heiress of the eldest line, with a Prince of Conde, two centuries since. By this union, the estates and chateaux of Chantilly, Ecouen, etc., ancient possessions of the house, passed into a junior branch of the royal family. In this manner Enghien, a seigneurie of the Montmorencies, came to be the title of a prince of the blood, in the person of the unfortunate descendant of Charlotte of that name. At the present time, besides the Duc de Montmorency, the Duc de Laval-Montmorency, the Duc de Luxembourg, the Prince de Bauffremont, the Prince de Tancarville, and one or two more, are members of this family, and most of them are, or were before the late revolution, peers of France. The writer knew, at Paris, a Colonel de Montmorency, an Irishman by birth, who claimed to be the head of this celebrated family, as a descendant of a cadet who followed the Conqueror into England. There are two Irish peers, who have also pretensions of the same sort, though the French branches of the family look coolly on the claim. The title of "First Christian Baron," is not derived from antiquity, ancient as the house unquestionably is, but from the circumstance that the barony of Montmorency, from its local position, in sight of Paris, aided by the great power of the family, rendered the barons the first in importance to their sovereign. The family of Talleyrand-Perigord is so ancient, that, in the middle ages, when a King demanded of its head, "Who made you Count de Perigord?" he was asked, by way of reply, "Who made you King of France?"—God! I think I should have hesitated on the score of taste about establishing myself in a house of the Montmorencies, but Jonathan has usually no such scruples. Our own residence was but temporary, the hotel being public.]

In describing these residences, which have necessarily been suited to very moderate means, I have thought you might form some idea of the greater habitations. First and last, I may have been in a hundred, and, while the Italian towns do certainly possess a few private dwellings of greater size and magnificence, I believe Paris contains, in proportion, more noble abodes than any other place in Europe. London, in this particular, will not compare with it. I have been in some of the best houses in the British capital, but very few of them rise to the level of these hotels in magnificence and state, though nearly all surpass them in comfort. I was at a ball given by the Count ——, when thirteen rooms en suite were opened. The Duke of Devonshire can hardly exceed this. Prince Borghese used, on great occasions, to open twenty, if I remember right, at Florence, one of which was as large as six or eight of our ordinary drawing-rooms. Although, as a whole, nothing can be more inconvenient or irrational than an ordinary town-house in New York, even we excel the inhabitants of these stately abodes, in many of the minor points of domestic economy, particularly in the offices, and in the sleeping-rooms of the second class.

Your question, as to the comparative expense of living at home and of living in Europe, is too comprehensive to be easily answered, for the prices vary so materially, that it is difficult to make intelligent comparisons. As between Paris and New York, so long as one keeps within the usual limits of American life, or is disposed to dispense with a multitude of little elegancies, the advantage is essentially with the latter. While no money will lodge a family in anything like style, or with suites of rooms, ante-chambers, &c. in New York, for the simple reason, that buildings which possess these elegancies, or indeed with fine apartments at all, have never yet been erected in the country; a family can be better lodged in a genteel part of the town for less money, than it can be lodged, with equal room and equal comforts, in a genteel quarter of Paris; always excepting the inferior distribution of the rooms, and other little advantages, such as the convenience of a porter, &c. all of which are in favour of the latter place.[17] Food of all kinds is much the cheapest with us, bread alone excepted. Wines can be had, as a whole, better and cheaper in New York, if obtained from the wine-merchant, than in any European town we have yet inhabited. Even French wines can be had as cheap as they can be bought here, for the entrance-duty into the country is actually much less than the charges at the gates of Paris. The transportation from Bordeaux or Champagne, or Burgundy, is not, as a whole, essentially less than that to New York, if indeed it be any less. All the minor articles of table luxuries, unless they happen to be of French growth, or French fabrications, are immeasurably cheaper in America than here. Clothes are nominally much cheaper here than with us; but neither the French nor the English use habitually as good clothes as we; nor are the clothes generally as well made. You are not, however, to suppose from this that the Americans are a well-dressed people; on the contrary, we are greatly behind the English in this particular, nor are our men, usually, as well attired as those of Paris. This is a consequence of a want of servants, negligent habits, greediness of gain, which monopolizes so much of our time as to leave little for relaxation, and the high prices of articles, which prevent our making as frequent calls on the tailor, as is the practice here. My clothes have cost me more in Europe, however, than they did at home, for I am compelled to have a greater variety, and to change them oftener.

[Footnote 17: In New York, the writer has a house with two drawing-rooms, a dining-room, eight bed-rooms, dressing-rooms, four good servants' rooms, with excellent cellars, cisterns, wells, baths, water-closets, etc. for the same money that he had an apartment in Paris, of one drawing-room, a cabinet, four small and inferior bed-rooms, dining-room, and ante-chamber; the kitchens, offices, cellars, etc. being altogether in favour of the New York residence. In Paris, water was bought in addition, and a tax of forty dollars a year was paid for inhabiting an apartment or a certain amount of rent; a tax that was quite independent of the taxes on the house, doors, and windows, which in both cases were paid by the landlord.]

Our women do not know what high dress is, and consequently they escape many demands on the purse, to which those of Paris are compelled to submit. It would not do, moreover, for a French belle to appear every other night for a whole season in the same robe, and that too looking bedraggled, and as jaded as its pretty wearer. Silks and the commoner articles of female attire are perhaps as cheap in our own shops, as in those of Paris: but when it comes to the multitude of little elegances that ornament the person, the salon, or the boudoir, in this country, they are either wholly unknown in America, or are only to be obtained by paying treble and quadruple the prices at which they may be had here. We absolutely want the caste of shopkeepers as it exists in Europe. By shopkeepers, I mean that humble class of traders who are content with moderate profits, looking forward to little more than a respectable livelihood, and the means of placing their children in situations as comfortable as their own. This is a consequence of the upward tendency of things in a young and vigorous community, in which society has no artificial restrictions, or as few as will at all comport with civilization, and the buoyancy of hope that is its concomitant. The want of the class, notwithstanding, deprives the Americans of many elegancies and some comforts, which would be offered to them at as low rates as they are sold in the countries in which they are made, were it not for the principle of speculative value, which enters into nearly all of our transactions. In Paris the man or woman who sells a duchess an elegant bauble, is half the time content to eat his humble dinner in a small room adjoining his shop, to sleep in an entresol over it, and to limit his profits by his wants. The pressure of society reduces him to this level. With us the thing is reversed, and the consumer is highly taxed, as a necessary result. As we become more familiar with the habits of European life, the demand will gradually reduce the value of these minor articles, and we shall obtain them at the same relative prices, as ordinary silks and shawls are now to be had. At present it must be confessed that our shops make but indifferent figures compared with those of London and Paris. I question if the best of them would pass for more than fourth-rate in London, or for more than third-rate here; though the silk-mercers at home might possibly be an exception to the rule.

The amount of all my experience, on this point, is to convince me, that so long as one is willing to be satisfied with the habits of American life, which include a great abundance, many comforts, and even some few elegancies, that are not known here, such as the general use of carpets, and that of many foreign articles which are excluded from the European markets by the different protective systems, but which, also, do not know a great many embellishments of living that are common all over Europe, he can get along with a good deal less money in New York, than in Paris; certainly, with less, if he mix much with the world.



EXCURSION UP THE RHINE, &c.

LETTER VIII.

Preparations for leaving-Paris.—Travelling arrangements.—Our Route.—The Chateau of Ecouen.—The Croisee.—Senlis.—Peronne.—Cambray.—Arrival at the Frontier.—Change in the National Character.—Mons.—Brussels.—A Fete.—The Picture Gallery.—Probable Partition of Belgium.

Dear ——,

We had been preparing for our summer excursion some time, but were unable to get away from Paris before the 18th of July. Our destination was undetermined, health and pleasure being the objects, though, a portion of our party having never seen Belgium, it was settled to visit that country in the commencement of the journey, let it end where it might The old caleche was repaired for the purpose, fitted with a new rumble to contain Francois and Jetty (the Saxon femme de chambre, hired in Germany), the vache was crammed, sacks stowed, passport signed, and orders were sent for horses. We are a little apt to boast of the facilities for travelling in America, and, certainly, so long as one can keep in the steam-boats or on the rail-roads, and be satisfied with mere velocity, no part of the world can probably compete with us, the distances considered; but we absolutely want the highest order of motion, which, I think, beyond all question, is the mode of travelling post. By this method, your privacy is sacred, you are master of your own hours, going where you please, and stopping when you please; and, as for speed, you can commonly get along at the rate of ten miles in the hour, by paying a trifle in addition, or you can go at half that rate should it better suit your humour. A good servant and a good carriage are indispensable, and both are to be had at very reasonable rates, in this part of the world.

I never felt the advantage of this mode of travelling, and I believe we have now tried nearly all the others, or the advantages of the Parisian plan of living, so strongly as on the present occasion. Up to the last moment, I was undecided by what route to travel. The furniture of the apartment was my own, and it was our intention to return to Paris, to pass the winter. The luggage had been stowed early in the morning, the carriage was in the court ready to hook on, and at ten we sat down quietly to breakfast, as usual, with scarcely a sign of movement about us. Like old campaigners, the baggage had been knowingly reduced to the very minimum admissible, no part of the furniture was deranged, but everything was in order, and you may form some idea of the facilities, when you remember that this was the condition of a family of strangers, that in half an hour was to start on a journey of several months' duration, to go—they knew not whither.

A few minutes before ten, click-clack, click-clack, gave notice of the approach of the post-horses. The porte-cochere opened, and two votaries of the old-fashioned boot enter, each riding one and leading another horse. All this is done quietly, and as a matter of course; the cattle are put before the carriage without a question being asked, and the two liveried roadsters place themselves by the sides of their respective beasts. In the mean time, we had entered the caleche, said adieu to the cook, who was left in charge of the apartment, a trust that might, however, equally well have been confided to the porter, kissed our hands to the family of M. de V——, and the other inmates of the hotel, who crowded the windows to see us off. Up to this moment, I had not decided even by what road to travel! The passport had been taken out for Brussels, and last year, you may recollect, we went to that place by Dieppe, Abbeville, Douay, and Arras. The "Par quelle route, monsieur?" of the postilion that rode the wheel-horse, who stood with a foot in the stirrup, ready to get up, brought me to a conclusion. "A St. Denis!" the question compelling a decision, and all my doubts terminating, as doubts are apt to terminate, by taking the most beaten path.

The day was cool and excessively windy, while the thermometer had stood the previous afternoon but one, at 93 deg., in the shade. We were compelled to travel with the carriage-windows closed, the weather being almost wintry. As we drove through the streets, the common women cried after us, "They are running away from the cholera;" an accusation that we felt we did not merit, after having stood our ground during the terrible months of April and May. But popular impulses are usually just as undiscriminating as the favouritism of the great: the mistake is in supposing that one is any better than the other.

When we had reached the city where the Kings of France are buried, it was determined to sleep at Senlis, which was only four posts further, the little town that we visited with so much satisfaction in 1827. This deviation from the more direct road led us by Gonesse, and through a district of grain country, that is less monotonous than most of the great roads that lead from Paris. We got a good view of the chateau of Ecouen, looking vast and stately, seated on the side of a distant hill. I do not know into whose hands this princely pile has fallen since the unhappy death of the last of the Condes, but it is to be hoped into those of the young Duc D'Aumale, for I believe he boasts the blood of the Montmorencies, through some intermarriage or other; and if not, he comes, at least, of a line accustomed to dwell in palaces. I do not like to see these historical edifices converted into manufactories, nor am I so much of a modern utilitarian as to believe the poetry of life is without its correcting and useful influences. Your cold, naked utilitarian, holds a sword that bruises as well as cuts; and your sneaking, trading aristocrat, like the pickpocket who runs against you in the crowd before he commits his theft, one that cuts as well as bruises.

We were at Ecouen not long before the death of its last possessor, and visited its wide but untenanted halls with strong interest. The house was first erected by some Montmorency, or other, at or near the time of the crusades, I believe; though it has been much altered since. Still it contains many curious vestiges of the taste of that remote age. The old domestic who showed us through the building was as quaint a relic as anything about the place. He had accompanied the family into exile, and passed many years with them in England. In courtesy, respect, and delicate attention, he would have done credit to the court of Louis XIV; nor was his intelligence unworthy of his breeding. This man, by the way, was the only Frenchman whom I ever knew address an Englishman (or, as in my case, one whom he mistook for an Englishman), by the old appelation of milord. The practice is gone out, so far as my experience extends.

I remember to have learned from this courteous old servant, the origin of the common term croisee, which is as often used in large houses as that of fenetre. At the period when every man's heart and wishes were bound up in the excitement and enterprise of the crusades, and it was thought that heaven was to be entered sword in hand, the cross was a symbol used as a universal ornament. Thus the aperture for a window was left in the wall, and a stone cross erected in the centre. The several compartments in the casements came from the shape of the cross, and the term croisee from croix. All this is plain enough, and perhaps there are few who do not know it; but gazing at the ornaments of Ecouen, my eyes fell on the doors, where I detected crosses in the most familiar objects. There is scarcely a panelled door, twenty years old, in all America, that does not bear this evidence of the zeal, and, if you will, the superstition of those distant ages! The form of the door is made by the exterior stile; a cross is then built within it, and the open spaces are filled with panels, as, in the case of the window, it is filled with the sash. The exactitude of the form, the antiquity of the practice, its obvious connexion with the common feeling, and the inability to account for the usage in any other way, leave no doubt, in my mind, of its origin, though I do not remember to have ever met with such an account of it, in any author. If this conjecture be true, we Protestants, while fastidiously, not to say foolishly, abstaining from the use of a symbol that prejudice has led us to think peculiarly unsuited to our faith, have been unconsciously living with it constantly before our eyes. But the days of puritan folly and puritan vice (there is nothing more vicious than self-righteousness, and the want of charity it engenders) are numbered, and men are beginning to distinguish between the exaggerations of fanaticism and the meek toleration of pure Christianity. I can safely say that the lowest, the most degraded, and the most vulgar wickedness, both as to tone and deed, and the most disordered imaginations, that it has ever been my evil fortune to witness, or to associate with, was met with at school, among the sons of those pious forefathers, who fancied they were not only saints themselves, but that they also were to be the progenitors of long lines of saints. It is a melancholy truth, that a gentleman-like training does more for the suppression of those abominations than all the dogmas that the pilgrims have imported into the country.

We reached Senlis in time for dinner, and while the repast was getting ready, we strolled through the place, in order to revive the sensations with which we had visited it five years before. But, alas! these are joys, which, like those of youth are not renewable at pleasure. I could hardly persuade myself it was the same town. The walls, that I had then fancied lined with the men-at-arms of the Charleses of France, and the English Henries and Edwards, had now lost all their peculiarities, appearing mean and common-place; and as to the gate, from which we had almost heard the trumpets of the heralds, and the haughty answer to a bold summons of surrender, we absolutely had difficulty in persuading ourselves that we had found it at all. Half Europe had been roamed over since the time when, fresh from America, we made the former visit, predisposed to gaze with enthusiasm at every relic of a former age and a different state of society.

If we were disagreeably disappointed in the antiquities of the town, we were as agreeably disappointed in the inn. It was clean, gave us a good dinner, and, as almost invariably proves to be the case in France, also gave us good beds. I do not remember ever to have been more fatigued than by the five posts between Paris and this place. The uneven paves, the random and careless driving of the postillions, with whom it is a point of honour to gallop over the broken streets of the villages, besides having a strong fellow-feeling for the smiths, always makes the eight or ten posts nearest to Paris, much the most disagreeable part of a journey to or from the French capital.

We dined at six, exhausted the curiosities of Senlis, and went to bed by daylight!

The next morning was fresh and bland, and I walked ahead of the carriage. A wood-cutter was going to the forests to make faggots, and we fell into discourse. This man assured me that he should get only ten sous for his day's work! The view of the principal church-tower of Senlis as beautiful, and, in a slight degree, it carried the mind back to the fifteenth century.

You have travelled to and from Paris with me so often, that I can only add we found the same fatiguing monotony, on this occasion, as on all the others. We reached Peronne early, and ordered beds. Before dinner we strolled around the ramparts, which are pleasant of themselves though the place stands in a marsh, which renders its position not only strong, but strongly disagreeable. We endeavoured in vain to find some features to revive the pictures of "Quentin Durward." There was no sign of a soldier in the place, though barracks were building. The French are evidently less jealous of this frontier, than of that on the east, or the one next the Austrians.

The next morning we breakfasted at Cambray. Here we found a garrison, and considerable activity. The citadel is well placed, and the esplanade is a pretty walk. We visited the cathedral, which contains a monument to Fenelon, by our friend David. We were much gratified by this work, which ranks among his best. Near Valenciennes we broke a tire, and were detained two hours. Here the garrison was still stronger, the place in better condition, and the troops mounted guard with their marching accoutrements about them; all of which, I presume, was owing to the fact, that this is the last fortified town on the road. We did not get to the frontier until seven, and the French postilions broke another bolt before we got fairly rid of them, compelling us to wait an hour to have it mended. We were now in a low wet country, or one perfectly congenial to cholera; it was just the hour when the little demons of miasma are said to be the most active, and to complete the matter, we learned that the disease was in the village. The carriage-windows were closed, while I walked about, from door to door, to pacify uneasiness by curiosity. Use, however, had made us all tolerably indifferent, and little P—— settled the matter by remarking it was nothing after all, for here only two or three died daily, while at Paris there had been a thousand! Older heads than his, often take material facts more in a lump than this.

The change in the national character is so evident, immediately on crossing into Belgium, as to occasion surprise. The region was, at no remote period, all Flanders. The same language is still spoken, the same religion professed in both countries, and yet a certain secret moral influence appears to have extended itself from the capital of each country, until they have met on the frontier, where both have been arrested within their proper geographical limits. We had come into this village on a gallop, driven with the lighthearted etourderie of French vanity, and we left it gravely, under the guidance of postilions who philosophically smoked, as their cattle trotted along like elephants.

It was quite late when we reached Mons, where we found a good house, of unexceptionable neatness: of course we were in no haste to quit it the next day. The distance to Brussels was so short that we took it leisurely, reaching the Hotel de l'Europe at three. It was a fete, on account of the anniversary of the arrival of Leopold, who had now reigned just a twelvemonth. He passed our window, while we were still at table, on his way to the theatre. The royal cortege was not very brilliant, consisting of four carriages, each drawn by two horses, which, by the way, are quite enough for any coachman to manage, in descending the formidable hill that leads from the great square.

You have now been with me three times, in Brussels, and I shall not go over the old ground again. We revisited some of the more prominent places of interest, and went to a few others that were neglected on former occasions. Among the rest we took a look at the public picture-gallery, which greatly disappointed us. The Flemish school naturally awakened our expectations, but a fine Gerard Douw and a few other old paintings were all that struck us, and as a whole, we gave a preference to the paintings of the present day.

The King appears to be personally popular, even those who have no faith in the duration of the present order of things, and who politically are his opponents, speaking well of him. The town has but few strangers, though the presence of a court renders it a little more gay than it was last year. The aspect of everything is gloomy, for the country may be again engaged in a war of existence, in a week. Many still think the affair will end in a partition; France, Prussia, and Holland getting the principal shares. I make no doubt that everybody will profit more by the change than they who brought it about.



LETTER IX.

Malines.—Its Collection of Pictures.—Antwerp.—The Cathedral.—A Flemish Quack.—Flemish Names.—The Picture Gallery at Antwerp.—Mr. Wapper's Carvings in Wood.—Mr. Van Lankeren's Pictures.—The Boulevards at Brussels.—Royal Abodes.—Palace of the Prince of Orange.—Prince Auguste d'Ahremberg's Gallery of Pictures.—English Ridicule of America.

Dear ——,

After a consultation with Francois, I sent the carriage to get a set of entirely new wheels, Brussels being a coach-making town, and taking a voiture de remise, we drove down to Antwerp. While the horses rested, we looked at the pictures in Malines. The "Miraculous Draught of Fishes" is thought by many to be the chef-d'oeuvre of Rubens, but, after conceding it a hardy conception and magnificent colouring, I think one finds too much of the coarse mannerism of the artist, even for such a subject. The most curious part of the study of the different schools is to observe how much all have been influenced by external objects, and how completely conventional, after all, the beau ideal of an artist necessarily becomes. It would be impossible, for one who knew the several countries, to mistake the works of Murillo, Rubens, or Raphael, for the works of artists of different schools, and this without reference to their peculiar manners, but simply as Flemings, Spaniards, and Italians. Rubens, however, is, I think, a little apt to out-Dutch the Dutch. He appears to me to have delighted in the coarse, while Raphael revelled in the pretty. But Raphael could and often did step out of himself and rise to the grand; and then he was perfect, because his grandeur was chastened.

We reached Antwerp some time before dinner. The situation of the town was singular, the Dutch holding the citadel; the place, which was peopled by their enemies, as a matter of course, lying quite at their mercy. The road from Brussels is partly commanded by them, and we saw their flag rising out of the low mounds—for in Flanders the art of fortifying consists in burrowing as deep as possible—as we approached the town. Several Dutch gun-boats were in the river, off the town, and, in the reaches of the Scheldt below, we got glimpses of divers frigates and corvettes, riding at anchor. As an offset to the works of their enemies, the Belgians had made a sort of entrenched camp, by enclosing the docks with temporary ramparts, the defences of the town aiding them, in part, in effecting their object.

One of our first visits was to the cathedral. This beautiful edifice had escaped without material damage from the recent conflicts, though the garrison of the citadel have thrown a few shots at its tower, most probably with a view to drive curious eyes out of it, the great height enabling one to get a complete bird's-eye view of what is going on within their walls. The celebrated Rubenses were cased in massive timber to render them bomb-proof, and, of course, were invisible.

Processions of peasants were passing from church to church, the whole day, to implore succour against the cholera, which, by the way, and contrary to all rule for a low and moist country, is said to be very light here. The Flemings have the reputation of being among the most bigoted Catholics, and the most ignorant population of Europe. This accounts, in some measure, for the existence of the latter quality among the first inhabitants of New York, most of whom were from Flanders, rather than from Holland. I have found many of our names in Antwerp, but scarcely one in Holland. The language at home, too, is much nearer the Flemish than the Dutch; though it is to be presumed that there must have been some colonists from Holland, in a province belonging to that nation. I listened to-day to a fellow vending quack medicines and vilely printed legends, to a song which, tune and all, I am quite sure to have heard in Albany, when a schoolboy. The undeviating character and habits of the people, too, appear to be very much like those which existed among ourselves, before the influx of eastern emigration swallowed up everything even to the suppan. I remember to have heard this same quack singing this same song, in the very same place in June, 1828, when we first visited Antwerp. The effect was exceedingly ludicrous, for it seemed to me, that the fellow had been occupying the same spot, employed in the same pursuits, for the last five years, although the country had been revolutionized. This is also a little characteristic, for some of our own Communipaws are said to believe we are still the property of the United Provinces.

The Flemish language has many words that are French in the spelling, but which have entirely different meanings, representing totally different things or ideas. De is one. In French this word, pronounced der, without dwelling on the last letter, is a preposition generally meaning "of." Before a name, without being incorporated with it, it is an invariable sign of nobility, being even frequently affixed, like the German von, to the family name, on attaining that rank. In Flemish it is an article, and is pronounced precisely as a Dutchman is apt to pronounced the, meaning the same. Thus De Witt, means the White, or White; the Flemings using the article to express things or qualities in the abstract, like the French. Myn Heer De Witt is just the same as Monsieur le Blanc, or Monsieur Du Bois, in French; one of which means Monsieur White, and the other Monsieur Wood. So nearly does this language resemble the English, that I have repeatedly comprehended whole sentences, in passing through the streets. Now in New York, we used to think the Dutch had become corrupted by the English, but I fancy that the corruption has been just the other way.

We had made the acquaintance of a Flemish artist of extraordinary merit, at Paris; and this gentleman (Mr. Wappers) kindly called this morning to take us to see the gallery. The collection is not particularly large, nor is it rich in cabinet pictures, being chiefly composed of altar-pieces taken from churches. The works are principally those of Rubens, Vandyke, and a few of the older masters. The Vandykes, I think, are the best. On the whole, it struck me there were more curious than pleasing pictures in this gallery, although they are all valuable as belonging to a school. The study of the "Descent from the Cross" is among them, and it gave me more pleasure than anything else. Vandyke certainly rose in our estimation, after this close comparison with his great rival: he is altogether more human than Rubens, who is a sort of Dutch giant in the art; out of the natural proportions, and always a giant.

Mr. Wappers permitted us to see his own painting-room. He is of the school of the great Flemish masters, and, I think, quite at the head of his profession, in many of its leading points. It was curious to trace in the works of this young artist the effects of having Rubens and Vandyke constantly before him, corrected by the suggestions of his own genius. His style is something between the two; broader and bolder than Vandyke, and less robust than Rubens.

We went the round of the churches, for, if Italy be the land of marbles, Belgium is, or rather has been, the very paradise of those who carved in wood. I have seen more delicate and highly-finished works of this sort, in a small way, in other countries; as in the high reliefs of Santa Maria della Salute, at Venice; but nowhere else is so much attempted, or, indeed, so much achieved in this branch of art, as here. Many of the churches are quite surrounded by oak confessionals that are highly and allegorically ornamented; though, in general, the pulpits contain the most elaborate designs, and the greatest efforts of this curious work. One at Brussels has the Conversion of St. Paul, horse, rider and all, larger than life. The whole is well wrought, even to the expression. But the best specimens of carving in wood that I remember, were a few figures over the door of an hospital that we saw in 1828, though I now forget whether it was at Gorcum or at Breda. One often sees statuary of great pretension and a wide-spread reputation, that is wanting in the nature, simplicity, and repose of these figures.

We went to see a collection of pictures owned by Mr. Van Lankeren. It is a very fine gallery, but there are few paintings by very great artists. A Van der Heyden (an old New York name, by the way), surpassed anything I know, in its atmosphere. Poussin, and our own artist Cole, excel in this high merit, but this picture of Van der Heyden has a cold, gray transparency that seems actually to have transferred a Dutch atmosphere to the canvass.

We returned to Brussels in time to dine. At Malines I stood with admiration beneath the great tower, which possesses a rare majesty. Had it been completed according to the original plan, I believe it would have been the highest church-tower in Europe. In the evening we had a call from Mr. and Mrs. ——, and made an appointment to visit the palace of the Prince of Orange in the morning.

I was up betimes next day, and took a walk round the park, and on the upper boulevards. The injuries done in the fight have been, in some measure, repaired, but the place was deserted and melancholy. The houses line one side of the boulevards, the other being open to the fields, which are highly cultivated and unenclosed. This practice of cutting off a town like a cheese-paring is very common on the continent of Europe, and the effect is odd to those who are accustomed to straggling suburbs, as in America and England.

At ten we went to the palace, according to appointment. The royal abodes at Brussels are very plain edifices, being nothing more than long unbroken buildings, with very few external ornaments. This of the Prince of Orange stands in the park, near that of the King, and is a simple parallelogram with two gates. The principal apartments are in the same form, being an entire suite that are entered on one side and left on the other. There is great good taste and elegance in the disposition of the rooms. A few are rich, especially the salle de bal, which is really magnificent. The place was kept just as it had been left by its last occupants, Leopold, with good taste, not to say good feeling, religiously respecting their rights. A pair of gloves belonging to the princess were shown us, precisely on the spot where she had left them; and her shawls and toys were lying carelessly about, as if her return were momentarily expected. This is true royal courtesy, which takes thrones without remorse, while it respects the baubles.

This palace had many good pictures, and among others a Raphael. There was a Paul Potter or two, and a couple of pictures, in the same stile, as pendants, by a living artist of the name of Verboeckhoven, whose works sustained the comparison wonderfully well.

We were shown the window at which the robber entered who stole the jewels of the princess; an event that has given room to the enemies of the house of Nassau to torture into an accusation of low guilt against her husband.[18] I have never met a gentleman here, who appeared to think the accusation worthy of any credit, or who treated it as more than the gossip of underlings, exaggerated by the agents of the press.

[Footnote 18: This affair of the jewels of the Princess of Orange is one proof, among many others, of the influence of the vilest portion of mankind over their fellow-creatures. It suited the convenience and views of some miscreant who pandered for the press (and the world is full of them), to throw out a hint that the Prince of Orange had been guilty of purloining the jewels to pay his gambling debts, and the ignorant, the credulous, and the wonder-mongers, believed a charge of this nature, against a frank and generous soldier! It was a charge, that, in the nature of things, could only be disproved by detecting the robber, and one that a prince and a gentleman would scarcely stoop to deny. Accident favoured the truth. The jewels have, oddly enough, been discovered in New York, and the robber punished. Now, the wretch who first started this groundless calumny against the Prince of Orange, belongs exactly to that school whose members impart to America more than half her notions of the distinguished men of Europe.]

From the palace of the Prince of Orange we went to the house of Prince Auguste d'Ahremberg, to see his collection. This is one of the best private galleries in Europe, though not particularly large. It is rich in the works of Teniers,[19] Woovermans, Both, Cuyp, Potter, Rembrandt, and the other masters of the country. Among others is a first-rate Gerard Douw (another New York name).

[Footnote 19: One hears of occasionally discovering good pictures in the streets, an event that actually once occurred to the writer. Shortly after the revolution of 1830, in passing through the Carrousel, he bought a female portrait, that was covered with dirt, but not materially injured. Finding it beautifully painted, curiosity led him to question the man who had sold it. This person affirmed that it was a portrait of the wife of David Teniers painted by himself. He was not believed, of course, and the thing was forgotten, until two picture-dealers, who accidentally saw it, at different times, affirmed that it was by Teniers, though neither knew the original of the likeness. On examining the catalogues, the writer found that such a picture had existed in Paris, before the revolution, and that it was now lost. But this picture was square, while that was oval and much larger. The dealer was questioned again, on the appearance of the picture, without giving him any clue to the object, and he explained the matter at once, by saying that it had once been oval, but the canvass getting an injury, he had reduced it to its present form. Since then, an engraving has been discovered that scarce leaves a doubt as to the originality of the portrait.]

I passed the evening at the house of an English gentleman, where the master of the last-named gallery was one of the company. A guest, a Sir ——, amused me by the peculiarly British manner in which he conveyed a few remarks on America. Speaking of a countrywoman of ours, who had lately been at Brussels, he said that she called standing up to dance, "taking the floor," and he was curious to know if it were a usual form of expression with us. I had to tell him, we said a horse "took the track," in racing, and as this lady came from a racing region, she might have used it, con amore, especially in the gallopade. Capt. ——, of the navy, once called out to the ladies of a quadrille to "shove off," when he thought the music had got the start of them; and it is lucky that this Sir —— did not hear him, or he would have set it down at once as an Americanism. These people are constantly on the hunt for something peculiar and ridiculous in Americans, and make no allowance for difference in station, provincialisms, or traits of character. Heaven knows that we are not so very original as to be thus ruthlessly robbed of any little individuality we may happen to possess.

LETTER X.

School System in America.—American Maps.—Leave Brussels.—Louvain.—Quarantine.—Liege.—The Soleil d'Or.—King Leopold and Brother.—Royal Intermarriages.—Environs of Liege.—The Cathedral and the Church of St. Jacques.—Ceremonies of Catholic Worship.—Churches of Europe.—Taverns of America.—Prayer in the Fields.—Scott's error as regards the Language spoken in Liege.—Women of Liege.—Illumination in honour of the King.

Dear ——,

In the morning the Director-General of Public Instruction called to obtain some information on the subject of the common school system in America. I was a little surprised at this application, the Finance controversy having quite thrown me into the shade at the Tuileries, and this court being just now so dependent on that of France. You will smile at this opinion, but even facts are subject to such circumstances, and great men submit to very little influences occasionally.[20] The old ground of explaining the power of the States had to be gone over, and the affair was disposed of by agreeing that written querries should be sent to Paris. I had a similar application from a French functionary not long since. A digest of the facts, as they are connected with the State of New York, was accordingly prepared, and handed to the Minister of Public Instruction. This gentleman rose in debate with the document in his hand, and got on well enough until he came to the number of children in the schools (near half a million), which appeared to him to be so much out of proportion to whole numbers (a little exceeding two millions) that, without hesitation, he reduced them on his own responsibility one half! As a proof that no more was meant than to keep within reasonable bounds, he immediately added, "or all there are." Now this is a fair specimen of the manner in which America is judged, her system explained, and her facts curtailed. In Europe everything must be reduced to a European standard, to be even received. Had we been Calmucks or Kurds, any marvel might go down; but being deemed merely deteriorated Europeans, tanned to ebony, our facts are kept closely within the current notions. Such a disproportion between adults and minors being unknown in this hemisphere, it was at once set down as an American exaggeration, to pretend to have them in the other. What were our official returns to a European prejudice!

[Footnote 20: A few months before this, a friend, not a Frenchman, called on the writer at Paris. He began to make inquiries on the subject of American Parliamentary Law, that were entirely out of the track of his usual conversations, and finally submitted a series of written questions to be answered. When the subject was disposed of, the writer asked his friend the object of these unusual investigations, and was told that they were for the use of a leading Deputy, who was thoroughly juste milieu. Surprised at the name, the writer expressed his wonder that the application had not been made to a certain agent of the American government, whose name had already figured before the public, as authority for statistical and political facts against him. The answer was, in substance, that those facts were intended for effect!]

Not long since an artist of reputation came to me, in Paris, with a view to get a few hints for a map of the Hudson, that had been ordered as an illustration of one of our books. He was shown all the maps in my possession, some of which were recent and sufficiently minute. I observed some distrust in his manner, and in the end, he suggested that an old French map of the Canadas, that he had in his pocket, might possibly be more accurate than those which had just been received from America. The map was produced, and, as might have been expected, was utterly worthless; but an intimation to that effect was not well received, as the artist had not been accustomed to consider the Americans as map-makers. At length I was compelled to show him Poughkeepsie laid down on his map directly opposite to Albany, and to assure him gravely that I had myself travelled many a time in a north and south direction, from sunrise to sunset, in order to go from one of these places to the other, and that they were eighty miles asunder!

We left Brussels at noon, and reached Louvain at three. Though not taken so completely by surprise as we were last year, the town-house still gave us great pleasure. They were at work repairing it, and the fresh stones gave it a mottled look, but, on the whole, it is one of the most extraordinary edifices I know. It is a sort of condensation of quaintness, that is quite without a rival even in this land of laboured and curious architecture. The little pavilion of the Prince of Orange, that lies on the road, was still deserted and respected. I dare say his fishing-rods and fowling-pieces are intact, while his inheritance is shorn of half its glory.

There was a quarantine before entering the Prussian states on account of the cholera, and having understood that we should gain in time after quitting Brussels, beyond which the malady has not yet extended, we went no farther than Thirlemont, where we passed the night. The place is insignificant, and the great square was chiefly occupied by "awkward squads" of the new levies, who were drilling as fast as they could, in readiness for the Dutch. The Belgians have reached Protocol No. 67, and they begin to think it is most time now to have something more substantial. They will find King William of the true "hard-kopping" breed.

The next morning we posted down to Liege in time to take a late breakfast. The road from Brussels to this place has run through a fertile and well-cultivated country, but the scene changed like magic, as soon as we got a glimpse of the valley of the Meuse. Liege has beautiful environs, and the town is now the seat of industry. Coal-pits abound in the immediate vicinity, and iron is wrought in a hundred places. As we drove through the antique and striking court of the venerable episcopal palace, and emerged on the great square, we found the place alive with people, and our arrival at the Soleil d'Or produced a sensation that seemed inexplicable. Landlord, laquais, populace and all, ran to greet us, and people were hurrying to the spot in every direction. There was nothing to be done but to wait the result patiently, and I soon saw by the cold looks of the servants, and the shrug of Francois, who had jumped down to order rooms, that there was mutual disappointment. Everybody turned their backs upon us, and there we sat in the shadow of neglect, after having momentarily shone in the sunshine of universal observation. It had been merely ascertained that we were not the King of the Belgians and his brother the Grand Duke of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha. The Soleil d'Or, which like other suns, is most apt to shine on the great, veiled its face from us, and we were compelled to quit the great square, and to seek more humble lodgings. These were soon obtained at the Black Eagle, a clean and good house.

I went to the police immediately with my passport, and found that one of our five days of quarantine had been comfortably gotten rid of at Thirlemont.

These quarantines are foolish things, and quite easily evaded. You have been told the manner in which, last year, instead of spending five times twenty-four hours in a hut, shut up with a Russian Princess, I drove into the court of our own hotel in Paris on the evening of the fifth day, and M——, you will remember, merely turned the flanks of a sentinel or two, by walking a mile in the fields. We were advised, on this occasion, to have our passport vised at Brussels, the moment we arrived, and the intermediate time would have counted on the frontier, but being in no haste, we preferred proceeding regularly.

The next day the town filled rapidly, and about noon the cannon announced the entrance of the King. A worse salute was never fired; but his Majesty is greeted with smiling faces, which is, probably more to his liking. He is certainly a prudent and respectable man, if not a great one; and just now very popular. I met him and his brother in the streets, the day after their arrival: they were in an open carriage and pair, with two boys, the sons of the Duke, on the front seat. Leopold has a grave and thoughtful face, and is far from being as well-looking as his brother, who is a large comely man; not unlike the Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, so well known in America. All the princes of the Saxon duchies that I have seen, are large, well-formed men, while those of Saxe Royal, as the kingdom is called, are the reverse. A diplomatic man, here, once remarked to me, that this rule held good as to most of the protestant and catholic princes, throughout Europe, the close intermarriages of the latter in his opinion, affecting the stock. The imagination has had something to do with this notion, for there are certainly many exceptions on both sides, if, indeed, it be a rule at all. I think, there is little doubt that the habits of the mind, mode of living, and climate, contribute essentially to vary the physiognomy; but I cannot subscribe fully to the influence of these intermarriages, which, by the way, are nearly, if not quite, as circumscribed among the Protestants as among the Catholics. The portion of Europe that is governed by princes, is divided among forty-four different states,[21] of whom twenty-eight are Protestant, one a Greek, one a Mahomedan, and the rest are Catholics. These forty-four sovereigns claim to be descended from nineteen different roots: thus, the direct male descendants of Hugh Capet occupy the thrones of France, Spain, Naples, Lucca, and Portugal; the latter being derived from an illegitimate son of a Duke of Burgundy, before the accession of the Bourbon branch. The houses of Austria, Baden, Tuscany, and Modena, are derived from a Duke of Alsace, who flourished in the seventh century. I was mistaken in a former letter, in saying that the family of Lorraine is different from that of Habsbourg, for it is said to be derived in the male line equally from this Prince of Alsace. The Hohenzollerns are on the throne of Prussia, and possess the two little principalities of that name; while the Emperor of Russia is merely a Prince of Holstein. These families have been intermarrying for a thousand years, and it is not possible that they should have entirely escaped some personal peculiarities; still, as a whole, they are quite as fine physical specimens of humanity, as the average of their subjects. The Princes of Russia are singularly fine men; the house of Denmark well-looking; the Saxons, the royal branch excepted, more than usually so; the house of Wurtemburg very like the English family; the Bourbons, as a family, are a fine race; the Austrians peculiar, and less comely, though the women are often quite handsome; Don Miguel is a little beauty, very mild and gentleman-like in his appearance, though Lady ——, who sat next him at dinner, on a certain occasion, assured me she saw nothing but blood and rapine in his countenance! Her father, Lord ——, one of the ablest men of his time, and one familiar with high political events, gravely assured me he gave implicit credence to the tales we have heard of the outrages committed by this prince, and which, if true, render him a fit subject for the gallows. But I have seen so much of the exaggeration of factions, that incredulity, perhaps, has got to be a fault with me. I longed to tell Lord —— what I had heard, in England, under his very nose, of himself! Among other absurdities, I had, shortly before this very conversation, heard a respectable Englishman affirm that such was the morgue aristocratique of this nobleman, that he compelled his wife and daughters to walk backwards, in quitting his presence, as is done at court! This was said of a man, whom I found to be of more simple, off-hand, unpretending, gentleman-like deportment, whose demeanour had more of the nice tact which neither offends by superciliousness, nor wounds by condescension, than that of any other man of rank in England. To return to our subject;—the Austrian face is, certainly, getting to be prevalent among the southern catholic families, for all of them are closely allied to the house of Habsbourg by blood, but I do not see any more in the physique of the Saxon Dukes than the good old Saxon stamina, nor aught in the peculiar appearance of the royal branch but an accident.

[Footnote 21: This excludes Lichtenstein, Monaco, and Greece.]

Three or four days of leisure have enabled us to look very thoroughly at the exterior of Liege, which is certainly an interesting town, with lovely environs. There are some very good old houses along the banks of the river, and a few of the churches are noble edifices. The cathedral and the church of St. Jaques, in particular, are venerable and interesting structures; and I stood beneath their lofty arches, listening to the chants of the choir, and inhaling the odours of the incense, with a satisfaction that never tires. I sometimes wish I had been educated a Catholic, in order to unite the poetry of religion with its higher principles. Are they necessarily inseparable? Is man really so much of a philosopher, that he can conceive of truth in its abstract purity, and divest life and the affections of all the aids of the imagination? If they who strip the worship of God of its factious grace, earnestly presented themselves in the garb of moral humility, rendering their familiar professions conformable to their general tenets, and stood before us as destitute of self-esteem as they are of ornament, one might not so much feel the nakedness of their rites; but, as a rule, the less graceful the forms and the more intense the spirituality of the minister of the altar become, the higher is his tone of denunciation and the more palpable his self-righteousness. In point of fact, when the proper spirit prevails, forms, of themselves, become of little account; and when men begin to deem them otherwise, it is proof rather of the want, than of the excess, of the humility and charity which are the inseparable companions of faith. I do not say that I would imitate all the unmeaning and irreverent practices of the Romish church; and least of all could one wish to see the devout and solemn manner of the Protestant ministering at the altar supplanted by the unintelligible mumblings of the Latin breviaries: but why have we denounced the holy symbol of the cross, the ornaments of the temple, the graceful attire, and the aid of music? It is impossible, I think, for the American, who has visited Europe, not to feel the want of edifices reared in honour of God, which everywhere exists in his own country. I do not mean churches, in which the comfort and convenience of the pew-holders have been mainly consulted, for these pious speculations abound; but temples to mark a sense of the superiority of the Deity, and which have been reared in his honour. It may be easy enough to account for the absence of such buildings, in a country so peopled and still so young, but this does not make the deficiency the less obvious.

In this hemisphere, scarcely a village is approached, that the high roof and towers of a church do not form its nucleus, the temple appearing to spread its protection over the humbler abodes of men. The domes, the pointed and lofty arches, and the Gothic tracery of cathedrals, soar above the walls of cities, and everywhere man is congregated, he appears to seek shelter under the wide-spreading wings of the church. It is no argument to say that true religion may exist without these edifices, for infidelity may also exist without them, and if it be right or useful to honour God at all, in this manner, it is a right and a usefulness to which we have not yet attained. The loftiest roofs of an American town are, invariably, its taverns; and, let metaphysics get over the matter as it may, I shall contend that such a thing is, at least, unseemly to the eye. With us it is not Gog and Magog, but grog or no grog; we are either a tame plane of roofs, or a pyramid in honour of brandy and mint-juleps. When it comes to the worship of God, each man appears to wish a nut-shell to contain himself and his own shades of opinion; but when there is question of eating and drinking, the tent of Pari Banou would not be large enough to hold us. I prefer large churches and small taverns.

There are one or two usages, especially, of the Romish church, that are not only beautiful, but which must be useful and salutary. One is the practice of leaving the church open at all hours, for the purposes of prayer. I have seldom entered one of these vaulted, vast, and appropriate Houses of God, without finding fewer or more devotees kneeling at the different altars. Another usage is that of periodical prayer, in the fields, or wherever the peasants may happen to be employed, as in the angelus, &c. I remember, with pleasure, the effect produced by the bell of the village church, as it sent its warning voice, on such occasions, across the plains, and over the hills, while we were dwellers in French or Italian hamlets. Of all these touching embellishments of life, America, and I had almost said, Protestantism, is naked; and in most cases, I think it will be found, on inquiry, naked without sufficient reason.

The population of Liege is still chiefly Catholic, I believe, although the reign of the ecclesiastics has ceased. They speak an impure French, which is the language of the whole region along this frontier. Scott, whose vivid pictures carried with them an impress of truth that misled his readers, being by no means a man of either general or accurate attainment, out of the immediate circle of his peculiar knowledge, which was Scottish traditions, has represented the people of Liege, in Quentin Durward, as speaking Flemish; an error of which they make loud complaints, it being a point on which they are a little sensitive. A poet may take great licences, and it is hypercriticism to lay stress on these minor points when truth is not the aim; but this is a blunder that might, as well as not, have been spared, and probably would have been, had the author given himself the trouble to inquire into the fact. But for the complaints of the Liegeois, the error would not have been very generally known, however; certainly, not by me, had I not visited the place.

The women of Liege appear to labour even more than usual for this part of Europe. They are employed in field-labour, everywhere; but in the towns, more attention is paid to the great distinctions between the employments of the sexes. Here, however, I saw them toiling in the coal-yards, and performing the offices of the common porters. They were much employed in unloading the market-boats, and yet they are far from being either coarse or ugly. The men are short, but sturdy. The average stature appears to be about five feet five and a half inches, but even this, I think, exceeds the average stature of the French.

The town has been illuminated two nights in succession, in honour of the King. Every one is occupied with his approaching marriage with the Princess Louisa of France, or as it is now the fashion to say, the Princess Louisa of Orleans—for since the revolution of 1830, there is no longer a King, nor any Children of France. It would have been better had more essential points been attended to and the old names retained. In England matters are differently managed, for there the government is always one of King, Lords, and Commons, though it is constantly fluctuating, and two of the parties are usually cyphers.



LETTER XI.

Leave Liege.—Banks of the Mense.—Spa.—Beautiful Promenades.—Robinson Crusoe.—The Duke of Saxe-Cobourg.—Former magnificence of Spa.—Excursions in the vicinity.—Departure from Spa.—Aix-la-Chapelle.—The Cathedral.—The Postmaster's Compliments.—Berghem.—German Enthusiasm.—Arrival at Cologne.

Dear ——,

On the fourth day of our quarantine, we left Liege, if not with clean bills of health, with passport bearing proof about it that would enable us to enter Prussia the next morning. The King and his brother having laid all the horses in requisition, we did not get away before two; but once on the road, our postilions drove like men who had reaped a double harvest.

The route lay for some distance along the banks of the Meuse, and the whole region was one of exquisite landscape beauties. An intensely dark verdure—a road that meandered through the valley, occasionally shifting from bank to bank—hill-sides covered with fruit-trees and fragrant with flowers—country-houses—hamlets—cottages—with every appearance of abundance and comfort, and back-grounds of swelling land, that promised equal beauty and equal affluence, were the principal features of the scene. The day was as fine as possible, and, everything bearing a leaf having just been refreshed with a recent shower, we glided through this fairy region with something like enthusiasm with which we had formerly journeyed in Switzerland and Italy.

The Meuse, however, was soon abandoned for a tributary, and, after proceeding a few leagues, the character of the country gradually changed, although it still continued peculiar and beautiful. The intensity of the verdure disappeared in a pale, but still a decided green—the forest thickened—the habitations no longer crowded the way-side, and we appeared to be entering a district, that was altogether less populous and affluent than the one we had left, but which was always neat, picturesque, and having an air of comfort. We were gradually, but almost imperceptibly ascending.

This lasted for four hours, when, reaching a country-house, the road turned suddenly at a right angle, and ran for near a mile through an avenue of trees, bounded by open meadows. At the termination of this avenue we dashed into the streets of a small, well-built, neat, and compact village, that contained about one hundred and fifty dwellings, besides three or four edifices of rather more than usual pretensions. This was the celebrated Spa, a watering-place whose reputation was once co-extensive with civilization.

We drove to an inn, where we dined, but finding it crowded and uncomfortable. I went out and hired a furnished house by the day, putting our own servants, with an assistant, in possession of the kitchen. Next morning, perceiving that I had been too hasty, and that our lodgings were too confined, I discharged them and took a better. We got a dining-room, two drawing-rooms, several bed-rooms, with offices, etc., all neat and well-furnished, for a Napoleon a day. I mention these things as they serve to show you the facilities a traveller enjoys in this part of the world. Nearly every house in Spa is to be had in this manner, fitted for the reception of guests, the proprietor occupying a small building adjoining, and usually keeping a shop, where wine and groceries may be had. Servants can be engaged at any moment, and one is thus enabled to set up his own menage at an hour's notice. This mode is more economical for a large family, than living at an hotel, vastly more comfortable, and more respectable. Dinners can be had from the taverns, if desired. Francois being something of a cook, with the aid of the Spa assistant, we lived entirely within ourselves. You will remember that in hiring the house by the day, I reserved the right to quit it at any moment.

Spa, like most other places that possess chalybeate waters, stands in the centre of a country that can boast but little of its fertility. Still, time and cultivation have left it the character of pale verdure of which I have just spoken, and which serves for a time to please by its novelty. The hue looked neither withered nor sickly, but it was rather that of young grasses. It was a ghostly green. The eye wanders over a considerable extent of naked fields, when one is on the steep wooded hills, under whose very brows the village is built, and I scarcely can recall a spot where a stronger impression of interminable vastness is left, than I felt while gazing at the illimitable swells of land that stretch away towards France. The country is said to be in the mountains of the Ardennes, and once there was the forest through which the "Boar of Ardennes" was wont to roam; but of forest there is now none; and if there be a mountain, Spa must stand on its boundless summit. High and broken hills do certainly appear, but, as a whole, it is merely an upland region.

The glory of Spa has departed! Time was when the idle, the gay and the dissolute crowded to this retired village to intrigue and play, under the pretence of drinking the waters; when its halls were thronged with princes and nobles, and even monarchs frequented its fetes and partook of its festivities. The industrious inhabitants even now spare no pains to render the abode pleasant, but the capricious taste of the age lures the traveller to other springs, where still pleasanter haunts invite their presence. Germany abounds with watering-places, which are usually rendered agreeable by a judicious disposition of walks, and by other similar temptations. In nothing are the money-grasping and shiftless habits of America rendered more apparent, than in the inferiority of her places of public resort. In all these particulars nature has done a good deal for some of them, but nowhere has man done anything worth naming.

A trifling expenditure has rendered the rude hill which, covered chiefly with evergreens, overlooks Spa, a succession of beautiful promenades. Serpentine walks are led through its thickets, agreeable surprises are prepared for the stranger, and all the better points of view are ornamented by seats and summer-houses. One of these places was covered by a permanent protection against the weather that had a name which amused us, though it was appropriate enough, so far as the shape went. It was called a "mushroom," it being, in fact, a sort of wooden umbrella, not unlike those which the French market-women spread over their heads in the streets of Paris, and which, more sentimental and imaginative, they term a "Robinson" in honour of Robinson Crusoe.[22] This mushroom was the scene of a remarkable occurrence, that it will scarcely do to relate, but which, taking all together, furnishes a ludicrous sample of national manners, to say nothing of miracles.

[Footnote 22: Pronounced Ro-ban-sown. The writer once went to return the call of Mr. Robinson, at Paris. The porter denied that such a person lived in the hotel. "But here is his card; Mr. Robinson, N——, Rue ——." "Bah," looking at the card, "ceci est Monsieur Ro-ban-sown; c'est autre chose. Sans doute, Monsieur a entendu parler du celebre Ro-ban-sown?"]

The waters and the air together proved to be so much a tonic, that we determined to pass a week at Spa, A——, who was so weak on leaving Paris, as scarcely to be able to enter the carriage, gaining strength in a way to delight us all. The cholera and the quarantine together induce a good many people to come this way, and though few remain as long as ourselves, the constant arrivals serve to keep attention alive. Among others, the Duke of Saxe-Cobourg passed a night here, on his way home. He appeared in the public room, for a few minutes; but so few were assembled, that he retired, it was said, disappointed. There is still some playing in public, and occasionally the inhabitants of Verviers, an affluent manufacturing town, near the Prussian frontier, come over in sufficient numbers to make a tolerably brilliant evening. These meetings take place in the Redoute, a building of moderate dimensions, erected in the heart of the place according to a very general German custom; Wauxhall, the ancient scene of revelry, standing aloof in the fields, deserted and desolate, as does a rival edifice of more recent existence. The dimensions and style of these structures give one an idea of the former gaiety and magnificence of Spa, though the only use that either is now put to, is to furnish a room for a protestant clergyman to preach in, Sundays.

As health, after all, is the greatest boon of life, we loitered at Spa a fortnight, endeavouring to while away the time in the best way we could. Short as was our stay, and transient as were the visits, we remained long enough to see that it was an epitome of life. Some intrigued, some played, and some passed the time at prayer. I witnessed trouble in one menage, saw a parson drunk, and heard much pious discourse from a captain in the navy!

We got little Ardennes horses, which were constantly parading the streets, led by countrymen in blouses, to tempt us to mount, and took short excursions in the vicinity. Sometimes we made what is called the tour of the springs; of which there are several, each differing from the others in its medicinal properties, and only one of which is in the village itself, the rest being a mile or more distant. At other times, we lounged in the shops, admiring and purchasing the beautiful boxes and ornaments that are known as Spa work, and which are merely the wood of the hills, coloured by being deposited for a time in the spring, and then painted and varnished highly. Similar work is made in other places, but nowhere else as beautifully as here.

At length ennui got the better of the good air and the invigorating water, and I sent for my passport and the horses. Francois, by this time, was tired of cooking, and he carried the orders for both right joyfully, while my bourgeois received his Napoleons with many handsome expressions of regret, that I dare say were truer than common. In the mean time we hurried about with our cards of P.P.C.; bidding adieu to some, without the slightest expectation of ever meeting them again, and promising others to renew the acquaintance on the Rhine, or among the Alps, as events might decide. At half-past eleven all was ready, and shaking hands with two countrymen who came to see us off, we took our places, and dashed away from our menage of a fortnight's duration, as unceremoniously as we had stepped into it.