Then the music ceases, the crowd dissolves, and floats and saunters
away. On every hand are games of hazard and skill, with balls, tops,
wheels, &c., where, for five cents a trial, one might seek to gain a
choice out of glittering articles exposed to view.
Then the band strike up again, and the whirling dance renews its
vortex; and so it goes on, from hour to hour, till two or three in the
morning. Not that _we_ staid till then; we saw all we wanted to
see, and left by eleven. But it is a scene perfectly unearthly, or
rather perfectly Parisian, and just as earthly as possible; yet a
scene where earthliness is worked up into a style of sublimation the
most exquisite conceivable.
Entrance to this paradise can be had for, gentlemen, a dollar; ladies,
_free_. This tells the whole story. Nevertheless, do not infer
that there are not any respectable ladies there. It is a place so
remarkable, that very few strangers stay long in Paris without taking
a look at it. And though young ladies residing in Paris never go, and
matrons very seldom, yet occasionally it is the case that some ladies
of respectability look in. The best dancers, those who exhibit such
surprising feats of skill and agility, are _professional_ - paid
by the establishment.
Nevertheless, aside from the impropriety inherent in the very nature
of waltzing, there was not a word, look, or gesture of immorality or
impropriety. The dresses were all decent; and if there was vice, it
was vice masked under the guise of polite propriety.
How different, I could not but reflect, is all this from the gin
palaces of London! There, there is indeed a dazzling splendor of gas
light. But there is nothing artistic, nothing refined, nothing
appealing to the imagination. There are only hogsheads, and barrels,
and the appliances for serving out strong drink. And there, for one
sole end, the swallowing of fiery stimulant, come the nightly
thousands - from the gay and well dressed, to the haggard and tattered,
in the last stage of debasement. The end is the same - by how different
paths! Here, they dance along the path to ruin, with flowers and
music; there, they cast themselves bodily, as it were, into the lake
of fire.
Wednesday, June 15. Went in the forenoon to M. Belloc's studio, and
read while H. was sitting.
Then we drove to Madame Roger's, who is one of the leaders of Paris
taste and legislation in dress, and who is said to have refused to
work for a duchess who neglected to return her husband's bow. I sat in
the outer courts while some mysterious affairs were being transacted
in the inner rooms of state.
Then we drove to the Louvre, and visited the remains from Nineveh.
They are fewer in number than those in the British Museum, which I
have not yet seen. But the pair of human-headed, winged bulls are said
to be equal in size to any.
I was very much impressed, not only by the solemn grandeur of the
thought that thirty centuries were looking down upon me out of those
stony eyes, but by what I have never seen noticed, the magnificent
phrenological development of the heads. The brow is absolutely
prodigious - broad, high, projecting, massive. It is the brow of a
divinity indeed, or of a cherub, which I am persuaded is the true
designation of these creatures. They are to me but the earliest known
attempts to preserve the cherubim that formed the fiery portals of the
Eden temple until quenched in the Purges of the deluge.
Out of those eyes of serene, benign, profound reflection, therefore,
not thirty, but sixty centuries look down upon me. I seem to be
standing at those mysterious Eden gates, where Adam and Eve first
guided the worship of a world, amid the sad, yet sublime symbols of a
previous existence in heavenly realms.
After leaving the Louvre H. and I took a _caleche_, or open
two-seat carriage, and drove from thence to the Madeleine, and thence
the whole length of the Boulevards, circling round, crossing the Pont
d'Austerlitz, and coming back by the Avenue de l'Observatoire and the
Luxembourg.
Then we saw theatres, the Port St. Denis, Port St. Martin, the site of
the Bastille, and the most gay, beautiful, and bustling boulevards of
the metropolis.
As we were proceeding along the Boulevard des Italiens, I saw the
street beginning to line with people, the cabs and carriages drawing
to either side and stopping; police officers commanding, directing,
people running, pushing, looking this way and that. "_Qu' y
a-t-il?_" said I, standing up by the driver - "What's the matter?"
"The emperor is coming," said he.
"Well," said I, "draw to one side, and turn a little, so that we can
see."
He did so, and H. and I both stood up, looking round. We saw several
outriders in livery, on the full trot, followed by several carriages.
They came very fast, the outriders calling to the people to get out of
the way. In the first carriage sat the emperor and the empress - he,
cold, stiff, stately, and homely; she, pale, beautiful, and sad. They
rode not two rods from us. There was not a hat taken off, not a single
shout, not a "_Vive l'Empereur_? Without a single token of
greeting or applause, he rode through the ever-forming, ever-dissolving
avenue of people - the abhorred, the tolerated tyrant." Why do they not
cry out?" I said to the coachman, "Why do they not cry, '_Vive
l'Empereur_'?" A most expressive shrug was the answer, and "I do
not know.
