Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  Can any blame their wish to obtain it? Can any lament that they succeeded?

  And now the day was their own, what should they do next? Their elders drew together, and said, “Let us make a government that shall suit us all; let it be rude, and rough, and noisy; let it not affect either dignity, glory, or splendour; let it interfere with no man’s will, nor meddle with any man’s business; let us have neither tithes nor taxes, game laws, nor poor laws; let every man have a hand in making the laws, and no man be troubled about keeping them; let not our magistrates wear purple, nor our judges ermine; if a man grow rich, let us take care that his grandson be poor, and then we shall all keep equal; let every man take care of himself, and if England should come to bother us again, why then we will fight altogether.”

  Could any thing be better imagined than such a government for a people so circumstanced? Or is it strange that they are contented with it? Still less is it strange that those who have lived in the repose of order, and felt secure that their country could go on very well, and its business proceed without their bawling and squalling, scratching and scrambling to help it, should bless the gods that they are not republicans.

  So far all is well. That they should prefer a constitution which suits them so admirably, to one which would not suit them at all, is surely no cause of quarrel on our part; nor should it be such on theirs, if we feel no inclination to exchange the institutions which have made us what we are, for any other on the face of the earth.

  But when a native of Europe visits America, a most extraordinary species of tyranny is set in action against him; and as far as my reading and experience have enabled me to judge, it is such as no other country has ever exercised against strangers.

  The Frenchman visits England; he is abime d’ennui at our stately dinners; shrugs his shoulders at our corps de ballet, and laughs a gorge deployee at our passion for driving, and our partial affection for roast beef and plum pudding. The Englishman returns the visit, and the first thing he does on arriving at Paris, is to hasten to le Theatre des Varietes, that he may see “Les Anglaises pour rire,” and if among the crowd of laughters, you hear a note of more cordial mirth than the rest, seek out the person from whom it proceeds, and you will find the Englishman.

  The Italian comes to our green island, and groans at our climate; he vows that the air which destroys a statue cannot be wholesome for man; he sighs for orange trees, and maccaroni, and smiles at the pretensions of a nation to poetry, while no epics are chaunted through her streets. Yet we welcome the sensitive southern with all kindness, listen to his complaints with interest, cultivate our little orange trees, and teach our children to lisp Tasso, in the hope of becoming more agreeable.

  Yet we are not at all superior to the rest of Europe in our endurance of censure, nor is this wish to profit by it all peculiar to the English; we laugh at, and find fault with, our neighbours quite as freely as they do with us, and they join the laugh, and adopt our fashions and our customs. These mutual pleasantries produce no shadow of unkindly feeling; and as long as the governments are at peace with each other, the individuals of every nation in Europe make it a matter of pride, as well as of pleasure, to meet each other frequently, to discuss, compare, and reason upon their national varieties, and to vote it a mark of fashion and good taste to imitate each other in all the external embellishments of life.

  The consequence of this is most pleasantly perceptible at the present time, in every capital of Europe. The long peace has given time for each to catch from each what was best in customs and manners, and the rapid advance of refinement and general information has been the result.

  To those who have been accustomed to this state of things, the contrast upon crossing to the new world is inconceivably annoying; and it cannot be doubted that this is one great cause of the general feeling of irksomeness, and fatigue of spirits, which hangs upon the memory while recalling the hours passed in American society.

  A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess.

  The art of man could hardly discover a more effectual antidote to improvement, than this persuasion; and yet I never listened to any public oration, or read any work, professedly addressed to the country, in which they did not labour to impress it on the minds of the people.

  To hint to the generality of Americans that the silent current of events may change their beloved government, is not the way to please them; but in truth they need be tormented with no such fear. As long as by common consent they can keep down the pre-eminence which nature has assigned to great powers, as long as they can prevent human respect and human honour from resting upon high talent, gracious manners, and exalted station, so long may they be sure of going on as they are.

  I have been told, however, that there are some among them who would gladly see a change; some, who with the wisdom of philosophers, and the fair candour of gentlemen, shrink from a profession of equality which they feel to be untrue, and believe to be impossible.

  I can well believe that such there are, though to me no such opinions were communicated, and most truly should I rejoice to see power pass into such hands.

  If this ever happens, if refinement once creeps in among them, if they once learn to cling to the graces, the honours, the chivalry of life, then we shall say farewell to American equality, and welcome to European fellowship one of the finest countries on the earth.

  THE END

  PARIS AND THE PARISIANS

  CONTENTS

  VOLUME I.

  PREFACE.

  LETTER I.

  LETTER II.

  LETTER III.

  LETTER IV.

  LETTER V.

  LETTER VI.

  LETTER VII.

  LETTER VIII.

  LETTER IX.

  LETTER X.

  LETTER XI.

  LETTER XII.

  LETTER XIII.

  LETTER XIV.

  LETTER XV.

  LETTER XVI.

  LETTER XVII.

  LETTER XVIII.

  LETTER XIX.

  LETTER XX.

  LETTER XXI.

  LETTER XXII.

  LETTER XXIII.

  LETTER XXIV.

  LETTER XXV.

  LETTER XXVI.

  LETTER XXVII.

  LETTER XXVIII.

  LETTER XXIX.

  LETTER XXX.

  LETTER XXXI.

  LETTER XXXII.

  LETTER XXXIII.

  LETTER XXXIV.

  LETTER XXXV.

  LETTER XXXVI.

  LETTER XXXVII.

  LETTER XXXVIII.

  LETTER XXXIX.

  LETTER XL.

  LETTER XLI.

  LETTER XLII.

  VOLUME II.

  LETTER XLIII.

  LETTER XLIV.

  LETTER XLV.

  LETTER XLVI.

  LETTER XLVII.

  LETTER XLVIII.

  LETTER XLIX.

  LETTER L.

  LETTER LI.

  LETTER LII.

  LETTER LIII.

  LETTER LIV.

  LETTER LV.

  LETTER LVI.

  LETTER LVII.

  LETTER LVIII.

  LETTER LIX.

  LETTER LX.

  LETTER LXI.

  LETTER LXII.

  LETTER LXIII.

  LETTER LXIV.

  LETTER LXV.

  LETTER LXVI.

  LETTER LXVII.

  LETTER LXVIII.

  LETTER LXIX.

  LETTER LXX.

  LETTER LXXI.

  LETTER LXXII.

 
VOLUME I.

  PREFACE.

  From the very beginning of reading and writing — nay, doubtless from the very beginning of speaking, — TRUTH, immortal TRUTH has been the object of ostensible worship to all who read and to all who listen; and, in the abstract, it is unquestionably held in sincere veneration by all: yet, in the detail of every-day practice, the majority of mankind often hate it, and are seen to bear pain, disappointment, and sorrow more patiently than its honoured voice when it echoes not their own opinion.

  Preconceived notions generally take a much firmer hold of the mind than can be obtained by any statement, however clear and plain, which tends to overthrow them; and if it happen that these are connected with an honest intention of being right, they are often mistaken for principles; — in which case the attempt to shake them is considered not merely as a folly, but a sin.

  With this conviction strongly impressed upon my mind, it requires some moral courage to publish these volumes; for they are written in conformity to the opinions of ... perhaps none, — and, worse still, there is that in them which may be considered as contradictory to my own. Had I before my late visit to Paris written a book for the purpose of advocating the opinions I entertained on the state of the country, it certainly would have been composed in a spirit by no means according in all points with that manifested in the following pages: but while profiting by every occasion which permitted me to mix with distinguished people of all parties, I learnt much of which I was — in common, I suspect, with many others — very profoundly ignorant. I found good where I looked for mischief — strength where I anticipated weakness — and the watchful wisdom of cautious legislators, most usefully at work for the welfare of their country, instead of the crude vagaries of a revolutionary government, active only in leading blindfold the deluded populace who trusted to them.

  The result of this was, first a wavering, and then a change of opinion, — not as to the immutable laws which should regulate hereditary succession, or the regret that it should ever have been deemed expedient to violate them — but as to the wisest way in which the French nation, situated as it actually is, can be governed, so as best to repair the grievous injuries left by former convulsions, and most effectually to guard against a recurrence of them in future.

  That the present policy of France keeps these objects steadily in view, and that much wisdom and courage are at work to advance them, cannot be doubted; and those most anxious to advocate the sacred cause of well-ordered authority amongst all the nations of the earth should be the first to bear testimony to this truth.

  London, December 1835.

  LETTER I.

  Difficulty of giving a systematic account of what is doing in France. — Pleasure of revisiting Paris after long absence. — What is changed; what remains the same.

  Paris, 11th April 1835.

  MY DEAR FRIEND,

  In visiting Paris it certainly was my intention to describe in print what I saw and heard there; and to do this as faithfully as possible, I proposed to continue my old habit of noting in my journal all things, great and small, in which I took an interest. But the task frightens me. I have been here but a few days, and I already find myself preaching and prosing at much greater length than I approve: I already feel that I am involved in such a mizmaze of interesting subjects, that to give anything like an orderly and well-arranged digest of them, would beguile me into attempting a work greatly beyond my power to execute.

  The very most I can hope to do will be but to “skim lightly over the surface of things;” and in addressing myself to you, I shall feel less as if I were about to be guilty of the presumption of writing “a work on France,” than if I threw my notes into a less familiar form. I will then discourse to you, as well as I may, of such things as leave the deepest impression among the thousand sights and sounds in the midst of which I am now placed. Should it be our will hereafter that these letters pass from your hands into those of the public, I trust that nobody will be so unmerciful as to expect that they shall make them acquainted with everything past, present, and to come, “respecting the destinies of this remarkable country.”

  It must indeed be a bold pen that attempts to write of “Young France,” as it is at present the fashion to call it, with anything like a reasonable degree of order and precision, while still surrounded by all the startling novelties she has to show. To reason of what she has done, what she is doing, and — more difficult still — of what she is about to do, would require a steadier head than most persons can command, while yet turning and twisting in all directions to see what this Young France looks like.

  In truth, I am disposed to believe that whatever I write about it will be much in the style of the old conundrum —

  “I saw a comet rain down hail

  I saw a cloud” &c.

  And here you will remember, that though the things seen are stated in the most simple and veracious manner, much of the meaning is occult, depending altogether upon the stopping or pointing of the narrative. This stopping or pointing I must leave to you, or any other readers I may happen to have, and confine myself to the plain statement of “I saw;” for though it is sufficiently easy to see and to hear, I feel extremely doubtful if I shall always be able to understand.

  It is just seven years and seven months since I last visited the capital of the “Great Nation.” The interval is a long one, as a portion of human life; but how short does it appear when the events that it has brought forth are contemplated! I left the white banner of France floating gaily over her palaces, and I find it torn down and trampled in the dust. The renowned lilies, for so many ages the symbol of chivalric bravery, are everywhere erased; and it should seem that the once proud shield of St. Louis is soiled, broken, and reversed for ever.

  But all this was old. France is grown young again; and I am assured that, according to the present condition of human judgment, everything is exactly as it should be. Knighthood, glory, shields, banners, faith, loyalty, and the like, are gone out of fashion; and they say it is only necessary to look about me a little, to perceive how remarkably well the present race of Frenchmen can do without them; — an occupation, it is added, which I shall find much more profitable and amusing than lamenting over the mouldering records of their ancient greatness.

  The good sense of this remonstrance is so evident, that I am determined henceforth to profit by it; remembering, moreover, that, as an Englishwoman, I have certainly no particular call to mourn over the fading honours of my country’s rival. So in future I shall turn my eyes as much as I can from the tri-coloured flag — (those three stripes are terribly false heraldry) — and only think of amusing myself; a business never performed anywhere with so much ease as at Paris.

  Since I last saw it, I have journeyed half round the globe; but nothing I have met in all my wanderings has sufficed to damp the pleasure with which I enter again this gay, bright, noisy, restless city, — this city of the living, as beyond all others it may be justly called.

  And where, in truth, can anything be found that shall make its air of ceaseless jubilee seem tame? — or its thousand depôts of all that is prettiest in art, lose by comparison with any other pretty things in the wide world? Where do all the externals of happiness meet the eye so readily? — or where can the heavy spirit so easily be roused to seek and find enjoyment? Cold, worn-out, and dead indeed must the heart be that does not awaken to some throb of pleasure when Paris, after long absence, comes again in sight! For though a throne has been overturned, the Tuileries still remain; — though the main stock of a right royal tree has been torn up, and a scion sprung from one of the roots, that had run, wildly enough, to a distance, has been barricaded in, and watered, and nurtured, and fostered into power and strength of growth to supply its place, the Boulevards, with their matchless aspect of eternal holiday, are still the same. No commotion, however violent, has yet been able to cause this light but precious essence of Parisian attractiveness to evaporate; and while the very foundations of society have been shaken
round them, the old elms go on, throwing their flickering shadows upon a crowd that — allowing for some vagaries of the milliner and tailor — might be taken for the very same, and no other, which has gladdened the eye and enlivened the imagination since first their green boughs beckoned all that was fairest and gayest in Paris to meet together beneath them.

  Whilst this is the case, and while sundry other enchantments that may be named in their turn continue to proclaim that Paris is Paris still, it would be silly quarrelling with something better than bread-and-butter, did we spend the time of our abode here in dreaming of what has been, instead of opening our eyes and endeavouring to be as much awake as possible to look upon all that is.

  Farewell!

  LETTER II.

  Absence of the English Embassy. — Trial of the Lyons Prisoners. — Church of the Madeleine. — Statue of Napoleon.

  It may be doubtful, perhaps, whether the present period be more favourable or unfavourable for the arrival of English travellers at Paris. The sort of interregnum which has taken place in our embassy here deprives us of the centre round which all that is most gay among the English residents usually revolves; but, on the other hand, the approaching trial of the Lyons prisoners and their Parisian accomplices is stirring up from the very bottom all the fermenting passions of the nation. Every principle, however quietly and unobtrusively treasured, — every feeling, however cautiously concealed, — is now afloat; and the most careless observer may expect to see, with little trouble, the genuine temper of the people.

  The genuine temper of the people? — Nay, but this phrase must be mended ere it can convey to you any idea of what is indeed likely to be made visible; for, as it stands, it might intimate that the people were of one temper; and anything less like the truth than this cannot easily be imagined.

  The temper of the people of Paris upon the subject of this “atrocious trial,” as all parties not connected with the government are pleased to call it, varies according to their politics, — from rage and execration to ecstasy and delight — from indifference to enthusiasm — from triumph to despair.