Under The Impenetrable Screen Of The Trees, In The Dark, Cool,
Refreshing Shade, Are Thousands Of Chairs, For Which One Pays Two
Cents Apiece.
Whole families come, locking up their door, bringing the
baby, work, dinner, or lunch, take a certain number of chairs, and
spend the day.
As far as eye can reach you see a multitude seated, as
if in church, with other multitudes moving to and fro, while boys and
girls without number are frolicking, racing, playing ball, driving
hoop, &c., but contriving to do it without making a hideous racket.
How French children are taught to play and enjoy themselves without
disturbing every body else, is a mystery. "_C'est gentil_" seems
to be a talismanic spell; and "_Ce n'est pas gentil ca_" is
sufficient to check every rising irregularity. O that some
_savant_ would write a book and tell us how it is done! I gazed
for half an hour on the spectacle. A more charming sight my eyes never
beheld. There were grayheaded old men, and women, and invalids; and
there were beautiful demoiselles working worsted, embroidery, sewing;
men reading papers; and, in fact, people doing every thing they would
do in their own parlors. And all were graceful, kind, and obliging;
not a word nor an act of impoliteness or indecency. No wonder the
French adore Paris, thought I; in no other city in the world is a
scene like this possible! No wonder that their hearts die within them
at thoughts of exile in the fens of Cayenne!
But under all this there lie, as under the cultivated crust of this
fair world, deep abysses of soul, where volcanic masses of molten lava
surge and shake the tremulous earth. In the gay and bustling
Boulevards, a friend, an old resident of Paris, poised out to me, as
we rode, the bullet marks that scarred the houses - significant tokens
of what seems, but is not, forgotten.
At sunset a military band of about seventy performers began playing in
front of the Tuileries. They formed an immense circle, the leader in
the centre. He played the octave flute, which also served as a baton
for marking time. The music was characterized by delicacy, precision,
suppression, and subjugation of rebellious material.
I imagined a congress of horns, clarinets, trumpets, &c., conversing
in low tones on some important theme; nay, rather a conspiracy of
instruments, mourning between whiles their subjugation, and ever and
anon breaking out in a fierce _emeute_, then repressed, hushed,
dying away; as if they had heard of Baron Munchausen's frozen horn,
and had conceived the idea of yielding their harmonies without touch
of human lips, yet were sighing and sobbing at their impotence.
Perhaps I detected the pulses of a nation's palpitating heart,
throbbing for liberty, but trodden down, and sobbing in despair.
In the evening Mrs. C. had her _salon_, a fashion of receiving
one's friends on a particular night, that one wishes could be
transplanted to American soil.
No invitations are given.
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