Then There Were The Old Chateaus On The Hills, Built With An Appearance Of
Military Strength, Their Towers And Battlements
Telling of feudal times.
The groves by which they were surrounded were for the most part clipped
into regular walls,
And pierced with regularly arched passages, leading in
various directions, and the trees compelled by the shears to take the
shape of obelisks and pyramids, or other fantastic figures, according to
the taste of the middle ages. As we drew nearer to Paris, we saw the plant
which Noah first committed to the earth after the deluge - you know what
that was I hope - trained on low stakes, and growing thickly and
luxuriantly on the slopes by the side of the highway. Here, too, was the
tree which was the subject of the first Christian miracle, the fig, its
branches heavy with the bursting fruit just beginning to ripen for the
market.
But when we entered Paris, and passed the Barriere d'Etoile, with its
lofty triumphal arch; when we swept through the arch of Neuilly, and came
in front of the Hotel des Invalides, where the aged or maimed soldiers,
the living monuments of so many battles, were walking or sitting under the
elms of its broad esplanade; when we saw the colossal statues of statesmen
and warriors frowning from their pedestals on the bridges which bestride
the muddy and narrow channel of the Seine; when we came in sight of the
gray pinnacles of the Tuilleries, and the Gothic towers of Notre-Dame, and
the Roman ones of St. Sulpice, and the dome of the Pantheon, under which
lie the remains of so many of the great men of France, and the dark column
of Place Vendome, wrought with figures in relief, and the obelisk brought
from Egypt to ornament the Place Louis Quatorze, the associations with
antiquity which the country presents, from being general, became
particular and historical. They were recollections of power, and
magnificence, and extended empire; of valor and skill in war which had
held the world in fear; of dynasties that had risen and passed away; of
battles and victories which had left no other fruits than their monuments.
The solemnity of these recollections does not seem to press with much
weight upon the minds of the people. It has been said that the French have
become a graver nation than formerly; if so, what must have been their
gayety a hundred years ago? To me they seem as light-hearted and as easily
amused as if they had done nothing but make love and quiz their priests
since the days of Louis XIV. - as if their streets had never flowed with
the blood of Frenchmen shed by their brethren - as if they had never won
and lost a mighty empire. I can not imagine the present generation to be
less gay than that which listened to the comedies of Moliere at their
first representation; particularly when I perceive that even Moliere's
pieces are too much burdened with thought for a Frenchman of the present
day, and that he prefers the lighter and more frivolous vaudeville.
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