Originally published in Belgravia (John Maxwell) vol.2 #6 (Apr 1867).
From this month forward Paris promises to be a centre of interest for the civilised world; at all events for that portion of it which takes its pleasure in the agglomerations of shops which bear the name of "International Exhibitions." As, however, the ugly structure in the Champ de Mars is scarcely likely to absorb the entire attention of the numerous visitors who may be attracted to the gay city, a few notes on the other pleasures of the place, as they presented themselves to a visitor a very few months back, may not be altogether out of place. Any attempt to describe them in detail would, of course, be absurd in the limited space allotted to me here. A large volume would be wanted to exhaust the subject; and when it was completed, there is only too much reason to fear that it would be anything but amusing. Next to the professional guide-book, there are few drearier things than the reminiscences of those excellent persons who try to amuse one at second-hand by describing the matters that pleased them; who begin a dull story with, "I will tell you such a capital joke—make you die with laughing," and so forth; or who end similarly monotonous recitals with, "and we all laughed so." About as tedious are those other well-meaning people who attempt to create amusement by rehearsing their own past pleasures, who weary their hearers by describing the good points of their partners at last night's ball, or the wild orgie with which they wound up the evening.
They are all very good fellows, no doubt. They "mean well,"—a phrase which covers an appalling amount of stupidity and evil-doing—they would not hesitate perhaps to lend a friend a ten-pound note at a pinch; but, in spite of all their good qualities, one learns instinctively to avoid them, and to take all possible pains to get out of their way when they once open their mouths with the intention of being funny. Now what these persons are in daily life the writer who announces his intention of dealing specifically with amusements has a great tendency to become. Should he avoid that fault, another danger not less serious besets him on the other side—he may become didactic and guide-bookish. As I take it, however, that those who can buy Murray or Galignani are not likely to care about a second-hand version of their contents, while those other people who are fortunate enough to read the leaders of some of our daily papers will similarly care very little for second-hand moralising, nothing of either kind will find place here. Apart from these two descriptions of writing, there are, however, plenty of things which the average English traveller who rushes through Paris, on his way to Italy or Switzerland, is by no means likely to remark, but which have an infinite interest for those who find their greatest pleasure under the sunny sky of the French capital—who have learned to love its people, to sympathise with their occupations, and to consider, in a word, that Paris is the true centre of the universe of pleasure.
First on the list of the greater pleasures come, of course, the theatres; and equally, of course, the Opera is first amongst these. Unlike ourselves, our lively neighbours take a really scientific interest in the theatrical art. The Government grants annually a considerable subsidy to several of the theatres, and maintains besides, as a national institution, the Conservatoire, at which dramatic artists, in the true sense of the word, are educated. Still more, when necessity arises for the destruction of one of the older houses, it is the Administration which provides the new. Thus have arisen two of the pleasantest as well as the two handsomest theatres in the whole city—the Lyrique and the Châtelet. In the same way it is now engaged in the construction of a new Grand Opera, designed to eclipse all similar structures both in and out of Paris. Of course plenty of people will say of this liberality, that it is only a new development of that ancient custom which led a despotism to provide its subjects with panem et circenses; but when it is considered that precisely the same thing was done, though on a smaller scale, under the constitutional government of Louis Philippe, it is evident that such a sneer has no particular applicability. The truth is, the talent of the French people is essentially dramatic. They are passionately fond of theatrical entertainments; and although the direction of their tastes is sometimes to be lamented, there can be no question that the love of the theatre is as genuine as it is universal.
One class only, as a class, either does not like the stage, or pretends to care little for it. "Gandinism" leads its votaries to the lyric theatres, and to them only, except when the announcement of a new actress or of a new danseuse induces one of the class to present himself at one of the smaller theatres of the Boulevards, where he may be seen, in the unusual glory of evening-dress, languidly talking to his friends during the serious parts of the piece, and attentive only to the appearance of the charmer, whose name has brought him so far from his usual haunts. This class is, however, tolerably powerful. Half the wealth of the city is in their hands, and they spend it royally. For them rise those gorgeous cafés which excite the surprise and envy of the ignorant Britisher; for them clubs have been instituted which emulate, in the splendour of their fittings and the extravagance of their charges, the most aristocratic of London establishments of the same class; for them coach-makers design those splendid "Tilburys" and "Victorias" which dot the Bois de Boulogne from five till seven daily; for them horse-dealers import those magnificent English horses which make that same Bois no unworthy competitor of the "Row;" for them Madame de Bréda paints her cheeks with the finest rouge, and wears the most impossible of bonnets; and finally, for them M. Charles Garnier, with his four distinguished aides,—MM. Louvet, Jourdain, Pascal, and Leschault,—is building the most beautiful theatre that the world has yet seen.
About half way up the Boulevard des Italiens, on the left as you come from the Madeleine, somewhere about half a square mile of houses have been pulled down to make room for the new Opera. The space of ground which the theatre itself will occupy is in the shape of an heraldic lozenge with the corners cut off. The front faces the Boulevard, and is already beginning to give promise of the splendours it will exhibit in future. As, however, there is no reason to hope for the completion of the work before 1869, that promise is as yet somewhat dim. Still it is possible to see something of what is to be done, and to judge by the preparations already made of what kind the future work will be. The reader who visits Paris cannot do better than put himself in communication with the kindly and intelligent clerk of the works, M. Noël, who is apparently only too pleased when he can do a service to a stranger, and whose explanations will be found by every one of the greatest value. He will tell his guest that the whole front of this new house is to be a mass of sculpture, of inlaid stone, and of columns large and small, with capitals carved in the richest fashion. Inside, the arrangements are to be on a scale commensurate with the magnificence of the exterior. Under the theatre itself there will be an immense waiting-hall for the accommodation of visitors whose carriages have set them down at any of the numerous entrances, or who have come in from the huge café glacier, which will form part of the building. From this hall, which will be a perfect triumph of decorative art, a staircase "of honour" will ascend, together with two smaller staircases—one on each side. The centre staircase, which will be of immense width, will be of white marble, with a balustrade of that beautiful tinted stone known as Sarancolin. These staircases will reach only to the first story. Above them will be two others of equal splendour, but slightly removed, so as to afford a comfortable break in the ascent.
The details have all been arranged; and if the finest granite and marble, carved by the most skilful artists of Paris, can make a long ascent easy, this staircase will surely be the pleasantest in the capital. The foyer, that pleasant lounge which the thoughtfulness of managers provides by way of atonement for the long "waits" between the acts, will be double, and will be decorated after the same fashion as the theatre itself. As for the theatre proper, it is scarcely necessary to say that, after so much pains bestowed on the entrance, it is not likely to be a very dull place. All the effect that brilliant colour and constructive decoration can give will be lavished on it. One exception only can be made to the design—the lighting is to be effected by means of an enormous chandelier, the effect of which, in the atmosphere of Paris, must be felt to be appreciated. When a system so simple and so convenient as that of the "sun-lights" is available, it seems strange that vast expense should be incurred for the sake of show at the cost of comfort. Save in this respect, however, the comfort of the habitués will be studied in every way. Every box, even to the fourth tier, will have its ante-room; while dressing-rooms and all necessary conveniences will be arranged on every floor. Finally—and this is no small consolation in a theatre—the precautions against fire are exceptionally minute. The whole of the interior of the house, except in the places where it has been found impossible to dispense with wood, will be of stone and iron. Thus, even supposing a fire to-break out, it can be extinguished directly; and at worst is only likely to spoil a few decorations and a little of the flooring.
At the other side of Paris—a couple of miles from "the centre of civilisation," as an ancient Paris resident has dubbed the Café Cardinal—there is a theatre which presents a singular contrast in every respect to the Grand Opera. This is the Odéon, beloved of the students in whose quarter it is, as well as by that unfortunately not so numerous body who believe that the drama means something besides an exhibition of half-naked women, or a fairy tale flavoured with immorality, and drawn out through five acts and fifty tableaux. Here is the real home of the modern French drama, where the visitor may see the best works of the new school acted to perfection. For some time the stage was occupied last autumn with a drama which, though it is not precisely the sort of thing to which one would like to take his mother or sisters, is yet a work of the highest interest from a psychological point of view. It is called the Maître de la Maison, and turns upon that well-worn subject, the love of a wife for another than her husband. The real "master of the house," a banker—stern and cold outwardly, but full of suppressed love and indignation—finds his place occupied by a music-master. Not merely does this latter supplant the lawful husband in the affections of his wife, but he pushes his audacity so far as to take up his abode in the house. Hence endless difficulties, with all of which the husband bears for the sake of his daughter, to whose marriage he looks forward as the moment of release. He succeeds in finding a son-in-law; the marriage takes place, and is followed immediately by a duel between the injured husband and his betrayer. The latter is killed on the spot; and the last scene shows the miserable husband in his death-agony blessing his daughter, and allowing his wife a last embrace in token of forgiveness. Not a very pleasant story this in any way; but the perfect dramatic tact with which it is played redeems its faults.
Every actor knows not merely his words and "business," but knows also how to keep himself in the background at the right times. The London playgoer who visits a French theatre with the unpleasant memories which one sometimes carries away, is the person most likely to appreciate the perfection of such acting. He sees a lady's-maid who, wonderful to relate, does not make herself the most prominent person on the stage every time that she enters; he sees a valet who does not try to get a laugh every time that he makes his exit; and, better still, he sees two of the principal characters in the underplot played by actors of the first force, who are content to keep themselves in the background throughout. This particular piece deserves all the ridicule which the little press of Paris has thrown upon it; but it is a singular testimony to the peculiar notions which "our lively neighbours" have on some ethical points, that such a drama should be produced as a picture of the manners of everyday life. We ourselves may not be more moral—indeed, very few people who read the newspapers are likely to indorse the favourite theory of British virtue—but at least we do not parade our vices. If we are corrupt, we do not go out of the way to corrupt other people, which is sometimes more than can be said for the French stage.
On his way back to the Boulevards—which to the visitor is almost equivalent to saying back into Paris—the traveller crosses the Seine, and passes two theatres which face each other, close to the Pont au Change, and at the bottom of the Boulevard Sebastopol. That on the right is the Lyrique, where French opera of the lighter sort is played nightly; while its neighbour is the famous Châtelet, where the lightest dramatic fare in the capital is provided. For six months the attraction at this house was a féerie on the time-honoured subject of Cinderella. What with its own enormous length, the multitude of the scenes, the long ballets, and the still longer pauses between the acts, this one piece fills up the entire evening. Its story is simply nothing; the only reason that can be given for its extraordinary success is its splendour. In that respect it is certainly without parallel in England. There is no scene in this piece such as that in the Easter féerie at the same house—La Lanterne Magique—where Eve in full costume sat to see four hundred women go by in procession in every conceivable dress which the sex have worn since the Fall. To atone for this, there is, however, a sustained splendour and brilliancy which are quite as agreeable, and apparently quite as attractive. Following the course of the Boulevard Sebastopol, a very few minutes bring the traveller once more to the Boulevards proper. Here a few steps to the right take one to the famous Porte St. Martin. This theatre has unhappily fallen upon evil days, and has given itself up, like the rest of the theatres, to spectacle. Here was produced the famous Biche au Bois, which ran for about a year and a half, Sundays and week-days, until, as tradition says, the actors fairly refused to play in it any longer. It was next succeeded by another play, so stupid that even a good-natured Paris audience hissed it the first night. It bore the title of Parisiens à Londres, and turned on the fortunes and misfortunes of a party of bourgeoisie who go to London as ignorant as Frenchmen usually are of all that they are likely to see and to do. In the earlier part, the fun of the piece is drawn from the unsavoury subject of sea-sickness. Later on, the characters come to grief about their beds. Those who know the kind of fun which pleases a Frenchman of the lower class will easily imagine the "points" made out of these incidents. The second part of the piece is an extravaganza clumsily tacked on. Bad though it was, it gave a spasmodic life to the play, which had a very fair run. When it is added, however, that the great scene of the piece was one which had delighted the habitués of the Alhambra in London for some six months or so, probably few readers will care to hear more about it.
Hitherto we have spoken wholly of the theatres. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that they are a very important part of Paris life; but the city offers other pleasures quite as numerous, and, to a good many people, much more attractive. Not the least of these are the delights which the environs of the capital present. The common ideal of the average Frenchman is that he is a being intensely attached to the town, and that no pleasures save those which he can attain there are popular. In one sense this is true. Not very long ago, a well-known author of considerable ability declared in print that he had never been more than about twenty miles out of Paris, and that he had no desire to extend his travels. Perhaps this was an extreme case; but the same thing might be said of many thousands of the shopkeeping and mercantile classes. Yet even amongst them there is a passion for rural pleasures of a sort. Nowhere in the civilised world is what Goldsmith used to call "shoemaker's holiday" more common. Every Sunday thousands of decent shopkeepers, with their wives and children, troop out to the pleasant little villages round Paris, and make themselves thoroughly happy under the simplest conditions. Perhaps their destination may be Sceaux, or Fontenay aux Roses. To reach these places, a short run on the oddest little railway which has yet been made in Europe is necessary. It is worth while for the stranger to make this excursion for the sake of the journey alone.
The station is a very small circle, with a garden in the middle; and the line zigzags about in what seems a most perilous fashion throughout the whole of its short course. One is bumped, too, very disagreeably ;but the unpleasantness of the journey only seems to make the people who undertake it laugh the more uproariously. They remember, perhaps, that the line was made as an experiment to demonstrate the possibility of sending trains up and down very steep inclines, and round very sharp corners, with a possible afterthought of discovering to how much shaking the human body may be subjected in a given time without serious consequences. Arrived at Sceaux, the first care of the sensible traveller is to secure his breakfast. To this end he prefers usually to climb a tree, and au petit Robinson his desires can be fully gratified. This house is a restaurant—not of the first order—perched on the side of a sandy hill. In the garden of the house are two very large old elm-trees, in which are built little nests, reached by a ladder. The dishes and the wine are hauled up by a rope and pulley; and if the breeze is not too violent, there are few things pleasanter, after the glare of the Boulevards and the brilliancy of the white streets of Paris, than to sit amidst the greenery and look out on the smiling plain below. After breakfast the one street of Sceaux assumes the appearance of a fair. You may shoot at a target for nuts, gamble—with the certainty of losing—for china and toys, have your fortune told for ten sous, and see the face of your future wife or husband for two. To wind-up the day, the Parc is open, "by permission of M. le Maire," with a theatre, a platform for dancing, and a display of fireworks. The last train leaves soon after ten o'clock; so that the gaieties of the day soon end, and the village is left to itself and the darkness.
There are a dozen other places besides Sceaux to which the habitué of the Boulevards soon learns to bend his steps when in search of a change or of fresh air. Passy, beloved of journalists and politicians, is within very easy reach. For six sous an omnibus conveys one from any part of the city; and once arrived, there is a restaurant, with a deliciously fresh garden in which to eat, and with a cook who might be coveted by some of the pretentious hotels in the heart of the town. A short walk through the Parc—where on fine days the great Rossini may be seen pacing about in the sun while describing to a casual friend his inimitable method of cooking maccaroni—brings one to the village of Boulogne, from which the Bois takes its name. Thence another stroll of half-an-hour or so through the by-paths of the wood carries the voyager to St. Cloud. Happy is he who arrives there during the month of September. From the first to the last Sunday of that month a fair of the most obstreperous kind is held within the Parc, almost under the very windows of the palace—a fact which makes it easy to understand why the Emperor should find the waters of Vichy beneficial to his constitution during that month, and why the Empress should be so anxious to refresh herself after the fatigues of the season by the sad sea waves at Biarritz. The fair itself is the noisiest of all conceivable gatherings. In the first place, every second or third person carries a mirliton, a kind of penny trumpet about six feet long and proportionately noisy, with which he or she (generally the latter) perpetually discourses most melancholy music. Then every booth has its separate implement of noise. Drums, trumpets—speaking and other—bells, organs, hurdy-gurdies, rattles, and long tin whistles, all worked at once with the full strength of the arms and lungs, make a din which, in the phrase of the penny-a-liner, "may be more easily imagined than described."
One item of noise I have omitted—the military theatres. Of these there are always two, and sometimes three. At the larger the public are entertained with the spectacle of Jeanne d'Arc, or the Conquest of the English, in which the English army, represented by seven knock-knee'd men in anything but uniform, are put to flight by the sole bravery of Jeanne and a wonderful gray horse, which is so like a big dog, that one begins to expect him to sit down and scratch his ear with his hind leg. The play wisely ends with the heroine's victorious career. The latter part of her life was anything but creditable to her own countrymen, so that it is as well that they should not recall its details, even by misrepresenting them. At the other theatre more modern events form the staple dish. The capture of Pekin one year is followed by the capture of Mexico the next, which in turn will give way to the capture of Kanghoa, or some other place with which France has happened to be at war. Whatever be the title of the piece, the incidents are, however, pretty much the same. There is always a general officer and a brave sous-lieutenant, to whom the general gives a cross for his services—always a pretty vivandière, who performs prodigies of valour, only equalled by the comic private, who is perpetually getting into scrapes, and getting out of them in the most marvellous way. The incident of his pelting a small army of Mexicans with ammunition bread, whereby he kills two or three and slightly wounds as many more, is always received with unbounded applause; as is also the scene in which he attempts to kiss the vivandière and gets his ears soundly boxed for his pains. After about the sixteenth volley of musketry the stranger probably gets tired of the noise, and beats a retreat on his own account. Madame, whose children form the majority of the company, is standing at the door, and as he passes out looks piteously at him out of haggard eyes. She fears that monsieur has found their poor performance triste. With a bow and an excuse, one is glad to escape into the open air and out of the smell of gunpowder.
The sunshine looks doubly pleasant after the smoky oil-lamps, and the fresh air savours deliciously after the innumerable breaths and the general closeness of the booth. An hour or two of the fair will be found enough by most strangers. Gambling for nuts is not an exciting pastime, and the gilt gingerbread of the booths has, somehow or other, small attractions for people who are past thirty. Better far go back to Paris for such a dinner as Vachette alone can give us. A little steamer with a puffy high-pressure engine takes us back in half-an-hour or so, and lands us on the noble quay under the private gardens of the Tuileries. One thing only renders this journey undesirable—the presence of one or two half-drunken Alsatian tailors. They have been spending the day and their money in the cheap luxuries of the fair; their pockets are crammed with nuts; they carry enormous mirlitons in their hands, and one of them has, besides, an article which is rarely carried in public in England. Unlike the thoroughbred Frenchman, these fellows are atrociously noisy, and repulsively filthy both in dress and person. Happily some of their companions are somewhat less drunk and dirty, and they by threats and coaxing keep them from offering any very great annoyance to the quieter passengers. It ought in justice to be said, however, that cases of this kind are very rare. Drunkenness is assuredly not a French vice. A few of the working classes, generally the very poorest and most miserable amongst them, give way occasionally; but even with this class such habitual indulgence as is unhappily too common in England is scarcely known. If it were, however, the consequences would be terrible. Most Frenchmen can get up a very tolerable amount of excitement on a tumbler of water and a tea-spoonful of brandy. Were they to begin on the vile compound which is sold under the name of gin in London, it is highly probable that murder would be the mildest result of a "gay evening."
Here we are, however, back in the city. The Place du Palais Royal is busy and animated. The merchants, stockbrokers, and clerks who live a little way out of town are taking their places on the omnibuses, grisettes (or the imitations of them who are still found in the streets of Paris) are flitting about, sergents de ville pace solemnly backwards and forwards in their wonderful cocked-hats, and voitures jog steadily along as we cross into the cool arcades of the Palais Royal itself. There everything is changed. The genius of lounging seems to have made this place his home, and as we walk through the long arcade we yield insensibly to his influence. The fountain sparkles in the sunshine, the band brays out its loudest, and the little children dance on the dusty gravel within the enclosure; the shops, always gay and pleasant, look brighter than usual. A few minutes more and we are at Vachette's—pleasantest of restaurants, and endowed with the best cook in Paris. The memories of past feasts are always sad—especially when really good cookery is unattainable. So we may say of wine. Let us therefore draw a veil over the dinner, which, if not one of the amusements, is decidedly one of the greatest pleasures which Paris can afford. Afterwards comes the crowning delight—the cup of coffee and the quiet cigar outside the café. To many people—and I confess myself of the number—that hour is the most delightful of the day. You have a vivid moving panorama before you; you have a soft air which makes the mere fact of existence a pleasure ;your own physical condition is the most favourable for placid enjoyment; and above all, THERE ARE NO ORGANS. Consider that last fact, dear reader, and pray for an œdile who shall do for London the same beneficent work which M. Haussmann has done for our lively neighbours.