Chapter XV: Letter XIV

THE GARDEN OF THE TUILERIES--PRINCE MOSCOWA--SONS OF NAPOLEON--
COOPER AND MORSE--SIR SIDNEY SMITH--FASHIONABLE WOMEN--CLOSE
OF THE DAY--THE FAMOUS EATING-HOUSES--HOW TO DINE WELL IN PARIS,
ETC.

It is March, and the weather has all the characteristics of New-England May. The last two or three days have been deliciously spring-like, clear, sunny, and warm. The gardens of the Tuileries are crowded. The chairs beneath the terraces are filled by the old men reading the gazettes, mothers and nurses watching their children at play, and, at every few steps, circles of whole families sitting and sewing, or conversing, as unconcernedly as at home. It strikes a stranger oddly. With the _privacy_ of American feelings, we cannot conceive of these out-of-door French habits. What would a Boston or New York mother think of taking chairs for her whole family, grown-up daughters and all, in the Mall or upon the Battery, and spending the day in the very midst of the gayest promenade of the city? People of all ranks do it here. You will see the powdered, elegant gentleman of the _ancien regime_, handing his wife or daughter to a straw-bottomed chair, with all the air of drawing-room courtesy; and, begging pardon for the liberty, pull his journal from his pocket, and sit down to read beside her; or a tottering old man, leaning upon a stout Swiss servant girl, goes bowing and apologizing through the crowd, in search of a pleasant neighbor, or some old compatriot, with whom he may sit and nod away the hours of sunshine. It is a beautiful custom, positively. The gardens are like a constant _fete_. It is a holiday revel, without design or disappointment. It is a masque, where every one plays his character unconsciously, and therefore naturally and well. We get no idea of it at home. We are too industrious a nation to have idlers enough. It would even pain most of the people of our country to see so many thousands of all ages and conditions of life spending day after day in such absolute uselessness.

Imagine yourself here, on the fashionable terrace, the promenade, two days in the week, of all that is distinguished and gay in Paris. It is a short raised walk, just inside the railings, and the only part of all these wide and beautiful gardens where a member of the _beau monde_ is ever to be met. The hour is four, the day Friday, the weather heavenly. I have just been long enough in Paris to be an excellent walking dictionary, and I will tell you who people are. In the first place, all the well-dressed men you see are English. You will know the French by those flaring coats, laid clear back on their shoulders, and their execrable hats and thin legs. Their heads are fresh from the hair-dresser; their hats are _chapeaux de soie_ or imitation beaver; they are delicately rouged, and wear very white gloves; and those who are with ladies, lead, as you observe, a small dog by a string, or carry it in their arms. No French lady walks out without her lap-dog. These slow-paced men you see in brown mustaches and frogged coats are refugee Poles. The short, thick, agile-looking man before us is General ----, celebrated for having been the last to surrender on the last field of that brief contest. His handsome face is full of resolution, and unlike the rest of his countrymen, he looks still unsubdued and in good heart. He walks here every day an hour or two, swinging his cane round his forefinger, and thinking, apparently of anything but his defeat. Observe these two young men approaching us. The short one on the left, with the stiff hair and red mustache, is _Prince Moscowa_, the son of Marshal Ney. He is an object of more than usual interest just now, as the youngest of the new batch of peers. The expression of his countenance is more bold than handsome, and indeed he is anything but a carpet knight; a fact of which he seems, like a man of sense, quite aware. He is to be seen at the parties standing with his arms folded, leaning silently against the wall for hours together. His companion is, I presume to say, quite the handsomest man you ever saw. A little over six feet, perfectly proportioned, dark silken-brown hair, slightly curling about his forehead, a soft curling mustache, and beard just darkening the finest cut mouth in the world, and an olive complexion, of the most golden richness and clearness--Mr. ---- is called the handsomest man in Europe. What is more remarkable still, he looks like the most modest man in Europe, too; though, like most modest _looking_ men, his reputation for constancy in the gallant world is somewhat slender. And here comes a fine-looking man, though of a different order of beauty--a natural son of Napoleon. He is about his father's height, and has most of his features, though his person and air must be quite different. You see there Napoleon's beautiful mouth and thinly chiselled nose, but I fancy that soft eye is his mother's. He is said to be one of the most fascinating men in France. His mother was the Countess Waleski, a lady with whom the Emperor became acquainted in Poland. It is singular that Napoleon's talents and love of glory have not descended upon any of the eight or ten sons whose claims to his paternity are admitted. And here come two of our countrymen, who are to be seen constantly together--_Cooper_ and _Morse_. That is Cooper with the blue surtout buttoned up to his throat, and his hat over his eyes. What a contrast between the faces of the two men! Morse with his kind, open, gentle countenance, the very picture of goodness and sincerity; and Cooper, dark and corsair-looking, with his brows down over his eyes, and his strongly lined mouth fixed in an expression of moodiness and reserve. The two faces, however, are not equally just to their owners--Morse is all that he looks to be, but Cooper's features do him decided injustice. I take a pride in the reputation which this distinguished countryman of ours has for humanity and generous sympathy. The distress of the refugee liberals from all countries comes home especially to Americans, and the untiring liberality of Mr. Cooper particularly, is a fact of common admission and praise. It is pleasant to be able to say such things. Morse is taking a sketch of the Gallery of the Louvre, and he intends copying some of the best pictures also, to accompany it as an exhibition, when he returns. Our artists do our country credit abroad. The feeling of interest in one's country artists and authors becomes very strong in a foreign land. Every leaf of laurel awarded to them seems to touch one's own forehead. And, talking of laurels, here comes _Sir Sidney Smith_--the short, fat, old gentleman yonder, with the large aquiline nose and keen eye. He is one of the few men who ever opposed Napoleon successfully, and that should distinguish him, even if he had not won by his numerous merits and achievements the gift of almost every order in Europe. He is, among other things, of a very mechanical turn, and is quite crazy just now about a six-wheeled coach, which he has lately invented, and of which nobody sees the exact benefit but himself. An invitation to his rooms, to hear his description of the model, is considered the last new bore.

And now for ladies. Whom do you see that looks distinguished? Scarce one whom you would take positively for a lady, I venture to presume. These two, with the velvet pelisses and small satin bonnets, are rather the most genteel-looking people in the garden. I set them down for ladies of rank, in the first walk I ever took here; and two who have just passed us, with the curly lap-dog, I was equally sure were persons of not very dainty morality. It is precisely _au contraire_. The velvet pelisses are gamblers from Frascati's, and the two with the lap-dog are the Countess N. and her unmarried daughter--two of the most exclusive specimens of Parisian society. It is very odd--but if you see a remarkably modest-looking woman in Paris, you may be sure, as the periphrasis goes, that "she is no better than she should be." Everything gets _travestied_ in this artificial society. The general ambition seems to be, to appear that which one is not. White-haired men cultivate their sparse mustaches, and dark-haired men shave. Deformed men are successful in gallantry, where handsome men despair. Ugly women dress and dance, while beauties mope and are deserted. Modesty looks brazen, and vice looks timid; and so all through the calendar. Life in Paris is as pretty a series of astonishment, as an _ennuye_ could desire.

But there goes the palace-bell--five o'clock! The sun is just disappearing behind the dome of the "Invalides," and the crowd begins to thin. Look at the atmosphere of the gardens. How deliciously the twilight mist softens everything. Statues, people, trees, and the long perspectives down the alleys, all mellowed into the shadowy indistinctness of fairy-land. The throng is pressing out at the gates, and the guard, with his bayonet presented, forbids all re-entrance, for the gardens are cleared at sundown. The carriages are driving up and dashing away, and if you stand a moment you will see the most vulgar-looking people you have met in your promenade, waited for by _chasseurs_, and departing with indications of rank in their equipages, which nature has very positively denied to their persons. And now all the world dines and dines well. The "_chef_" stands with his gold repeater in his hand, waiting for the moment to decide the fate of the first dish; the _garcons_ at the restaurants have donned their white aprons, and laid the silver forks upon the napkins; the pretty women are seated on their thrones in the saloons, and the interesting hour is here. Where shall we dine? We will walk toward the Palais Royal, and talk of it as we go along.

That man would "deserve well of his country" who should write a "Paris Guide" for the palate. I would do it myself if I could elude the immortality it would occasion me. One is compelled to pioneer his own stomach through the endless _cartes_ of some twelve eating-houses, all famous, before he half knows whether he is dining well or ill. I had eaten for a week at Very's, for instance, before I discovered that, since Pelham's day, that gentleman's reputation has gone down. He is a subject for history at present. I was misled also by an elderly gentleman at Havre, who advised me to eat at _Grignon's_, in the _Passage Vivienne_. Not liking my first _coquilles aux huitres_, I made some private inquiries, and found that his _chef_ had deserted him about the time of Napoleon's return from Elba. A stranger gets misguided in this way. And then, if by accident you hit upon the right house, you may be eating for a month before you find out the peculiar triumphs which have stamped its celebrity. No mortal man can excel in everything, and it is as true of cooking as it is of poetry. The "_Rochers de Cancale_," is now the first eating-house in Paris, yet they only excel in fish. The "_Trois Freres Provencaux_," have a high reputation, yet their _cotelettes provencales_ are the only dish which you can not get equally well elsewhere. A good practice is to walk about in the Palais Royal for an hour before dinner, and select a master. You will know a _gourmet_ easily--a man slightly past the prime of life, with a nose just getting its incipient blush, a remarkably loose, voluminous white cravat, and a corpulence more of suspicion than fact. Follow him to his restaurant, and give the _garcon_ a private order to serve you with the same dishes as the _bald_ gentleman. (I have observed that dainty livers universally lose their hair early.) I have been in the wake of such a person now for a week or more, and I never lived, comparatively, before. Here we are, however, at the "_Trois Freres_," and there goes my unconscious model deliberately up stairs. We'll follow him, and double his orders, and if we dine not well, there is no eating in France.