PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY. (continued 3)

I passed down the ward, and found nineteen or twenty in the last agonies of death. They lay perfectly still, and seemed benumbed. I felt the limbs of several, and found them quite cold. The stomach only had a little warmth. Now and then a half groan escaped those who seemed the strongest; but with the exception of the universally open mouth and upturned ghastly eye, there were no signs of much suffering. I found two who must have been dead half an hour, undiscovered by the attendants. One of them was an old woman, nearly gray, with a very bad expression of face, who was perfectly cold—lips, limbs, body, and all. The other was younger, and looked as if she had died in pain. Her eyes appeared as if they had been forced half out of the sockets, and her skin was of the most livid and deathly purple. The woman in the next bed told me she had died since the Sœur de Charité had been there. It is horrible to think how these poor creatures may suffer in the very midst of the provisions that are made professedly for their relief. I asked why a simple prescription of treatment might not be drawn up the physicians, and administered by the numerous medical students who were in Paris, that as few as possible might suffer from delay. "Because," said my companion, "the chief physicians must do everything personally, to study the complaint." And so, I verily believe, more human lives are sacrificed in waiting for experiments, than ever will be saved by the results. My blood boiled from the beginning to the end of this melancholy visit.

I wandered about alone among the beds till my heart was sick, and I could bear it no longer; and then rejoined my friend, who was in the train of one of the physicians, making the rounds. One would think a dying person should be treated with kindness. I never saw a rougher or more heartless manner than that of the celebrated Dr. ——, at the bedsides of these poor creatures. A harsh question, a rude pulling open of the mouth, to look at the tongue, a sentence or two of unsuppressed comments to the students on the progress of the disease, and the train passed on. If discouragement and despair are not medicines, I should think the visits of such physicians were of little avail. The wretched sufferers turned away their heads after he had gone, in every instance that I saw, with an expression of visibly increased distress. Several of them refused to answer his questions altogether.

On reaching the bottom of the Salle St. Monique, one of the male wards, I heard loud voices and laughter. I had noticed much more groaning and complaining in passing among the men, and the horrible discordance struck me as something infernal. It proceeded from one of the sides to which the patients had been removed who were recovering. The most successful treatment has been found to be punch, very strong, with but little acid, and being permitted to drink as much as they would, they had become partially intoxicated. It was a fiendish sight, positively. They were sitting up, and reaching from one bed to the other, and with their still pallid faces and blue lips, and the hospital dress of white, they looked like so many carousing corpses. I turned away from them in horror.

I was stopped in the door-way by a litter entering with a sick woman. They set her down in the main passage between the beds, and left her a moment to find a place for her. She seemed to have an interval of pain, and rose up on one hand, and looked about her very earnestly. I followed the direction of her eyes, and could easily imagine her sensations. Twenty or thirty death-like faces were turned toward her from the different beds, and the groans of the dying and the distressed came from every side. She was without a friend whom she knew, sick of a mortal disease, and abandoned to the mercy of those whose kindness is mercenary and habitual, and of course without sympathy or feeling. Was it not enough alone, if she had been far less ill, to imbitter the very fountains of life, and kill her with mere fright and horror? She sank down upon the litter again, and drew her shawl over her head. I had seen enough of suffering, and I left the place.

On reaching the lower staircase, my friend proposed to me to look into the dead-room. We descended to a large dark apartment below the street-level, lighted by a lamp fixed to the wall. Sixty or seventy bodies lay on the floor, some of them quite uncovered, and some wrapped in mats. I could not see distinctly enough by the dim light, to judge of their discoloration. They appeared mostly old and emaciated.

I can not describe the sensation of relief with which I breathed the free air once more. I had no fear of the cholera, but the suffering and misery I had seen, oppressed and half smothered me. Every one who has walked through an hospital, will remember how natural it is to subdue the breath, and close the nostrils to the smells of medicine and the close air. The fact, too, that the question of contagion is still disputed, though I fully believe the cholera not to be contagious, might have had some effect. My breast heaved, however, as if a weight had risen from my lungs, and I walked home, blessing God for health, with undissembled gratitude.

P. S.—I began this account of my visit to the Hotel Dieu yesterday. As I am perfectly well this morning, I think the point of non-contagion, in my own case at least, is clear. I breathed the same air with the dying and the diseased for two hours, and felt of nearly a hundred to be satisfied of the curious phenomena of the vital heat. Perhaps an experiment of this sort in a man not professionally a physician, may be considered rash or useless; and I would not willingly be thought to have done it from any puerile curiosity. I have been interested in such subjects always; and I considered the fact that the king's sons had been permitted to visit the hospital, a sufficient assurance that the physicians were seriously convinced there could be no possible danger. If I need an apology, it may be found in this.

LETTER XVII.

LEGION OF HONOR—PRESENTATION TO THE KING—THE THRONE OF FRANCE—THE QUEEN AND THE PRINCESSES—COUNTESS GUICCIOLI—THE LATE DUEL—THE SEASON OF CARNIVAL—ANOTHER FANCY BALL—DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC MASKERS—STREET MASKING—BALL AT THE PALACE—THE YOUNG DUKE OF ORLEANS—PRINCESS CHRISTINE—LORD HARRY VANE—HEIR OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU—VILLIERS—BERNARD, FABVIER, COUSIN, AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS—THE SUPPER—THE GLASS VERANDAH, ETC.

As I was getting out of a fiacre this morning on the Boulevard, I observed that the driver had the cross of the legion of honor, worn very modestly under his coat. On taking a second look at his face, I was struck with its soldier-like, honest expression; and with the fear that I might imply a doubt by a question, I simply observed, that he probably received it from Napoleon. He drew himself up a little as he assented, and with half a smile pulled the coarse cape of his coat across his bosom. It was done evidently with a mixed feeling of pride and a dislike of ostentation, which showed the nurture of Napoleon. It is astonishing how superior every being seems to have become that served under him. Wherever you find an old soldier of the "emperor," as they delight to call him, you find a noble, brave, unpretending man. On mentioning this circumstance to a friend, he informed me, that it was possibly a man who was well known, from rather a tragical circumstance. He had driven a gentleman to a party one night, who was dissatisfied with him, for some reason or other, and abused him very grossly. The cocher the next morning sent him a challenge; and, as the cross of honor levels all distinctions, he was compelled to fight him, and was shot dead at the first fire.

Honors of this sort must be a very great incentive. They are worn very proudly in France. You see men of all classes, with the striped riband in their button-hole, marking them as the heroes of the three days of July. The Poles and the French and English, who fought well at Warsaw, wear also a badge; and it certainly produces a feeling of respect as one passes them in the street. There are several very young men, lads really, who are wandering about Paris, with the latter distinction on their breasts, and every indication that it is all they have brought away from their unhappy country. The Poles are coming in now from every quarter. I meet occasionally in society the celebrated Polish countess, who lost her property and was compelled to flee, for her devotion to the cause. Louis Philippe has formed a regiment of the refugees, and sent them to Algiers. He allows no liberalists to remain in Paris, if he can help it. The Spaniards and Italians, particularly, are ordered off to Tours, and other provincial towns, the instant they become pensioners upon the government.

I was presented last night, with Mr. Carr and Mr. Ritchie, two of our countrymen, to the king. We were very naturally prepared for an embarrassing ceremony—an expectation which was not lessened, in my case, by the necessity of a laced coat, breeches, and sword. We drove into the court of the Tuileries, as the palace clock struck nine, in the costume of courtiers of the time of Louis the Twelfth, very anxious about the tenacity of our knee-buckles, and not at all satisfied as to the justice done to our unaccustomed proportions by the tailor. To say nothing of my looks, I am sure I should have felt much more like a gentleman in my costume bourgeois. By the time we had been passed through the hands of all the chamberlains, however, and walked through all the preparatory halls and drawing-rooms, each with its complement of gentlemen in waiting, dressed like ourselves in lace and small-clothes, I became more reconciled to myself, and began to feel that I might possibly have looked out of place in my ordinary dress. The atmosphere of a court is very contagious in this particular.

After being sufficiently astonished with long rooms, frescoes, and guardsmen apparently seven or eight feet high, (the tallest men I ever saw, standing with halberds at the doors), we were introduced into the Salle du Tróne—a large hall lined with crimson velvet throughout, with the throne in the centre of one of the sides. Some half dozen gentlemen were standing about the fire, conversing very familiarly, among whom was the British ambassador, Lord Grenville, and the Brazilian minister, both of whom I had met before. The king was not there. The Swedish minister, a noble-looking man, with snow-white hair, was the only other official person present, each of the ministers having come to present one or two of his countrymen. The king entered in a few moments, in the simple uniform of the line, and joined the group at the fire, with the most familiar and cordial politeness; each minister presenting his countrymen as occasion offered, certainly with far less ceremony than one sees at most dinner-parties in America. After talking a few minutes with Lord Grenville, inquiring the progress of the cholera, he turned to Mr. Rives, and we were presented. We stood in a little circle round him, and he conversed with us about America for ten or fifteen minutes. He inquired from what States we came, and said he had been as far west as Nashville, Tennessee, and had often slept in the woods, quite as soundly as he ever did in more luxurious quarters. He begged pardon of Mr. Carr, who was from South Carolina, for saying that he had found the southern taverns not particularly good. He preferred the north. All this time I was looking out for some accent in the "king's English." He speaks the language with all the careless correctness and fluency of a vernacular tongue. We were all surprised at it. It is American English, however. He has not a particle of the cockney drawl, half Irish and half Scotch, with which many Englishmen speak. He must be the most cosmopolite king that ever reigned. He even said he had been at Tangiers, the place of Mr. Carr's consulate. After some pleasant compliments to our country, he passed to the Brazilian minister, who stood on the other side, leaving us delighted with his manner; and, probably, in spite of our independence, much more inclined than before to look indulgently upon his politics. The queen had entered, meantime, with the king's sister, Lady Adelaide, and one or two of the ladies of honor; and, after saying something courteous to all, in her own language, and assuring us that his majesty was very fond of America, the royal group bowed out, and left us once more to ourselves.

We remained a few minutes, and I occupied myself with looking at the gold and crimson throne before me, and recalling to my mind the world of historical circumstances connected with it. You can easily imagine it all. The throne of France is, perhaps, the most interesting one in the world. But, of all its associations, none rushed upon me so forcibly, or retained my imagination so long, as the accidental drama of which it was the scene during the three days of July. It was here that the people brought the polytechnic scholar, mortally wounded in the attack on the palace, to die. He breathed his last on the throne of France, surrounded with his comrades and a crowd of patriots. It is one of the most striking and affecting incidents, I think, in all history.

As we passed out I caught a glimpse, through a side door, of the queen and the princesses sitting round a table covered with books, in a small drawing-room, while a servant, in the gaudy livery of the court, was just entering with tea. The careless attitudes of the figures, the mellow light of the shade-lamp, and the happy voices of children coming through the door, reminded me more of home than anything I have seen in France. It is odd, but really the most aching sense of home-sickness I have felt since I left America, was awakened at that moment—in the palace of a king, and at the sight of his queen and daughters!

We stopped in the antechamber to have our names recorded in the visiting-book—a ceremony which insures us invitations to all the balls given at court during the winter. The first has already appeared in the shape of a printed note, in which we are informed by the "aide-de-camp of the king and the lady of honor of the queen," that we are invited to a ball at the palace on Monday night. To my distress there is a little direction at the bottom, "Les hommes seront en uniforme," which subjects those of us who are not military, once more to the awkwardness of this ridiculous court dress. I advise all Americans coming abroad to get a commission in the militia to travel with. It is of use in more ways than one.

I met the Countess Guiccioli, walking yesterday in the Tuileries. She looks much younger than I anticipated, and is a handsome blonde, apparently about thirty. I am told by a gentleman who knows her, that she has become a great flirt, and is quite spoiled by admiration. The celebrity of Lord Byron's attachment would, certainly, make her a very desirable acquaintance, were she much less pretty than she really is; and I am told her drawing-room is thronged with lovers of all nations, contending for a preference, which, having been once given, as it has, should be buried, I think, for ever. So, indeed, should have been the Empress Maria Louisa's, and that of the widow of Bishop Heber; and yet the latter has married a Greek count, and the former a German baron!

I find I was incorrect in the statement I gave you of the duel between Mr. Hesse and Count Leon. The particulars have come out more fully, and from the curious position of the parties (Mr. Hesse, as I stated, being the natural son of George the Fourth, and Count Leon of Napoleon) are worth recapitulating. Count Leon had lost several thousand francs to Mr. Hesse, which he refused to pay, alleging that there had been unfair dealing in the game. The matter was left to arbitration, and Mr. Hesse fully cleared of the charge. Leon still refused to pay, and for fifteen days practised with the pistol from morning till night. At the end of this time he paid the money, and challenged Hesse. The latter had lost the use of his right arm in the battle of Waterloo, (fighting of course against Count Leon's father), but accepted his challenge, and fired with his left hand. Hesse was shot through the body, and has since died, and Count Leon was not hurt. The affair has made a great sensation here, for Hesse had a young and lovely wife, only seventeen, and was unusually beloved and admired; while his opponent is a notorious gambler, and every way detested. People meet at the gaming-table here, however, as they meet in the street, without question of character.

Carnival is over. Yesterday was "Mardi Gras"—the last day of the reign of Folly. Paris has been like a city of grown-up children for a week. What with masking all night, supping, or breakfasting, (which you please), at sunrise, and going to bed between morning and noon, I feel that I have done my devoir upon the experiment of French manners.

It would be tedious, not to say improper, to describe all the absurdities I have seen and mingled in for the last fortnight; but I must try to give you some idea of the meaning the French attach to the season of carnival, and the manner in which it is celebrated.

In society it is the time for universal gaiety and freedom. Parties, fancy balls, and private masques, are given, and kept up till morning. The etiquette is something more free, and gallantry is indulged and followed with the privileges, almost, of a Saturnalia. One of the gayest things I have seen was a fancy ball, given by a man of some fashion, in the beginning of the season. Most of the distingués of Paris were there; and it was, perhaps, as fair a specimen of the elegant gaiety of the French capital, as occurred during the carnival. The rooms were full by ten. Everybody was in costume, and the ladies in dresses of unusual and costly splendor. At a bal costumé there are no masks, of course, and dancing, waltzing, and galopading followed each other in the ordinary succession, but with all the heightened effect and additional spirit of a magnificent spectacle. It was really beautiful. There were officers from all the English regiments, in their fine showy uniforms; and French officers who had brought dresses from their far-off campaigns; Turks, Egyptians, Mussulmans, and Algerine rovers—every country that had been touched by French soldiers, represented in its richest costume and by men of the finest appearance. There was a colonel of the English Madras cavalry, in the uniform of his corps—one mass of blue and silver, the most splendidly dressed man I ever saw; and another Englishman, who is said to be the successor of Lord Byron in the graces of the gay and lovely Countess Guiccioli, was dressed as a Greek; and between the exquisite taste and richness of his costume, and his really excessive personal beauty, he made no ordinary sensation. The loveliest woman there was a young baroness, whose dancing, figure, and face, so resembled a celebrated Philadelphia belle, that I was constantly expecting her musical French voice to break into English. She was dressed as an eastern dancing-girl, and floated about with the lightness and grace of a fairy. Her motion intoxicated the eye completely. I have seen her since at the Tuileries, where, in a waltz with the handsome Duke of Orleans, she was the single object of admiration for the whole court. She is a small, lightly-framed creature, with very little feet, and a face of more brilliancy than regular beauty, but all airiness and spirit. A very lovely, indolent-looking English girl, with large sleepy eyes, was dressed as a Circassian slave, with chains from her ankles to her waist. She was a beautiful part of the spectacle, but too passive to interest one. There were sylphs and nuns, broom-girls and Italian peasants, and a great many in rich Polonaise dresses. It was unlike any other fancy ball I ever saw, in the variety and novelty of the characters represented, and the costliness with which they were dressed. You can have no idea of the splendor of a waltz in such a glittering assemblage. It was about time for an early breakfast when the ball was over.

The private masks are amusing to those who are intimate with the circle. A stranger, of course, is neither acquainted enough to amuse himself within proper limits, nor incognito enough to play his gallantries at hazard. I never have seen more decidedly triste assemblies than the balls of this kind which I have attended, where the uniform black masks and dominoes gave the party the aspect of a funeral, and the restraint made it quite as melancholy.

The public masks are quite another affair. They are given at the principal theatres, and commence at midnight. The pit and stage are thrown into a brilliant hall, with the orchestra in the centre; the music is divine, and the etiquette perfect liberty. There is, of course, a great deal of vulgar company, for every one is admitted who pays the ten francs at the door; but all classes of people mingle in the crowd; and if one is not amused, it is because he will neither listen nor talk. I think it requires one or two masks to get one's eye so much accustomed to the sight, that he is not disgusted with the exteriors of the women. There was something very diabolical to me at first in a dead, black representation of the human face, and the long black domino. Persuading one's self that there is beauty under such an outside, is like getting up a passion for a very ugly woman, for the sake of her mind—difficult, rather. I soon became used to it, however, and amused myself infinitely. One is liable to waste his wit, to be sure; for in a crowd so rarely bien composée, as they phrase it, the undistinguishing dress gives every one the opportunity of bewildering you; but the feet and manner of walking, and the tone and mode of expression, are indices sufficiently certain to decide, and give interest to a pursuit; and, with tolerable caution, one is paid for his trouble, in nineteen cases out of twenty.

At the public masks, the visitors are not all in domino. One half at least are in caricature dresses, men in petticoats, and women in boots and spurs. It is not always easy to detect the sex. An English lady, a carnival-acquaintance of mine, made love successfully, with the aid of a tall figure and great spirit, to a number of her own sex. She wore a half uniform, and was certainly a very elegant fellow. France is so remarkable indeed, for effeminate-looking men and masculine-looking women, that half the population might change costume to apparent advantage. The French are fond of caricaturing English dandies, and they do it with great success. The imitation of Bond-street dialect in another language is highly amusing. There were two imitation exquisites at the "Varietés" one night, who were dressed to perfection, and must have studied the character thoroughly. The whole theatre was in a roar when they entered. Malcontents take the opportunity to show up the king and ministers, and these are excellent, too. One gets weary of fun. It is a life which becomes tedious long before carnival is over. It is a relief to sit down once more to books and pen.

The three last days are devoted to street-masking. This is the most ridiculous of all. Paris pours out its whole population upon the Boulevards, and guards are stationed to keep the goers and comers in separate lines, and prevent all collecting of groups on the pavé. People in the most grotesque and absurd dress pass on foot, and in loaded carriages, and all is nonsense and obscenity. It is difficult to conceive the motive which can induce grown-up people to go to the expense and trouble of such an exhibition, merely to amuse the world. A description of these follies would be waste of paper.

On the last night but one of the carnival, I went to a ball at the palace. We presented our invitations at the door, and mounted through piles of soldiers of the line, crowds of servants in the king's livery, and groves of exotics at the broad landing places, to the reception room. We were ushered into the Salle des Marechals—a large hall, the ceiling of which rises into the dome of the Tuileries, ornamented with full-length portraits of the living marshals of France. A gallery of a light airy structure runs round upon the capitals of the pillars, and this, when we entered, and at all the after hours of the ball, was crowded with loungers from the assembly beneath—producing a splendid effect, as their glittering uniforms passed and repassed under the flags and armor with which the ceilings were thickly hung. The royal train entered presently, and the band struck up a superb march. Three rows of velvet-covered seats, one above another, went round the hall, leaving a passage behind, and, in front of these, the queen and her family made a circuit of courtesy, followed by the wives of the ambassadors, among whom was our countrywoman, Mrs. Rives. Her majesty went smiling past, stopping here and there to speak to a lady whom she recognized, and the king followed her with his eternal and painfully forced smile, saying something to every second person he encountered. The princesses have good faces, and the second one has an expression of great delicacy and tenderness, but no beauty. As soon as the queen was seated, the band played a quadrille, and the crowd cleared away from the centre for the dance. The Duke of Orleans selected his partner, a pretty girl, who, I believe was English, and forward went the head couples to the exquisite music of the new opera—Robert le Diable.

I fell into the little cortége standing about the queen, and watched the interesting party dancing the head quadrille for an hour. The Duke of Orleans, who is nearly twenty, and seems a thoughtless, good-natured, immature young man, moved about very gracefully with his handsome figure, and seemed amused, and quite unconscious of the attention he drew. The princesses were vis-a-vis, and the second one, a dark-haired, slender, interesting girl of nineteen, had a polytechnic scholar for her partner. He was a handsome, gallant-looking fellow, who must have distinguished himself to have been invited to court, and I could not but admire the beautiful mixture of respect and self-confidence with which he demanded the hand of the princess from the lady of honor, and conversed with her during the dance. If royalty does not seal up the affections, I could scarce conceive how a being so decidedly of nature's best nobility, handsome, graceful, and confident, could come within the sphere of a sensitive-looking girl, like the princess Christine, and not leave more than a transient recollection upon her fancy. The music stopped, and I had been so occupied with my speculations upon the polytechnic boy, that I had scarcely noticed any other person in the dance. He led the princess back to her seat by the dame d'honneur, bowing low, colored a little, and mingled with the crowd. A few minutes after, I saw him in the gallery, quite alone, leaning over the railing, and looking down upon the scene below, having apparently abandoned the dance for the evening. From something in his face, and in the manner of resuming his sword, I was certain he had come to the palace with that single object, and would dance no more. I kept him in my eye most of the night, and am very sure he did not. If the little romance I wove out of it was not a true one, it was not because the material was improbable.

As I was looking still at the quadrille dancing before the queen, Dr. Bowring took my arm and proposed a stroll through the other apartments. I found that the immense crowd in the Salle des Marechals was but about one fifth of the assembly. We passed through hall after hall, with music and dancing in each, all crowded and gay alike, till we came at last to the Salle du Tróne where the old men were collected at card-tables and in groups for conversation. My distinguished companion was of the greatest use to me here, for he knew everybody, and there was scarce a person in the room who did not strongly excite my curiosity. One half of them at least were maimed; some without arms, and some with wooden legs, and faces scarred and weather-burnt, but all in full uniform, and nearly all with three or four orders of honor on the breast. You would have held your breath to have heard the recapitulation of their names. At one table sat Marshal Grouchy and General Excelmans; in a corner stood Marshal Soult, conversing with a knot of peers of France; and in the window nearest the door, General Bernard, our country's friend and citizen, was earnestly engaged in talking to a group of distinguished-looking men, two of whom, my companion said, were members of the chamber of deputies. We stood a moment, and a circle was immediately formed around Dr. Bowring, who is a great favorite among the literary and liberal people of France. The celebrated General Fabvier came up among others, and Cousin the poet. Fabvier, as you know, held a chief command in Greece, and was elected governor of Paris pro tem. after the "three days." He is a very remarkable-looking man, with a head almost exactly resembling that of the bust of Socrates. The engravings give him a more animated and warlike expression than he wears in private. Cousin is a mild, retired-looking man, and was one of the very few persons present not in the court uniform. Among so many hundred coats embroidered with gold, his plain black dress looked singularly simple and poet-like.

I left the diplomatist-poet conversing with his friends, and went back to the dancing rooms. Music and female beauty are more attractive metal than disabled generals playing at cards; and encountering in my way an attaché to the American legation, I inquired about one or two faces that interested me, and collecting information enough to pass through the courtesies of a dance, I found a partner and gave myself up, like the rest, to amusement.

Supper was served at two, and a more splendid affair could not be conceived. A long and magnificent hall on the other side of the Salle du Tróne was set with tables, covered with everything that France could afford, in the royal services of gold and silver, and in the greatest profusion. There was room enough for all the immense assemblage, and when the queen was seated with her daughters and ladies of honor, the company sat down and all was as quiet and well regulated as a dinner party of four.

After supper the dancing was resumed, and the queen remained till three o'clock. At her departure the band played cotillons or waltzes with figures, in which the Duke of Orleans displayed the grace for which he is celebrated, and at four, quite exhausted with fatigue and heat, I went with a friend or two into the long glass verandah, built by Napoleon as a promenade for the Empress Maria Louisa during her illness, where tea, coffee, and ices were served to those who wished them after supper. It was an interesting place enough, and had my eyes and limbs ached less, I should have liked to walk up and down, and muse a little upon its recollections, but swallowing my tea as hastily as possible, I was but too happy to make my escape and get home to bed.

LETTER XVIII.

CHOLERA—UNIVERSAL TERROR—FLIGHT OF THE INHABITANTS—CASES WITHIN THE WALLS OF THE PALACE—DIFFICULTY OF ESCAPE—DESERTED STREETS—CASES NOT REPORTED—DRYNESS OF THE ATMOSPHERE—PREVENTIVES RECOMMENDED—PUBLIC BATHS, ETC.

Cholera! Cholera! It is now the only topic. There is no other interest—no other dread—no other occupation, for Paris. The invitations for parties are at last recalled—the theatres are at last shut or languishing—the fearless are beginning to be afraid—people walk the streets with camphor bags and vinaigrettes at their nostrils—there is a universal terror in all classes, and a general flight of all who can afford to get away. I never saw a people so engrossed with one single and constant thought. The waiter brought my breakfast this morning with a pale face, and an apprehensive question, whether I was quite well. I sent to my boot-maker yesterday, and he was dead. I called on a friend, a Hanoverian, one of those broad-chested, florid, immortal-looking men, of whose health for fifty years, violence apart, one is absolutely certain, and he was at death's door with the cholera. Poor fellow! He had fought all through the revolution in Greece; he had slept in rain and cold, under the open sky, many a night, through a ten years' pursuit of the profession of a soldier of fortune, living one of the most remarkable lives, hitherto, of which I ever heard, and to be taken down here in the midst of ease and pleasure, reduced to a shadow with so vulgar and unwarlike a disease as this, was quite too much for his philosophy. He had been ill three days when I found him. He was emaciated to a skeleton in that short time, weak and helpless, and, though he is not a man to exaggerate suffering, he said he never had conceived such intense agony as he had endured. He assured me, that if he recovered, and should ever be attacked with it again, he would blow out his brains at the first symptom. Nothing but his iron constitution protracted the disorder. Most people who are attacked die in from three to twenty-four hours.

For myself, I have felt and still feel quite safe. My rooms are in the airiest quarter of Paris, facing the gardens of the Tuileries, with windows overlooking the king's; and, as far as air is concerned, if his majesty considers himself well situated, it would be quite ridiculous in so insignificant a person as myself to be alarmed. With absolute health, confident spirits, and tolerably regular habits, I have usually thought one may defy almost anything but love or a bullet. To-day, however, there have been, they say, two cases within the palace-walls, members of the royal household, and Casimir Perier, who probably lives well and has enough to occupy his mind, is very low with it, and one cannot help feeling that he has no certain exemption, when a disease has touched both above and below him. I went to-day to the Messagerie to engage my place for Marseilles, on the way to Italy, but the seats are all taken, in both mail-post and diligence, for a fortnight to come, and, as there are no extras in France, one must wait his turn. Having done my duty to myself by the inquiry, I shall be content to remain quiet.

I have just returned from a social tea-party at a house of one of the few English families left in Paris. It is but a little after ten, and the streets, as I came along, were as deserted and still as if it were a city of the dead. Usually, until four or five in the morning, the same streets are thronged with carriages hurrying to and fro, and always till midnight the trottoirs are crowded with promenaders. To-night I scarce met a foot-passenger, and but one solitary cabriolet in a walk of a mile. The contrast was really impressive. The moon was nearly full, and high in the heavens, and the sky absolutely without a trace of a cloud; nothing interrupted the full broad light of the moon, and the empty streets were almost as bright as at noon-day; and, as I crossed the Place Vendome, I could hear, for the first time since I have been in Paris, though I have passed it at every hour of the night, the echo of my footsteps reverberated from the walls around. You should have been in these crowded cities of Europe to realize the impressive solemnity of such solitude.

It is said that fifty thousand people have left Paris within the past week. Adding this to the thousand a day who are struck with the cholera, and the attendance necessary to the sick, and a thinned population is sufficiently accounted for. There are, however, hundreds ill of this frightful disease, whose cases are not reported. It is only those who are taken to the hospitals, the poor and destitute, who are numbered in the official statements. The physicians are wearied out with their private practice. The medical lectures are suspended, and a regular physician is hardly to be had at all. There is scarce a house in which some one has not been taken. You see biers and litters issuing from almost every gate, and the better ranks are no longer spared. A sister of the premier, M. Perier, died yesterday; and it was reported at the Bourse, that several distinguished persons, who have been ill of it, are also dead. No one feels safe; and the consternation and dread on every countenance you meet, is enough to chill one's very blood. I went out to-day for a little exercise, not feeling very well, and I was glad to get home again. Every creature looks stricken with a mortal fear. And this among a French population, the gayest and merriest of people under all depressions ordinarily, is too strong a contrast not to be felt painfully. There is something singular in the air, too; a disagreeable, depressing dryness, which the physicians say must change, or all Paris will be struck with the plague. It is clear and cold, but almost suffocating with dryness.

It is very consoling in the midst of so much that is depressing, that the preventives recommended against the cholera are so agreeable. "Live well," say the doctors, "and bathe often. Abstain from excesses, keep a clear head and good spirits, and amuse yourself as much and as rationally as possible." It is a very excellent recipe for happiness, let alone the cholera. There is great room for a nice observance of this system in Paris, particularly the eating and bathing. The baths are delightful. You are received in handsome saloons, opening upon a garden in the centre of the building, ornamented with statues and fountains, the journals lying upon the sofas, and everything arranged with quite the luxury of a palace. The bathing-rooms are furnished with taste; the baths are of marble, and covered inside with spotlessly white linen cloths; the water is perfumed, and you may lie and take your coffee, or have your breakfast served upon the mahogany cover which shuts you in—a union of luxuries which is enough to enervate a cynic. When you are ready to come out, a pull of the bell brings a servant, who gives you a peignoir—a long linen wrapper, heated in an oven, in the warm folds of which you are enveloped, and in three minutes are quite dry. In this you may sit, at your ease, reading, or musing, or lie upon the sofa without the restraint of a tight dress, till you are ready to depart; and then four or five francs, something less than a dollar, pays for all.

LETTER XIX.

MORNING VIEW FROM THE RUE RIVOLI—THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE—GUICCIOLI—SISMONDI THE HISTORIAN, ETC.

It is now the middle of April, and, sitting at my window on the Rue Rivoli, I look through one of the long, clipped avenues of the Tuileries, and see an arch of green leaves, the sun of eight o'clock in the morning just breaking through the thin foliage and dappling the straight, even gravel-walk below, with a look of summer that makes my heart leap. The cholera has put an end to dissipation, and one gets up early, from necessity. It is delicious to step out before breakfast, and cross the street into those lovely gardens, for an hour or two of fresh air and reflection. It is warm enough now to sit on the stone benches about the fountains, by the time the dew is dry; and I know nothing so contemplative as the occupation of watching these royal swans, in the dreamy, almost imperceptible motion with which they glide around the edges of the basins. The gold fish swim up and circle about the breast of the imperial birds with a motion almost as idle; and the old wooden-legged soldier, who has been made warden of the gardens for his service, sits nodding on one of the chairs, or drawing fortifications with his stick in the gravel; and so it happens, that, in the midst of a gay and busy city one may feel always a luxurious solitude; and, be he ever so poor, loiter all day if he will, among scenes which only regal munificence could provide for him. With the Seine bounding them on one side, the splendid uniform façade of the Rue Rivoli on the other, the palace stretching across the southern terrace, and the thick woods of the Champs Elysées at the opposite gate, where could one go in the world to give his taste or his eye a more costly or delightful satisfaction?

The Bois de Boulogne, about which the Parisians talk so much, is less to my taste. It is a level wood of small trees, covering a mile or two square, and cut from corner to corner with straight roads for driving. The soil is sandy, and the grass grows only in tufts, the walks are rough, and either muddy or dusty always; and, barring the equipages and the pleasure of a word in passing an acquaintance, I find a drive to this famous wood rather a dull business. I want either one thing or the other—cultivated grounds like the Tuileries, or the wild wood.

I have just left the Countess Guiccioli, with whom I have been acquainted for some two or three weeks. She is very much frightened at the cholera, and thinks of going to America. The conversation turned principally upon Shelley, whom of course she knew intimately; and she gave me one of his letters to herself as an autograph. She says at times he was a little crazy—"fou," as she expressed it—but that there never was a nobler or a better man. Lord Byron, she says, loved him like a brother. She is still in correspondence with Shelley's wife, of whom also she speaks with the greatest affection. There were several miniatures of Byron hanging up in the room, and I asked her if any of them were perfect in the resemblance. "No," she said, "this was the most like him," taking down an exquisitely-finished miniature by an Italian artist, "mais il etaît beaucoup plus beau—beaucoup! beaucoup!" She reiterated the word with a very touching tenderness, and continued to look at the picture for some time, either forgetting our presence, or affecting it. She speaks English sweetly, with a soft, slow, honeyed accent, breaking into French when ever she gets too much interested to choose her words. She went on talking in French of the painters who had drawn Byron, and said the American, West's was the best likeness. I did not like to tell her that West's picture of herself was excessively flattered. I am sure no one would know her from the engraving of it, at least. Her cheek bones are high, her forehead is badly shaped, and, altogether, the frame of her features is decidedly ugly. She dresses in the worst taste, too, and yet, with all this, and poetry and celebrity aside, the Countess Guiccioli is both a lovely and a fascinating woman, and one whom a man of sentiment would admire, even at this age, very sincerely, but not for beauty. She has white and regular teeth, however, and her hair is incomparably the most beautiful I ever saw. It is of the richest and glossiest gold, silken and luxuriant, and changes, as the light falls upon it, with a mellow softness, than which nothing could be lovelier. It is this and her indescribably winning manner which are lost in a picture, and therefore, it is perhaps fair that she should be otherwise flattered. Her drawing-room is one of the most agreeable in Paris at present, and is one of the chief agrémens which console me for a detention in an atmosphere so triste as well as dangerous.

My bed-room window opens upon the court in the interior of the hotel Rivoli, in which I lodge. In looking out occasionally upon my very near neighbors opposite, I have frequently observed a gray-headed, scholar-like, fine-looking old man, writing at a window in the story below. One does not trouble himself much about his fellow-lodgers, and I had seen this gentleman at his work at all hours, for a month or more, without curiosity enough to inquire even his name. This morning the servant came in, with a Mon Dieu! and said M. Sismondi was frightened by the cholera, and was leaving his lodgings at that moment. The name startled me, and making some inquiries, I found that my gray-headed neighbor was no other than the celebrated historian of Italian literature, and that I had been living under the same roof with him for weeks, and watching him at his classical labors, without being at all aware of the honor of his neighborhood. He is a kind, benevolent-looking man, of about sixty, I should think; and always had a peculiarly affectionate manner to his wife, who, I am told by the valet, is an Englishwoman. I regretted exceedingly the opportunity I had lost of knowing him, for there are few writers of whom one retains a more friendly and agreeable remembrance.

In a conversation with Mr. Cooper, the other day he was remarking of how little consequence any one individual found himself in Paris, even the most distinguished. We were walking in the Tuileries, and the remark was elicited by my pointing out to him one or two celebrated persons, whose names are sufficiently known, but who walk the public promenades, quite unnoticed and unrecognised. He said he did not think there were five people in Paris who knew him at sight, though his works were advertised in all the bookstores, and he had lived in Paris one or two years, and walked there constantly. This was putting a strong case, for the French idolize Cooper; and the peculiarly translateable character of his works makes them read even better in a good translation than in the original. It is so all over the continent, I am told. The Germans, Italians, and Spaniards, prefer Cooper to Scott; and it is easily accounted for when one remembers how much of the beauty of the Waverly novels depends on their exquisite style, and how peculiarly Cooper's excellence lies in his accurate, definite, tangible descriptions. There is not a more admired author in Europe than Cooper, it is very certain; and I am daily asked whether he is in America at present—so little do the people of these crowded cities interest themselves about that which is immediately at their elbows.

LETTER XX.

GENERAL BERTRAND—FRIEND OF LADY MORGAN—PHRENOLOGY—DR. SPURZHEIM—HIS LODGINGS—PROCESS OF TAKING A CAST OF THE HEAD—INCARCERATION OF DR. BOWRING AND DE POTTER—DAVID THE SCULPTOR—VISIT OF DR. SPURZHEIM TO THE UNITED STATES.

My room-mate called a day or two since on General Bertrand, and yesterday he returned the visit, and spent an hour at our lodgings. He talked of Napoleon with difficulty, and became very much affected when my friend made some inquiries about the safety of the body at St. Helena. The inquiry was suggested by some notice we had seen in the papers of an attempt to rob the tomb of Washington. The General said that the vault was fifteen feet deep, and covered by a slab that could not be moved without machinery. He told us that Madame Bertrand had many mementoes of the Emperor, which she would be happy to show us, and we promised to visit him.

At a party, a night or two since, I fell into conversation with an English lady, who had lived several years in Dublin, and was an intimate friend of Lady Morgan. She was an uncommonly fine woman, both in appearance and conversational powers, and told me many anecdotes of the authoress, defending her from all the charges usually made against her, except that of vanity, which she allowed. I received, on the whole, the impression that Lady Morgan's goodness of heart was more than an offset to her certainly very innocent weaknesses. My companion was much amused at an American's asking after the "fender in Kildare street;" though she half withdrew her cordiality when I told her I knew the countryman of mine who wrote the account of Lady Morgan, of which she complains so bitterly in the "Book of the Boudoir." It was this lady with whom the fair authoress "dined in the Chaussée d'Antin," so much to her satisfaction.

While we were conversing, the lady's husband came up, and finding that I was an American, made some inquiries about the progress of phrenology on the other side of the water. Like most enthusiasts in the science, his own head was a remarkably beautiful one; and I soon found that he was the bosom friend of Dr. Spurzheim, to whom he offered to introduce me. We made an engagement for the next day, and the party separated.

My new acquaintance called on me the next morning, according to appointment, and we went together to Dr. Spurzheim's residence. The passage at the entrance was lined with cases, in which stood plaster casts of the heads of distinguished men, orators, poets, musicians—each class on its particular shelf—making altogether a most ghastly company. The doctor received my companion with great cordiality, addressing him in French, and changing to very good German-English when he made any observation to me. He is a tall, large-boned man, and resembles Harding, the American artist, very strikingly. His head is finely marked; his features are bold, with rather a German look; and his voice is particularly winning, and changes its modulations, in argument, from the deep, earnest tone of a man, to an almost child-like softness. The conversation soon turned upon America, and the doctor expressed, in ardent terms, his desire to visit the United States, and said he had thought of accomplishing it the coming summer. He spoke of Dr. Channing—said he had read all his works with avidity and delight, and considered him one of the clearest and most expansive minds of the age. If Dr. Channing had not strong developments of the organs of ideality and benevolence, he said, he should doubt his theory more than he had ever found reason to. He knew Webster and Professor Silliman by reputation, and seemed to be familiar with our country, as few men in Europe are. One naturally, on meeting a distinguished phrenologist, wishes to have his own developments pronounced upon; but I had been warned by my friend that Dr. Spurzheim refused such examinations as a general principle, not wishing to deceive people, and unwilling to run the risk of offending them. After a half hour's conversation, however, he came across the room, and putting his hands under my thick masses of hair, felt my head closely all over, and mentioned at once a quality, which, right or wrong, has given a tendency to all my pursuits in life. As he knew absolutely nothing of me, and the gentleman who introduced me knew no more, I was a little startled. The doctor then requested me to submit to the operation of having a cast taken of my head, an offer which was too kind and particular to be declined; and, appointing an hour to be at his rooms the following day, we left him.

I was there again at twelve, the morning after, and found De Potter (the Belgian patriot) and Dr. Bowring, with the phrenologist, waiting to undergo the same operation. The preparations looked very formidable, A frame, of the length of the human body, lay in the middle of the room, with a wooden bowl to receive the head, a mattress, and a long white dress to prevent stain to the clothes. As I was the youngest, I took my turn first. It was very like a preparation for being beheaded. My neck was bared, my hair cut, and the long white dress put on. The back of the head is taken first; and, as I was only immersed up to the ears in the liquid plaster, this was not very alarming. The second part, however, demanded more patience. My head was put once more into the stiffened mould of the first half, and as soon as I could get my features composed I was ordered to shut my eyes; my hair was oiled and laid smooth, and the liquid plaster poured slowly over my mouth, eyes, and forehead, till I was cased completely in a stiffening mask. The material was then poured on thickly, till the mask was two or three inches thick, and the voices of those standing over me were scarcely audible. I breathed pretty freely through the orifices at my nose; but the dangerous experiment of Mademoiselle Sontag, who was nearly smothered in the same operation, came across my mind rather vividly; and it seemed to me that the doctor handled the plaster quite too ungingerly, when he came to mould about my nostrils. After a half hour's imprisonment, the plaster became sufficiently hardened, and the thread which was laid upon my face was drawn through, dividing the mask into two parts. It was then gradually removed, pulling very tenaciously upon my eyelashes and eyebrows, and leaving all the cavities of my face filled with particles of lime. The process is a tribute to vanity, which one would not be willing to pay very often.

I looked on at Dr. Bowring's incarceration with no great feeling of relief. It is rather worse to see than to experience, I think. The poet is a nervous man; and as long as the muscles of his face were visible, his lips, eyelids, and mouth, were quivering so violently that I scarcely believed it would be possible to get an impression of them. He has a beautiful face for a scholar—clear, well-cut, finished features, expressive of great purity of thought; and a forehead of noble amplitude, white and polished as marble. His hair is black and curling (indicating in most cases, as Dr. Spurzheim remarked, activity of mind), and forms a classical relief to his handsome temples. Altogether, his head would look well in a picture, though his ordinary and ungraceful dress, and quick, bustling manner, rather destroy the effect of it in society.

De Potter is one of the noblest-looking men I ever saw. He is quite bald, with a broad, ample, majestic head, the very model of dignity and intellect. Dr. Spurzheim considers his head one of the most extraordinary he has met. Firmness is the great development of its organs. His tone and manner are calm and very impressive, and he looks made for great occasions—a man stamped with the superiority which others acknowledge when circumstances demand it. He employs himself in literary pursuits at Paris, and has just published a pamphlet on "the manner of conducting a revolution, so that no after-revolution shall be necessary." I have translated the title awkwardly, but that is the subject.

I have since heard Dr. Spurzheim lecture twice, and have been with him to a meeting of the "Anthropological Society" (of which he is the president and De Potter the secretary), where I witnessed the dissection of the human brain. It was a most interesting and satisfactory experiment, as an illustration of phrenology. David the sculptor is a member of the society, and was present. He looks more like a soldier than an artist, however—wearing the cross of the Legion of Honor, with a military frock coat, and an erect, stern, military carriage. Spurzheim lectures in a free, easy, unconstrained style, with occasionally a little humor, and draws his arguments from admitted facts only. Nothing could be more reasonable than his premises, and nothing more like an axiom than the results, as far as I have heard him. At any rate, true or false, his theory is one of extreme interest, and no time can be wasted in examining it; for it is the study of man, and therefore the most important of studies.

I have had several long conversations with Dr. Spurzheim about America, and have at last obtained his positive assurance that he would visit it. He gave me permission this morning to say (what I am sure all lovers of knowledge will be pleased to hear) that he should sail for New York in the course of the ensuing summer, and pass a year or more in lecturing and travelling in the United States. He is a man to obtain the immediate confidence and respect of a people like ours, of the highest moral worth, and the most candid and open mind.

LETTER XXI.

DEPARTURE FROM PARIS—DESULTORY REMARKS.

I take my departure from Paris to-morrow. I have just been making preparations to pack, and it has given me a fit of bad spirits. I have been in France only a few months, but if I had lived my life here, I could not be more at home. In my almost universal acquaintance, I have of course made pleasant friends, and, however time and travel should make us indifferent to such volant attachments, I can not now cast off these threads of intimacy, without pulling a little upon very sincere feelings. I have been burning the mass of papers and cards that have accumulated in my drawers; and the sight of these French invitations, mementoes, as they are, of delightful and fascinating hours, almost staggers my resolution of departure. It has been an intoxicating time to me. Aside from lighter attractions, this metropolis collects within itself so much of the distinction and genius of the world; and gifted men in Paris, coming here merely for pleasure, are so peculiarly accessible, that one looks upon them as friends to whom he has become attached and accustomed, and leaves the sphere in which he has met them, as if he had been a part of it, and had a right to be regretted. I do not think I shall ever spend so pleasant a winter again. And then my local interest is not a light one. I am a great lover of out-of-doors, and I have ransacked Paris thoroughly. I know it all from its broad faubourgs to its obscurest cul de sac. I have hunted with antiquaries for coins and old armor; with lovers of adventure for the amusing and odd; with the curious for traces of history; with the romantic for the picturesque. Paris is a world for research. It contains more odd places, I believe, more odd people, and every way more material for uncommon amusement, than any other city in the universe. One might live a life of novelty without crossing the barrier. All this insensibly attaches one. My eye wanders at this moment from my paper to these lovely gardens lying beneath my window, and I could not feel more regret if they were mine. Just over the long line of low clipped trees, edging the fashionable terrace, I see the windows of the king within half a stone's throw—the windows at which Napoleon has stood, and the long line of the monarchs of France, and it has become to me so much a habit of thought, sitting here in the twilight and musing on the thousand, thousand things linked with the spot my eye embraces, that I feel as if I had grown to it—as if Paris had become to me, what it is proverbially and naturally enough to a Frenchman—"the world."

I have other associations which I part from less painfully, because I hope at some future time to renew them—those with my own countrymen. There are few pleasanter circles than that of the Americans in Paris. Lafayette and his numerous family make a part of them. I could not learn to love this good man more, but seeing him often brings one's reverence more within the limits of the affections; and I consider the little of his attention that has fallen to my share the honored part of my life, and the part best worth recording and remembering. He called upon me a day or two ago, to leave with me some copies of a translation of Mr. Cooper's letter on the finances of our government, to be sent to my friend Dr. Howe; but, to my regret, I did not see him. He neglects no American, and is ever busied about some project connected with their welfare. May God continue to bless him!

And speaking of Mr. Cooper, no one who loves or owns a pride in his native land, can live abroad without feeling every day what we owe to the patriotism as well as the genius of this gifted man. If there is an individual who loves the soil that gave him birth, and so shows it that we are more respected for it, it is he. Mr. Cooper's position is a high one; he has great advantages, and he improves them to the uttermost. His benevolence and activity in all enterprises for the relief of suffering, give him influence, and he employs it like a true philanthropist and a real lover of his country. I say this particularly, though it may look like too personal a remark, because Americans abroad are not always national. I am often mortified by reproaches from foreigners, quoting admissions made by my countrymen, which should be the last on their lips. A very distinguished person told me a day or two since, that "the Americans abroad were the worst enemies we had in Europe." It is difficult to conceive at home how such a remark stings. Proportionately, one takes a true patriot to his heart and I feel it right to say here, that the love of country and active benevolence of Mr. Cooper distinguish him abroad, even more than his genius. His house is one of the most hospitable and agreeable in Paris; and with Morse and the circle of artists and men of distinction and worth about him, he is an acquaintance sincerely to regret leaving.

From Mr. Rives, our Minister, I have received every possible kindness. He has attached me to his legation, to facilitate my access to other courts and the society of other cities, and to free me from all delays and annoyances at frontiers and custom-houses. It is a particular and valuable kindness, and I feel a pleasure in acknowledging it. Then there is Dr. Bowring, the lover and defender of the United States, who, as the editor of the Westminster Review, should be well remembered in America, and of him I have seen much, and from him I have received great kindness. Altogether, as I said before, Paris is a home to me, and I leave it with a heavy heart.

I have taken a place on the top of the diligence for a week. It is a long while to occupy one seat, but the weather and the season are delicious; and in the covered and roomy cabriolet, with the conducteur for a living reference, and all the appliances for comfort, I expect to live very pleasantly, night and day, till I reach Marseilles. Vaucluse is on the way, and I shall visit it if I have time and good weather, perhaps. At Marseilles I propose to take the steamboat for Leghorn, and thence get directly to Florence, where I shall remain till I become familiar with the Italian, at least. I lay down my pen till all this plan of travel is accomplished, and so, for the present, adieu!

LETTER XXII.

Chalons, on the saone.—I have broken my route to stop at this pretty town, and take the steamboat which goes down the Saone to Lyons to-morrow morning. I have travelled two days and nights; but an excellent dinner and a quickened imagination indispose me for sleep, and, for want of better amusement in a strange city at night, I will pass away an hour in transcribing the hurried notes I have made at the stopping places.

I chose, by advice, the part of the diligence called the banquette—a covered seat over the front of the carriage, commanding all the view, and free from the dust of the lower apartments. The conducteur had the opposite corner, and a very ordinary-looking man sat between us; the seat holding three very comfortably. A lady and two gentlemen occupied the coupé; a dragoon and his family, going to join his regiment, filled the rotonde; and in the interior was a motley collection, whom I scarce saw after starting; the occupants of the different parts of a diligence having no more association, even in a week's travel, than people living in adjoining houses in the city.

We rolled out of Paris by the faubourg St. Antoine, and at the end of the first post passed the first object that interested me—a small brick pavilion, built by Henri Quatre for the beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrees. It stands on a dull, level plain, not far from the banks of the river; and nothing but the fact that it was once occupied by the woman who most enslaved the heart of the most chivalrous and fickle of the French monarchs, would call your attention to it for a moment.

For the twenty or thirty miles which we travelled by daylight, I saw nothing particularly curious or beautiful. The guide-book is very diffuse upon the chateaux and villages on the road, but I saw nothing except very ordinary country-houses, and the same succession of small and dirty villages, steeped to the very chimneys in poverty. If ever I return to America, I shall make a journey to the west, for the pure refreshment of seeing industry and thrift. I am sick to the heart of pauperism and misery. Everything that is near the large towns in France is either splendid or disgusting. There is no medium in condition—nothing that looks like content—none of that class we define in our country as the "respectable."

The moon was a little in the wane, but bright, and the night lovely. As we got further into the interior, the towns began to look more picturesque and antique; and, with the softening touch of the moonlight, and the absence of beggars, the old low-browed buildings and half-ruined churches assumed the beauty they wear in description. I slept on the road, but the echo of the wheels in entering a post-town woke me always; and I rarely have felt the picturesque more keenly than, at these sudden wakings from dreams, perhaps, of familiar things, finding myself opposite some shadowy relic of another age; as if it were by magical transportation, from the fireside to some place of which I had heard or read the history.

I awoke as we drove into Sens at broad daylight. We were just passing a glorious old pile of a cathedral, which I ran back to see while the diligence stopped to change horses. It is of pointed architecture, black with age, and crusted with moss. It was to this town that Thomas a Becket retired in disgrace at his difference with Henry the Second. There is a chapel in the cathedral, dedicated to his memory. The French certainly should have the credit of leaving things alone. This old pile stands as if the town in which it is built had been desolate for centuries: not a letter of the old sculptures chiselled out, not a bird unnested, not a filament of the gathering moss pulled away. All looks as if no human hand had been near it—almost as if no human eye had looked upon it. In America they would paint such an old church white or red, shove down the pillars, and put up pews, sell the pictures for fireboards, and cover the tesselated pavement with sand, or a home-made carpet.

As we passed under a very ancient gate, crowning the old Roman ramparts of the town, a door opened, and a baker, in white cap and apron, thrust out his head to see us pass. His oven was blazing bright, and he had just taken out a batch of hot bread, which was smoking on the table; and what with the chill of the morning air and having fasted for some fourteen hours, I quite envied him his vocation. The diligence, however, pushed on most mercilessly till twelve o'clock, the French never dreaming of eating before their late dejeuner—a mid-day meal always. When we did get it, it was a dinner in every respect—meats of all kinds, wine, and dessert, certainly as solid and various as any of the American breakfasts, at which travellers laugh so universally.

Auxerre is a pretty town, on a swelling bank of the river Yonne; and I had admired it as one of the most improved-looking villages of France. It was not till I had breakfasted there, and travelled a league or two towards Chalons, that I discovered by the guide book it was the ancient capital of Auxerrois, a famous town in the time of Julius Cæsar, and had the honor of being ravaged "at different times by Attila, the Saracens, the Normans, and the Calvinists, vestiges of whose devastations may still be seen." If I had not eaten of a positively modern paté foie gras, and an omelette soufflé, at a nice little hotel, with a mistress in a cap, and a coquettish French apron, I should forgive myself less easily for not having detected antiquity in the atmosphere. One imagines more readily than he realizes the charm of mere age without beauty.

We were now in the province of Burgundy, and, to say nothing of the historical recollections, the vineyards were all about us that delighted the palates of the world. One does not dine at the Trois Fréres, in the Palais Royal, without contracting a tenderness for the very name of Burgundy. I regretted that I was not there in the season of the grape. The vines were just budding, and the paysans, men and women, were scattered over the vineyards, loosening the earth about the roots, and driving stakes to support the young shoots. At Saint Bris I found the country so lovely, that I left the diligence at the post-house, and walked on to mount a long succession of hills on foot. The road sides were quite blue with the violets growing thickly among the grass, and the air was filled with perfume. I soon got out of sight of the heavy vehicle, and made use of my leisure to enter the vineyards and talk to the people at their work. I found one old man, with all his family about him; the little ones with long baskets on their backs, bringing manure, and one or two grown-up boys and girls raking up the earth with the unhandy hoe of the country, and setting it firmly around the roots with their wooden shoes. It was a pretty group, and I was very much amused with their simplicity. The old man asked my country, and set down his hoe in astonishment when I told him I was an American. He wondered I was not more burnt, living in such a hot country, and asked me what language we spoke. I could scarce get away from his civilities when I bade him "Good day." No politeness could have been more elegant than the manner and expression of this old peasant, and certainly nothing could have appeared sincerer or kinder. I kept on up the hill till I reached a very high point, passing on my way a troop of Italians, going to Paris with their organs and shows—a set of as ragged specimens of the picturesque as I ever saw in a picture. A lovely scene lay before me when I turned to look back. The valley, on one side of which lies St. Bris, is as round as a bowl, with an edge of mountain-tops absolutely even all around the horizon. It slopes down from every side to the centre, as if it had been measured and hollowed by art; and there is not a fence to be seen from one side to the other, and scarcely a tree, but one green and almost unbroken carpet of verdure, swelling up in broad green slopes to the top, and realizing, with a slight difference, the similitude of Madame de Genlis, of the place of satiety, eternal green meadow and eternal blue sky. St. Bris is a little handful of stone buildings around an old church; just such a thing as a painter would throw into a picture—and the different-colored grain, and here and there a ploughed patch of rich yellow earth, and the road crossing the hollow from hill to hill like a white band; and then for the life of the scene, the group of Italians, the cumbrous diligence, and the peasants in their broad straw hats, scattered over the fields—it was something quite beyond my usual experience of scenery and accident. I had rarely before found so much in one view to delight me.

After looking a while, I mounted again, and stood on the very top of the hill; and, to my surprise, there, on the other side lay just such another valley, with just such a village in its bosom, and the single improvement of a river—the Yonne stealing through it, with its riband-like stream; but all the rest of the valley almost exactly as I have described the other. I crossed a vineyard to get a view to the southeast, and once more there lay a deep hollow valley before me, formed like the other two, with its little hamlet and its vineyards and mountains—as if there had been three lakes in the hills, with their edges touching like three bowls, and the terrace on which I stood was the platform between them. It is a most singular formation of country, really, and as beautiful as it is singular. Each of these valleys might be ten miles across; and if the dukes of Burgundy in feudal times rode ever to St. Bris, I can conceive that their dukedom never seemed larger to them than when crossing this triple apex of highland.

At Saulieu we left the usual route, and crossed over to Chagny. Between these two places lay a spot, which, out of my own country, I should choose before all others for a retreat from the world. As it was off the route, the guide-book gave me not even the name, and I have discovered nothing but that the little hamlet is called Rochepot. It is a little nest of wild scenery, a mimic valley shut in by high overhanging crags, with the ruins of a battlemented and noble old castle, standing upon a rock in the centre, with the village of some hundred stone cottages at its very foot. You might stand on the towers of the ruins, and toss a biscuit into almost every chimney in the village. The strong round towers are still perfect, and the turrets and loop-holes and windows are still there; and rank green vines have overrun the whole mass everywhere; and nothing but the prodigious solidity with which it was built could have kept it so long from falling, for it is evidently one of the oldest castles in Burgundy. I never before saw anything, even in a picture, which realized perfectly my idea of feudal position. Here lived the lord of the domain, a hundred feet in the air in his rocky castle, right over the heads of his retainers, with the power to call in every soul that served him at a minute's warning, and with a single blast of his trumpet. I do not believe a stone has been displaced in the village for a hundred years. The whole thing was redolent of antiquity. We wound out of the place by a sharp narrow pass, and there, within a mile of this old and deserted fortress, lay the broad plains of Beaune and Chagny—one of the most fertile and luxurious parts of France. I was charmed altogether. How many things I have seen this side the water that I have made an involuntary vow in my heart to visit again, and at more leisure, before I die!

From Chagny it was but one post to Chalons, and here I am in a pretty, busy town, with broad beautiful quays, where I have promenaded till dark, observing this out-of-doors people; and now, having written a long letter for a sleepy man, I will get to bed, and redeem some portion of my two nights' wakefulness.

LETTER XXIII.

PASSAGE DOWN THE SAONE—AN ODD ACQUAINTANCE—LYONS—CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME DE FOURVIERES—VIEW FROM THE TOWER.

I looked out of my window the last thing before going to bed at Chalons, and the familiar constellation of Ursa Major never shone brighter, and never made me a more agreeable promise than that of fair weather the following day for my passage down the Saone. I was called at four, and it rained in torrents. The steamboat was smaller than the smallest I have seen in our country, and crowded to suffocation with children, women, and lap-dogs. I appropriated my own trunk, and spreading my umbrella, sat down upon it, to endure my disappointment with what philosophy I might. A dirty-looking fellow, who must have slept in his clothes for a month, came up, with a loaf of coarse bread under his arm, and addressed me, to my sufficient astonishment, in Latin! He wanted to sit under my umbrella. I looked at him a second time, but he had touched my passion. Latin is the only thing I have been driven to, in this world, that I ever really loved; and the clear, mellow, unctuous pronunciation of my dirty companion equally astonished and pleased me. I made room for him on my trunk, and, though rusted somewhat since I philosophized over Lucretius, we got on very tolerably. He was a German student, travelling to Italy, and a fine specimen of the class. A dirtier man I never saw, and hardly a finer or more intellectual face. He knew everything, and served me as a talking guide to the history of all the places on the river.

Instead of eating all at once, as we do on board the steamboats in America, the French boats have a restaurant, from which you order what you please, and at any hour. The cabin was set round with small tables, and the passengers made little parties, and breakfasted and dined at their own time. It is much the better method. I descended to the cabin very hungry about twelve o'clock, and was looking about for a place, when a French gentleman politely rose, and observing that I was alone, (my German friend living on bread and water only,) requested me to join his party at breakfast. Two young ladies and a lad of fourteen sat at the table, and addressing them by their familiar names, my polite friend requested them to give me a place; and then told me that they were his daughters and son, and that he was travelling to Italy for the health of the younger girl, a pale, slender creature, apparently about eighteen. I was very well pleased with my position, and rarely have passed an hour more agreeably. French girls of the better classes never talk, but the father was very communicative, and a Parisian, with the cross of the Legion of Honor, and we found abundance of matter for conversation. They have stopped at Lyons, where I write at present, and I shall probably join their party to Marseilles.

The clouds broke away after mid-day, and the banks of the river brightened wonderfully with the change. The Saone is about the size of the Mohawk, but not half so beautiful; at least for the greater part of its course. Indeed, you can hardly compare American with European rivers, for the charm is of another description, quite. With us it is nature only, here it is almost all art. Our rivers are lovely, because the outline of the shore is graceful, and particularly because the vegetation is luxuriant. The hills are green, the foliage deep and lavish, the rocks grown over with vines or moss, the mountains in the distance covered with pines and other forest-trees; everything is wild, and nothing looks bare or sterile. The rivers of France are crowned on every height with ruins, and in the bosom of every valley lies a cluster of picturesque stone cottages; but the fields are naked, and there are no trees; the mountains are barren and brown, and everything looks as if the dwellings had been deserted by the people, and nature had at the same time gone to decay. I can conceive nothing more melancholy than the views upon the Saone, seen, as I saw them, though vegetation is out everywhere, and the banks should be beautiful if ever. As we approached Lyons the river narrowed and grew bolder, and the last ten miles were enchanting. Naturally the shores at this part of the Saone are exceedingly like the highlands of the Hudson above West Point. Abrupt hills rise from the river's edge, and the windings are sharp and constant. But imagine the highlands of the Hudson crowned with antique chateaux, and covered to the very top with terraces and summer-houses and hanging-gardens, gravel walks and beds of flowers, instead of wild pines and precipices, and you may get a very correct idea of the Saone above Lyons. You emerge from one of the dark passes of the river by a sudden turn, and there before you lies this large city, built on both banks, at the foot and on the sides of mountains. The bridges are fine, and the broad, crowded quays, all along the edges of the river, have a beautiful effect. We landed at the stone stairs, and I selected a hotel by chance, where I have found seven Americans of my acquaintance. We have been spending the evening at the rooms of a townsman of mine, very pleasantly.

There is a great deal of magnificence at Lyons, in the way of quays, promenades, and buildings; but its excessive filthiness spoils everything. One could scarce admire a Venus in such an atmosphere; and you cannot find room to stand in Lyons where you have not some nauseating odor. I was glad to escape from the lower streets, and climb up the long staircases to the observatory that overhangs the town. From the base of this elevation the descent of the river is almost a precipice. The houses hang on the side of the steep hill, and their doors enter from the long alleys of stone staircases by which you ascend. On every step, and at almost every foot of the way, stood a beggar. They might have touched hands from the quay to the summit. If they were not such objects of real wretchedness, it would be laughable to hear the church calendar of saints repeated so volubly. The lame hobble after you, the blind stumble in your way, the sick lie and stretch out their hands from the wall, and all begin in the name of the Virgin Mary, and end with "Mon bon Monsieur," and "un petit sous." I confined my charities to a lovely child, that started out from its mother's lap, and ran down to meet us—a dirty and ragged little thing, but with the large dark eyes of the province; and a skin, where one could see it, of the clearest nut-brown teint. Her mother had five such, and each of them, to any one who loved children, would have been a treasure of beauty and interest.

It was holy-week, and the church of Notre Dame de Fourvières, which stands on the summit of the hill, was crowded with people. We went in for a moment, and sat down on a bench to rest. My companion was a Swiss captain of artillery, who was a passenger in the boat, a very splendid fellow, with a mustache that he might have tied behind his ears. He had addressed me at the hotel, and proposed that we should visit the curiosities of the town together. He was a model of a manly figure, athletic, and soldier-like, and standing near him was to get the focus of all the dark eyes in the congregation.

The new square tower stands at the side of the church, and rises to the height of perhaps sixty feet. The view from it is said to be one of the finest in the world. I have seen more extensive ones, but never one that comprehended more beauty and interest. Lyons lies at the foot, with the Saone winding through its bosom in abrupt curves; the Rhone comes down from the north on the other side of the range of mountains, and meeting the Saone in a broad stream below the town, they stretch off to the south, through a diversified landscape; the Alps rise from the east like the edges of a thunder-cloud, and the mountains of Savoy fill up the interval to the Rhone. All about the foot of the monument lie gardens, of exquisite cultivation; and above and below the city the villas of the rich; giving you altogether as delicious a nucleus for a broad circle of scenery as art and nature could create, and one sufficiently in contrast with the barrenness of the rocky circumference to enhance the charm, and content you with your position. Half way down the hill lies an old monastery, with a lovely garden walled in from the world; and several of the brotherhood were there, idling up and down the shaded alleys, with their black dresses sweeping the ground, possibly in holy contemplation. The river was covered with boats, the bells were ringing to church, the glorious old cathedral, so famous for its splendor, stood piled up, with its arches and gray towers, in the square below; the day was soft, sunny, and warm, and existence was a blessing. I leaned over the balustrade, I know not how long, looking down upon the scene about me; and I shall ever remember it as one of those few unalloyed moments, when the press of care was taken off my mind, and the chain of circumstances was strong enough to set aside both the past and the future, and leave me to the quiet enjoyment of the present. I have found such hours "few and far between."

LETTER XXIV.

DEPARTURE FROM LYONS—BATTEAUX DE POSTE—RIVER SCENERY—VILLAGE OF CONDRIEU—VIENNE—VALENCE—POINT ST. ESPRIT—DAUPHINY AND LANGUEDOC—DEMI-FETE DAY, ETC.

I found a day and a half quite enough for Lyons. The views from the mountain and the river were the only things that pleased me. I made the usual dry visit to the library and the museum, and admired the Hotel de Ville, and the new theatre, and the front of the Maison de Tolosan, that so struck the fancy of Joseph II., and having "despatched the lions," like a true cockney traveller, I was too happy to escape the offensive smells of the streets, and get to my rooms. One does not enjoy much comfort within doors either. Lyons is a great imitation metropolis—a sort of second-hand Paris. I am not very difficult to please, but I found the living intolerable. It was an affectation of abstruse cookery throughout. We sat down to what is called the best table in the place, and it was a series of ludicrous travesties, from the soup to the salad. One can eat well in the country, because the dishes are simple, and he gets the natural taste of things; but to come to a table covered with artificial dishes, which he has been accustomed to see in their perfection, and to taste and send away everything in disgust, is a trial of temper which is reserved for the traveller at Lyons.

The scenery on the river, from Lyons to Avignon, has great celebrity, and I had determined to take that course to the south. Just at this moment, however, the Rhone had been pronounced too low, and the steamboats were stopped. I probably made the last passage by steam on the Saone, for we ran aground repeatedly, and were compelled to wait till horses could be procured to draw the boat into deep water. It was quite amusing to see with what a regular, business-like air, the postillions fixed their traces to the prow, and whipped into the middle of the river. A small boat was my only resource, and I found a man on the quay who plied the river in what is called batteaux de poste, rough shallops with flat bottoms, which are sold for firewood on their arrival, the rapidity of the Rhone rendering a return against the current next to impossible. The sight of the frail contrivance in which I was to travel nearly two hundred miles, rather startled me, but the man assured me he had several other passengers, and two ladies among them. I paid the arrhes, or earnest money, and was at the river-stairs punctually at four the next morning.

To my very sincere pleasure the two ladies were the daughters of my polite friend and fellow passenger from Chalons. They were already on board, and the little shallop sat deep in the water with her freight. Besides these, there were two young French chasseurs going home on leave of absence, a pretty Parisian dress-maker flying from the cholera, a masculine woman, the wife of a dragoon, and my friend the captain. We pushed out into the current, and drifted slowly down under the bridges, without oars the padrone quietly smoking his pipe at the helm. In a few minutes we were below the town, and here commenced again the cultivated and ornamented banks I had so much admired on my approach to Lyons from the other side. The thin haze was just stirring from the river's surface, the sunrise flush was on the sky, the air was genial and impregnated with the smell of grass and flowers, and the little changing landscapes, as we followed the stream, broke upon us like a series of exquisite dioramas. The atmosphere was like Doughty's pictures, exactly. I wished a thousand times for that delightful artist, that he might see how richly the old chateaux and their picturesque appurtenances filled up the scene. It would have given a new turn to his pencil.

We soon arrived at the junction of the rivers, and, as we touched the rapid current of the Rhone, the little shallop yielded to its sway, and redoubled its velocity. The sun rose clear, the cultivation grew less and less, the hills began to look distant and barren, and our little party became sociable in proportion. We closed around the invalid, who sat wrapped in a cloak in the stern, leaning on her father's shoulder, and talked of Paris and its pleasures—a theme of which the French are never weary. Time passed delightfully. Without being decidedly pretty, our two Parisiennes were quiet-mannered and engaging; and the younger one particularly, whose pale face and deeply-sunken eyes gave her a look of melancholy interest, seemed to have thought much, and to feel, besides, that her uncertain health gave her a privilege of overstepping the rigid reserve of an unmarried girl. She talks freely, and with great delicacy of expression and manner.

We ran ashore at the little village of Condrieu to breakfast. We were assailed on stepping out of the boat by the demoiselles of two or three rival auberges—nice-looking, black-eyed girls, in white aprons, who seized us by the arm, and pulled each to her own door, with torrents of unintelligible patois. We left it to the captain, who selected the best-looking leader, and we were soon seated around a table covered with a lavish breakfast; the butter, cheese, and wine excellent, at least. A merrier party, I am sure, never astonished the simple people of Condrieu. The pretty dress-maker was full of good-humor and politeness, and delighted at the envy with which the rural belles regarded her knowing Parisian cap; the chasseurs sang the popular songs of the army, and joked with the maids of the auberge; the captain was inexhaustibly agreeable, and the hour given us by the padrone was soon gone. We embarked with a thousand adieus from the pleased people, and altogether it was more like a scene from Wilhelm Meister, than a passage from real life.

The wind soon rose free and steady from the north-west, and with a spread sail we ran past Vienne, at ten miles in the hour. This was the metropolis of my old friends, "the Allobrogues," in Cesar's Commentaries. I could not help wondering at the feelings with which I was passing over such classic ground. The little dress-maker was giving us an account of her fright at the cholera, and every one in the boat was in agonies of laughter. I looked at the guide-book to find the name of the place, and the first glance at the word carried me back to my old school-desk at Andover, and conjured up for a moment the redolent classic interest with which I read the history of the land I was now hurrying through. That a laugh with a modern grisette should engross me entirely, at the moment I was traversing such a spot, is a possibility the man may realize much more readily than the school-boy. A new roar of merriment from my companions plucked me back effectually from Andover to the Rhone, and I thought no more of Gaul or its great historian.

We floated on during the day, passing chateaux and ruins constantly; but finding the country barren and rocky to a dismal degree, I can not well imagine how the Rhone has acquired its reputation for beauty. It has been sung by the poets more than any other river in France, and the various epithets that have been applied to it have become so common, that you can not mention it without their rising to your lips; but the Saone and the Seine are incomparably more lovely, and I am told the valleys of the Loire are the most beautiful part of France. From its junction with the Saone to the Mediterranean, the Rhone is one stretch of barrenness.