M. CLAUSSEN is here, and has kindly explained to me his processes and shown me their products. He is no inventor of Flax-dressing Machinery at all, and claims nothing in that line. In dressing, he adopts and uses the best machines he can find, and I think is destined to receive important aid from American inventions. What he claims is mainly the discovery of a cheap chemical solvent of the Flax fiber, whereby its coarseness and harshness are removed and the fineness and softness of Cotton induced in their stead. This he has accomplished. Some of his Flax-Cotton is scarcely distinguishable from the Sea Island staple, while to other samples he has given the character of Wool very nearly. I can imagine no reason why this Cotton should not be spun and woven as easily as any other. The staple may be rendered of any desired length, though the usual average is about two inches. It is as white as any Cotton, being made so by an easy and cheap bleaching process. M. Claussen's process in lieu of Rotting requires but three hours for its completion. It takes the Flax as it came from the field, only somewhat dryer and with the seed beaten off, and renders it thoroughly fit for breaking. The plant is allowed to ripen before it is harvested, so that the seed is all saved, while the tediousness and injury to the fiber, not to speak of the unwholesomeness, of the old-fashioned Rotting processes are entirely obviated. Where warmth is desirable in the fabrics contemplated, the staple is made to resemble Wool quite closely. Specimens dyed red, blue, yellow, &c., are exhibited, to show how readily and satisfactorily the Flax-Cotton takes any color that may be desired. Beside these lie rolls of Flannels, Feltings, and almost every variety of plain textures, fabricated wholly or in good part from Flax as prepared for Spinning under M. Claussen's patent, proving the adaptation of this fiber to almost every use now subserved by either Cotton or Wool. The mixtures of Cotton and Flax, Flax-Cotton and Wool, are excellent and serviceable fabrics.

The main question still remains to be considered—will it pay? Flax may be grown almost anywhere—two or three crops a year of it in some climates—a crop of it equal to three times the present annual product of Cotton, Flax and Wool all combined could easily be produced even next year. But unless cheaper fabrics, all things considered, can be produced from Flax-Cotton than from the Mississippi staple, this fact is of little worth. On this vital point I must of course rely on testimony, and M. Claussen's is as follows:

He says the Flax-straw, or the ripe, dry plant as it comes from the field, with the seed taken off, may be grown even here for $10 per tun, but he will concede its cost for the present to be $15 per tun, delivered, as it is necessary that liberal inducements shall be given for its extensive cultivation. Six tuns of the straw or flax in the bundle will yield one tun of dressed and clean fiber, the cost of dressing which by his methods, so as to make it Flax Cotton, is $35 per tun. (Our superior Western machinery ought considerably to reduce this.) The total cost of the Flax-Cotton, therefore, will be $125 per tun or six cents per pound, while Flax-straw as it comes from the field is worth $15 per tun; should this come down to $10 per tun, the cost of the fiber will be reduced to $95 per tun, or less than five cents per pound. At that rate, good "field-hands" must be rather slow of sale for Cotton-planting at $1,000 each, or even $700.

Is there any doubt that Flax-straw may be profitably grown in the United States for $15 or even $10 per tun? Consider that Flax has been extensively grown for years, even in our own State, for the seed only, the straw being thrown out to rot and being a positive nuisance to the grower. Now the seed is morally certain to command, for two or three years at least, a higher price than hitherto, because of the increased growth and extended use of the fiber. Let no farmer who has Flax growing be tempted to sell the seed by contract or otherwise for the present; let none be given over to the tender mercies of oil-mills. We shall need all that is grown this year for sowing next Spring, and it is morally certain to bear a high price even this Fall. The sagacious should caution their less watchful neighbors on this point. I shall be disappointed if a bushel of Flax-seed be not worth two bushels of Wheat in most parts of our Country next May.

Our ensuing Agricultural Fairs, State and local, should be improved for the diffusion of knowledge and the attainment of concert and mutual understanding with regard to the Flax-Culture. For the present, at any rate, few farmers can afford or will choose to incur the expense of the heavy machinery required to break and roughly dress their flax, so as to divest it of four-fifths of its bulk and leave the fiber in a state for easy transportation to the central points at which Flax-Cotton machinery may be put in operation. If the Flax-straw has to be hauled fifty or sixty miles over country roads to find a purchaser or breaking-machine, the cost of such transportation will nearly eat up the proceeds. If the farmers of any township can be assured beforehand that suitable machinery will next Summer be put up within a few miles of them, and a market there created for their Flax, its growth will be greatly extended. And if intelligent, energetic, responsible men will now turn their thoughts toward the procuring and setting up of the best Flax-breaking machinery (not for fully dressing but merely for separating the fibre from the bulk of the woody substance it incloses) they may proceed to make contracts with their neighboring farmers for Flax-straw to be delivered in the Autumn of next year on terms highly advantageous to both parties. The Flax thus roughly dressed may be transported even a hundred miles to market at a moderate cost, and there can be no reasonable doubt of its commanding a good price. M. Claussen assures me that he could now buy and profitably use almost any quantity of such Flax if it were to be had. The only reason (he says) why there are not now any number of spindles and looms running on Flax-Cotton is the want of the raw material. (His patent is hardly yet three mouths old.) Taking dressed and hetcheled Flax, worth seven to nine cents per pound, and transforming it into Flax-Cotton while Cotton is no higher than at present, would not pay.

Of course, there will be disappointments, mistakes, unforeseen difficulties, disasters, in Flax-growing and the consequent fabrications hereafter as heretofore. I do not presume that every man who now rushes into Flax will make his fortune; I presume many will incur losses. I counsel and urge the fullest inquiry, the most careful calculations, preliminary to any decisive action. But that such inquiry will lead to very extensive Flax-sowing next year,—to the erection of Flax-breaking machinery at a thousand points where none such have ever yet existed—and ultimately to the firm establishment of new and most important branches of industry, I cannot doubt. Our own country is better situated than any other to take the lead in the Flax-business; her abundance of cheap, fertile soil and of cheap seed, the intelligence of her producers, the general diffusion of water or steam power, and our present superiority in Flax-breaking machinery, all point to this result. It will be unfortunate alike for our credit and our prosperity if we indolently or heedlessly suffer other nations to take the lead in it.

P. S.—M. Claussen has also a Circular Loom in the Exhibition, wherein Bagging, Hosiery, &c., may be woven without a seam or anything like one. This loom may be operated by a very light hand-power (of course, steam or water is cheaper), and it does its work rapidly and faultlessly. I mention this only as proof of his inventive genius, and to corroborate the favorable impression he made on me. I have seen nothing more ingenious in the immense department devoted to British Machinery than this loom.

I understand that overtures have been made to M. Claussen for the purchase of his American patent, but as yet without definite result. This, however, is not material. Whether the patent is sold or held, there will next year be parties ready to buy roughly dressed Flax to work up under it, and it is preparation to grow such Flax that I am urging. I believe nothing more important or more auspicious to our Farming Interest has occurred for years than this discovery by M. Claussen. He made it in Brazil, while engaged in the growth of Cotton. It will not supersede Cotton, but it will render it no longer indispensable by providing a substitute equally cheap, equally serviceable, and which may be grown almost everywhere. This cannot be realized too soon.



XIII.

LEAVING THE EXHIBITION.

LONDON, Friday, June 6, 1851.

The great "Exposition" (as the French more accurately term it) has now been more than five weeks open, and is nearly complete. You may wander for miles through its richly fringed avenues without hearing the sound of saw or hammer, except in the space allotted to Russia, which is now boarded up on all sides, and in which some twenty or thirty men are at work erecting stands, unpacking and arranging fabrics, &c. I visited it yesterday, and inferred that the work is pushed night and day, since a part of the workmen were asleep (under canvas) at 2 o'clock. This apartment promises to be most attractive when opened to the public. Its contents will not be numerous, but among them are very large and showy manufactures of Porcelain, Bronze, &c., and tables of the finest Malachite, a single piece weighing (I think) nearly or quite half a ton. Not half the wares are yet displayed, but "Russia" will be the center of attraction for some days after it is thrown open.

The Exhibition has become a steady, business-like concern. The four "shilling days" of each week are improved and enjoyed by the common people, who quietly put to shame the speculation of the Aristocratic oracles as to their probable behavior in such a magazine of wealth and splendor—whether they might not make a general rush on the precious stones, plate and other valuables here staring them in the face, with often but a single policeman in sight—whether they might not refuse to leave at the hour of closing, &c., &c. The gates are surrounded a little before ten in the morning by a gathering, deepening crowd, but all friendly and peaceable; and when they open at the stroke of the clock, a dense column pours in through each aperture, each paying his shilling as he passes (no tickets being used and no change given—the holders of season, jurors' and exhibitors' tickets have separate entrances), and all proceeding as smoothly as swiftly. Within half an hour, ten thousand shillings will have thus been taken: within the next hour, ten thousand more; thence the admissions fall off; but the number ranges pretty regularly from Forty to Fifty Thousand per day, making the daily receipts from $10,000 to $12,000. Yesterday was a great Race Day at Ascot, attended by the Queen and Royal Family, as also by most of the habitual idlers, with a multitude beside (and a miserably raw, rainy, chilly day they had of it, with very poor racing), yet I should say that the attendance at the Exhibition was greater than ever before. Certainly not less than fifty thousand shillings, or $12,000, can have been taken. For hours, the Grand Avenue, which is nearly or quite half a mile long and at least thirty feet wide, was so filled with the moving mass that no vacant spaces could be seen from any position commanding an extensive prospect, though small ones were occasionally discoverable while threading the mazes of the throng. The visiters were constantly turning off into one or another department according to their several tastes; but their places were as constantly supplied either by new-comers or by those who, having completed their examinations in one department, were hastening to another, or looking for one especially attractive. Turn into whatever corner you might, there were clusters of deeply interested gazers, intent on making the most of their day and their shilling, while in the quieter nooks from 1 to 3 o'clock might be seen families or parties eating the lunch which, with a prophetic foresight of the miserable quality and exorbitant price of the viands served to you in the spacious Refreshment Saloons, they had wisely brought from home. But these saloons were also crowded from an early to a late hour, as they are almost every day, and I presume the concern which paid a high price for the exclusive privilege of ministering to the physical appetites within the Crystal Palace will make a fortune by it, though the interdiction of Wines and Liquors must prove a serious drawback. It must try the patience of some of the visiters to do without their beer or ale from morning to night; and if you leave the building on any pretext, your shilling is gone. Every actual need of the day is provided for inside, even to the washing of face and hands (price 2d.). But Night falls, and the gigantic hive is deserted and closed, leaving its fairy halls, its infinite wealth, its wondrous achievements, whether of Nature or of Art, to darkness and silence. Of course, a watch is kept, and, under pressing and peculiar circumstances, work has been permitted; but the treasures here collected must be guarded with scrupulous vigilance. If a fire should consume the Crystal Palace, the inevitable loss must exceed One Hundred Millions of Dollars, even supposing that a few of the most precious articles should be snatched from the swift destruction. Ten minutes without wind, or five with it, would suffice to wrap the whole immense magazine in flames, and not a hundredth part of the value of building and contents would remain at the close of another hour.

POPULAR EDUCATION.

The Exhibition is destined to contribute immensely to the Industrial and Practical Education of the British People. The cheap Excursion Trains from the Country have hardly commenced running yet; but it is certain that a large proportion of the mechanics, artisans and apprentices of the manufacturing towns and districts will spend one or two days each in the Palace before it closes. Superficial as such a view of its contents must be, it will have important results. Each artisan will naturally be led to compare the products of his own trade with those in the same line from other Nations, especially the most successful, and will be stimulated to discern and master the point wherein his own and his neighbor's efforts have hitherto comparatively failed. Of a million who come to gaze, only an hundred thousand may come with any clear idea of profiting by the show, and but half of those succeed in carrying back more wisdom than they brought here; yet even those are quite an army; and fifty thousand skilled artisans or sharp-eyed apprentices viewing such an Exposition aright and going home to ponder and dream upon it, cannot fail of working out great triumphs. The British mind is more fertile in improvement than in absolute invention, as is here demonstrated, especially in the department of Machinery; and the simple adaptation of the forces now attained, the principles established, the machines already invented, to all the beneficent uses of which they are capable, would speedily transform the Industrial and Social condition of mankind. I am perfectly satisfied, for example, that Boots and Shoes may be cut out and made up by machinery with less than one-fourth the labor now required—that this would require no absolutely new inventions, but only an adaptation of those already well known. So in other departments of Industry. There is no reason for continuing to sew plain seams on thick cloth by hand, when machinery can do the work even better and twenty times as fast. I shall be disappointed if this Exhibition be not speedily followed by immense advances in Labor-Saving Machinery, especially in this country.

But out of the domain of Industry, British Progress in Popular Education is halting and partial. And the chief obstacle is not a want of means, nor even niggardliness; for the Nation is wealthy, sagacious and public-spirited. I think the influential classes generally, or at least very extensively, realize that a well managed system of Common Schools, supported by taxation on Property, would save more in diminishing the burthen of Pauperism than it would cost. I believe the Ministry feel this. And yet Mr. Fox's motion looking to such a system was voted down in the House of Commons by some three to one, the Ministry and their reliable supporters vieing with the Tories in opposing it! So the Nation is thrown back on the wretched shift of Voluntaryism, or Instruction for the poor and ignorant children to be provided, directed and paid for by their poor, ignorant and often vicious parents, with such help and guidance as self-constituted casual associations may see fit to give them. The result is and will be what it ever has been and must be—the virtual denial of Education to a great share of the rising generation.

For this suicidal crime, I hold the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Priesthoods mainly responsible, but especially the former. If they would only stand out of the way, a system of efficient Common Schools for the whole Nation might be speedily established. But they will not permit it. By insisting that no Nationally directed and supported system shall be put in operation which does not recognize and affirm the tenets of their respective creeds, they render the adoption of any such system impossible. They see this; they know it; they mean it. And nothing moves me to indignation quicker than their stereotyped cant of "Godless education," "teaching infidelity," "knowledge worthless or dangerous without Religion," &c. &c. Why, Sirs, it is very true that the People need Religious as well as purely Intellectual culture, but the former has been already provided for. You clergymen of the Established Church have been richly endowed and beneficed expressly for this work—why don't you DO it? Why do you stand here darkening and stopping the gateway of secular instruction with a self-condemning assumption that your own duties have been and are criminally neglected, and that therefore others shall likewise remain unperformed? Teach the children as much Religion as you can; very few of you ever lack pupils when you give your hearts to the work; and if they prove less apt or less capable learners because they have been taught reading, writing, grammar, geography and arithmetic in secular schools, it argues some defect in your theology or its teachers. If you really wanted the children taught Religious truth, you would be right glad to have them taught letters and other rudimental lessons elsewhere, so as to be fitted to apprehend and retain your inculcations. It should suffice for the condemnation of all Established Churches ever more, that the State-paid Priesthood of Great Britain is to-day the chief impediment to a system of Common Schools throughout the British Isles.

The Catholic Clergy have more excuse. They, too unite in the impracticable requirement that the dogmas of their Church shall be taught in the schools attended by Catholic children, when they ought to teach them these dogmas out of School-hours, and be content that no antagonist dogmas are taught in the secular Schools. But they receive nothing from the State, and have good reason to regard it as hostile to their faith, therefore to suspect its purposes and watch narrowly its movements. If they would only take care to have a good system of Common School Education established and efficiently sustained in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, and other Countries wherein they are the conscience-keepers of the great majority and practically omnipotent in the sphere of moral and social effort, I could better excuse their unfortunate attitude here. As it is, the difference between them and their State-paid rivals here seems one of position rather than of principle. And, in spite of either or both, this generation will yet see Common Schools free and universal throughout this realm. But even a year seems long to wait for it.

TOWN GOSSIP.

Preparations are on foot for a grand banquet at Birmingham to the Royal Commissioners, the Foreign Commissioners and the Jurors at the Exhibition, to take place on or about the 16th. This is to be followed by one still more magnificent given by the Mayor and Council of London, which the Queen is expected to attend. The East India Company give one to-morrow evening, but I hope then to be in France, as I intend to leave for Paris to-morrow. The advertisements promise to put us "through in eleven hours" by the quickest and dearest route. Others take twice as many.

Miss CATHARINE HAYES, a Vocalist of European reputation, who sang the last winter mainly in Rome, means to visit America in September. She is here ranked very high in her profession, and profoundly esteemed and respected in private life. I have heard her but once, having had but two evenings' leisure for public entertainments since I came here. There is but one Jenny Lind, but Miss Hayes need not shrink from a comparison with any other singer. She is very highly commended by the best Musical critics of London. I cannot doubt that America will ratify their judgment.

We have had tolerably fair, pleasant weather for some time until the last two days, when clouds, chilly winds and occasional rain have returned. The "oldest inhabitant" don't remember just such weather at this season—as he probably observed last June. I shall gladly leave it for dryer air and brighter skies.



XIV.

LONDON TO PARIS.

PARIS, Monday, June 9, 1851.

I left London Bridge at 11 1/2 on Saturday for this City, via South-Eastern Railway to Dover, Steamboat to Calais and Railroad again to Paris. This is the dearest and quickest route between the two capitals, and its advertisements promised for $13 1/2 to take us "Through in Eleven Hours," which was a lie, as is quite usual with such promises. We came on quite rapidly to Dover—a very mean, old town—but there lost about an hour in the transfer of our baggage to the steamboat, which was one of those long, black, narrow scow contrivances, about equal to a buttonwood "dug-out," which England appears to delight in. They would not be tolerated as ferry-boats on any of our Western rivers, yet they are made to answer for the conveyance of Mails and Passengers across an arm of the sea on the most important route in Europe. In this wretched concern, which was too insignificant to be slow, we went cobbling and wriggling across the Channel (27 miles) in something less than two hours, often one gunwale nearly under water and the other ten or twelve feet above it, with no room under deck for half our passengers, and the spray frequently dashing over those above it, three fourths of the whole number deadly sick (this individual of course included), when with a decent boat the passage might be regularly made, in spite of such a smartish breeze as we encountered, in comparative comfort. Perhaps we felt glad enough on reaching the shore to pay for this needless misery, and I readily believe that an hour or two of sea-sickness may be harshly wholesome, yet I do think that a good boat on such a route might well be afforded and cannot reputably be withheld. That part of England through which we passed on this route is much like that I have already described on the other side of London. The face of the country is very moderately undulating; there is a fair proportion of trees and shrubbery, though no considerable forest that I noticed; perhaps an eighth of the land may be sowed with Wheat, but Grass is the general staple. I should say three fourths of all the land in sight from this railway is covered with it, while very little is planted or devoted to gardening after the few miles next to London. Hops engross considerable attention, and I presume pay well, being demanded by the national addiction to beer drinking. Still, Grass, Cattle and Sheep are the Staples; and these require so much less human labor per acre than Grain and Vegetables that I cannot see how the rural, laboring population can find adequate employment or subsistence. It looks as though the gradual substitution of Grass for Grain since the repeal of the Corn-laws must deprive a large portion of the best British peasantry of work, compelling them to emigrate to America or Australia for a subsistence. Such emigration is already very active, and must increase if the present low prices of Breadstuffs prove permanent.

I was again disappointed in seeing so little attention to Fruit Culture. I know this is not the Fruit region of England, but the destitution of fruit trees is quite universal. Since it is plain that an acre of choice Apple trees will yield at least a hundred bushels of palatable food, with little labor, and grass enough beside to pay for all the care it requires, I cannot see why Fruit is so neglected. The peach, I hear, does poorly throughout the kingdoms, requiring extra shelter and sunshine, yet yielding indifferent fruit in return, which is reason enough for neglecting it; but the Apple is hardier, and does well in other localities no more genial than this. I think it has been unwisely slighted.

An important and profitable business, I think, might be built up in our country in the production of Dried Fruits, especially peaches, and their exportation to Europe, or at any rate to England. I was among those who "sat at good men's feasts," both rich and poor (the men, not the feasts), during the six weeks I was in England, yet I cannot remember that Dried Apples or Peaches were ever an element of the repast, though Gooseberries, Rhubarb, Raisins, Currants, &c., are abundantly resorted to. If some American of adequate capital and capacity would embark in the growth and curing of Apples, Peaches, &c., expressly for the English market, drying them perfectly, preparing them with scrupulous neatness, and putting them up in clean wooden boxes of twenty-five, fifty and one hundred pounds, I think he might do well by it. For such a purpose, cheap lands and cheap labor (that of aged persons and young children) might be made available, while in years of bountiful Peach harvests, like the last, even New-Jersey and Delaware could be drawn upon for an extra supply. The miscellaneous exportation of any Dried Fruits that might happen to be on the market would probably involve loss, because time and expenditure are required to make these products known to the great majority of British consumers, and assure them that the article offered them has been prepared with scrupulous cleanliness. With proper exertion and outlay, I believe an advantageous market might thus be opened for several Millions' worth of American products of which little or nothing is now known in Europe.

We were detained a long hour in Calais—a queer old town, with little trade and only a historical importance—although our baggage was not examined there, but sealed up for custom-house scrutiny at Paris. They made a few dollars out of us by charging for extra baggage, one of them out of me, though my trunk contained only clothing and three or four books. Small business this for a Railroad, though it will do in stage transportation. Our passports were scrutinized—mine not very thoroughly—we (the green ones) obtained an execrable dinner for 37 1/2 cents, and changed some sovereigns for French silver at a shave which was not atrocious. Finally, we were all let go.

The face of the country inland from Calais is flat and marshy—more like Holland, as we conceive it, than like England or France. Of course, the railroad avoids the higher ground, but I did not see a cliff nor steep acclivity until darkness closed us in, though some moderate hills were visible from time to time, mainly on the right. Here, too, as across the Channel, Grass largely predominated, but I think there was a greater breadth of Wheat. I saw very few Fruit-trees, though much more growing Timber than I had expected, from the representations I had read of the treeless nakedness of the French soil. I think trees are as abundant for fifty miles southward from Calais as in any part of England, but they are mainly Elms and Willows, scarcely an orchard anywhere, and of course no vineyards, for the Grape loves a more Southern sun. The cultivation is scarcely equal to the English, though not strikingly inferior, and the evidences of a minute subdivision of the soil are often palpable. Fences are very rare, save along the sides of the railway; ditches serve their purpose near Calais, and nothing at all answers afterward. I presume wood becomes much scarcer as we approach Paris, but darkness forbade observation.

By the terms of the enticing advertisement, we should have been here at 10 1/2 P. M., but, though we met with none other than the ordinary detentions, it was half-past two on Sunday morning when we actually reached the station at the barrier of the city. Here commenced the custom-house search, and I must say it was conducted with perfect propriety and commendable energy, though with determined rigor. Our trunks and valises were all arranged on a long table according to the numbers affixed to them respectively at Calais, and each, being opened by its owner, was searched in its turn, and immediately surrendered, if found "all right." I had been required to pay smartly on my books at Liverpool, though nobody could have suspected that they were for any other than my own use; so I left most of them at London and had no difficulty here. [One unlucky wight, who had pieces of linen in his trunk, had to see them taken out and put safely away for farther consideration.] I did not at first comprehend that the number on my trunk, standing out fair before me in honest, unequivocal Arabic figures, could possibly mean anything but "fifty-two," but a friend cautioned me in season that those figures spelled "cinquante-deux," or phonetically "sank-on-du" to the officer, and I made my first attempt at mouthing French accordingly, and succeeded in making myself intelligible.

It was fair daylight when we left the railway station for our various destinations. Mine was the "Hotel Choiseul," Rue St. Honore, which had been warmly commended to me, and where I managed to stop pro tem. though there was not an unoccupied bed in the house. Paris, by the way, is quite full—scarcely a room to be had in any popular hotel, and, where any is to be found, the price is very high or the accommodations quite humble. London, on the contrary, where the keepers of hotels and lodging-houses had been induced to expect a grand crush, and had aggravated their prices accordingly, is comparatively empty. Thousands after thousands go there, but few remain for any time; consequently the hotels make what money is spent, while the boarding and lodging-houses are often tenantless. Many sharp landladies have driven away their old lodgers to the Country or the Continent by exorbitant charges, in the hope of extorting many times as much from visiters to the Exhibition; and have thus far been bitterly disappointed. I presume it will be so to the end. Sixty thousand people are as many as the Crystal Palace will comfortably hold, in addition to its wares and their attendants, and these make no impression on the vast capacity of London, while they go away as soon as they have satisfied their curiosity and ceased to attend the Fair, giving place to others, who require no more room than they did. I suspect theirs are not the only calculations which will be disappointed by the ultimate issues of the World's Exhibition.

THE MADELEINE.

My first day in Paris was Sunday, so, after breakfast, I repaired to the famous modern Church of the Madeleine, reputed one of the finest in Europe. This was the day of Pentecost, and fitly commemorated by the Church. The spacious edifice was filled in every part, though at least a thousand went out at the close of the earlier service, before the attendance was fullest.

I think I was never in a place of worship so gorgeous as this. Over the main altar there is a magnificent picture on the largest scale, purporting to represent the Progress of Civilization from Christ's day to Bonaparte's, Napoleon being the central figure in the foreground, while the Saviour and the Virgin Mary occupy a similar position in the rear. In every part, the Church is very richly and I presume tastefully ornamented.

I did not comprehend the service, and cannot intelligibly describe it. The bowings and genuflexions, the swinging of censers and ringing of bells, the frequent appearance and disappearance of a band of gorgeously dressed priests or assistants bearing what looked like spears, were "inexplicable dumb show" to me, and most of them unlike anything I remember to have seen in American Catholic Churches. The music was generally fine, especially that of a chorus of young boys, and the general bearing of the people in attendance, that of reverence and interest.

"Peace be with all, whate'er their varying creeds, With all who send up holy thoughts on high."

But I could not bring myself to like the continual circulation of several officials throughout almost the entire service, collecting rents for seats (they were let very cheap), and begging money for "the Poor of the Church;" as a stout, gross, absurdly overdressed herald who preceded the collectors loudly proclaimed. I think this collection should have been taken before or after the Mass. There was no sermon up to one o'clock, when I left, with nearly all the audience, though there may have been one afterward.



XV.

THE FUTURE OF FRANCE.

PARIS, Wednesday, June 11, 1851.

"Will the French Republic withstand the assaults of its enemies?" is a question of primary importance with regard to the Political Future, not of France only but of Europe, and more remotely of the world. Even fettered and stifled as the Republic now is—a shorn and blind Samson in the toils of the Philistines—it is still a potent fact, and its very name is a "word of fear" to the grand conspiracy of despots and owls who are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,—it is the overthrow of the French Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout Europe. "Put out the light, and then put out the light," is the general aspiration; and the fact that the actual Republic is reasonably moderate, peaceful, unaggressive, so far from disarming their hostility, only inflames it. Haman can never feel safe in his exaltation so long as Mordecai the Jew is seen sitting at the king's gate; and if France is to be a Republic, the Royalties and Aristocracies of Europe would far sooner see her bloody, turbulent, desolating and intent on conquest than tranquil and inoffensive. A Republic absolutely ruled by Danton, Marat and Robespierre would be far less appalling in the eyes of the Privileged, Luxurious and Idle Classes of Europe than one peacefully pursuing its career under the guidance of Cavaignac, De Tocqueville or Lamartine.

While in England, I could not but smile at the delusions propagated by the Press and readily credited as well as diffused by the fortunate classes with regard to the deplorable condition of France and the absolute necessity existing for some radical change in her Government. "O yes, you get along very well with a Republic in the United States, where you had cheap lands, a vast and fertile wilderness, common schools and a general reverence for Religion and Order to begin with; but just look at France!"—such was and is a very general line of argument. If the French had been equally divisible into felons, bankrupts, paupers and lunatics, their hopeless state could hardly have been referred to more compassionately. All this time France was substantially as tranquil as England herself, and decidedly more prosperous, though annoyed and impeded by the incessant plottings of traitors in her councils and other exalted stations to resubject her to kingly sway. A thrifty, provident, frugal artisan may often seem less wealthy and prosperous than his dashing, squandering, lavish neighbor. France may not display so much plate on the sideboards of her landlords and bankers as England does; but every day adds to her ability to display it. While Great Britain and the United States have undertaken to vie with each other in Free Trade, France holds fast to the principle of Protection, with scarcely a division in her Councils on the subject; and she is consequently amassing in silence the wealth created by other Nations. The Californian digs gold, which mainly comes to New-York in payment for goods; but on that gold England has a mortgage running fast to maturity, for the goods were in part bought of her and we owe her for Millions' worth beside. But France has a similar mortgage on it for the Grain supplied to England to feed the fabricators of the goods, and it has hardly reached the Bank of England before it is on its way to Paris. A great share of the golden harvests of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin now find their resting-place here.

"But what," asks a Say-Bastiat economist, "if they do? Isn't all Commerce an exchange of equivalents? Must we not buy in order to sell? Isn't Gold a commodity like any other? If our Imports exceed our Exports, doesn't that prove that we are obtaining more for our Exports than their estimated value?" &c. &c. &c.

No, Sir! commerce is not always an exchange of genuine equivalents. The savage tribe which sells its hunting grounds and its ancestors' graves for a few barrels of firewater, whereby its members are debauched, diseased, rendered insanely furious, and set to cutting each other's throats, receives no real equivalent for what it parts with. Nor is it well for ever so civilized a people to be selling its Specie and mortgaging its Lands and Houses for Silks, Liquors, Laces, Wines, Spices, &c.—trading off the essential and imperishable for the factitious and transitory—and so eating itself out of house and home. The farmer who drinks up his farm at the cross-roads tavern may have obtained "more for his exports" (of produce from his farm), than they were worth in the market—at least, it would seem so from the fact that he has run over head and ears in debt—but he has certainly done a pernicious, a losing business. So does any Nation which buys more wares and fabrics than its exports will pay for, and finds itself in debt at the year's end for imports that it has eaten, drunk or worn out. The thrifty household is the true model of the Nation. And, thus tested, France, in spite of her enormous, locust-like Army and other relics of past follies which the National mind is outgrowing though the Nation's rulers still cling to them, is this day one of the most prosperous countries on earth.

But when I hear the aristocratic plotters talk of the necessity of a Revision of the Constitution in order to restore to France tranquillity and prosperity, I am moved not to mirth but to indignation. For these plotters and their schemes are themselves the causes of the mischiefs they affect to deplore and the dangers they pretend to be bent on averting. Whatever is now feverish and ominous in French Politics grows directly out of two great wrongs—the first positive and accomplished—the law of the 31st May, whereby Three Millions of Electors were disfranchised—the other contingent and meditated—the overthrow of the Republic. All the agitation, the apprehension, the uncertainty, and the consequent derangement of Industry, through the last year, have grown out of these misdeeds, done and purposed, of the Aristocratic party. In the sacred name of Order, they have fomented discord and anarchy; invoking Peace, they have stirred up hatred and bitterness. Whatever the Social Democracy might have done, had they been in the ascendant or under other supposable circumstances, the fact is that theirs has been actually the cause of Order, of Conservatism, of Tranquillity and the Constitution. Had they proved recreant to their faith and trust, France would ere this have been plunged into convulsions through the mutual jealousies and hostilities of the factions who vaunt themselves collectively the party of Order; they have been withheld from cutting each other's throats by the calm, determined, watchful, intrepid attitude of the calumniated Democracy.

The law of the 31st May still stands on the statute-book, and I apprehend is destined to remain (though many who are better informed are sanguine that it will be repealed before the next Presidential Election), but the Republic will endure and its Constitution cannot be overthrown. All the Bourbonists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists in the Assembly combined are insufficient to change the Constitution legally; and if a bare majority sufficed for that purpose (instead of three-fourths), they could not to-day command a working majority for any practical measure of Revision. It is easy to club their votes and vaguely declare some change necessary—but what change? A Bourbon Restoration? An Orleans Middle-Class Royalty? A Napoleonic Empire? For no one of these can a majority even of this Reaectionist Assembly be obtained. What, then, is their chance with the People?

As to the signing of Petitions for Revision, that is easily understood. The Prefect, the Mayor, &c., of a locality readily procure the signatures of all the Government employes and hangers-on, who constitute an immense army in France; the great manufacturers circulate the petitions among their workmen, and most of them sign, not choosing to risk their masters' displeasure for a mere name more or less to an unmeaning paper. But the plotters know perfectly well that the People are not for Revision in their sense of the word; if they did not fear this, they would restore Universal Suffrage. By clinging with desperate tenacity to the Restrictive law of May 31st, they virtually confess that their hopes of success involve the continued exclusion of Three Millions of adult Frenchmen from the Registry of Voters. When they prate, therefore, of the people's desire for Revision, the Republican retort is ready and conclusive—"Repeal the law of May 31st, and we can then tell what the people really desire. But so long as you maintain that law, you confess that you dare not abide the verdict of the whole People. You appeal to a Jury which you have packed—one whose right to try this question we utterly deny. Restore Universal Suffrage, and we can then tell what the People really do wish and demand; but until you do this, we shall resist every attempt to change the Constitution even by as much as a hair." Who can doubt that this is right?

"Therefore, Representatives of the People, deliberate in peace," pithily says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing; the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. It cannot be legally subverted; and should Force and Usurpation be attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are on their side—that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, are all for the Republic—that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain Military officers, mainly relics of the Empire; the class includes a good part of the lucky Parisian shop-keepers and Government employes during the reign of Louis Philippe; the party embraces the remnants of the anti-Revolutionary Aristocracy, most of the influential Priesthood, and a small section of the rural Peasantry; all these combined may number Four Millions, leaving Thirty Millions for the Nation. Such is France in 1851; and, being such, the subversion of the Republic, whether by foreign assault or domestic treason, is hardly possible. An open attack by the Autocrat and his minions would certainly consolidate it; a prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have the same effect. Four years more of tranquil though nominal Republicanism would only render a return to Monarchy more difficult; wherefore the Royalist party will never assent to it, and without their aid the project has no chance. To obtain that aid, "the Prince" must secretly swear that after four years more he will turn France over to Henry V.; this promise only the last extreme of desperation could extort from him, and then to no purpose, since he could not fulfill it and the Legitimists could not trust him. And thus, alike by its own strength and by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured.



XVI.

PARIS, SOCIAL AND MORAL.

PARIS, Thursday, June 12, 1851.

A great Capital like this is not seen in a few days; I have not yet seen a quarter of it. The general magnitude of the houses (usually built around a small quadrangular court near the street, whence the court is entered by a gate or arched passage) is readily remarked; also the minute subdivisions of Shop-keeping, many if not most sellers confining their attention to a single fabric, so that their "stores" and stocks of goods are small; also, the general gregariousness or social aptitudes of the people. I lodge in a house once famous as "Frascati's," the most celebrated gaming-house in Europe; it stands on the corner of the Rue Richelieu with the Boulevards ("Italian" in one direction and "Montmartre" in the other). My windows overlook the Boulevards for a considerable distance; and there are many of the most fashionable shops, "restaurants," "cafes," &c. in the city. No one in New-York would think of ordering his bottle of wine or his ices at a fashionable resort in Broadway and sitting down at a table placed on the sidewalk to discuss his refection leisurely, just out of the ever-passing throng; yet here it is so common as to seem the rule rather than the exception. Hundreds sit thus within sight of my windows every evening; dozens do likewise during the day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social: to eat, drink or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him: he reads his newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in one day than an Englishman in three: the theaters, balls, concerts, &c. which to the islander afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is Amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for Liberty and Human Progress, but no class or clan who ever thought of denying themselves Wine and kindred stimulants in order that the Masses should be rendered worthier of Liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it. Such notions as Total Abstinence from All that can Intoxicate are absolutely unheard of by the majority of Parisians, and incomprehensible or ridiculous to those who have heard of them. The barest necessaries of life are very cheap here; many support existence quite endurably on a franc (18 3/4 cents) a day; but of the rude Laboring Class few can really afford the comforts and proprieties of an orderly family life, and the privation is very lightly regretted. The testimony is uniform that Marriage is scarcely regarded as even a remote possibility by any one of the poor girls of Paris who live by work: to be for a season the mistress of a man of wealth, or one who can support her in luxury and idleness, is the summit of her ambition. The very terms "grisette" and "lorette" by which young women unblest with wealth or social rank are commonly designated, involve the idea of demoralization—no man would apply them to one whom he respected and of whose good opinion he was solicitous. In no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so great as here: nowhere else do families so quickly decay; nowhere else is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling. The Poor of London are less comfortable as a class than those of Paris—that is, they suffer more from lack of employment, and their wages are lower in view of the relative cost of living; but Philanthropy is far more active there than here, and far more is done to assuage the tide of human woe. Ten public meetings in furtherance of Educational, Philanthropic and Religious enterprises are held in the British Metropolis to one in this, and the number interested in such undertakings there, as contrasted with that in this city, has an equal preponderance. I shall not attempt to strike a balance between the good and evil prevailing respectively in the two Capitals of Western Europe: the reader may do that for himself.

SIGHTS OF PARIS.

The first object of interest I saw in Paris was the COLUMN OF NAPOLEON in the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn of the morning of my arrival. This gigantic Column, as is well known, was formed of cannon taken by the Great Captain in the several victories which irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was Emperor of France and virtually of the Continent. His Statue crowns the pyramid; it was pulled down while the Allied Armies occupied Paris, and a resolute attempt was made to prostrate the Column also, but it was too firmly rooted. The Statue was not replaced till after the Revolution of 1830. The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the stately Column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should not regard it very highly.

Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting, is the OBELISK OF LUXOR, which for thousands of years had overshadowed the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late Pacha of Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near the Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which impressed me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with mysterious inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four thousand years, yet seem as fresh and clear as though chiseled but yesterday. The removal entire of this bulk of many thousand tuns from Egypt to Paris is one of the most marvelous achievements of human genius, and Paris has for me no single attraction to match the Obelisk of Luxor.

The TUILERIES strikes me as an irregular mass of buildings with little pretensions to Architectural beauty or effect. It has great capacity, and nothing more. The LOUVRE is much finer, yet still not remarkable, but its wealth of Paintings by the Great Masters of all time surprised as well as delighted me. I never saw anything at all comparable to it. But of this another time.

THE FRENCH OPERA.

PARIS, Monday, June 9, 1851.

Having the evening on my hands, I have spent a good share of it at the Opera, of which France is proud, and to the support of which her Government directly and liberally contributes. It is not only a National institution, but a National trait, and as such I visited it.

The house is very spacious, admirably planned, superbly fitted up, and every way adapted to its purpose; the charges moderate; the audience large and well dressed; the officers and attendants up to their business, and everything orderly and quiet. The play was Scribe's "L'Enfant Prodigue" (The Prodigal Son), which in England they soften into "Azael the Prodigal," but here no such euphemism is requisite, and indeed I doubt that half who witness it suspect that the idea is taken from the Scriptures. The idea, however, is all that is so borrowed. There were no great singers included in the cast for this evening, not even Alboni who remains here, while most of her compeers are in London. I am a poor judge, but I should say the music is not remarkable.

This is a drama of Action and of Spectacle, however, to which the Music is subordinate. Such a medley of drinking and praying, dancing and devotion, idol-worship and Delilah-craft, I had not before encountered. At least three hundred performers were at once on the stage. The dancing-girls engaged were not less than one hundred in number, apparently all between fourteen and eighteen years of age, generally good-looking, and with that aspect of innocence and freshness to which the Stage is so fatal. The most agile and eminent among them was a Miss Plunkett, said to be an American, with a face of considerable beauty and a winning, joyous manner. I should say that half the action of the piece, nearly half the time, and more than half the attention of the audience, were engrossed by these dancing demoiselles.

France is the cradle and home of the Ballet. In other lands it is an exotic, here a natural outgrowth and expression of the National mind. Of the spirit which conceived it, here is the abode and the Opera Francais the temple; and here it has exerted its natural and unobstructed influence on the manners and morals of a People. If you would comprehend the Englishman, follow him to his fireside; if a Frenchman, join him at the Opera and contemplate him during the performance of the Ballet.

I am, though no practitioner, a lover of the Dance. Restricted to proper hours and fit associates, I wish it were far more general than it is. Health, grace, muscular energy, even beauty, might be promoted by it. Why the dancing of the Theater should be rendered disgusting, I can not yet comprehend. The "poetry of motion," of harmonious evolutions and the graceful movement of "twinkling feet," I think I appreciate. All these are natural expressions of innocent gaiety and youthful elasticity of spirits, whereof this world sees far too little. I wish there were more of them.

But what grace, what sense, what witchery, there can be, for instance, in a young girl's standing on one great toe and raising the other foot to the altitude of her head, I cannot imagine. As an exhibition of muscular power, it is disagreeable to me, because I know that the capacity for it was acquired by severe and protracted efforts and at the cost of much suffering. Why is it kept on the stage? Admit that it is not lascivious; who will pretend that it is essentially graceful? I was glad to see that the more extravagant distortions were not specially popular with the audience—that nearly all the applause bestowed on those ballet-feats which seem devised only to favor a liberal display of the person came from the little knot of hired "claqueurs" in the center of the pit. If there were many who loved to witness, there were few so shameless as to applaud.

If the Opera is ever to become an element of Social life and enjoyment in New-York, I do trust that it may be such a one as thoughtful men may take their daughters to witness without apprehension or remorse. I do not know whether the Opera we now have is or is not such a one; I know this is not. Its entire, palpable, urgent tendency, is "earthly, sensual, devilish." In none was the instinct of Purity ever strengthened by beholding it; in many, it must, in the nature of things, be weakened with each repetition of the spectacle. It is no marvel that the French are reputed exceedingly reckless of the sanctions and obligations of Marriage, if this is a part of their State-supported education.

I came away at the close of the third act, leaving two more to be performed. The play is transcendent in spectacle, and has had a very great success here.



XVII.

PARIS, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.

PARIS, Sunday, June 15, 1851.

I marvel at the obliquity of vision whereby any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic and the restoration of Monarchy. Such prophets must belong essentially to that school which teaches the omnipotence of paper Constitutions and dilates with bristling hair on the appalling possibility that Washington, or Hamilton, or Franklin, might not have been chosen to the Convention which framed our Federal Constitution, and that Constitution consequently have remained unperfected or unadopted. The true view I understand to be that if the Constitution had thus failed to be constructed in '87 or adopted in '88, the necessity for it would still have existed, growing daily more urgent and palpable, so that Convention after Convention would from time to time have been called, and sooner or later a Constitution would have been elaborated and adopted; and the longer this consummation was delayed the stronger and more controlling the Constitution ultimately formed would have been. So with the French Republic. It is simply an expression of the intellectual convictions and social instincts of the French People. You meet it on the Boulevards and in the cafes where the wealthy and luxurious most do congregate; your cabman and boot-black, though perfectly civil and attentive, let you understand, if you have eyes, that they are Republicans; while in the quarters tenanted or frequented only by the Artisan and the Laborer you meet none but devotees of "the Republic Democratic and Social." The contrast between the abject servility of the Poor in London and their manner here cannot be realized without actual observation. A hundred Princes or illustrious Dukes in Paris would not attract as much attention as any one of them would in London. Democracy triumphed in the drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the streets; and all subsequent efforts in behalf of Monarchy here have produced and can produce only a fitful, spasmodic, unnatural life. If three Revolutions within a life-time, all in the same direction, have not impressed this truth conclusively, another and another lesson will be added. The French have great faults of character which imperil the immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate ascendency. Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary caprice, soon past and forgotten. The Nation can never more be other than Republican, though the possessors of power, controlling the Press, the Bureaux, the Assembly and the Army, may fancy that their personal interests would be promoted by a less popular system, and so be seen for a season following strange gods. This delusion and apostacy will speedily pass, leaving only their shame behind.

The immediate peril of the Republic is the Election of May, '52, in view of the arbitrary disfranchisement of nearly one-half the Democratic voters, the manacled condition of the Press, the denial to the People of the Right of Meeting for deliberation and concert, and the betrayal of all the enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distract and scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis Napoleon or Changarnier, there need be no further apprehension.

I hear, as from an official source, that there are now Three Thousand Americans in Paris, most of them residing here for months, if not for years. It gives me pleasure to state that, contrary to what I have often heard of the bearing of our countrymen in Europe, a large majority of these, so far as I may judge from meeting a good many and learning the sentiments of more, are warmly and openly on the side of the Republic and opposed to the machinations of the motley host who seek its overthrow.

The conviction of Charles Hugo, and his sentence to six months' imprisonment, for simply writing a strong Editorial in the Evenement in condemnation of Legal Killing, is making a profound sensation here. I think it will hasten the downfall both of the Guillotine and the "party of Order" which thus assumes the championship of that venerated institution. The Times' Paris correspondent, I perceive, takes up the tale of Hugo's article having been calculated to expose the ministers of the law to popular odium, and naively protests against a line of argument by which "those who execute the law are stigmatized as executioners." I suppose we must call them executors hereafter to obviate the hardship complained of. How singular that those who glory in the deed should shrink indignantly from the name?

American attention will naturally be drawn to the recent debate in the Assembly involving the principle of the Higher Law. The subject was a bill reorganizing the National Guard, with the intent of sifting it as clean as possible of the popular element, and thus rendering it either a nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a "Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its bayonets against the People who should take up arms, in defense of the Republic. No stick thrown into a hornets' nest ever excited such commotion as this remark did in the camp of "Order." In the course of a violent and tumultuous debate, it came out that Gen. Baraguay d'Hilliers, a leader on the side of "Order," refused in 1848 to take the proffered command of the troops fighting on the side of Order in the deplorable street combats of June. This was excused on the ground of his being a Representative as well as a General! The Champions of "Order," having said all they wished and allowed their opponents to say very little, hastily shut down the gate, and refused to permit further discussion. No matter: the truth has been formally proclaimed from the tribune that No one has a moral right to do as a soldier that which it would be wrong for him to do as a man—that, no matter what human rulers may decree, every man owes a paramount obedience to the law of God, and cannot excuse his violation of that law by producing an order to do so from any functionary or potentate whatever. The idea is a fruitful one, and France is now pondering it.

I attended divine worship to-day at NOTRE DAME, which seems to me not only the finest Church but the most imposing edifice in Paris. The Pantheon may vie with it, perhaps, but it has to my eye a naked and got-up look; it lacks adequate furnishing. Beside these two, nearly all the public buildings of Paris strike me as lacking height in proportion to their superficial dimensions. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a fine front, but seems no taller while more extensive than our New-York City Hall, which notoriously lacks another story. Even the Louvre, with ample space and a rare position, which most of the Paris edifices want, seems deficient in height. But Notre Dame, on the contrary, towers proudly and gracefully, and I have not seen its general effect surpassed. It reminded me of Westminster Abbey, though it is less extensive. As a place of worship it is infinitely superior to the Abbey, which has the damp air and gloom of a dungeon, in each most unlike Notre Dame. I trust no American visits Paris without seeing this noble church, and on the Sabbath if possible.

AMERICAN ART AND INDUSTRY—BRITISH JOURNALISM.

Since I left London, The Times has contained two Editorials on American contributions to the Great Exhibition, which seem to require comment. These articles are deprecatory and apologetic in their general tenor, evincing a consciousness that the previous strictures of the London Press on American Art had pushed disparagement beyond the bounds of policy, and might serve to arouse a spirit in the breasts of the people so invidiously and persistently assailed. So our countryman are now told, in substance, that they are rather clever fellows on the whole, who have only made themselves ridiculous by attempting to do and to be what Nature had forbidden. Nothing but our absurd pretensions could thus have exposed us to the world's laughter. America might be America with credit; she has broken down by undertaking to be Europe also, &c., &c.

"It is the attempt, and not the deed, confounds me."

But what are the nature and extent of this American audacity? Our countrymen have undertaken to minister to their own wants by the production of certain Wares and Fabrics which they had formerly been content either to do without or to buy from Europe. Being urgently invited to do so, they have sent over some few of these results of their art and skill to a grand exposition of the World's Industry. Even if they were as bad as they are represented, these products should be here; since the object of the Exhibition is not merely to set forth what is best but to compare it with the inferior, and so indicate the readiest mode of improving the latter. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, Persia, have sent hither their wares and fabrics, which hundreds of thousands have examined with eager and gratified interest—an interest as real as that excited by the more perfect rival productions of Western Europe, though of a different kind from that. No one has thought of ridiculing these products of a more primitive industry; all have welcomed and been instructed by them. And so ours would have been treated had they been in fact the wretched affairs which the London Commercial press has represented them. It is precisely because they are quite otherwise that it has been deemed advisable systematically to disparage them—to declare our Pianos "gouty" structures—"mere wood and iron;" our Calicoes beneath the acceptance of a British servant-girl; our Farming Tools half a century behind their British rivals; our Hats "shocking bad," &c., &c.,—all this, in the first months of the Exhibition, while the Jurors appointed to judge and report upon the merits of rival fabrics were making the requisite investigations. Their verdict is thus substantially forestalled, and the millions who visit the Exhibition are invited to look at the American department merely to note the bad taste and incapacity therein displayed, and learn to avoid them.

But the self-constituted arbiters who thus tell the American people that Art is not their province—that they should be content to grow Corn and Cotton, looking to Europe for the satisfaction of their less urgent necessities, their secondary wants—are they impartial advisers? Are they not palpably speaking in the interest of the rival producers of Europe, alarmed by the rapid growth and extension of American Art? Would they have taken so much trouble with us if American taste and skill were really the miserable abortions they represent them?

These indications of paternal care for American Industry, in danger of being warped and misdirected, are not quite novel. An English friend lately invited me to visit him at his house in the neighborhood of Birmingham, holding out as an inducement the opportunity of inspecting the great Iron and Hardware manufactories in that neighborhood. A moment afterward he recollected himself and said, "I am not quite sure that I could procure you admittance to them, because the rule has been that Americans were not to be admitted. Gentlemen taking their friends to visit these works were asked, at the door, 'Is your friend an American?' and if the answer was affirmative, he was not allowed to enter—but I think this restriction has been generally abrogated." Here you see, was a compassionate regard for American Industry, in danger of being misled and deluded into unprofitable employments, which neither The Times nor any of its co-laborers has been able to more than humbly imitate.

To my mind, nothing can be more unjust than the intimation that, in attempting to supply her own wants (or some of them) in the domain of Art and Manufacture, America has rushed madly from her sphere and sought to be Europe. She has already taught Europe many things in the sphere of Invention, and is destined to teach her many more; and the fact that her Carriages are condemned as too light and her Pianos as too heavy, her Reaping Machines as "a cross between a treadmill and a flying chariot," &c., &c., by critics very superficially acquainted with their uses, and who have barely glanced at them in passing, proves nothing but the rashness and hostility of their contemners. From such unworthy disparagement I appeal with confidence to the awards of the various Juries appointed by the Royal Commissioners. They are competent; they have made the requisite examinations; they (though nearly all European and a majority of them British) are honorable men, and will render an impartial judgment. That judgment, I firmly believe, will demonstrate that, in proportion to the extent of its contributions, no other country has sent more articles to the Exhibition by which the whole world may be instructed and benefited than our own.



XVIII.

THE PALACES OF FRANCE.

PARIS, Monday, June 16, 1851.

France, now the most Democratic, was long the most absolutely governed and the most loyally infatuated among the great Nations of Europe. Her cure of the dust-licking distemper was Homoeopathic and somewhat slow, but it seems to be thorough and abiding. Those who talk of the National passion for that bloody phantom Glory—for Battle and Conquest—speak of what was, rather than of what is, and which, even in its palmiest days, was rather a penchant of the Aristocratic caste than a characteristic of the Nation. The Nobles of course loved War, for it was their high road to Royal favor, to station and renown; all the spoils of victory enured to them, while nine-tenths of its calamities fell on the heads of the Peasantry. But, though all France rushed to arms in 1793 to defend the National liberties and soil, yet Napoleon, in the zenith of his power and glory, could only fill the ranks of his legions by the abhorred Conscription. The great body of the People were even then averse to the din of the camp and the clangor of battle: the years of unmixed disaster and bitter humiliation which closed his Military career, served to confirm and deepen their aversion to garments rolled in blood; and I am confident that there is at this moment no Nation in Europe more essentially peaceful than France. Her Millions profoundly sympathise with their brethren of Germany, Italy and Hungary, groaning beneath the heavy yoke of the Autocrat and his vassals; but they realize that the deliverance of Nations must mainly be wrought out from within, and they would much rather aid the subject Nations to recover their rights by the influence of example and of a Free Press than by casting the sword of Brennus into the scale where their liberties and happiness hang balanced and weighed down by the ambition and pride of their despots. The establishment of the Democratic and Social Republic is the appointed end of war in Europe. It will not erase the boundaries of Nations, but these boundaries will no longer be overshadowed by confronted legions, and they will be freed from the monster nuisance of Passports. Then German, Frank, Briton, Italian, will vie with each other, as now, in Letters, Arts and Products, but no longer in the hideous work of defacing and desecrating the image of God; for Liberty will have enlightened and Fraternity united them, and a permanent Congress of Nations will adjust and dispose of all causes of difference which may from time to time arise.—Freedom, Intelligence and Peace are natural kindred: the ancient Republics were Military and aggressive only because they tolerated and cherished Human Slavery; and it is this which recently fomented hostilities between the two Republics of North America, and now impotently threatens the internal peace of our own. Liberty, if thorough and consistent, always did and must incline to Peace; while Despotism, being founded in and only maintainable by Force, inevitably fosters a martial spirit, organizes Standing Armies, and finds delight and security in War.

These reflections have been recalled by my walks through several of the late Royal (now National) Palaces of France, the most striking monuments which endure of long ages of absolute kingly sway. How many there are of these Palaces I have forgotten or never knew; but I recall the names of the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, the Elisee Bourbon, St. Germain, St. Cloud, Versailles, Meudon, and Rambouillet. These do not include the Palais Royal, which was built by the Orleans branch of the Bourbon family, nor any of the spacious edifices erected for the several Ministers of State and for the transaction of public business. The Palaces I have named were all constructed from time to time to serve as residences for the ten to thirty persons recognized as of the blood Royal, who removed from one to the other as convenience or whim may have suggested. They are generally very spacious, probably averaging one to two hundred apartments each, all constructed of the best materials and furnished and adorned with the most lavish disregard of cost. I roughly estimate the cost of these Palaces, if they were now to be built and furnished in this style, at One Hundred Millions of Dollars; but the actual cost, in the ruder infancy of the arts when most of them were erected, was probably much more. Versailles alone cost some Thirty Millions of Dollars at first, while enormous sums have since been expended in perfecting and furnishing it. It would be within the truth to say that France, from the infancy of Louis XIV. to the expulsion of Louis Philippe, has paid more as simple interest on the residences of her monarchs and their families than the United States, with a larger population and with far greater wealth than France has averaged through that period, now pays for the entire cost of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial departments of her Government. All that we have paid our Presidents from Washington inclusive, adding the cost of the Presidential Mansion and all the furniture that has from time to time been put into it, would not build and furnish one wing of a single Royal Palace of France—that of Versailles.

But the point to which I would more especially call attention is that of the unwearied exertions of Royalty to foster and inflame the passion for Military glory. I wandered for hours through the spacious and innumerable halls of Versailles, in which Art and Nature seem to have been taxed to the utmost to heap up prodigies of splendor. At least one hundred of these rooms would each of itself be deemed a marvel of sumptuous display anywhere else; yet here we passed over floors of the richest Mosaic and through galleries of the finest and most elaborately wrought Marble as if they had been but the roughest pavement or the rudest plaster. The eye is fatigued, the mind bewildered, by an almost endless succession of sumptuous carving, gilding, painting, &c., until the intervention of a naked ante-room or stair-case becomes a positive relief to both. And the ideas everywhere predominant are War and its misnamed Glory. Here are vast, expensive paintings purporting to represent innumerable Sieges and Battles in which the French arms were engaged, many of them so insignificant that the world has wisely forgotten them, yet here preserved to inflame and poison the minds of hot-blooded, unreflecting youth, impelling them to rush into the manufacture of cripples and corpses under the horrible delusion that needless, aimless Slaughter, if perpetrated by wholesale, can really be honorable and glorious. These paintings, as a whole, are of moderate value as works of Art, while their tendency is horrible and their details to me revolting. Carriages shattered and overturned, animals transfixed by spear-thrusts and writhing in speechless agony, men riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls and ghastly with coming death, such are the spectacles which the more favored and fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called for generations to admire and enjoy. These battle-pieces have scarcely more Historic than Artistic value, since the names of at least half of them might be transposed and the change be undetected by ninety-nine out of every hundred who see them. If all the French battles were thus displayed, it might be urged with plausibility that these galleries were historical in their character; but a full half of the story, that which tells of French disaster and discomfiture—is utterly suppressed. The Battles of Ptolemais, of Ivry, of Fontenoy, of Rivoli, of Austerlitz, &c., are here as imposing as paint can make them, but never a whisper of Agincourt, Crecy, Poictiers, Blenheim, or Ramillies, nor yet of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Leipsic, or Waterloo. Even the wretched succession of forays which the French have for the last twenty years been prosecuting in Algerine Africa here shines resplendent, for Vernet has painted, by Louis Philippe's order and at France's cost, a succession of battle-pieces wherein French numbers and science are seen prevailing over Arab barbarism and irregular valor in combats whereof the very names have been wisely forgotten by mankind, though they occurred but yesterday. One of these is much the largest painting I ever saw, and is probably the largest in the world, and it seems to have been got up merely to exhibit one of Louis Philippe's sons in the thickest of the fray. Last of all, we have the "Capture of Abd-el-Kader," as imposing as Vernet could make it, but no whisper of the persistent perfidy wherewith he has been retained for several years in bondage, in violation of the express agreement of his captors. The whole collection is, in its general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit War as always glorious and France as uniformly triumphant. It is by means like these that the business of shattering knee-joints and multiplying orphans is kept in countenance.

Versailles is a striking monument of the selfish profligacy of King-craft and the long-suffering patience of Nations. Hundreds of thousands of laborers' children must have gone hungry to their straw pallets in order that their needy parents might pay the inexorable taxes levied to build this Palace. Yet after all it has stood mainly uninhabited! Its immense extent and unequalled splendor require an immeasurable profusion in its occupant, and the incomes even of kings are not absolutely without limit. So Versailles, with six or eight other Royal Palaces in and around Paris, has generally stood empty, entailing on the country an enormous annual expense for its simple preservation. And now, though France has outgrown Royalty, it knows not what to do with its costly, spacious, glittering shells. A single Palace (Rambouillet) standing furthest from Paris, was converted (under Louis Philippe) into a gigantic storehouse for Wool, while its spacious Parks and Gardens were wisely devoted to the breeding and sustenance of the choicest Merino Sheep. The others mainly stand empty, and how to dispose of them is a National perplexity. Some of them may be converted into Hospitals, Insane Retreats, &c., others into Libraries or Galleries of Art and Science; but Versailles is too far from Paris for aught but a Retreat as aforesaid, and has cost so immense a sum that any use which may be made of it will seem wasteful. I presume it could not be sold as it stands for a tenth of its actual cost. Perhaps it will be best, therefore, to convert all the others into direct uses and preserve this for public inspection as a perpetual memorial of the reckless prodigality and all-devouring pomp of Kings, and as a warning to Nations never again to entrust their destinies to men who, from their very education and the influences surrounding them through life, must be led to consider the Toiling Millions as mainly created to pamper their appetites, to gratify their pride, and to pave with their corpses their road to extended dominion.

ST. CLOUD is a much smaller but more pleasantly situated, more tastefully furnished and decorated Palace, some miles nearer than Versailles to Paris, and commanding an admirable view of the city. The LUXEMBOURG, situated in the southern section of the city, is externally a chaste and well-proportioned edifice, containing some fine pictures by living artists, and surrounded by spacious and delightful woods, shrubbery, &c., termed "the Gardens of the Luxembourg." The TUILERIES, in the heart of the city, near the Seine, I have not seen internally, and the exterior seems low, straggling, and every way unimposing. Its extent is almost incredible by those who have not seen it—scarcely less than that of Versailles. The LOUVRE is the finest structure of all, and most worthily devoted. Its lower story is filled with Sculptures of no considerable merit, but its galleries contain more strikingly good Paintings than I shall ever again see under one roof. I have spent a good part of two days there, and mean to revisit it on my return.

PASSPORTS, ETC.

If each American could spend three days on this continent, his love of Country and of Liberty could not fail to be quickened and intensified, if only by an experience of the enormity of the Passport nuisance. It has cost me precious hours already, not to speak of dollars, and is certain to cost many more of each. I have nearly concluded to given up Germany on account of it, while Italy fairly swarms with petty sovereignties and with Yankee Consuls, the former afraid of their own black shadows, the latter intent on their beloved two dollars each from every American traveler. Such is the report I have of them, and I presume the reality is equal to the foreshadowing. It is a shame that Republican France stands far behind Aristocratic Britain in this respect, but I trust the contrast will not endure many more years.

Two Americans who arrived here last week caused some perplexity to their landlord. Every man who lodges a stranger here must see forthwith that he has a Passport in good condition, in default of which said host is liable to a penalty. Now, these Americans, when applied to, produced Passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly designated in his Passport as a "Loafer" the other as a "Rowdy" and they informed him, on application, that, though these professions were highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirming that all was right, applied to an American friend for a translation of the inexplicable professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully enlightened with regard to them.