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By H.T.Tuckerman

 

 

 

Fresh from Italy, we enter the gallery of the Louvre with a feeling that it is but a grand prolongation of the glorious array of pictured and sculptured trophies, scattered in such memorable luxuriance, through that chosen land of art; but the sensation is that of delightful surprise when we have but recently explored the dim chambers of the National Gallery, or obtained formal access to a private British collection. To cross the now magnificent hall of Apollo, with its grand proportions flooded by a cloudless sun, expands the mind and brightens the vision for their feast of beauty. Here too, a magic improvement has been recently wrought, and the architectural renovation lends new effect to the ancient treasures, so admirably preserved and arranged. I stood long at one of the windows and looked down upon the Seine; it was[45] thence that the people were fired upon at the massacre of St. Bartholomew; there rose, dark and fretted, the antique tower of Notre Dame, here was the site of the Tour de Nesle, that legend of crime wrought in stone; gracefully looked the bridges as they spanned the swollen current of the river; cheerfully lay the sunshine on quay and parapet; it was a scene where the glow of nature and the shadows of history unite to lend a charm to the panorama of modern civilization. And turning the gaze within, how calm and refreshing seemed the long and high vistas of the gallery; how happy the artists at their easels;—girls with their frugal dinners in a basket on the pavement, copying a Flemish scene; youths drawing intently some head of an old master; veterans of the palette reproducing the tints born under Venetian skies; and groups standing in silent admiration before some exquisite gem or wonderful conception. It is like an audience with the peers of art to range the Louvre; in radiant state and majestic silence they receive their reverend guests; first smiles down upon him the celestial meekness of Raphael's holy women, then the rustic truth of Murillo's peasant mothers, and the most costly, though, to our mind, not the most expressive, of all his pictures—the late acquisition for which kings competed at Marshal Soult's sale; now we are[46] warmed by the rosy flush of Rubens—like a mellow sunset beaming from the walls; and now startled at the life-like individuality of Vandyke's portraits, as they gaze down with such placid dignity and keen intelligence; at one point, we examine with mere curiosity the stiff outlines of early religious limning; and, at another, smile at the homely nature of the Dutch school; Philip de Champagne's portraits, Wouverman's white horses, Cuyp's meadows and kine, Steen's rural fêtes, Claude's sunsets, Pannini's architecture and Sneyder's animals; David's melodramatic pieces, Isabey's miniatures, Oudny's dogs, Robert's "Harvest Home," all hint a chapter, not only in the history of art, but in the philosophy of life and the secrets of the beautiful—enshrined there for the world's enjoyment, with a liberal policy yet more aptly illustrated by the vast and lofty colonnades, the courteous custodes, and the provisions for students in the drawings of successive schools.

In order to exchange the fascinations of the moment for the lessons of the past, one cloudy morning we drove through the avenue of the Champs Elysées, by the triumphal arch of Napoleon, to the palace of St. Cloud, and from the esplanade gazed back upon the city, over the plain below, to the dense mass of buildings surmounted by the domes of the Invalids, and the Pantheon and the[47] towers of Notre Dame. To the eye of contemplation it is one of the most memorable of landscapes; a stand-point for historical reverie, which attunes the mind for subsequent and less discursive retrospection. Enter the apartment where Bonaparte dispersed the assembly of five hundred—the initatory act of his rule; it is now a conservatory, whence rising terrace walks, statues and fountains only are visible; in the fresh silence of morning, they offered a striking contrast to that eventful scene. In an adjacent room a picture representing Maria de Medici's interview with Sully after the death of Henry IV., carries us back to an earlier era. Here Blucher had his headquarters, and here was settled the convention by which Paris was yielded to the allies. The saloon of Vernet, the well-trimmed vine-trees of the garden, the vivid hues of the tapestry, the newly waxed floors, the hangings and couches of Lyons silk, the elegant Sèvres vases, and Florentine tables of pietra dura, the velvet cushions of the chapel, and late publications on the library desks—all free of speck or stain—proclaim this summer palace as great a favorite now as when resorted to by the princes of Orleans. In this hall the two Napoleons were proclaimed; and the brilliant memory of those summer festivals that lately made St. Cloud dazzling with light and beauty, was[48] reflected from mirror, cornice, and tinted fabric; from this gilt on the iron chain of usurped dominion, a glance through the window revealed its origin: a throng of people were on their way to mass and a regiment was on parade—the one illustrating the blind exaction of bigoted authority, the other the machinery of brute force—the church and the army, the mitre, and the sword, superstition and violence; with these, in all ages, have the multitude been subdued; and between these two representations of elemental despotism, clustered on a high wall, stood a crowd to watch the meek procession of worshippers, and the exactitude of the manual, or admire the spirited, yet controlled, evolutions of the officer on his noble charger. The whole scene typified France as she is; uneducated devotees, a military organization at the beck of its chief, and a surplus of curious, intimidated or acquiescent spectators.

To pass from St. Cloud to Versailles is like turning from the last to the first chapters of French history. The vast court of the palace is lined with colossal statues; and thus we enter the vestibule through a file of pale and majestic sentinels, summoned, as it were, from the tomb to guard the trophies of nationality. Our pilgrimage through such a world of effigies begins with Clovis and Charlemagne, and ends with Louis Philippe: the[49] place itself is the ancient home of royalty; the gardens, visible from every window, have been trod by generations of monarchs and courtiers; the ceilings bear the arms of the noble families of the kingdom; while around are the faces and figures of the men of valor and of genius that consecrate her history. Through this panorama move peasants, workmen, citizens, and foreigners, gazing unrestricted, as upon a procession evoked from the inexorable past, in which are all those of whom they have heard or read as illustrious in France; they see the battles, the leaders, the kings, the poets, the human material of history. This grand conception, which has of late years been mainly realized by the last king, is certainly one of the most grand and significant of modern times. Even in this, our one day's observation, how many ideas are revived, how many characters brought into view; what events, associations and people throng upon our consciousness, as slowly gazing, we tread the interminable halls and scan the countless memorials of Versailles!

Taking up the thread of reminiscence when looking at the old moldy mortar that belonged to the knights of St. John when at Rhodes, the expiring chivalry of Europe gleams fitfully upon us, once more, to provoke a mortifying comparison with the[50] not yet completed pictures of the capture of Abd-el-Kader and the last siege of Rome; thence turn to the "Jeu de Paume," where the ardent figure of Mirabeau represents the genius of the Revolution, and from it to "Louis XVIII. and the Charter," emblematic of the Restoration; how shines on this canvas the "helmet of Navarre" in the "Battle of Ivry," as in Macaulay's spirited lyric, and chastely beautiful in its stainless marble, stands the heroic Maid of Orleans; while, appropriately in the midst of these historic characters, we find the bust of that ideal of picturesque narrators, Froissart. The modern rule of France is abruptly and almost grotesquely suggested amid such associations, by the figure of De Joinville on the deck of a man-of-war, well described by Talfourd, as "the type of dandified, melodramatic seamanship." The cycles of kingly sway is abruptly broken by the meteoric episode of Bonaparte: first he appears dispersing the Assembly, and then in his early victories, wounded at Ratisbon, at the tomb of Frederick the Great, distributing the Legion of Honor at the Invalides, quelling an insurrection at Cairo, engaged in his unparalleled succession of battles, and at the altar with Maria Louisa. The divorce from Josephine and the murder of the Duc D'Enghien, are events that only recur more[51] impressively to the mind of the spectator because uncommemorated. From the career of military genius which transformed the destinies of France, we pass to apartments where still breathes the vestiges of legitimacy as in the hour of its prime. The equestrian statue of Louis XIV. in the court-yard, his bed and crown, his clock and chair in the long suite of rooms kept sacred to his memory, typify the age when genius and beauty mingled their charms in the corrupt atmosphere of intrigue and profligacy. The noble expanse of wood, water, and meadow; the paths lined with stately myrtles and ancient box, spread as invitingly to the eye from this embayed window, as when the grand monarque stood there to watch the graceful walk of La Vallière, or the staid carriage of Maintenon. The abandonment and quietude of these chambers, mirrored, tapestried, and solitary, owe not a little of the spell they exercise over the imagination, to the vicinity of the galleries devoted to the men of the Revolution and the campaigns of '92; amid the smoke of conflict ever appears that resolute, olive face with the dark eye fixed and the thin lip curved in decision or expectancy. We mechanically repeat Campbell's elegy as we mark "Hohenlinden," and linger with patriotic gratitude over "Yorktown," notwithstanding the absurd[52] prominence given to the French officers; Condé, Turenne, Moreau, Lannes, Massena, and Lafayette fight over again before us the wars of the Fronde, the Empire, or the Republic. The monotony of these scenes of destruction is only relieved by the individual memories of the chiefs; they link a certain individuality with the flame and shroud of war, the fragmentary conquests, and the struggles that make up so large a portion of external history; and we emerge from the crowd of warriors into the company of statesmen, wits, and poets, with a sensation of refreshment. Each single triumph of thought, each victory of imagination and memorial of character, has an absolute worth and charm that the exploits of armies can never emulate.

Racine's portrait revives the long controversy between the classic and romantic schools; that of La Bruy re the art of character-painting now one of the highest functions of popular literature; that of Bossuet the pulpit eloquence of France and the persecution of Fenelon, and that of Saint Cyr the Jansenist discussion. A blank like that which designates the place of Marino Faliero in the Ducal palace at Venice, is left here for Le Sage, as the nativity of the author of Gil Blas is yet disputed. We look at Rousseau to revert to the social reforms, of which he was the pioneer; at La Place to realize[53] the achievements of the exact sciences, and at St. Pierre to remember the poetry of nature. Voltaire's likeness is not labelled for the same reason that there is no name on the tomb of Ney; both are too well known to require announcement. How incongruous become the associations as we proceed; old Père la Chaise cheek by jowl with the American Presidents; Cagliostro, who died before the word his career incarnated had become indispensable to the English tongue—the apotheosis of humbug; Marmontel, dear to our novitiate as royal leaders; and near to the original Pamela; Chateaubriand's ancestor the Marshal; Bisson going below to ignite the magazine, rather than "give up the ship;" and the battered war dog, with a single eye and leg, beneath whose fragmentary portrait is inscribed that Mars left him only a heart.

It is with singular interest that we look upon the authentic resemblance of persons with whose minds and career literature has made us familiar, and compare what we have imagined of their appearance with the reality. Of such characters as Gluck, Klopstock and Madame Le Brun, whose ministry of art has excited a vague delight, we may have formed no very distinct image; but associated as is the name of Madame Roland with courage, suffering and affliction, we naturally expect a more[54] dignified and less vivacious expression than here meets us, until we remember the earlier development of her rare and sympathetic intelligence. Count Mirabeau has a look of mildness and sang froid instead of the earnestness we fancied. Who would have supposed the fair assassin of Marat such a thin, delicate and spirituelle blonde? The sensuous face of George IV. and the tragic one of Charles I., in the ever recurring Vandyke, with Sheridan's confident, handsome and genial physiognomy, seem grouped to make more elevated, by comparison, the noble abstraction of Flaxman. Talleyrand resembles a keen, selfish, humorous and gentlemanly man of the world, in an unexceptionable white wig. Richelieu is piquant and Madame de Staël impassioned and Amazonian. What decadence even in the warlike notabilities is hinted by glancing from Soult to Oudinot! I thought of the French fleet in the memorable storm off Newport, as I recognized the portrait of the Count d'Estaing; and realized anew the military instinct of the nation in the preponderance of battle-scenes and heroes, and marked the interest with which groups of soldiers lingered and talked before them.