The Paris Sketch Book by William Makepeace Thackeray

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*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.

THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK

OF

MR. M. A. TITMARSH

by

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

CONTENTS.

THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK.

An Invasion of France

A Caution to Travellers

The Fetes of July

On the French School of Painting

The Painter's Bargain

Cartouche

On some French Fashionable Novels

A Gambler's Death

Napoleon and his System

The Story of Mary Ancel

Beatrice Merger

Caricatures and Lithography in Paris

Little Poinsinet

The Devil's Wager

Madame Sand and the new Apocalypse

The Case of Peytel

Four Imitations of Beranger

French Dramas and Melodramas

Meditations at Versailles

DEDICATORY LETTER

TO

M. ARETZ, TAILOR, ETC.

27, RUE RICHELIEU, PARIS.

SIR,--It becomes every man in his station to acknowledge and praise
virtue wheresoever he may find it, and to point it out for the
admiration and example of his fellow-men.

Some months since, when you presented to the writer of these pages
a small account for coats and pantaloons manufactured by you, and
when you were met by a statement from your creditor, that an
immediate settlement of your bill would be extremely inconvenient
to him; your reply was, "Mon Dieu, Sir, let not that annoy you; if
you want money, as a gentleman often does in a strange country, I
have a thousand-franc note at my house which is quite at your
service."

History or experience, Sir, makes us acquainted with so few actions
that can be compared to yours,--an offer like this from a stranger
and a tailor seems to me so astonishing,--that you must pardon me
for thus making your virtue public, and acquainting the English
nation with your merit and your name. Let me add, Sir, that you
live on the first floor; that your clothes and fit are excellent,
and your charges moderate and just; and, as a humble tribute of my
admiration, permit me to lay these volumes at your feet.

Your obliged, faithful servant,

M. A. TITMARSH.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.

About half of the sketches in these volumes have already appeared
in print, in various periodical works. A part of the text of one
tale, and the plots of two others, have been borrowed from French
originals; the other stories, which are, in the main, true, have
been written upon facts and characters that came within the
Author's observation during a residence in Paris.

As the remaining papers relate to public events which occurred
during the same period, or to Parisian Art and Literature, he has
ventured to give his publication the title which it bears.

LONDON, July 1, 1840.

AN INVASION OF FRANCE.

Caesar venit in Galliam summa diligentia."

About twelve o'clock, just as the bell of the packet is tolling a
farewell to London Bridge, and warning off the blackguard-boys with
the newspapers, who have been shoving Times, Herald, Penny Paul-
Pry, Penny Satirist, Flare-up, and other abominations, into your
face--just as the bell has tolled, and the Jews, strangers, people-
taking-leave-of-their-families, and blackguard-boys aforesaid, are
making a rush for the narrow plank which conducts from the paddle-
box of the "Emerald" steamboat unto the quay--you perceive,
staggering down Thames Street, those two hackney-coaches, for the
arrival of which you have been praying, trembling, hoping,
despairing, swearing--sw--, I beg your pardon, I believe the word
is not used in polite company--and transpiring, for the last half-
hour. Yes, at last, the two coaches draw near, and from thence an
awful number of trunks, children, carpet-bags, nursery-maids, hat-
boxes, band-boxes, bonnet-boxes, desks, cloaks, and an affectionate
wife, are discharged on the quay.

"Elizabeth, take care of Miss Jane," screams that worthy woman, who
has been for a fortnight employed in getting this tremendous body
of troops and baggage into marching order. "Hicks! Hicks! for
heaven's sake mind the babies!"--"George--Edward, sir, if you go
near that porter with the trunk, he will tumble down and kill you,
you naughty boy!--My love, DO take the cloaks and umbrellas, and
give a hand to Fanny and Lucy; and I wish you would speak to the
hackney-coachmen, dear, they want fifteen shillings, and count the
packages, love--twenty-seven packages,--and bring little Flo;
where's little Flo?--Flo! Flo!"--(Flo comes sneaking in; she has
been speaking a few parting words to a one-eyed terrier, that
sneaks off similarly, landward.)

As when the hawk menaces the hen-roost, in like manner, when such a
danger as a voyage menaces a mother, she becomes suddenly endowed
with a ferocious presence of mind, and bristling up and screaming
in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances,
succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in like
manner you will always, I think, find your wife (if that lady be
good for twopence) shrill, eager, and ill-humored, before, and
during a great family move of this nature. Well, the swindling
hackney-coachmen are paid, the mother leading on her regiment of
little ones, and supported by her auxiliary nurse-maids, are safe
in the cabin;--you have counted twenty-six of the twenty-seven
parcels, and have them on board, and that horrid man on the paddle-
box, who, for twenty minutes past, has been roaring out, NOW, SIR!--
says, NOW, SIR, no more.

I never yet knew how a steamer began to move, being always too busy
among the trunks and children, for the first half-hour, to mark any
of the movements of the vessel. When these private arrangements
are made, you find yourself opposite Greenwich (farewell, sweet,
sweet whitebait!), and quiet begins to enter your soul. Your wife
smiles for the first time these ten days; you pass by plantations
of ship-masts, and forests of steam-chimneys; the sailors are
singing on board the ships, the bargees salute you with oaths,
grins, and phrases facetious and familiar; the man on the paddle-
box roars, "Ease her, stop her!" which mysterious words a shrill
voice from below repeats, and pipes out, "Ease her, stop her!" in
echo; the deck is crowded with groups of figures, and the sun
shines over all.

The sun shines over all, and the steward comes up to say, "Lunch,
ladies and gentlemen! Will any lady or gentleman please to take
anythink?" About a dozen do: boiled beef and pickles, and great
red raw Cheshire cheese, tempt the epicure: little dumpy bottles of
stout are produced, and fizz and bang about with a spirit one would
never have looked for in individuals of their size and stature.

The decks have a strange, look; the people on them, that is.
Wives, elderly stout husbands, nurse-maids, and children
predominate, of course, in English steamboats. Such may be
considered as the distinctive marks of the English gentleman at
three or four and forty: two or three of such groups have pitched
their camps on the deck. Then there are a number of young men, of
whom three or four have allowed their moustaches to BEGIN to grow
since last Friday; for they are going "on the Continent," and they
look, therefore, as if their upper lips were smeared with snuff.

A danseuse from the opera is on her way to Paris. Followed by her
bonne and her little dog, she paces the deck, stepping out, in the
real dancer fashion, and ogling all around. How happy the two
young Englishmen are, who can speak French, and make up to her: and
how all criticise her points and paces! Yonder is a group of young
ladies, who are going to Paris to learn how to be governesses:
those two splendidly dressed ladies are milliners from the Rue
Richelieu, who have just brought over, and disposed of, their cargo
of Summer fashions. Here sits the Rev. Mr. Snodgrass with his
pupils, whom he is conducting to his establishment, near Boulogne,
where, in addition to a classical and mathematical education
(washing included), the young gentlemen have the benefit of
learning French among THE FRENCH THEMSELVES. Accordingly, the
young gentlemen are locked up in a great rickety house, two miles
from Boulogne and never see a soul, except the French usher and the
cook.

Some few French people are there already, preparing to be ill--(I
never shall forget a dreadful sight I once had in the little dark,
dirty, six-foot cabin of a Dover steamer. Four gaunt Frenchmen,
but for their pantaloons, in the costume of Adam in Paradise,
solemnly anointing themselves with some charm against sea-
sickness!)--a few Frenchmen are there, but these, for the most
part, and with a proper philosophy, go to the fore-cabin of the
ship, and you see them on the fore-deck (is that the name for that
part of the vessel which is in the region of the bowsprit?)
lowering in huge cloaks and caps; snuffy, wretched, pale, and wet;
and not jabbering now, as their wont is on shore. I never could
fancy the Mounseers formidable at sea.

There are, of course, many Jews on board. Who ever travelled by
steamboat, coach, diligence, eilwagen, vetturino, mule-back, or
sledge, without meeting some of the wandering race?

By the time these remarks have been made the steward is on the deck
again, and dinner is ready: and about two hours after dinner comes
tea; and then there is brandy-and-water, which he eagerly presses
as a preventive against what may happen; and about this time you
pass the Foreland, the wind blowing pretty fresh; and the groups
on deck disappear, and your wife, giving you an alarmed look,
descends, with her little ones, to the ladies' cabin, and you see
the steward and his boys issuing from their den under the paddle-
box, with each a heap of round tin vases, like those which are
called, I believe, in America, expectoratoons, only these are
larger.

. . . . . .

The wind blows, the water looks greener and more beautiful than
ever--ridge by ridge of long white rock passes away. "That's
Ramsgit," says the man at the helm; and, presently, "That there's
Deal--it's dreadful fallen off since the war;" and "That's Dover,
round that there pint, only you can't see it." And, in the
meantime, the sun has plumped his hot face into the water, and the
moon has shown hers as soon as ever his back is turned, and Mrs.--
(the wife in general,) has brought up her children and self from
the horrid cabin, in which she says it is impossible to breathe;
and the poor little wretches are, by the officious stewardess and
smart steward (expectoratoonifer), accommodated with a heap of
blankets, pillows, and mattresses, in the midst of which they
crawl, as best they may, and from the heaving heap of which are,
during the rest of the voyage, heard occasional faint cries, and
sounds of puking woe!

Dear, dear Maria! Is this the woman who, anon, braved the jeers
and brutal wrath of swindling hackney-coachmen; who repelled the
insolence of haggling porters, with a scorn that brought down their
demands at least eighteenpence? Is this the woman at whose voice
servants tremble; at the sound of whose steps the nursery, ay, and
mayhap the parlor, is in order? Look at her now, prostrate,
prostrate--no strength has she to speak, scarce power to push to
her youngest one--her suffering, struggling Rosa,--to push to her
the--the instrumentoon!

In the midst of all these throes and agonies, at which all the
passengers, who have their own woes (you yourself--for how can you
help THEM?--you are on your back on a bench, and if you move all is
up with you,) are looking on indifferent--one man there is who has
been watching you with the utmost care, and bestowing on your
helpless family the tenderness that a father denies them. He is a
foreigner, and you have been conversing with him, in the course of
the morning, in French--which, he says, you speak remarkably well,
like a native in fact, and then in English (which, after all, you
find is more convenient). What can express your gratitude to this
gentleman for all his goodness towards your family and yourself--
you talk to him, he has served under the Emperor, and is, for all
that, sensible, modest, and well-informed. He speaks, indeed, of
his countrymen almost with contempt, and readily admits the
superiority of a Briton, on the seas and elsewhere. One loves to
meet with such genuine liberality in a foreigner, and respects
the man who can sacrifice vanity to truth. This distinguished
foreigner has travelled much; he asks whither you are going?--where
you stop? if you have a great quantity of luggage on board?--and
laughs when he hears of the twenty-seven packages, and hopes you
have some friend at the custom-house, who can spare you the
monstrous trouble of unpacking that which has taken you weeks to
put up. Nine, ten, eleven, the distinguished foreigner is ever
at your side; you find him now, perhaps, (with characteristic
ingratitude,) something of a bore, but, at least, he has been most
tender to the children and their mamma. At last a Boulogne light
comes in sight, (you see it over the bows of the vessel, when,
having bobbed violently upwards, it sinks swiftly down,) Boulogne
harbor is in sight, and the foreigner says,--

The distinguished foreigner says, says he--"Sare, eef you af no
'otel, I sall recommend you, milor, to ze 'Otel Betfort, in ze
Quay, sare, close to the bathing-machines and custom-ha-oose. Good
bets and fine garten, sare; table-d'hote, sare, a cinq heures;
breakfast, sare, in French or English style;--I am the
commissionaire, sare, and vill see to your loggish."

. . . Curse the fellow, for an impudent, swindling, sneaking French
humbug!--Your tone instantly changes, and you tell him to go about
his business: but at twelve o'clock at night, when the voyage is
over, and the custom-house business done, knowing not whither to
go, with a wife and fourteen exhausted children, scarce able to
stand, and longing for bed, you find yourself, somehow, in the
Hotel Bedford (and you can't be better), and smiling chambermaids
carry off your children to snug beds; while smart waiters produce
for your honor--a cold fowl, say, and a salad, and a bottle of
Bordeaux and Seltzer-water.

. . . . . .

The morning comes--I don't know a pleasanter feeling than that of
waking with the sun shining on objects quite new, and (although you
have made the voyage a dozen times,) quite strange. Mrs. X. and
you occupy a very light bed, which has a tall canopy of red
"percale;" the windows are smartly draped with cheap gaudy calicoes
and muslins; there are little mean strips of carpet about the tiled
floor of the room, and yet all seems as gay and as comfortable as
may be--the sun shines brighter than you have seen it for a year,
the sky is a thousand times bluer, and what a cheery clatter of
shrill quick French voices comes up from the court-yard under the
windows! Bells are jangling; a family, mayhap, is going to Paris,
en poste, and wondrous is the jabber of the courier, the postilion,
the inn-waiters, and the lookers-on. The landlord calls out for
"Quatre biftecks aux pommes pour le trente-trois,"--(O my
countrymen, I love your tastes and your ways!)--the chambermaid is
laughing and says, "Finissez donc, Monsieur Pierre!" (what can they
be about?)--a fat Englishman has opened his window violently, and
says, "Dee dong, garsong, vooly voo me donny lo sho, ou vooly voo
pah?" He has been ringing for half an hour--the last energetic
appeal succeeds, and shortly he is enabled to descend to the
coffee-room, where, with three hot rolls, grilled ham, cold fowl,
and four boiled eggs, he makes what he calls his first FRENCH
breakfast.

It is a strange, mongrel, merry place, this town of Boulogne; the
little French fishermen's children are beautiful, and the little
French soldiers, four feet high, red-breeched, with huge pompons on
their caps, and brown faces, and clear sharp eyes, look, for all
their littleness, far more military and more intelligent than the
heavy louts one has seen swaggering about the garrison towns in
England. Yonder go a crowd of bare-legged fishermen; there is the
town idiot, mocking a woman who is screaming "Fleuve du Tage," at
an inn-window, to a harp, and there are the little gamins mocking
HIM. Lo! these seven young ladies, with red hair and green veils,
they are from neighboring Albion, and going to bathe. Here comes
three Englishmen, habitues evidently of the place,--dandy specimens
of our countrymen: one wears a marine dress, another has a shooting
dress, a third has a blouse and a pair of guiltless spurs--all have
as much hair on the face as nature or art can supply, and all wear
their hats very much on one side. Believe me, there is on the face
of this world no scamp like an English one, no blackguard like one
of these half-gentlemen, so mean, so low, so vulgar,--so ludicrously
ignorant and conceited, so desperately heartless and depraved.

But why, my dear sir, get into a passion?--Take things coolly. As
the poet has observed, "Those only is gentlemen who behave as
sich;" with such, then, consort, be they cobblers or dukes. Don't
give us, cries the patriotic reader, any abuse of our fellow-
countrymen (anybody else can do that), but rather continue in that
good-humored, facetious, descriptive style with which your letter
has commenced.--Your remark, sir, is perfectly just, and does honor
to your head and excellent heart.

There is little need to give a description of the good town of
Boulogne, which, haute and basse, with the new light-house and the
new harbor, and the gas-lamps, and the manufactures, and the
convents, and the number of English and French residents, and the
pillar erected in honor of the grand Armee d'Angleterre, so called
because it DIDN'T go to England, have all been excellently
described by the facetious Coglan, the learned Dr. Millingen, and
by innumerable guide-books besides. A fine thing it is to hear the
stout old Frenchmen of Napoleon's time argue how that audacious
Corsican WOULD have marched to London, after swallowing Nelson and
all his gun-boats, but for cette malheureuse guerre d'Espagne and
cette glorieuse campagne d'Autriche, which the gold of Pitt caused
to be raised at the Emperor's tail, in order to call him off from
the helpless country in his front. Some Frenchmen go farther
still, and vow that in Spain they were never beaten at all; indeed,
if you read in the Biographie des Hommes du Jour, article "Soult,"
you will fancy that, with the exception of the disaster at
Vittoria, the campaigns in Spain and Portugal were a series of
triumphs. Only, by looking at a map, it is observable that Vimeiro
is a mortal long way from Toulouse, where, at the end of certain
years of victories, we somehow find the honest Marshal. And what
then?--he went to Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English
there, to be sure;--a known fact, on which comment would be
superfluous. However, we shall never get to Paris at this rate;
let us break off further palaver, and away at once. . . .

(During this pause, the ingenious reader is kindly requested to pay
his bill at the Hotel at Boulogne, to mount the Diligence of
Laffitte, Caillard and Company, and to travel for twenty-five
hours, amidst much jingling of harness-bells and screaming of
postilions.)

. . . . . .

The French milliner, who occupies one of the corners, begins to
remove the greasy pieces of paper which have enveloped her locks
during the journey. She withdraws the "Madras" of dubious hue
which has bound her head for the last five-and-twenty hours, and
replaces it by the black velvet bonnet, which, bobbing against your
nose, has hung from the Diligence roof since your departure from
Boulogne. The old lady in the opposite corner, who has been
sucking bonbons, and smells dreadfully of anisette, arranges her
little parcels in that immense basket of abominations which all old
women carry in their laps. She rubs her mouth and eyes with her
dusty cambric handkerchief, she ties up her nightcap into a little
bundle, and replaces it by a more becoming head-piece, covered with
withered artificial flowers, and crumpled tags of ribbon; she looks
wistfully at the company for an instant, and then places her
handkerchief before her mouth:--her eyes roll strangely about for
an instant, and you hear a faint clattering noise: the old lady has
been getting ready her teeth, which had lain in her basket among
the bonbons, pins, oranges, pomatum, bits of cake, lozenges,
prayer-books, peppermint-water, copper money, and false hair--
stowed away there during the voyage. The Jewish gentleman, who has
been so attentive to the milliner during the journey, and is a
traveller and bagman by profession, gathers together his various
goods. The sallow-faced English lad, who has been drunk ever since
we left Boulogne yesterday, and is coming to Paris to pursue the
study of medicine, swears that he rejoices to leave the cursed
Diligence, is sick of the infernal journey, and d--d glad that the
d--d voyage is so nearly over. "Enfin!" says your neighbor,
yawning, and inserting an elbow into the mouth of his right and
left hand companion, "nous voila."

NOUS VOILA!--We are at Paris! This must account for the removal of
the milliner's curl-papers, and the fixing of the old lady's
teeth.--Since the last relais, the Diligence has been travelling
with extraordinary speed. The postilion cracks his terrible whip,
and screams shrilly. The conductor blows incessantly on his horn,
the bells of the harness, the bumping and ringing of the wheels and
chains, and the clatter of the great hoofs of the heavy snorting
Norman stallions, have wondrously increased within this, the last
ten minutes; and the Diligence, which has been proceeding hitherto
at the rate of a league in an hour, now dashes gallantly forward,
as if it would traverse at least six miles in the same space of
time. Thus it is, when Sir Robert maketh a speech at Saint
Stephen's--he useth his strength at the beginning, only, and the
end. He gallopeth at the commencement; in the middle he lingers;
at the close, again, he rouses the House, which has fallen asleep;
he cracketh the whip of his satire; he shouts the shout of his
patriotism; and, urging his eloquence to its roughest canter,
awakens the sleepers, and inspires the weary, until men say, What a
wondrous orator! What a capital coach! We will ride henceforth in
it, and in no other!

But, behold us at Paris! The Diligence has reached a rude-looking
gate, or grille, flanked by two lodges; the French Kings of old
made their entry by this gate; some of the hottest battles of the
late revolution were fought before it. At present, it is blocked
by carts and peasants, and a busy crowd of men, in green, examining
the packages before they enter, probing the straw with long
needles. It is the Barrier of St. Denis, and the green men are the
customs'-men of the city of Paris. If you are a countryman, who
would introduce a cow into the metropolis, the city demands twenty-
four francs for such a privilege: if you have a hundredweight of
tallow-candles, you must, previously, disburse three francs: if a
drove of hogs, nine francs per whole hog: but upon these subjects
Mr. Bulwer, Mrs. Trollope, and other writers, have already
enlightened the public. In the present instance, after a momentary
pause, one of the men in green mounts by the side of the conductor,
and the ponderous vehicle pursues its journey.

The street which we enter, that of the Faubourg St. Denis, presents
a strange contrast to the dark uniformity of a London street, where
everything, in the dingy and smoky atmosphere, looks as though it
were painted in India-ink--black houses, black passengers, and
black sky. Here, on the contrary, is a thousand times more life
and color. Before you, shining in the sun, is a long glistening
line of GUTTER,--not a very pleasing object in a city, but in a
picture invaluable. On each side are houses of all dimensions and
hues; some but of one story; some as high as the tower of Babel.
From these the haberdashers (and this is their favorite street)
flaunt long strips of gaudy calicoes, which give a strange air of
rude gayety to the street. Milk-women, with a little crowd of
gossips round each, are, at this early hour of morning, selling the
chief material of the Parisian cafe-au-lait. Gay wine-shops,
painted red, and smartly decorated with vines and gilded railings,
are filled with workmen taking their morning's draught. That
gloomy-looking prison on your right is a prison for women; once it
was a convent for Lazarists: a thousand unfortunate individuals of
the softer sex now occupy that mansion: they bake, as we find in
the guide-books, the bread of all the other prisons; they mend and
wash the shirts and stockings of all the other prisoners; they make
hooks-and-eyes and phosphorus-boxes, and they attend chapel every
Sunday:--if occupation can help them, sure they have enough of it.
Was it not a great stroke of the legislature to superintend the
morals and linen at once, and thus keep these poor creatures
continually mending?--But we have passed the prison long ago, and
are at the Porte St. Denis itself.

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