Travels in France during the years 1814-1815, Patrick Fraser Tytler [best books to read for teens .TXT] 📗

leather, scratched over in every direction, and marked with innumerable wipings of the pen, among which we perceived his own name, Napoleon, frequently written as in a very hurried and irregular hand; and one sentence which began, Que Dieu, Napoleon, Napoleon. The servants in the palace agreed in stating, that the Emperor's gaiety and fortitude of mind never deserted him during the ruin of his fortune; that he was engaged in his writing-chamber during the greater part of the day, and walked for two hours on the terrace, in close conversation with Marshal Ney. Several officers of the imperial guard repeated the speech which he made to his troops on leaving them after his abdication of the throne, which was precisely what appeared in the English newspapers. So great was the enthusiasm produced by this speech among the soldiers present, that it was received with shouts and cries of Vive l'Empereur, A Paris, A Paris! and when he departed under the custody of the allied Commissioners, the whole army wept; there was not a dry eye in the multitude who were assembled to witness his departure. Even the imperial guard, who had been trained in scenes of suffering from their first entry into the service—who had been inured for a long course of years to the daily sight of human misery, and had constantly made a sport of all the afflictions which are fitted to move the human heart, shared in the general grief; they seemed to forget the degradation in which their commander was involved, the hardships to which they had been exposed, and the destruction which he had brought upon their brethren in arms; they remembered him when he stood victorious on the field of Austerlitz, or passed in triumph through the gates of Moscow; and shed over the fall of their Emperor those tears of genuine sorrow which they denied to the deepest scenes of private suffering, or the most aggravated instances of individual distress. It is impossible not to regret that feelings so exalting to human nature should have been awakened by one who shared so little in their enthusiasm himself; that the sufferings of thousands should have been forgotten in the fate of one to whom the miseries of others never afforded a subject of regret; and that the only occasion on which generous sentiments were manifested by the French army, should have been the overthrow of that power by which their ambition and their wickedness had been supported.

We had the good fortune to see the infantry of the old guard drawn up in line in the streets of Fontainbleau, and their appearance was such as fully answered the idea we had formed of that body of veteran soldiers, who had borne the French eagles through every capital of Europe. Their aspect was bold and martial; there was a keenness in their eyes which bespoke the characteristic intelligence of the French soldiers, and a ferocity in the expression of their countenances which seemed to have been unsubdued even by the unparalleled disasters in which their country had been involved. The people of the town itself complained in the bitterest terms of their licentious conduct, and repeatedly said, that they dreaded them more as friends than the Cossacks themselves as enemies. They seemed to harbour the most unbounded resentment against the people of this country; their countenances bore the expression of the strongest enmity as we walked along their line, and we frequently heard them mutter among themselves, in the most emphatic manner, Sacre Dieu, voila des Anglois!—Whatever the atrocity of their conduct, however, might have been, to the people of their own, as well as every other country, it was impossible not to feel the strongest emotion at the sight of the veteran soldiers whose exploits had so long rivetted the attention of all who felt an interest in the civilized world. These were the men who first raised the glory of the republican armies on the plains of Italy; who survived the burning climate of Egypt, and chained victory to the imperial standards at Jena, at Austerlitz, and at Friedland—who followed the career of victory to the walls of the Kremlin, and marched undaunted through the ranks of death amid the snows of Russia;—who witnessed the ruin of France under the walls of Leipsic, and struggled to save her falling fortune on the heights of Laon; and who preserved, in the midst of national humiliation, and when surrounded by the mighty foreign Powers, that undaunted air and unshaken firmness, which, even in the moment of defeat, commanded the respect of their antagonists in arms.

Beyond the town of Fontainbleau, there rises a ridge of steep hills, which prevents any view in that direction into the distant parts of the forest. The road to their summit lies through the Imperial Gardens, and is surrounded by the artificial forms and regular walks which mark the character of the French gardening. When you reach the summit, however, the character of the scene instantly changes, and you pass at once into the utmost wildness of desolated nature. The foreground is broken by barren rock, or covered with the beautiful forms of the weeping birch; immediately below there lies a lonely valley, strewed with masses of grey stone, without the slightest trace of human habitation, while, in the farthest distance, the forest is discerned, clothing the sides of those broken ridges which rise in endless confusion on the surface of the horizon. At the moment when we reached this spot, the sun was setting in the west; the cold grey of the stone which covered the ravines was dimly discerned through the obscure light which the approach of night produced, while the rugged outline of the rocks beyond was projected in the deepest shadow on the bright light of the departing day.

There is no scenery round Paris so striking as the forest of Fontainbleau, but the heights of Belleville exhibit nature in a more pleasing aspect, and are distinguished by features of a gentler character. Montmartre, and the ridge of Belleville, form those celebrated heights which command Paris on the northern side, and which were so obstinately contested between the allies and the French on the 30th March 1814, previous to the capture of Paris by the allied Sovereigns. Montmartre is covered for the most part with houses, and presents nothing to attract the eye of the observer, except the extensive view which is to be met with at its summit. The heights of Belleville, however, are varied with wood, with orchards, vineyards, and gardens, interspersed with cottages and villas, and cultivated with the utmost care. There are few inclosures, but the whole extent of the ground is thickly studded with walnuts, fruit-trees, and forest timber, which, from a distance, give it the appearance of one continued wood. On a nearer approach, however, you find it intersected in every direction by small paths, which wind among the vineyards, or through the woods with which the hills are covered, and present at every turn those charming little scenes which form the peculiar characteristic of woodland scenery. The cottages half hid by the profusion of fruit-trees, or embosomed in the luxuriant woods with which they are everywhere surrounded, increase the interest which the scenery itself is fitted to produce: they combine the delightful idea of the peasant's enjoyment with the beauty of the spot on which his dwelling is placed; and awaken, in the midst of the boundless luxuriance of vegetable nature, those deeper feelings of moral delight, which spring from the contemplation of human happiness.

To a northern eye, there is nothing so delightful as this luxuriance of vegetation, which rises amidst the warmth of southern climates. The sterile rocks and rugged mountains of northern regions exhibit nature in her native rudeness, her features bear a harsher aspect, and her forms are expressive of more melancholy feeling; but under the genial warmth of a southern sun, she is arrayed in a robe of softer colours, and beams with the expression of a gentler character. She there appears surrounded by the luxuriance of vegetable life: she pours forth her bounty with a profusion which the partizans of utility would call prodigality, and covers the earth with a splendour of beauty, which serves no other purpose than to minister to the delight of human existence. Amidst the riches with which man is surrounded, his destiny appears happier than in more desolate situations; we forget the sufferings of the individual in the profusion of beauty with which he is surrounded; and impute to the inhabitants of these delightful regions, those feelings of happiness which spring in our own minds from the contemplation of the scenery in which they are placed.

The effect of the charming scenery on the heights of Belleville is much increased by the distant objects which terminate some parts of the view. To the east, the high and gloomy towers of Vincennes rise over the beautiful woods with which the sides of the hill are adorned, and give an air of solemnity to the scene, arising from the remembrance of the tragic events of which it was the theatre. To the south, the domes and spires of Paris can occasionally be discovered through the openings of the wood with which the foreground is enriched, and present the capital at that pleasing distance, when the minuter part of the buildings are concealed, when its prominent features alone are displayed, and the whole is softened by the obscure light which distance throws over the objects of nature. To an English mind, the effect of the whole is infinitely increased, by the animating associations with which this scenery is connected;—by the remembrance of the mighty struggle between freedom and slavery, which was here terminated;—of the heroic deeds which were here performed, and the unequalled magnanimity which was here displayed. It was here that the expiring efforts of military despotism were overthrown—that the armies of Russia stood triumphant over the power of France, and nobly avenged the ashes of their own capital, by sparing that of their prostrate enemy.

When we visited the heights of Belleville, the traces of the recent struggle were visibly imprinted on the villages and woods with which the hill is covered. The marks of blood were still to be discerned on the chaussée which leads through the village of Pantin; the elm trees which line the road were cut asunder, or bored through with cannon shot, and their stems riddled in many parts with the incessant fire of the grape shot. The houses in La Villette, Belleville and Pantin, were covered with the marks of musket shot; the windows of many were shattered, or wholly destroyed, and the interior of the rooms broken by the balls which seemed to have pierced every part of the buildings. So thickly were the houses in some places covered with these marks, that it appeared almost incredible how any one could have escaped from so destructive a fire. Even the beautiful gardens with which the slope of the heights are adorned, and the inmost recesses of the wood of Romainville, bore throughout the marks of the desperate struggles which they had lately witnessed, and exhibited the symptoms of fracture or destruction in the midst of the luxuriance of natural beauty; yet, though they had so recently been the scene of mortal combat; though the ashes of the dead yet lay in heaps on different parts of the field of battle, the prolific powers of nature were undecayed: the vines clustered round the broken fragments of the instruments of war,—the corn spread a sweeter green over the fields, which were yet wet with human blood, and the trees waved with renovated beauty over the uncoffined remains of the departed brave; emblematic of the decay of man, and of the immortality of nature.

The French have often been accused of selfishness, and the indifference which they often manifest to the fate of their relations, affords too much reason to believe