Three Years in Europe/Letter VI.

by William Wells Brown

LETTER VI.

The Tuileries—Place de la Concorde—The Egyptian Obelisk—Palais Royal—Residence of Robespierre—A Visit to the Room in which Charlotte Corday killed Marat—Church de Notre Dame—Palais de Justice—Hotel des Invalids—National Assembly—The Elysee.

Paris, August 28.

  YESTERDAY morning I started at an early hour for the Palace of the Tuileries. A show of my card of membership of the Congress (which had carried me through so many of the public buildings) was enough to gain me immediate admission. The attack of the mob on the palace, on the 20th of June, 1792, the massacre of the Swiss guard on the 10th of August of the same year, the attack by the people in July 1830, together with the recent flight of king Louis Philippe and family, made me anxious to visit the old pile.

  We were taken from room to room, until the entire building had been inspected. In front of the Tuileries, are a most magnificent garden and grounds. These were all laid out by Louis XIV., and are left nearly as they were during that monarch's reign. Above fifty acres surrounded by an iron rail fence, fronts the Place de la Concorde, and affords a place of promenade for the Parisians. I walked the pleasing grounds, and saw hundreds of well dressed persons walking under the shade of the great chestnuts, or sitting on chairs which were kept to let at two sous a piece. Near by is the Place de Carrousel, noted for its historical remembrances. Many incidents connected with the several revolutions occurred here, and it is pointed out as the place where Napoleon reviewed that formidable army of his before its departure for Russia.

  From the Tuileries, I took a stroll through the Place de la Concorde, which has connected with it so many acts of cruelty, that it made me shudder as I passed over its grounds. As if to take from one's mind the old associations of this place, the French have erected on it, or rather given a place to, the celebrated obelisk of Luxor, which now is the chief attraction on the grounds. The obelisk was brought from Egypt at an enormous expense; for which purpose a ship was built, and several hundred men employed above three years in its removal. It is formed of the finest red syenite, and covered on each side with three lines of hieroglyphic inscriptions, commemorative of Sesostris—the middle lines being the most deeply cut and most carefully finished; and the characters altogether number more than 1600. The obelisk is of a single stone, is 72 feet in height, weighs 500,000 lbs., and stands on a block of granite that weighs 250,000 lbs. He who can read Latin will see that the monument tells its own story, but to me its characters were all blank.

  It would be tedious to follow the history of this old and venerated stone, which was taken from the quarry 1550 years before the birth of Christ; placed in Thebes; its removal; the journey to the Nile, and down the Nile; thence to Cherbourg, and lastly its arrival in Paris on the 23d of December, 1833—just one year before I escaped from slavery. The obelisk was raised on the spot where it now stands, on the 25th of October, 1836, in the presence of Louis Philippe and amid the greetings of 160,000 persons.

  Having missed my dinner, I crossed over to the Palais Royal, to a dining saloon, and can assure you that a better dinner may be had there for five francs, than can be got in New York for twice that sum, and especially if the person who wants the dinner is a coloured man. I found no prejudice against my complexion in the Palais Royal.

  Many of the rooms in this once abode of Royalty, are most splendidly furnished, and decorated with valuable pictures. The likenesses of Madame de Stael, J.J. Rousseau, Cromwell, and Francis I., are among them.

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  After several unsuccessful attempts to-day, in company with R.D. Webb, Esq., to seek out the house where once resided the notorious Robespierre, I was fortunate enough to find it, but not until I had lost the company of my friend. The house is No. 396, Rue St. Honore, opposite the Church of the Assumption. It stands back, and is reached by entering a court. During the first revolution it was occupied by M. Duplay, with whom Robespierre lodged. The room used by the great man of the revolution, was pointed out to me. It is small, and the ceiling low, with two windows looking out upon the court. The pin upon which the blue coat once hung, is still in the wall. While standing there, I could almost imagine that I saw the great "Incorruptible," sitting at the small table composing those speeches which gave him so much power and influence in the Convention and the Clubs.

  Here, the disciple of Rousseau sat and planned how he should outdo his enemies and hold on to his friends. From this room he went forth, followed by his dog Brunt, to take his solitary walk in a favourite and neighbouring field, or to the fiery discussions of the National Convention. In the same street, is the house in which Madame Roland—one of Robespierre's victims—resided.

  A view of the residence of one of the master spirits of the French revolution inclined me to search out more, and therefore I proceeded to the old town, and after winding through several small streets—some of them so narrow as not to admit more than one cab at a time—I found myself in the Rue de L'Ecole de Medecine, and standing in front of house No. 20. This was the residence, during the early days of the revolution, of that bloodthirsty demon in human form, Marat.

  I said to a butcher, whose shop was underneath, that I wanted to see La Chambre de Marat. He called out to the woman of the house to know if I could be admitted, and the reply was, that the room was used as a sleeping apartment, and could not be seen.

  As this was private property, my blue card of membership to the Congress was not available. But after slipping a franc into the old lady's hand, I was informed that the room was now ready. We entered a court and ascended a flight of stairs, the entrance to which is on the right; then crossing to the left, we were shown into a moderate-sized room on the first floor, with two windows looking out upon a yard. Here it was where the "Friend of the People" (as he styled himself,) sat and wrote those articles that appeared daily in his journal, urging the people to "hang the rich upon lamp posts." The place where the bath stood, in which he was bathing at the time he was killed by Charlotte Corday, was pointed out to us; and even something representing an old stain of blood was shown as the place where he was laid when taken out of the bath. The window, behind whose curtains the heroine hid, after she had plunged the dagger into the heart of the man whom she thought was the cause of the shedding of so much blood by the guillotine, was pointed out with a seeming degree of pride by the old woman.

  With my Guide Book in hand, I again went forth to "hunt after new fancies."

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  After walking over the ground where the guillotine once stood, cutting off its hundred and fifty heads per day, and then visiting the place where some of the chief movers in that sanguinary revolution once lived, I felt little disposed to sleep, when the time for it had arrived. However, I was out this morning at an early hour, and on the Champs Elysees; and again took a walk over the place where the guillotine stood, when its fatal blade was sending so many unprepared spirits into eternity. When standing here, you have the Palace of the Tuileries on one side, the arch on the other; on a third, the classic Madeleine; and on the fourth, the National Assembly. It caused my blood to chill, the idea of being on the identical spot where the heads of Louis XVI. and his Queen, after being cut off, were held up to satisfy the blood-thirsty curiosity of the two hundred thousand persons that were assembled on the Place de la Revolution. Here Royal blood flowed as it never did before or since. The heads of patricians and plebians, were thrown into the same basket, without any regard to birth or station. Here Robespierre and Danton had stood again and again, and looked their victims in the face as they ascended the scaffold; and here, these same men had to mount the very scaffold that they had erected for others. I wandered up the Seine, till I found myself looking at the statue of Henry the IV. over the principal entrance of the Hotel de Ville. When we take into account the connection of the Hotel de Ville with the different revolutions, we must come to the conclusion, that it is one of the most remarkable buildings in Paris. The room was pointed out where Robespierre held his counsels, and from the windows of which he could look out upon the Place de Greve, where the guillotine stood before its removal to the Place de la Concorde. The room is large, with gilded hangings, splendid old-fashioned chandeliers, and a chimney-piece with fine antiquated carvings, that give it a venerable appearance. Here Robespierre not only presided at the counsels that sent hundreds to the guillotine; but from this same spot, he, with his brother St. Just and others, were dragged before the Committee of Public Safety, and thence to the guillotine, and justice and revenge satisfied.

  The window from which Lafayette addressed the people in 1830, and presented to them Louis Philippe, as the king, was shown to us. Here the poet, statesman, philosopher and orator, Lamartine, stood in February 1848, and, by the power of his eloquence, succeeded in keeping the people quiet. Here he forced the mob, braved the bayonets presented to his breast, and, by his good reasoning, induced them to retain the tri-coloured flag, instead of adopting the red flag, which he considered the emblem of blood.

  Lamartine is a great heroic genius, dear to liberty and to France; and successive generations, as they look back upon the revolution of 1848, will recall to memory the many dangers which nothing but his dauntless courage warded off. The difficulties which his wisdom surmounted, and the good service that he rendered to France, can never be adequately estimated or too highly appreciated. It was at the Hotel de Ville that the Republic of 1848 was proclaimed to the people.

  I next paid my respects to the Column of July that stands on the spot formerly occupied by the Bastile. It is 163 feet in height, and on the top is the Genius of Liberty, with a torch in his right hand, and in the left a broken chain. After a fatiguing walk up a winding stair, I obtained a splendid view of Paris from the top of the column.

  I thought I should not lose the opportunity of seeing the Church de Notre Dame while so near to it, and, therefore, made it my next rallying point. No edifice connected with religion has had more interesting incidents occurring in it than this old church. Here Pope Pius VII. placed the Imperial Crown on the head of the Corsican—or rather Napoleon took the Crown from his hands and placed it on his own head. Satan dragging the wicked to ——; the rider on the red horse at the opening of the second seal; the blessedness of the saints; and several other striking sculptured figures were among the many curiosities in this splendid place. A hasty view from the gallery concluded my visit to the Notre Dame.

  Leaving the old church I strayed off in a direction towards the Seine, and passed by an old looking building of stately appearance, and recognised, among a throng passing in and out, a number of the members of the Peace Congress. I joined a party entering, and was soon in the presence of men with gowns on, and men with long staffs in their hands—and on inquiry found that I was in the Palais de Justice; beneath which is the Conciergerie, a noted prison. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were tried and condemned to death here.

  A bas-relief, by Cortat, representing Louis in conference with his Counsel, is here seen. But I had visited too many places of interest during the day to remain long in a building surrounded by officers of justice, and took a stroll upon the Boulevards.

  The Boulevards may be termed the Regent Street of Paris, or a New Yorker would call them Broadway. While passing a café, my German friend Faigo, whose company I had enjoyed during the passage from America, recognised me, and I sat down and took a cup of delicious coffee for the first time on the side walk, in sight of hundreds who were passing up and down the street every hour. From three till eleven o'clock, P.M., the Boulevards are lined with men and women sitting before the doors of the saloons drinking their coffee or wines, or both at the same time, as fancy may dictate. All Paris appeared to be on the Boulevards, and looking as if the great end of this life was enjoyment.

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  Anxious to see as much as possible of Paris in the limited time I had to stay in it, I hired a cab yesterday morning and commenced with the Hotel des Invalids, a magnificent building, within a few minutes' walk of the National Assembly. On each side of the entrance gate are figures representing nations conquered by Louis XIV., with colossal statues of Mars and Minerva. The dome on the edifice is the loftiest in Paris—the height from the ground being 323 feet.

  Immediately below the dome is the tomb of the man at whose word the world turned pale. A statue of the Emperor Napoleon stands in the second piazza, and is of the finest bronze.

  This building is the home of the pensioned soldiers of France. It was enough to make one sick at the idea of war, to look upon the mangled bodies of these old soldiers. Men with arms and no legs; others had legs but no arms; some with canes and crutches, and some wheeling themselves about in little hand carts. About three thousand of the decayed soldiers were lodged in the Hotel des Invalids, at the time of my visit. Passing the National Assembly on my return, I spent a moment or two in it. The interior of this building resembles an amphitheatre. It is constructed to accommodate 900 members, each having a separate desk. The seat upon which the Duchesse of Orleans, and her son, the Comte de Paris, sat, when they visited the National Assembly after the flight of Louis Philippe, was shown with considerable alacrity. As I left the building, I heard that the President of the Republic was on the point of leaving the Elysee for St. Cloud, and with the hope of seeing the "Prisoner of Ham," I directed my cabman to drive me to the Elysee.

  In a few moments we were between two files of soldiers, and entering the gates of the palace. I called out to the driver and told him to stop; but I was too late, for we were now in front of the massive doors of the palace, and a liveried servant opened the cab door, bowed, and asked if I had an engagement with the President. You may easily "guess" his surprise when I told him no. In my best French, I asked the cabman why he had come to the palace, and was answered, "You told me to." By this time a number had gathered round, all making inquiries as to what I wanted. I told the driver to retrace his steps, and, amid the shrugs of their shoulders, the nods of their heads, and the laughter of the soldiers, I left the Elysee without even a sight of the President's mustaches for my trouble. This was only one of the many mistakes I made while in Paris.