A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and Things

After visiting the pretty museum at Eden Park, a museum organized in 1880 in consequence of Mr. Charles W. West’s offer to give $150,000 for that purpose, and already in possession of very good works of art and many valuable treasures, we returned to the city and stopped at the Public Library. Over 200,000 volumes, representing all the branches of science and literature, are there, as well as a collection of all the newspapers of the world, placed in chronological order on the shelves and neatly bound. I believe that this collection of newspapers and that of Washington are the two best known. In the public reading-room, hundreds of people are running over the newspapers from Europe and all the principal cities of the United States. My best thanks are due to Mr. Whelpley, the librarian, for his kindness in conducting me all over this interesting place. Upstairs I was shown the room where the members of the Council of Education hold their sittings. The room was all topsy-turvey. Twenty-six desks and twenty-six chairs was about all the furniture of the room. In a corner, piled up together, were the cuspidores. I counted. Twenty-six. Right.

After thanking my kind pilot, I returned to the Burnet House to read the evening papers. I read that the next day I was to breakfast with Mr. A., lunch with Mr. B., and dine with Mr. C. The menu was not published. I take it for granted that this piece of intelligence is quite interesting to the readers of Cincinnati.

My evening being free, I looked at the column of amusements. The first did not tempt me, it was this:

THE KING OF THE SWAMPSThe Only and the OriginalEnglish JackTHE INCOMPREHENSIBLE FROG MAN

He makes a frog pond of his stomach by eating living frogs. An appetite created by life in the swamps. He is so fond of this sort of food that he takes the pretty creatures by the hind legs, and before they can say their prayers they are inside out of the cold.

The next advertisement was that of a variety show, that most stupid form of entertainment so popular in America; the next was the announcement of pugilists, and another one that of a “most sensational drama, in which ‘one of the most emotional actresses’ in America” was to appear, supported by “one of the most powerful casts ever gathered together in the world.”

The superlatives, in American advertisements, have long ceased to have the slightest effect upon me.

The advertisement of another “show” ran thus: I beg to reproduce it in its entirety; indeed it would be a sacrilege to meddle with it.

TO THE PUBLIC

My Friends and Former Patrons: I have now been before the public for the past seventeen years, and am perhaps too well known to require further evidence of my character and integrity than my past life and record will show. Fifteen years ago I inaugurated the system of dispensing presents to the public, believing that a fair share of my profits could thus honestly be returned to my patrons. At the outset, and ever since, it has been my aim to deal honestly toward the multitude who have given me patronage. Since that time many imitators have undertaken to beguile the public, with but varying success. Many unprincipled rascals have also appeared upon the scene, men without talent, but far-reaching talons, who by specious promises have sought to swindle all whom they could inveigle. This class of scoundrels do not hesitate to make promises that they cannot and never intend to fulfill, and should be frowned down by all honest men. They deceive the public, leave a bad impression, and thus injure legitimate exhibitions. Every promise I make will be faithfully fulfilled, as experience has clearly proven that dealing uprightly with the public brings its sure reward. All who visit my beautiful entertainment may rely upon the same fair dealing which has been my life-long policy, and which has always honored me with crowded houses.

Special Notice

Ladies and Children are especially Invited to Attend this Entertainment. We Guarantee it to be Chaste, Pure, and as Wholesome and Innocent as it is Amusing and Laughable.

Finally I decided on going to see a German tragedy. I did not understand it, but the acting seemed to me good.

…

Like Milwaukee, Cincinnati possesses a very strong German element. Indeed a whole part of the city is entirely inhabited by a German population, and situated on one side of the water. When you cross the bridge in its direction, you are going “over the Rhine,” to use the local expression. “To go over the Rhine” of an evening means to go to one of the many German Brauerei, and have sausages and Bavarian beer for supper.

The town is a very prosperous one. The Germans in America are liked for their steadiness and industry. An American friend even told me that the Germans were perhaps the best patriots the United States could boast of.

Patriots! The word sounded strangely to my ears. I may be prejudiced, but I call a good patriot a man who loves his own mother country. You may like the land of your adoption, but you love the land of your birth. Good patriots! I call a good brother a man who loves his sister, not other people’s sisters.

The Germans apply for their naturalization papers the day after they have landed. I should admire their patriotism much more if they waited a little longer before they changed their own mother for a step-mother.

… March 8.

I witnessed a most impressive ceremony this morning, the funeral of the American Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Berlin, whose body was brought from Germany to his native place a few days ago. No soldiers ordered to accompany the cortège, no uniforms, but thousands of people voluntarily doing honor to the remains of a talented and respected fellow-citizen and townsman: a truly republican ceremony in its simplicity and earnestness.

The coffin was taken to the Music Hall, a new and beautiful building capable of accommodating thousands of people, and placed on the platform amid evergreens and the Stars and Stripes. In a few minutes, the hall, decorated with taste but with appropriate simplicity, was packed from floor to ceiling. Some notables and friends of the late Minister sat on the platform around the coffin, and the mayor, in the name of the inhabitants of the city, delivered a speech, a eulogistic funeral oration, on the deceased diplomatist. All parties were represented in the hall, Republicans and Democrats alike had come. America admits no party feeling, no recollection of political differences, to intrude upon the homage she gratefully renders to the memory of her illustrious dead.

The mayor’s speech, listened to by the crowd in respectful silence, was much like all the speeches delivered on such occasions, including the indispensable sentence that “he knew he could safely affirm that the deceased had never made any enemies.” When I hear a man spoken of, after his death, as never having made any enemies, as a Christian I admire him, but I also come to the conclusion that he must have been a very insignificant member of the community. But the phrase, I should remember, is a mere piece of flattery to the dead, in a country where death puts a stop to all enmity, political enmity especially. The same would be done in England, and almost everywhere. Not in France, however, where the dead continue to have implacable enemies for many years after they have left the lists.

…

The afternoon was pleasantly spent visiting the town hall and the remarkable china manufactories, which turn out very pretty, quaint, and artistic pottery. The evening brought to the Odéon a fashionable and most cultivated audience. I am invited to pay a return visit to this city. I shall look forward to the pleasure of lecturing here again in April.

… March 9.

Spent a most agreeable Sunday in the hospitable house of M. Fredin, the French consular agent, and his amiable and talented wife. M. Fredin was kind enough to call yesterday at the Burnet House.

As a rule, I never call on the representatives of France in my travels abroad. If I traveled as a tourist, I would; but traveling as a lecturer, I should be afraid lest the object of my visits might be misconstrued, and taken as a gentle hint to patronize me.

One day I had a good laugh with a French consul, in an English town where I came to lecture. On arriving at the hall I found a letter from this diplomatic compatriot, in which he expressed his surprise that I had not apprised him of my arrival. The next morning, before leaving the town, I called on him. He welcomed me most gracefully.

“Why did you not let me, your consul, know that you were coming?” he said to me.

“Well, Monsieur le Consul,” I replied, “suppose I wrote to you: ‘Monsieur le Consul, I shall arrive at N. on Friday,’ and suppose, now, just suppose, that you answered me, ‘Sir, I am glad to hear you will arrive here on Friday, but what on earth is that to me?’”

He saw the point at once. A Frenchman always does.

… March 10.

I like this land of conjuring. This morning I took the street car to go on the Burnet Hills. At the foot of the hill the car – horses, and all – enters a little house. The house climbs the hill vertically by means of cables. Arrived at the top of the mountain, the car comes out of the little house and goes on its way, just as if absolutely nothing had happened. To return to town, I went down the hill in the same fashion. But if the cable should break, you will exclaim, where would you be? Ah, there you are! It does not break. It did once, so now they see that it does not again.

In the evening there was nothing to see except variety shows and wrestlers. There was a variety show which tempted me, the Hermann’s Vaudevilles. I saw on the list of attractions the name of my friend and compatriot, F. Trewey, the famous shadowgraphist, and I concluded that if the other artistes were as good in their lines as he is in his, it would be well worth seeing. The show was very good of its kind, and Trewey was admirable; but the audience were not refined, and it was not his most subtle and artistic tricks that they applauded most, but the broader and more striking ones. After the show he and I went “over the Rhine.” You know what it means.

… March 11, 9 a. m.

For a long time I had wished to see the wonderful American fire brigades at work. The wish has now been satisfied.

At half-past one this morning I was roused in my bed by the galloping of horses and the shouts of people in the street. Huge tongues of fire were licking my window, and the heat in the room was intense. Indeed, all around me seemed to be in a blaze, and I took it for granted that the Burnet House was on fire. I rose and dressed quickly, put together the few valuables that were in my possession, and prepared to make for the street. I soon saw, however, that it was a block of houses opposite that was on fire, or rather the corner house of that block.

The guests of the hotel were in the corridors ready for any emergency. Had there been any wind in our direction, the hotel was doomed. The night was calm and wet. As soon as we became aware that no lives were lost or in danger in the burning building, and that it would only be a question of insurance money to be paid by some companies, we betook ourselves to admire the magnificent sight. For it was a magnificent sight, this whole large building, the prey of flames coming in torrents out of every window, the dogged perseverance of the firemen streaming floods of water over the roof and through the windows, the salvage corps men penetrating through the flames into the building in the hope of receiving the next day a commission on all the goods and valuables saved. A fierce battle it was between a brute element and man. By three o’clock the element was conquered, but only the four walls of the building remained, which proved to me that, with all their wonderful promptitude and gallantry, all firemen can do when flames have got firm hold on a building is to save the adjoining property.

I listened to the different groups of people in the hotel. Some gave advice as to how the firemen should set about their work, or criticised. Others related the big fires they had witnessed, a few indulging in the recital of the exploits they performed thereat. There are a good many Gascons among the Americans. At four o’clock all danger was over, and we all retired.

…

I was longing to read the descriptions of the fire in this morning’s papers. I have now read them and am not at all disappointed. On the contrary, they are beyond my most sanguine expectations. Wonderful; simply perfectly wonderful! I am now trying to persuade myself that I really saw all that the reporters saw, and that I really ran great danger last night. For, “at every turn,” it appears, “the noble hotel seemed as if it must become the prey of the fierce element, and could only be saved by a miracle.” Columns and columns of details most graphically given, sensational, blood-curdling. But all that is nothing. You should read about the panic, and the scenes of wild confusion in the Burnet House, when all the good folks, who had all dressed and were looking quietly at the fire from the windows, are described as a crowd of people in despair: women disheveled, in their night-dresses, running wild, and throwing themselves in the arms of men to seek protection, and all shrieking and panic-stricken. Such a scene of confusion and terror you can hardly imagine. Wonderful!

CHAPTER XXXIV

A Journey if you Like – Terrible Encounter with an American Interviewer In the train to Brushville, March 11.

Left Cincinnati this morning at ten o’clock and shall not arrive at Brushville before seven o’clock to-night. I am beginning to learn how to speak American. As I asked for my ticket this morning at the railroad office, the clerk said to me:

“C. H. D. or C. C. C. St. L. and St. P.?”

“C. H. D.,” I replied, with perfect assurance.

I happened to hit on the right line for Brushville.

By this time I know pretty well all those combinations of the alphabet by which the different railroad lines of America are designated.

No hope of comfort or of a dinner to-day. I shall have to change trains three times, but none of them, I am grieved to hear, have parlor cars or dining cars. There is something democratic about uniform cars for all alike. I am a democrat myself, yet I have a weakness for the parlor cars – and the dining cars.

At noon we stopped five minutes at a place which, two years ago, counted six wooden huts. To-day it has more than 5000 inhabitants, the electric light in the streets, a public library, two hotels, four churches, two banks, a public school, a high school, cuspidores, toothpicks, and all the signs of American civilization.

I changed trains at one o’clock at Castle Green Junction. No hotel in the place. I inquired where food could be obtained. A little wooden hut, on the other side of the depot, bearing the inscription “Lunch Room,” was pointed out to me. Lunch in America has not the meaning that it has in England, as I often experienced to my despair. The English are solid people. In England lunch means something. In America, it does not. However, as there was no Beware written outside, I entered the place. Several people were eating pies, fruit pies, pies with crust under, and crust over: sealed mysteries.

“I want something to eat,” I said to a man behind the counter, who was in possession of only one eye, and hailed from Old Oireland.

“What ’d ye loike?” replied he, winking with the eye that was not there.

“Well, what have you got?”

“Peach poy, apricot poy, apple poy, and mince poy.”

“Is that all?”

“And, shure, what more do you want?”

I have always suspected something mysterious about mince pies. At home, I eat mince pies. I also trust my friends’ cooks. Outside, I pass. I think that mince pies and sausages should be made at home.

“I like a little variety,” I said to the Irishman, “give me a small slice of apple pie, one of apricot pie, and another of peach pie.”

The Irishman stared at me.

“What’s the matter with the mince poy?” he seemed to say.

I could see from his eye that he resented the insult offered to his mince pies.

I ate my pies and returned on the platform. I was told that the train was two hours behind time, and I should be too late to catch the last Brushville train at the next change.

I walked and smoked.

The three pies began to get acquainted with each other.

… Brushville, March 12.

Oh, those pies!

At the last change yesterday, I arrived too late. The last Brushville train was gone.

The pies were there.

A fortune I would have given for a dinner and a bed, which now seemed more problematic than ever.

I went to the station-master.

“Can I have a special train to take me to Brushville to-night?”

“A hundred dollars.”

“How much for a locomotive alone?”

“Sixty dollars.”

“Have you a freight train going to Brushville?”

“What will you do with it?”

“Board it.”

“Board it! I can’t stop the train.”

“I’ll take my chance.”

“Your life is insured?”

“Yes; for a great deal more than it is worth.”

“Very well,” he said, “I’ll let you do it for five dollars.”

And he looked as if he was going to enjoy the fun. The freight train arrived, slackened speed, and I boarded, with my portmanteau and my umbrella, a car loaded with timber. I placed my handbag on the timber – you know, the one I had when traveling in “the neighborhood of Chicago” – sat on it, opened my umbrella, and waved a “tata” to the station-master.

It was raining fast, and I had a journey of some thirty miles to make at the rate of about twelve miles an hour.

Oh, those pies! They now seemed to have resolved to fight it out. Sacrebleu! De bleu! de bleu!

A few miles from Brushville I had to get out, or rather, get down, and take a ticket for Brushville on board a local train.

Benumbed with cold, wet through, and famished, I arrived here at ten o’clock last night. The peach pie, the apple pie, and the apricot pie had settled their differences and become on friendly and accommodating terms.

I was able, on arriving at the hotel, to enjoy some light refreshments, which I only obtained, at that time of night, thanks to the manager, whom I had the pleasure of knowing personally.

At eleven o’clock I went to bed, or, to use a more proper expression for my Philadelphia readers, I retired.

I had been “retiring” for about half an hour, when I heard a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” I grumbled from under the bedclothes.

“A representative of the Brushville Express.”

“Oh,” said I, “I am very sorry – but I’m asleep.”

“Please let me in; I won’t detain you very long.”

“I guess you won’t. Now, please do not insist. I am tired, upset, ill, and I want rest. Come to-morrow morning.”

“No, I can’t do that,” answered the voice behind the door; “my paper appears in the morning, and I want to put in something about you.”

“Now, do go away,” I pleaded, “there’s a good fellow.”

“I must see you,” insisted the voice.

“You go!” I cried, “you go – ” without mentioning any place.

For a couple of minutes there was silence, and I thought the interviewer was gone. The illusion was sweet, but short. There was another knock, followed by a “I really must see you to-night.” Seeing that there would be no peace until I had let the reporter in, I unbolted the door, and jumped back into my – you know.

It was pitch dark.

The door opened; and I heard the interviewer’s steps in the room. By and by, the sound of a pocket being searched was distinct. It was his own. A match was pulled out and struck; the premises examined and reconnoitered.

A chandelier with three lights hung in the middle of the room. The reporter, speechless and solemn, lighted one burner, then two, then three, chose the most comfortable seat, and installed himself in it, looking at me with an air of triumph.

I was sitting up, wild and desheveled, in my “retiring” clothes.

“Que voulez-vous?” I wanted to yell, my state of drowsiness allowing me to think only in French.

Instead of translating this query by “What do you want?” as I should have done, if I had been in the complete enjoyment of my intellectual faculties, I shouted to him:

“What will you have?”

“Oh, thanks, I’m not particular,” he calmly replied. “I’ll have a little whisky and soda – rye whisky, please.”

My face must have been a study as I rang for whisky and soda.

The mixture was brought – for two.

“I suppose you have no objection to my smoking?” coolly said the man in the room.

“Not at all,” I remarked; “this is perfectly lovely; I enjoy it all.”

He pulled out his pocket-book and his pencil, crossed his legs, and having drawn a long whiff from his cigar, he said:

“I see that you have no lecture to deliver in Brushville; may I ask you what you have come here for?”

“Now,” said I, “what the deuce is that to you? If this is the kind of questions you have to ask me, you go – ”

He pocketed the rebuff, and went on undisturbed:

“How are you struck with Brushville?”

“I am struck,” said I, “with the cheek of some of the inhabitants. I have driven to this hotel from the depot in a closed carriage, and I have seen nothing of your city.”

The man wrote down something.

“I lecture to-morrow night,” I continued, “before the students of the State University, and I have come here for rest.”

He took this down.

“All this, you see, is very uninteresting; so, good-night.”

And I disappeared.

The interviewer rose and came to my side.

“Really, now that I am here, you may as well let me have a chat with you.”

“You wretch!” I exclaimed. “Don’t you see that I am dying for sleep? Is there nothing sacred for you? Have you lost all sense of charity? Have you no mother? Don’t you believe in future punishment? Are you a man or a demon?”

“Tell me some anecdotes, some of your reminiscences of the road,” said the man, with a sardonic grin.

I made no reply. The imperturbable reporter resumed his seat and smoked.

“Are you gone?” I sighed, from under the blankets.

The answer came in the following words:

“I understand, sir, that when you were a young man – ”

“When I was what?” I shouted, sitting up once more.

“I understand, sir, that when you were quite a young man,” repeated the interviewer, with the sentence improved, “you were an officer in the French army.”

“I was,” I murmured, in the same position.

“I also understand you fought during the Franco-Prussian war.”

“I did,” I said, resuming a horizontal position.

“May I ask you to give me some reminiscences of the Franco-Prussian war – just enough to fill about a column?”

I rose and again sat up.

“Free citizen of the great American Republic,” said I, “beware, beware! There will be blood shed in this room to-night.”

And I seized my pillow.

“You are not meaty,” exclaimed the reporter.

“May I inquire what the meaning of this strange expression is?” I said, frowning; “I don’t speak American fluently.”

“It means,” he replied, “that there is very little to be got out of you.”

“Are you going?” I said, smiling.

“Well, I guess I am.”

“Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

I bolted the door, turned out the gas, and “re-retired.”

“Poor fellow,” I thought; “perhaps he relied on me to supply him with material for a column. I might have chatted with him. After all, these reporters have invariably been kind to me. I might as well have obliged him. What is he going to do?”

And I dreamed that he was dismissed.

I ought to have known better.

This morning I opened the Brushville Express, and, to my stupefaction, saw a column about me. My impressions of Brushville, that I had no opportunity of looking at, were there. Nay, more. I would blush to record here the exploits I performed during the Franco-Prussian war, as related by my interviewer, especially those which took place at the battle of Gravelotte, where, unfortunately, I was not present. The whole thing was well written. The reference to my military services began thus: “Last night a hero of the great Franco-Prussian war slept under the hospitable roof of Morrison Hotel, in this city.”