Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V

5. The Palace Elysée.– This is a beautiful rural home in the very heart of Paris. It is now occupied by Prince Louis Napoleon. For a regal residence it is quite unostentatious, and few abodes could any where be found, combining more attractions, for one of refined and simple tastes. Through the kindness of our minister, Mr. Rives, I obtained an audience with Count Roguet, who is at the head of the Presidential household, and through him secured an "audience particulière" with Prince Louis Napoleon in the Elysée. As I alighted from a hackney-coach at the massive gateway of the palace, armed sentinels were walking to and fro upon the pavements, surrounding the whole inclosure of the palace with a vigilant guard. At the open iron gate two more were stationed. I passed between their bayonets and was directed into a small office where a dignified-looking official examined my credentials, and then pointed my steps along the spacious court-yard to the door of the mansion. Armed soldiers were walking their patrols along the yard, and upon the flight of steps two stood guarding the door, with their glittering steel. They glanced at my note of invitation, and I entered the door. Several servants were there, evidently picked men, large and imposing in figure, dressed in small-clothes, and silk stockings, and laced with rich livery. One glanced at my letter, and conducting me across the hall introduced me into another room. There I found another set of servants and three clerks writing at a long table. One took my note of invitation and sat down, as if to copy it, and I was ushered into the third room. This was a large room in the interior of the palace, richly ornamented with gilded pilasters and ceiling. The walls were painted with landscapes, representing many scenes of historic interest. There were ten gentlemen, who had come before me, waiting for an audience. Some were nobles, with the full display upon their breasts of the decorations of their rank. Others were generals, in brilliant military costume. Several I observed with the modest red ribbon in the button hole, indicating that they were members of the Legion of Honor. All spoke in low and subdued tones of voice, and with soft footsteps moved about the room. Occasionally, an officer of the household would enter the room with a paper in his hands, apparently containing a list of the names of those who had arrived, and softly would call out the name of one, who immediately followed him into another room. As I at once saw that I had at least an hour to wait in the ante-room, I turned my thoughts to the scenes which, in years gone by, have transpired in this palace of Elysium. Nearly 150 years ago, the Count of Evreux built it for his aristocratic city residence. It was afterward purchased, enlarged, and beautified for the residence of Madame de Pompadour, the frail, voluptuous, intriguing paramour of Louis XV.; and often have they, arm-in-arm, paced this floor. They have passed out at these open French windows into the beautiful lawn which spreads before the mansion, and sauntered until lost in the wilderness of fountains, flowers, shrubbery, grove, and serpentine walks which spread over these enchanting grounds. But inexorable death struck down both king and mistress, and they passed away to the Judgment. The Revolution came, the awful retribution for centuries of kingly pride and oppression, and the regal palace became a printing-office for the irreligion of Voltaire, and the Jacobinism of Marat. These saloons and boudoirs were turned into eating rooms, and smoking rooms. The girls of the street crowded this spacious parlor, and where kings and queens had danced before them, they proudly danced with liberté, fraternité, égalité, in red cap and blouse. Then came the young soldier from Corsica, and with a whip of small cords drove printer, blouse, and grisette into the street. By his side stands the tall, athletic, mustached inn-keeper's boy, who had learned to ride when grooming the horses of his father's guests. With his whirlwind cloud of cavalry he had swept Italy and Egypt, and now enriched and powerful, Murat claims the hand of Caroline Bonaparte, the sister of the great conqueror. With his bride he takes the palace of the Elysée, and lives here in extravagance which even Louis XV. could not surpass. These paintings on the wall, Murat placed here. These pyramids of Egypt ever remind his guests that Murat, with his crushing squadrons, trampled down the defiant Mamelukes upon the Nile. This lady, walking beneath the trees of the forest, is Caroline, his wife. The children filling this carriage so joyously, are his sons and daughters. But he who had crowns at his disposal, places his brother-in-law upon the throne of Naples, and Napoleon himself chooses this charming spot for his favorite city residence. Weary with the cares of empire, he has often sought repose in these shady bowers. But allied Europe drove him from his Elysium, and the combined forces of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, take possession of the capital of his empire, and reinstate the Bourbons upon the throne from which they had been driven. Napoleon returns from Elba, and again hastens to his beloved Elysée. A hundred days glide swiftly by, and he is a prisoner, bound to St. Helena, to die a captive in a dilapidated stable. As I was reflecting upon the changes, and upon the painful contrast which must have presented itself to Napoleon, between the tasteful and exquisite seclusion of the Elysée, and the cheerless, barren, mist-enveloped rock of St. Helena, I was awakened from my reverie by a low tone of voice calling my name. I followed the messenger through a door, expecting to enter the presence of Louis Napoleon. Instead of that I was ushered into a large, elegantly furnished saloon – the council chamber of the Emperor Napoleon, but it was empty. There was a large folio volume, resembling one of the account books of a merchant, lying open upon a table. The messenger who summoned me, with my note of invitation in his hand, went to the book, passed his finger down the page, and soon I saw it resting upon my name. He read, apparently, a brief description of my character, and then, leaving me alone, went into another room, I suppose to inform the President who was to be introduced to him. In a few moments he returned, and I was ushered into the presence of the Prince President of Republican France. He was seated in an arm-chair, at the side of a table covered with papers. Louis Napoleon is a small man, with a mild, liquid, rather languid eye, and a countenance expressive of much passive resolution rather than of active energy. In his address, he is courteous, gentle, and retiring, and those who know him best, assign him a far higher position in the grade of intellect than is usually in our country allotted to him. His government is an utter despotism, sustained by the bayonets of the army. I have made great efforts, during the two months in which I have been in Paris, to ascertain the state of public opinion respecting the government of Louis Napoleon. Circumstances have thrown me much into French society, both into the society of those who are warm friends, and bitter enemies of the present government. So far as I can ascertain facts, they seem to be these. There are four parties who divide France – the Bourbonists, the Orleanists, the Socialists, and the Bonapartists. Like the military chieftains in Mexico, they are all struggling for dominion. There is not sufficient intelligence and virtue in France, for it to be governed by opinion, by a vote. The bayonet is the all-availing argument. If Louis Napoleon is overthrown, it must be to give place to some one, who, like him, must call the army and despotic power to his support. Consequently, multitudes say, What shall we gain by the change? We shall have new barricades in the street, new rivulets of blood trickling down our gutters, and simply another name in the Elysée. – I can see no indication that Louis Napoleon has any personal popularity. The glory of his uncle over-shadows him and renders him available. The army and the church, but without any enthusiasm, are in his favor. Most of the men in active business who seek protection and good order, support his claims. The American merchants, settled in Paris, generally feel that the overthrow of Louis Napoleon would be to them a serious calamity, and that they should hardly dare in that case, to remain in Paris. His government is submitted to, not merely as a choice of evils, but there is a kind of approval of his despotism as necessary to sustain him in power, and for the repose of France. I do not say that these views are correct. I only say, that so far as I can learn, this appears to me to be the state of the public mind.

It is very evident that no portion of the people regard Louis Napoleon with enthusiasm. At the great fête in the Champs Elysée, which called all Europe to Paris, to witness the restoration of the ancient eagles of France to the standards of the army, it was almost universally supposed out of Paris, that the hundred thousand troops then passing in proud array before the President would hail him Emperor. A countless throng encircled the area of that vast field. It was estimated that nearly a million of people were there assembled. Yet when Louis Napoleon made his appearance with his brilliant staff, I did not hear one single citizen's voice raised in applause. As he rode along the ranks of the army, a murmur of recognition followed his progress, but no shouts of enthusiasm.

Immediately after the fête, a magnificent ball and entertainment were given by the army, to Prince Louis Napoleon. It is said, that one hundred and sixty thousand dollars were expended in canopying the vast court yard of the Ecole Militaire, and in decorating it for this occasion. Fifteen thousand guests were invited. The scene of brilliance and splendor, no pen can describe. About half-past twelve o'clock the President entered upon an elevated platform, accompanied by the foreign ministers and the members of his court. But not one single voice even shouted a welcome. He remained a couple of hours conversing with those around him, and then bowing to the enormous throng of those whose invited guest he was, retired. One man, by my side, shouted in a clear, shrill voice which filled the vast saloons, "Vive l'Empereur," two others promptly responded, "Vive Napoleon." No other acclaim was heard.

The prospect of France is gloomy. Such a government as the present can not be popular. No other seems possible. No one seems to expect that the government can last for many years. And yet a change is dreaded. Rich men are transferring their property to England and America. Never did I love my own country as now. Never did I appreciate as now, the rich legacy we have inherited from our fathers. The hope of the world is centred in America. We must let Europe alone. To mortal vision her case is hopeless. We must cultivate our country, spread over our land, virtue and intelligence, and freedom; and welcome to peaceful homes in the new world, all who can escape from the taxation and despotism of the old. In half a century from now, the United States will be the most powerful nation upon which our sun has ever shone. Then we can speak with a voice that shall be heard. Our advice will have the efficiency of commands. Europe now has apparently but to choose between the evils of despotism, and the evils of anarchy. And still it is undeniable that the progress, though slow and painful is steadily onward toward popular liberty.

In this paper I have but commenced the description of the Palaces of France. In a subsequent number I may continue the subject.

A LEAF FROM A TRAVELER'S NOTE-BOOK

BY MAUNSELL B. FIELD

"Another flask of Orvieto, Gaetano, and tell the vetturino that we start to-morrow morning, punctually at six," exclaimed one of three foreigners, seated around a table, in the smokiest corner of the "Lepre" – the artist-haunt of the Via Condotti.

The speaker was a plain looking French gentleman, who, under the simplest exterior, concealed the most admirable mind and the highest personal qualities. A Provincial by birth, a Parisian by education, and a cosmopolite by travel, he united all the peculiar sagacity of his nation with that more dignified tone of character so rarely met with in his countrymen. Descended from a family of Lorraine, who had inherited the magistracy for centuries, and who, ruined at the emigration, had only partially recovered their fortunes at the restoration, our friend (ours, at least, reader) found himself, on attaining his majority, possessed of a sufficient competency to enable him to travel in a moderate way, so long as the taste should continue. And here he had been residing in Rome a twelvemonth (not rushing through it with cis-Atlantic steam-power), studying art with devotion, and living the intense life of Italian existence. His companions at the moment our recital commences, were an old Hollander, who had emerged from commerce into philosophy (no very usual exit!) and myself, whom chance had made a lounger in European capitals – a pilgrim from both Mecca and Jerusalem – and a connoisseur in every vintage from Burgundy to Xeres.

Carnival, with its fantastic follies, when the most constitutionally sedate by a species of frenzied reaction become the most reckless in absurdity, was past. Holy Week, with its gorgeous ecclesiastical mummery – its magnificent fire-works, and its still more magnificent illumination was likewise gone. Nearly all the travelers who had been spending the winter in Rome, including the two thousand English faces which, from their constant repetition at every public place, seemed at least two hundred thousand, had disappeared. Our own party had lingered after the rest, loath to leave, perhaps forever, the most fascinating city in the world to an intelligent mind. But at last we too, had determined to go, and our destination was Naples.

That very afternoon we had taken one of the tumble-down carriages, which station on the Piazza di Spagna, to make a farewell giro through the Forum. Leaving Rome is not like leaving any other town. Associations dating from early childhood, and linking the present with the past, make familiar, before they are known, objects in themselves so intrinsically interesting and beautiful, that the strongest attachment is sure to follow a first actual acquaintance with them. And when that acquaintance has been by daily intercourse matured, it is hard to give it up.

The weather was delicious. And as our crazy vehicle rattled over the disjointed pavement of the Appian way, among sandaled monks, lounging Jesuits, and herdsmen from the Campagna, a heart-sickness came over us which, in the instance of one, at least, of the party, has since settled down into a chronic mal du pays.

We had been taking our last meal at the "Trattoria Lepre," where we had so often, after a hard day's work, feasted upon cignale (wild boar), or something purporting so to be, surrounded by the bearded pensionnaires of all the academies.

Our Figaro-like attendant, who had served us daily for so many months, was more than commonly officious in the consciousness that the next morning we proposed to start for Naples. And, in fact, on the succeeding day at an early hour, an antediluvian vehicle, with chains and baskets slung beneath, drawn by three wild uncouth-looking animals, under the guidance of a good-for-nothing, half-bandit Trasteverino, in a conical hat and unwashed lineaments, might be seen emerging from the Porta San Giovanni, with their three Excellenzas in the inside.

The hearts of all three were too full for utterance – several miles we jogged on in silence, straining our eyes with last glimpses of St. Peter's, the Pantheon, and St. John Lateran.

At Albano we proposed to breakfast; and, while the meal was being prepared and the horses being refreshed, we started for a walk to the Lake, familiar to all the party from previous visits.

As we were seated on the bank, cigars in mouth, and as moody as might be, the Frenchman first endeavored to turn the current of our thoughts by speaking of Naples, which he alone of us knew. The effort was not particularly successful. But the Frenchman promised that when we resumed our journey, he would tell us a Neapolitan story, the effect of which, he hoped, would be to raise our spirits.

After returning to the inn, and breakfasting upon those mysterious Italian cutlets, the thick breading upon which defies all satisfactory investigation into their original material, we resumed our journey.

Legs dovetailed, and cigars relighted, the Frenchman thus commenced the story of

CARLO CARRERA

The summer before last, after a shocking soaking in crossing the Apennines, I contracted one of those miserable fevers that nature seems to exact as a toll from unfortunate Trans-Alpines for a summer's residence in Italy. I had no faith in Italian doctors, and as there was no medical man from my own country in Florence, I was persuaded to call in Doctor Playfair a Scotch physician, long domiciled in Italy, and as I afterwards discovered, both a skillful practitioner and a charming companion. I was kept kicking my heels against the footboard in all some six weeks, and when I had become sufficiently convalescent to sit up, the doctor used to make me long and friendly visits. In these visits he kept me posted up with all the chit-chat of the town; and upon one occasion related to me, better than I can tell it, the following story, of the truth of which (in all seriousness), he was perfectly satisfied, having heard it from the mouth of one of the parties concerned.

"Do throw some bajocchi to those clamorous natives, my dear Republican, that I may proceed with my story in peace."

Well, then, to give you a little preliminary history – don't be alarmed – a very little. The liberal government established in Naples in the winter of 1820-21, on the basis of the Spanish Cortes of 1812, was destined to a speedy dissolution. The despotic powers of the Continent, at the instigation of Austria, refused to enter into diplomatic relations with a kingdom which had adopted the representative system, after an explicit and formal engagement to maintain the institutions of absolutism. An armed intervention was decided upon at the Congress of Laybach, with the full consent and approbation of Ferdinand I., who treacherously abandoned the cause of his subjects. It was agreed to send an Austrian army, backed by a Russian one, into the Neapolitan dominions, for the purpose of putting down the Carbornari and other insurgents who, to the number of one hundred and fifty thousand men, badly armed, badly clothed, and badly disciplined, had assembled under the command of that notorious adventurer, Guiliemo Pepe, for the protection of those feebly secured liberties which had resulted to their country from the Sicilian revolution of the previous summer. This foreign force was to be maintained entirely at the expense of Ferdinand, and to remain in his kingdom, if necessary, for three years. The feeble resistance offered by the patriots to the invading forces – their defeat at the very outset – and their subsequent flight and disbandment – constitute one of those disgraceful denouements so common to Italian attempts at political regeneration.

"By all the storks in Holland," exclaimed the Dutchman, "cut short your story – I see nothing in it particularly enlivening."

"Badinage à part," resumed the Frenchman, "I have done in a word."

After the disastrous engagement of March 7, at Rieti, and the restoration of the old government, the patriot forces were scattered over the country; and as has too often been the case in southern Europe upon the discomfiture of a revolutionary party, many bands of banditti were formed from the disorganized remnants of the defeated army. For a long time the whole of the kingdom, particularly the Calabrias, was infested by robber gangs, whose boldness only equaled their necessities. Most of these banditti were hunted down and transferred to the galleys. The Neapolitan police has at all times been active in the suppression of disorders known or suspected to have a political origin. Fear of a revolution has ever been a more powerful incentive to the government than respect for justice or love of order; and "Napoli la Fidelissima" has so far reserved the name, and inspired such confidence in the not particularly intellectual sovereign who now sits on the throne, that the last time that I was there, his Majesty was in the habit of parading his bewhiskered legions through the streets of his capital, completely equipped at all points – except that they were unarmed!

And now for the story.

Among the most notorious of the banditti chieftains was one Carlo Carrera. This person, who had been a subaltern officer, succeeded for a long time, with some thirty followers, in defying the attempts of the police to capture him. Driven from hold to hold, and from fastness to fastness, he had finally been pursued to the neighborhood of Naples. Here the gendarmes of the government were satisfied that he was so surrounded as soon to be compelled to surrender at discretion. This was late in the following winter.

About this time his Britannic Majesty's frigate "Tagus," commanded by Captain, now Vice-Admiral, Sir George Dundas, was cruising in the Mediterranean. In the month of February Sir George anchored in the bay of Naples, with the intention of remaining there some weeks. It happened that another officer in his Majesty's navy, Captain, now Vice-Admiral, Sir Edward Owen, was wintering at Naples for the benefit of his health, accompanied by his wife and her sister, Miss V – , a young lady of extraordinary beauty and accomplishments. Sir George and Sir Edward were old friends. They had been together in the same ship as captain and first-lieutenant on the African station, and their accidental meeting when equals in rank was as cordial as it was unexpected.

A few days after the arrival of the frigate, a pic-nic excursion to the shores of Lake Agnano was proposed. The party was to consist of the persons of whom I have just been speaking, together with a few other English friends, chiefly gentlemen from the embassy. Accordingly they set off on one of those delightful mornings which are of themselves almost sufficient to make strangers exclaim with the enthusiastic Neapolitans, "Vedi Napoli e poi mori!" The surpassing loveliness of the scene, its perfect repose with so many elements of action, brought to the soul such a luxurious sense of passive enjoyment, that it seemed like the echo of all experienced happiness. I can not say if the Strada Nuova, in all its present paved perfection, then existed; but there must have been some sort of a road following the indentations of that lovely shore.

I have traced from Genoa to Nice the far-famed windings of the Maritime Alps – I have sailed along the glittering shores of the Bosphorus – I have admired the boasted site of the Lusitanian capital – and yet I feel, as all travelers must feel, that the combined charms of all these would fail to make another Naples.

Far out before them lay the fair island of Capri, like a sea goddess, with arms outstretched to receive the playful waters of the Mediterranean. Behind, Vesuvius rose majestically, the blue smoke lazily curling from its summit, as peaceful as if it had only been placed there as an accessory to the beauty of the scene; and further on, as they turned the promontory, lay the bright islets of Nisita and Procida, so fantastic in their shapes and so romantic in their outlines.

On reaching the shore of Lake Agnano, our travelers left their carriage near the villa of Lucullus. Of course they suffocated themselves, according to the approved habit of tourists, in the vapor baths of San Germano – and according to the same approved habit, devoted an unfortunate dog to temporary strangulation in the mephitic air of the Grotta del cane. After doing up the lions of the neighborhood, our friends seated themselves near the shore, to partake of the cold fowls and champagne, of which ample provision had been made for the excursion.

"I should have preferred the native Lachrymæ Christi to champagne," interrupted the Dutchman, "if the usual quality compares with that of some I once drank at Rotterdam."

The repast finished, resumed the Frenchman, most of the party strolled off to the other extremity of the lake – until after a short time no one was left but Miss V – , who was amusing herself by making a sketch of the landscape. What a pity that the women of other nations are so rarely accomplished in drawing, while the English ladies are almost universally so!