LETTER XXVII

_Paris, December 3, 1801_.

In this season, when the blasts of November have entirely stripped the trees of their few remaining leaves, and Winter has assumed his hoary reign, the garden of the _Tuileries_, loses much of the gaiety of its attractions. Besides, to frequent that walk, at present, is like visiting daily one of our theatres, you meet the same faces so often, that the scene soon becomes monotonous. As well for the sake of variety as exercise, I therefore now and then direct my steps along the

BOULEVARDS.

This is the name given to the promenades with which Paris is, in part, surrounded for an extent of six thousand and eighty-four toises.

They are distinguished by the names of the _Old_ and the _New_. The _Old_, or _North Boulevards_, commonly called the _Grands Boulevards_, were begun in 1536, and, when faced with ditches, which were to have been dug, they were intended to serve as fortifications against the English who were ravaging Picardy, and threatening the capital. Thence, probably, the etymology of their name; _Boulevard_ signifying, as every one knows, a bulwark.

However this may be, the extent of these _Old_ Boulevards is two thousand four hundred toises from the _Rue de la Concorde_ to the _Place de la Liberté_, formerly the site of the Bastille. They were first planted in 1660, and are formed into three alleys by four rows of trees: the middle alley is appropriated to carriages and persons on horseback, and the two lateral ones are for foot-passengers.

Here, on each side, is assembled every thing that ingenuity can imagine for the diversion of the idle stroller, or the recreation of the man of business. Places of public entertainment, ambulating musicians, exhibitions of different kinds, temples consecrated to love or pleasure, Vauxhalls, ball-rooms, magnificent hotels, and other tasteful buildings, &c. Even the coffee-houses and taverns here have their shady bowers, and an agreeable orchestra. Thus, you may always dine in Paris with a band of music to entertain you, without additional expense.

The _New_ Boulevards, situated to the south, were finished in 1761. They are three thousand six hundred and eighty-three toises in extent from the _Observatoire_ to the _Hôtel des Invalides_. Although laid out much in the same manner as the _Old_, there is little resemblance between them; each having a very distinct appearance.

On the _New Boulevards_, the alleys are both longer and wider, and the trees are likewise of better growth. There, the prospect is rural; and the air pure; while cultivated fields, with growing corn, present themselves to the eye. Towards the town, however, stand several pretty houses; little theatres even were built, but did not succeed. This was not their latitude. But some skittle-grounds and tea-gardens, lately opened, and provided with swings, &c. have attracted much company of a certain class in the summer.

In this quarter, you seldom meet with a carriage, scarcely ever with persons sprucely dressed, but frequently with honest citizens, accompanied by their whole family, as plain in their garb as in their manners. Lovers too with their mistresses, who seek solitude, visit this retired walk; and now and then a poor poet comes hither, not to sharpen his appetite, but to arrange his numbers.

Before, the revolution, the _Old_ Boulevards, from the _Porte St. Martin_ to the _Théâtre Favart_, was the rendezvous of the _élegantes_, who, on Sundays and Thursdays, used to parade there slowly, backward and forward, in their carriages, as our belles do in Hyde Park; with this difference, that, if their admirers did not accompany them, they generally followed them to interchange significant glances, or indulge in amorous parley. I understand that the summer lounge of the modern _élegantes_ has, of late years, been from the corner of the _Rue Grange Batelière_ to that of the _Rue Mont-Blanc_, where the ladies took their seats. This attracting the _muscadins_ in great numbers, not long since obtained for that part of the Boulevard the appellation of _Petit Coblentz_.

Nearly about the middle of the North Boulevard stand two edifices, which owe their erection to the vanity of Lewis XIV. In the gratification of that passion did the _Grand Monarque_ console himself for his numerous defeats and disappointments; and the age in which he lived being fertile in great men, owing, undoubtedly, to the encouragement he afforded them, his display of it was well seconded by their superior talents. Previously to his reign, Paris had several gates, but some of these being taken down, arcs of triumph, in imitation of those of the Romans, were erected in their stead by _Louis le Grand_, in commemoration of his exploits. And this too, at a time when the allies might, in good earnest, have marched to Paris, had they not, by delay, given Marshal Villars an opportunity of turning the tide of their victories on the plain of Denain. Such was the origin of the

PORTE SAINT DENIS.

The magnificence of its architecture classes it among the first public monuments in Paris. It consists of a triumphal arch, insulated in the manner of those of the ancients: it is seventy-two feet in diameter as well as in elevation, and was executed in 1672, by BULLET from the designs of BLONDEL.

On each side of the principal entrance rise two sculptured pyramids, charged with trophies of arms, both towards the faubourg, and towards the city. Underneath each of these pyramids is a small collateral passage for persons on foot. The arch is ornamented with two bas-reliefs: the one facing the city represents the passage of the Rhine; and the other, the capture of Maestricht.

On the frieze on both sides LUDOVICO MAGNO was formerly to be read, in large characters of gilt bronze. This inscription is removed, and to it are substituted the word _Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité_.

On arriving from Calais, you enter Paris by the _Porte St. Denis_. It was also by the _Porte St. Denis_ that kings and queens made their public entry. On these occasions, the houses in all the streets through which they passed, were decorated with silk hangings and tapestry, as far as the cathedral of _Notre-Dame_. Scented waters perfumed the air in the form of _jets d'eau_; while wine and milk flowed from the different public fountains.

Froissard relates that, on the entrance of Isabeau de Bavière, there was in the _Rue St. Denis_ a representation of a clouded heaven, thickly sown with stars, whence descended two angels who gently placed on her head a very rich crown of gold, set with precious stones, at the same time singing verses in her praise.

It was on this occasion that Charles VI, anxious for a sight of his intended bride, took a fancy to mix in the crowd, mounted on horseback behind Savoisi, his favourite. Pushing forward in order to approach her, he received from the serjeants posted to keep off the populace several sharp blows on the shoulders, which occasioned great mirth in the evening, when the circumstance was related before the queen and her ladies.

Proceeding along the Boulevard towards the east, at a short distance from the _Porte St. Denis_, you arrive at the

PORTE SAINT MARTIN.

Although this triumphal arch cannot be compared to the preceding in magnificence, it was nevertheless executed by the same artists, having been erected in 1674. It is pierced with three openings, the centre one of which is eighteen feet wide, and the two others nine. The whole structure, which is fifty-four feet both in height and breadth, is rusticated, and in the spandles of the arch are four bas-reliefs; the two towards the city represent the capture of Besançon, and the rupture of the triple alliance; and those towards the faubourg, the capture of Lomberg, and the defeat of the Germans under the emblem of an eagle repulsed by the god of war. These bas-reliefs are crowned by an entablature of the Doric order, surmounted by an attic. The _Porte St. Martin_ is the grand entrance into Paris from all parts of Flanders.

At the west extremity of this _North_ Boulevard, facing the _Rue de la Concorde_, stands an unfinished church, called _La Magdeleine_, whose cemetery received not only the bodies of Lewis XVI, his consort, and his sister, but of the greater part of the victims that perished by guillotine.

In the space comprised between _La Magdeleine_ and the _Vieille Rue du Temple_, I speak within compass when I say that there are sometimes to be seen fifty ambulating conjurers of both sexes. They all vary the form of their art. Some have tables, surmounted by flags, bearing mysterious devices; some have wheels, with compartments adapted to every age and profession--One has a robe charged with hieroglyphics, and tells you your fortune through a long tube which conveys the sound to your ear; the other makes you choose in a parcel, a square piece of white paper, which becomes covered with characters at the moment when it is thrown into a jug that appears empty. The secret of this is as follows:

The jug contains a little sulphuret of potash, and the words are written with acetite of lead. The action of the exterior air, on, the sulphuret of potash, disengages from it sulphurated hydrogen gas, which, acting on the oxyd of lead, brings to view the characters that before were invislble.

Here, the philosophic Parisians stop before the movable stall of an astrologer, who has surmounted it with an owl, as an emblem of his magic wisdom. Many of them take this animal for a curiosity imported from foreign countries; for they are seldom able to distinguish a bat from a swallow.

"Does that bird come from China, my dear?" says a lusty dame to her elderly husband, a shopkeeper of the _Rue St. Denis_.--"I don't know, my love," replies the other.--"What eyes it has got," continues she; "it must see a great deal better than we." "No;" cries a countryman standing by; "though its eyes are so big, it can't, in broad day, tell a cow from a calf."

The lady continues her survey of the scientific repository; and the conjurer, with an air of importance, proposes to her to draw, for two _sous_, a motto from Merlin's wheel. "Take one, my dear," says the husband; "I wish to know whether you love me." The wife blushes and hesitates; the husband insists; she refuses, and is desirous of continuing her walk, saying that it is all foolishness.--"What if it is?" rejoins the husband, "I've paid, so take a motto to please me." For this once, the lady is quite at a nonplus; she at last consents, and, with a trembling hand, draws a card from the magic wheel: the husband unrolls it with eagerness and confidence, and reads these words: "_My young lover is and will be constant_."--"What the devil does this mean?" exclaims the old husband; quite disconcerted. --"'Tis a mistake," says the conjurer; "the lady put her hand into the wrong box; she drew the motto from the wheel for _young girls_, instead of that for _married women_. Let _Madame_ draw again, she shall pay nothing more."--"No, Mr. Conjurer," replies the shopkeeper, "that's enough. I've no faith in such nonsense; but another time, madam, take care that you don't put your hand into the wrong box." The fat lady, with her face as red as fire, follows her husband, who walks off grumbling, and it is easy to see, by their gestures, that the fatal motto has sown discord in the family, and confirmed the shopkeeper's suspicions.

Independently of these divers into futurity, the corners of streets and walls of public squares, are covered with hand-bills announcing books containing secrets, sympathetic calculations of numbers in the lottery, the explanation of dreams in regard to those numbers, together with the different manners of telling fortunes, and interpreting prognostics.

At all times, the marvellous has prevailed over simple truth, and the Cumæan Sibyl attracted the inquisitive in greater crowds than Socrates, Plato, or any philosopher, had pupils in the whole course of their existence.

In Paris, the sciences are really making a rapid progress, notwithstanding the fooleries of the pseudo-philosophers, who parade the streets, and here, on the _Boulevards_, as well as in other parts of the town, exhibit lessons of physics.

One has an electrifying machine, and phials filled with phosphorus: for two _sous_, he gives you a slight shock, and makes you a present of a small phial.

Farther on, you meet with a _camera obscura_, whose effect surprises the spectators the more, as the objects represented within it have the motion which they do not find in common optics.

There, you see a double refracting telescope: for two _sous_, you enjoy its effect. At either end, you place any object whatever, and though a hat, a board, or a child be introduced between the two glasses, the object placed appears not, on that account, the less clear and distinct to the eye of the person looking through the opposite glass. _Pierre_ has seen, and cannot believe his eyes: _Jacques_ wishes to see, and, on seeing, is in ecstacy: next comes _Fanchon_, who remains stupified. Enthusiasm becomes general, and the witnesses of their delirium are ready to go mad at not having two _sous_ in their pocket.

Another fellow, in short, has a microscope, of which he extols the beauty, and, above all, the effects: he will not describe the causes which produce them, because he is unacquainted with them; but, provided he adapts his lessons to the understanding of those who listen to him, this is all he wants. Sometimes he may be heard to say to the people about him: "Gentlemen, give me a creeping insect, and for one _sou_, I will shew it to you as big as my fist." Sometimes too, unfortunately for him, the insect which he requires is more easily found among part of his auditors, than the money.

P.S. For the preceding account of the Parisian conjurers I am indebted to M. Pujoulx.