diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore index cbc2b23..53482e9 100644 --- a/.gitignore +++ b/.gitignore @@ -1,96 +1,96 @@ -# Created by https://www.gitignore.io/api/python - -### Python ### -# Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files -__pycache__/ -*.py[cod] -*$py.class - -# C extensions -*.so - -# Distribution / packaging -.Python -env/ -build/ -develop-eggs/ -dist/ -downloads/ -eggs/ -.eggs/ -lib/ -lib64/ -parts/ -sdist/ -var/ -wheels/ -*.egg-info/ -.installed.cfg -*.egg - -# PyInstaller -# Usually these files are written by a python script from a template -# before PyInstaller builds the exe, so as to inject date/other infos into it. -*.manifest -*.spec - -# Installer logs -pip-log.txt -pip-delete-this-directory.txt - -# Unit test / coverage reports -htmlcov/ -.tox/ -.coverage -.coverage.* -.cache -nosetests.xml -coverage.xml -*,cover -.hypothesis/ - -# Translations -*.mo -*.pot - -# Django stuff: -*.log -local_settings.py - -# Flask stuff: -instance/ -.webassets-cache - -# Scrapy stuff: -.scrapy - -# Sphinx documentation -docs/_build/ - -# PyBuilder -target/ - -# Jupyter Notebook -.ipynb_checkpoints - -# pyenv -.python-version - -# celery beat schedule file -celerybeat-schedule - -# dotenv -.env - -# virtualenv -.venv/ -venv/ -ENV/ - -# Spyder project settings -.spyderproject - -# Rope project settings -.ropeproject - -# End of https://www.gitignore.io/api/python +# Created by https://www.gitignore.io/api/python + +### Python ### +# Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files +__pycache__/ +*.py[cod] +*$py.class + +# C extensions +*.so + +# Distribution / packaging +.Python +env/ +build/ +develop-eggs/ +dist/ +downloads/ +eggs/ +.eggs/ +lib/ +lib64/ +parts/ +sdist/ +var/ +wheels/ +*.egg-info/ +.installed.cfg +*.egg + +# PyInstaller +# Usually these files are written by a python script from a template +# before PyInstaller builds the exe, so as to inject date/other infos into it. +*.manifest +*.spec + +# Installer logs +pip-log.txt +pip-delete-this-directory.txt + +# Unit test / coverage reports +htmlcov/ +.tox/ +.coverage +.coverage.* +.cache +nosetests.xml +coverage.xml +*,cover +.hypothesis/ + +# Translations +*.mo +*.pot + +# Django stuff: +*.log +local_settings.py + +# Flask stuff: +instance/ +.webassets-cache + +# Scrapy stuff: +.scrapy + +# Sphinx documentation +docs/_build/ + +# PyBuilder +target/ + +# Jupyter Notebook +.ipynb_checkpoints + +# pyenv +.python-version + +# celery beat schedule file +celerybeat-schedule + +# dotenv +.env + +# virtualenv +.venv/ +venv/ +ENV/ + +# Spyder project settings +.spyderproject + +# Rope project settings +.ropeproject + +# End of https://www.gitignore.io/api/python diff --git a/Inocentabraud b/Inocentabraud new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bb3227 --- /dev/null +++ b/Inocentabraud @@ -0,0 +1,1365 @@ +We are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. We are getting +reconciled to halls and bedchambers with unhomelike stone floors and no +carpets--floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness +that is death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, +noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover about your +back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick +to fill them; thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount; and +always polite--never otherwise than polite. That is the strangest +curiosity yet--a really polite hotel waiter who isn't an idiot. We are +getting used to driving right into the central court of the hotel, in the +midst of a fragrant circle of vines and flowers, and in the midst also of +parties of gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking. We +are getting used to ice frozen by artificial process in ordinary bottles +--the only kind of ice they have here. We are getting used to all these +things, but we are not getting used to carrying our own soap. We are +sufficiently civilized to carry our own combs and toothbrushes, but this +thing of having to ring for soap every time we wash is new to us and not +pleasant at all. We think of it just after we get our heads and faces +thoroughly wet or just when we think we have been in the bathtub long +enough, and then, of course, an annoying delay follows. These +Marseillaises make Marseillaise hymns and Marseilles vests and Marseilles +soap for all the world, but they never sing their hymns or wear their +vests or wash with their soap themselves. + +We have learned to go through the lingering routine of the table d'hote +with patience, with serenity, with satisfaction. We take soup, then wait +a few minutes for the fish; a few minutes more and the plates are +changed, and the roast beef comes; another change and we take peas; +change again and take lentils; change and take snail patties (I prefer +grasshoppers); change and take roast chicken and salad; then strawberry +pie and ice cream; then green figs, pears, oranges, green almonds, etc.; +finally coffee. Wine with every course, of course, being in France. +With such a cargo on board, digestion is a slow process, and we must sit +long in the cool chambers and smoke--and read French newspapers, which +have a strange fashion of telling a perfectly straight story till you get +to the "nub" of it, and then a word drops in that no man can translate, +and that story is ruined. An embankment fell on some Frenchmen +yesterday, and the papers are full of it today--but whether those +sufferers were killed, or crippled, or bruised, or only scared is more +than I can possibly make out, and yet I would just give anything to know. + +We were troubled a little at dinner today by the conduct of an American, +who talked very loudly and coarsely and laughed boisterously where all +others were so quiet and well behaved. He ordered wine with a royal +flourish and said: + +"I never dine without wine, sir" (which was a pitiful falsehood), and +looked around upon the company to bask in the admiration he expected to +find in their faces. All these airs in a land where they would as soon +expect to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as the wine!--in a land +where wine is nearly as common among all ranks as water! This fellow +said: "I am a free-born sovereign, sir, an American, sir, and I want +everybody to know it!" He did not mention that he was a lineal +descendant of Balaam's ass, but everybody knew that without his telling +it. + +We have driven in the Prado--that superb avenue bordered with patrician +mansions and noble shade trees--and have visited the chateau Boarely and +its curious museum. They showed us a miniature cemetery there--a copy of +the first graveyard that was ever in Marseilles, no doubt. The delicate +little skeletons were lying in broken vaults and had their household gods +and kitchen utensils with them. The original of this cemetery was dug up +in the principal street of the city a few years ago. It had remained +there, only twelve feet underground, for a matter of twenty-five hundred +years or thereabouts. Romulus was here before he built Rome, and thought +something of founding a city on this spot, but gave up the idea. He may +have been personally acquainted with some of these Phoenicians whose +skeletons we have been examining. + +In the great Zoological Gardens we found specimens of all the animals the +world produces, I think, including a dromedary, a monkey ornamented with +tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair--a very gorgeous monkey he was +--a hippopotamus from the Nile, and a sort of tall, long-legged bird with a +beak like a powder horn and close-fitting wings like the tails of a dress +coat. This fellow stood up with his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped +forward a little, and looked as if he had his hands under his coat +tails. Such tranquil stupidity, such supernatural gravity, such +self-righteousness, and such ineffable self-complacency as were in the +countenance and attitude of that gray-bodied, dark-winged, bald-headed, +and preposterously uncomely bird! He was so ungainly, so pimply about +the head, so scaly about the legs, yet so serene, so unspeakably +satisfied! He was the most comical-looking creature that can be +imagined. It was good to hear Dan and the doctor laugh--such natural and +such enjoyable laughter had not been heard among our excursionists since +our ship sailed away from America. This bird was a godsend to us, and I +should be an ingrate if I forgot to make honorable mention of him in +these pages. Ours was a pleasure excursion; therefore we stayed with +that bird an hour and made the most of him. We stirred him up +occasionally, but he only unclosed an eye and slowly closed it again, +abating no jot of his stately piety of demeanor or his tremendous +seriousness. He only seemed to say, "Defile not Heaven's anointed with +unsanctified hands." We did not know his name, and so we called him "The +Pilgrim." Dan said: + +"All he wants now is a Plymouth Collection." + +The boon companion of the colossal elephant was a common cat! This cat +had a fashion of climbing up the elephant's hind legs and roosting on his +back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved under her breast, and +sleep in the sun half the afternoon. It used to annoy the elephant at +first, and he would reach up and take her down, but she would go aft and +climb up again. She persisted until she finally conquered the elephant's +prejudices, and now they are inseparable friends. The cat plays about +her comrade's forefeet or his trunk often, until dogs approach, and then +she goes aloft out of danger. The elephant has annihilated several dogs +lately that pressed his companion too closely. + +We hired a sailboat and a guide and made an excursion to one of the small +islands in the harbor to visit the Castle d'If. This ancient fortress +has a melancholy history. It has been used as a prison for political +offenders for two or three hundred years, and its dungeon walls are +scarred with the rudely carved names of many and many a captive who +fretted his life away here and left no record of himself but these sad +epitaphs wrought with his own hands. How thick the names were! And +their long-departed owners seemed to throng the gloomy cells and +corridors with their phantom shapes. We loitered through dungeon after +dungeon, away down into the living rock below the level of the sea, it +seemed. Names everywhere!--some plebeian, some noble, some even +princely. Plebeian, prince, and noble had one solicitude in common--they +would not be forgotten! They could suffer solitude, inactivity, and the +horrors of a silence that no sound ever disturbed, but they could not +bear the thought of being utterly forgotten by the world. Hence the +carved names. In one cell, where a little light penetrated, a man had +lived twenty-seven years without seeing the face of a human being--lived +in filth and wretchedness, with no companionship but his own thoughts, +and they were sorrowful enough and hopeless enough, no doubt. Whatever +his jailers considered that he needed was conveyed to his cell by night +through a wicket. + +This man carved the walls of his prison house from floor to roof with all +manner of figures of men and animals grouped in intricate designs. He +had toiled there year after year, at his self-appointed task, while +infants grew to boyhood--to vigorous youth--idled through school and +college--acquired a profession--claimed man's mature estate--married and +looked back to infancy as to a thing of some vague, ancient time, almost. +But who shall tell how many ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the +one, time flew sometimes; with the other, never--it crawled always. To +the one, nights spent in dancing had seemed made of minutes instead of +hours; to the other, those selfsame nights had been like all other nights +of dungeon life and seemed made of slow, dragging weeks instead of hours +and minutes. + +One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses upon his walls, and +brief prose sentences--brief, but full of pathos. These spoke not of +himself and his hard estate, but only of the shrine where his spirit fled +the prison to worship--of home and the idols that were templed there. +He never lived to see them. + +The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some bed-chambers at home are +wide--fifteen feet. We saw the damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas' +heroes passed their confinement--heroes of "Monte Cristo." It was here +that the brave Abbe wrote a book with his own blood, with a pen made of a +piece of iron hoop, and by the light of a lamp made out of shreds of +cloth soaked in grease obtained from his food; and then dug through the +thick wall with some trifling instrument which he wrought himself out of +a stray piece of iron or table cutlery and freed Dantes from his chains. +It was a pity that so many weeks of dreary labor should have come to +naught at last. + +They showed us the noisome cell where the celebrated "Iron Mask"--that +ill-starred brother of a hardhearted king of France--was confined for a +season before he was sent to hide the strange mystery of his life from +the curious in the dungeons of Ste. Marguerite. The place had a far +greater interest for us than it could have had if we had known beyond all +question who the Iron Mask was, and what his history had been, and why +this most unusual punishment had been meted out to him. Mystery! That +was the charm. That speechless tongue, those prisoned features, that +heart so freighted with unspoken troubles, and that breast so oppressed +with its piteous secret had been here. These dank walls had known the +man whose dolorous story is a sealed book forever! There was fascination +in the spot. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +We have come five hundred miles by rail through the heart of France. +What a bewitching land it is! What a garden! Surely the leagues of +bright green lawns are swept and brushed and watered every day and their +grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges are shaped and measured +and their symmetry preserved by the most architectural of gardeners. +Surely the long straight rows of stately poplars that divide the +beautiful landscape like the squares of a checker-board are set with line +and plummet, and their uniform height determined with a spirit level. +Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and +sandpapered every day. How else are these marvels of symmetry, +cleanliness, and order attained? It is wonderful. There are no +unsightly stone walls and never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, +no decay, no rubbish anywhere--nothing that even hints at untidiness +--nothing that ever suggests neglect. All is orderly and beautiful--every +thing is charming to the eye. + +We had such glimpses of the Rhone gliding along between its grassy banks; +of cosy cottages buried in flowers and shrubbery; of quaint old red-tiled +villages with mossy medieval cathedrals looming out of their midst; of +wooded hills with ivy-grown towers and turrets of feudal castles +projecting above the foliage; such glimpses of Paradise, it seemed to us, +such visions of fabled fairyland! + +We knew then what the poet meant when he sang of: "--thy cornfields +green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France!" + +And it is a pleasant land. No word describes it so felicitously as that +one. They say there is no word for "home" in the French language. Well, +considering that they have the article itself in such an attractive +aspect, they ought to manage to get along without the word. Let us not +waste too much pity on "homeless" France. I have observed that Frenchmen +abroad seldom wholly give up the idea of going back to France some time +or other. I am not surprised at it now. + +We are not infatuated with these French railway cars, though. We took +first-class passage, not because we wished to attract attention by doing +a thing which is uncommon in Europe but because we could make our journey +quicker by so doing. It is hard to make railroading pleasant in any +country. It is too tedious. Stagecoaching is infinitely more +delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the +West in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to California, and since +then all my pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday frolic. +Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and +by day, and never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest! The first +seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener and +softer and smoother than any sea and figured with designs fitted to its +magnitude--the shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer +scenes, and no disposition inspired by them but to lie at full length on +the mail sacks in the grateful breeze and dreamily smoke the pipe of +peace--what other, where all was repose and contentment? In cool +mornings, before the sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city +toiling and moiling to perch in the foretop with the driver and see the +six mustangs scamper under the sharp snapping of the whip that never +touched them; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no lords +but us; to cleave the wind with uncovered head and feel the sluggish +pulses rousing to the spirit of a speed that pretended to the resistless +rush of a typhoon! Then thirteen hundred miles of desert solitudes; of +limitless panoramas of bewildering perspective; of mimic cities, of +pinnacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses, counterfeited in the eternal +rocks and splendid with the crimson and gold of the setting sun; of dizzy +altitudes among fog-wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where +thunders and lightnings and tempests warred magnificently at our feet and +the storm clouds above swung their shredded banners in our very faces! +But I forgot. I am in elegant France now, and not scurrying through the +great South Pass and the Wind River Mountains, among antelopes and +buffaloes and painted Indians on the warpath. It is not meet that I +should make too disparaging comparisons between humdrum travel on a +railway and that royal summer flight across a continent in a stagecoach. +I meant in the beginning to say that railway journeying is tedious and +tiresome, and so it is--though at the time I was thinking particularly of +a dismal fifty-hour pilgrimage between New York and St. Louis. Of course +our trip through France was not really tedious because all its scenes and +experiences were new and strange; but as Dan says, it had its +"discrepancies." + +The cars are built in compartments that hold eight persons each. Each +compartment is partially subdivided, and so there are two tolerably +distinct parties of four in it. Four face the other four. The seats and +backs are thickly padded and cushioned and are very comfortable; you can +smoke if you wish; there are no bothersome peddlers; you are saved the +infliction of a multitude of disagreeable fellow passengers. So far, so +well. But then the conductor locks you in when the train starts; there +is no water to drink in the car; there is no heating apparatus for night +travel; if a drunken rowdy should get in, you could not remove a matter +of twenty seats from him or enter another car; but above all, if you are +worn out and must sleep, you must sit up and do it in naps, with cramped +legs and in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and lifeless the +next day--for behold they have not that culmination of all charity and +human kindness, a sleeping car, in all France. I prefer the American +system. It has not so many grievous "discrepancies." + +In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They make no mistakes. Every +third man wears a uniform, and whether he be a marshal of the empire or a +brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to answer all your questions +with tireless politeness, ready to tell you which car to take, yea, and +ready to go and put you into it to make sure that you shall not go +astray. You cannot pass into the waiting room of the depot till you have +secured your ticket, and you cannot pass from its only exit till the +train is at its threshold to receive you. Once on board, the train will +not start till your ticket has been examined--till every passenger's +ticket has been inspected. This is chiefly for your own good. If by any +possibility you have managed to take the wrong train, you will be handed +over to a polite official who will take you whither you belong and bestow +you with many an affable bow. Your ticket will be inspected every now +and then along the route, and when it is time to change cars you will +know it. You are in the hands of officials who zealously study your +welfare and your interest, instead of turning their talents to the +invention of new methods of discommoding and snubbing you, as is very +often the main employment of that exceedingly self-satisfied monarch, the +railroad conductor of America. + +But the happiest regulation in French railway government is--thirty +minutes to dinner! No five-minute boltings of flabby rolls, muddy +coffee, questionable eggs, gutta-percha beef, and pies whose conception +and execution are a dark and bloody mystery to all save the cook that +created them! No, we sat calmly down--it was in old Dijon, which is so +easy to spell and so impossible to pronounce except when you civilize it +and call it Demijohn--and poured out rich Burgundian wines and munched +calmly through a long table d'hote bill of fare, snail patties, delicious +fruits and all, then paid the trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard +the train again, without once cursing the railroad company. A rare +experience and one to be treasured forever. + +They say they do not have accidents on these French roads, and I think it +must be true. If I remember rightly, we passed high above wagon roads or +through tunnels under them, but never crossed them on their own level. +About every quarter of a mile, it seemed to me, a man came out and held +up a club till the train went by, to signify that everything was safe +ahead. Switches were changed a mile in advance by pulling a wire rope +that passed along the ground by the rail, from station to station. +Signals for the day and signals for the night gave constant and timely +notice of the position of switches. + +No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in France. But why? +Because when one occurs, somebody has to hang for it! Not hang, maybe, +but be punished at least with such vigor of emphasis as to make +negligence a thing to be shuddered at by railroad officials for many a +day thereafter. "No blame attached to the officers"--that lying and +disaster-breeding verdict so common to our softhearted juries is seldom +rendered in France. If the trouble occurred in the conductor's +department, that officer must suffer if his subordinate cannot be proven +guilty; if in the engineer's department and the case be similar, the +engineer must answer. + +The Old Travelers--those delightful parrots who have "been here before" +and know more about the country than Louis Napoleon knows now or ever +will know--tell us these things, and we believe them because they are +pleasant things to believe and because they are plausible and savor of +the rigid subjection to law and order which we behold about us +everywhere. + +But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and +lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a +few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded +every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their +throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, +and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand +aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and +humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you +know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions; they +laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand +the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest +absurdities; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair +images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless +ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast! But still I love the Old Travelers. +I love them for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability +to bore, for their delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant +fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant, their +overwhelming mendacity! + +By Lyons and the Saone (where we saw the lady of Lyons and thought little +of her comeliness), by Villa Franca, Tonnere, venerable Sens, Melun, +Fontainebleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we swept, always +noting the absence of hog-wallows, broken fences, cow lots, unpainted +houses, and mud, and always noting, as well, the presence of cleanliness, +grace, taste in adorning and beautifying, even to the disposition of a +tree or the turning of a hedge, the marvel of roads in perfect repair, +void of ruts and guiltless of even an inequality of surface--we bowled +along, hour after hour, that brilliant summer day, and as nightfall +approached we entered a wilderness of odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped +through it, and then, excited, delighted, and half persuaded that we were +only the sport of a beautiful dream, lo, we stood in magnificent Paris! + +What excellent order they kept about that vast depot! There was no +frantic crowding and jostling, no shouting and swearing, and no +swaggering intrusion of services by rowdy hackmen. These latter gentry +stood outside--stood quietly by their long line of vehicles and said +never a word. A kind of hackman general seemed to have the whole matter +of transportation in his hands. He politely received the passengers and +ushered them to the kind of conveyance they wanted, and told the driver +where to deliver them. There was no "talking back," no dissatisfaction +about overcharging, no grumbling about anything. In a little while we +were speeding through the streets of Paris and delightfully recognizing +certain names and places with which books had long ago made us familiar. +It was like meeting an old friend when we read Rue de Rivoli on the +street corner; we knew the genuine vast palace of the Louvre as well as +we knew its picture; when we passed by the Column of July we needed no +one to tell us what it was or to remind us that on its site once stood +the grim Bastille, that grave of human hopes and happiness, that dismal +prison house within whose dungeons so many young faces put on the +wrinkles of age, so many proud spirits grew humble, so many brave hearts +broke. + +We secured rooms at the hotel, or rather, we had three beds put into one +room, so that we might be together, and then we went out to a restaurant, +just after lamplighting, and ate a comfortable, satisfactory, lingering +dinner. It was a pleasure to eat where everything was so tidy, the food +so well cooked, the waiters so polite, and the coming and departing +company so moustached, so frisky, so affable, so fearfully and +wonderfully Frenchy! All the surroundings were gay and enlivening. Two +hundred people sat at little tables on the sidewalk, sipping wine and +coffee; the streets were thronged with light vehicles and with joyous +pleasure-seekers; there was music in the air, life and action all about +us, and a conflagration of gaslight everywhere! + +After dinner we felt like seeing such Parisian specialties as we might +see without distressing exertion, and so we sauntered through the +brilliant streets and looked at the dainty trifles in variety stores and +jewelry shops. Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we +put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the +incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed +we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile +verbs and participles. + +We noticed that in the jewelry stores they had some of the articles +marked "gold" and some labeled "imitation." We wondered at this +extravagance of honesty and inquired into the matter. We were informed +that inasmuch as most people are not able to tell false gold from the +genuine article, the government compels jewelers to have their gold work +assayed and stamped officially according to its fineness and their +imitation work duly labeled with the sign of its falsity. They told us +the jewelers would not dare to violate this law, and that whatever a +stranger bought in one of their stores might be depended upon as being +strictly what it was represented to be. Verily, a wonderful land is +France! + +Then we hunted for a barber-shop. From earliest infancy it had been +a cherished ambition of mine to be shaved some day in a palatial +barber-shop in Paris. I wished to recline at full length in a cushioned +invalid chair, with pictures about me and sumptuous furniture; with +frescoed walls and gilded arches above me and vistas of Corinthian +columns stretching far before me; with perfumes of Araby to intoxicate +my senses and the slumbrous drone of distant noises to soothe me to +sleep. At the end of an hour I would wake up regretfully and find my +face as smooth and as soft as an infant's. Departing, I would lift my +hands above that barber's head and say, "Heaven bless you, my son!" + +So we searched high and low, for a matter of two hours, but never a +barber-shop could we see. We saw only wig-making establishments, with +shocks of dead and repulsive hair bound upon the heads of painted waxen +brigands who stared out from glass boxes upon the passer-by with their +stony eyes and scared him with the ghostly white of their countenances. +We shunned these signs for a time, but finally we concluded that the +wig-makers must of necessity be the barbers as well, since we could find +no single legitimate representative of the fraternity. We entered and +asked, and found that it was even so. + +I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber inquired where my room was. I +said never mind where my room was, I wanted to be shaved--there, on the +spot. The doctor said he would be shaved also. Then there was an +excitement among those two barbers! There was a wild consultation, and +afterwards a hurrying to and fro and a feverish gathering up of razors +from obscure places and a ransacking for soap. Next they took us into a +little mean, shabby back room; they got two ordinary sitting-room chairs +and placed us in them with our coats on. My old, old dream of bliss +vanished into thin air! + +I sat bolt upright, silent, sad, and solemn. One of the wig-making +villains lathered my face for ten terrible minutes and finished by +plastering a mass of suds into my mouth. I expelled the nasty stuff with +a strong English expletive and said, "Foreigner, beware!" Then this +outlaw strapped his razor on his boot, hovered over me ominously for six +fearful seconds, and then swooped down upon me like the genius of +destruction. The first rake of his razor loosened the very hide from my +face and lifted me out of the chair. I stormed and raved, and the other +boys enjoyed it. Their beards are not strong and thick. Let us draw the +curtain over this harrowing scene. + +Suffice it that I submitted and went through with the cruel infliction of +a shave by a French barber; tears of exquisite agony coursed down my +cheeks now and then, but I survived. Then the incipient assassin held a +basin of water under my chin and slopped its contents over my face, and +into my bosom, and down the back of my neck, with a mean pretense of +washing away the soap and blood. He dried my features with a towel and +was going to comb my hair, but I asked to be excused. I said, with +withering irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned--I declined to be +scalped. + +I went away from there with my handkerchief about my face, and never, +never, never desired to dream of palatial Parisian barber-shops anymore. +The truth is, as I believe I have since found out, that they have no +barber shops worthy of the name in Paris--and no barbers, either, for +that matter. The impostor who does duty as a barber brings his pans and +napkins and implements of torture to your residence and deliberately +skins you in your private apartments. Ah, I have suffered, suffered, +suffered, here in Paris, but never mind--the time is coming when I shall +have a dark and bloody revenge. Someday a Parisian barber will come to +my room to skin me, and from that day forth that barber will never be +heard of more. + +At eleven o'clock we alighted upon a sign which manifestly referred to +billiards. Joy! We had played billiards in the Azores with balls that +were not round and on an ancient table that was very little smoother than +a brick pavement--one of those wretched old things with dead cushions, +and with patches in the faded cloth and invisible obstructions that made +the balls describe the most astonishing and unsuspected angles and +perform feats in the way of unlooked-for and almost impossible +"scratches" that were perfectly bewildering. We had played at Gibraltar +with balls the size of a walnut, on a table like a public square--and in +both instances we achieved far more aggravation than amusement. We +expected to fare better here, but we were mistaken. The cushions were a +good deal higher than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion of always +stopping under the cushions, we accomplished very little in the way of +caroms. The cushions were hard and unelastic, and the cues were so +crooked that in making a shot you had to allow for the curve or you would +infallibly put the "English" on the wrong side of the hall. Dan was to +mark while the doctor and I played. At the end of an hour neither of us +had made a count, and so Dan was tired of keeping tally with nothing to +tally, and we were heated and angry and disgusted. We paid the heavy +bill--about six cents--and said we would call around sometime when we had +a week to spend, and finish the game. + +We adjourned to one of those pretty cafes and took supper and tested the +wines of the country, as we had been instructed to do, and found them +harmless and unexciting. They might have been exciting, however, if we +had chosen to drink a sufficiency of them. + +To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and pleasantly, we now sought +our grand room in the Grand Hotel du Louvre and climbed into our +sumptuous bed to read and smoke--but alas! + + It was pitiful, + In a whole city-full, + Gas we had none. + +No gas to read by--nothing but dismal candles. It was a shame. We tried +to map out excursions for the morrow; we puzzled over French "guides to +Paris"; we talked disjointedly in a vain endeavor to make head or tail of +the wild chaos of the day's sights and experiences; we subsided to +indolent smoking; we gaped and yawned and stretched--then feebly wondered +if we were really and truly in renowned Paris, and drifted drowsily away +into that vast mysterious void which men call sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +The next morning we were up and dressed at ten o'clock. We went to the +'commissionaire' of the hotel--I don't know what a 'commissionaire' is, +but that is the man we went to--and told him we wanted a guide. He said +the national Exposition had drawn such multitudes of Englishmen and +Americans to Paris that it would be next to impossible to find a good +guide unemployed. He said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but he +only had three now. He called them. One looked so like a very pirate +that we let him go at once. The next one spoke with a simpering +precision of pronunciation that was irritating and said: + +"If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande honneur to me rattain in +hees serveece, I shall show to him every sing zat is magnifique to look +upon in ze beautiful Parree. I speaky ze Angleesh pairfaitemaw." + +He would have done well to have stopped there, because he had that much +by heart and said it right off without making a mistake. But his +self-complacency seduced him into attempting a flight into regions of +unexplored English, and the reckless experiment was his ruin. Within ten +seconds he was so tangled up in a maze of mutilated verbs and torn and +bleeding forms of speech that no human ingenuity could ever have gotten +him out of it with credit. It was plain enough that he could not +"speaky" the English quite as "pairfaitemaw" as he had pretended he +could. + +The third man captured us. He was plainly dressed, but he had a +noticeable air of neatness about him. He wore a high silk hat which was +a little old, but had been carefully brushed. He wore second-hand kid +gloves, in good repair, and carried a small rattan cane with a curved +handle--a female leg--of ivory. He stepped as gently and as daintily as +a cat crossing a muddy street; and oh, he was urbanity; he was quiet, +unobtrusive self-possession; he was deference itself! He spoke softly +and guardedly; and when he was about to make a statement on his sole +responsibility or offer a suggestion, he weighed it by drachms and +scruples first, with the crook of his little stick placed meditatively to +his teeth. His opening speech was perfect. It was perfect in +construction, in phraseology, in grammar, in emphasis, in pronunciation +--everything. He spoke little and guardedly after that. We were charmed. +We were more than charmed--we were overjoyed. We hired him at once. We +never even asked him his price. This man--our lackey, our servant, our +unquestioning slave though he was--was still a gentleman--we could see +that--while of the other two one was coarse and awkward and the other was +a born pirate. We asked our man Friday's name. He drew from his +pocketbook a snowy little card and passed it to us with a profound bow: + + A. BILLFINGER, + Guide to Paris, France, Germany, + Spain, &c., &c. + Grande Hotel du Louvre. + +"Billfinger! Oh, carry me home to die!" + +That was an "aside" from Dan. The atrocious name grated harshly on my +ear, too. The most of us can learn to forgive, and even to like, a +countenance that strikes us unpleasantly at first, but few of us, I +fancy, become reconciled to a jarring name so easily. I was almost sorry +we had hired this man, his name was so unbearable. However, no matter. +We were impatient to start. Billfinger stepped to the door to call a +carriage, and then the doctor said: + +"Well, the guide goes with the barbershop, with the billiard-table, with +the gasless room, and may be with many another pretty romance of Paris. +I expected to have a guide named Henri de Montmorency, or Armand de la +Chartreuse, or something that would sound grand in letters to the +villagers at home, but to think of a Frenchman by the name of Billfinger! +Oh! This is absurd, you know. This will never do. We can't say +Billfinger; it is nauseating. Name him over again; what had we better +call him? Alexis du Caulaincourt?" + +"Alphonse Henri Gustave de Hauteville," I suggested. + +"Call him Ferguson," said Dan. + +That was practical, unromantic good sense. Without debate, we expunged +Billfinger as Billfinger, and called him Ferguson. + +The carriage--an open barouche--was ready. Ferguson mounted beside the +driver, and we whirled away to breakfast. As was proper, Mr. Ferguson +stood by to transmit our orders and answer questions. By and by, he +mentioned casually--the artful adventurer--that he would go and get his +breakfast as soon as we had finished ours. He knew we could not get +along without him and that we would not want to loiter about and wait for +him. We asked him to sit down and eat with us. He begged, with many a +bow, to be excused. It was not proper, he said; he would sit at another +table. We ordered him peremptorily to sit down with us. + +Here endeth the first lesson. It was a mistake. + +As long as we had that fellow after that, he was always hungry; he was +always thirsty. He came early; he stayed late; he could not pass a +restaurant; he looked with a lecherous eye upon every wine shop. +Suggestions to stop, excuses to eat and to drink, were forever on his +lips. We tried all we could to fill him so full that he would have no +room to spare for a fortnight, but it was a failure. He did not hold +enough to smother the cravings of his superhuman appetite. + +He had another "discrepancy" about him. He was always wanting us to buy +things. On the shallowest pretenses he would inveigle us into shirt +stores, boot stores, tailor shops, glove shops--anywhere under the broad +sweep of the heavens that there seemed a chance of our buying anything. +Anyone could have guessed that the shopkeepers paid him a percentage on +the sales, but in our blessed innocence we didn't until this feature of +his conduct grew unbearably prominent. One day Dan happened to mention +that he thought of buying three or four silk dress patterns for presents. +Ferguson's hungry eye was upon him in an instant. In the course of +twenty minutes the carriage stopped. + +"What's this?" + +"Zis is ze finest silk magazin in Paris--ze most celebrate." + +"What did you come here for? We told you to take us to the palace of the +Louvre." + +"I suppose ze gentleman say he wish to buy some silk." + +"You are not required to 'suppose' things for the party, Ferguson. We do +not wish to tax your energies too much. We will bear some of the burden +and heat of the day ourselves. We will endeavor to do such 'supposing' +as is really necessary to be done. Drive on." So spake the doctor. + +Within fifteen minutes the carriage halted again, and before another silk +store. The doctor said: + +"Ah, the palace of the Louvre--beautiful, beautiful edifice! Does the +Emperor Napoleon live here now, Ferguson?" + +"Ah, Doctor! You do jest; zis is not ze palace; we come there directly. +But since we pass right by zis store, where is such beautiful silk--" + +"Ah! I see, I see. I meant to have told you that we did not wish to +purchase any silks to-day, but in my absent-mindedness I forgot it. I +also meant to tell you we wished to go directly to the Louvre, but I +forgot that also. However, we will go there now. Pardon my seeming +carelessness, Ferguson. Drive on." + +Within the half hour we stopped again--in front of another silk store. +We were angry; but the doctor was always serene, always smooth-voiced. +He said: + +"At last! How imposing the Louvre is, and yet how small! How +exquisitely fashioned! How charmingly situated!--Venerable, venerable +pile--" + +"Pairdon, Doctor, zis is not ze Louvre--it is--" + +"What is it?" + +"I have ze idea--it come to me in a moment--zat ze silk in zis magazin--" + +"Ferguson, how heedless I am. I fully intended to tell you that we did +not wish to buy any silks to-day, and I also intended to tell you that we +yearned to go immediately to the palace of the Louvre, but enjoying the +happiness of seeing you devour four breakfasts this morning has so filled +me with pleasurable emotions that I neglect the commonest interests of +the time. However, we will proceed now to the Louvre, Ferguson." + +"But, doctor," (excitedly,) "it will take not a minute--not but one small +minute! Ze gentleman need not to buy if he not wish to--but only look at +ze silk--look at ze beautiful fabric. [Then pleadingly.] Sair--just only +one leetle moment!" + +Dan said, "Confound the idiot! I don't want to see any silks today, and +I won't look at them. Drive on." + +And the doctor: "We need no silks now, Ferguson. Our hearts yearn for +the Louvre. Let us journey on--let us journey on." + +"But doctor! It is only one moment--one leetle moment. And ze time will +be save--entirely save! Because zere is nothing to see now--it is too +late. It want ten minute to four and ze Louvre close at four--only one +leetle moment, Doctor!" + +The treacherous miscreant! After four breakfasts and a gallon of +champagne, to serve us such a scurvy trick. We got no sight of the +countless treasures of art in the Louvre galleries that day, and our only +poor little satisfaction was in the reflection that Ferguson sold not a +solitary silk dress pattern. + +I am writing this chapter partly for the satisfaction of abusing that +accomplished knave Billfinger, and partly to show whosoever shall read +this how Americans fare at the hands of the Paris guides and what sort of +people Paris guides are. It need not be supposed that we were a stupider +or an easier prey than our countrymen generally are, for we were not. +The guides deceive and defraud every American who goes to Paris for the +first time and sees its sights alone or in company with others as little +experienced as himself. I shall visit Paris again someday, and then let +the guides beware! I shall go in my war paint--I shall carry my tomahawk +along. + +I think we have lost but little time in Paris. We have gone to bed every +night tired out. Of course we visited the renowned International +Exposition. All the world did that. We went there on our third day in +Paris--and we stayed there nearly two hours. That was our first and last +visit. To tell the truth, we saw at a glance that one would have to +spend weeks--yea, even months--in that monstrous establishment to get an +intelligible idea of it. It was a wonderful show, but the moving masses +of people of all nations we saw there were a still more wonderful show. +I discovered that if I were to stay there a month, I should still find +myself looking at the people instead of the inanimate objects on +exhibition. I got a little interested in some curious old tapestries of +the thirteenth century, but a party of Arabs came by, and their dusky +faces and quaint costumes called my attention away at once. I watched a +silver swan, which had a living grace about his movements and a living +intelligence in his eyes--watched him swimming about as comfortably and +as unconcernedly as if he had been born in a morass instead of a +jeweler's shop--watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and +hold up his head and go through all the customary and elaborate motions +of swallowing it--but the moment it disappeared down his throat some +tattooed South Sea Islanders approached and I yielded to their +attractions. + +Presently I found a revolving pistol several hundred years old which +looked strangely like a modern Colt, but just then I heard that the +Empress of the French was in another part of the building, and hastened +away to see what she might look like. We heard martial music--we saw an +unusual number of soldiers walking hurriedly about--there was a general +movement among the people. We inquired what it was all about and learned +that the Emperor of the French and the Sultan of Turkey were about to +review twenty-five thousand troops at the Arc de l'Etoile. We +immediately departed. I had a greater anxiety to see these men than I +could have had to see twenty expositions. + +We drove away and took up a position in an open space opposite the +American minister's house. A speculator bridged a couple of barrels with +a board and we hired standing places on it. Presently there was a sound +of distant music; in another minute a pillar of dust came moving slowly +toward us; a moment more and then, with colors flying and a grand crash +of military music, a gallant array of cavalrymen emerged from the dust +and came down the street on a gentle trot. After them came a long line +of artillery; then more cavalry, in splendid uniforms; and then their +imperial majesties Napoleon III and Abdul Aziz. The vast concourse of +people swung their hats and shouted--the windows and housetops in the +wide vicinity burst into a snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs, and the +wavers of the same mingled their cheers with those of the masses below. +It was a stirring spectacle. + +But the two central figures claimed all my attention. Was ever such a +contrast set up before a multitude till then? Napoleon in military +uniform--a long-bodied, short-legged man, fiercely moustached, old, +wrinkled, with eyes half closed, and such a deep, crafty, scheming +expression about them!--Napoleon, bowing ever so gently to the loud +plaudits, and watching everything and everybody with his cat eyes from +under his depressed hat brim, as if to discover any sign that those +cheers were not heartfelt and cordial. + +Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman empire--clad in dark green +European clothes, almost without ornament or insignia of rank; a red +Turkish fez on his head; a short, stout, dark man, black-bearded, +black-eyed, stupid, unprepossessing--a man whose whole appearance +somehow suggested that if he only had a cleaver in his hand and a white +apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear him say: "A mutton +roast today, or will you have a nice porterhouse steak?" + +Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization, +progress, and refinement; Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people by +nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, +superstitious--and a government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, +Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch of Triumph, the +First Century greets the Nineteenth! + +NAPOLEON III., Emperor of France! Surrounded by shouting thousands, by +military pomp, by the splendors of his capital city, and companioned by +kings and princes--this is the man who was sneered at and reviled and +called Bastard--yet who was dreaming of a crown and an empire all the +while; who was driven into exile--but carried his dreams with him; who +associated with the common herd in America and ran foot races for a +wager--but still sat upon a throne in fancy; who braved every danger to +go to his dying mother--and grieved that she could not be spared to see +him cast aside his plebeian vestments for the purple of royalty; who kept +his faithful watch and walked his weary beat a common policeman of +London--but dreamed the while of a coming night when he should tread the +long-drawn corridors of the Tuileries; who made the miserable fiasco of +Strasbourg; saw his poor, shabby eagle, forgetful of its lesson, refuse +to perch upon his shoulder; delivered his carefully prepared, sententious +burst of eloquence upon unsympathetic ears; found himself a prisoner, the +butt of small wits, a mark for the pitiless ridicule of all the world +--yet went on dreaming of coronations and splendid pageants as before; who +lay a forgotten captive in the dungeons of Ham--and still schemed and +planned and pondered over future glory and future power; President of +France at last! a coup d'etat, and surrounded by applauding armies, +welcomed by the thunders of cannon, he mounts a throne and waves before +an astounded world the sceptre of a mighty empire! Who talks of the +marvels of fiction? Who speaks of the wonders of romance? Who prates of +the tame achievements of Aladdin and the Magii of Arabia? + +ABDUL-AZIZ, Sultan of Turkey, Lord of the Ottoman Empire! Born to a +throne; weak, stupid, ignorant, almost, as his meanest slave; chief of a +vast royalty, yet the puppet of his Premier and the obedient child of a +tyrannical mother; a man who sits upon a throne--the beck of whose finger +moves navies and armies--who holds in his hands the power of life and +death over millions--yet who sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his +eight hundred concubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and +sleeping and idling, and would rouse up and take the reins of government +and threaten to be a sultan, is charmed from his purpose by wary Fuad +Pacha with a pretty plan for a new palace or a new ship--charmed away +with a new toy, like any other restless child; a man who sees his people +robbed and oppressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no word to +save them; who believes in gnomes and genii and the wild fables of The +Arabian Nights, but has small regard for the mighty magicians of to-day, +and is nervous in the presence of their mysterious railroads and +steamboats and telegraphs; who would see undone in Egypt all that great +Mehemet Ali achieved, and would prefer rather to forget than emulate him; +a man who found his great empire a blot upon the earth--a degraded, +poverty-stricken, miserable, infamous agglomeration of ignorance, crime, +and brutality--and will idle away the allotted days of his trivial life +and then pass to the dust and the worms and leave it so! + +Napoleon has augmented the commercial prosperity of France in ten years +to such a degree that figures can hardly compute it. He has rebuilt +Paris and has partly rebuilt every city in the state. He condemns a +whole street at a time, assesses the damages, pays them, and rebuilds +superbly. Then speculators buy up the ground and sell, but the original +owner is given the first choice by the government at a stated price +before the speculator is permitted to purchase. But above all things, he +has taken the sole control of the empire of France into his hands and +made it a tolerably free land--for people who will not attempt to go too +far in meddling with government affairs. No country offers greater +security to life and property than France, and one has all the freedom he +wants, but no license--no license to interfere with anybody or make +anyone uncomfortable. + +As for the Sultan, one could set a trap any where and catch a dozen abler +men in a night. + +The bands struck up, and the brilliant adventurer, Napoleon III., the +genius of Energy, Persistence, Enterprise; and the feeble Abdul-Aziz, the +genius of Ignorance, Bigotry, and Indolence, prepared for the Forward +--March! + +We saw the splendid review, we saw the white-moustached old Crimean +soldier, Canrobert, Marshal of France, we saw--well, we saw every thing, +and then we went home satisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +We went to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We had heard of it before. +It surprises me sometimes to think how much we do know and how +intelligent we are. We recognized the brown old Gothic pile in a moment; +it was like the pictures. We stood at a little distance and changed from +one point of observation to another and gazed long at its lofty square +towers and its rich front, clustered thick with stony, mutilated saints +who had been looking calmly down from their perches for ages. The +Patriarch of Jerusalem stood under them in the old days of chivalry and +romance, and preached the third Crusade, more than six hundred years ago; +and since that day they have stood there and looked quietly down upon the +most thrilling scenes, the grandest pageants, the most extraordinary +spectacles that have grieved or delighted Paris. These battered and +broken-nosed old fellows saw many and many a cavalcade of mail-clad +knights come marching home from Holy Land; they heard the bells above +them toll the signal for the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, and they saw the +slaughter that followed; later they saw the Reign of Terror, the carnage +of the Revolution, the overthrow of a king, the coronation of two +Napoleons, the christening of the young prince that lords it over a +regiment of servants in the Tuileries to-day--and they may possibly +continue to stand there until they see the Napoleon dynasty swept away +and the banners of a great republic floating above its ruins. I wish +these old parties could speak. They could tell a tale worth the +listening to. + +They say that a pagan temple stood where Notre Dame now stands, in the +old Roman days, eighteen or twenty centuries ago--remains of it are still +preserved in Paris; and that a Christian church took its place about A.D. +300; another took the place of that in A.D. 500; and that the foundations +of the present cathedral were laid about A.D. 1100. The ground ought to +be measurably sacred by this time, one would think. One portion of this +noble old edifice is suggestive of the quaint fashions of ancient times. +It was built by Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, to set his conscience +at rest--he had assassinated the Duke of Orleans. Alas! Those good old +times are gone when a murderer could wipe the stain from his name and +soothe his troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks and mortar +and building an addition to a church. + +The portals of the great western front are bisected by square pillars. +They took the central one away in 1852, on the occasion of thanksgivings +for the reinstitution of the presidential power--but precious soon they +had occasion to reconsider that motion and put it back again! And they +did. + +We loitered through the grand aisles for an hour or two, staring up at +the rich stained-glass windows embellished with blue and yellow and +crimson saints and martyrs, and trying to admire the numberless great +pictures in the chapels, and then we were admitted to the sacristy and +shown the magnificent robes which the Pope wore when he crowned Napoleon +I; a wagon-load of solid gold and silver utensils used in the great +public processions and ceremonies of the church; some nails of the true +cross, a fragment of the cross itself, a part of the crown of thorns. +We had already seen a large piece of the true cross in a church in the +Azores, but no nails. They showed us likewise the bloody robe which that +archbishop of Paris wore who exposed his sacred person and braved the +wrath of the insurgents of 1848, to mount the barricades and hold aloft +the olive branch of peace in the hope of stopping the slaughter. His +noble effort cost him his life. He was shot dead. They showed us a cast +of his face taken after death, the bullet that killed him, and the two +vertebrae in which it lodged. These people have a somewhat singular +taste in the matter of relics. Ferguson told us that the silver cross +which the good archbishop wore at his girdle was seized and thrown into +the Seine, where it lay embedded in the mud for fifteen years, and then +an angel appeared to a priest and told him where to dive for it; he did +dive for it and got it, and now it is there on exhibition at Notre Dame, +to be inspected by anybody who feels an interest in inanimate objects of +miraculous intervention. + +Next we went to visit the Morgue, that horrible receptacle for the dead +who die mysteriously and leave the manner of their taking off a dismal +secret. We stood before a grating and looked through into a room which +was hung all about with the clothing of dead men; coarse blouses, +water-soaked; the delicate garments of women and children; patrician +vestments, hacked and stabbed and stained with red; a hat that was +crushed and bloody. On a slanting stone lay a drowned man, naked, +swollen, purple; clasping the fragment of a broken bush with a grip +which death had so petrified that human strength could not unloose it +--mute witness of the last despairing effort to save the life that was +doomed beyond all help. A stream of water trickled ceaselessly over the +hideous face. We knew that the body and the clothing were there for +identification by friends, but still we wondered if anybody could love +that repulsive object or grieve for its loss. We grew meditative and +wondered if, some forty years ago, when the mother of that ghastly thing +was dandling it upon her knee, and kissing it and petting it and +displaying it with satisfied pride to the passers-by, a prophetic vision +of this dread ending ever flitted through her brain. I half feared that +the mother, or the wife or a brother of the dead man might come while we +stood there, but nothing of the kind occurred. Men and women came, and +some looked eagerly in and pressed their faces against the bars; others +glanced carelessly at the body and turned away with a disappointed look +--people, I thought, who live upon strong excitements and who attend the +exhibitions of the Morgue regularly, just as other people go to see +theatrical spectacles every night. When one of these looked in and +passed on, I could not help thinking-- + +"Now this don't afford you any satisfaction--a party with his head shot +off is what you need." + +One night we went to the celebrated Jardin Mabille, but only staid a +little while. We wanted to see some of this kind of Paris life, however, +and therefore the next night we went to a similar place of entertainment +in a great garden in the suburb of Asnieres. We went to the railroad +depot, toward evening, and Ferguson got tickets for a second-class +carriage. Such a perfect jam of people I have not often seen--but there +was no noise, no disorder, no rowdyism. Some of the women and young +girls that entered the train we knew to be of the demi-monde, but others +we were not at all sure about. + +The girls and women in our carriage behaved themselves modestly and +becomingly all the way out, except that they smoked. When we arrived at +the garden in Asnieres, we paid a franc or two admission and entered a +place which had flower beds in it, and grass plots, and long, curving +rows of ornamental shrubbery, with here and there a secluded bower +convenient for eating ice cream in. We moved along the sinuous gravel +walks, with the great concourse of girls and young men, and suddenly a +domed and filigreed white temple, starred over and over and over again +with brilliant gas jets, burst upon us like a fallen sun. Nearby was a +large, handsome house with its ample front illuminated in the same way, +and above its roof floated the Star-Spangled Banner of America. + +"Well!" I said. "How is this?" It nearly took my breath away. + +Ferguson said an American--a New Yorker--kept the place, and was carrying +on quite a stirring opposition to the Jardin Mabille. + +Crowds composed of both sexes and nearly all ages were frisking about the +garden or sitting in the open air in front of the flagstaff and the +temple, drinking wine and coffee or smoking. The dancing had not begun +yet. Ferguson said there was to be an exhibition. The famous Blondin +was going to perform on a tightrope in another part of the garden. We +went thither. Here the light was dim, and the masses of people were +pretty closely packed together. And now I made a mistake which any +donkey might make, but a sensible man never. I committed an error which +I find myself repeating every day of my life. Standing right before a +young lady, I said: + +"Dan, just look at this girl, how beautiful she is!" + +"I thank you more for the evident sincerity of the compliment, sir, than +for the extraordinary publicity you have given to it!" This in good, +pure English. + +We took a walk, but my spirits were very, very sadly dampened. I did not +feel right comfortable for some time afterward. Why will people be so +stupid as to suppose themselves the only foreigners among a crowd of ten +thousand persons? + +But Blondin came out shortly. He appeared on a stretched cable, far away +above the sea of tossing hats and handkerchiefs, and in the glare of the +hundreds of rockets that whizzed heavenward by him he looked like a wee +insect. He balanced his pole and walked the length of his rope--two or +three hundred feet; he came back and got a man and carried him across; he +returned to the center and danced a jig; next he performed some gymnastic +and balancing feats too perilous to afford a pleasant spectacle; and he +finished by fastening to his person a thousand Roman candles, Catherine +wheels, serpents and rockets of all manner of brilliant colors, setting +them on fire all at once and walking and waltzing across his rope again +in a blinding blaze of glory that lit up the garden and the people's +faces like a great conflagration at midnight. + +The dance had begun, and we adjourned to the temple. Within it was a +drinking saloon, and all around it was a broad circular platform for the +dancers. I backed up against the wall of the temple, and waited. Twenty +sets formed, the music struck up, and then--I placed my hands before my +face for very shame. But I looked through my fingers. They were dancing +the renowned "Can-can." A handsome girl in the set before me tripped +forward lightly to meet the opposite gentleman, tripped back again, +grasped her dresses vigorously on both sides with her hands, raised them +pretty high, danced an extraordinary jig that had more activity and +exposure about it than any jig I ever saw before, and then, drawing her +clothes still higher, she advanced gaily to the center and launched a +vicious kick full at her vis-a-vis that must infallibly have removed his +nose if he had been seven feet high. It was a mercy he was only six. + +That is the can-can. The idea of it is to dance as wildly, as noisily, +as furiously as you can; expose yourself as much as possible if you are a +woman; and kick as high as you can, no matter which sex you belong to. +There is no word of exaggeration in this. Any of the staid, respectable, +aged people who were there that night can testify to the truth of that +statement. There were a good many such people present. I suppose French +morality is not of that straight-laced description which is shocked at +trifles. + +I moved aside and took a general view of the can-can. Shouts, laughter, +furious music, a bewildering chaos of darting and intermingling forms, +stormy jerking and snatching of gay dresses, bobbing beads, flying arms, +lightning flashes of white-stockinged calves and dainty slippers in the +air, and then a grand final rush, riot, a terrific hubbub, and a wild +stampede! Heavens! Nothing like it has been seen on earth since +trembling Tam O'Shanter saw the devil and the witches at their orgies +that stormy night in "Alloway's auld haunted kirk." + +We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no silk purchases in view, +and looked at its miles of paintings by the old masters. Some of them +were beautiful, but at the same time they carried such evidences about +them of the cringing spirit of those great men that we found small +pleasure in examining them. Their nauseous adulation of princely patrons +was more prominent to me and chained my attention more surely than the +charms of color and expression which are claimed to be in the pictures. +Gratitude for kindnesses is well, but it seems to me that some of those +artists carried it so far that it ceased to be gratitude and became +worship. If there is a plausible excuse for the worship of men, then by +all means let us forgive Rubens and his brethren. + +But I will drop the subject, lest I say something about the old masters +that might as well be left unsaid. + +Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogne, that limitless park, with its +forests, its lakes, its cascades, and its broad avenues. There were +thousands upon thousands of vehicles abroad, and the scene was full of +life and gaiety. There were very common hacks, with father and mother +and all the children in them; conspicuous little open carriages with +celebrated ladies of questionable reputation in them; there were Dukes +and Duchesses abroad, with gorgeous footmen perched behind, and equally +gorgeous outriders perched on each of the six horses; there were blue and +silver, and green and gold, and pink and black, and all sorts and +descriptions of stunning and startling liveries out, and I almost yearned +to be a flunkey myself, for the sake of the fine clothes. + +But presently the Emperor came along and he outshone them all. He was +preceded by a bodyguard of gentlemen on horseback in showy uniforms, his +carriage-horses (there appeared to be somewhere in the remote +neighborhood of a thousand of them,) were bestridden by gallant-looking +fellows, also in stylish uniforms, and after the carriage followed +another detachment of bodyguards. Everybody got out of the way; +everybody bowed to the Emperor and his friend the Sultan; and they went +by on a swinging trot and disappeared. + +I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I can not do it. It is simply +a beautiful, cultivated, endless, wonderful wilderness. It is an +enchanting place. It is in Paris now, one may say, but a crumbling old +cross in one portion of it reminds one that it was not always so. The +cross marks the spot where a celebrated troubadour was waylaid and +murdered in the fourteenth century. It was in this park that that fellow +with an unpronounceable name made the attempt upon the Russian Czar's +life last spring with a pistol. The bullet struck a tree. Ferguson +showed us the place. Now in America that interesting tree would be +chopped down or forgotten within the next five years, but it will be +treasured here. The guides will point it out to visitors for the next +eight hundred years, and when it decays and falls down they will put up +another there and go on with the same old story just the same. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +One of our pleasantest visits was to Pere la Chaise, the national +burying-ground of France, the honored resting-place of some of her +greatest and best children, the last home of scores of illustrious men +and women who were born to no titles, but achieved fame by their own +energy and their own genius. It is a solemn city of winding streets and +of miniature marble temples and mansions of the dead gleaming white from +out a wilderness of foliage and fresh flowers. Not every city is so well +peopled as this, or has so ample an area within its walls. Few palaces +exist in any city that are so exquisite in design, so rich in art, so +costly in material, so graceful, so beautiful. + +We had stood in the ancient church of St. Denis, where the marble +effigies of thirty generations of kings and queens lay stretched at +length upon the tombs, and the sensations invoked were startling and +novel; the curious armor, the obsolete costumes, the placid faces, the +hands placed palm to palm in eloquent supplication--it was a vision of +gray antiquity. It seemed curious enough to be standing face to face, as +it were, with old Dagobert I., and Clovis and Charlemagne, those vague, +colossal heroes, those shadows, those myths of a thousand years ago! I +touched their dust-covered faces with my finger, but Dagobert was deader +than the sixteen centuries that have passed over him, Clovis slept well +after his labor for Christ, and old Charlemagne went on dreaming of his +paladins, of bloody Roncesvalles, and gave no heed to me. + +The great names of Pere la Chaise impress one, too, but differently. +There the suggestion brought constantly to his mind is, that this place +is sacred to a nobler royalty--the royalty of heart and brain. Every +faculty of mind, every noble trait of human nature, every high occupation +which men engage in, seems represented by a famous name. The effect is a +curious medley. Davoust and Massena, who wrought in many a battle +tragedy, are here, and so also is Rachel, of equal renown in mimic +tragedy on the stage. The Abbe Sicard sleeps here--the first great +teacher of the deaf and dumb--a man whose heart went out to every +unfortunate, and whose life was given to kindly offices in their service; +and not far off, in repose and peace at last, lies Marshal Ney, whose +stormy spirit knew no music like the bugle call to arms. The man who +originated public gas-lighting, and that other benefactor who introduced +the cultivation of the potato and thus blessed millions of his starving +countrymen, lie with the Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens and +princes of Further India. Gay-Lussac the chemist, Laplace the +astronomer, Larrey the surgeon, de Suze the advocate, are here, and with +them are Talma, Bellini, Rubini; de Balzac, Beaumarchais, Beranger; +Moliere and Lafontaine, and scores of other men whose names and whose +worthy labors are as familiar in the remote by-places of civilization as +are the historic deeds of the kings and princes that sleep in the marble +vaults of St. Denis. + +But among the thousands and thousands of tombs in Pere la Chaise, there +is one that no man, no woman, no youth of either sex, ever passes by +without stopping to examine. Every visitor has a sort of indistinct idea +of the history of its dead and comprehends that homage is due there, but +not one in twenty thousand clearly remembers the story of that tomb and +its romantic occupants. This is the grave of Abelard and Heloise--a +grave which has been more revered, more widely known, more written and +sung about and wept over, for seven hundred years, than any other in +Christendom save only that of the Saviour. All visitors linger pensively +about it; all young people capture and carry away keepsakes and mementoes +of it; all Parisian youths and maidens who are disappointed in love come +there to bail out when they are full of tears; yea, many stricken lovers +make pilgrimages to this shrine from distant provinces to weep and wail +and "grit" their teeth over their heavy sorrows, and to purchase the +sympathies of the chastened spirits of that tomb with offerings of +immortelles and budding flowers. + +Go when you will, you find somebody snuffling over that tomb. Go when +you will, you find it furnished with those bouquets and immortelles. Go +when you will, you find a gravel-train from Marseilles arriving to supply +the deficiencies caused by memento-cabbaging vandals whose affections +have miscarried. + +Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and Heloise? Precious few +people. The names are perfectly familiar to every body, and that is +about all. With infinite pains I have acquired a knowledge of that +history, and I propose to narrate it here, partly for the honest +information of the public and partly to show that public that they have +been wasting a good deal of marketable sentiment very unnecessarily. + + + STORY OF ABELARD AND HELOISE + +Heloise was born seven hundred and sixty-six years ago. She may have had +parents. There is no telling. She lived with her uncle Fulbert, a canon +of the cathedral of Paris. I do not know what a canon of a cathedral is, +but that is what he was. He was nothing more than a sort of a mountain +howitzer, likely, because they had no heavy artillery in those days. +Suffice it, then, that Heloise lived with her uncle the howitzer and was +happy. She spent the most of her childhood in the convent of Argenteuil +--never heard of Argenteuil before, but suppose there was really such a +place. She then returned to her uncle, the old gun, or son of a gun, as +the case may be, and he taught her to write and speak Latin, which was +the language of literature and polite society at that period. + +Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already made himself widely +famous as a rhetorician, came to found a school of rhetoric in Paris. +The originality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great physical +strength and beauty created a profound sensation. He saw Heloise, and +was captivated by her blooming youth, her beauty, and her charming +disposition. He wrote to her; she answered. He wrote again; she +answered again. He was now in love. He longed to know her--to speak to +her face to face. + +His school was near Fulbert's house. He asked Fulbert to allow him to +call. The good old swivel saw here a rare opportunity: his niece, whom +he so much loved, would absorb knowledge from this man, and it would not +cost him a cent. Such was Fulbert--penurious. + +Fulbert's first name is not mentioned by any author, which is +unfortunate. However, George W. Fulbert will answer for him as well as +any other. We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard to teach her. + +Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. He came often and staid +long. A letter of his shows in its very first sentence that he came +under that friendly roof like a cold-hearted villain as he was, with the +deliberate intention of debauching a confiding, innocent girl. This is +the letter: + + "I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert; + I was as much surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power + of a hungry wolf. Heloise and I, under pretext of study, gave + ourselves up wholly to love, and the solitude that love seeks + our studies procured for us. Books were open before us, but we + spoke oftener of love than philosophy, and kisses came more + readily from our lips than words." + +And so, exulting over an honorable confidence which to his degraded +instinct was a ludicrous "simplicity," this unmanly Abelard seduced the +niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found it out. Fulbert was +told of it--told often--but refused to believe it. He could not +comprehend how a man could be so depraved as to use the sacred protection +and security of hospitality as a means for the commission of such a crime +as that. But when he heard the rowdies in the streets singing the +love-songs of Abelard to Heloise, the case was too plain--love-songs come +not properly within the teachings of rhetoric and philosophy. + +He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard returned secretly and carried +Heloise away to Palais, in Brittany, his native country. Here, shortly +afterward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty, was surnamed +Astrolabe--William G. The girl's flight enraged Fulbert, and he longed +for vengeance, but feared to strike lest retaliation visit Heloise--for +he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard offered to marry Heloise +--but on a shameful condition: that the marriage should be kept secret +from the world, to the end that (while her good name remained a wreck, as +before,) his priestly reputation might be kept untarnished. It was like +that miscreant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. He would see +the parties married, and then violate the confidence of the man who had +taught him that trick; he would divulge the secret and so remove somewhat +of the obloquy that attached to his niece's fame. But the niece +suspected his scheme. She refused the marriage at first; she said +Fulbert would betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did not +wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so honored by the world, +and who had such a splendid career before him. It was noble, +self-sacrificing love, and characteristic of the pure-souled Heloise, +but it was not good sense. + +But she was overruled, and the private marriage took place. Now for +Fulbert! The heart so wounded should be healed at last; the proud spirit +so tortured should find rest again; the humbled head should be lifted up +once more. He proclaimed the marriage in the high places of the city and +rejoiced that dishonor had departed from his house. But lo! Abelard +denied the marriage! Heloise denied it! The people, knowing the former +circumstances, might have believed Fulbert had only Abelard denied it, +but when the person chiefly interested--the girl herself--denied it, they +laughed, despairing Fulbert to scorn. + +The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was spiked again. The last hope +of repairing the wrong that had been done his house was gone. What next? +Human nature suggested revenge. He compassed it. The historian says: + + "Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and + inflicted upon him a terrible and nameless mutilation." + +I am seeking the last resting place of those "ruffians." When I find it +I shall shed some tears on it, and stack up some bouquets and +immortelles, and cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember that +howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have been, these ruffians did +one just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not warranted by the strict +letter of the law. + +Heloise entered a convent and gave good-bye to the world and its +pleasures for all time. For twelve years she never heard of Abelard +--never even heard his name mentioned. She had become prioress of +Argenteuil and led a life of complete seclusion. She happened one day to +see a letter written by him, in which he narrated his own history. She +cried over it and wrote him. He answered, addressing her as his "sister +in Christ." They continued to correspond, she in the unweighed language +of unwavering affection, he in the chilly phraseology of the polished +rhetorician. She poured out her heart in passionate, disjointed +sentences; he replied with finished essays, divided deliberately into +heads and sub-heads, premises and argument. She showered upon him the +tenderest epithets that love could devise, he addressed her from the +North Pole of his frozen heart as the "Spouse of Christ!" The abandoned +villain! + +On account of her too easy government of her nuns, some disreputable +irregularities were discovered among them, and the Abbot of St. Denis +broke up her establishment. Abelard was the official head of the +monastery of St. Gildas de Ruys, at that time, and when he heard of her +homeless condition a sentiment of pity was aroused in his breast (it is a +wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not blow his head off,) and he placed +her and her troop in the little oratory of the Paraclete, a religious +establishment which he had founded. She had many privations and +sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth and her gentle disposition +won influential friends for her, and she built up a wealthy and +flourishing nunnery. She became a great favorite with the heads of the +church, and also the people, though she seldom appeared in public. She +rapidly advanced in esteem, in good report, and in usefulness, and +Abelard as rapidly lost ground. The Pope so honored her that he made her +the head of her order. Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking +as the first debater of his time, became timid, irresolute, and +distrustful of his powers. He only needed a great misfortune to topple +him from the high position he held in the world of intellectual +excellence, and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet the subtle +St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he stood up in the presence of a +royal and illustrious assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he +looked about him and stammered a commencement; but his courage failed +him, the cunning of his tongue was gone: with his speech unspoken, he +trembled and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished champion. + +He died a nobody, and was buried at Cluny, A.D., 1144. They removed his +body to the Paraclete afterward, and when Heloise died, twenty years +later, they buried her with him, in accordance with her last wish. He +died at the ripe age of 64, and she at 63. After the bodies had remained +entombed three hundred years, they were removed once more. They were +removed again in 1800, and finally, seventeen years afterward, they were +taken up and transferred to Pere la Chaise, where they will remain in +peace and quiet until it comes time for them to get up and move again. + +History is silent concerning the last acts of the mountain howitzer. Let +the world say what it will about him, I, at least, shall always respect +the memory and sorrow for the abused trust and the broken heart and the +troubled spirit of the old smooth-bore. Rest and repose be his! + +Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such is the history that +Lamartine has shed such cataracts of tears over. But that man never +could come within the influence of a subject in the least pathetic +without overflowing his banks. He ought to be dammed--or leveed, I +should more properly say. Such is the history--not as it is usually +told, but as it is when stripped of the nauseous sentimentality that +would enshrine for our loving worship a dastardly seducer like Pierre +Abelard. I have not a word to say against the misused, faithful girl, +and would not withhold from her grave a single one of those simple +tributes which blighted youths and maidens offer to her memory, but I am +sorry enough that I have not time and opportunity to write four or five +volumes of my opinion of her friend the founder of the Parachute, or the +Paraclete, or whatever it was. + +The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that unprincipled humbug in my +ignorance! I shall throttle down my emotions hereafter, about this sort +of people, until I have read them up and know whether they are entitled +to any tearful attentions or not. I wish I had my immortelles back, now, +and that bunch of radishes. + +In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign "English Spoken Here," +just as one sees in the windows at home the sign "Ici on parle +francaise." We always invaded these places at once--and invariably +received the info \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/Inocentabraud.txt b/Inocentabraud.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b440239 --- /dev/null +++ b/Inocentabraud.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1408 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Innocents Abroad, Part 2 of 6 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Innocents Abroad, Part 2 of 6 + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: June 15, 2004 [EBook #5689] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, PART 2 OF 6 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +INNOCENTS ABROAD + +by Mark Twain + +[From an 1869--1st Edition] + +Part 2. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +We are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. We are getting +reconciled to halls and bedchambers with unhomelike stone floors and no +carpets--floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness +that is death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, +noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover about your +back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick +to fill them; thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount; and +always polite--never otherwise than polite. That is the strangest +curiosity yet--a really polite hotel waiter who isn't an idiot. We are +getting used to driving right into the central court of the hotel, in the +midst of a fragrant circle of vines and flowers, and in the midst also of +parties of gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking. We +are getting used to ice frozen by artificial process in ordinary bottles +--the only kind of ice they have here. We are getting used to all these +things, but we are not getting used to carrying our own soap. We are +sufficiently civilized to carry our own combs and toothbrushes, but this +thing of having to ring for soap every time we wash is new to us and not +pleasant at all. We think of it just after we get our heads and faces +thoroughly wet or just when we think we have been in the bathtub long +enough, and then, of course, an annoying delay follows. These +Marseillaises make Marseillaise hymns and Marseilles vests and Marseilles +soap for all the world, but they never sing their hymns or wear their +vests or wash with their soap themselves. + +We have learned to go through the lingering routine of the table d'hote +with patience, with serenity, with satisfaction. We take soup, then wait +a few minutes for the fish; a few minutes more and the plates are +changed, and the roast beef comes; another change and we take peas; +change again and take lentils; change and take snail patties (I prefer +grasshoppers); change and take roast chicken and salad; then strawberry +pie and ice cream; then green figs, pears, oranges, green almonds, etc.; +finally coffee. Wine with every course, of course, being in France. +With such a cargo on board, digestion is a slow process, and we must sit +long in the cool chambers and smoke--and read French newspapers, which +have a strange fashion of telling a perfectly straight story till you get +to the "nub" of it, and then a word drops in that no man can translate, +and that story is ruined. An embankment fell on some Frenchmen +yesterday, and the papers are full of it today--but whether those +sufferers were killed, or crippled, or bruised, or only scared is more +than I can possibly make out, and yet I would just give anything to know. + +We were troubled a little at dinner today by the conduct of an American, +who talked very loudly and coarsely and laughed boisterously where all +others were so quiet and well behaved. He ordered wine with a royal +flourish and said: + +"I never dine without wine, sir" (which was a pitiful falsehood), and +looked around upon the company to bask in the admiration he expected to +find in their faces. All these airs in a land where they would as soon +expect to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as the wine!--in a land +where wine is nearly as common among all ranks as water! This fellow +said: "I am a free-born sovereign, sir, an American, sir, and I want +everybody to know it!" He did not mention that he was a lineal +descendant of Balaam's ass, but everybody knew that without his telling +it. + +We have driven in the Prado--that superb avenue bordered with patrician +mansions and noble shade trees--and have visited the chateau Boarely and +its curious museum. They showed us a miniature cemetery there--a copy of +the first graveyard that was ever in Marseilles, no doubt. The delicate +little skeletons were lying in broken vaults and had their household gods +and kitchen utensils with them. The original of this cemetery was dug up +in the principal street of the city a few years ago. It had remained +there, only twelve feet underground, for a matter of twenty-five hundred +years or thereabouts. Romulus was here before he built Rome, and thought +something of founding a city on this spot, but gave up the idea. He may +have been personally acquainted with some of these Phoenicians whose +skeletons we have been examining. + +In the great Zoological Gardens we found specimens of all the animals the +world produces, I think, including a dromedary, a monkey ornamented with +tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair--a very gorgeous monkey he was +--a hippopotamus from the Nile, and a sort of tall, long-legged bird with a +beak like a powder horn and close-fitting wings like the tails of a dress +coat. This fellow stood up with his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped +forward a little, and looked as if he had his hands under his coat +tails. Such tranquil stupidity, such supernatural gravity, such +self-righteousness, and such ineffable self-complacency as were in the +countenance and attitude of that gray-bodied, dark-winged, bald-headed, +and preposterously uncomely bird! He was so ungainly, so pimply about +the head, so scaly about the legs, yet so serene, so unspeakably +satisfied! He was the most comical-looking creature that can be +imagined. It was good to hear Dan and the doctor laugh--such natural and +such enjoyable laughter had not been heard among our excursionists since +our ship sailed away from America. This bird was a godsend to us, and I +should be an ingrate if I forgot to make honorable mention of him in +these pages. Ours was a pleasure excursion; therefore we stayed with +that bird an hour and made the most of him. We stirred him up +occasionally, but he only unclosed an eye and slowly closed it again, +abating no jot of his stately piety of demeanor or his tremendous +seriousness. He only seemed to say, "Defile not Heaven's anointed with +unsanctified hands." We did not know his name, and so we called him "The +Pilgrim." Dan said: + +"All he wants now is a Plymouth Collection." + +The boon companion of the colossal elephant was a common cat! This cat +had a fashion of climbing up the elephant's hind legs and roosting on his +back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved under her breast, and +sleep in the sun half the afternoon. It used to annoy the elephant at +first, and he would reach up and take her down, but she would go aft and +climb up again. She persisted until she finally conquered the elephant's +prejudices, and now they are inseparable friends. The cat plays about +her comrade's forefeet or his trunk often, until dogs approach, and then +she goes aloft out of danger. The elephant has annihilated several dogs +lately that pressed his companion too closely. + +We hired a sailboat and a guide and made an excursion to one of the small +islands in the harbor to visit the Castle d'If. This ancient fortress +has a melancholy history. It has been used as a prison for political +offenders for two or three hundred years, and its dungeon walls are +scarred with the rudely carved names of many and many a captive who +fretted his life away here and left no record of himself but these sad +epitaphs wrought with his own hands. How thick the names were! And +their long-departed owners seemed to throng the gloomy cells and +corridors with their phantom shapes. We loitered through dungeon after +dungeon, away down into the living rock below the level of the sea, it +seemed. Names everywhere!--some plebeian, some noble, some even +princely. Plebeian, prince, and noble had one solicitude in common--they +would not be forgotten! They could suffer solitude, inactivity, and the +horrors of a silence that no sound ever disturbed, but they could not +bear the thought of being utterly forgotten by the world. Hence the +carved names. In one cell, where a little light penetrated, a man had +lived twenty-seven years without seeing the face of a human being--lived +in filth and wretchedness, with no companionship but his own thoughts, +and they were sorrowful enough and hopeless enough, no doubt. Whatever +his jailers considered that he needed was conveyed to his cell by night +through a wicket. + +This man carved the walls of his prison house from floor to roof with all +manner of figures of men and animals grouped in intricate designs. He +had toiled there year after year, at his self-appointed task, while +infants grew to boyhood--to vigorous youth--idled through school and +college--acquired a profession--claimed man's mature estate--married and +looked back to infancy as to a thing of some vague, ancient time, almost. +But who shall tell how many ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the +one, time flew sometimes; with the other, never--it crawled always. To +the one, nights spent in dancing had seemed made of minutes instead of +hours; to the other, those selfsame nights had been like all other nights +of dungeon life and seemed made of slow, dragging weeks instead of hours +and minutes. + +One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses upon his walls, and +brief prose sentences--brief, but full of pathos. These spoke not of +himself and his hard estate, but only of the shrine where his spirit fled +the prison to worship--of home and the idols that were templed there. +He never lived to see them. + +The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some bed-chambers at home are +wide--fifteen feet. We saw the damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas' +heroes passed their confinement--heroes of "Monte Cristo." It was here +that the brave Abbe wrote a book with his own blood, with a pen made of a +piece of iron hoop, and by the light of a lamp made out of shreds of +cloth soaked in grease obtained from his food; and then dug through the +thick wall with some trifling instrument which he wrought himself out of +a stray piece of iron or table cutlery and freed Dantes from his chains. +It was a pity that so many weeks of dreary labor should have come to +naught at last. + +They showed us the noisome cell where the celebrated "Iron Mask"--that +ill-starred brother of a hardhearted king of France--was confined for a +season before he was sent to hide the strange mystery of his life from +the curious in the dungeons of Ste. Marguerite. The place had a far +greater interest for us than it could have had if we had known beyond all +question who the Iron Mask was, and what his history had been, and why +this most unusual punishment had been meted out to him. Mystery! That +was the charm. That speechless tongue, those prisoned features, that +heart so freighted with unspoken troubles, and that breast so oppressed +with its piteous secret had been here. These dank walls had known the +man whose dolorous story is a sealed book forever! There was fascination +in the spot. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +We have come five hundred miles by rail through the heart of France. +What a bewitching land it is! What a garden! Surely the leagues of +bright green lawns are swept and brushed and watered every day and their +grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges are shaped and measured +and their symmetry preserved by the most architectural of gardeners. +Surely the long straight rows of stately poplars that divide the +beautiful landscape like the squares of a checker-board are set with line +and plummet, and their uniform height determined with a spirit level. +Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and +sandpapered every day. How else are these marvels of symmetry, +cleanliness, and order attained? It is wonderful. There are no +unsightly stone walls and never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, +no decay, no rubbish anywhere--nothing that even hints at untidiness +--nothing that ever suggests neglect. All is orderly and beautiful--every +thing is charming to the eye. + +We had such glimpses of the Rhone gliding along between its grassy banks; +of cosy cottages buried in flowers and shrubbery; of quaint old red-tiled +villages with mossy medieval cathedrals looming out of their midst; of +wooded hills with ivy-grown towers and turrets of feudal castles +projecting above the foliage; such glimpses of Paradise, it seemed to us, +such visions of fabled fairyland! + +We knew then what the poet meant when he sang of: "--thy cornfields +green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France!" + +And it is a pleasant land. No word describes it so felicitously as that +one. They say there is no word for "home" in the French language. Well, +considering that they have the article itself in such an attractive +aspect, they ought to manage to get along without the word. Let us not +waste too much pity on "homeless" France. I have observed that Frenchmen +abroad seldom wholly give up the idea of going back to France some time +or other. I am not surprised at it now. + +We are not infatuated with these French railway cars, though. We took +first-class passage, not because we wished to attract attention by doing +a thing which is uncommon in Europe but because we could make our journey +quicker by so doing. It is hard to make railroading pleasant in any +country. It is too tedious. Stagecoaching is infinitely more +delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the +West in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to California, and since +then all my pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday frolic. +Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and +by day, and never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest! The first +seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener and +softer and smoother than any sea and figured with designs fitted to its +magnitude--the shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer +scenes, and no disposition inspired by them but to lie at full length on +the mail sacks in the grateful breeze and dreamily smoke the pipe of +peace--what other, where all was repose and contentment? In cool +mornings, before the sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city +toiling and moiling to perch in the foretop with the driver and see the +six mustangs scamper under the sharp snapping of the whip that never +touched them; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no lords +but us; to cleave the wind with uncovered head and feel the sluggish +pulses rousing to the spirit of a speed that pretended to the resistless +rush of a typhoon! Then thirteen hundred miles of desert solitudes; of +limitless panoramas of bewildering perspective; of mimic cities, of +pinnacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses, counterfeited in the eternal +rocks and splendid with the crimson and gold of the setting sun; of dizzy +altitudes among fog-wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where +thunders and lightnings and tempests warred magnificently at our feet and +the storm clouds above swung their shredded banners in our very faces! +But I forgot. I am in elegant France now, and not scurrying through the +great South Pass and the Wind River Mountains, among antelopes and +buffaloes and painted Indians on the warpath. It is not meet that I +should make too disparaging comparisons between humdrum travel on a +railway and that royal summer flight across a continent in a stagecoach. +I meant in the beginning to say that railway journeying is tedious and +tiresome, and so it is--though at the time I was thinking particularly of +a dismal fifty-hour pilgrimage between New York and St. Louis. Of course +our trip through France was not really tedious because all its scenes and +experiences were new and strange; but as Dan says, it had its +"discrepancies." + +The cars are built in compartments that hold eight persons each. Each +compartment is partially subdivided, and so there are two tolerably +distinct parties of four in it. Four face the other four. The seats and +backs are thickly padded and cushioned and are very comfortable; you can +smoke if you wish; there are no bothersome peddlers; you are saved the +infliction of a multitude of disagreeable fellow passengers. So far, so +well. But then the conductor locks you in when the train starts; there +is no water to drink in the car; there is no heating apparatus for night +travel; if a drunken rowdy should get in, you could not remove a matter +of twenty seats from him or enter another car; but above all, if you are +worn out and must sleep, you must sit up and do it in naps, with cramped +legs and in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and lifeless the +next day--for behold they have not that culmination of all charity and +human kindness, a sleeping car, in all France. I prefer the American +system. It has not so many grievous "discrepancies." + +In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They make no mistakes. Every +third man wears a uniform, and whether he be a marshal of the empire or a +brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to answer all your questions +with tireless politeness, ready to tell you which car to take, yea, and +ready to go and put you into it to make sure that you shall not go +astray. You cannot pass into the waiting room of the depot till you have +secured your ticket, and you cannot pass from its only exit till the +train is at its threshold to receive you. Once on board, the train will +not start till your ticket has been examined--till every passenger's +ticket has been inspected. This is chiefly for your own good. If by any +possibility you have managed to take the wrong train, you will be handed +over to a polite official who will take you whither you belong and bestow +you with many an affable bow. Your ticket will be inspected every now +and then along the route, and when it is time to change cars you will +know it. You are in the hands of officials who zealously study your +welfare and your interest, instead of turning their talents to the +invention of new methods of discommoding and snubbing you, as is very +often the main employment of that exceedingly self-satisfied monarch, the +railroad conductor of America. + +But the happiest regulation in French railway government is--thirty +minutes to dinner! No five-minute boltings of flabby rolls, muddy +coffee, questionable eggs, gutta-percha beef, and pies whose conception +and execution are a dark and bloody mystery to all save the cook that +created them! No, we sat calmly down--it was in old Dijon, which is so +easy to spell and so impossible to pronounce except when you civilize it +and call it Demijohn--and poured out rich Burgundian wines and munched +calmly through a long table d'hote bill of fare, snail patties, delicious +fruits and all, then paid the trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard +the train again, without once cursing the railroad company. A rare +experience and one to be treasured forever. + +They say they do not have accidents on these French roads, and I think it +must be true. If I remember rightly, we passed high above wagon roads or +through tunnels under them, but never crossed them on their own level. +About every quarter of a mile, it seemed to me, a man came out and held +up a club till the train went by, to signify that everything was safe +ahead. Switches were changed a mile in advance by pulling a wire rope +that passed along the ground by the rail, from station to station. +Signals for the day and signals for the night gave constant and timely +notice of the position of switches. + +No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in France. But why? +Because when one occurs, somebody has to hang for it! Not hang, maybe, +but be punished at least with such vigor of emphasis as to make +negligence a thing to be shuddered at by railroad officials for many a +day thereafter. "No blame attached to the officers"--that lying and +disaster-breeding verdict so common to our softhearted juries is seldom +rendered in France. If the trouble occurred in the conductor's +department, that officer must suffer if his subordinate cannot be proven +guilty; if in the engineer's department and the case be similar, the +engineer must answer. + +The Old Travelers--those delightful parrots who have "been here before" +and know more about the country than Louis Napoleon knows now or ever +will know--tell us these things, and we believe them because they are +pleasant things to believe and because they are plausible and savor of +the rigid subjection to law and order which we behold about us +everywhere. + +But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and +lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a +few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded +every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their +throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, +and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand +aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and +humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you +know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions; they +laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand +the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest +absurdities; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair +images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless +ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast! But still I love the Old Travelers. +I love them for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability +to bore, for their delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant +fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant, their +overwhelming mendacity! + +By Lyons and the Saone (where we saw the lady of Lyons and thought little +of her comeliness), by Villa Franca, Tonnere, venerable Sens, Melun, +Fontainebleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we swept, always +noting the absence of hog-wallows, broken fences, cow lots, unpainted +houses, and mud, and always noting, as well, the presence of cleanliness, +grace, taste in adorning and beautifying, even to the disposition of a +tree or the turning of a hedge, the marvel of roads in perfect repair, +void of ruts and guiltless of even an inequality of surface--we bowled +along, hour after hour, that brilliant summer day, and as nightfall +approached we entered a wilderness of odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped +through it, and then, excited, delighted, and half persuaded that we were +only the sport of a beautiful dream, lo, we stood in magnificent Paris! + +What excellent order they kept about that vast depot! There was no +frantic crowding and jostling, no shouting and swearing, and no +swaggering intrusion of services by rowdy hackmen. These latter gentry +stood outside--stood quietly by their long line of vehicles and said +never a word. A kind of hackman general seemed to have the whole matter +of transportation in his hands. He politely received the passengers and +ushered them to the kind of conveyance they wanted, and told the driver +where to deliver them. There was no "talking back," no dissatisfaction +about overcharging, no grumbling about anything. In a little while we +were speeding through the streets of Paris and delightfully recognizing +certain names and places with which books had long ago made us familiar. +It was like meeting an old friend when we read Rue de Rivoli on the +street corner; we knew the genuine vast palace of the Louvre as well as +we knew its picture; when we passed by the Column of July we needed no +one to tell us what it was or to remind us that on its site once stood +the grim Bastille, that grave of human hopes and happiness, that dismal +prison house within whose dungeons so many young faces put on the +wrinkles of age, so many proud spirits grew humble, so many brave hearts +broke. + +We secured rooms at the hotel, or rather, we had three beds put into one +room, so that we might be together, and then we went out to a restaurant, +just after lamplighting, and ate a comfortable, satisfactory, lingering +dinner. It was a pleasure to eat where everything was so tidy, the food +so well cooked, the waiters so polite, and the coming and departing +company so moustached, so frisky, so affable, so fearfully and +wonderfully Frenchy! All the surroundings were gay and enlivening. Two +hundred people sat at little tables on the sidewalk, sipping wine and +coffee; the streets were thronged with light vehicles and with joyous +pleasure-seekers; there was music in the air, life and action all about +us, and a conflagration of gaslight everywhere! + +After dinner we felt like seeing such Parisian specialties as we might +see without distressing exertion, and so we sauntered through the +brilliant streets and looked at the dainty trifles in variety stores and +jewelry shops. Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we +put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the +incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed +we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile +verbs and participles. + +We noticed that in the jewelry stores they had some of the articles +marked "gold" and some labeled "imitation." We wondered at this +extravagance of honesty and inquired into the matter. We were informed +that inasmuch as most people are not able to tell false gold from the +genuine article, the government compels jewelers to have their gold work +assayed and stamped officially according to its fineness and their +imitation work duly labeled with the sign of its falsity. They told us +the jewelers would not dare to violate this law, and that whatever a +stranger bought in one of their stores might be depended upon as being +strictly what it was represented to be. Verily, a wonderful land is +France! + +Then we hunted for a barber-shop. From earliest infancy it had been +a cherished ambition of mine to be shaved some day in a palatial +barber-shop in Paris. I wished to recline at full length in a cushioned +invalid chair, with pictures about me and sumptuous furniture; with +frescoed walls and gilded arches above me and vistas of Corinthian +columns stretching far before me; with perfumes of Araby to intoxicate +my senses and the slumbrous drone of distant noises to soothe me to +sleep. At the end of an hour I would wake up regretfully and find my +face as smooth and as soft as an infant's. Departing, I would lift my +hands above that barber's head and say, "Heaven bless you, my son!" + +So we searched high and low, for a matter of two hours, but never a +barber-shop could we see. We saw only wig-making establishments, with +shocks of dead and repulsive hair bound upon the heads of painted waxen +brigands who stared out from glass boxes upon the passer-by with their +stony eyes and scared him with the ghostly white of their countenances. +We shunned these signs for a time, but finally we concluded that the +wig-makers must of necessity be the barbers as well, since we could find +no single legitimate representative of the fraternity. We entered and +asked, and found that it was even so. + +I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber inquired where my room was. I +said never mind where my room was, I wanted to be shaved--there, on the +spot. The doctor said he would be shaved also. Then there was an +excitement among those two barbers! There was a wild consultation, and +afterwards a hurrying to and fro and a feverish gathering up of razors +from obscure places and a ransacking for soap. Next they took us into a +little mean, shabby back room; they got two ordinary sitting-room chairs +and placed us in them with our coats on. My old, old dream of bliss +vanished into thin air! + +I sat bolt upright, silent, sad, and solemn. One of the wig-making +villains lathered my face for ten terrible minutes and finished by +plastering a mass of suds into my mouth. I expelled the nasty stuff with +a strong English expletive and said, "Foreigner, beware!" Then this +outlaw strapped his razor on his boot, hovered over me ominously for six +fearful seconds, and then swooped down upon me like the genius of +destruction. The first rake of his razor loosened the very hide from my +face and lifted me out of the chair. I stormed and raved, and the other +boys enjoyed it. Their beards are not strong and thick. Let us draw the +curtain over this harrowing scene. + +Suffice it that I submitted and went through with the cruel infliction of +a shave by a French barber; tears of exquisite agony coursed down my +cheeks now and then, but I survived. Then the incipient assassin held a +basin of water under my chin and slopped its contents over my face, and +into my bosom, and down the back of my neck, with a mean pretense of +washing away the soap and blood. He dried my features with a towel and +was going to comb my hair, but I asked to be excused. I said, with +withering irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned--I declined to be +scalped. + +I went away from there with my handkerchief about my face, and never, +never, never desired to dream of palatial Parisian barber-shops anymore. +The truth is, as I believe I have since found out, that they have no +barber shops worthy of the name in Paris--and no barbers, either, for +that matter. The impostor who does duty as a barber brings his pans and +napkins and implements of torture to your residence and deliberately +skins you in your private apartments. Ah, I have suffered, suffered, +suffered, here in Paris, but never mind--the time is coming when I shall +have a dark and bloody revenge. Someday a Parisian barber will come to +my room to skin me, and from that day forth that barber will never be +heard of more. + +At eleven o'clock we alighted upon a sign which manifestly referred to +billiards. Joy! We had played billiards in the Azores with balls that +were not round and on an ancient table that was very little smoother than +a brick pavement--one of those wretched old things with dead cushions, +and with patches in the faded cloth and invisible obstructions that made +the balls describe the most astonishing and unsuspected angles and +perform feats in the way of unlooked-for and almost impossible +"scratches" that were perfectly bewildering. We had played at Gibraltar +with balls the size of a walnut, on a table like a public square--and in +both instances we achieved far more aggravation than amusement. We +expected to fare better here, but we were mistaken. The cushions were a +good deal higher than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion of always +stopping under the cushions, we accomplished very little in the way of +caroms. The cushions were hard and unelastic, and the cues were so +crooked that in making a shot you had to allow for the curve or you would +infallibly put the "English" on the wrong side of the hall. Dan was to +mark while the doctor and I played. At the end of an hour neither of us +had made a count, and so Dan was tired of keeping tally with nothing to +tally, and we were heated and angry and disgusted. We paid the heavy +bill--about six cents--and said we would call around sometime when we had +a week to spend, and finish the game. + +We adjourned to one of those pretty cafes and took supper and tested the +wines of the country, as we had been instructed to do, and found them +harmless and unexciting. They might have been exciting, however, if we +had chosen to drink a sufficiency of them. + +To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and pleasantly, we now sought +our grand room in the Grand Hotel du Louvre and climbed into our +sumptuous bed to read and smoke--but alas! + + It was pitiful, + In a whole city-full, + Gas we had none. + +No gas to read by--nothing but dismal candles. It was a shame. We tried +to map out excursions for the morrow; we puzzled over French "guides to +Paris"; we talked disjointedly in a vain endeavor to make head or tail of +the wild chaos of the day's sights and experiences; we subsided to +indolent smoking; we gaped and yawned and stretched--then feebly wondered +if we were really and truly in renowned Paris, and drifted drowsily away +into that vast mysterious void which men call sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +The next morning we were up and dressed at ten o'clock. We went to the +'commissionaire' of the hotel--I don't know what a 'commissionaire' is, +but that is the man we went to--and told him we wanted a guide. He said +the national Exposition had drawn such multitudes of Englishmen and +Americans to Paris that it would be next to impossible to find a good +guide unemployed. He said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but he +only had three now. He called them. One looked so like a very pirate +that we let him go at once. The next one spoke with a simpering +precision of pronunciation that was irritating and said: + +"If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande honneur to me rattain in +hees serveece, I shall show to him every sing zat is magnifique to look +upon in ze beautiful Parree. I speaky ze Angleesh pairfaitemaw." + +He would have done well to have stopped there, because he had that much +by heart and said it right off without making a mistake. But his +self-complacency seduced him into attempting a flight into regions of +unexplored English, and the reckless experiment was his ruin. Within ten +seconds he was so tangled up in a maze of mutilated verbs and torn and +bleeding forms of speech that no human ingenuity could ever have gotten +him out of it with credit. It was plain enough that he could not +"speaky" the English quite as "pairfaitemaw" as he had pretended he +could. + +The third man captured us. He was plainly dressed, but he had a +noticeable air of neatness about him. He wore a high silk hat which was +a little old, but had been carefully brushed. He wore second-hand kid +gloves, in good repair, and carried a small rattan cane with a curved +handle--a female leg--of ivory. He stepped as gently and as daintily as +a cat crossing a muddy street; and oh, he was urbanity; he was quiet, +unobtrusive self-possession; he was deference itself! He spoke softly +and guardedly; and when he was about to make a statement on his sole +responsibility or offer a suggestion, he weighed it by drachms and +scruples first, with the crook of his little stick placed meditatively to +his teeth. His opening speech was perfect. It was perfect in +construction, in phraseology, in grammar, in emphasis, in pronunciation +--everything. He spoke little and guardedly after that. We were charmed. +We were more than charmed--we were overjoyed. We hired him at once. We +never even asked him his price. This man--our lackey, our servant, our +unquestioning slave though he was--was still a gentleman--we could see +that--while of the other two one was coarse and awkward and the other was +a born pirate. We asked our man Friday's name. He drew from his +pocketbook a snowy little card and passed it to us with a profound bow: + + A. BILLFINGER, + Guide to Paris, France, Germany, + Spain, &c., &c. + Grande Hotel du Louvre. + +"Billfinger! Oh, carry me home to die!" + +That was an "aside" from Dan. The atrocious name grated harshly on my +ear, too. The most of us can learn to forgive, and even to like, a +countenance that strikes us unpleasantly at first, but few of us, I +fancy, become reconciled to a jarring name so easily. I was almost sorry +we had hired this man, his name was so unbearable. However, no matter. +We were impatient to start. Billfinger stepped to the door to call a +carriage, and then the doctor said: + +"Well, the guide goes with the barbershop, with the billiard-table, with +the gasless room, and may be with many another pretty romance of Paris. +I expected to have a guide named Henri de Montmorency, or Armand de la +Chartreuse, or something that would sound grand in letters to the +villagers at home, but to think of a Frenchman by the name of Billfinger! +Oh! This is absurd, you know. This will never do. We can't say +Billfinger; it is nauseating. Name him over again; what had we better +call him? Alexis du Caulaincourt?" + +"Alphonse Henri Gustave de Hauteville," I suggested. + +"Call him Ferguson," said Dan. + +That was practical, unromantic good sense. Without debate, we expunged +Billfinger as Billfinger, and called him Ferguson. + +The carriage--an open barouche--was ready. Ferguson mounted beside the +driver, and we whirled away to breakfast. As was proper, Mr. Ferguson +stood by to transmit our orders and answer questions. By and by, he +mentioned casually--the artful adventurer--that he would go and get his +breakfast as soon as we had finished ours. He knew we could not get +along without him and that we would not want to loiter about and wait for +him. We asked him to sit down and eat with us. He begged, with many a +bow, to be excused. It was not proper, he said; he would sit at another +table. We ordered him peremptorily to sit down with us. + +Here endeth the first lesson. It was a mistake. + +As long as we had that fellow after that, he was always hungry; he was +always thirsty. He came early; he stayed late; he could not pass a +restaurant; he looked with a lecherous eye upon every wine shop. +Suggestions to stop, excuses to eat and to drink, were forever on his +lips. We tried all we could to fill him so full that he would have no +room to spare for a fortnight, but it was a failure. He did not hold +enough to smother the cravings of his superhuman appetite. + +He had another "discrepancy" about him. He was always wanting us to buy +things. On the shallowest pretenses he would inveigle us into shirt +stores, boot stores, tailor shops, glove shops--anywhere under the broad +sweep of the heavens that there seemed a chance of our buying anything. +Anyone could have guessed that the shopkeepers paid him a percentage on +the sales, but in our blessed innocence we didn't until this feature of +his conduct grew unbearably prominent. One day Dan happened to mention +that he thought of buying three or four silk dress patterns for presents. +Ferguson's hungry eye was upon him in an instant. In the course of +twenty minutes the carriage stopped. + +"What's this?" + +"Zis is ze finest silk magazin in Paris--ze most celebrate." + +"What did you come here for? We told you to take us to the palace of the +Louvre." + +"I suppose ze gentleman say he wish to buy some silk." + +"You are not required to 'suppose' things for the party, Ferguson. We do +not wish to tax your energies too much. We will bear some of the burden +and heat of the day ourselves. We will endeavor to do such 'supposing' +as is really necessary to be done. Drive on." So spake the doctor. + +Within fifteen minutes the carriage halted again, and before another silk +store. The doctor said: + +"Ah, the palace of the Louvre--beautiful, beautiful edifice! Does the +Emperor Napoleon live here now, Ferguson?" + +"Ah, Doctor! You do jest; zis is not ze palace; we come there directly. +But since we pass right by zis store, where is such beautiful silk--" + +"Ah! I see, I see. I meant to have told you that we did not wish to +purchase any silks to-day, but in my absent-mindedness I forgot it. I +also meant to tell you we wished to go directly to the Louvre, but I +forgot that also. However, we will go there now. Pardon my seeming +carelessness, Ferguson. Drive on." + +Within the half hour we stopped again--in front of another silk store. +We were angry; but the doctor was always serene, always smooth-voiced. +He said: + +"At last! How imposing the Louvre is, and yet how small! How +exquisitely fashioned! How charmingly situated!--Venerable, venerable +pile--" + +"Pairdon, Doctor, zis is not ze Louvre--it is--" + +"What is it?" + +"I have ze idea--it come to me in a moment--zat ze silk in zis magazin--" + +"Ferguson, how heedless I am. I fully intended to tell you that we did +not wish to buy any silks to-day, and I also intended to tell you that we +yearned to go immediately to the palace of the Louvre, but enjoying the +happiness of seeing you devour four breakfasts this morning has so filled +me with pleasurable emotions that I neglect the commonest interests of +the time. However, we will proceed now to the Louvre, Ferguson." + +"But, doctor," (excitedly,) "it will take not a minute--not but one small +minute! Ze gentleman need not to buy if he not wish to--but only look at +ze silk--look at ze beautiful fabric. [Then pleadingly.] Sair--just only +one leetle moment!" + +Dan said, "Confound the idiot! I don't want to see any silks today, and +I won't look at them. Drive on." + +And the doctor: "We need no silks now, Ferguson. Our hearts yearn for +the Louvre. Let us journey on--let us journey on." + +"But doctor! It is only one moment--one leetle moment. And ze time will +be save--entirely save! Because zere is nothing to see now--it is too +late. It want ten minute to four and ze Louvre close at four--only one +leetle moment, Doctor!" + +The treacherous miscreant! After four breakfasts and a gallon of +champagne, to serve us such a scurvy trick. We got no sight of the +countless treasures of art in the Louvre galleries that day, and our only +poor little satisfaction was in the reflection that Ferguson sold not a +solitary silk dress pattern. + +I am writing this chapter partly for the satisfaction of abusing that +accomplished knave Billfinger, and partly to show whosoever shall read +this how Americans fare at the hands of the Paris guides and what sort of +people Paris guides are. It need not be supposed that we were a stupider +or an easier prey than our countrymen generally are, for we were not. +The guides deceive and defraud every American who goes to Paris for the +first time and sees its sights alone or in company with others as little +experienced as himself. I shall visit Paris again someday, and then let +the guides beware! I shall go in my war paint--I shall carry my tomahawk +along. + +I think we have lost but little time in Paris. We have gone to bed every +night tired out. Of course we visited the renowned International +Exposition. All the world did that. We went there on our third day in +Paris--and we stayed there nearly two hours. That was our first and last +visit. To tell the truth, we saw at a glance that one would have to +spend weeks--yea, even months--in that monstrous establishment to get an +intelligible idea of it. It was a wonderful show, but the moving masses +of people of all nations we saw there were a still more wonderful show. +I discovered that if I were to stay there a month, I should still find +myself looking at the people instead of the inanimate objects on +exhibition. I got a little interested in some curious old tapestries of +the thirteenth century, but a party of Arabs came by, and their dusky +faces and quaint costumes called my attention away at once. I watched a +silver swan, which had a living grace about his movements and a living +intelligence in his eyes--watched him swimming about as comfortably and +as unconcernedly as if he had been born in a morass instead of a +jeweler's shop--watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and +hold up his head and go through all the customary and elaborate motions +of swallowing it--but the moment it disappeared down his throat some +tattooed South Sea Islanders approached and I yielded to their +attractions. + +Presently I found a revolving pistol several hundred years old which +looked strangely like a modern Colt, but just then I heard that the +Empress of the French was in another part of the building, and hastened +away to see what she might look like. We heard martial music--we saw an +unusual number of soldiers walking hurriedly about--there was a general +movement among the people. We inquired what it was all about and learned +that the Emperor of the French and the Sultan of Turkey were about to +review twenty-five thousand troops at the Arc de l'Etoile. We +immediately departed. I had a greater anxiety to see these men than I +could have had to see twenty expositions. + +We drove away and took up a position in an open space opposite the +American minister's house. A speculator bridged a couple of barrels with +a board and we hired standing places on it. Presently there was a sound +of distant music; in another minute a pillar of dust came moving slowly +toward us; a moment more and then, with colors flying and a grand crash +of military music, a gallant array of cavalrymen emerged from the dust +and came down the street on a gentle trot. After them came a long line +of artillery; then more cavalry, in splendid uniforms; and then their +imperial majesties Napoleon III and Abdul Aziz. The vast concourse of +people swung their hats and shouted--the windows and housetops in the +wide vicinity burst into a snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs, and the +wavers of the same mingled their cheers with those of the masses below. +It was a stirring spectacle. + +But the two central figures claimed all my attention. Was ever such a +contrast set up before a multitude till then? Napoleon in military +uniform--a long-bodied, short-legged man, fiercely moustached, old, +wrinkled, with eyes half closed, and such a deep, crafty, scheming +expression about them!--Napoleon, bowing ever so gently to the loud +plaudits, and watching everything and everybody with his cat eyes from +under his depressed hat brim, as if to discover any sign that those +cheers were not heartfelt and cordial. + +Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman empire--clad in dark green +European clothes, almost without ornament or insignia of rank; a red +Turkish fez on his head; a short, stout, dark man, black-bearded, +black-eyed, stupid, unprepossessing--a man whose whole appearance +somehow suggested that if he only had a cleaver in his hand and a white +apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear him say: "A mutton +roast today, or will you have a nice porterhouse steak?" + +Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization, +progress, and refinement; Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people by +nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, +superstitious--and a government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, +Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch of Triumph, the +First Century greets the Nineteenth! + +NAPOLEON III., Emperor of France! Surrounded by shouting thousands, by +military pomp, by the splendors of his capital city, and companioned by +kings and princes--this is the man who was sneered at and reviled and +called Bastard--yet who was dreaming of a crown and an empire all the +while; who was driven into exile--but carried his dreams with him; who +associated with the common herd in America and ran foot races for a +wager--but still sat upon a throne in fancy; who braved every danger to +go to his dying mother--and grieved that she could not be spared to see +him cast aside his plebeian vestments for the purple of royalty; who kept +his faithful watch and walked his weary beat a common policeman of +London--but dreamed the while of a coming night when he should tread the +long-drawn corridors of the Tuileries; who made the miserable fiasco of +Strasbourg; saw his poor, shabby eagle, forgetful of its lesson, refuse +to perch upon his shoulder; delivered his carefully prepared, sententious +burst of eloquence upon unsympathetic ears; found himself a prisoner, the +butt of small wits, a mark for the pitiless ridicule of all the world +--yet went on dreaming of coronations and splendid pageants as before; who +lay a forgotten captive in the dungeons of Ham--and still schemed and +planned and pondered over future glory and future power; President of +France at last! a coup d'etat, and surrounded by applauding armies, +welcomed by the thunders of cannon, he mounts a throne and waves before +an astounded world the sceptre of a mighty empire! Who talks of the +marvels of fiction? Who speaks of the wonders of romance? Who prates of +the tame achievements of Aladdin and the Magii of Arabia? + +ABDUL-AZIZ, Sultan of Turkey, Lord of the Ottoman Empire! Born to a +throne; weak, stupid, ignorant, almost, as his meanest slave; chief of a +vast royalty, yet the puppet of his Premier and the obedient child of a +tyrannical mother; a man who sits upon a throne--the beck of whose finger +moves navies and armies--who holds in his hands the power of life and +death over millions--yet who sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his +eight hundred concubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and +sleeping and idling, and would rouse up and take the reins of government +and threaten to be a sultan, is charmed from his purpose by wary Fuad +Pacha with a pretty plan for a new palace or a new ship--charmed away +with a new toy, like any other restless child; a man who sees his people +robbed and oppressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no word to +save them; who believes in gnomes and genii and the wild fables of The +Arabian Nights, but has small regard for the mighty magicians of to-day, +and is nervous in the presence of their mysterious railroads and +steamboats and telegraphs; who would see undone in Egypt all that great +Mehemet Ali achieved, and would prefer rather to forget than emulate him; +a man who found his great empire a blot upon the earth--a degraded, +poverty-stricken, miserable, infamous agglomeration of ignorance, crime, +and brutality--and will idle away the allotted days of his trivial life +and then pass to the dust and the worms and leave it so! + +Napoleon has augmented the commercial prosperity of France in ten years +to such a degree that figures can hardly compute it. He has rebuilt +Paris and has partly rebuilt every city in the state. He condemns a +whole street at a time, assesses the damages, pays them, and rebuilds +superbly. Then speculators buy up the ground and sell, but the original +owner is given the first choice by the government at a stated price +before the speculator is permitted to purchase. But above all things, he +has taken the sole control of the empire of France into his hands and +made it a tolerably free land--for people who will not attempt to go too +far in meddling with government affairs. No country offers greater +security to life and property than France, and one has all the freedom he +wants, but no license--no license to interfere with anybody or make +anyone uncomfortable. + +As for the Sultan, one could set a trap any where and catch a dozen abler +men in a night. + +The bands struck up, and the brilliant adventurer, Napoleon III., the +genius of Energy, Persistence, Enterprise; and the feeble Abdul-Aziz, the +genius of Ignorance, Bigotry, and Indolence, prepared for the Forward +--March! + +We saw the splendid review, we saw the white-moustached old Crimean +soldier, Canrobert, Marshal of France, we saw--well, we saw every thing, +and then we went home satisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +We went to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We had heard of it before. +It surprises me sometimes to think how much we do know and how +intelligent we are. We recognized the brown old Gothic pile in a moment; +it was like the pictures. We stood at a little distance and changed from +one point of observation to another and gazed long at its lofty square +towers and its rich front, clustered thick with stony, mutilated saints +who had been looking calmly down from their perches for ages. The +Patriarch of Jerusalem stood under them in the old days of chivalry and +romance, and preached the third Crusade, more than six hundred years ago; +and since that day they have stood there and looked quietly down upon the +most thrilling scenes, the grandest pageants, the most extraordinary +spectacles that have grieved or delighted Paris. These battered and +broken-nosed old fellows saw many and many a cavalcade of mail-clad +knights come marching home from Holy Land; they heard the bells above +them toll the signal for the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, and they saw the +slaughter that followed; later they saw the Reign of Terror, the carnage +of the Revolution, the overthrow of a king, the coronation of two +Napoleons, the christening of the young prince that lords it over a +regiment of servants in the Tuileries to-day--and they may possibly +continue to stand there until they see the Napoleon dynasty swept away +and the banners of a great republic floating above its ruins. I wish +these old parties could speak. They could tell a tale worth the +listening to. + +They say that a pagan temple stood where Notre Dame now stands, in the +old Roman days, eighteen or twenty centuries ago--remains of it are still +preserved in Paris; and that a Christian church took its place about A.D. +300; another took the place of that in A.D. 500; and that the foundations +of the present cathedral were laid about A.D. 1100. The ground ought to +be measurably sacred by this time, one would think. One portion of this +noble old edifice is suggestive of the quaint fashions of ancient times. +It was built by Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, to set his conscience +at rest--he had assassinated the Duke of Orleans. Alas! Those good old +times are gone when a murderer could wipe the stain from his name and +soothe his troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks and mortar +and building an addition to a church. + +The portals of the great western front are bisected by square pillars. +They took the central one away in 1852, on the occasion of thanksgivings +for the reinstitution of the presidential power--but precious soon they +had occasion to reconsider that motion and put it back again! And they +did. + +We loitered through the grand aisles for an hour or two, staring up at +the rich stained-glass windows embellished with blue and yellow and +crimson saints and martyrs, and trying to admire the numberless great +pictures in the chapels, and then we were admitted to the sacristy and +shown the magnificent robes which the Pope wore when he crowned Napoleon +I; a wagon-load of solid gold and silver utensils used in the great +public processions and ceremonies of the church; some nails of the true +cross, a fragment of the cross itself, a part of the crown of thorns. +We had already seen a large piece of the true cross in a church in the +Azores, but no nails. They showed us likewise the bloody robe which that +archbishop of Paris wore who exposed his sacred person and braved the +wrath of the insurgents of 1848, to mount the barricades and hold aloft +the olive branch of peace in the hope of stopping the slaughter. His +noble effort cost him his life. He was shot dead. They showed us a cast +of his face taken after death, the bullet that killed him, and the two +vertebrae in which it lodged. These people have a somewhat singular +taste in the matter of relics. Ferguson told us that the silver cross +which the good archbishop wore at his girdle was seized and thrown into +the Seine, where it lay embedded in the mud for fifteen years, and then +an angel appeared to a priest and told him where to dive for it; he did +dive for it and got it, and now it is there on exhibition at Notre Dame, +to be inspected by anybody who feels an interest in inanimate objects of +miraculous intervention. + +Next we went to visit the Morgue, that horrible receptacle for the dead +who die mysteriously and leave the manner of their taking off a dismal +secret. We stood before a grating and looked through into a room which +was hung all about with the clothing of dead men; coarse blouses, +water-soaked; the delicate garments of women and children; patrician +vestments, hacked and stabbed and stained with red; a hat that was +crushed and bloody. On a slanting stone lay a drowned man, naked, +swollen, purple; clasping the fragment of a broken bush with a grip +which death had so petrified that human strength could not unloose it +--mute witness of the last despairing effort to save the life that was +doomed beyond all help. A stream of water trickled ceaselessly over the +hideous face. We knew that the body and the clothing were there for +identification by friends, but still we wondered if anybody could love +that repulsive object or grieve for its loss. We grew meditative and +wondered if, some forty years ago, when the mother of that ghastly thing +was dandling it upon her knee, and kissing it and petting it and +displaying it with satisfied pride to the passers-by, a prophetic vision +of this dread ending ever flitted through her brain. I half feared that +the mother, or the wife or a brother of the dead man might come while we +stood there, but nothing of the kind occurred. Men and women came, and +some looked eagerly in and pressed their faces against the bars; others +glanced carelessly at the body and turned away with a disappointed look +--people, I thought, who live upon strong excitements and who attend the +exhibitions of the Morgue regularly, just as other people go to see +theatrical spectacles every night. When one of these looked in and +passed on, I could not help thinking-- + +"Now this don't afford you any satisfaction--a party with his head shot +off is what you need." + +One night we went to the celebrated Jardin Mabille, but only staid a +little while. We wanted to see some of this kind of Paris life, however, +and therefore the next night we went to a similar place of entertainment +in a great garden in the suburb of Asnieres. We went to the railroad +depot, toward evening, and Ferguson got tickets for a second-class +carriage. Such a perfect jam of people I have not often seen--but there +was no noise, no disorder, no rowdyism. Some of the women and young +girls that entered the train we knew to be of the demi-monde, but others +we were not at all sure about. + +The girls and women in our carriage behaved themselves modestly and +becomingly all the way out, except that they smoked. When we arrived at +the garden in Asnieres, we paid a franc or two admission and entered a +place which had flower beds in it, and grass plots, and long, curving +rows of ornamental shrubbery, with here and there a secluded bower +convenient for eating ice cream in. We moved along the sinuous gravel +walks, with the great concourse of girls and young men, and suddenly a +domed and filigreed white temple, starred over and over and over again +with brilliant gas jets, burst upon us like a fallen sun. Nearby was a +large, handsome house with its ample front illuminated in the same way, +and above its roof floated the Star-Spangled Banner of America. + +"Well!" I said. "How is this?" It nearly took my breath away. + +Ferguson said an American--a New Yorker--kept the place, and was carrying +on quite a stirring opposition to the Jardin Mabille. + +Crowds composed of both sexes and nearly all ages were frisking about the +garden or sitting in the open air in front of the flagstaff and the +temple, drinking wine and coffee or smoking. The dancing had not begun +yet. Ferguson said there was to be an exhibition. The famous Blondin +was going to perform on a tightrope in another part of the garden. We +went thither. Here the light was dim, and the masses of people were +pretty closely packed together. And now I made a mistake which any +donkey might make, but a sensible man never. I committed an error which +I find myself repeating every day of my life. Standing right before a +young lady, I said: + +"Dan, just look at this girl, how beautiful she is!" + +"I thank you more for the evident sincerity of the compliment, sir, than +for the extraordinary publicity you have given to it!" This in good, +pure English. + +We took a walk, but my spirits were very, very sadly dampened. I did not +feel right comfortable for some time afterward. Why will people be so +stupid as to suppose themselves the only foreigners among a crowd of ten +thousand persons? + +But Blondin came out shortly. He appeared on a stretched cable, far away +above the sea of tossing hats and handkerchiefs, and in the glare of the +hundreds of rockets that whizzed heavenward by him he looked like a wee +insect. He balanced his pole and walked the length of his rope--two or +three hundred feet; he came back and got a man and carried him across; he +returned to the center and danced a jig; next he performed some gymnastic +and balancing feats too perilous to afford a pleasant spectacle; and he +finished by fastening to his person a thousand Roman candles, Catherine +wheels, serpents and rockets of all manner of brilliant colors, setting +them on fire all at once and walking and waltzing across his rope again +in a blinding blaze of glory that lit up the garden and the people's +faces like a great conflagration at midnight. + +The dance had begun, and we adjourned to the temple. Within it was a +drinking saloon, and all around it was a broad circular platform for the +dancers. I backed up against the wall of the temple, and waited. Twenty +sets formed, the music struck up, and then--I placed my hands before my +face for very shame. But I looked through my fingers. They were dancing +the renowned "Can-can." A handsome girl in the set before me tripped +forward lightly to meet the opposite gentleman, tripped back again, +grasped her dresses vigorously on both sides with her hands, raised them +pretty high, danced an extraordinary jig that had more activity and +exposure about it than any jig I ever saw before, and then, drawing her +clothes still higher, she advanced gaily to the center and launched a +vicious kick full at her vis-a-vis that must infallibly have removed his +nose if he had been seven feet high. It was a mercy he was only six. + +That is the can-can. The idea of it is to dance as wildly, as noisily, +as furiously as you can; expose yourself as much as possible if you are a +woman; and kick as high as you can, no matter which sex you belong to. +There is no word of exaggeration in this. Any of the staid, respectable, +aged people who were there that night can testify to the truth of that +statement. There were a good many such people present. I suppose French +morality is not of that straight-laced description which is shocked at +trifles. + +I moved aside and took a general view of the can-can. Shouts, laughter, +furious music, a bewildering chaos of darting and intermingling forms, +stormy jerking and snatching of gay dresses, bobbing beads, flying arms, +lightning flashes of white-stockinged calves and dainty slippers in the +air, and then a grand final rush, riot, a terrific hubbub, and a wild +stampede! Heavens! Nothing like it has been seen on earth since +trembling Tam O'Shanter saw the devil and the witches at their orgies +that stormy night in "Alloway's auld haunted kirk." + +We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no silk purchases in view, +and looked at its miles of paintings by the old masters. Some of them +were beautiful, but at the same time they carried such evidences about +them of the cringing spirit of those great men that we found small +pleasure in examining them. Their nauseous adulation of princely patrons +was more prominent to me and chained my attention more surely than the +charms of color and expression which are claimed to be in the pictures. +Gratitude for kindnesses is well, but it seems to me that some of those +artists carried it so far that it ceased to be gratitude and became +worship. If there is a plausible excuse for the worship of men, then by +all means let us forgive Rubens and his brethren. + +But I will drop the subject, lest I say something about the old masters +that might as well be left unsaid. + +Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogne, that limitless park, with its +forests, its lakes, its cascades, and its broad avenues. There were +thousands upon thousands of vehicles abroad, and the scene was full of +life and gaiety. There were very common hacks, with father and mother +and all the children in them; conspicuous little open carriages with +celebrated ladies of questionable reputation in them; there were Dukes +and Duchesses abroad, with gorgeous footmen perched behind, and equally +gorgeous outriders perched on each of the six horses; there were blue and +silver, and green and gold, and pink and black, and all sorts and +descriptions of stunning and startling liveries out, and I almost yearned +to be a flunkey myself, for the sake of the fine clothes. + +But presently the Emperor came along and he outshone them all. He was +preceded by a bodyguard of gentlemen on horseback in showy uniforms, his +carriage-horses (there appeared to be somewhere in the remote +neighborhood of a thousand of them,) were bestridden by gallant-looking +fellows, also in stylish uniforms, and after the carriage followed +another detachment of bodyguards. Everybody got out of the way; +everybody bowed to the Emperor and his friend the Sultan; and they went +by on a swinging trot and disappeared. + +I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I can not do it. It is simply +a beautiful, cultivated, endless, wonderful wilderness. It is an +enchanting place. It is in Paris now, one may say, but a crumbling old +cross in one portion of it reminds one that it was not always so. The +cross marks the spot where a celebrated troubadour was waylaid and +murdered in the fourteenth century. It was in this park that that fellow +with an unpronounceable name made the attempt upon the Russian Czar's +life last spring with a pistol. The bullet struck a tree. Ferguson +showed us the place. Now in America that interesting tree would be +chopped down or forgotten within the next five years, but it will be +treasured here. The guides will point it out to visitors for the next +eight hundred years, and when it decays and falls down they will put up +another there and go on with the same old story just the same. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +One of our pleasantest visits was to Pere la Chaise, the national +burying-ground of France, the honored resting-place of some of her +greatest and best children, the last home of scores of illustrious men +and women who were born to no titles, but achieved fame by their own +energy and their own genius. It is a solemn city of winding streets and +of miniature marble temples and mansions of the dead gleaming white from +out a wilderness of foliage and fresh flowers. Not every city is so well +peopled as this, or has so ample an area within its walls. Few palaces +exist in any city that are so exquisite in design, so rich in art, so +costly in material, so graceful, so beautiful. + +We had stood in the ancient church of St. Denis, where the marble +effigies of thirty generations of kings and queens lay stretched at +length upon the tombs, and the sensations invoked were startling and +novel; the curious armor, the obsolete costumes, the placid faces, the +hands placed palm to palm in eloquent supplication--it was a vision of +gray antiquity. It seemed curious enough to be standing face to face, as +it were, with old Dagobert I., and Clovis and Charlemagne, those vague, +colossal heroes, those shadows, those myths of a thousand years ago! I +touched their dust-covered faces with my finger, but Dagobert was deader +than the sixteen centuries that have passed over him, Clovis slept well +after his labor for Christ, and old Charlemagne went on dreaming of his +paladins, of bloody Roncesvalles, and gave no heed to me. + +The great names of Pere la Chaise impress one, too, but differently. +There the suggestion brought constantly to his mind is, that this place +is sacred to a nobler royalty--the royalty of heart and brain. Every +faculty of mind, every noble trait of human nature, every high occupation +which men engage in, seems represented by a famous name. The effect is a +curious medley. Davoust and Massena, who wrought in many a battle +tragedy, are here, and so also is Rachel, of equal renown in mimic +tragedy on the stage. The Abbe Sicard sleeps here--the first great +teacher of the deaf and dumb--a man whose heart went out to every +unfortunate, and whose life was given to kindly offices in their service; +and not far off, in repose and peace at last, lies Marshal Ney, whose +stormy spirit knew no music like the bugle call to arms. The man who +originated public gas-lighting, and that other benefactor who introduced +the cultivation of the potato and thus blessed millions of his starving +countrymen, lie with the Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens and +princes of Further India. Gay-Lussac the chemist, Laplace the +astronomer, Larrey the surgeon, de Suze the advocate, are here, and with +them are Talma, Bellini, Rubini; de Balzac, Beaumarchais, Beranger; +Moliere and Lafontaine, and scores of other men whose names and whose +worthy labors are as familiar in the remote by-places of civilization as +are the historic deeds of the kings and princes that sleep in the marble +vaults of St. Denis. + +But among the thousands and thousands of tombs in Pere la Chaise, there +is one that no man, no woman, no youth of either sex, ever passes by +without stopping to examine. Every visitor has a sort of indistinct idea +of the history of its dead and comprehends that homage is due there, but +not one in twenty thousand clearly remembers the story of that tomb and +its romantic occupants. This is the grave of Abelard and Heloise--a +grave which has been more revered, more widely known, more written and +sung about and wept over, for seven hundred years, than any other in +Christendom save only that of the Saviour. All visitors linger pensively +about it; all young people capture and carry away keepsakes and mementoes +of it; all Parisian youths and maidens who are disappointed in love come +there to bail out when they are full of tears; yea, many stricken lovers +make pilgrimages to this shrine from distant provinces to weep and wail +and "grit" their teeth over their heavy sorrows, and to purchase the +sympathies of the chastened spirits of that tomb with offerings of +immortelles and budding flowers. + +Go when you will, you find somebody snuffling over that tomb. Go when +you will, you find it furnished with those bouquets and immortelles. Go +when you will, you find a gravel-train from Marseilles arriving to supply +the deficiencies caused by memento-cabbaging vandals whose affections +have miscarried. + +Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and Heloise? Precious few +people. The names are perfectly familiar to every body, and that is +about all. With infinite pains I have acquired a knowledge of that +history, and I propose to narrate it here, partly for the honest +information of the public and partly to show that public that they have +been wasting a good deal of marketable sentiment very unnecessarily. + + + STORY OF ABELARD AND HELOISE + +Heloise was born seven hundred and sixty-six years ago. She may have had +parents. There is no telling. She lived with her uncle Fulbert, a canon +of the cathedral of Paris. I do not know what a canon of a cathedral is, +but that is what he was. He was nothing more than a sort of a mountain +howitzer, likely, because they had no heavy artillery in those days. +Suffice it, then, that Heloise lived with her uncle the howitzer and was +happy. She spent the most of her childhood in the convent of Argenteuil +--never heard of Argenteuil before, but suppose there was really such a +place. She then returned to her uncle, the old gun, or son of a gun, as +the case may be, and he taught her to write and speak Latin, which was +the language of literature and polite society at that period. + +Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already made himself widely +famous as a rhetorician, came to found a school of rhetoric in Paris. +The originality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great physical +strength and beauty created a profound sensation. He saw Heloise, and +was captivated by her blooming youth, her beauty, and her charming +disposition. He wrote to her; she answered. He wrote again; she +answered again. He was now in love. He longed to know her--to speak to +her face to face. + +His school was near Fulbert's house. He asked Fulbert to allow him to +call. The good old swivel saw here a rare opportunity: his niece, whom +he so much loved, would absorb knowledge from this man, and it would not +cost him a cent. Such was Fulbert--penurious. + +Fulbert's first name is not mentioned by any author, which is +unfortunate. However, George W. Fulbert will answer for him as well as +any other. We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard to teach her. + +Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. He came often and staid +long. A letter of his shows in its very first sentence that he came +under that friendly roof like a cold-hearted villain as he was, with the +deliberate intention of debauching a confiding, innocent girl. This is +the letter: + + "I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert; + I was as much surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power + of a hungry wolf. Heloise and I, under pretext of study, gave + ourselves up wholly to love, and the solitude that love seeks + our studies procured for us. Books were open before us, but we + spoke oftener of love than philosophy, and kisses came more + readily from our lips than words." + +And so, exulting over an honorable confidence which to his degraded +instinct was a ludicrous "simplicity," this unmanly Abelard seduced the +niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found it out. Fulbert was +told of it--told often--but refused to believe it. He could not +comprehend how a man could be so depraved as to use the sacred protection +and security of hospitality as a means for the commission of such a crime +as that. But when he heard the rowdies in the streets singing the +love-songs of Abelard to Heloise, the case was too plain--love-songs come +not properly within the teachings of rhetoric and philosophy. + +He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard returned secretly and carried +Heloise away to Palais, in Brittany, his native country. Here, shortly +afterward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty, was surnamed +Astrolabe--William G. The girl's flight enraged Fulbert, and he longed +for vengeance, but feared to strike lest retaliation visit Heloise--for +he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard offered to marry Heloise +--but on a shameful condition: that the marriage should be kept secret +from the world, to the end that (while her good name remained a wreck, as +before,) his priestly reputation might be kept untarnished. It was like +that miscreant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. He would see +the parties married, and then violate the confidence of the man who had +taught him that trick; he would divulge the secret and so remove somewhat +of the obloquy that attached to his niece's fame. But the niece +suspected his scheme. She refused the marriage at first; she said +Fulbert would betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did not +wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so honored by the world, +and who had such a splendid career before him. It was noble, +self-sacrificing love, and characteristic of the pure-souled Heloise, +but it was not good sense. + +But she was overruled, and the private marriage took place. Now for +Fulbert! The heart so wounded should be healed at last; the proud spirit +so tortured should find rest again; the humbled head should be lifted up +once more. He proclaimed the marriage in the high places of the city and +rejoiced that dishonor had departed from his house. But lo! Abelard +denied the marriage! Heloise denied it! The people, knowing the former +circumstances, might have believed Fulbert had only Abelard denied it, +but when the person chiefly interested--the girl herself--denied it, they +laughed, despairing Fulbert to scorn. + +The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was spiked again. The last hope +of repairing the wrong that had been done his house was gone. What next? +Human nature suggested revenge. He compassed it. The historian says: + + "Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and + inflicted upon him a terrible and nameless mutilation." + +I am seeking the last resting place of those "ruffians." When I find it +I shall shed some tears on it, and stack up some bouquets and +immortelles, and cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember that +howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have been, these ruffians did +one just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not warranted by the strict +letter of the law. + +Heloise entered a convent and gave good-bye to the world and its +pleasures for all time. For twelve years she never heard of Abelard +--never even heard his name mentioned. She had become prioress of +Argenteuil and led a life of complete seclusion. She happened one day to +see a letter written by him, in which he narrated his own history. She +cried over it and wrote him. He answered, addressing her as his "sister +in Christ." They continued to correspond, she in the unweighed language +of unwavering affection, he in the chilly phraseology of the polished +rhetorician. She poured out her heart in passionate, disjointed +sentences; he replied with finished essays, divided deliberately into +heads and sub-heads, premises and argument. She showered upon him the +tenderest epithets that love could devise, he addressed her from the +North Pole of his frozen heart as the "Spouse of Christ!" The abandoned +villain! + +On account of her too easy government of her nuns, some disreputable +irregularities were discovered among them, and the Abbot of St. Denis +broke up her establishment. Abelard was the official head of the +monastery of St. Gildas de Ruys, at that time, and when he heard of her +homeless condition a sentiment of pity was aroused in his breast (it is a +wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not blow his head off,) and he placed +her and her troop in the little oratory of the Paraclete, a religious +establishment which he had founded. She had many privations and +sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth and her gentle disposition +won influential friends for her, and she built up a wealthy and +flourishing nunnery. She became a great favorite with the heads of the +church, and also the people, though she seldom appeared in public. She +rapidly advanced in esteem, in good report, and in usefulness, and +Abelard as rapidly lost ground. The Pope so honored her that he made her +the head of her order. Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking +as the first debater of his time, became timid, irresolute, and +distrustful of his powers. He only needed a great misfortune to topple +him from the high position he held in the world of intellectual +excellence, and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet the subtle +St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he stood up in the presence of a +royal and illustrious assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he +looked about him and stammered a commencement; but his courage failed +him, the cunning of his tongue was gone: with his speech unspoken, he +trembled and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished champion. + +He died a nobody, and was buried at Cluny, A.D., 1144. They removed his +body to the Paraclete afterward, and when Heloise died, twenty years +later, they buried her with him, in accordance with her last wish. He +died at the ripe age of 64, and she at 63. After the bodies had remained +entombed three hundred years, they were removed once more. They were +removed again in 1800, and finally, seventeen years afterward, they were +taken up and transferred to Pere la Chaise, where they will remain in +peace and quiet until it comes time for them to get up and move again. + +History is silent concerning the last acts of the mountain howitzer. Let +the world say what it will about him, I, at least, shall always respect +the memory and sorrow for the abused trust and the broken heart and the +troubled spirit of the old smooth-bore. Rest and repose be his! + +Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such is the history that +Lamartine has shed such cataracts of tears over. But that man never +could come within the influence of a subject in the least pathetic +without overflowing his banks. He ought to be dammed--or leveed, I +should more properly say. Such is the history--not as it is usually +told, but as it is when stripped of the nauseous sentimentality that +would enshrine for our loving worship a dastardly seducer like Pierre +Abelard. I have not a word to say against the misused, faithful girl, +and would not withhold from her grave a single one of those simple +tributes which blighted youths and maidens offer to her memory, but I am +sorry enough that I have not time and opportunity to write four or five +volumes of my opinion of her friend the founder of the Parachute, or the +Paraclete, or whatever it was. + +The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that unprincipled humbug in my +ignorance! I shall throttle down my emotions hereafter, about this sort +of people, until I have read them up and know whether they are entitled +to any tearful attentions or not. I wish I had my immortelles back, now, +and that bunch of radishes. + +In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign "English Spoken Here," +just as one sees in the windows at home the sign "Ici on parle +francaise." We always invaded these places at once--and invariably +received the information, framed in faultless French, that the clerk who +did the English for th \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index b1e3b34..f6add44 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -# ToolBox-WordFrequency -Word Frequency Analysis Project Toolbox starter code - -Full instructions at the [course website](https://sd17spring.github.io/toolboxes/word-frequency-analysis/). +# ToolBox-WordFrequency +Word Frequency Analysis Project Toolbox starter code + +Full instructions at the [course website](https://sd17spring.github.io/toolboxes/word-frequency-analysis/). diff --git a/_config.yml b/_config.yml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c50ff38 --- /dev/null +++ b/_config.yml @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +theme: jekyll-theme-merlot \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/frequency.py b/frequency.py index 68be559..2ccf4e1 100644 --- a/frequency.py +++ b/frequency.py @@ -1,30 +1,89 @@ -""" Analyzes the word frequencies in a book downloaded from -Project Gutenberg """ - -import string - - -def get_word_list(file_name): - """ Reads the specified project Gutenberg book. Header comments, - punctuation, and whitespace are stripped away. The function - returns a list of the words used in the book as a list. - All words are converted to lower case. - """ - pass - - -def get_top_n_words(word_list, n): - """ Takes a list of words as input and returns a list of the n most frequently - occurring words ordered from most to least frequently occurring. - - word_list: a list of words (assumed to all be in lower case with no - punctuation - n: the number of words to return - returns: a list of n most frequently occurring words ordered from most - frequently to least frequentlyoccurring - """ - pass - -if __name__ == "__main__": - print("Running WordFrequency Toolbox") - print(string.punctuation) +""" Analyzes the word frequencies in a book downloaded from +Project Gutenberg """ + +import string +import pickle +from collections import defaultdict #frequwords +import operator +""" +This program takes two Mark Twain novels and finds the 100 most common words. +It then finds all of the common words that both novels have in common and +Removes them from the list. +It then prints a list of the most common unique words in both novels. +""" + + +def get_word_list(file_name): + """ Reads the specified project Gutenberg book. Header comments, + punctuation, and whitespace are stripped away. The function + returns a list of the words used in the book as a list. + All words are converted to lower case. + """ + nopunk = '' + input_file = open(file_name, 'r') + # opened_text = pickle.load(input_file) + book = (input_file.read()) + start_pos = book.find("eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net")+100 + justbook = (book[start_pos:]) + + + for f in string.punctuation: + justbook = justbook.replace(f, ' ') + + + justbook = justbook.lower() + return(justbook.split()) + # return opened_text + + +def get_top_n_words(text, n): + """ Takes a list of words as input and returns a list of the n most frequently + occurring words ordered from most to least frequently occurring. + + word_list: a list of words (assumed to all be in lower case with no + punctuation + n: the number of words to return + returns: a list of n most frequently occurring words ordered from most + frequently to least frequentlyoccurring + """ + + top_words = [] + freqwords = defaultdict(int) #initializes a dictionary + + for words in text: #goes through a list of all the words in the string text + freqwords[words] += 1 #if a word is found add 1 to the counter + sortedwords = sorted(freqwords.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1), reverse = True) #sorts dictionary of words based on how many times the word was found in reverse order. + for i in range(n): + top_words.append(sortedwords[i][0]) #store the 25 most common words + return (top_words) + +def commonOverAll(list1,list2): + """ + returns a list of words that are most common in both stories. + + """ + + return( (list(set(list1).intersection(list2)))) + +def removewords(words,wordstoremove): + """ + Removes words from the list that are found in both lists + """ + + return ([x for x in words if x not in wordstoremove]) #return elements in words that are not in wordstoremove + pass + +if __name__ == "__main__": + print("Running WordFrequency Toolbox") + print(string.punctuation.split()) + get_word_list('pg32325.txt') + list1 = (get_top_n_words(get_word_list('pg32325.txt'),100)) + list2 = (get_top_n_words(get_word_list('Inocentabraud.txt'),100)) + + comonWords = commonOverAll(list1,list2) + + + print(removewords(list1,comonWords)) + print(removewords(list2,comonWords)) + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/minebooks2.py b/minebooks2.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd9fff4 --- /dev/null +++ b/minebooks2.py @@ -0,0 +1,186 @@ +from loadBooks import * +import string +from vaderSentiment.vaderSentiment import SentimentIntensityAnalyzer +import nltk +from collections import defaultdict #frequwords +import random +import operator + + +def removegutnburg(text): + """ + Removes the Gutenberg license information for so that the text can + be analyzed. + + """ + + licence = "ject Gutenberg Association / Carnegie Mellon University" #last line in license + bookstart = "by William Shakespeare" # set to Act V to + bookend = "THE END" + start_pos = text.find(licence) + 60 #finds the end of the licensing agreement + start_reading = text.find(bookstart,start_pos) + 22 #all of the books start with "title" by William Shakespeare + end_reading = text.find(bookend,start_reading ) #finds THE END at the end of the book + return (text[start_reading:end_reading]) #returns text of the play + + +def loadjustbooks(playfiles): + """ + Takes a list of play names and a list of text files of those plays. + Removes Gutenberg license, newlines and punctuation from the play text. + + Ex. Makes a list of all of the text of the comedic plays + + """ + + plays = [] + + + for i in playfiles: + play = opensavedbook(i) #opens play text file + just_play = removegutnburg(play) #removes gutenberge license + just_play = RemoveAllButLettersAndSpaces(just_play) #removes newlines and punctuation + plays.append(just_play) #adds current play to the play list + + return plays #returns list of plays + +def RemoveAllButLettersAndSpaces(mystring): + """ + removes special characters and punctuation from play texts. + >>> RemoveAllButLettersAndSpaces("\r\nqwetr.,") + 'qwe2tr' + """ + toremove = ['\r', '\n','\'','[', ']','.','?', ';',':','-', '\"',','] + for c in toremove: + mystring = mystring.replace(c, ' ') + + + return mystring.lower() #makes everything lower case words like "The" and "the" are the same + +def RunSentAnalysis(mylist): + """ + runs sentimient analysis and returns positive and negitive sentiments + """ + res = [] + analyzer = SentimentIntensityAnalyzer() + answer = analyzer.polarity_scores(mylist) + res.append(answer["pos"]) + res.append(answer["neg"]) + return res + + +def Most_Common(text): + """ + takes a string and returns the 25 most common words in the string + """ + top_words = [] + freqwords = defaultdict(int) #initializes a dictionary + + for words in text.split(): #goes through a list of all the words in the string text + freqwords[words] += 1 #if a word is found add 1 to the counter + sortedwords = sorted(freqwords.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(1), reverse = True) #sorts dictionary of words based on how many times the word was found in reverse order. + for i in range(25): + top_words.append(sortedwords[i][0]) #store the 25 most common words + return (top_words) #Rreturns a list of the 24 most common words + +def commonOverAll(list1,list2,list3): + """ + returns a list of all the most universally common words of all three story types + + """ + + return( list(set(list(set(list1).intersection(list2))).intersection(list3))) + +def removewords(words,wordstoremove): + """ + Removes words from the plays that are univeraly common amonge all types + """ + words = words.split() + return ([x for x in words if x not in wordstoremove]) #return elements in words that are not in wordstoremove + +def listtostring(mylist): + """ + convers a list of words to string of words + """ + return ' '.join(mylist) + +def linklists(mylist): + """ + Add several list together into one large list + """ + res = [] + for i in range(len(mylist)): + res += [mylist[i]] + return listtostring(res) + +def sampling(mylist, trials): + pos = 0 + neg = 0 + for i in range(trials): + sample = listtostring(random.sample(mylist,10)) + sentiment = RunSentAnalysis(sample) + pos += sentiment[0] + neg += sentiment[1] + + return[pos/trials, neg/trials] + + +def textmining(): # Main function that runs the textmining code. + """ + 13 of Shakespeare’s plays were saved from gutenberg.org. + I sorted the file names of all of the plays into tree lists + comedies, tragedies, and histories. + + """ + + comedies = ['A_Midsummer_Nights_Dream.pickle', 'Alls_Well_That_Ends_Well.pickle'] + tragedies = ['Antony_and_Cleopatra.pickle','Coriolanus.pickle','Cymbeline.pickle'] + histories = ['King_Henry_IV.pickle','King_John.pickle','King_Richard_II.pickle'] + + + colletion = [] #list to store all three types of books + colletion.append(loadjustbooks(comedies)) #loads text from the comedies into the first element + colletion.append(loadjustbooks(tragedies)) #loads text from the trageties into the second element + colletion.append(loadjustbooks(histories)) #loads text from the histories into the second element + #collection was broken up into comedies, tragedies and + #histories to increase code readability + all_comedies = (linklists(colletion[0])) #combines all of the saved comedies into one list + all_trageties = (linklists(colletion[1])) #combines all of the saved trageties into one list + all_histories = (linklists(colletion[2])) #combines all of the saved histories into one list + + common_comedies = (Most_Common(all_comedies)) #finds the most common words in Shakespeare’s comedies + common_trageties = (Most_Common(all_trageties)) #finds the most common words in Shakespeare’s trageties + common_histories = (Most_Common(all_histories)) #finds the most common words in Shakespeare’s histories + + common_words = (commonOverAll(common_comedies,common_trageties, common_histories)) #make a list of words common along all three play types + + comedy_uncommon = removewords(all_comedies,common_words) #removes the univeraly common words from the comedic plays + tragety_uncommon = removewords(all_trageties,common_words) #removes the universally common words from the tragic plays + history_uncommon = removewords(all_histories,common_words) #removes the universally common words from the historic plays + + + + + + print("\n") + print("Sentiment Analysis Average of Comedic Plays") + average = sampling(comedy_uncommon,500) #preform Sentiment Analyses on all three play types + print (average) + print("Sentiment Analysis of Tragic Plays") + average = sampling(tragety_uncommon,500) #preform Sentiment Analyses on all three play types + print (average) + print("Sentiment Analysis of Historic Plays") + average = sampling(tragety_uncommon,500) #preform Sentiment Analyses on all three play types + print (average) + #RunSentAnalysis(tragic_string) + #print("\n") + #print("Sentiment Analysis of Historic Plays") + #RunSentAnalysis(historic_string) + + + + +textmining() +#if __name__ == "__main__": +# import doctest +#doctest.testmod() +