All along the Champs Elysees were urns of plaster-of-Paris destined to contain funeral incense and flames; columns decorated with huge flags of blue, red, and white, embroidered with shining crowns, eagles, and N's in gilt paper, and statues of plaster representing Nymphs, Triumphs, Victories, or other female personages, painted in oil so as to represent marble.Real marble could have had no better effect, and the appearance of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme.On each pillar was a buckler, of the color of bronze, bearing the name and date of a battle in gilt letters: you had to walk through a mile-long avenue of these glorious reminiscences, telling of spots where, in the great imperial days, throats had been victoriously cut.
As we passed down the avenue, several troops of soldiers met us: the garde-muncipale a cheval, in brass helmets and shining jack-boots, noble-looking men, large, on large horses, the pick of the old army, as I have heard, and armed for the special occupation of peace-keeping: not the most glorious, but the best part of the soldier's duty, as I fancy.Then came a regiment of Carabineers, one of Infantry--little, alert, brown-faced, good-humored men, their band at their head playing sounding marches.These were followed by a regiment or detachment of the Municipals on foot--two or three inches taller than the men of the Line, and conspicuous for their neatness and discipline.By-and-by came a squadron or so of dragoons of the National Guards: they are covered with straps, buckles, aguillettes, and cartouche-boxes, and make under their tricolor cock's-plumes a show sufficiently warlike.The point which chiefly struck me on beholding these military men of the National Guard and the Line, was the admirable manner in which they bore a cold that seemed to me as sharp as the weather in the Russian retreat, through which cold the troops were trotting without trembling and in the utmost cheerfulness and good-humor.An aide-de-camp galloped past in white pantaloons.By heavens! it made me shudder to look at him.
With this profound reflection, we turned away to the right towards the hanging-bridge (where we met a detachment of young men of the Ecole de l'Etat Major, fine-looking lads, but sadly disfigured by the wearing of stays or belts, that make the waists of the French dandies of a most absurd tenuity), and speedily passed into the avenue of statues leading up to the Invalides.All these were statues of warriors from Ney to Charlemagne, modelled in clay for the nonce, and placed here to meet the corpse of the greatest warrior of all.Passing these, we had to walk to a little door at the back of the Invalides, where was a crowd of persons plunged in the deepest mourning, and pushing for places in the chapel within.
The chapel is spacious and of no great architectural pretensions, but was on this occasion gorgeously decorated in honor of the great person to whose body it was about to give shelter.
We had arrived at nine; the ceremony was not to begin, they said, till two: we had five hours before us to see all that from our places could be seen.
We saw that the roof, up to the first lines of architecture, was hung with violet; beyond this with black.We saw N's, eagles, bees, laurel wreaths, and other such imperial emblems, adorning every nook and corner of the edifice.Between the arches, on each side of the aisle, were painted trophies, on which were written the names of some of Napoleon's Generals and of their principal deeds of arms--and not their deeds of arms alone, pardi, but their coats of arms too.O stars and garters! but this is too much.What was Ney's paternal coat, prithee, or honest Junot's quarterings, or the venerable escutcheon of King Joachim's father, the innkeeper?
You and I, dear Miss Smith, know the exact value of heraldic bearings.We know that though the greatest pleasure of all is to ACT like a gentleman, it is a pleasure, nay a merit, to BE one--to come of an old stock, to have an honorable pedigree, to be able to say that centuries back our fathers had gentle blood, and to us transmitted the same.There IS a good in gentility: the man who questions it is envious, or a coarse dullard not able to perceive the difference between high breeding and low.One has in the same way heard a man brag that he did not know the difference between wines, not he--give him a good glass of port, and he would pitch all your claret to the deuce.My love, men often brag about their own dulness in this way.
In the matter of gentlemen, democrats cry, "Psha! Give us one of Nature's gentlemen, and hang your aristocrats." And so indeed Nature does make SOME gentlemen--a few here and there.But Art makes most.Good birth, that is, good handsome well-formed fathers and mothers, nice cleanly nursery-maids, good meals, good physicians, good education, few cares, pleasant easy habits of life, and luxuries not too great or enervating, but only refining--a course of these going on for a few generations are the best gentleman-makers in the world, and beat Nature hollow.
If, respected Madam, you say that there is something BETTER than gentility in this wicked world, and that honesty and personal wealth are more valuable than all the politeness and high-breeding that ever wore red-heeled pumps, knights' spurs, or Hoby's boots, Titmarsh for one is never going to say you nay.If you even go so far as to say that the very existence of this super-genteel society among us, from the slavish respect that we pay to it, from the dastardly manner in which we attempt to imitate its airs and ape its vices, goes far to destroy honesty of intercourse, to make us meanly ashamed of our natural affections and honest, harmless usages, and so does a great deal more harm than it is possible it can do good by its example--perhaps, Madam, you speak with some sort of reason.
