DOI issue:
November 16, 1867
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16880#0212
November 16, 1867.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
201
EPICURUS IN THE FIELD OF MARS.
a p out c a-iJ -s fe_
lv d6 Li quidation ..-
hrice Respected Sir,
In compliance with
your wish that I should
visit the Paris Exhibition,
1 visited it. I did so before
its closing. I should have
preferred to do so after that,
because then they would
not have let me in. For I
did not in the least want to
go. I was taken—as a child,
of course—to see our own
first affair of the kind.
Nothing will come up to
that, if we continue our ex-
posures to the end of time.
But you said “ go,” and I
went.
There is some danger, I
believe, in making remarks
upon the refreshments at
railway stations. In England I think I have heard, that you are im-
mediately given in charge to a policeman, if you say that a sand-
wich is stale; and a jury of tradesmen refuses to award you damages.
You will therefore consider the propriety of inserting my remark that
the soup at Calais was by no means all that could be desired. But
there can be no harm in my saying that at Boulogne-sur-Mer—I
returned that way—I was charged, for a veal-cutlet, a partridge’s leg,
and a glass of vin ordinaire, the sum of seven francs and a half.
On arriving in Paris at 8 a.m., 1 naturally went to bed. The result,
and breakfast, improved the shining hours till 2 p.m. I am able to
speak well of my dejeuner (breakfast.),' especially of some kidneys on
the silver spit, an omelette of fine herbs, and. a few other trifles. Then
I thought that I would walk to the Exhibition, but, finding that it was
a good way off, I thought I would not. But, there being a great run
upon the vehicles, I had to wait a long while, and to smoke several
cigars before I could get upon wheels. Then I remembered that I
should like to see the new opera-house, and I took that m my way from
the street of Rivoli to the field of Mars. It perhaps would n<it be
thought in anybody else’s way from one point to another, but genius is
erratic. I admired the front of the new opera-house. It is very splendid
and ornate. There are seven bronze busts of composers looking out
round holes. Five of them are
Auber, Meyerbeer, Mozart, Rossini, Halevy,
I forget the other two—Gluck and Spontini, perhaps. I need hardly
say that no English composer is glorified there. But we will alter that
the next time we occupy Paris. The writers of Champagne Charley
and of Kafooselem shall not be forgotten when national melody is
honoured.
Examination of this edifice, and the reflections thereby prompted,
engaged me until there was so little time left, that I decided not to go
to the Exhibition that day. There is nothing more inartistic than the
doing anything in less time than it deserves. I therefore returned to my
hotel. It is a very good one, and bears the name of the most majestic
of the residences of our beloved Sovereign. Loyalty took me there in
the first instance, comfort retained and recalls me. I required a syphon
and its usual accompaniment. I had them; and, sitting in a quiet
quadrangle, sub Jove, I meditated on the past history of Paris, on its
singular present, on its mysterious future. When I awoke, it was
quite dark, and time not to think of dinner, but to eat that meal.
I dined, in company with a literary friend of much merit, at a Cafd
near the Bourse (Exchange). It was chiefly remarkable for being well
ventilated, by means of a glass roof, and for the floor being gravel.
When two imaginative and highly cultivated poets meet in the social
hour, and quaff the sparkling glass, it were strange did they not flash
out some verse which the world would not willingly let die. I flashed
out as follows :—
“ I am sitting on gravel,
And drinking Tavel.”
the Exhibition. I rode there in an omniboose, fare fifty centimes, and
a female conductor—trim, sharp-eyed, rosy. [Why not a female con-
ductor ? In Paris it is not the business of an omnibus official to charge
sixpence for a twopenny ride, to assault young ladies and break their
umbrellas, and call them Jewesses (with a bad prefix) for remonstrating.
Mr. Paget will accept my compliments for accumulating penalties in
a way that must convince ruffians that even in England this sort of
thing is excess of zeal.] When I got out, I looked for the Trocadero.
Does any one know why it was so called? I shall not tell, but
remind persons of Campbell’s stanzas to the memory of the Spanish
patriots lately killed in resisting the regency and the Duke of
Angouleme—
“ Vengeance is behind, and justice is to come.”
An instalment of the latter has come in the fact that the Paris
Trocadero has been utterly humiliated, and is now a sort of plantation
with elegant steps. But I forbear to pursue this subject. The central
court of the Louvre, and a noble thing it is, with more statues to great
men than we have got all over England (deducting the late lamented
Prince Consort’s) is at present called after Napoleon Trois. But,
as my friend Shelley says, “Naught may endure but Mutability.”
I had much difficulty in reaching the gates of the Exhibition. So
many of the wares of France were proffered for my inspection by
vendors who would have made no objection to my immediately removing
the articles, that I could hardly get on without incivility. I was hin-
dered, but was pleased to see that free-trade principles were recognised
in France to an extent beyond that which would have been permitted
in England. I fear that a policeman here would have caused these
exhibitors to stand back. But at length I reached the turnstile, and
tendered my franc. As I laid it down, I saw that it bore the head of
Louis Philippe. I had not intended this insult to Imperialism, but
had the officials noticed it, I hope that I am too much of a Briton not
to have stood on the very offensive. They took the L. P. money, how-
ever, as calmly as somebody else took the L. P. property. I was within
the Exhibition. That is, I was on a walk of a garden which surrounded
the Exhibition. Tawdry flags, very dingy, drooped dismally from
posts. I was not impressed, or rather I was so much impressed, that I
looked around for refreshment.
There was plenty of that, my old boy. By Saint Denis, who was for
France, there was no end of what my friend Rabelais calls inside-
timber. The Exhibition is a lot of Ovals, and the biggest and outsidest
of the Napoleon Ovals is—was, I mean—devoted to the noble art of
eating and the noble science of drinking. Restaurant after restaurant,
bar after bar, lushcnb after lushcrib, according to your elegance of
mind, There smiled the gracious virgins of Spiers and Pond, with
their bright eyes and golden hair—they have driven the male Parisians
wild, and I do not wonder. They would be called prettyish girls in
London. But in Paris the majority of persons are so ugly, that I quite
comprehend why Paris made a fool of itself about the English waiter-
esses. If the Exhibition has done nothing else, it has finally and for ever
stamped out the cant about French women. The English yyoman is im-
measurably handsomer than the French woman, and the English lady is
incalculably better dressed than the French lady. I only record the ad-
mission of the fact, I don’t want to crow. It speaks well for the Parisians
that they admit this, and that Anglomania in costume rages among them.
Nay, the gallant youths of Paris have found out that the superiority is
not alone with our women. It is seen that an English gentleman’s
morning dress is the most becoming thing going, and it is delightful to
behold young France toned down into uniform colour and easy garb.
I have good hope of them yet. The older fools among them paint and
powder their sallow faces, and blacken their moustaches, but these
fribbles will decay away, especially under the hard labour of being
obliged t,o clean their nails, (an operation now de rigueurj) but the
youth seem to me manlier since my last visit.
This is no digression—you told me to See the Exhibition, but if I
am boring you, let me shut up. Bless me, do you think it’s any
pleasure to me to write ? Yours &c
Epicurus Rotundus.
[Our contributor has the faculty of self-excitement. We take no
notice of his petulance. He can resume next week, or not, as may
please him.—Ed.]
What my friend rejoined with I am not at liberty to say, but it was
fully as coruscant as my own utterance. We talked, in a more removed
chamber, far into the night, and I mentioned to my friend that you
had wished me to see the Exhibition. He said that perhaps I had
better see it, but that he could tell me all about it. 1 preferred that
he_ should tell me some anecdotes of a French character. In the
middle of one of them I went to sleep, which statement is to my
mend’s credit as a moralist, if not as a raconteur. But. 1 had travelled
all night, and in company with the Members—or those who should
have been the Members—for Great Snoring, Essex.
I he following day, which was that of the defeat of Garibaldi at,
Mentana, I rose about eleven. It was scarcely one when I reached
Not said at the Synod.
. The Bishop of Gregory said a good thing yesterday. An enthu-
siastically Ritualistic young lady showed him a charming photograph
ot a group of handsome young Curates decked out in all the lovely
church millinery of sentimental schism. “ Those are Anglicans,”
she said. “ No,” said his Lordship, smiling; “ but I may say that
though non Angli, they would be Angeli—si—I beg pardon for Latin,
my dear—if they were only Christians.”
The Greatest of our Peers.—What an enormous size Lord
Granville must be ! Speaking of him at the Paris Exhibition ban-
quet, the newspaper says, “ His Lordship filled the room.”
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
201
EPICURUS IN THE FIELD OF MARS.
a p out c a-iJ -s fe_
lv d6 Li quidation ..-
hrice Respected Sir,
In compliance with
your wish that I should
visit the Paris Exhibition,
1 visited it. I did so before
its closing. I should have
preferred to do so after that,
because then they would
not have let me in. For I
did not in the least want to
go. I was taken—as a child,
of course—to see our own
first affair of the kind.
Nothing will come up to
that, if we continue our ex-
posures to the end of time.
But you said “ go,” and I
went.
There is some danger, I
believe, in making remarks
upon the refreshments at
railway stations. In England I think I have heard, that you are im-
mediately given in charge to a policeman, if you say that a sand-
wich is stale; and a jury of tradesmen refuses to award you damages.
You will therefore consider the propriety of inserting my remark that
the soup at Calais was by no means all that could be desired. But
there can be no harm in my saying that at Boulogne-sur-Mer—I
returned that way—I was charged, for a veal-cutlet, a partridge’s leg,
and a glass of vin ordinaire, the sum of seven francs and a half.
On arriving in Paris at 8 a.m., 1 naturally went to bed. The result,
and breakfast, improved the shining hours till 2 p.m. I am able to
speak well of my dejeuner (breakfast.),' especially of some kidneys on
the silver spit, an omelette of fine herbs, and. a few other trifles. Then
I thought that I would walk to the Exhibition, but, finding that it was
a good way off, I thought I would not. But, there being a great run
upon the vehicles, I had to wait a long while, and to smoke several
cigars before I could get upon wheels. Then I remembered that I
should like to see the new opera-house, and I took that m my way from
the street of Rivoli to the field of Mars. It perhaps would n<it be
thought in anybody else’s way from one point to another, but genius is
erratic. I admired the front of the new opera-house. It is very splendid
and ornate. There are seven bronze busts of composers looking out
round holes. Five of them are
Auber, Meyerbeer, Mozart, Rossini, Halevy,
I forget the other two—Gluck and Spontini, perhaps. I need hardly
say that no English composer is glorified there. But we will alter that
the next time we occupy Paris. The writers of Champagne Charley
and of Kafooselem shall not be forgotten when national melody is
honoured.
Examination of this edifice, and the reflections thereby prompted,
engaged me until there was so little time left, that I decided not to go
to the Exhibition that day. There is nothing more inartistic than the
doing anything in less time than it deserves. I therefore returned to my
hotel. It is a very good one, and bears the name of the most majestic
of the residences of our beloved Sovereign. Loyalty took me there in
the first instance, comfort retained and recalls me. I required a syphon
and its usual accompaniment. I had them; and, sitting in a quiet
quadrangle, sub Jove, I meditated on the past history of Paris, on its
singular present, on its mysterious future. When I awoke, it was
quite dark, and time not to think of dinner, but to eat that meal.
I dined, in company with a literary friend of much merit, at a Cafd
near the Bourse (Exchange). It was chiefly remarkable for being well
ventilated, by means of a glass roof, and for the floor being gravel.
When two imaginative and highly cultivated poets meet in the social
hour, and quaff the sparkling glass, it were strange did they not flash
out some verse which the world would not willingly let die. I flashed
out as follows :—
“ I am sitting on gravel,
And drinking Tavel.”
the Exhibition. I rode there in an omniboose, fare fifty centimes, and
a female conductor—trim, sharp-eyed, rosy. [Why not a female con-
ductor ? In Paris it is not the business of an omnibus official to charge
sixpence for a twopenny ride, to assault young ladies and break their
umbrellas, and call them Jewesses (with a bad prefix) for remonstrating.
Mr. Paget will accept my compliments for accumulating penalties in
a way that must convince ruffians that even in England this sort of
thing is excess of zeal.] When I got out, I looked for the Trocadero.
Does any one know why it was so called? I shall not tell, but
remind persons of Campbell’s stanzas to the memory of the Spanish
patriots lately killed in resisting the regency and the Duke of
Angouleme—
“ Vengeance is behind, and justice is to come.”
An instalment of the latter has come in the fact that the Paris
Trocadero has been utterly humiliated, and is now a sort of plantation
with elegant steps. But I forbear to pursue this subject. The central
court of the Louvre, and a noble thing it is, with more statues to great
men than we have got all over England (deducting the late lamented
Prince Consort’s) is at present called after Napoleon Trois. But,
as my friend Shelley says, “Naught may endure but Mutability.”
I had much difficulty in reaching the gates of the Exhibition. So
many of the wares of France were proffered for my inspection by
vendors who would have made no objection to my immediately removing
the articles, that I could hardly get on without incivility. I was hin-
dered, but was pleased to see that free-trade principles were recognised
in France to an extent beyond that which would have been permitted
in England. I fear that a policeman here would have caused these
exhibitors to stand back. But at length I reached the turnstile, and
tendered my franc. As I laid it down, I saw that it bore the head of
Louis Philippe. I had not intended this insult to Imperialism, but
had the officials noticed it, I hope that I am too much of a Briton not
to have stood on the very offensive. They took the L. P. money, how-
ever, as calmly as somebody else took the L. P. property. I was within
the Exhibition. That is, I was on a walk of a garden which surrounded
the Exhibition. Tawdry flags, very dingy, drooped dismally from
posts. I was not impressed, or rather I was so much impressed, that I
looked around for refreshment.
There was plenty of that, my old boy. By Saint Denis, who was for
France, there was no end of what my friend Rabelais calls inside-
timber. The Exhibition is a lot of Ovals, and the biggest and outsidest
of the Napoleon Ovals is—was, I mean—devoted to the noble art of
eating and the noble science of drinking. Restaurant after restaurant,
bar after bar, lushcnb after lushcrib, according to your elegance of
mind, There smiled the gracious virgins of Spiers and Pond, with
their bright eyes and golden hair—they have driven the male Parisians
wild, and I do not wonder. They would be called prettyish girls in
London. But in Paris the majority of persons are so ugly, that I quite
comprehend why Paris made a fool of itself about the English waiter-
esses. If the Exhibition has done nothing else, it has finally and for ever
stamped out the cant about French women. The English yyoman is im-
measurably handsomer than the French woman, and the English lady is
incalculably better dressed than the French lady. I only record the ad-
mission of the fact, I don’t want to crow. It speaks well for the Parisians
that they admit this, and that Anglomania in costume rages among them.
Nay, the gallant youths of Paris have found out that the superiority is
not alone with our women. It is seen that an English gentleman’s
morning dress is the most becoming thing going, and it is delightful to
behold young France toned down into uniform colour and easy garb.
I have good hope of them yet. The older fools among them paint and
powder their sallow faces, and blacken their moustaches, but these
fribbles will decay away, especially under the hard labour of being
obliged t,o clean their nails, (an operation now de rigueurj) but the
youth seem to me manlier since my last visit.
This is no digression—you told me to See the Exhibition, but if I
am boring you, let me shut up. Bless me, do you think it’s any
pleasure to me to write ? Yours &c
Epicurus Rotundus.
[Our contributor has the faculty of self-excitement. We take no
notice of his petulance. He can resume next week, or not, as may
please him.—Ed.]
What my friend rejoined with I am not at liberty to say, but it was
fully as coruscant as my own utterance. We talked, in a more removed
chamber, far into the night, and I mentioned to my friend that you
had wished me to see the Exhibition. He said that perhaps I had
better see it, but that he could tell me all about it. 1 preferred that
he_ should tell me some anecdotes of a French character. In the
middle of one of them I went to sleep, which statement is to my
mend’s credit as a moralist, if not as a raconteur. But. 1 had travelled
all night, and in company with the Members—or those who should
have been the Members—for Great Snoring, Essex.
I he following day, which was that of the defeat of Garibaldi at,
Mentana, I rose about eleven. It was scarcely one when I reached
Not said at the Synod.
. The Bishop of Gregory said a good thing yesterday. An enthu-
siastically Ritualistic young lady showed him a charming photograph
ot a group of handsome young Curates decked out in all the lovely
church millinery of sentimental schism. “ Those are Anglicans,”
she said. “ No,” said his Lordship, smiling; “ but I may say that
though non Angli, they would be Angeli—si—I beg pardon for Latin,
my dear—if they were only Christians.”
The Greatest of our Peers.—What an enormous size Lord
Granville must be ! Speaking of him at the Paris Exhibition ban-
quet, the newspaper says, “ His Lordship filled the room.”