Chapter VII: Part 7

But the great remedy must be, the appointment of additional tutors in each college. This, of course, implies additional funds for their payment. Now, considering that the whole charge for “tuition” is £16 for the academical year, we say unhesitatingly that the public, with all its ardour for retrenchment of University expenses, would not grudge an increase in this particular item. Twenty pounds per annum would hardly be considered too much, by the most economising parent, for a really efficient course of classics and mathematics. At all events, it would be far cheaper, and far more satisfactory, to pay the larger sum for an equivalent, than to be charged as at present for what is confessedly insufficient for its purpose, and be saddled with indefinite extra demands under the item of “private tutor.” John Bull likes to know how the money goes, and to have his money’s worth. Half the sum annually spent in Oxford upon private tuition, would amply provide for public teaching of a much more useful character. It is possible that some of the surplus income of many colleges, which is now divided among the fellows as a sort of bonus, or laid by for the purchase of advowsons and other purposes, might be quite as legitimately, and much more usefully, employed in establishing an additional tutorship; or some of the fellowships themselves, which the Report proposes to melt down into professorships, might much more properly be held in future to involve the residing and taking part in the college work. It appears at least doubtful, from the statutes of more than one College, whether _all_ fellowships did not there involve some tutorial duties; at any rate, such a regulation would be quite in accordance with the spirit of their founders.

One objection, indeed, there is urged by the opponents of the present tutorial system, which must be allowed to have some foundation. College tutors are inefficient, they say, not only because they are too few, but because they are often incompetent or indifferent. “The system,” says Mr Lowe, “has often been grossly abused by the appointment of incompetent persons.” So, we suppose, has pretty nearly every system at some period. This argument from the abuse, to less subtle rhetoricians than our Commissioners, might have seemed to border on a fallacy. Still, that incompetent persons have occasionally been appointed is true, and is not to be defended, even on the ground that incompetent appointments are sometimes made by other patrons than heads of Colleges—that they are not unknown upon the bench, at the bar—nay, we dare to say it, even in Royal Commissions themselves. But it is hardly assuming too much for our own times to say, that the days of such appointments, if not wholly past, are already numbered; that soon it will be a rare exception to point to a man who holds an important public trust by favour of nepotism or corruption. To assume that Oxford is sharing, and will share, this improved tone of public morality, is surely no more than we may claim for her in common fairness, or than the testimony of any unprejudiced observer could support by recent facts. And once let it be understood that a college is _bonâ fide_ to educate its own men without extraneous help, and we shall have the best of all practical checks upon incompetence or idleness in the teachers. There needs in this case no statute to be repealed, no founder’s will to be set aside; the heads of houses have themselves acknowledged that “the tutors of colleges are not necessarily appointed from the fellows of colleges.” It is in the power of any principal to choose his tutors from the whole University; to summon to his aid any portion of that marketable scholarship which at present can only find employment in private teaching; it is nothing but custom and prejudice which at present restrict his choice within his own society.

Let this plan only be tried: let some college, now considered inferior, select and pay a couple of first-rate tutors, and let them form their classes according to their own judgment, selecting those departments for which each feels himself best qualified, and really _working_ them. We will not ask of them twelve, ten, or even six hours a-day: much less will give an amount of genuine instruction sufficient for the limited numbers which any one of the smaller colleges can expect to supply as candidates for honours. A couple more tutors for the pass-men, in a small college of say forty undergraduates, with a mathematical lecturer, would complete an establishment, not much more formidable in point of numbers, but infinitely more efficient than any at present existing. They will be fully competent to do all which private tutors now do, if it is distinctly understood both by undergraduates and their friends that they, and they _alone_, are to do it. If it be desired to leave something to their own free choice and taste, let each attend such lectures (a _minimum_ number per diem being fixed, of course) as he may think tend most to his improvement; and let each tutor be paid in proportion to the number of his pupils. From forty men, paying, as we have suggested, £20 per annum each, we have £800 to apply in this manner; to which the college may well add another £200, sinking, if it be necessary, as it seldom would be, a fellowship for the purpose. In the larger colleges, where more tutors are required, the funds will increase in proportion. This will allow, even in small colleges, at least £300 per annum to a first-rate tutor, in addition to the fellowship which we may naturally suppose he will hold on his own or some other foundation. And this, we repeat, will be enough to secure _good_ men, and men whose energies are young and fresh; for we cannot agree with the Commissioners in thinking that the succession, by which a college tutor quits his work for the “expected living,” and thus makes way for his juniors, is in itself an evil; or that it is not far preferable to the system of married professors, who will stick to their chairs, if not to their work, long after the “_solve senescentem_” might be fairly applied.

And if, as we trust, the opening of new halls, affiliated or private, shall stir up the old foundations to exertion, in order to maintain their ground, that college which, from the inefficiency of its tutors, fails to educate, will at least soon be relieved from the necessity of pretending to educate at all. Even its foundation scholarships, with which we would never meddle, will fail to recruit its ranks, if the path to a fellowship be made, as it should, to lie only through a fair place in the Honour-list. With the addition which may thus easily be made to the staff of college tutors—by exacting some little additional labour from each—by abolishing at once the monopoly which now drives a man to enter at a bad college rather than not to enter at all, and allowing, at the same time, every Master of Arts, who has sufficient confidence in his own abilities (and in whom the University shall place sufficient confidence), to open a hall of his own—and by rigorously insisting not only upon attendance at lectures, but upon due preparation for them—college tuition may again become what we believe it has been, what an innocent public naturally suppose it to be, and what it undoubtedly ought to be; and the hydra-headed incubus which has gradually supplanted and overpowered it will thus, if not annihilated, become a very innocent monster indeed. When the regular college work makes its full demand on the undergraduate’s time and powers, private tuition will only be resorted to by those who have more money than brains; and the private tutor will gradually come to be considered, by all well-regulated minds, much in the same light as a “_crib_” to Thucydides, or a key to Colenso’s algebra. Even now, his services are absurdly magnified, and much of the supposed benefit derived from them is wholly imaginary. Men who, years ago, rose to the highest University honours without such artificial aid, may fairly challenge, in the extent and accuracy of their scholarship, any name in later class-lists; nay, it is no unheard-of or unfounded complaint that, in spite of the formidable _apparatus criticus_, and various modern patents for learning-made-easy—in spite of the “invaluable” facilities afforded the student by these private tutors—(it might be unfair to say _because of_ these things)—the scholarship of Oxford has declined. Nay, the _cram_, “purchased and handed down from tutor to tutor,” is not actually so valuable, even in the schools, as either buyer or seller would fain persuade themselves. The man who lost his “First,” because he had no private tutor[33]—whom Mr Rawlinson so pathetically holds out as a sort of George Barnwell to undergraduates—would have made a very good addition to Mr Douglas Jerrold’s “men of character,” as a pendant to “the man who couldn’t help it;” but the latter character is more common in Oxford. For one man who fails in the attainment of expected honours, from ignorance of some technical formulas, or recondite information, supposed to be the exclusive property and stock in trade of practised private tutors, twenty break down from inaccurate scholarship, or imperfect knowledge of the actual text-books of the examination. It is quite true that the examiner, who has unfortunately himself been a private tutor, is very apt, in the _vivâ voce_ examination, to lead a candidate into these by-ways of learning, where he himself feels so much at home, when, if the candidate be also one of the initiated, a very pleasant dialogue takes place, to the great delectation of the audience, but probably with very little effect upon his place in the class-list. For it must be remembered that, even should the candidate succeed in flattering the known predilections of a single examiner into a false estimate of his abilities, there are three others sitting by who regard all this display with perfect indifference. The atrocious blunders made by showy men would pass the belief of any but an examiner. A few specious answers on a “science paper” will not cover the multitude of sins. We have heard from the lips of one of the ablest examiners in Oxford—whose name would have some weight even with the Commissioners—that more men lost their expected class from a want of knowledge of their books than from any other cause whatever. But one of the great evils of the system which now exists is, that it is so infectious; it is hard for a young man not to believe that the assistance which he sees others so eager to obtain is necessary, or at least very desirable, for himself; if A, B, and C read with private tutors, D considers that he starts with a disadvantage unless he does so too. And when the college tutor sees that nearly all his men prefer to seek other aid, he, very naturally, if he be an indolent man—not without some vexation, if his heart be in his work—feels his own responsibility in a great measure taken from him.

And this so-called liberty in the choice of an instructor, thus opened to the youth of Oxford, how often is it wisely exercised? What a mere caprice of fashion it is often which makes men rush in crowds to this or that popular tutor, as if he alone were in possession of some specific for the schools! whilst he again has soon to give place to some newer favourite—

“Arbitrio popularis auræ.”

Can one blame the teacher, if with such a precarious tenure he strives hard, for the time being, to make the most of his brains? Is it wonderful if he is willing to take pupils whilst they are to be had, even at the rate of twelve hours a-day?[34] It has been done—with what effect upon the tutor, with what benefit to the pupil, let the reader judge for himself. So again, in the case of a pass-tutor (whose course of preparation is only for Responsins, or for the ordinary degree), his reputation is sometimes made or unmade by the result of a single examination—some half-dozen men plucked whom he had considered almost safe—a few desperate cases “shaved through,” who had failed under other trainers; this, or less than this, in the chapter of accidents, is quite sufficient to overwhelm a man with applications for the next examination, or leave him gradually almost without a pupil.

In short, this forcing system, which aims at pumping into the pupil’s brains the condensed results of another’s labours, owes its chief popularity to the notion that it saves the pupil work. Whether even a less amount of actual knowledge, if the result of personal labour and research, would not be far more valuable, is a question which the undergraduate, anxious only for his examination, cannot be supposed to ask. If the true object of a University education be “to train the powers of the mind,” every artificial aid which tends to weaken self-reliance, and discourage self-exertion, is a step towards defeating it. It is quite true that the results of originality of thought, as displayed in the examination papers of even the best candidates for honours, may not be very valuable in themselves; but the habit of thinking for one’s-self, and the exercise of mental power in mastering difficulties, are amongst the most precious fruits of a student life. And if ever one of the most valuable suggestions contained in the Report be carried out, as we trust it will, and candidates for classical honours be tested more and more, as may easily be done, in the translation and analysation of unseen passages, it will do good service in proving the hollowness of a system which aims at communicating to the student knowledge ready made, instead of strengthening him to attain it.

We have said little of that strange hallucination which has led the Commissioners to see in the extension of the professorate alone the remedy for all the educational mistakes of Oxford. It has been so effectually exposed by other writers, and has been so little popular with any but its authors, that it may be considered as pretty well disposed of. It is very satisfactory to find the “Tutor’s Association,” in their Report (No. II. p. 42), in a few cool words giving us the deliberate opinion of so large and important a body, that “it is in no way desirable that the instruction of professors should ever become the main instruction of the place.” That some addition may with great advantage be made to the present number of professors—still more, that existing professorships should be made efficient—no one will deny. We could be content to take the last reform first as an instalment. We should like to have one or two of the existing types of the class put into working order, that we might know how to value the effect of a larger importation; for the professor, as he is, is not unknown in Oxford, though not apt to exhibit much for the public delectation. But we have the thing, of various species—Regius, Margaret, and others—and have not as yet been much the better for them. We are told that with new professors we shall have a greater command of talent than can be expected in the case of college tutors. “I have always found,” said Arnold of Rugby, “that the great difference between one boy and another lay not so much in talent as in energy.” No man was a better judge; few men in themselves had more of both; and we are sure he would have applied unhesitatingly to the teacher what he had said of the taught. We need, in those who are to regenerate Oxford, talent, it is true—we need yet more energy. There is enough Greek and History and Philosophy already dormant in University Chairs, “_celata virtus_,” to satisfy the most voracious undergraduate that ever hungered and thirsted after knowledge. It may be a great comfort to him to know that his teachers, or those who should be his teachers, know so much, but with this comfort he must rest content. And even with the immense “run” of public talent which our modern tyro is to have opened to him, let him not be too sanguine. In the multitude of his new councillors there shall surely be wisdom, but not surely for him. He shall have teachers in plenty, but they shall only teach as shall seem to them good. The Commissioners have made the profound discovery that no statutes “can compel a man to lecture well;” and one of their chosen witnesses even doubts whether they should be compelled to lecture at all.[35] Because the plan of teaching in large classes does not work well in colleges, the student shall be transferred to larger classes, under other names, formed out of the whole University. Because existing professors are a failure—those who have done their duty having been “brilliant exceptions,” “not even encouraged by success”[36]—therefore he shall have more. Because college tutors do not always lecture well, he shall have a new set of teachers, who shall lecture, if it so pleases them, not at all. By some magnetic process, the learning of the professor shall be instilled into the pupil without having recourse to the ordinary mediums of communication. We have not patience to pursue all these absurdities to their conclusion.

Yet we must not wonder that the Commissioners’ scheme has on this point found able advocates. A measure of reform which is to create at once some fifty snug and honourable appointments, of from £800 per annum downwards, can hardly fail to be popular amongst unemployed and ambitious M.A.’s. More than one name might be pointed out amongst the eager witnesses for the prosecution, who are already in fancy seating themselves in the professors’ chairs. If they have not been slow to impute to existing teachers low aims and unworthy motives, they must not wince if they are cross-examined closely as to the feelings which might possibly influence themselves. It would not be difficult to select from those names probable candidates for the visionary chairs of “Jurisprudence,” “Philosophy,” or “Mental Philosophy.” “Professor, sir? Here you are, sir!” we fancy we hear chorused by a score of eager voices. They are conscious, many of them honestly conscious, of talents which have not yet found scope enough for exercise, and long naturally for recognised position and rank. The pay, as Mr Vaughan slily says, “is a slighter but not unfelt consideration.”[37]

We must protest, at all events, against this _ex parte_ evidence. It is too late now to discuss the wisdom of that policy which closed so many lips, which might have been fitting oracles of Oxford, before a court whose jurisdiction they denied. But we now claim to hear those men of grave and mature experience, whose names are not upon the Commissioners’ list of witnesses; there are some among them to whom all must listen reverently, although all may not adopt their views. The University has called for their opinions; let them now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold their peace.

OUR COMMISSIONER IN PARIS.

It was on the evening of the 22d of August, 1853, that a party consisting of a gentleman, two ladies, and four packages, emerged from the door of the Castle Inn at Southampton, and bestowed themselves in and upon a one-horse fly. Something had happened which apparently had disturbed the equanimity of the paternal leader of the flock; and as an attentive bystander might have heard him mutter in no very benevolent accent, while he indignantly crumpled up a small bit of paper and thrust it into his waistcoat-pocket—“We might have dined at the Clarendon for the same sum”—it is not an unlikely conjecture that the entertainment had been bad, and the charge excessive. A drive of three minutes conducted them to the pier; when a demand for an infinite variety of shillings and twopences still farther increased the traveller’s dissatisfaction, which, however, only reached its climax when Jehu, wet and tipsy, insisted on a crown. It was now eight o’clock; the Grand Turk lay alongside the jetty, fretting, and fuming, and spurting out angry ejaculations from its funnel; the deck was strewed with boxes of all imaginable shapes and sizes; the rain was falling, porters swearing, deck slippery, companion-ladder dark, and, when the cabin was at last attained, the glimmering lamp threw a melancholy light over the visages of twenty or thirty people who sat in solemn silence, or anxiously whispered to each other as to the safety of hat-box or umbrella. The party we have mentioned took their seats with the rest; and, if we pursued the very novel style in which we have begun this narrative, now would be the time to introduce a description of the travellers’ personal appearance. It was manifest the relationship between them was rather close; a father, mother, and daughter were on their way to the gay city of Paris, and adopted the route by Southampton and Havre, intending to spend a few days at Rouen by the way. The description of any of the party would, however, be useless; for before it had got beyond the bold and intellectual glance of the senior traveller, his hair glossy black, clustering in rich ringlets around his well-shaped, head—his majestic features, now radiant with an indefinable expression and now sunk in serene repose—and the tones of his voice redolent of scholarship and romance—the dullest of readers would at once perceive that it was no other but Our Commissioner on his way to France; determined, as in duty bound, to communicate to Maga the result of his observations—

“To talk of sciences and arts,
And knowledge gained in foreign parts.”

So, leaving to the reader’s imagination the discomforts of a night passage in an over-crowded boat, with a sharp wind, and an angry chopping sea, he will merely state that he arrived weary, but safe, at the excellent Hôtel de l’Europe, in the bustling town of Havre; and, after a copious breakfast, proceeded to survey the place. A very pleasant, active, clean place it is. The docks so intersect the town that half the streets have their frontage occupied by the shipping. It looks more like what we have read of Amsterdam than what we had expected to find in France. The tide rises three-and-twenty feet, so that, though there is depth of water enough for vessels of large burthen, the docks are not available for them at all hours; and the outside harbours did not strike us as either capacious or safe. The fortifications as they at present stand are contemptible, and could not stand the attack of the “Duke of Wellington” for an hour; but batteries of great strength are soon to be begun, and the maritime capital placed out of danger of a _coup-de-main_. At five o’clock we got into the train for Rouen; and, through a rich, flat, uninteresting country, very much resembling the Isle of Thanet, we careered at twenty-five miles an hour, and reached our destination as comfortably as on the best of our English lines. Let all men who stop at Rouen go to the Hôtel d’Albion; it is situated on the quay, and nowhere is the beautiful Seine more beautiful than here. It is spanned by several bridges, from which the view both up and down is of extraordinary richness. Towers, and pinnacles, and great high houses, all breathing of the middle ages, surround, and are reflected in a river, which is bright to-day with the gay sails and flags of all nations, and which is the same that bore William the Conqueror on his way to England. Somehow or other, this same William the Conqueror gives us a sort of vested interest in the scenery of Normandy. We feel a kind of property in his castles; and can’t help a small sensation of enmity to Joan of Arc for ousting us from our hereditary domains. However, let us look on her statue in the marketplace without a blush, for the English did not burn her as an enemy, but the French ecclesiastics burned her as a witch. The cathedral is gaudy, and over-ornamented outside, but solemn and grand within; a hurried glance is sufficient for all the internal sights of the place, but the fine old streets, the gable-ended houses, the projecting balconies, the straight, steep roofs, would furnish food for contemplation for a month. Then the walks around it are delightful, the heights that encompass it very rich and finely moulded, fruit and provisions very cheap, and the people good-humoured and obliging—no wonder many English families have established themselves here, and taken possession of the most charming situations—a sort of reprisal for the behaviour of the Normans in 1066.

Next day saw us on the way to Paris, careering through a country still flat and monotonous, except when here and there the windings of the Seine showed us the chalky banks through which it had forced its way; or, at a remote distance, a few hills, or rather elevations, crowned with an occasional ruin. For, though this is the highway to the capital, and one of the richest provinces in the kingdom, there is an appearance of desolation spread over all the district, as if it had very recently been the scene of some devastating war. The villages are all either half finished, or half destroyed. Instead of the three or four gentlemanly dwellings—the surgeon’s, the retired tradesman’s, the neighbouring manufacturer’s, besides the squire’s, and the rectory—which you see dotted among the humble cottages in almost every English village—here you see nothing but straight, narrow stone huts, no fruit on the walls, no garden attached—but single, bare, and comfortless, clustered, like some recent fungi, round an old squat-spired church, which seems to look with blank astonishment out of its broken clock-face at the railway carriages hissing past it, and disturbing its “ancient, solitary reign” over a trampled peasantry and roadless country. There are not above three chateaus visible between Havre and Paris; and the tale of at least one of them is told by the appearance of three or four great high factory-chimneys, which were of course utterly unknown to the original seigneur, but are very convenient for the present owner of the mansion, as they are situated just at one end of the long-terraced garden, and must be a comfortable accession to the view from the drawing-room windows. All old things have died away in this part of France, and a new order of things has not yet risen. Here are houses dismantled in the riots of ’93 still unroofed. Even the old chateau inhabited by the great Sully, and giving the title “de Rosny,” by which he was originally known, does not seem to have a tree about it more than thirty years old. Yet the chimneys are all shaky with age, and if there were any cracks in the wall that gave rheumatism to the great councillor of Henry IV., depend upon it they are there still. We did not see a house under repair all the time we were in France. The owner seems to wait till it is actually uninhabitable, and then he builds another. The result is a combination of novelty and decay which it is very unpleasant to look upon.

One style of building, however, it must be confessed, is carried to great perfection in France. As you approach Paris, you see on all hands barracks and fortifications. At intervals you hear far-distant military music, and catch the glimpses of long rows of bayonets in the sunlight; and on the elevation commanding the plain you see enormous lines of strong low walls crowded with embrasures for cannon, and on a stout little post swings in the summer air the universal tricolor. Universal we call it; for, go where you like, the blue, white, and red, are sure to meet your eyes: they hang over book-stalls, and auction-rooms, and _restaurateurs_, and theatres. Over small cabarets in rural villages you still see the flag; over all the government offices, small and great; over merry-go-rounds at a fair; over a conjuror’s booth; over the tilted waggon of a perambulating quack; and, finally, over the central pavilion of the majestic Tuileries. Flags, therefore, and fortifications are the principal characteristics of the capital. But, in fact, the massive style of masonry, and the isolated nature of the dwelling-houses, fit every mansion in Paris to stand a siege. Any lodging-house in the street could be converted into a fortification at a moment’s notice, and would only require to hoist the tricolor from the roof to become a citadel at once. In the mean time, it was our object to get into lodgings as soon as we could; and with this view we hurried from the railway station to the office of an excellent English agent in the Rue de Rivoli. Fortunately an _appartement_ of eight rooms was vacant on the first floor above; half an hour saw the bargain made, the trunks deposited, the services of a native cook secured, and everything as comfortable as heart could desire.

The rooms were intensely French. There were nine windows in the lodging, and nineteen doors; there were five clocks, enamelled, gilded, and otherwise ornamented, which did not go, and one in the kitchen which was always wrong; there were four arm-chairs in the drawing-room, with square gilded legs, and tapestry-covered backs, which it required an enormous exertion of strength to move from beside the wall; there was a sofa so tremendously elastic that you kept swinging up and down for a minute or two after you had taken your seat; there was a round table, so small that it couldn’t hold the smallest tea-tray, and so heavy, by means of a marble top, that it couldn’t be moved from its place; and, what with tables and chairs, and sofas and clocks, and jars and mirrors, and curtains and firescreens, and brackets and other useless encumbrances, there was only left a narrow serpentine walk across the floor more intricate than, and quite as dangerous as, the entrance into Portsmouth harbour. The bedrooms had the same characteristics of over-furnishing and encumbered space; but the colours of everything were so gay, the gilding so bright, the mirrors so glossy, that our spirits were never depressed, and we entirely escaped the Penitentiary-at-Millbank sort of feeling which invariably takes possession of us on being ushered into the dull, heavy, monotonous apartments of a London lodging-house.

Here, then, we were established in the most beautiful part of Paris—just opposite the Tuileries gardens—the bright sun of France shining upon us all day long, and a month before us in which to survey the astounding scene. For astounding it certainly is, if you remember how often these beautiful streets have been filled with thousands of infuriated citizens, cutting and shooting each other; cannon resounding in all parts of the town, and blood flowing in torrents over the pavement, and all these horrors occurring not in the distant reigns of Charles the Ninth, or Henry the Third; but a year ago,—when this old hat was new—some months after our new drawing-room paper was put on, which is still in its first gloss. And now look at the place, nothing but peace and gaiety apparently were ever heard of here. The people walk about as if every man was just let out for a holiday, and requested to enjoy it as much as he could. The shops are shining with gold and silver, with laces, and silks, and satins, in every window; the blue sky bends over all without a cloud, and we will forth into the gardens of the Tuileries to see the world. What a pleasant, bright, glittering world it is. There are groups scattered all about in the shady walks, under these crowded trees. A gentleman, his wife, three children, and a maid in a long-flapped white cap, are all as busy as if they were in their own house. The mother is sewing, and hearing the eldest girl her lesson; the maid is also active with her needle; the two smaller children are poring over the same book; and the father, with his back to a tree, and his hat over his brows, is deep in the milk-and-water politics of the Assemblée, or the platitudes of that wonderful misnomer, the _Constitutionnel_. Now, all these people have left their _appartement_ for the day. The key is in the coat-pocket of the absorbed politician; they will dine in the quietest and most economical way at some humble _restaurant_, and returning to their position in the gardens, they will enjoy the gay scene before them, stroll from fountain to fountain, or from statue to statue, listen to the band, and finally, when the shades of night begin to fall, they will retire to their modest lodging, having spent a day of open-air enjoyment, which makes them utterly independent of the size or situation of the rooms they nominally occupy. This seems the mode of life of an immense number of the Parisians. Houses seem mere accommodations for the night; for, from morn till eve, they are in as full possession of the Tuileries as if they had been crowned monarchs of France—their empire in the Luxembourg gardens, there’s none to dispute—and a few sous puts them at any time into the plenary usufruct of St Cloud or Versailles. Now, who are all those people who disport themselves in the sunshine? Are they gentlemen living on the small remains of their property, or shopkeepers out for a ploy, or visitors from the country, or play-actors retiring to study their parts, or literary men catching glimpses of life? We confess ourselves utterly unable to answer these questions. Perhaps the numberless groups we see consist of specimens of all those classes—small _rentiers_ economising, flourishing _epiciers_ relaxing, country visitors reposing; but, whatever they may be, they present the appearance of the most careless, happy population, ever known. It is a complete “cure for the heartache” to walk down these murmuring avenues at any hour from ten till seven. There is such an amazing amount of enjoyment in the indolent repose of the seniors, the merry plays of the children, the air, the trees, the flowers, the company walking before you in endless procession, as if intended entirely for your gratification, that again we go back with astonishment to the appalling consideration, that less than a year ago there were battle, murder, and sudden death in all parts of this gay metropolis; and, in less than another year, they may be all let loose again. Those very idlers probably would be on the top of a barricade, and, according to circumstances, either installed in a few days in the Hôtel de Ville or on their way to Cayenne. So we will shake off these disagreeable impressions by walking down the centre walk, and admiring the pillar of Luxor in the Place de la Concorde. This is agreed, in all quarters, to be the finest site in Europe; and all the accessories are worthy of their situation. The fountains are very fine, and give issue to a body of water which would drown the dumb-waiters in Trafalgar Square. At the four ends are the Tuileries, the Madeleine, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Corps Legislatif—four specimens of building, we will be bold to say, unequalled—taken separately, and in their joint effect as seen from this noble centre, the greatest triumphs of taste and architecture the world contains. The spaces are so vast that the Luxor column, though seventy-two feet high, and raised on a plinth of twenty, appears dumpy and out of proportion. We doubt the congruity of Egyptian obelisks in the midst of our modern styles. It carries the mind too far away. Grecian temples retain their place because they have at no time been lost sight of, and have often been reproduced; but this Egyptian monument, rising all of a sudden like an animated mummy, is frightful for its very resuscitation. Let it lie like a well-preserved corpse in the sands of its native country, and we can read of it without a shudder; but really, to look on this tremendous stone, set up amidst the shouts of a hundred and fifty thousand spectators in 1836, and see it looking as juvenile and unwrinkled as if it had been quarried on Montmartre, is a sort of anachronism which jars upon the taste. If the wretched thing looked old, the case would be different; but it looks newer than the Arc de Triomphe; the inscriptions on it are finer in the edge, and deeper cut than the victories recorded on its rival; and yet has any one reflected on the antiquity of this monster? It was set up in Luxor amid the shouts of more than a hundred and fifty thousand spectators in the reign of Rameses of Egypt, three thousand two hundred years ago,—a few years after Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea, and while Joshua was conquering the tribes of Palestine. This is such a confusion of dates and eras that we wish the pillar were removed—removed to some granite hill as old as itself, and no more permitted to put our perishing materials to shame by parading its immortal youth unhurt amidst the war of elements.

We will therefore, by way of treating ourselves to the sight of a little decay, proceed to inspect the Invalides—a noble palace for worn-out soldiers and sailors,—not so magnificent outside as our unequalled Greenwich, but more richly supported, and giving refuge and maintenance to a much greater number of men. A stout old fragment of the Grand Army showed us round the building. Nearly three thousand men find accommodation within the walls, tolerably fed while in health, and most carefully attended to when ill. They are apparently admissible at an earlier age, and with fewer titles to compassion, than is the case at either Greenwich or Chelsea—many of them were hale-looking active men, of not more than forty-five years old, with many campaigns in them yet; and all of them, except the maimed and very old, had the buoyant step and intelligent look, which, we confess with some regret, is the characteristic of the French _militaire_. Whether the old warrior who did the honours on this occasion was a chosen representative of his class, we do not know, but he had the politeness of a marshal of Louis XIV., and the information of a member of the Institute. The little biographical hints he gave of the different governors of the institution, when we entered the room adorned with their portraits, were very short, sharp, and decisive. Some of the older race, dukes and marquises who had obtained the office by their influence and rank, he passed over with a magnanimous disdain, merely enumerating their names and titles,—but when others of more distinction came under his notice, he sounded forth the names of their victories as if they had only recently appeared in the _Gazette_; and this is a peculiarity which we observed among all classes of the French population. They seem to keep a catalogue of their glories from Chalons to Isly, and remember the smaller actions of Condé and Turenne with an accuracy which few Englishmen of a humble class possess of Salamanca or Waterloo. In the chapel are suspended flags of all nations conquered in war. There are standards of Austria, and Prussia and Russia, and Africa in great profusion. We looked round with great satisfaction as we failed to discover the Union Jack among these spoils of victory.—“You don’t happen to have any English specimens here?” we asked with a chuckle, which we felt at the moment was horribly impolite.

“Look,” he said, “high up, just under the roof”—and there we certainly saw a small bit of bunting which it was impossible to mistake for anything but the meteor flag.

“And how and where was that taken?” we inquired, somewhat crestfallen.

“It was seized at Dantzic,” he replied, “when we took Monsieur Corbet prisoner.”

There was nothing more to be said; we had never heard of any battle or victory at Dantzic; but then we are so apt to forget those military events, and the French are so accurate. We had and have no books of reference; but we heard from a friend that the flag fell into the hands of the French when they garrisoned Dantzic at the time of the Moscow campaign, and it had formed part of the colours of a mercantile brig, at that time in the harbour, commanded by a skipper of the name of Corbet. But our venerable guide seemed to forget Vittoria and Waterloo when gazing on this proof of his countrymen’s prowess; and as it was the only one they could show, we were well pleased to leave him to his triumphant meditations. The tomb of the Emperor was under repair, and could not be seen; but a bust of Napoleon was dwelt upon with great admiration, while a companion bust of the nephew was passed by almost in silence. It is observable, that whenever a Frenchmen speaks of the Emperor, he means our old enemy Buonaparte—when he alludes to his present governor, he has to describe him as Napoleon the Third; but it struck us, wherever we went, that the little Corsican has a more abiding presence among the present generation than the living individual who has inherited his power and name. His statues and monuments are everywhere—songs are sung about him—plays are perpetually acted in which he is introduced; and altogether it needs a very slight effort of the imagination to suppose that he is still inhabiting the Tuileries, and ready to launch his thunderbolts all over the world. But the fact of his nephew occupying the throne of France is the most wonderful proof of his still existing ascendancy over the French mind. It seems as much in accordance with the “eternal fitness of things,” that a Napoleon should rule in France, as it was in ancient days that a Cæsar should reign at Rome. No matter whether he was an Augustus or a Nero, he was of the true master’s blood; and Julius was honoured in the vilest of his successors. When this stream of hereditary adulation in France will be dried up, it is impossible to say. It is just possible the fame of the great founder may go on increasing in a greater ratio than the deterioration of his descendants, so that what is lost at one end may be supplied at the other. But surely cockhats and little grey greatcoats can’t last for ever—some glimpses of fact will steal in upon the most benighted of his admirers, and awaken them to a knowledge that, even in military affairs, he was oftener repulsed and defeated than any great conqueror who ever lived, and that in politics, foreign and domestic, he was the most cruel and unprincipled tyrant “whereof the world holds record.” Those merry, lively, vain French people have entirely forgotten all his reverses. His Moscows, Leipsics, and fifty other defeats, have all disappeared. Even Waterloo is looked on as a miraculous incident, against which it is impossible to reason, but which tells nothing against his fame; and he stands on the top of the column in the Place Vendôme surrounded by a halo of victories, unclouded by a single check. This is the most honourable feature in the French character in its connection with Buonaparte, and finding no counterpart, we are afraid, in our own. If Nelson had been defeated at Trafalgar—if Wellington had been defeated at Waterloo—their previous glories would have been effaced; the Nile and Copenhagen never would have been heard of, and the History of the Peninsular War would never have been read. Byng would be shot again, if the same circumstances occurred to-morrow.

Nôtre Dame is grand and massive, but it is under repair; the Sainte Chapelle is most rich and beautiful, but it is under repair; the Palais de Justice vast and imposing, but it is under repair. So are half the churches, so is the Palace of the Luxembourg; and almost all the public buildings are finding the effects of the new Emperor’s rage for improvement. But this very vehement desire he has to leave a city of marble which he found of bricks, has considerable disadvantages for the historical student. The scenes of great events will soon become doubtful or forgotten. The Temple and Bastille have long disappeared; the Place de Grève is now an open space, soon to be surrounded by buildings of the most modern character; the bridges have lost their identity; and, in short, if this system of substitution goes on for twenty years, there will be no monuments of Parisian history remaining. The reign, at all events, of Louis Philippe will be entirely blotted out. The Orleanist statues are all withdrawn; the names they gave to streets and places rigorously changed; and the most recent of his predecessors whom Louis Napoleon condescends to recognise is Louis XIV. That crowned Brummel still bestrides his steeds in marketplaces and esplanades; but the series of the Louis after him is completely expunged. The Grand Monarque is still popular in France; for the people are still fond of the drama, and are persuaded he was an admirable actor. There is something elevating, too, in the superbness of the tyranny under which their ancestors were trodden down. There never was a man, not even Napoleon, who was so entirely the central figure in the kingdom he ruled; and certainly there never was a man, except that most selfish and magnificent of despots, who would not have sunk into insignificance by the gigantic scale on which everything round him was carried on. Who, except himself, would not have become ridiculous amid the enormous spaces of Versailles? Even he must have felt like an ant in a barn, when he wandered through the interminable galleries and innumerable rooms which he vainly thought he inhabited. The size of that palace must have unkinged him, and occasionally he must have sighed for some more moderate mansion to enable him to recover his self-respect. At the same time, it is the most imperial residence we ever saw; and nothing shows so much the illogical tendency of the French mind, as the attempt they have several times made to establish a republic in Paris, with Versailles within an hour’s drive. That stately pile is a standing protest against equality and plainness. While such piles as Versailles and the Tuileries stand, there will be some person supreme in France. Even a constitutional king would be overhoused in those enormous residences. They must be inhabited by the whole nation distilled into one man.

The present unit prefers St Cloud, and we don’t wonder at the preference. There are many of the old hereditary mansions of our nobility of greater extent, but probably not excelling it in elegance and comfort. A man could keep it up on an income of twenty thousand a-year; and perhaps Louis Napoleon feels the comparative security of a house which might be defended by the domestics, and does not need to be garrisoned by a regiment or two of soldiers.

The grey old mustaches of the French army have disappeared. In their stead you see thousands upon thousands of lightly-made active young fellows, from nineteen to twenty-three, with their clothes excellently made, their surtouts neatly drawn in at the waist—their height as uniform as possible, at about five feet one—a lively, vigorous, contented-looking set, with none of the martial precision and combined motion which gives to our army such an appearance of military power. Those little French heroes never think of keeping the step, or holding their muskets all at one elevation—they crowd and roll and hustle—but they get on. Their pace is very rapid, and instantly on the word of command they form line, and are as regular and formal as ourselves.

We determined to go to the camp at Satory, where notice was given of an intended review. A line of two or three thousand tents stretched along the farther end of the immense plain which forms the western boundary of Versailles. The hour designated for the review was two in the afternoon, but on arriving at about half-past twelve we found no signs of any preparation; on the contrary, the soldiers were all lounging about, or sunning themselves before their tents. In front of each of the external lines, which stretched like an interminable street towards the north, the national ingenuity was wonderfully displayed. The space between the canvass of the tent and the line of felt was probably not more than four feet—but what an amazing use of those four feet of ground the gallant occupiers had made! In each of those little divisions there was a portion perfectly smooth and covered with sand; in the midst of this sand were inscribed a vast variety of mottoes, the letters being composed of parsley-leaves or furze prickles. Of these mottoes the greater part had reference to the Emperor, but whether the allusion in the military mind was to the present or the first, we could not guess. The statues of both, either in common plaster, or occasionally in mud, from the artistic hand of one of the soldiers, were the unfailing ornaments of the remaining ground unoccupied by inscriptions. There were also some models admirably executed of the Arc de Triomphe, and the Emperor’s tomb in the Invalides. There were also slabs of excellent imitation-marble, surmounted by the common cast of Napoleon with the cocked-hat and riding-coat, and on the slab a verse or a quotation. On one we saw—

“On lira dans l’histoire
De Cæsar, Alexandre, Hannibal,—
Mais nous préférons la gloire
Du petit caporal.”

On another we saw, under a bust of the present Emperor,

“Il a protégé la société et est le sauveur de la patrie.”

On a third, under well-executed military trophies, we read,

“Si vis pacem, bellum para.”

In others the ingenuity was more mechanical than artistic or literary. There were small fountains sending up tiny columns of water through a crow-quill to the height of eight or nine inches. The labour of procuring even this quantity must have been considerable, for we observed no water near; and as the fountain seemed perpetual, the barrel which gave it supply must have required frequent replenishment.