Saunterings. Charles Dudley Warner
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touched bottom again—got something substantial, had what you call a square meal. The English give you the substantials, and better, I believe, than any other people. Thackeray used to come over to Paris to get a good dinner now and then. I have tried his favorite restaurant here, the cuisine of which is famous far beyond the banks of the Seine; but I think if he, hearty trencher-man that he was, had lived in Paris, he would have gone to London for a dinner oftener than he came here.
And as for a lunch—this eating is a fascinating theme—commend me to a quiet inn of England. We happened to be out at Kew Gardens the other afternoon. You ought to go to Kew, even if the Duchess of Cambridge is not at home. There is not such a park out of England, considering how beautiful the Thames is there. What splendid trees it has! the horse-chestnut, now a mass of pink-and-white blossoms, from its broad base, which rests on the ground, to its high rounded dome; the hawthorns, white and red, in full flower; the sweeps and glades of living green—turf on which you walk with a grateful sense of drawing life directly from the yielding, bountiful earth—a green set out and heightened by flowers in masses of color (a great variety of rhododendrons, for one thing), to say nothing of magnificent greenhouses and outlying flower-gardens. Just beyond are Richmond Hill and Hampton Court, and five or six centuries of tradition and history and romance. Before you enter the garden, you pass the green. On one side of it are cottages, and on the other the old village church and its quiet churchyard. Some boys were playing cricket on the sward, and children were getting as intimate with the turf and the sweet earth as their nurses would let them. We turned into a little cottage, which gave notice of hospitality for a consideration; and were shown, by a pretty maid in calico, into an upper room—a neat, cheerful, common room, with bright flowers in the open windows, and white muslin curtains for contrast. We looked out on the green and over to the beautiful churchyard, where one of England's greatest painters, Gainsborough, lies in rural repose. It is nothing to you, who always dine off the best at home, and never encounter dirty restaurants and snuffy inns, or run the gauntlet of Continental hotels, every meal being an experiment of great interest, if not of danger, to say that this brisk little waitress spread a snowy cloth, and set thereon meat and bread and butter and a salad: that conveys no idea to your mind. Because you cannot see that the loaf of wheaten bread was white and delicate, and full of the goodness of the grain; or that the butter, yellow as a guinea, tasted of grass and cows, and all the rich juices of the verdant year, and was not mere flavorless grease; or that the cuts of roast beef, fat and lean, had qualities that indicate to me some moral elevation in the cattle—high-toned, rich meat; or that the salad was crisp and delicious, and rather seemed to enjoy being eaten, at least, did n't disconsolately wilt down at the prospect, as most salad does. I do not wonder that Walter Scott dwells so much on eating, or lets his heroes pull at the pewter mugs so often. Perhaps one might find a better lunch in Paris, but he surely couldn't find this one.
PARIS IN MAY—FRENCH GIRLS—THE EMPEROR AT LONGCHAMPS
It was the first of May when we came up from Italy. The spring grew on us as we advanced north; vegetation seemed further along than it was south of the Alps. Paris was bathed in sunshine, wrapped in delicious weather, adorned with all the delicate colors of blushing spring. Now the horse-chestnuts are all in bloom and so is the hawthorn; and in parks and gardens there are rows and alleys of trees, with blossoms of pink and of white; patches of flowers set in the light green grass; solid masses of gorgeous color, which fill all the air with perfume; fountains that dance in the sunlight as if just released from prison; and everywhere the soft suffusion of May. Young maidens who make their first communion go into the churches in processions of hundreds, all in white, from the flowing veil to the satin slipper; and I see them everywhere for a week after the ceremony, in their robes of innocence, often with bouquets of flowers, and attended by their friends; all concerned making it a joyful holiday, as it ought to be. I hear, of course, with what false ideas of life these girls are educated; how they are watched before marriage; how the marriage is only one of arrangement, and what liberty they eagerly seek afterwards. I met a charming Paris lady last winter in Italy, recently married, who said she had never been in the Louvre in her life; never had seen any of the magnificent pictures or world-famous statuary there, because girls were not allowed to go there, lest they should see something that they ought not to see. I suppose they look with wonder at the young American girls who march up to anything that ever was created, with undismayed front.
Another Frenchwoman, a lady of talent and the best breeding, recently said to a friend, in entire unconsciousness that she was saying anything remarkable, that, when she was seventeen, her great desire was to marry one of her uncles (a thing not very unusual with the papal dispensation), in order to keep all the money in the family! That was the ambition of a girl of seventeen.
I like, on these sunny days, to look into the Luxembourg Garden: nowhere else is the eye more delighted with life and color. In the afternoon, especially, it is a baby-show worth going far to see. The avenues are full of children, whose animated play, light laughter, and happy chatter, and pretty, picturesque dress, make a sort of fairy grove of the garden; and all the nurses of that quarter bring their charges there, and sit in the shade, sewing, gossiping, and comparing the merits of the little dears. One baby differs from another in glory, I suppose; but I think on such days that they are all lovely, taken in the mass, and all in sweet harmony with the delicious atmosphere, the tender green, and the other flowers of spring. A baby can't do better than to spend its spring days in the Luxembourg Garden.
There are several ways of seeing Paris besides roaming up and down before the blazing shop-windows, and lounging by daylight or gaslight along the crowded and gay boulevards; and one of the best is to go to the Bois de Boulogne on a fete-day, or when the races are in progress. This famous wood is very disappointing at first to one who has seen the English parks, or who remembers the noble trees and glades and avenues of that at Munich. To be sure, there is a lovely little lake and a pretty artificial cascade, and the roads and walks are good; but the trees are all saplings, and nearly all the “wood” is a thicket of small stuff. Yet there is green grass that one can roll on, and there is a grove of small pines that one can sit under. It is a pleasant place to drive toward evening; but its great attraction is the crowd there. All the principal avenues are lined with chairs, and there people sit to watch the streams of carriages.
I went out to the Bois the other day, when there were races going on; not that I went to the races, for I know nothing about them, per se, and care less. All running races are pretty much alike. You see a lean horse, neck and tail, flash by you, with a jockey in colors on his back; and that is the whole of it. Unless you have some money on it, in the pool or otherwise, it is impossible to raise any excitement. The day I went out, the Champs Elysees, on both sides, its whole length, was crowded with people, rows and ranks of them sitting in chairs and on benches. The Avenue de l'Imperatrice, from the Arc de l'Etoile to the entrance of the Bois, was full of promenaders; and the main avenues of the Bois, from the chief entrance to the race-course, were lined with people, who stood or sat, simply to see the passing show. There could not have been less than ten miles of spectators, in double or triple rows, who had taken places that afternoon to watch the turnouts of fashion and rank. These great avenues were at all times, from three till seven, filled with vehicles; and at certain points, and late in the day, there was, or would have been anywhere else except in Paris, a jam. I saw a great many splendid horses, but not so many fine liveries as one will see on a swell-day in London. There was one that I liked. A handsome carriage, with one seat, was drawn by four large and elegant black horses, the two near horses ridden by postilions in blue and silver—blue roundabouts, white breeches and topboots, a round-topped silver cap, and the hair, or wig, powdered, and showing just a little behind. A footman mounted behind, seated, wore the same colors; and the whole establishment was exceedingly tonnish.
The race-track (Longchamps, as it is called), broad and beautiful springy turf, is not different from some others, except that the inclosed oblong space is not flat, but undulating just enough for beauty, and so framed in by graceful woods, and looked on by chateaux and upland forests, that I thought I had never seen a sweeter bit of greensward. St. Cloud overlooks it, and villas also