Peregrine in France. Bromet William

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СКАЧАТЬ picture gallery is badly lighted. It is the longest room I ever saw. Children, and persons of almost all ranks, were promenading through it the day I was there, which, I believe, was one on which it is open to the public at large, under the careful supervision, however, of some keepers, who wear the livery of the king's household.

      In the evening I went to the Theatre Français, and saw Talma in Ulysse. I shall speak of this very excellent actor afterwards, when I describe the performance of the French Hamlet. This Theatre, where the legitimate French drama is represented, is very large, but of a very inconvenient form. The house is dirty now; but the decorations of the auditory were not, when new, so splendid as those of our London playhouses. It is lighted, as are all the theatres of Paris, by an immense chandelier suspended from the centre of the roof, without the aid of lamps or candles in front of the boxes. The orchestra, which is numerous and good, played, at the command of the audience, the national airs Vive Henri IV. and Channante Gabrielle.

      The costume and scenery are very good – the former is superb, and correctly appropriate; the latter shifted only at the conclusion of each act. To each tier of boxes the price of admission is different – becoming less and less as you ascend, a regulation which ought to be adopted in our London theatres, where it is unreasonable to take the same price for the upper tier, as for those of the lower and dress circles. "They certainly manage these things better in France." – No females are permitted to enter the pit: there are, however, two seats in front, and four or five at the back, to which they may go; and the price of such seats is greater than that of the proper pit. The house was very full, for Talma always fills it; but I went late, and was badly situated. The afterpiece was adapted from the Sultan of Marmontel, which we have also on our English stage.

      Next day, the 15th, having occasion to enter a hosier's shop, I had an opportunity of observing how necessary it is to beware of giving a French shopkeeper the full price which he will first ask for his goods, as he invariably demands more than they are worth, expecting, like the Jews in England, to be beat down considerably. His shop was on the Boulevards du Temple.

      The Boulevards is a wide street or highway, with a separate foot-path on each side, and having between the footway and the coach road a row of trees, planted at regular distances, in the same way as the Mall in St. James's Park. The houses on each side are principally private ones, and large hotels, the residences of the nobility of France. There are also many small shops and stalls, and a great number of coffee-houses, and it is one of the principal promenades at Paris. It serves too as a boundary between the city and its suburbs, and on it are placed the gates of the city, of which the principal are Porte St. Denys and Porte St. Martin. They were both erected to perpetuate the remembrance of the glorious wars of Louis XIV., and are very noble, being sixty or seventy feet high, and embellished with well executed bas reliefs. They, like the Temple Bar at London, have each three ways through them; but they are much loftier than those of Temple Bar. It was by the Porte St. Martin, which opens into one of the principal streets of that part of Paris, that the allied sovereigns made their entry; the Porte St. Denys being the gate by which the kings of France usually entered.

      In the evening I went to the Académie Royale de Musique, or the Opera House. The performances were Gluck's celebrated opera of Alceste, and a new ballet, called Flore et Zephyr. The orchestra is very numerous and ably directed; but the words of the opera are in the French language, which, in my opinion, is not so fit for musical expression as the Italian. The scenery and dresses were good, and, what you do not often find at an opera house, the acting was excellent. The vocal part of the performance is, however, much inferior to that in London, as Madame Catalani now sings at the Theatre des Italiens, of which her husband has lately become the proprietor.

      The music of the ballet, which is delightful, is by Venua, whom I have heard play in concert on the violin in London. The story is prettily told, and the dancing, of course, the best in Europe. The house itself, like the Theatre Français, is dirty, and of an inconvenient form. It is very large, being capable of holding 3000 spectators. It does not appear, however, so large as the King's Theatre, Haymarket, nor was it ever so handsomely decorated.

      It is not the custom in Paris, as in London, to go full dressed into the boxes of a theatre. On the contrary, nothing is more common than to see gentlemen with their great-coats of half a dozen capes, and ladies with their high walking bonnets, in the principal boxes in the house.

      Next morning, 16th, on my way to St. Cloud, in order to report my arrival to the commanding officer, I passed through the court of the Palais des Tuileries, and saw the beautiful triumphal arch from which the Corinthian horses were lately taken. It is built almost entirely of the finest marbles, and is adorned with appropriate statues and bas-reliefs, which cover it in every part. But it is not, I think, well placed. It is a gate in form, but unlike a gate, it is not flanked by a fence; on the contrary, it stands alone, at a little distance from the superb iron rails, with golden tops, which inclose the court of the palace. It would be an improvement to bring forward the rail in a line with it, and so make a proper gate of it. The car at top remains, and the figures of Victory and Peace which conducted the removed horses; the latter are to be replaced by their models, now under the hands of the artist.

      Upon the Quai des Tuileries I got into one of the many cabriolets which there ply for passengers to the towns in the neighbourhood. I passed the Champs Elysées, which appeared in a most forlorn state. They are planted with trees in every direction, in the trim formality of the ancient style, having alleys through all parts of them. But I saw no open lawns, or plots of grass, only one large grove of ugly trees, like some of the groves in Kensington Gardens, and the paths through them almost impassable.

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