Travels in France during the years 1814-15. Patrick Fraser Tytler

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СКАЧАТЬ and solitude of the Forest that wild expression with which the genius of Salvator dignified the features of uncultivated nature.

      The town and palace of Fontainbleau are situate in a small plain near the centre of the forest, and surrounded on all sides by the rocky ridges with which it is everywhere intersected. The palace is a large irregular building, composed of many squares, and fitted up in the inside with the utmost splendour of imperial magnificence. We were there shewn the apartments in which Napoleon dwelt during his stay in the palace, after the capture of Paris by the allied troops; and the desk at which he always wrote, and where his abdication was signed. It was covered with white leather, scratched over in every direction, and marked with innumerable wipings of the pen, among which we perceived his own name, Napoleon, frequently written as in a very hurried and irregular hand; and one sentence which began, Que Dieu, Napoleon, Napoleon. The servants in the palace agreed in stating, that the Emperor's gaiety and fortitude of mind never deserted him during the ruin of his fortune; that he was engaged in his writing-chamber during the greater part of the day, and walked for two hours on the terrace, in close conversation with Marshal Ney. Several officers of the imperial guard repeated the speech which he made to his troops on leaving them after his abdication of the throne, which was precisely what appeared in the English newspapers. So great was the enthusiasm produced by this speech among the soldiers present, that it was received with shouts and cries of Vive l'Empereur, A Paris, A Paris! and when he departed under the custody of the allied Commissioners, the whole army wept; there was not a dry eye in the multitude who were assembled to witness his departure. Even the imperial guard, who had been trained in scenes of suffering from their first entry into the service—who had been inured for a long course of years to the daily sight of human misery, and had constantly made a sport of all the afflictions which are fitted to move the human heart, shared in the general grief; they seemed to forget the degradation in which their commander was involved, the hardships to which they had been exposed, and the destruction which he had brought upon their brethren in arms; they remembered him when he stood victorious on the field of Austerlitz, or passed in triumph through the gates of Moscow; and shed over the fall of their Emperor those tears of genuine sorrow which they denied to the deepest scenes of private suffering, or the most aggravated instances of individual distress. It is impossible not to regret that feelings so exalting to human nature should have been awakened by one who shared so little in their enthusiasm himself; that the sufferings of thousands should have been forgotten in the fate of one to whom the miseries of others never afforded a subject of regret; and that the only occasion on which generous sentiments were manifested by the French army, should have been the overthrow of that power by which their ambition and their wickedness had been supported.

      We had the good fortune to see the infantry of the old guard drawn up in line in the streets of Fontainbleau, and their appearance was such as fully answered the idea we had formed of that body of veteran soldiers, who had borne the French eagles through every capital of Europe. Their aspect was bold and martial; there was a keenness in their eyes which bespoke the characteristic intelligence of the French soldiers, and a ferocity in the expression of their countenances which seemed to have been unsubdued even by the unparalleled disasters in which their country had been involved. The people of the town itself complained in the bitterest terms of their licentious conduct, and repeatedly said, that they dreaded them more as friends than the Cossacks themselves as enemies. They seemed to harbour the most unbounded resentment against the people of this country; their countenances bore the expression of the strongest enmity as we walked along their line, and we frequently heard them mutter among themselves, in the most emphatic manner, Sacre Dieu, voila des Anglois!—Whatever the atrocity of their conduct, however, might have been, to the people of their own, as well as every other country, it was impossible not to feel the strongest emotion at the sight of the veteran soldiers whose exploits had so long rivetted the attention of all who felt an interest in the civilized world. These were the men who first raised the glory of the republican armies on the plains of Italy; who survived the burning climate of Egypt, and chained victory to the imperial standards at Jena, at Austerlitz, and at Friedland—who followed the career of victory to the walls of the Kremlin, and marched undaunted through the ranks of death amid the snows of Russia;—who witnessed the ruin of France under the walls of Leipsic, and struggled to save her falling fortune on the heights of Laon; and who preserved, in the midst of national humiliation, and when surrounded by the mighty foreign Powers, that undaunted air and unshaken firmness, which, even in the moment of defeat, commanded the respect of their antagonists in arms.

      Beyond the town of Fontainbleau, there rises a ridge of steep hills, which prevents any view in that direction into the distant parts of the forest. The road to their summit lies through the Imperial Gardens, and is surrounded by the artificial forms and regular walks which mark the character of the French gardening. When you reach the summit, however, the character of the scene instantly changes, and you pass at once into the utmost wildness of desolated nature. The foreground is broken by barren rock, or covered with the beautiful forms of the weeping birch; immediately below there lies a lonely valley, strewed with masses of grey stone, without the slightest trace of human habitation, while, in the farthest distance, the forest is discerned, clothing the sides of those broken ridges which rise in endless confusion on the surface of the horizon. At the moment when we reached this spot, the sun was setting in the west; the cold grey of the stone which covered the ravines was dimly discerned through the obscure light which the approach of night produced, while the rugged outline of the rocks beyond was projected in the deepest shadow on the bright light of the departing day.

      There is no scenery round Paris so striking as the forest of Fontainbleau, but the heights of Belleville exhibit nature in a more pleasing aspect, and are distinguished by features of a gentler character. Montmartre, and the ridge of Belleville, form those celebrated heights which command Paris on the northern side, and which were so obstinately contested between the allies and the French on the 30th March 1814, previous to the capture of Paris by the allied Sovereigns. Montmartre is covered for the most part with houses, and presents nothing to attract the eye of the observer, except the extensive view which is to be met with at its summit. The heights of Belleville, however, are varied with wood, with orchards, vineyards, and gardens, interspersed with cottages and villas, and cultivated with the utmost care. There are few inclosures, but the whole extent of the ground is thickly studded with walnuts, fruit-trees, and forest timber, which, from a distance, give it the appearance of one continued wood. On a nearer approach, however, you find it intersected in every direction by small paths, which wind among the vineyards, or through the woods with which the hills are covered, and present at every turn those charming little scenes which form the peculiar characteristic of woodland scenery. The cottages half hid by the profusion of fruit-trees, or embosomed in the luxuriant woods with which they are everywhere surrounded, increase the interest which the scenery itself is fitted to produce: they combine the delightful idea of the peasant's enjoyment with the beauty of the spot on which his dwelling is placed; and awaken, in the midst of the boundless luxuriance of vegetable nature, those deeper feelings of moral delight, which spring from the contemplation of human happiness.

      To a northern eye, there is nothing so delightful as this luxuriance of vegetation, which rises amidst the warmth of southern climates. The sterile rocks and rugged mountains of northern regions exhibit nature in her native rudeness, her features bear a harsher aspect, and her forms are expressive of more melancholy feeling; but under the genial warmth of a southern sun, she is arrayed in a robe of softer colours, and beams with the expression of a gentler character. She there appears surrounded by the luxuriance of vegetable life: she pours forth her bounty with a profusion which the partizans of utility would call prodigality, and covers the earth with a splendour of beauty, which serves no other purpose than to minister to the delight of human existence. Amidst the riches with which man is surrounded, his destiny appears happier than in more desolate situations; we forget the sufferings of the individual in the profusion of beauty with which he is surrounded; and impute to the inhabitants of these delightful regions, those feelings of happiness which spring in our own minds from the contemplation of the scenery in which they are placed.

      The effect of the charming scenery on the heights of Belleville is much increased by the distant objects which terminate СКАЧАТЬ