NAPOLEON AND OTHER GREAT FRENCHMEN.
One day I told Josiah that I must go to see the Invalides.
And he sez, “You better keep away, Samantha; you may ketch sunthin’.”
But I explained that I wanted to see the tomb of Napoleon, so he gin in, and we went there and stayed some time.
The big gilded dome of this meetin’-house towers up three hundred and fifty feet, and can be seen all over the city, and would be apt to keep Napoleon in memory if France wuz inclined to forgit him, which it hain’t. Here he lays, jest as he wanted to, by the banks of the waters he thought so much on, and with the French people he loved.
As you go in, you see under a gold and white canopy the form of our Lord upon the cross lookin’ down, down into a splendid tomb surrounded by a great laurel crown and twelve giant statutes of Victories a-towerin’ up all about it—you see the grave of the Great Conqueror. My emotions wuz a sight to behold; I couldn’t count ’em, nor did Josiah.
All the thoughts I had ever had about the Hero—and they’d been soarin’ ones and a endless variety on ’em seemin’ly—all seemed to be crystallized and run together as I stood in that spot. But how could I tell my feelin’s? I couldn’t no more’n them twelve marble figgers could, who lifted their grand colossial figgers all round his coffin; their great noble faces expressed a sight, and so I spoze mine did, but it would have been jest as vain for me to have told my emotions as it would for them to open their marble lips and told theirn.
You might probble thought that they had their own idees about Napoleon, and so had I.
He waded through seas of blood and sufferin’, personal sufferin’ as well, up from obscurity to the topmost pinnacle of worldly glory. He left achin’, bleedin’ hearts on all sides on him, from Josephine’s down to the widders and sweethearts of dead soldiers, as he stalked along with his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights, so I spoze; but he loved his country, and there wuz sunthin’ about the man that drew hearts to him, that turned grizzled old soldiers into babies when they spoke on him, that made ’em willin’ to live for him, to die for him.
WITH HIS ARMS FOLDED, AND THAT OLD HAT OF HISEN ON, AND HIS INSCRUTABLE EYES FIXED ON THE HEIGHTS.
I d’no, I spoze some of that resistless charm rested on the sublime magnificence of that place, and always will, so fur as I know.
I felt queer.
But Martin could not pause long even in this place, and for all I know all the while we wuz there he wuz a-pricein’ in his mind the marble and porphry and all the matchless splendor of the tomb, and a-calculatin’ on how much the money invested there would bring if he had the handlin’ of it. Anyway, we wuz probble milds and milds apart in our minds, though the left tab of my mantilly brushed aginst him.
Josiah observed as we turned away that he wuz “hungry and dog tired.”
Al Faizi wuz deep in thought, and Alice and Adrian took up in lookin’ about ’em, and wonderin’ at the grand and solemn magnificence of the interior.
One day we went to the cemetery of Père La Chaise. Alice and Al Faizi and Adrian went with us that day; Martin had got to go to see some big man or other, who owned a ranch in Montana, in the neighborhood of some of Martin’s friends.
Wall, what a quiet, lovely spot that cemetery is, what a sweet place to rest in when our little life here is rounded by a sleep!
Over two hundred acres of graves—what glowin’ hopes and joys, what miseries and despairs found a rest here! Wealth and Poverty, Ambition and Love, all asleep.
Rothschild a-droppin’ his money bags as the sleep come on, as well as the baby who reposes under the simple stun marked—“Our Own Darling Baby.”
Hearts ached when he dropped to sleep.
The Countess Demidoff rests under the costly Mausoleum built above her. And Rachel, the great actress, wonderful creeter, how she moved the hearts of the world! But at last the curtain fell and she retired. No encore from friend or lover can call her before the World’s footlights agin—no, she has got through actin’; has gone from the Make-Believe into the Real.
Talma, too, has gone to sleep in that quiet place, and Béranger and Racine and Bernardin St. Pierre.
It seemed almost as though Paul and Virginia ort to be here by him.
And La Place and Arago. I wonder if they hain’t havin’ a good time up amongst the stars; I presoom they have discovered lots of new worlds—hosts of ’em. And General Massena, Marshal Davoust, and Marshal Ney, the bravest soldier. And Chopin, what music that man must have hearn by this time—more melogious than he ever dreamt on here!
And Alice wanted to visit the graves of Abelard and Heloise. They are restin’ under a canopy, havin’ got past all the tribulations that beset ’em here below.
Alice wanted to see ’em for Love’s sake—so I spoze. Poor creeters that thought so much of each other and seemed to be so clost to each other that nothin’ earthly could separate ’em, and then he a-dyin’ in a monastery and she a-passin’ away in a nunnery; separated in body, but united in sperit—so I spoze.
Wall, their memories are close linked together, anyway, and will walk down the ages together.
Al Faizi’s dark eyes dwelt on Alice, and the marble forms of the lovers, at about the same time and for quite a long spell.
His look seemed to take ’em all in—Alice’s sweet young beauty and the idee of the sad fate of the lovers.
The hull sad story seemed to be writ out in his melancholy, but glowin’ eyes.
Poor creeter!
Wall, Martin and Alice went to lots of places that I hadn’t no idee of wantin’ to go to—receptions and parties and theatres and sech. And Martin come home from the theatre with his big feelin’s kinder trompled down for once, I guess.
They wouldn’t let him in.
He probble could have bought out the hull theatre, root and branch, and not felt it a mite; and to home they would have strewed flowers in his path up the aisle, if he had jest hinted at it.
But he wuz turned out here, neck and crop, because he hadn’t a dress-suit on.
He felt meachin’ about it, I believe, though he wouldn’t say much. But the next night they went agin. He put on a coat with pinted tails and kinder low necked in front, and they let him in quick as a wink. Josiah said, when I told him about it, that if he had known it he would have gin Martin the loan of his dressin’-gown.
Sez he, “Of course that would’ve opened the doors to once.
“The French love beauty, and that dressin’-gown, when the tossels are combed out and looped up as they ort to be, would set off any buildin’ and ornament it.” Sez he, “I wouldn’t lend it on any common occasion, but Martin has done so much for us I would make the venter.”
It wouldn’t have been let in, but it showed Josiah’s good sperit, anyway.
But, if you’ll believe it, Alice had to leave her bunnet out in the anty-room and go in bare-headed.
I wouldn’t have done it for nothin’ in the world—no, you wouldn’t have ketched me a-reskin’ my bunnet by leavin’ it out-doors. Why, the ribbin on that bunnet cost twenty-five cents per yard, besides the bunnet itself, and that wuz only four years old, a-goin’ on five.
When Alice told me on it I sez, “It is a shame to make wimmen go in bareheaded, and,” sez I, “what would Paul say? He said it wuz a shame for wimmen to appear in public without bunnets on.”
“But I thought,” sez Josiah, “that you always thought Paul wuz a-meddlin’ with what didn’t concern him, and he’d better kep’ to morals and let millinery business alone. You’d never let me bring up them texts.”
“Wall,” sez I impressively, “there is a time to quote and a time not to quote.
“I should have argued with that doorkeeper, anyway, and, if necessary, brung up the Bible to him.”
And Alice bought lots of fine things while we were there—her Pa wanted her to. He bought a lot, too.
He said that he could git the same things through a dealer he knew in New York considerable cheaper, “but,” sez he, “it doesn’t have the same name. Anything brought from Paris is so dreadful distinguished.”
And I spozed that he wuz in the right on’t, and I felt that I too would love to branch out and buy sunthin’ that I could tell the neighbors come right from Paris, France.
And I beset Josiah to buy me a summer shawl, but he said that he’d seen my summer shawl for so many years wropped round the form he loved so, that the idee of seein’ me in any other shawl wuz repugnant to him.
Wall, then I laid to and tried to git him to buy me a handkerchief pin; but he said that old cameo that I had on looked so beautiful. He said so many memories hung round that shell face on it that he couldn’t bear to see me with any other on.
And so it wuz with my winter bunnet. Sez he, “Oh, the times I have seen that bunnet a-frontin’ up to me when I’ve stood by the meetin’-house door a-waitin’ for you, and it looked so perfectly lovely to me, as I stood there with cold legs and I ketched sight on it a-hallowin’ your face round as I see it a-comin’ towards me! No other bunnet could ever look to me as that did.”
And so with my shues, and my gloves, and every other article; they wuz all so dear to him, and he showed his affection to ’em and me so plain that I couldn’t bear to hurt his feelin’s by gittin’ any new ones.
A-WIPIN’ MY FACE ON SECH GENTEEL TOWELS.
But I sez, “I need some towels, and have got to have ’em.” So he give a reluctant consent, and I swung out and bought two new huckabuck towels, and I spoze Miss Gowdey and Sister Ganzey will be surprised and sort of envious to see me a-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels, brung from sech a fashionable place, for I lay out to use ’em and not lay ’em up—for, as the Sammist sez, slightly changed—
“You may lay up towels, but how do you know who shall gather ’em?”
Wall, when the time come for me to leave France I felt bad, for besides all the reasons I have named, lots of thoughts hovered over the land and made it dretful interestin’ to me.
Victor Hugo, brave old exile, trompled on, but like a rich flower, the tromplin’ brought out their rarest odor.
Who knows whether we should ever had “Les Miserables” if he had stayed to home and been made much on?
Mebby the sentences of that incomparable book, that stun our minds and hearts, like the quick, sharp echoes of artillery at sea—mebby they would have been longer drawed out, and less apt to strike the mark, if he hadn’t been sent into exile.
And Josephine, and Napoleon, and Louis, and Eugenie, and the poor young Prince Louis—memories of all on ’em jest walked up and down the bright, beautiful streets with me, and cast a sort of a melancholy shadder on the brightness, some like the soft, deep shadders of a cypress-tree on a clean flower-bed.
Yes, I had emotions enough while I wuz in France, if that wuz all—I didn’t suffer for them—not at all.
Martin, from the first to the last, through every country we visited, drawed up comparisons between ’em and America—to the great advantage to America.
He boasted over our country on our tower as eloquent as a Fourth of July oriter ever did from the wilds back of Loontown.
I hated to hear him callin’ every other country all to nort, and told him so. And in the cause of Duty I told him of several things these countries went ahead of ourn in; but he waved ’em off, and sez he, with a dignified sort of scorn:
“Bring up one, if you can.”
“Wall,” sez I, a-lookin’ round on the inside of my mind, and takin’ up the first idee that happened to be in sight—“look at that great society, that seems like the mission of angels, to help relieve the wants of the wounded and dyin’ on the battle-field—the Red Cross, the gleam of which, a-fallin’ on the dyin’ soldier, lights up his face with hope and courage. The foreign nations protect that insigna—they keep it sacred to this sacred cause; while the Goverment of the United States allows it to be used on liquor casks, and cigar boxes, and etc., etc., a-trailin’ its glorious beams in the mud and dirt for a little money.
“Why, the noble woman who stands a-holdin’ up the Red Cross, a-tryin’ to have its pure rays fall only on the victims of war, pestilence, famine, and other national calamities—she has to see it a-shinin’ jest as bright on the causes of national crime and shame. How must she feel to see it go on?
“Uncle Sam has been urged year after year to protect this insigna, and I should think that he would feel a good deal as if somebody wuz a-urgin’ him to not stun meetin’-housen, and whip grandmas and babies—I should think that he would sink down with shame for permittin’ sech things to go on.
“I declare I d’no what that old creeter will do next. I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things in, if he could git a few cents for ’em; and I d’no but he’ll use that bandage of hern that she wears over her eyes to stop up bung-holes in whiskey barrels; he seems to be bendin’ his hull mind on helpin’ the liquor traffic.
“I BELIEVE HE’D SELL THE STEELYARDS THAT JESTICE WEIGHS THINGS IN, IF HE COULD GIT A FEW CENTS FOR ’EM.”
“He tries me dretfully. But mebby he’ll brace up and do right in this matter of the Red Cross. I mean to tackle him about it, anyway, when I git a good chance.
“And then,” sez I, “our country is jest as much behind these European countries in beauty and art as Josiah’s new wood lot is that he is jest a-clearin’ off, with stumps and brushwood a-lyin’ on every side, compared with what that lot would be after centuries of improvements and culter had smoothed the ground off into velvet lawns, with posey beds, like rainbows and fountains a-sparklin’ on it, etc., etc.
“America, to foller out the metafor, has only jest got her giant trees chopped down—the stumps stand thick, the brushwood lays round in fallers.” Sez I, “It will take years and years and years to give America the beauty and perfection these countries have been growin’ gradual for centuries.
“We’ll do it, Martin,” sez I; “we’ll git even with ’em, and then go ahead on ’em—as fur ahead as Lake Superior is bigger than their inland lakes—”
“Lakes!” sez Martin scornfully—“ponds, you mean.”
But I went on in not mindin’ him.
“Or the St. Lawrence is bigger than the Rhine, but it will take a long, long time. And then in a lot of other things these countries are superior to ourn. They train their children better in some of these countries. Their children have as much agin reverence and respect for parents and gardeens, and them who are in authority, as American children have. Why, a English or a German mother would faint away with horrow to see a lot of American children behave, and boss round their folks, and act. And then look at—”
I wuz jest on the pint of bringin’ up a lot more of things in which these countries excelled ourn, when Martin looked at his watch, and sed that he must be in a distant part of the city in ten minutes by the clock; so he went out. I presoom he hated to lose my eloquent and instructive remarks; but he had to go.