XXIV
EXCURSION TO ST. CLOUD. PORCELAIN MANUFACTORY AT SÈVE. A DUEL
Queen Marie Antoinette paid dearly for the vast sums expended upon this palace. A fourth part of the money expended upon St. Cloud would have sufficed to purchase by bribery all the demagogues of France.
This place derives its name from a very remote antiquity. When the grandsons of Clovis and Ste. Clotilde were murdered by their ambitious and unnatural uncles, one (Cleodold) escaped, and was conveyed by his nurse to a secret place, where he was educated for the priesthood. He eventually founded a monastery in the vicinity of Paris, called after him St. Cleodold or St. Cloud. In later years a Royal château was built upon the same site. Before the Revolution his tomb was still preserved, inscribed with a very ancient epitaph.
St. Cloud is about six miles from Paris. The château stands upon an eminence commanding a full view of the capital and adjacent country; and the Seine, which widens at this point, meanders slowly beside the grove of trees planted along the banks. During the life of the Queen, the paintings in the gallery, the magnificence of the furniture in all the apartments, and the beauty of the walks, waters and cascades, made St. Cloud a most attractive spot. But the paintings and furniture were destroyed, and the place is now fitted up in a most costly style for the residence of the First Consul.
It is his intention to hold his Court here occasionally, and to enrich it with some choice pictures from the gallery in the Louvre. I have been informed that he intends to make it the depôt for all the gold and silver utensils which he stole out of private houses during the campaign in Italy.
A considerable quantity of Church plate which he purloined he has sent to a silversmith’s to be melted, and afterwards wrought into salvers and other domestic vessels, marked with his initials, so that the Consular family will always be served upon gold and silver plates and dishes.
The cascades of St. Cloud are perfectly preserved, and they play once a month for the amusement of the Parisian populace. The expense of these exhibitions amounts to £12,750 per annum. The waterworks of Marli, which originally cost £200,000 sterling, are to be destroyed in order to increase the celebrity of those which ornament the Consular residence.
I have more than once had occasion to animadvert on the facilities open to licentiousness and debauchery in almost every place of public resort in Paris. There is a circumference of wickedness traced within twelve miles of this metropolis, seemingly on purpose to prevent unwary youth from escaping the bonds of infection. No repose or time for reflection is allowed to the voluptuous inhabitant of Paris. Of this melancholy truth the detail of what I saw in the village of St. Cloud is a proof.
This place being in the vicinity of Paris, and only a pleasant promenade from that capital, it is frequented by the Sunday devotees of pleasure. It is chiefly the resort of young persons of both sexes, who, after wandering about the charming walks, retire to an auberge at the foot of the bridge where there are a number of little hermitages in which they procure refreshments. These hermitages, though in the style of English tea-gardens, are refinements on the dull insipid morality of British rural architecture, because in France it is a prevailing maxim that elegant vice is preferable to dull virtue.
Into one of these little boxes we were ushered for the purpose of taking refreshment. After we had rested awhile I perceived a small door which excited my curiosity; I opened it, when, behold!... Confounded at what I saw, I resolved to find out whether we might not have been introduced into this hut by mistake; but, after examining at least twenty others, I found they were precisely upon the same plan and with the same views, only a few of them surpassed the others in decoration and scenery.
I inquired of the mistress of the place why so many little bedrooms were annexed to these boxes; she replied coolly that they were for the accommodation of such ladies and gentlemen who came to St. Cloud, and who desired a private tête-à-tête.
We then visited the celebrated porcelain manufactory of Sève, which is at all times open to public inspection. The range of apartments in which the porcelain is exhibited is extensive. A few groups of figures are in glass cases, but all the other articles exposed to the touch of the visitor. The price is affixed to each article, and no abatement whatever is made to purchasers.
The trade in porcelain, we are told, has for long been dull and heavy, but it is expected the general peace will open a vent for the sale of these articles.
The highest price of any article we saw was £20 sterling for a single plate, a price we thought exorbitant.
I maintain that the porcelain manufactured at Derby will stand a comparison with that at Sève. If the latter be more pellucid and delicate in its white colour, the finishing of the figures is equal, if not superior, at the former. I saw some years ago at Derby a dessert service manufactured for the Prince of Wales, and I did not find anything so beautifully executed at Sève.
We thoroughly examined this elegant exhibition, and were received with great politeness and attention. We then returned by the walks of St. Cloud, and drove off to Paris through the Bois de Boulogne.
On our way we saw several persons carrying the dead body of General d’Estaing,[1] who had just been shot by General Regnier[1] in a duel. The cause of the quarrel arose in Egypt, where both officers served with distinction. D’Estaing was an able man, and is much regretted; but Regnier is possessed of very splendid abilities and an acute and penetrating genius, as is shown in the admirable account he has sent the Agricultural Society concerning the state of agriculture in Egypt. This unfortunate affair does not excite the sensation here that the death of a fighting booby does in London. Duelling is by no means so frequent as under the Monarchy, the point of honour being little understood by the Republican nobles.