Paris in America

Front matter

PARIS IN AMERICA.

BY

DE. RENE LEFEBVEE,

Chapter I. An American Medium

"You are respectfully invited to attend the psychical and medianimic soiree of Mr. Jonathan Dream, spiritual and transcendental medium of Salem (Mass.), to be given next Tuesday, April 1st, at his residence, ISTo. 33 rue de la Lune.

" Somnambulism, trance, vision, prevision, prophecy, second sight, distant sight, divination, penetration, abstraction of thought, evocations; preternatural conversation, poetry and chirography ; thoughts from beyond the tomb, arcana of the future life unveiled, etc. etc.

" Doors closed at eight o'cloch 2Jrecisely /'''

" Pai'dieu /" thought I, again reading the letter, " I shall not be sorry to make acquaintance with an American medium, a brother in experimental and positive pneumatology / for I too am a medium. I am not only a simple citizen of Paris; I have already, as well as others, evoked Caesar, Napoleon, Voltaire, Madame de Pompadour, Ninon, etc ; and even, if it must be told, whatever it may cost my modesty, these illustrious personages have not eclipsed me by their genius ; all have

1* 9 answered me as if I had whispered them. Let us see whether Mr. Jonathan Dream, with his American pretensions, has more spirit or more spirits than your servant, Daniel Lefebvre, D.M.P., the pupil in spiritism of M. Hornung of Berlin, M. de Reichenbach, and Baron de Guldenstubbe. The medium will find more than his match."

In a fine suit of rooms, at the bottom of a drawing-room, hermetically closed, but blazing with light (which is not usually the case in our spiritual meetings), I found Mr. Jonathan Dream seated before a round table. He had the melancholy gaze and inspired countenance of sibyls. Opposite him sat half-a-dozen adepts, with a meditative air — nervous people, women not understood, majors or widows on the retired list — the audience is always the same. Each one was writing on a slip of paper the names of the dead whom he wished to interrogate ; I did like the rest.

The names were jumbled together in a hat, and the first that was drawn was that of Joseph de Maistre. Jonathan meditated a moment, put his hand to his ear to listen to the voice which whispered to him, and wrote rapidly as follows :

"There is no sterile knowledge; all knowledge is like that spoken of in the Bible — Adam knew Eve, and she brought forth.

" No creed, no credit."

" Ah, ah !" thought I, " these paradoxes sound well, they have all the swaggering of their father ; only it seems to me that I have seen them somewhere else — in Baader, if I am not mistaken. After all, perhaps there is no literary property on high, and, for the sake of dis-

AN AMEKICAN MEDIUM. 11

traction, it is possible that one amuses himself there by pilfering ideas."

Hippocrates came next ; he had the kindness to speak French, and his shadow wrote as follows :

" The man who thinks most is the one who digests least ; other things being equal, he who thinks least is he who digests best."

" Alas !" said a little woman, with a thin face buried beneath waves of grey hair, " this is a doctor's answer, a coarse answer, made by men and for men. It is not

the thought which preys upon the heart, it is"

And she sighed.

Nostradamus was summoned, and his opinion asked on the future of Poland, France and Italy. This is the answer of the great diviner, a sublime genius who always left to others the care of understanding what he said :

" En France, Italie et Pologne, Beauconp d'esprit, pen de vergogne ; En France, Pologne, Italie, On est sage apres la folie ; En Italia, Pologne et France, Moins de bonheur que d'esperance." *

We were forced to content ourselves with this oracle, too profound to be clear. It was Kosciusko's turn. This evening, the Polish Washington was in a bad

* In France, Italy and Poland, Much wit, little shame ; In France, Poland and Italy, One is wise according to folly ; In Italy, Poland and France, Less happiness than hope.

humor; nothing could be obtained from him but the Latin motto, "Z?^ servitute dolor, in lihertate labor f^ In servitude suffering, in liberty labor. Three times he was questioned, three times he made this sullen reply, and flung it in our face as a reproach that we had even ceased to feel.

The last slip of paper demanded that Don Quixote, Tom Jones, Robinson Crusoe or Werther should be questioned ; which made the coenaculum laugh, although, to tell the truth, it had little wish to do so. The author of this piece of impertinence, I am ashamed to confess, was myself. I had been so long wearied both of the dead and the living, that I should have been delighted to know what entered the brain of men who had never existed.

Jonathan Dream flung the imlucky billet into the fire, announced that the sitting was over, and accompanied us to the door with many bows. As I was about to go, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and entreated me to remain.

Once alone — "It was you, brother," said he with a peculiar smile, " that addressed to me a demand which these profane beings deem indiscreet ; perhaps even you are of their opinion. Blind man, who hast never flithomed the arcana of eternal truth ! Do you fancy that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Robinson Crusoe and Friday, Tom Jones and Sophie never lived ? "What ! man cannot create an atom of matter, yet you suppose that he can create entire souls who will never perish. Do you not believe in Don Quixote more than in all the Artaxerxes? Is not Robinson Crusoe more living to you than the Drakes and Magellans ?"

" What ! the ingenious Don Quixote has lived ? And

AN AMERICAN MEDIUM. 13

I can talk with the wise governor of the island of Barataria ?"

" Doubtless. Know then, what is a poet. He is a seer, a prophet, who mounts to the invisible world ; there, among the millions of beings who once lived and whose remembrance is lost here below, he chooses those whom he wishes to revive in the memory of mankind. He evokes them, he listens to them, he writes under their dictation. What foolish humanity takes for an invention of the artist is only a confession of the unknown dead ; but you, a medium, or pretending to be such, how is it that you do not yourself recognize a preternatural voice? How is it that you sufter yourself to be deceived like the crowd ? Are you so little advanced then in the ways of mediumship ?"

While speaking thus, Jonathan Dream threw his head backwards, and waving his arms and opening and shutting his hands, advanced towards me as if to drown me with his fluid.

" Brother," said I, " you are, I see, a man of wit, although a medium ; I have no doubt that you could write us a little speech in the style of Don Quixote, or some new proverbs worthy of Sancho Panza. But we are alone, and both of us are augurs ; we have the right to look each other in the face, and even to laugh while looking. Stop where you are, and believe that I wish you a happy success. In France, the thing is easy ; the people who believes itself the most spiritucl in the world, is naturally the easiest to lead by the nose. Ask the women of Paris."

" Stop !" cried my magician in a furious tone. " Am I mistaken ? Are you a false brother ? Do you take me for a charlatan, a mystifier, a mountebank ? Know

14 PAUIS IN A^IERICA.

that Jonathan Dream never spoke a word that was not true. Ah ! you doubt my power, my little gentleman. What proof of it do you wish ? Shall I take away all your ideas, which would not be difficult ; shall I put you to sleep, make you pass through cold, heat, wind and rain; shall I?"

" No magnetism," said I, " I know that there is in it a natural phenomenon, as yet imperfectly known, of which you take advantage. If you wish to convince me, do not begin by putting me to sleep. We are not at the Academy."

" Well !" said he, fixing his glittering eyes upon me. "What would you say if I transported you to America?"

" I ? I must see it to believe it."

"Yes, you," he exclaimed, "and not only you, but your wife, your children, your neighbors, your house, your street, and, if you say the word, all Paris. Yes," added he, with feverish agitation, " yes, if I will it, to-morrow morning, Paris will be in Massachusetts; there will be no longer on the shores of the Seine but an inhabited plain."

" My dear sir, you should sell your secret to the prefect of the Seine ; it would perhaps save us many millions. In the absence of the Parisians, there might be made for them a wholly new, regular and monotonous Paris like N"ew York ; a Paris without past, without monuments, without memories ; all our architects and administrators would be ready to die with joy."

" You jest," said Jonathan, " you are afraid. I repeat it to you, to-morrow, if I wish, Paris will be in Massachusetts and Versailles with it. Do you accept the challenge?"

" Yes, ceriamly, I accept it," answered I, laughing.

AN AMEEICAN MEDIUM. 16

K"evertheless, the assurance of this devil of a fellow troubled me. I was no stranger to gasconade ; I read twenty journals a day, and I have heard more than one minister on the rostrum ; but this voice of one of the ilkiminati awed me despite myself.

"- Take this box," said the magician in an imperious tone ; " open it ; there are two pills, one for you and the other for me ; take which you Hke and ask me no questions."

I had gone too far to draw back. I swallowed one of the globules, Jonathan Dream took the other, and bade me adieu, saying in a sepulchral voice, " till to-morrow, on the other side of the ocean."

Once in the street, I found myself in a singular state. I felt brisker, lighter and more elastic than ever was human being ; it seemed as if with a bound I could touch the horns of the moon, just rising above the horizon. All my senses were of incredible acuteness. From the Place de la Concorde, I saw the carriages turning the corner of the Arc de I'Etoile, I heard the ticking of the hand that marked the hour on the clock of the Tuileries. The blood coursed through my veins with unheard-of warmth and velocity. I asked myself whether some invisible hand had not already borne me beyond the Atlantic. To reassure myself, I looked at the pale crescent slowly mounting in the sky ; sure of not having changed latitude, I returned to my house, ashamed of my credulity, and fell asleep, laughing at Jonathan Dream and his absurd threats.

Chapter II. Is It A Dream?

During the night, I had a dream. Was it a dream ? Jonathan, seated at my pillow, was looking at me with a mocking air.

" Well !" said he, " Mr. Incredulous, how do you find yourself after your journey? The voyage has not fatigued you over much ?"

" The voyage !" murmured I, " I have not stirred from my bed."

" No, but you are in America. Do not s]3ring out of bed like a madman. Wait till I give you some instructions, that the shock may not kill you. In the first place, I have turned your house topsy-turvy. In a free country, men do not live in barracks, pell-mell, without repose and dignity. Of each of those drawers, which you call etages, I have made an American dwelling ; which I have disposed and furnished in my own manner, and have joined to it a little garden. To arrange thus the forty thousand houses of Paris has taken me two hours, I do not regret it ; here you are independent at home, it is the first of all liberties. Henceforth you Avill not have to sufier from your neighbors, and you will no longer make them suffer. The odor of the kitchen and stables, the cries of women, children and nurses, the mewing of cats and pianos, all is at an end. You are no longer a member of a convict prison or hospital, a packed herring ; you are a man ; you have a family and a fireside."

IS IT A DREAM? ^ 17

" My house turned topsy-turvy ! I am ruined ; what have you done with my lodgers ?"

" Be easy ; they are here, each m a commodious little house. They are now tenants who will pay you their rent for half a century, without your needing every three years to surprise each other, and to vie with each other in artifice. I have put at your right, M. Leverd, the grocer, now Mr. Green. M. Petit, the banker on the first floor, has become Mr. Little, and is no less a personage with his millions. M. Reynard, the attorney, is called Lawyer Fox, and has not on this account lost a single one of his tricks. On your left, you will find the brave Colonel Saint-Jean, become the gallant Colonel St. John, with all his rheumatism ; and lastly, M. Rose, the druggist, who is neither less majestic nor less important since he has been called Mr. Rose. As to you, my dear Lefebvre, here you a.re, become by right of immigration, Dr. Smith, and a member of the most numerous family that has sprung from the Anglo-Saxon stock. Make a fortune by killing or curing your patients of the New World ; you will find no lack of cousins."

I attempted to cry out — the eyes of my terrible visitor nailed me to my bed. " By the way," said he, laughing, " you will be somewhat astonished to hear your wife, children, and neighbors speak English through their nose. They have left their memory in the Old World, and are no longer but pure-blooded Yankees. An admirable efiect of climate, already remarked by the prince of mediums, the great Hippocrates ! Dogs no longer bark on approaching the pole ; wheat, under the equator, is nothing but sterile couch grass ; a Yankee in Paris believes himself born a gentleman ; a Frenchman in the United States loses the abhorrence of liberty. As to you, Mr. Incredulous, I have left you both your prejudices and your memories. I wish you to judge of my power with full knowledge of the case. You shall know whether Jonathan Dream is a medium ; here you are sewed in an American skin, and you will not leave it except at my good pleasure."

" But I cannot speak English," I exclaimed ; I stopped suddenly, frightened at whistling like a bird.

"That's not bad," said the insupportable mocker, " before two days are over, you will confound shall and will, these and those^ with all the ease and grace of a Scotchman. Adieu," added he, rising; "adieu, I am expected at midnight by the Sultan, at his harem in Constantinople ; at two o'clock, I must be in London, and I shall see the sun rise at Pekin. A last counsel-— remember that a wise man is astonished at nothing. If you should chance to see a strange figure about yoii, don't shout the devil; you will be shut up with our lunatics, which would impede your observations."

I started up ; three handfuls of fluid, flung in my fac-e, rendered me mute and motionless. My betrayer saluted me with a sardonic laugh ; then, seizing a moonbeam which trailed into the room, he wound it about his waist, darted through the window and vanished in air. Fright, magnetism or sleep, I felt myself overpowered :

Chapter III. Sambo

When I again came to myself, it was daylight. My son was singing the Miserere from Trovatore at the top of his voice ; my daughter, a pupil of Thalberg, was playing with incomparable hrio the variations of Sturm on a varied air of Donner. In the distance, my wife was quarreling with the nurse, who answered her in a shrill tone. Nothing was changed in my peaceful abode ; the pangs of the night were only an idle dream ; freed from these chimerical terrors, I might, according to my tranquil habit, dream with open eyes whilo awaiting the hour of breakfast.

At seven o'clock, according to custom, the servant entered my room and brought me the journal. He opened the window and put aside the blinds ; the brightness of the sun and sharpness of the air affected me most agreeably. I turned my head towards the light ; — horror ! My hair stood on end, I had not even strength to cry out.

In front of me, smiling and dancing, was a negro, with teeth like piano keys, and two enormous red lips overshadowing his nose and chin. Dressed wholly in white, as if afraid of not appearing black enough, the animal approached me, shaking his woolly head and rolling his great eyes.

" Massa slept well," sung he, " Sambo very glad."

I closed my eyes to drive away this nightmare ; my

PAEIS IN AMEEICA.

heart beat almost to bursting ; when I ventured to look up, I was alone. To spring from the bed, run to the window, and feel my hands and head was the work of an instant. Opposite me was a row of small houses, ranged like pasteboard monks, three printing establishments, six newspaper offices, placards everywhere, wasted water overflowing the gutters. In the street were busy, silent men, hastening along, with. their hands in their pockets, doubtless to hide revolvers there — no noise, no cries, no loungers, no cigars, no coffee-houses, and, as far as my eye could reach, not a sergent de ville^ not a gendarme. It was all over with me ; I was in America, unknown, alone, in a country without government, without armies, without pohce, in the midst of a savage, violent and cupiditous people. I was lost !

V More forsaken, more desolate than Crusoe after his shipwreck, I let myself fall into an easy chair, which immediately began to dance beneath me. I sprang up, trembhng. I looked in the glass. Alas ! I no longer recognized myself In front of me vf as a lank man, with a bald forehead, sprinkled with a few red hairs, and a freckled face, framed with flaming whiskers, which fluttered upon the shoulders. See what the malice of fate had made a Parisian of the Chaussee-d'Antin ! I was pale ; my teeth chattered ; the cold chilled the very marrow of my bones. " Be a man !" exclaimed I to myself. " I have a family, and the French name to maintain. I must regain over my senses the empire that is escaping me. Adversity makes heroes !" S

I wished to call ; there was no bell. I perceived a brass knob, which I pressed by chance. Suddenly, Sambo appeared, like one of those devils which spring from a box, bowing and thrusting out their tongue.

SAMBO. 21

" Fire !" I exclaimed, " bring me fire. I want a large fire in tlie fire-place."

"Hasn't Massa any matches?" said Sambo, pointing to a box on the mantel. " Can't Massa stoop down ?" added he, in an ironical tone. Then, turning a screw at the bottom of the fire-place, and putting a match to the brass log, a thousand tongues of fire spouted forth. " Oh dear !" exclaimed, he, on going out, "must a poor negro be disturbed in this way Avhen he is sunning himself?"

"A savage people," thought I, approaching the fire and reanimating myself by its soft and equal heat — " a savage people, that has neither shovel, nor tongs, nor bellows, nor charcoal, nor smoke; a barbarous people, that does not even know the pleasure of stirring the fire ! To turn a screw to kindle, extinguish, or regulate one's fire is truly the Avork of a race without poetry, that leaves nothing to the unforeseen, and that is afraid of losing a moment, because time is money."

Once warmed, I thought of my toilette. I had before me a mahogany table, overloaded with copper swans' heads, and other ornaments in bad taste, but furnished with that English china which dehghts the eye by its richness of color and design. There were upon this table, and in profusion, brushes, sponges, soaps, vinegars, pomatums, etc., but not a drop of water. I again pressed the knob, and Sambo reentered, more sulky than at his departure.

" Hot and cold water for my toilette ; quick, I am in haste !"

" This is too much !" cried Sambo. " Massa can't turn the hot and cold water faucets there in the corner ? Upon my word, it is enough to make one give warning. I can't

22 PARIS IN ASIERICA.

Stay with a master that doesn't know how to see." And he went out, slamming the door in my face.

" Hot and cold water at any moment, and everywhere! This is convenient," thought I ; " but it is the invention of a people that thinks only of its comfort. Thank God, we have not come to this ! Centuries will pass before glorious France wdll stoop to this search for luxury, this effeminate cleanliness."

!N"othing refreshes the ideas so much as shaving. Having trimmed my beard, I found myself quite another man* I even began to be reconciled with my long visage and front teeth. " If I were to take a bath," thought I, '' I would be perfectly composed. I could brave with more courage the sight of my wife and children. Perhaps, alas ! they are no less changed than I !" I rang. Sambo appeared, with cast down looks.

" My good fellow, where is there a bathing establishment in the city ? Show me the way."

" A bathing establishment, Massa ! For what ?"

I shrugged my shoulders. " Blockhead, to bathe in, it would seem."

" Massa wants to take a bath," said Sambo, gazing at me with mingled surprise and affright. " And it was for this that Massa disturbed me ?"

"Of course."

" This is too much !" cried the negro, tearing out a handful of hair. " Wliat ! There is a bath-room by the side of every bedchamber, and Massa makes Sambo come up stairs to ask him, ' Where shall I bathe V An American isn't to be made a fool of in this way." And pushing open a little door concealed beneath the hangings, the negro made me enter an elegant closet, in which was a marble bath-tub.

SAMBO. 23

" Come, Sambo," smig he, in a furious but comical tone, " turn the faucet for Massa ; the cold-water faucet, the hot- water faucet ; get the bath ready; put the linen to warm by the register ; play the nurse. Sambo ; Massa does not know how to use his hands !"

I had nothing to do but to be silent. I let Sambo exhaust his rage, and endeavored not to see that he thrust out his tongue at me. But I execrated to myself these horrible American houses ; unsocial abodes ; true prisons, from which one cannot go out, since he finds ready at hand all that at Paris we have the pleasure of going in quest of outside our houses, at a dear rate, it is true, but at a great distance.

24 PAEI8 IN AMEEIOA.

Chapter IV. At Home

Quitting the bath without having found composure there, I pensively descended the httle staircase which led to the ground floor. What had been done with my house ? Under what mask was I about to find my family ? I entered the dining-room, no one was there ; I went into the parlor, there was no one. Meanwhile, I looked about the two apartments, to accustom myself to the appearance of my new dwelUng.

In the dining-room, which was furnished with a carpet, the only ornament was a heavy old mahogany chest, loaded with china cups, and britannia tea-urns brighter than silver. In front of the buffet, were three indifierent engravings ; in the middle, Penn treating with the Indians under the Shakamaxon elm ; on the right, the portrait of "Washington, standing, with his horse and negro ; on the left, the image of the sovereign, joro tempore^ Honest Old Abe — in other words, the honorable Abraham Lincoln, once rail-splitter, now president of the United States.

" These, then," I cried, "are the protecting genii of my new fireside — mine, a Frenchman, reared in the worship of strength and success. A pacific Quaker ; a general who, having it in his power to be emperor of the i^ew World, humbled himself so far as to remain the first magistrate of a free people ; a workingman, become lawyer by dint of labor, and president of his country by

AT HOME. 25

chance — such are the heroes of America ! In this half savage land, the code of morals of the great men is also that of the citizens. What can be expected from a nation with such prejudices ? It will never give a Cresar to the world ! "

In the parlor was a rosewood piano, a desk loaded with papers^ and a book-case filled with books. Three or four Bibles figured therein, among the works of Francis Quarles, Bunyan, Jeremy Taylor, Law, Jonathan Edwards and Channing; great men, doubtless, but whose names I read for the first time. I stopped there, having little taste for theology, even on the nights when I cannot sleep. Next came a few historians or moralists — Franklin, Emerson, Marshall, Washmgton Irving, Lothrop Motley, and Ticknor ; then a few didactic novels, and a host of English, American, German, and even Spanish poets. And France — where was she ? Alas ! to represent my country, I found nothing but a TeUmaque^ with the pronunciation figured, or rather disfigured, in English. And to think that perhaps some time, to celebrate her father's birthday, my daughter, my dear Susan, would recite to me, with her rosy hps, Calepso ne povait se counsoUre diou departe d'loulis !

In spite I threw down the book, and went into the garden — a little corner of ground, shut in by four walls, ornamented with ivy and honeysuckle ; everywhere were lilacs, roses, and new flowers ; at the bottom was a little green-house and a Chinese kiosk, a convenient shelter to take tea, smoke a cigar, or gaze at the stars. No one was in the garden but Sambo, stretched on a white marble slab like a bronze statue. His face turned towards the sun and covered with flies, the negro, snoring, was resting from the cruel cares which I had caused

26 PARIS IK AMERICA.

him. The dog took advantage of being in my service to do nothing and sleep at full liberty.

This solitary promenade in the habitation of the Sleeping Beauty in the Woods began to perplex me strangely. I was about to awaken Sambo, were it only for the pleasure of quarreling with a Christian, when I heard voices issuing from the sub-soil of the house, or, as the French- Americans say in their dialect, the basement^ a word which, I hope, will long be wanting in the dictionary of the Academy.

Having descended a few steps, I spied, at length, in a large kitchen, two women so much occupied that they did not hear the sound of my stej^s. The one whose back was turned towards me, but whom I immediately recognized by her voice, was my dear Jenny, the mother of my children ; the other, whom I was ere long to appreciate, was an enormous blonde, five feet eight inches high, who had rather the air of a Scotch grenadier than of one of the daughters of Eve. This was Martha the cook, a Pennsylvanian by birth, a Tunker by reUgiou — something like a Quaker — an excellent person, who scolded constantly, and who had but one fault, that of treating as a publican and sinner whoever wore a button on the dress or coat. To her exalted soul, the symbol of Christianity was not the cross, but a clasp.

Judging from the earnestness of both women, and the words which they were eagerly exchanging, a great culinary work was being accomplished, at this moment. Jenny (was this indeed Madame Lefebvre?) was tying a shapeless mass of dough in a napkin, which she carefully deposited in a pot full of water. In her turn, Martha placed this precious vessel in an iron furnace, which occupied the whole length of the kitchen. This was a

AT HOME.

monumental structure, with stories like a bouse, and I know not how many drawers and cupboards, from which the smoke was escaping. Ovens for baking and roasting, laundry, stove, hot water, hot air, everything was found in this monster furnace, which bore the inscription, like a triumphal arch —

I doubt whether Satan himself, with all the resources at his disposal, ever invented a better heated furnace.