M. DE TOCQUEVILLE. 281 country residence in the suburbs. I spent two or three hours very agreeably with him and his accomplished wife, who is English by birth, although, I believe, she has resided most of her life in France. M. de Tocqueville is well known to Americans by his admirable work upon our country, the result of a visit he made to the United States about twenty years since. He is one of the noblest and purest characters in France, a finished scholar, and a profound statesman. As a writer he holds the highest rank. He is of middle stature, rather slightly made, of a fine intellectual cast of features, with a grave, meditative expression. His manners are very quiet, simple, and refined, and calculated to win respect and confidence. His conversation was easy and discursive. Little was said about the state of France, a subject which delicacy forbade me to introduce; but we talked a good deal about America, and on literary subjects. I adverted to the fact that so many literary men entered into political life in France, while in our country they are apt to be excluded. He replied, that in France men of literary distinction entered into political life as a natural consequence of their position, if they chose to do so. He said, also, that he had remarked the fact I mentioned that in our country the most distinguished men did not generally occupy offices under the government. On referring to his book I find the same observation recorded there. While exceedingly liberal, and even democratic in his opinions and tendencies, he has an intellect too acute and calm not to perceive the incidental evils of our institutions. It is to be deprecated that public honors cannot be cer 282 Visit To VERSAILLE 3. tainly looked forward to as a reward of great talents and attainments in our country. One stimulus to intellectual exertion is thus removed. Besides, the country must itself suffer when the policy and tact of the demagogue supplant the gifts of mind, and scholarlike preparations. It is an evil which can be remedied only by the creation of those great institutions of learning, which, like the University of Paris, and the French Institute, both multiply the number of scholars and collect them in associations where they can co-work together, sustain each other, and make their legitimate power and influence to be felt. I subsequently received several very polite and valuable attentions from M. de Tocqueville, among which was an introduction to the Institute, on occasion of a meeting of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, of which he is the president. After leaving M. de Tocqueville on the morning above alluded to, I walked to the Palace of Versailles, about a mile distant. On the way I was caught in a shower and thoroughly soaked. I entered the palace of kings with that very meek air which one always gains from such an accident, with all my feathers laid and dripping. It occupied me four hours and a half to walk through all the rooms--a walk estimated at seven miles—and I fairly walked myself dry. The magnificence of this palace is inconceivable without visiting it. It is like the gorgeous descriptions of the Arabian tales. Every spot on the walls and ceilings is adorned with carving, painting, marble, or gilding. It is filled with statues, portraits, and historical paintings. PLAY-HOUSE AND PLAY-GROUND. 283 The paintings cannot be extolled in general as works of art, but are to be regarded simply as representations of the leading events of French history. Napoleon, unquestionably, holds the most conspicuous place. His portraits abound; and all the grand passages in his life, his victories, coronation, &c., are displayed on immense fields of canvas. On a second visit, we extended our observations to the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon, walking through the gardens where fountains, and lakes, and trees, and flowers, are. contrived to make a scene of formal beauty and magnificence, variegated by artificial wildernesses, where rocks, and grottoes, and waterfalls are fashioned elaborately into an imitation of what nature does so easily and gracefully. It is well done, considered as man's work, but it is plain enough that the hand of God is not there. And this Versailles was the grand play-house and playground of kings and queens. It cost only two hundred millions of dollars! Does not such a thing as this sow the seeds of Red Republicanism and Socialism in the hearts of the people? Agrarianism, Fourierism, Socialism-there are some grains of truth scattered through these theories, after all: they are a wild protest of the people against oppression and starvation. The country, say they, is filled with abundance, the fruit of our hard labors;--must there not be something wrong in the state, something wrong in human society, when a few grasp it all,-grasp more than they can use-grasp to waste-while we are ground down into the dust by poverty and anxiety? Let all work— that is right; but let work have sufficient wages. While horses are luxuriously stabled, and fed to fatness; and dogs are 284 FEELING IS THE NAKED TRUTH. kennelled, and live on butcher's meat; why may not human beings be clothed and fed, and have a comfortable place to sleep in? Is this God's decree, or is it man's abuse? Now when men talk so under the shadow of Versailles, it will not do to laugh at them; and when they become, too, turbulent, to answer them with bullets and bayonets. Feeling is the naked truth; hunger and nakedness are something which men feel. Do not expect these rude masses to reason; they can only feel. Oh, ye statesmen and rulers! ye are the men to reason, when the people thus feel. The University - The SorbonneThe College of France- The Institute of France. THE University of France must not be confounded with the University of Paris. The first relates to the great system of Public Instruction established by Napoleon, and is distributed into three grades: Instruction Supérieure, comprising the faculties; Instruction Secondaire, comprising Lyceums and Communal Colleges; and Instruction Primaire, comprising elementary schools. The University of Paris is the ancient University founded in the twelfth century. The Sorbonne is the title given to a theological school founded by Robert de Sorbonne, an ecclesiastic of the thirteenth century. The Sorbonne and the University are now really one institution, included in the Académie Universitaire |