Nine Short Essays | Page 4

"H.H." IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SIMPLICITY THE

ENGLISH VOLUNTEERS DURING THE LATE INVASION
NATHAN HALE

A NIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF THE TUILERIES
It was in the time of the Second Empire. To be exact, it was the night of
the 18th of June, 1868; I remember the date, because, contrary to the
astronomical theory of short nights at this season, this was the longest
night I ever saw. It was the loveliest time of the year in Paris, when one
was tempted to lounge all day in the gardens and to give to sleep none
of the balmy nights in this gay capital, where the night was illuminated
like the day, and some new pleasure or delight always led along the
sparkling hours. Any day the Garden of the Tuileries was a microcosm
repaying study. There idle Paris sunned itself; through it the
promenaders flowed from the Rue de Rivoli gate by the palace to the
entrance on the Place de la Concorde, out to the Champs-Elysees and
back again; here in the north grove gathered thousands to hear the
regimental band in the afternoon; children chased butterflies about the
flower-beds and amid the tubs of orange-trees; travelers, guide-book in
hand, stood resolutely and incredulously before the groups of statuary,
wondering what that Infant was doing with, the snakes and why the
recumbent figure of the Nile should have so many children climbing
over him; or watched the long facade of the palace hour after hour, in
the hope of catching at some window the flutter of a royal robe; and
swarthy, turbaned Zouaves, erect, lithe, insouciant, with the firm,
springy step of the tiger, lounged along the allees.
Napoleon was at home--a fact attested by a reversal of the hospitable
rule of democracy, no visitors being admitted to the palace when he
was at home. The private garden, close to the imperial residence, was
also closed to the public, who in vain looked across the sunken fence to
the parterres, fountains, and statues, in the hope that the mysterious
man would come out there and publicly enjoy himself. But he never
came, though I have no doubt that he looked out of the windows upon
the beautiful garden and his happy Parisians, upon the groves of horse-
chestnuts, the needle-like fountain beyond, the Column of Luxor, up
the famous and shining vista terminated by the Arch of the Star, and
reflected with Christian complacency upon the greatness of a monarch
who was the lord of such splendors and the goodness of a ruler who

opened them all to his children. Especially when the western sunshine
streamed down over it all, turning even the dust of the atmosphere into
gold and emblazoning the windows of the Tuileries with a sort of
historic glory, his heart must have swelled within him in throbs of
imperial exaltation. It is the fashion nowadays not to consider him a
great man, but no one pretends to measure his goodness.
The public garden of the Tuileries was closed at dusk, no one being
permitted to remain in it after dark. I suppose it was not safe to trust the
Parisians in the covert of its shades after nightfall, and no one could tell
what foreign fanatics and assassins might do if they were permitted to
pass the night so near the imperial residence. At any rate, everybody
was drummed out before the twilight fairly began, and at the most
fascinating hour for dreaming in the ancient garden. After sundown the
great door of the Pavilion de l'Horloge swung open and there issued
from it a drum-corps, which marched across the private garden and
down the broad allee of the public garden, drumming as if the
judgment-day were at hand, straight to the great gate of the Place de la
Concorde, and returning by a side allee, beating up every covert and
filling all the air with clamor until it disappeared, still thumping, into
the court of the palace; and all the square seemed to ache with the
sound. Never was there such pounding since Thackeray's old Pierre,
who, "just to keep up his drumming, one day drummed down the
Bastile":
At midnight I beat the tattoo, And woke up the Pikemen of Paris To
follow the bold Barbaroux.
On the waves of this drumming the people poured out from every gate
of the garden, until the last loiterer passed and the gendarmes closed the
portals for the night. Before the lamps were lighted along the Rue de
Rivoli and in the great square of the Revolution, the garden was left to
the silence of its statues and its thousand memories. I often used to
wonder, as I looked through the iron railing at nightfall, what might go
on there and whether historic shades might not flit