The Diary of an Ennuyée | Page 2

June 25.--I do not pity Joan of Arc: that heroic woman only paid the price which all must pay for celebrity in some shape or other: the sword or the faggot, the scaffold or the field, public hatred or private heart-break; what matter? The noble Bedford could not rise above the age in which he lived: but that was the age of gallantry and chivalry, as well as superstition: and could Charles, the lover of Agnes Sorel, with all the knights and nobles of France, look on while their champion, and a woman, was devoted to chains and death, without one effort to save her?
It has often been said that her fate disgraced the military fame of the English; it is a far fouler blot on the chivalry of France.
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St. Germains, June 27.--I cannot bear this place, another hour in it will kill me; this sultry evening--this sickening sunshine--this quiet, unbroken, boundless landscape--these motionless woods--the Seine stealing, creeping through the level plains--the dull grandeur of the old chateau--the languid repose of the whole scene--instead of soothing, torture me. I am left without resource, a prey to myself and to my memory--to reflection, which embitters the source of suffering, and thought, which brings distraction. Horses on to Paris! Vite! Vite!
Paris, 28.--What said the witty Frenchwoman?--_Paris est le lieu du monde où l'on peut le mieux se passer de bonheur;_--in that case it will suit me admirably.
29.--We walked and drove about all day: I was amused. I marvel at my own versatility when I think how soon my quick spirits were excited by this gay, gaudy, noisy, idle place. The different appearance of the streets of London and Paris is the first thing to strike a stranger. In the gayest and most crowded streets of London the people move steadily and rapidly along, with a grave collected air, as if all had some business in view; here, as a little girl observed the other day, all the people walk about "like ladies and gentlemen going a visiting:" the women well-dressed and smiling, and with a certain jaunty air, trip along with their peculiar mincing step, and appear as if their sole object was but to show themselves; the men ill-dressed, slovenly, and in general ill-looking, lounge indolently, and stare as if they had no other purpose in life but to look about them.[B]
July 12.--"Quel est à Paris le suprême talent? celui d'amuser: et quel est le suprême bonheur? l'amusement."
Then le suprême bonheur may be found every evening from nine to ten, in a walk along the Boulevards, or a ramble through the Champs Elysées, and from ten to twelve in a salon at Tortoni's.
What an extraordinary scene was that I witnessed to-night! how truly French! Spite of myself and all my melancholy musings, and all my philosophic allowances for the difference of national character, I was irresistibly compelled to smile at some of the farcical groups we encountered. In the most crowded parts of the Champs Elysées this evening (Sunday), there sat an old lady with a wrinkled yellow face and sharp features, dressed in flounced gown of dirty white muslin, a pink sash and a Leghorn hat and feathers. In one hand she held a small tray for the contribution of amateurs, and in the other an Italian bravura, which she sung or rather screamed out with a thousand indescribable shruggings, contortions, and grimaces, and in a voice to which a cracked tea-kettle, or a "brazen candlestick turned," had seemed the music of the spheres. A little farther on we found two elderly gentlemen playing at see-saw; one an immense corpulent man of fifteen stone at least, the other a thin dwarfish animal with gray mustachios, who held before him what I thought was a child, but on approaching, it proved to be a large stone strapped before him, to render his weight a counterpoise to that of his huge companion. We passed on, and returning about half an hour afterwards down the same walk, we found the same venerable pair pursuing their edifying amusement with as much enthusiasm as before.
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Before the revolution, sacrilege became one of the most frequent crimes. I was told of a man who, having stolen from a church the silver box containing the consecrated wafers, returned the wafers next day in a letter to the Curé of the Parish, _having used one of them to seal his envelop_.
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July 27.--A conversation with S** always leaves me sad. Can it then be possible that he is right? No--O no! my understanding rejects the idea with indignation, my whole heart recoils from it; yet if it should be so! what then: have I been till now the dupe and the victim of factitious feelings? virtue, honour, feeling,