La Pet.i.te Suisse is merely a romantic portion of the garden, in which has been built what is called the Swiss Hamlet It contains the miniature abodes of the Cure, the Farmer, the Dairywoman, the Garde-de-Cha.s.se, and the Seigneur, besides the mill. There is not much that is Swiss, however, about the place, with the exception of some resemblance in the exterior of the buildings. Here, it is said, the royal family used occasionally to meet, and pa.s.s an afternoon in a silly representation of rural life, that must have proved to be a prodigious caricature. The King (at least, so the guide affirmed), performed the part of the Seigneur, and occupied the proper abode; the Queen was the Dairy woman, and we were shown the marble tables that held her porcelain milk-pans; the present King, as became his notorious propensity to field-sports, was the Garde-de-Cha.s.se, the late King was the Miller, and, _mirabile dictu_, the Archbishop of Paris did not disdain to play the part of the Cure. There was, probably, a good deal of poetry in this account; though it is pretty certain that the Queen did indulge in some of these phantasies. There happened to be with me, the day I visited this spot, an American from our own mountains, who had come fresh from home, with all his provincial opinions and habits strong about him. As the guide explained these matters, I translated them literally into English for the benefit of my companion, adding, that the fact rendered the Queen extremely unpopular with her subjects. "Unpopular!" exclaimed my country neighbour; "why so, sir?" "I cannot say; perhaps they thought it was not a fit amus.e.m.e.nt for a queen." My mountaineer stood a minute cogitating the affair in his American mind; and then nodding his head, he said:--"I understand it now. The people thought that a king and queen, coming from yonder palace to amuse themselves in this toy hamlet, in the characters of poor people, _were making game of them_!" I do not know whether this inference will amuse you as much as it did me at the time.
Of the gardens and the _jets d"eau_, so renowned, I shall say little.
The former are in the old French style, formal and stiff, with long straight _allees_, but magnificent by their proportions and ornaments.
The statuary and vases that are exposed to the open air, in this garden, must have cost an enormous sum. They are chiefly copies from the _antique_.
As you stand on the great terrace, before the centre of the palace, the view is down the princ.i.p.al avenue, which terminates at the distance of two or three miles with a low naked hill, beyond which appears the void of the firmament. This conceit singularly helps the idea of vastness, though in effect it is certainly inferior to the pastoral prettiness and rural thoughts of modern landscape gardening. Probably too much is attempted here; for if the mind cannot conceive of illimitable s.p.a.ce, still less can it be represented by means of material substances.
We examined the interior of the palace with melancholy pleasure. The vast and gorgeous apartments were entirely without furniture, though many of the pictures still remain. The painted ceilings, and the gildings too, contribute to render the rooms less desolate than they would otherwise have been. I shall not stop to describe the saloons of Peace and War, and all the other celebrated apartments, that are so named from the subjects of their paintings, but merely add that the state apartments lie _en suite_, in the main body of the building, and that the princ.i.p.al room, or the great gallery, as it is termed, is in the centre, with the windows looking up the main avenue of the garden.
This gallery greatly surpa.s.ses in richness and size any other room, intended for the ordinary purposes of a palace, that I have ever seen.
Its length exceeds two hundred and thirty feet, its width is about thirty-five, and its height is rather more than forty. The walls are a complete succession of marbles, mirrors, and gildings. I believe, the windows and doors excepted, that literally no part of the sides or ends of this room show any other material. Even some of the doors are loaded with these decorations. The ceiling is vaulted, and gorgeous with allegories and gildings; they are painted by the best artists of France.
Here Louis XIV. moved among his courtiers, more like a G.o.d than a man, and here was exhibited that mixture of grace and moral fraud, of elegance and meanness, of hope and disappointment, of pleasure and mortification, that form the characters and compose the existence of courtiers.
I do not know the precise number of magnificent ante-chambers and saloons through which we pa.s.sed to reach this gallery, but there could not have been less than eight; one of which, as a specimen of the scale on which the palace is built, is near eighty feet long, and sixty wide. Continuing our course along the suite, we pa.s.sed, among others, a council-room that looked more like state than business, and then came to the apartments of the Queen. There were several drawing-rooms, and ball-rooms, and card-rooms, and ante-rooms, and the change from the gorgeousness of the state apartments, to the neat, tasteful, chaste, feminine, white and gold of this part of the palace was agreeable, for I had got to be tired of splendour, and was beginning to feel a disposition to "make game of the people," by descending to rusticity.
The bed-room of Marie Antoinette is in the suite. It is a large chamber, in the same style of ornament as the rest of her rooms, and the dressing-rooms, bath, and other similar conveniences, were in that exquisite French taste, which can only be equalled by imitation. The chamber of the King looked upon the court, and was connected with that of the Queen, by a winding and intricate communication of some length.
The door that entered the apartments of the latter opened into a dressing-room, and both this door and that which communicated with the bed-room form a part of the regular wall, being tapestried as such, so as not to be immediately seen,--a style of finish that is quite usual in French houses. It was owing to this circ.u.mstance that Marie Antoinette made her escape, undetected, to the King"s chamber, the night the palace was entered by the fish-women.
We saw the rooms in which Louis XIV. and Louis XV. died. The latter, you may remember, fell a victim to the small-pox, and the disgusting body, that had so lately been almost worshipped, was deserted, the moment he was dead. It was left for hours, without even the usual decent observances. It was on the same occasion, we have been told, that his grandchildren, including the heir, were a.s.sembled in a private drawing-room, waiting the result, when they were startled by a hurried trampling of feet. It was the courtiers, rushing in a crowd, to pay their homage to the new monarch! All these things forced themselves painfully on our minds, as we walked through the state rooms. Indeed there are few things that can be more usefully studied, or which awaken a greater source of profitable recollections, than a palace that has been occupied by a great and historical court. Still they are not poetical.
The balcony, in which La Fayette appeared with the Queen and her children, opens from one of these rooms. It overlooks the inner court; or that in which the carriages of none but the privileged entered, for all these things were regulated by arbitrary rules. No one, for instance, was permitted to ride in the King"s coach, unless his n.o.bility dated from a certain century (the fourteenth, I believe), and these were your _gentilshommes_; for the word implies more than a n.o.ble, meaning an ancient n.o.bleman.
The writing cabinet, private dining-room, council-room in ordinary, library, etc. of the King, came next; the circuit ending in the Salles des Gardes, and the apartments usually occupied by the officers and troops on service.
There was one room we got into, I scarce know how. It was a long, high gallery, plainly finished for a palace, and it seemed to be lighted from an interior court, or well; for one was completely caged when in it.
This was the celebrated Bull"s Eye (_oeil de boeuf_), where the courtiers danced attendance before they were received. It got its name from an oval window over the princ.i.p.al door.
We looked at no more than the state apartments, and those of the King and Queen, and yet we must have gone through some thirty or forty rooms, of which, the baths and dressing-room of the Queen excepted, the very smallest would be deemed a very large room in America. Perhaps no private house contains any as large as the smallest of these rooms, with the exception of here and there a hall in a country house; and, no room at all, with ceilings nearly as high, and as n.o.ble, to say nothing of the permanent decorations, of which we have no knowledge whatever, if we omit the window-gla.s.s, and the mantels, in both of which, size apart, we often beat even the French palaces.
We next proceeded to the Salle de Spectacle, which is a huge theatre. It may not be as large as the French Opera-house at Paris, but its dimensions did not appear to me to be much less. It is true, the stage was open, and came into the view; but it is a very large house for dramatic representations. Now, neither this building nor the chapel, seen on the exterior of the palace, though additions that project from the regular line of wall, obtrudes itself on the eye, more than a verandah attached to a window, on one of our largest houses! In this place the celebrated dinner was given to the officers of the guards.
The chapel is rich and beautiful. No catholic church has pews, or, at all events they are very unusual, though the munic.i.p.alities do sometimes occupy them in France, and, of course, the area was vacant. We were most struck with the paintings on the ceiling, in which the face of Louis XIV. was strangely and mystically blended with that of G.o.d the Father!
Pictorial and carved representations of the Saviour and of the Virgin abound in all catholic countries; nor do they much offend, unless when the crucifixion is represented with bleeding wounds; for, as both are known to have appeared in the human form, the mind is not shocked at seeing them in the semblance of humanity. But this was the first attempt to delineate the Deity we had yet seen; and it caused us all to shudder.
He is represented in the person of an old man looking from the clouds, in the centre of the ceiling, and the King appears among the angels that surround him. Flattery could not go much farther, without encroaching on omnipotence itself.
In returning from Versailles, to a t.i.the of the magnificence of which I have not alluded, I observed carts coming out of the side of a hill, loaded with the whitish stone that composes the building material of Paris. We stopped the carriage, and went into the pa.s.sage, where we found extensive excavations. A lane of fifteen or twenty feet was cut through the stone, and the material was carted away in heavy square blocks. Piers were left, at short intervals, to sustain the superinc.u.mbent earth; and, in the end, the place gets to be a succession of intricate pa.s.sages, separated by these piers, which resemble so many small ma.s.ses of houses among the streets of a town. The entire region around Paris lies on a substratum of this stone, which indurates by exposure to the air, and the whole secret of the celebrated catacombs of Paris is just the same as that of this quarry, with the difference that this opens on a level with the upper world, lying in a hill, while one is compelled to descend to get to the level of the others. But enormous wheels, scattered about the fields in the vicinity of the town, show where shafts descend to new quarries on the plains, which are precisely the same as those under Paris. The history of these subterranean pa.s.sages is very simple. The stone beneath has been transferred to the surface, as a building material; and the graves of the town, after centuries, were emptied into the vaults below. Any apprehensions of the caverns falling in, on a great scale, are absurd, as the constant recurrence of the piers, which are the living rock, must prevent such a calamity; though it is within the limits of possibility that a house or two might disappear. Quite lately, it is said, a tree in the garden of the Luxembourg fell through, owing to the water working a pa.s.sage down into the quarries, by following its roots. The top of the tree remained above ground some distance; and to prevent unnecessary panic, the police immediately caused the place to be concealed by a high and close board fence. The tree was cut away in the night, the hole was filled up, and few knew anything about it. But it is scarcely possible that any serious accident should occur, even to a single house, without a previous and gradual sinking of its walls giving notice of the event. The palace of the Luxembourg, one of the largest and finest edifices of Paris, stands quite near the spot where the tree fell through, and yet there is not the smallest danger of the structure"s disappearing some dark night, the piers below always affording sufficient support. _Au reste_, the catacombs lie under no other part of Paris than the Quartier St.
Jacques, not crossing the river, nor reaching even the Faubourg St.
Germain.
I have taken you so unceremoniously out of the chateau of Versailles to put you into the catacombs, that some of the royal residences have not received the attention I intended. We have visited Compiegne this summer, including it in a little excursion of about a hundred miles, that we made in the vicinity of the capital, though it scarcely offered sufficient matter of interest to be the subject of an especial letter.
We found the forest deserving of its name, and some parts of it almost as fine as an old American wood of the second cla.s.s. We rode through it five or six miles to see a celebrated ruin, called Pierre-fond, which was one of those baronial holds, out of which n.o.ble robbers used to issue, to plunder on the highway, and commit all sorts of acts of genteel violence. The castle and the adjacent territory formed one of the most ancient seigneuries of France. The place was often besieged and taken. In the time of Henry IV. that monarch, finding the castle had fallen into the hands of a set of desperadoes, who were ranked with the Leaguers, sent the Duc d"Epernon against the place; but he was wounded, and obliged to raise the siege. Marshal Biron was next despatched, with all the heavy artillery that could be spared; but he met with little better success. This roused Henry, who finally succeeded in getting possession of the place. In the reign of his son, Louis XIII, the robberies and excesses of those who occupied the castle became so intolerable, that the government seized it again, and ordered it to be destroyed. Now you will remember that this castle stood in the very heart of France, within fifty miles of the capital, and but two leagues from a royal residence, and all so lately as the year 1617; and that it was found necessary to destroy it, on account of the irregularities of its owners. What an opinion one is driven to form of the moral civilization of Europe from a fact like this! Feudal grandeur loses greatly in a comparison with modern law, and more humble honesty.
It was easier, however, to order the Chateau de Pierre-fond to be destroyed, than to effect that desirable object. Little more was achieved than to make cuts into the external parts of the towers and walls, and to unroof the different buildings; and, although this was done two hundred years since, time has made little impression on the ruins. We were shown a place where there had been an attempt to break into the walls for stones, but which had been abandoned, because it was found easier to quarry them from the living rock. The princ.i.p.al towers were more than a hundred feet high, and their angles and ornaments seemed to be as sharp and solid as ever. This was much the n.o.blest French ruin we had seen, and it may be questioned if there are many finer, out of Italy, in Europe.
The palace of Compiegne, after that of Versailles, hardly rewarded us for the trouble of examining it. Still it is large and in perfect repair: but the apartments are common-place, though there are a few that are good. A prince, however, is as well lodged, even here, as is usual in the north of Europe. The present king is fond of resorting to this house, on account of the game of the neighbouring forest. We saw several roebucks bounding among the trees, in our drive to Pierre-fond.[13]
[Footnote 13: Pierre-fond, or Pierre-font]
I have dwelt on the palaces and the court so much, because one cannot get a correct idea of what France was, and perhaps I ought to say, of what France, through the reaction, _will_ be, if this point were overlooked. The monarch was all in all in the nation--the centre of light, wealth, and honour; letters, the arts, and the sciences revolved around him, as the planets revolve around the sun; and if there ever was a civilized people whose example it would be fair to quote for or against the effects of monarchy, I think it would be the people of France. I was surprised at my own ignorance on the subject of the magnificence of these kings, of which, indeed, it is not easy for an untravelled American to form any just notion; and it has struck me you might be glad to hear a little on these points.
After all I have said, I find I have entirely omitted the Orangery at Versailles. But then I have said little or nothing of the ca.n.a.ls, the _jets d"eau_, of the great and little parks, which, united, are fifty miles in circ.u.mference, and of a hundred other things. Still, as this orangery is on a truly royal scale, it deserves a word of notice before I close my letter. The trees are housed in winter in long vaulted galleries, beneath the great terrace; and there is a sort of sub-court in front of them, where they are put into the sun during the pleasant season. This place is really an orange grove; and, although every tree is in a box, and is nursed like a child, many of them are as large as it is usual to find in the orange groves of low lat.i.tudes. Several are very old, two or three dating from the fifteenth century, and one from the early part of it. What notions do you get of the magnificence of the place, when you are told, that a palace, subterraneous, it is true, is devoted to this single luxury, and that acres are covered with trees in boxes?
LETTER XI.
Laws of Intercourse.--Americans in Europe.--Americans and English.
--Visiting in America.--Etiquette of Visits.--Presentations at Foreign Courts.--Royal Receptions.--American Pride.--Pay of the President.
--American Diplomatist.
To JAMES STEVENSON, ESQUIRE, ALBANY.
I intend this letter to be useful rather than entertaining. Living, as we Americans do, remote from the rest of the world, and possessing so many practices peculiar to ourselves, at the same time that we are altogether wanting in usages that are familiar to most other nations, it should not be matter of surprise that we commit some mistakes on this side of the water, in matters of taste and etiquette. A few words simply expressed, and a few explanations plainly made, may serve to remove some errors, and perhaps render your own contemplated visit to this part of the world more agreeable.
There is no essential difference in the leading rules of ordinary intercourse among the polished of all Christian nations. Though some of these rules may appear arbitrary, it will be found, on examination, that they are usually derived from very rational and sufficient motives. They may vary, in immaterial points, but even these variations arise from some valid circ.u.mstance.
The American towns are growing so rapidly, that they are getting to have the population of capitals without enjoying their commonest facilities.
The exaggerated tone of our largest towns, for instance, forbids the exchange of visits by means of servants. It may suit the habits of provincial life to laugh at this as an absurdity, but it may be taken pretty safely as a rule, that men and women of as much common sense as the rest of their fellow-creatures, with the best opportunities of cultivating all those tastes that are dependant on society, and with no other possible motive than convenience, would not resort to such a practice without a suitable inducement. No one who has not lived in a large town that _does_ possess these facilities, can justly appreciate their great advantages, or properly understand how much a place like New York, with its three hundred thousand inhabitants, loses by not adopting them. We have conventions for all sorts of things in America, some of which do good and others harm, but I cannot imagine anything that would contribute more to the comfort of society, than one which should settle the laws of intercourse on principles better suited to the real condition of the country than those which now exist. It is not unusual to read descriptions deriding the forms of Europe, written by travelling Americans; but I must think they have been the productions of very young travellers, or, at least, of such as have not had the proper means of appreciating the usages they ridicule Taking my own experience as a guide, I have no hesitation in saying, that I know no people among whom the ordinary social intercourse is as uncomfortable, and as little likely to stand the test of a rational examination, as our own.
The first rule, all-important for an American to know, is, that the latest arrival makes the first visit. England is, in some respects, an exception to this practice, but I believe it prevails in all the rest of Europe. I do not mean to say that departures are not made from this law, in particular instances; but they should always be taken as exceptions, and as pointed compliments. This rule has many conveniences, and I think it also shows a more delicate attention to sentiment and feeling. While the points of intrusion and of disagreeable acquaintances are left just where they would be under our own rule, the stranger is made the judge of his own wishes. It is, moreover, impossible, in a large town, to know of every arrival. Many Americans, who come to Europe with every claim to attention, pa.s.s through it nearly unnoticed, from a hesitation about obtruding themselves on others, under the influence of the opinions in which they have been educated. This for a long time was my own case, and it was only when a more familiar acquaintance with the practices of this part of the world made me acquainted with their advantages that I could consent freely to put myself forward.
You are not to understand that any stranger arriving in a place like Paris, or London, has a right to leave cards for whom he pleases. It is not the custom, except for those who, by birth, or official station, or a high reputation, may fairly deem themselves privileged, to a.s.sume this liberty, and even then, it is always better to take some preliminary step to a.s.sure one"s self that the visit will be acceptable. The law of salutes is very much the law of visits, in this part of the world. The ship arriving sends an officer to know if his salute will be returned gun for gun, and the whole affair, it is true, is conducted in rather a categorical manner, but the governing principles are the same in both cases, though more management may be required between two gentlemen than between two men-of-war.
The Americans in Europe, on account of the country"s having abjured all the old feudal distinctions that still so generally prevail here, labour under certain disadvantages, that require, on the one hand, much tact and discretion to overcome, and, on the other, occasionally much firmness and decision.
The rule I have adopted in my own case, is to defer to every usage, in matters of etiquette, so far as I have understood them, that belongs to the country in which I may happen to be. If, as has sometimes happened (but not in a solitary instance in France), the claims of a stranger have been overlooked, I have satisfied myself by remembering, that, in this respect at least, the Americans are the superiors, for that is a point in which we seldom fail; and if they are remembered, to accept of just as much attention as shall be offered. In cases, in which those arbitrary distinctions are set up, that, by the nature of our inst.i.tutions cannot, either in similar or in any parallel cases, exist in America, and the party making the pretension is on neutral ground, _if the claim be in any manner pressed_, I would say that it became an American to resist it promptly; neither to go out of his way to meet it, nor to defer to it when it crosses his path. In really good society awkward cases of this nature are not very likely to occur; they are, however, more likely to occur as between our own people and the English, than between those of any other nation; for the latter, in mixed general a.s.sociations, have scarcely yet learned to look upon and treat us as the possessors of an independent country. It requires perfect self-possession, great tact, and some nerve, for an American, who is brought much in contact with the English on the continent of Europe, to avoid a querulous and ungentlemanlike disposition to raise objections on these points, and at the same time to maintain the position, and command the respect, with which he should never consent to dispense. From my own little experience, I should say we are better treated, and have less to overlook, in our intercourse with the higher than with the intermediate cla.s.ses of the English.
You will have very different accounts of these points, from some of our travellers. I only give you the results of my own observation, under the necessary limitations of my own opportunities. Still I must be permitted to say that too many of our people, in their habitual deference to England, mistake offensive condescension for civility. Of the two, I will confess I would rather encounter direct arrogance, than the a.s.sumption of a right to be affable. The first may at least be resisted.
Of all sorts of superiority, that of a condescending quality is the least palatable.
I believe Washington is the only place in America where it is permitted to send cards. In every other town, unless accompanied by an invitation, and even then the card is supposed to be left, it would be viewed as airs. It is even equivocal to leave a card in person, unless denied.
Nothing can be worse adapted to the wants of American society than this rigid conformity to facts. Without porters; with dwellings in which the kitchens and servants" halls are placed just as far from the street-doors as dimensions of the houses will allow; with large straggling towns that cover as much ground as the more populous capitals of Europe, and these towns not properly divided into quarters; with a society as ambitious of effect, in its way, as any I know; and with people more than usually occupied with business and the family cares,--one is expected to comply rigidly with the most formal rules of village propriety. It is easy to trace these usages to their source, provincial habits and rustic manners; but towns with three hundred thousand inhabitants ought to be free from both. Such rigid conditions cannot well be observed, and a consequence already to be traced is, that those forms of society which tend to refine it, and to render it more human and graceful, are neglected from sheer necessity. Carelessness in the points of a.s.sociation connected with sentiment (and all personal civilities and attention have this root) grows upon one like carelessness in dress, until an entire community may get to be as ungracious in deportment, as it is unattractive in attire.
The etiquette of visits, here, is reduced to a sort of science. A card is sent by a servant, and returned by a servant. It is polite to return it, next day, though three, I believe, is the lawful limits, and it is politer still to return it the day it is received. There is no affectation about sending the card, as it is not at all unusual to put E.P. _(en personne)_ on it, by way of expressing a greater degree of attention, even when the card is sent. When the call is really made in person, though the visitor does not ask to be admitted, it is also common to request the porter to say that the party was at the gate. All these niceties may seem absurd and supererogatory, but depend on it they have a direct and powerful agency in refining and polishing intercourse, just as begging a man"s pardon, when you tread on his toe, has an effect to humanize, though the parties know no offence was intended.
Circ.u.mstances once rendered it proper that I should leave a card for a Russian _diplomate_, an act that I took care he should know, indirectly, I went out of my way to do, as an acknowledgment for the civilities his countrymen showed to us Americans. My name was left at the gate of his hotel (it was not in Paris), as I was taking a morning ride. On returning home, after an absence of an hour, I found his card lying on my table. Instead, however, of its containing the usual official t.i.tles, it was simply Prince --. I was profoundly emerged in the study of this new feature in the forms of etiquette, when the friend, who had prepared the way for the visit, entered. I asked an explanation, and he told me that I had received a higher compliment than could be conveyed by a merely official card, this being a proffer of _personal_ attention. "You will get an invitation to dinner soon;" and, sure enough, one came before he had quitted the house. Now, here was a delicate and flattering attention paid, and one that I felt, without trouble to either party; one that the occupations of the _diplomate_ would scarcely permit him to pay, except in extraordinary cases, under rules more rigid.
There is no obligation on a stranger to make the first visit, certainly; but if he do not, he is not to be surprised if no one notices him. It is a matter of delicacy to obtrude on the privacy of such a person, it being presumed that he wishes to be retired. We have pa.s.sed some time in a village near Paris, which contains six or eight visitable families.
With one of these I had some acquaintance, and we exchanged civilities; but wishing to be undisturbed, I extended my visit no farther, and I never saw anything of the rest of my neighbours. They waited for me to make the advances.
A person in society, here, who is desirous of relieving himself, for a time, from the labour and care of maintaining the necessary intercourse, can easily do it, by leaving cards of P.P.O. It might be awkward to remain long in a place very publicly after such a step, but I ventured on it once, to extricate myself from engagements that interfered with more important pursuits, with entire success. I met several acquaintances in the street, after the cards were sent, and we even talked together, but I got no more visits or invitations. When ready _to return to town_, all I had to do was to leave cards again, and things went on as if nothing had happened. I parried one or two allusions to my absence, and had no further difficulty. The only awkward part of it was, that I accepted an invitation to dine _en famille_ with a literary friend, and one of the guests, of whom there were but three, happened to be a person whose invitation to dinner I had declined on account of quitting town! As he was a sensible man, I told him the simple fact, and we laughed at the _contretems_, and drank oar wine in peace.
The Americans who come abroad frequently complain of a want of hospitality in the public agents. There is a strong disposition in every man under inst.i.tutions like our own, to mistake himself for a part of the government, in matters with which he has no proper connexion, while too many totally overlook those interests which it is their duty to watch. In the first place, the people of the United Slates do not give salaries to their ministers of sufficient amount to authorize them to expect that any part of the money should be returned in the way of personal civilities. Fifty thousand francs a year is the usual sum named by the French, as the money necessary to maintain a genteel town establishment, with moderate evening entertainments, and an occasional dinner. This is three thousand francs more than the salary of the minister, out of which he is moreover expected to maintain his regular diplomatic intercourse. It is impossible for any one to do much in the way of personal civilities, on such an allowance.
There is, moreover, on the part of too many of our people, an apt.i.tude to betray a jealous sensitiveness on the subject of being presented at foreign courts. I have known some claim it _as a right_ when it is yielded to the minister himself as an act of grace. The receptions of a sovereign are merely his particular mode of receiving visits. No one will pretend that the President of the United States is obliged to give levees and dinners, nor is a king any more compelled to receive strangers, or even his own subjects, unless it suit his policy and his taste. His palace is his house, and he is the master of it, the same as any other man is master of his own abode. It is true, the public expects something of him, and his allowance is probably regulated by this expectation, but the interference does not go so far as to point out his company. Some kings pa.s.s years without holding a court at all; others receive every week. The public obligation to open his door, is no more than an obligation of expediency, of which he, and he only, can be the judge. This being the rule, not only propriety, but fair dealing requires that all who frequent a court should comply with the conditions that are understood to be implied in the permission. While there exists an exaggerated opinion, on the part of some of our people, on the subject of the fastidiousness of princes, as respects their a.s.sociates, there exists among others very confused notions on the other side of the question. A monarch usually cares very little about the quarterings and the n.o.bility of the person he receives, but he always wishes his court to be frequented by people of education, accomplishments, and breeding.
In Europe these qualities are confined to _castes_, and, beyond a question, as a general practice, every king would not only prefer, but, were there a necessity for it, he would command that his doors should be closed against all others, unless they came in a character different from that of courtiers. This object has, in effect, been obtained, by establishing a rule, that no one who has not been presented at his own court can claim to be presented at any foreign European court; thus leaving each sovereign to see that no one of his own subjects shall travel with this privilege who would be likely to prove an unpleasant guest to any other prince. But we have neither any prince nor any court, and the minister is left to decide for himself who is, and who is not, proper to be presented.
Let us suppose a case. A master and his servant make a simultaneous request to be presented to the King of France. Both are American citizens, and if _either_ has any political claim, beyond mere courtesy, to have his request attended to, _both_ have. The minister is left to decide for himself. He cannot so far abuse the courtesy that permits him to present his countrymen at all, as to present the domestic, and of course he declines doing it. In this case, perhaps, public opinion would sustain him, as, unluckily, the party of the domestics is small in America, the duties usually falling to the share of foreigners and blacks. But the principle may be carried upwards, until a point is attained where a minister might find it difficult to decide between that which his own sense of propriety should dictate, and that which others might be disposed to claim. All other ministers get rid of their responsibility by the acts of their own courts; but the minister of the republic is left exposed to the calumny, abuse, and misrepresentation of any disappointed individual, should he determine to do what is strictly right.