ARRIVAL IN PARIS AND ADIEU. THE YACHT ALICE.
“Our trusty friend, our true ally Through varied change and chance: So fill your flashing goblets high, I give you, vive la France.” —_Oliver Wendell Holmes._
I sailed from New York early in October, 1866, in the French line steamer _Ville de Paris_, Captain Surmont. Time about eleven days to Brest. Cloudy weather, and the last four or five days no observation, so one morning we found ourselves near the Scilly Islands, and from there steamed over to Brest, arriving in the afternoon. I had a room with Frank Burgess of Boston, whom I then knew but slightly, and, as we found that we liked each other and had the same objects in view at Paris, we went there and took rooms together at the Hotel de la Paix, since torn down for the Place du Nouvel Opera, corner Rue de la Paix and the Boulevard. The month I passed there until going to Russia was one of my liveliest and pleasantest in Paris.
The voyage across the ocean was the same old story so often and often described. There was the same queer medley of passengers as always, and they told the same stories they always do, and passed their time in the same old way. There was the knowing Yankee buyer, going on his hurried autumn business tour through Europe, who gave every one to understand that this was his forty-seventh voyage across the Atlantic, and that he knew pretty well how to take care of himself. He had been in nearly every steamship of every line between Europe and America, and gave advice freely as to their relative merits. He always could tell the exact position of the ship, in fog or shine, better than the Captain himself, and was most active in getting up, every day after lunch, pools on the ship’s run, after which he would rush about making his “book,” buying and selling tickets to increase his chances of winning.
Then there was the jolly _paterfamilias_, who had been passing the last four months at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, looking after his investments, and was now returning, to join his family who were living in Paris, and who would gladly welcome him and his full purse. He was always around, and very attentive to and a great favorite with the ladies, young and old.
There was the same group of Cubans smoking cigarettes and talking Spanish together with wild gesticulations, but keeping aloof from the other passengers. And, oh! the pretty French actress, returning for the winter season in Paris at the Folies Dramatiques or the Palais Royal, fresh from the applause and bouquets in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. She was dark, she was petite, she had arched eyebrows and the slightest touch of paint under her sparkling orbs. She never appeared on deck until near dinner time and then in a lovely toilette, as if she were just going to take a drive at the Bois. And how at the concert, organized a few nights before sighting the coast of _la belle_ France, she charmed all as she sang some of her opera bouffe songs.
Of course the precocious youth was aboard, going out for the fourth time to see the Coliseum, and what wonderful information he imparted to such listeners as he could get. When the wind was aft he assured you that the boat was making at least fifteen knots, and that we should arrive at Brest in time to take the eight o’clock train for Paris; then, again, when the wind was dead ahead he consoled you with the thought that it made the fires draw well, which was a good thing; but if it struck the boat on either beam he could conclusively prove that the sails being well filled the steamer was steady in her movements, which, after all, was better than rolling about too fast. If it chanced to rain he cheered the disconsolate passengers by stating that it would help beat down the waves and make the sea less rough! Every day, too, he seemed to think,—nor did he keep this sagacious thought to himself,—lightened the ship of so much coal, and then as for the advantages of fogs or icebergs, no possible question on the subject could puzzle him.
Pretty girls flitted here and there, or were spread out in their chairs and looked uncomfortable. “Swells” gloomily lounged around: enthusiastic young travellers were always on hand at everything which turned up in the ship’s management, especially the throwing the log and taking the observations, as if determined at the outset to lose none of their money’s worth of sight-seeing.
A clever lady from Washington was always posed in a corner of the saloon, a half read novel in hand, her _flacon_ and fan on either side, and she herself happy at any time, morning, afternoon or evening, to enter with you into a long conversation on any subject.
A French priest and a Western parson kept theology well argued as an appetizer for your meals, while in the smoking room the poker party was going on all through the voyage with scarcely an intermission.
The bluff old Captain was ever about with a pleasant smile and word for all, inspiring those of whom he was the ten-day autocrat, with a feeling of security by his own solid and comfortable appearance.
A system for passing the time on shipboard I found worked very well, and I am only too glad to recommend it to any who choose to try it for themselves.
Take your coffee about nine in bed in your state room propped up with numerous pillows, then go through the operation of being shaved if the offices of a Figaro are required, who may be one of the ship’s stewards. After this a couple of hours or so may be passed in reading, and for this a selection of a dozen books or so you may have had placed on the shelf over your couch, so that you can choose any one which happens to suit your mood, or, scratch off your thoughts on a block of paper, always to be carried on your travels, thus taking down rambling notes where-ever you go. Rising about half an hour before lunch time, you get up an appetite by sniffing the sea air and chatting with those who are about. Next comes lunch itself, an important item in the day, which with its subsequent cigar or pipe can be made to dispose of nearly two hours. Then approaches the toughest part of the twenty-four portions into which day and night are subdivided, the time between lunch and dinner. A hand at poker or _vingt-et-un_ helps it along, a conversation with some fair one in that favorite spot behind the wheelhouse is a powerful auxiliary, and, if nothing else turns up, a lazy novel or a siesta would annihilate the moments until the first bell ringing gives the welcome intimation that the time for toilette is at hand.
Dinner, with or without appetite it makes no difference for go through the form of remaining at table you must, would next take its regular place in the programme, and that and a cigar well over and digested, you are ready to sit down to your evening party of whist. Than this there is no better recreation for passing the hours after dark, and the selection of a good set of players at an early stage of the voyage is an important and not to be neglected duty. Is it not probable that the great Talleyrand, when he advised the young man to learn thoroughly this king of games at cards out of regard for his declining years, remembered with pleasure the hours he had thus passed in his journeys by water? So the evening goes along, the ladies retire, the lights are put out in the saloon, and the male portion of the community is free to take possession of the smoking room, there to sit well into the night and to recount story after story.
It was thus we existed the ten days of our passage, making pleasant acquaintances in that free offhand way which gives no binding claim for future continuance. You meet, you take each other for what you are worth, you separate, it may be to see each other again some time, it may be never, and intimacies under such circumstances are quickly formed, and as quickly forgotten.
Before we were well aware of it, so speedily the last days on the ocean flew by, all the passengers being well and overflowing with good spirits, the bright coast of France loomed up before our eyes in the distance, the green fields could almost be scented afar off, and there was bustle and activity in the _Ville de Paris_. Trunks were being brought up, and people who did not in the least care for each other were saying good by a dozen times.
Down goes the anchor with a plunge, the quai at Brest is swarming with officials and idlers, all chattering like mad, the tug boat sweeps up before the _douane_, we step ashore, and find ourselves in France.
GAY, GAY PARIS.
How the heart of the American beats with joy whenever he enters Paris, that queen city of cities, which he regards as almost a second home, feeling a genuine pride of possession in its beautiful monuments, its long avenues, its brilliant fêtes, and all its institutions of instruction and amusement. And cannot a probable reason why the American takes to it so much more than to any other foreign city,—why the asphalt of the boulevard is to him almost as dear as the flag-stones of Broadway,—be found in the fact of the _real democracy_ of the _social life_ in Paris and France? The government may be a despotism or a revolution: the annoyances of bureaucracy and red tape are nowhere greater than there; the petty details of business life amuse and vex you, but in spite of all, the social life of the people, whether natives or strangers, is as free as free can be, provided none of the laws of the land are broken. You come, you go, you do this or you do that, you can dine at one o’clock on beef and cabbage, or at seven on woodcock with truffles; you can live in a palace or a _cinquième_; you can go to the opera in evening dress or blouse; you can study medicine or you can study pleasure; you can drive in a four-in-hand or in a fiacre; you can do everything or nothing: whoever you are, or whatever your fortune may be, no one will interfere; your eccentricities will cause little remark, you will be unmolested, for all are too much occupied with themselves to pay much attention to others, and you may be certain that, do your best to astonish those about you, it will not be easy to offer them a new sensation.
I had been there before,—this was my third voyage across the Atlantic,—and had seen the guide-book sights of the city, and congratulated myself heartily upon the accomplishment, for it was off my mind and I would be spared from doing it now.
One is not likely to forget the sensations experienced during the long drive from the railroad station to the hotel when first arriving at Paris, especially if it be after dark, through the brilliantly lighted streets, across the great squares, full as they always are of the gayest hearted people in the world, with apparently nothing to do except treat life as a continual holiday, and I went through it again with the freshness of a first visit, as we were taken the distance which separates the _Gare de l’Ouest_ from the Grand Hotel, at which place we had decided to camp for the night, and leave hunting up some snug apartment until the morrow. The clock was just striking nine as the little omnibus came with a clatter and cracking of whip into the spacious court-yard, and after supper and a short stroll on the boulevard, I “turned in,” my imagination picturing in rose-colored dreams all we would do and see.
A LETTER TO MY MOTHER.
Paris, October 22, 1866.
Dear Mamma:
My last note must, I think, have been rather unsatisfactory, and I hasten to do amends with a longer one. The fact was that I arrived in Paris at the Hotel just about half an hour before the French mail for the Cunard steamer closed, and I had either to drop just one line to announce my safe arrival or nothing at all. The voyage over was, like all, very tedious, and we had pretty bad weather on the whole. Not knowing where we were at length we ran into a light on the English coast, and from there made our way down south to Brest, where I landed and ran right up to Paris. I like the steamer better than the Cunard, she is very fast, and is much more adapted to the comfort of a gentleman, especially as there is a cozy little smoking room where you could play whist in the evenings; also a barber’s shop, and the state rooms are better arranged. I came up to Paris with Frank Burgess and Maurice Le Ray (one of the Newport jockeys of the past summer, attaché to the French legation at Washington, who was a passenger on the steamer), and Burgess and I have taken some very nice rooms.
Yesterday morning Charlie Longfellow (Charles Appleton Longfellow, late lieutenant in the 1st Mass. Cavalry, wounded at Mt. Hope Church, Va., Nov. 27, 1863. He was the son of the poet Henry W. Longfellow, who married my half-sister Frances, so was my half-nephew, a year and some months younger than I), and Harry Stanfield tumbled in upon us, as they had that very night come over from London, and they gave us jolly accounts of the doings of the _Alice_ during the past summer. Brother Tom (Thomas Gold Appleton) and Arthur Clark (Captain of the _Alice_) sail for home the last of the month. Charlie likes the idea of going off to Saint Petersburg by and by, so as to get there in the height of the winter, which time they say is really the best to see the place, but he wants to stay here a while to brush up his French. So I think I shall be quartered in Paris for some little time, perhaps a month, and pitch right into the study of French, and then start off with him for the cold regions of Europe.
Tuesday: After writing thus much yesterday I went round to the bank (Bowles, Drevet & Cie at that time 24 Rue de la Paix) where I found your letter awaiting me, and I must say that considering you had only two or three days you have managed to pick up a vast amount of interesting items. The first Bostonian I met was Hollis Hunnewell. I have seen my classmates (at Harvard) (Charles C.) Jackson and (Frank L.) Higginson, and yesterday I called on the Harry Sargents. The weather is charming now, just right for driving about, and I hope it will continue so for a month, when we ought to expect the drizzly rains which will drive me off. There are so many from the “Hub” here now that Brother Tom’s last _bon mot_ is said to be “All Parisians are Bostonians.”
Au revoir.
Nate.
THE YACHT ALICE.
The sloop yacht _Alice_ was owned by Thomas Gold Appleton. She was about fifty feet in length and was built by Townsend at Portsmouth, R. I., in 1866. When last heard from she was a trader off the coast of Maine.
The _Alice_ left Nahant July 12, 1866, arrived at the Needles July 30th, and Cowes Roads July 31st. It was a remarkable trip and faster than that of any kind of vessel made across the Atlantic ocean with the then time allowance.
Captain Arthur H. Clark was in command, and she carried Charles A. Longfellow, the owner’s nephew, Harry Stanfield, a crew of three men and a Chinese steward. The owner, then fifty-four years old, crossed in the Cunarder _China_, and, joining the _Alice_ at Cowes, cruised off the French coast and the Channel islands, see _A Cruise of the Alice_ in _A Sheaf of Papers_, by T. G. Appleton, 1875.
One of the first business despatches sent by the cable across the Atlantic, the _Great Eastern_ having successfully landed the cable at Newfoundland on July 27, 1866, was the safe arrival of the _Alice_, by C. A. Longfellow.
The owner thus addresses the beautiful yacht in his collection of poems called _Faded Leaves_:
YACHT ALICE. ]
“Away! the cloven waves unite Behind in murmuring braids of snow, And seething whispers of delight, As through the glassy fields we go; And curtseying with a grace her own Her bows of beauty in reply, The white-winged creature moves alone, Swan-like between the wave and sky.
· · · · ·
Farewell, dear friend, my floating home; A menacing finger in the sky Bids us through summer seas to roam No more, and from harsh winters fly. Sleep! dreaming of the violet deep, And think of us and happy hours, While we through icy nights shall keep Thoughts of the sails that once were ours.”
CAPTAIN, PASSENGERS AND CREW OF THE ALICE. ]
The yacht wintered at Cowes and was brought back the next spring.
FROM BROTHER TOM IN LONDON.
Many thanks, my dear Naty, for your letter and the one enclosed. I would have been sorry to have missed it, as it is from an old friend, and in peculiar circumstances, and it would not have been well to have the letter go astray. And thanks for yours, too, though only announcing your arrival, and a sketch of your plans. You will do well to take Charlie and Harry if they will go, and in the winter Saint Petersburg must be fine, though after all not much beyond in cold splendor dear old Boston. I am reading a new book on Russia, by Henry Morley, and find much in it interesting. Today is so dark no one is up, and I am writing alone.... Who should be here but Townsend, my boat builder. He could not be quiet, hearing so much of the _Alice_. Tell Charlie he has gone to Cowes. Don’t you wish you loved yachting, and could have had the nice time we have had? It beats fancy wagons and top boots, I assure you.
Remember me to Charlie and Harry and bid them take care and be prudent and get into no scrapes.
Farewell and prosper, and do not leave your whiskers in the snows of Russia.
Yr. aff. brother, T. G. Appleton.
Charing X Hotel, 25th October.
To my mother I wrote again from Paris, October 26, 1866, Friday:—
I give you a short letter now which will make two for this week, enough certainly to satisfy the most rapacious of mothers! I have got pretty well settled into my life here now, of which one very important object is the study of French. I take a lesson every morning from a very good teacher, and go to a theatre most every evening, and I think I shall make rapid progress, in fact, as we ought to know a good deal before starting for Russia, it is advantageous to stay here a month and pitch into it. I have got quite a nice little French phaeton, with which I can rattle about the town, and drive up to the Bois in the afternoon, and the great difficulty is to find a decent horse to hire; my own at home being so very superior my taste has been quite ruined. I saw all the Imperial cortège out yesterday driving, but I think they all go to Compiègne soon, so that the season won’t begin here for some time.
General de Trobriand is here, and I handed him his commission, whereat he was in great doubt whether to go home or no. He wants to accept the commission of colonel of the 31st Infantry U. S. A. Let me know anything you would like to have me get you in Paris. I can easily find time to get it. Exchange is so different from when I was here before (On leave of absence on account of wound during the war.) that one can well be extravagant.
Nathan.
GENERAL DE TROBRIAND.
General de Trobriand, author of _Quatre ans de campagnes à l’armée du Potomac_ (_Four Years in the Army of the Potomac_) 1867, Paris, Bruxelles, (translated) whose full name is Philippe Regis Denis de Kerodem, Baron de Trobriand, was born near Tours, France, June 4, 1816. In the United States he was known as Philippe Regis de Trobriand. From 1849 to 1861, in New York, he was editorially connected with first the _Revue de Nouveau Monde_, of which he was publisher, and then the _Courrier des Etats Unis_, as associate editor. In August, 1861, he was placed in command of the 55th New York Regiment, U. S. V. of the Third Corps, promoted to Brigadier General in January, 1864, and from May to June of that year had charge of the defenses of New York City. He was brevetted Major General U. S. V. April 9, 1865, and was in command of a Division at Lee’s surrender. In 1867, he was made colonel in the Regular army and placed in command of the 31st Regt. U. S. Infantry, brevetted Brigadier General in the same year, commanding the district of Dakota, and in 1869, was transferred to the district of Montana and the colonelcy of the 13th U. S. Infantry. Later he was ordered to Green River.
I visited him at Camp Douglas, near Salt Lake City, in October, 1870, and had a good opportunity of observing western army life and the institution of Mormonism. The camp was prettily placed on the slope of a hill, with quarters comfortably arranged. Several of the officers had their wives with them which made quite a little society. I stayed in the General’s house and had a horse at my disposal whenever I wanted to take a ride, and so I explored some of the picturesque and grand scenery of the neighborhood with the snow capped mountains quite near. To go into the city we generally took the headquarters wagon and did the thing in style.
General de Trobriand was the father-in-law of my friend and classmate Albert Kintzing Post, so naturally our relations were most friendly, and I have often met him on both sides of the ocean. He was in New Orleans in 1875, during the reconstruction period, after he retired from service on account of age, having been stationed there for some years.
In 1885, during the Cotton Exposition I lunched with him at his house in New Orleans, and met him and some friends one day at the grounds, where we strolled about, and had a picnic repast under the trees. In 1887, at Paris I saw him again. It was in the summer, and at my suggestion he joined the “Franco-American,” known first as the “Washington,” Club, and he enjoyed dining there at the _table d’hôte_ with agreeable companions.
The General came on to Class Day at Harvard, to hear the poem delivered by his grandson Waldron Kintzing Post, the son of my old classmate, when he graduated in June, 1890, to attend the “spread” and other festivities, and then one evening we had a little family dinner at the Somerset Club. After passing a few days at the “Masconomo,” Manchester-by-the-Sea, with his daughter and her family, he went to the Reunion of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, at Portland, Maine, July 3d and 4th, where he was enthusiastically received by the comrades of his old Corps the Third, and elected vice president of the Society to represent the Third Corps, Army of the Potomac. At that meeting I was elected a vice president in behalf of the Fifth Corps, it being the custom to elect every year, in addition to the president, vice presidents and other officers of the society, a vice president from each army corps that was in the Army of the Potomac.
My last meeting with General de Trobriand was at the wedding of his grand daughter Lina Beatrice Post to Hamilton Fish Webster, at the Long Island summer home of the Posts. This was the autumn of 1891, and a pretty wedding it was in the little church, and a breakfast later under a large marquee. Of the grandparents of the young couple present at the wedding, besides General de Trobriand, there were Mrs. Armand de Macarty, grandmother of the bride, and the Hon. Hamilton Fish, grandfather of the groom.
General de Trobriand died at the home of his daughter in Bayport, Long Island, July 15, 1897.
TO MY MOTHER.
Hotel de la Paix, Paris, October 31, 1866.
My dear Mamma:
I have been calling on several of our good old Boston citizens, but have not found many of them at home. I went to the Louvre the other day, and found that lots of new galleries had been added, with all my friends of the French school put together, and I reveled in Watteau, Boucher, and Fragonard. I do not do much sight-seeing, and don’t care to, but tomorrow I am going out to Versailles with a party of ladies to finish up the chateau. This afternoon Charlie Longfellow goes with me driving in the Bois. Yesterday evening Charlie, Stanfield and Burgess and I went to the “Lyrique” and saw Faust very well put upon the stage. It was the first time I had ever seen or heard the opera, and I thought it very fine. Charlie and I shall start off for Russia probably in the course of a month, as we are not in any hurry and we are to find out about what will be the best season to be there and then hit it. Charlie is studying his French very industriously, and oddly enough he has tumbled into the very same rooms that Erny (His brother Ernest Longfellow.) had a year ago. I got a letter from brother Tom at London, a few days before he sailed. He seemed in good spirits over the triumphs of the _Alice_.
Friday Morn: Yesterday I had a very good though somewhat fatiguing day at Versailles, and I should have enjoyed the pictures very much if I could see them by degrees; but there are so many millions that one glance at them was all you could get. Some of those illustrating the wars of the present emperor in the Crimea, Italy and Algeria, are very fine. We had a young French “swell” to chaperon us, and of course saw all the best things, such as the private apartments of the Louis’ and Marie Antoinette. I visited with Charlie, on Wednesday, Jerome Napoleon’s Pompeiian villa, which is now a concert room and well repays a visit. I don’t think the Pompeiian magnates themselves had anything quite up to it. Charlie and H. Stanfield still keep up their yachting fever and go to Asniéres on the Seine quite near Paris, and sail in a small yacht which some French count whom they met at Dieppe, has placed at their disposition. The de Trobriands leave for Brest in a few days, to pass the winter there as the General wishes quiet to finish his book before rejoining the army.
LATER: RESOLVE IN FAVOR OF ST. PETERSBURG.
Here I am at my desk, having finished my French lessons, and having written a long business letter, to find something to put upon paper in reply to “No. 3.”
The Boulevard and the Rue de la Paix with the Grand Opera and the Grand Hotel are just opposite, and below in the streets there is a continual excitement of passing objects; vehicles and pedestrians, soldiers and beggars, but principally Americans. There is always so much going on all around, that our apartment is not, perhaps, the best adapted for the quiet pursuit of literature. You see I am still in Paris, and perhaps you wonder whether I mean to leave at all. Know then that Charlie and I have made a vigorous resolution to pack up and be off the 25th of this month, stopping at Brussels, Berlin, Königsberg on the Baltic, and Wilna, to Saint Petersburg, and then Moscow, thus seeing the real winter life of the Russians. I think it will be a plendid trip. From Moscow we may go to Odessa, etc., but this is very doubtful, and we shall probably return viâ Warsaw to Dresden, where we separate—I for Vienna, and he back to Paris.
RUE DE LA PAIX À PARIS ]
A REVIEW BY NAPOLEON III.
Thursday Eve: A few days ago, Charlie Jackson drove out with me to Longchamps, where the Emperor had quite a large review of the troops around Paris. There were, perhaps, fifteen thousand troops there, and as it was the first thing of the kind I had seen in Europe, it was very interesting and imposing, and brought back something of the old military ardor. The Emperor and Prince were there, but Napoleon looked rather shakey. He is no longer young.
I saw Mr. T. B. Curtis for a few minutes yesterday and thought he was seeming quite well after his sickness. He told me particularly to “go it, while” I was “young,” adding that he “had had his time.” His advice is certainty good. At the American chapel last Sunday were crowds and crowds of people, but very, very few whom I recognized. The same day Robert H. Stevenson and I went to the last races of the season, and saw a very fair steeple chase, but as it was some ways out of Paris there were not many there.
A LETTER FROM MY MOTHER.
My mother in Boston wrote me in Paris, Nov. 11, 1866,—... “And Charlie Longfellow is in Paris! All that is left in Boston will soon find its way there. I had a very pleasant visit from your brother Tom last evening, telling me of the _Alice_, and of all his doings. Ristori (tragedienne) has reigned supreme here for two weeks, and everybody has cried to their satisfaction. I did not dare to see her for I felt that I should not sleep for a month after it.”
ADELAIDE RISTORI.
I first saw Adelaide Ristori, mentioned in my mother’s letter, at the theatre at Havana, in Medea, when I was there in February, 1868, and I met her and her daughter Bianca at a reception given at the hotel. Later, in the summer of 1884, at Paris, I was taken to her apartment by Mr. Henry F. Gillig, president of the American Exchange in Europe, and saw her and her husband the Marquis Giuliano Capranica del Grillo, just as they were preparing to leave the city for their trip to America. I remember that the rooms were encumbered with their baggage, which was in every stage of packing for their departure. The following winter 1884–5, when I was living at the Vendome Hotel, Boston, I called upon them at the Tremont House, and introduced to them Mr. C. C. Perkins, one of our citizens most prominent in music, art, literature, etc., who was very desirous of meeting the great tragedienne. He chatted with her in her native language, as he had long resided in Italy, and had written several books when there.
LA DIVA, CAFÉ NAPOLITAINE. TO MY MOTHER FROM PARIS, NOV. 15, 1866.
Charlie dropped in yesterday just before dinner, and we decided to start on the 24th, 25th, or 26th, for Brussels, and then have a look at Waterloo; thence to Berlin to buy fur coats, and so to Russia. Went to the Italian opera last night and heard “Crispino e la Camare” (“The Cobbler and the Fairy.”) sung by dear little Patti. She has improved much since I saw her two or three years ago in America, and quite captivated me. I should make her acquaintance if I was to remain long, as she prides herself on being American, and goes to Mrs. John Bigelow’s soirées. At the Café Napolitaine later a crowd of Boston men tumbled in. It is our favorite resort for smoking our nocturnal cigar,—George Weld, Ned Johnson, Bob Stevenson, and others. The great talk is the winter ocean race between three of the New York Club yachts, the _Henrietta_ (owned by James Gordon Bennett, Jr.), _Fleetwing_, and _Vesta_. (The _Henrietta_ with her owner on board won the race.) In that case the _Alice_ will have to be put afloat again. Well, adieu for a week, and then my last from Paris.
Nathan.
Adelina Patti, now (1904) Baroness Cederstrom, was in Boston in 1885, and I happened to be introduced to her early in that year when I was living at the Vendome. She was with her second husband, Nicolini.
THE NEW YORK YACHT CLUB.
May 17, 1866, I was notified that at a meeting held that day I was admitted a member of the New York Yacht Club. The yacht _Henrietta_, owned by James Gordon Bennett Jr., belonged to the squadron. Bennett’s colors were a blue diamond and a red crescent on white ribbons.
I once had the pleasure of calling upon Mr. James Gordon Bennett Senior. It was one Sunday morning, in the spring of 1872, when I was on a visit to America. I was strolling up Fifth Avenue with Mr. Leonard W. Jerome. As we came to Mr. Bennett’s house on the corner of 38th street, he proposed that we should go in and pay a visit to the old gentleman, who was then very infirm and evidently destined not long to live. I was delighted at the opportunity of seeing him, for although I had stayed with his son at their fine place at Washington Heights, and often dined at the city mansion, I had never been able to be introduced to the father, as he was quite unwell, and generally confined to his room.
We were shown up stairs to a small study, where Mr. Bennett was seated in a comfortable easy chair, in a loose dressing gown, with a quantity of the daily newspapers lying around him. We sat there conversing with him some time, and I remember his speaking of the proposed plan of rapid transit for New York, and how he had, years before, advocated the idea in his paper, the New York _Herald_. He spoke very strongly of the future growth of the city. It was only a few months after I saw him that he died.
THE FOUR-IN-HAND CLUB.
Near Mr. Bennett’s place at Washington Heights and the Hudson River the Four-in Hand Club had a house for several years. I remember driving there for a ball the autumn of 1870, with Colonel William Jay and a party of ladies, and then returning through some of the unfinished roads, nearly upsetting on the way. The Club was started, as far as I can remember in 1866. I was elected a member January 20th of that year; the idea of membership being any one who had a “four-in-hand,” “spike,” or “unicorn,”—three horses, two in the pole and one on the lead,—“tandem,” i. e. something different from the ordinary single horse or pair hitch. I had a tandem at the time. The president was George Griswold Gray, whom I had known at Newport. The Club came to an end, but I cannot say what year. The Coaching or Four-in-Hand Club of New York has taken its place.
JAMES GORDON BENNETT, JR.
My first recollection of meeting Mr. James Gordon Bennett Jr., was on the deck of his yacht _Henrietta_, at the spring meeting of the New York Yacht Club, June 19, 1866.
I had been the guest, on his yacht, of Commodore McVickar (W. H. McVickar, one of the incorporators of the New York Yacht Club and its commodore in 1866. He died in New York, Nov. 25, 1896, aged 78.) when Mr. William C. Otis was fleet captain, and some time during the afternoon we paid a call upon the young captain of the _Henrietta_. This was in the harbor of New York, and a very pretty scene it was. Later on, i. e. during the summer of 1870, on my return from Europe, where I had often seen Mr. Bennett in Paris at the Washington Club, he invited me to join a party on his new yacht the _Dauntless_ at New London, and make the cruise from there to Newport, which I did.
We were a jolly party,—Lawrence Jerome, Harry Stanfield, A. W. Knapp and others. With reference to James Gordon Bennett Jr., in a letter from Newport to the Boston _Globe_ in August 1876, I remarked:—“Newport certainly owes a great deal this year to the enterprise of Mr. James Gordon Bennett, in introducing the games of polo and la crosse, for the afternoon reunions at the polo grounds have become one of the most delightful features of the life here this summer, and Mr. Bennett has proved himself to be as much at home astride of his pony, as he was not many years ago on the deck of his yacht, when he gallantly offered his services to the government during the civil war, (He was with the blockading fleet in his yacht from 1861 to 1865.) or when he pluckily scudded across the Atlantic in mid-winter for the great ocean race.”
In 1881 and 1882, I remember dining at his house, the old Brooks greystone mansion on Bellevue Avenue, Newport, where he entertained with generous hospitality, as also, at his New York home, Fifth Avenue corner of 38th street. He had a fine, old fashioned family butler, who seemed to take delight in looking after the comfort of his friends and guests. The last time I was in the New York house was at lunch with the Austin Corbins, who had then rented and afterwards purchased it. This was in 1886. Austin Corbin, financier and philanthropist was killed by being thrown from his carriage at his country place at Newport, N. H., in June, 1896, aged 69.
In Paris too, I would occasionally meet Mr. Bennett, and he generally made some enquiry about the Panama Canal.
POLO AND HORSE-RACING.
What I have seen both of polo and horse-racing has made me consider them both, if not actually cruel sports for horses, at least those in which a great deal of unnecessary hard treatment is inflicted upon the poor animals who try to do their best. In polo they seem to be jerked about indiscriminately, and whacked over the head and body by the polo mallets. In running races the use of the whip and spur is often an abomination. I have seen a horse straining his utmost and at the same time receiving the cruel blows of the whip in a way which might naturally discourage him from making his best efforts, but which in addition to this, by cramping his nerves and muscles, must actually keep him back instead of leading him on. Often, too, this is done to some horse so far behind that he can have no chance of winning the race. I believe horses are frequently demoralized and even made vicious from the senseless and inhuman treatment they receive. To get the best out of a horse you have only to encourage, not discourage him. He understands more than we give him credit for.
My only experience as the owner of a race horse was during the spring of 1866, when I had bought a very pretty and graceful little animal, which had the name of “Carolina Filly.” She had been secured after the war by General Joseph J. Bartlett, who sold her to Mr. George W. Weld, from whom I bought her. She ran under my colors, blue and silver, once at Clyde Park, now the Country Club, but was not victorious.
RACES ON THE NEWPORT BEACH.
At 4.30 p. m. on the 30th of August, 1866, there was a flat race and steeple chase at Newport, at which 13 horses were entered, and an account of which appeared in the local press, as follows:—
GENTLEMEN RIDERS OF THE NEWPORT RACE ]
Newport has really had another sensation, in fact has been convulsed to its “head” centre. (Allusion to Fenianism then very rampant.) Yes, the old town has been startled by the spectacle of no less a modern invention than a hurdle race!
“Is Saratoga to do all the racing?” muttered the Newport Jockey Club, “Are there not greener laurels to be gathered in other fields? We have no track it is true, yet we can make tracks. Our horses have not received a university education, but what of that? _We_ have. We will show them how to surmount difficulties. We will be our own jockeys, and risk our own gentlemanly lives. It shall be neck or nothing.”
So it was settled there should be a race, and for the past week Fashion has talked itself eloquent over the matter of hurdles. On Thursday the excitement culminated when Easton’s Beach, where Channing once drew inspiration, and where since, the lesser mortals have “drawn their slow length along” in the moist costume of the sea, found itself transformed into a race course, and its classic sands desecrated by the presence of hurdles!
One great charm of the affair was to be its selectness. Only you and I and our dear five hundred friends were to know anything about it. It was to be a _bonne bouche_ for our private eating. Yet, strange to say, five hundred people never can keep a secret, and the little family party turned out to be the largest concourse of bipeds and quadrupeds that Newport has seen for many a day. Fashion glittered and shone, respectable elderly parties fairly thrilled with excitement. Newport rich and Newport poor, stood side by side in every species of vehicle, from barouche to butcher’s wagon. (There were about 7000 spectators and 500 carriages.) The way in which most of the horses shied around the hurdles, bolted and did everything but go over them, was delectable. Yet, let not the Jockey Club be disparaged. Considering the circumstances its gallant members covered themselves with glory,—a few of them were additionally covered with something of a more clinging nature. One daring rider (Nathan Appleton) landed on his head, another (Prince Ourousoff) mingled himself with the sands of the sea, but all lived to tell the short but moving tale, and the winner (Baron de Mesnil of Belgium) lived to receive a silver cup from the hands of the lady (Mrs. Paran Stevens) who had been most actively interested in the day’s sport. Thus does beauty reward the brave. In honor of the _fait accompli_ the Jockey Club will give a fête the beginning of next week. (Captain Harry Russell of Narragansett Avenue was declared winner of the second race, which was a steeple chase, the first one having been over a flat course of beach.) Pursuant to this announcement cards were issued by the Gentlemen Riders of the Newport Race, inviting their friends to the Jockeys’ Ball on Monday, September 3d, 1866, at the Academy of Music.
TEN YEARS LATER. A RETROSPECT.
Speaking of horse races in a letter from Newport to the Boston _Globe_, under date of August 26, 1876, I called to mind the events of ten years previous:—
“We have only to look up the records of ten years ago, and we will find that then at least, perhaps even long before, they had taken place. Ah! It was a brilliant season, that of 1866. We were a jolly crowd, representing the _jeunesse dorée_ of many nations. There was a young Russian Prince, several Frenchmen,—one representative of the old _noblesse_ and another of the Napoleonic regime,—a sturdy Belgian, and plenty of Americans, some fresh from the excitement of the war a year before. And we had races on the beach when many were the mishaps that befell the riders. One of them, needless to say who, had a hard-mouthed horse which he could not control, and so, near the finish, rushing up among the assembled crowd of carriages he distinguished himself by leaping clear over a pony-phaeton, in which were two young ladies, and then depositing himself half-stunned in the sand. The account of this may be found in the old files of the Newport _News_ but a better souvenir of it still remains for those who took part, in the shape of a colored print now in the Country Club in Brookline, which was published by one of the riders, an Irish nobleman, Viscount Southwell, from his own sketch, in which he gives a fanciful representation of the great race for a cup presented by Mrs. Paran Stevens, the lady who then, as now (1876) presided so graciously over many of Newport’s hospitalities and festivities, and whose charming villa could tell many a tale of ‘vanished summer glory.’”
THE RACE AT NEWPORT.
The colored print of the race in the Country Club, by Viscount Southwell, represents the race as if it was on the turf instead of the sands of the beach, as was actually the case, but this was to make it more natural, as it was the only kind of race to which he was accustomed. In fact racing on the beach was a new departure, and I have heard it stated that this was the first one with “gentlemen riders” which had ever occurred, in the Northern States at least. He brought in on the slope of the hill leading down to the beach, the coach and four-in-hand of Hon. August Belmont, who had at that time the most correct equipages to be found in our country. Mr. Belmont in those days drove occasionally “en daumont,” i.e. four horses attached to an open barouche with _postillons_ dressed for summer in jackets, top boots and tall white hats, as you see them in Europe.
Mr. G. G. Gray would at times bring out his open break with five horses, three at the wheel, then two, and one on the lead, a very fanciful and effective rig. I must not forget that at the Country Club there is also a satin programme of the race, with the names of the horses, their owners and riders, contributed by some other person. It makes the affair complete, and it is a valuable relic of those old days of gayety.
In the summer of 1882, Mr. Ely Goddard had some marvellous turnouts. He had a fancy for horses of bay and white, like those you see in the circus, and often call “wishing horses,” and managed to drive them four-in-hand, unicorn, three abreast, tandem, a pair, or even one alone. It was really remarkable how he could find so many of these variegated animals to serve his purpose.
THE WASHINGTON CLUB.
As far as I can remember, the Washington Club in Paris, to which I refer in my recollections of James Gordon Bennett Jr., was started in the winter of 1868 and ’69, the idea being to have it a purely American club, on the same principles as those in the United States. I was not one of the incorporators, but joined it shortly after it was organized, and May 8, 1869, was elected one of the board of direction.
I hardly know what to say of the Washington Club, so many souvenirs does it now recall. Mr. Willett, always known as “Bronnie” Willett, was the first secretary, and I succeeded him in the first year, 1869, and continued until 1872. Mr. W. Pembroke Fetridge and I were the two most active persons in bringing Americans there, and having them join as temporary or permanent members.
While I held the position of secretary I kept the records very carefully, and one of the notes regarding membership I have now in my scrapbook from the pen of Mr. A. J. Drexel, of the banking house of Drexel, Harjes & Co.:—
3 Rue Scribe, Paris. January 4, 1869
My dear Sir.
I am in receipt of the notification of my election to the “Washington Club.”
After authorizing Mr. Bowles to propose my name, upon reflecting that my stay here would be so short that it would be of no use to me to join, I concluded to ask him when I saw him again, not to do so, and therefore prefer declining to become a member, altho’ the Club has my hearty sympathy.
Wishing, however, that one of our firm should become a member, I beg of you to propose the name of our Mr. Eugene Winthrop in my place. Hoping this substitution will be satisfactory to you
I remain very truly yours, A. J. Drexel.
N. Appleton, Esq.
The first apartment the Washington Club occupied was a good suite of rooms, well adapted to its uses at that time, belonging to Dr. Thomas W. Evans in the Rue Auber, which he offered to the Club free of rent. They were, however, too high up, on the third floor, and not quite large enough, and during the summer of 1869, it was decided to take an apartment at the corner of the old Rue de la Paix, by the opening, or rather the beginning of the Avenue de l’Opera, diagonally across from the Grand Hotel, the first floor over the _entresol_.
When I returned from Egypt and the opening of the Suez Canal, I wrote my sister in Boston, December 19th, 1869, “We Americans have just got into our new club rooms on the corner of the Boulevard, what was formerly the Rue de la Paix (Now Place de l’Opera), and a new street cut through to the Bourse. It is the finest situation in Paris, and we are in a most prosperous state, and begin to wonder how we ever got on without a club before.”
It soon became popular in the American colony, and a rendezvous for the transient travellers.
Mr. Lorillard Spencer was the president, and Mr. J. F. Loubat the treasurer. I have preserved the receipt of my payment of 500 francs for membership. It is number 7, dated May 28, 1869, and signed by J. F. Loubat, who at the present time (1904) is le Duc de Loubat, a title he received from the Pope.
In New York, on September 28, 1873, he presented to me his book entitled “Narrative of the Mission to Russia in 1866, of the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. From the Journal and Notes of J. F. Loubat.”
Mr. Wm. Pembroke Fetridge, Mr. Alfred Lockwood, Mr. de la Chaise, Dr. “Tom” Pratt, Mr. Sheppard, Armand Voisin, the Lorillards, George and Louis, Elisha Riggs, John Garcia and Augustus Samanos, both Cubans, Lloyd Phœnix, James Gordon Bennett, and others, were active members of the Club. Indeed the membership included many noted and rich Americans, with the Minister, Consul General, and other officials of the U. S. Government, as honorary members.
At that time there was no restaurant, but reading and card rooms, a billiard table and bar, and plenty of American newspapers.
The rooms extended around the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens. When I returned to Paris about a week or ten days after the collapse of the Commune, in May, 1871, I was one of the first to look in upon the old club, and it was in many respects a scene of desolation.
The Versailles troops who came down the Rue Auber, found it right in their line of shooting, as they attacked the Communists, and many were the broken windows and glasses in the different rooms.
I picked up a lot of bullets, or found them in the walls, and, knowing how soon they would be lost or disappear, had them neatly arranged in a case under glass, to preserve them, an interesting relic of the Commune.
Several of us members of the club met there one afternoon, and were endeavoring in various ways to be reasonably gay under the circumstances, when one who was by his family partly related to France appeared, and thought it was all wrong for us to be so light-hearted in the day of France’s trouble. We said, on the contrary, that we thought we ought all to make the best of the situation, and so help retrieve the sadness of the past, and so we did.
The club still exists, and we old members have been given the privilege of life membership, so that we can avail ourselves of its rooms whenever we may happen to be in Paris. This adds much to the comfort of a sojourn there, as the table d’hôte breakfast at twelve, and dinner at seven, were as good as any to be had in Paris, while the view from the balcony is a perpetual delight.
I have often been there since, but the club name has been changed to that of “Le Cercle Franco-Américain,” so as to admit persons of various nationalities.
An interesting album of portraits of the prominent members, painted by Mr. Armand Dumaresq, was one of its attractions when I was there in 1887. Mine was very good, and under my name I had written “le Champion de Panama.”
The autumn of 1894, part of September, all of October, and part of November, I passed in Paris, to find out what the new Panama Canal Company proposed to do, and also to place the bronze marker of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution by the grave of Lafayette in Picpus Cemetery, Paris. While there I noticed the apartment of the Franco-American Club was closed, and was told how it happened to be so, but that the members could go to the “Cercle des Capucines” nearly opposite, on the other side of the boulevard of that name. I went there one afternoon, and sent up my card, and was cordially received by my old friend, William Pembroke Fetridge, Lynch, Davis, and others, and Fetridge invited me to dine with some of them which I did.
FROM MY MOTHER IN BOSTON, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1866.
“I have received this last week your nice letter of October 30. I read it to Longfellow, and he was pleased to hear so much of Charlie. He says, ‘Do caution the boys to guard their ears and noses in going to Russia. They are frozen before one is aware of it, and once thoroughly chilled you never recover from the effects.’
Monday evening: I have been to Cambridge again today. Your ‘Brother Henry’ (Longfellow) has seen a Russian gentleman who tells him November is too early in the season to go there.”
TO MY MOTHER FROM PARIS, NOVEMBER 21, 1866.
TROIKA. ]
This is my last from Paris for some time. I tear myself from the distractions and gayeties, from the Bois and the dance, to meet the frantic embrace of the Russian bear. I am quite crazy about the St. Petersburg trip, my anticipations are so high, and we long so to be off, and every night I fall asleep dreaming of driving troikas with three horses about the streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow, skating the American touch on the Neva, endless flirtations with Russian Princesses and Polish Countesses in the salons and boudoirs of St. Petersburg. All this, too, is a _terra incognita_, and our life is not all cut and dried for us, as in Rome or Paris. My plan is this,—to pass the winter just where it will be agreeable, St. P., Moscow, or Vienna, or perhaps a trip to Greece and Constantinople, with the Carnival in Venice, but _certainly_ return to Paris in April for the Exposition, and London for the season, and then to America early in the summer. However, if you want me to come, if you feel nervous or unwell, don’t hesitate a moment to write me, and I can easily and without regret turn about. On Saturday, at five, I leave Burgess alone, much to his regret, and Charlie and self go to Brussels, where we arrive just exactly in time for the “revelry by night,” a peep at Waterloo, if not too cold, and then on to Berlin to congratulate Bismarck on the state of Europe, through Poland to Russia, a journey of a few days only. You will be pleased to know that I have not yet lost your little package for Eliza Carnatz, and I doubt not that it will reach her in safety. On Friday I dine at the T. B. Curtis’s, and on Wednesday with Weld and a lot of men at “Philippe’s.” Have you ever heard about my horses, if they are well? I trust they will do the winter comfortably. Don’t you want me to bring you home a nice little French “Victoria” this summer, instead of the old family ark? (The old family carriage imported by my uncle Samuel Appleton and after his death, in 1853, taken by my father.) As to the Bois, I can safely say that if I had my Boston turnout here complete there would not be a prettier one in Paris.
Thursday: I am reading now with my French teacher, Théophile Gautier’s _Voyage en Russie_, and find it most entertaining and instructive, particularly as he gives a _couleur de rose_ account of the winter amusements.... I take up my pen for the third time to finish this, but you know there is never the least opportunity of doing anything in Paris, or even of finishing what is begun, and except my weekly letters to you I have scarcely written at all. My groom has just been amusing himself with packing up some of my traps, as I have one good sized trunk to leave in Paris full of summer clothes, which I don’t think I shall want, and odds and ends I have picked up here.
Received an invitation yesterday from the Bishop of Pennsylvania, to confer with him on matters of importance for the church in Paris.
ADIEU TO PARIS.
Today is dull and dreary out, but except for the Bois it makes little difference in P.
I leave my phaeton, etc., at the Bank. I am going to try to find William Hunt, the artist, today. Well, I close and take this to the mail. Adieu to Paris and _mes beaux jours—en route_!—Russia and the North! Love to all.
Nate.
WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT.
While he lived I regarded William M. Hunt as the first American artist, certainly in the line of portrait painting. I wanted for a long time to possess one of his pictures, and I would have liked to have had him paint my own portrait, but I never had the opportunity of doing so.
One day in 1866, just before he was to sail for Europe, I went to his studio, and after some talk with him, he said he would let me have the head of Lincoln, which he had painted as a study for the full length portrait now in Faneuil Hall, for eight hundred dollars, currency. I agreed to purchase it and the bargain was made. He told me that he wanted to take it with him to Paris, that he might exhibit it at the great Exhibition of 1867, and I was pleased at this, and readily acceded to it, as I thought the portrait would have an additional interest and value from having been there. It was understood that I should not pay for the picture until it was delivered to me, and a bill of sale was made out to this effect. I afterwards saw the portrait both at Mr. Hunt’s studio at Paris, and also in the American department of the Exhibition, where it attracted considerable attention, and I gave myself no concern as to when I should own it.
It so happened that the painting never came into my possession before my financial troubles in 1872, and after that, of course, I no longer thought of having it.
After his death by drowning (He was found dead in the water.) at Appledore, Isles of Shoals, N. H., Sept. 8, 1879, his widow, the late Mrs. Louisa D. Hunt, was very disinclined to part with it, and so I never pressed my claim. According to a provision in her will a large number of his paintings and charcoal drawings were sold at public auction and the Lincoln portrait was reserved at the sale in February, 1898, at the request of the Government. Mr. Hunt was a curious man, brilliant, full of eccentricities, and very fascinating in certain moods. His age was only fifty-five when he died.
Regarding the portrait I received the following note, dated May 5, 1866:—
My dear Appleton,
If you would like my portrait of President Lincoln you will please let me know or Mr. Jere. Abbott. My price for it is $800. I should like the privilege of taking it to England with me, and will return it to you in a few months in case you desire it.
Yours truly, Wm. M. Hunt, 16 Summer St.
In care of Abbott & Howard, Kilby St., Boston.
There was at the time I refer to, 1865–1866 (It was on the list at the sale.), a beautiful landscape of the Forest of Fontainebleau I ought to have bought, but did not. I once had in my collection of paintings one which had belonged to my brother, T. G. A., a small picture, with a church in the background, and in the foreground several sheaves of wheat, and peasants returning to their houses from the field, with the light of a setting sun. It had the touch and the glow of the master.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ]