A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to SwitzerlandCooper, James Fenimore
History
A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland
Cooper, James Fenimore
France -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel; Switzerland -- Description and travel
On quitting the Hôtel de l'Etat Major, after being dismissed so
unceremoniously from the command of the National Guard, Lafayette
returned to his own neat but simple lodgings in the Rue d'Anjou. The
hotel, itself, is one of some pretensions, but his apartments, though
quite sufficient for a single person, are not among the best it
contains, lying on the street, which is rarely or never the case with
the principal rooms. The passage to them communicates with the great
staircase, and the door is one of those simple, retired entrances that,
in Paris, so frequently open on the abodes of some of the most
illustrious men of the age. Here have I seen princes, marshals, and
dignitaries of all degrees, ringing for admission, no one appearing to
think of aught but the great man within. These things are permitted
here, where the mind gets accustomed to weigh in the balance all the
different claims to distinction; but it would scarcely do in a country,
in which the pursuit of money is the sole and engrossing concern of
life; a show of expenditure becoming necessary to maintain it.
The apartments of Lafayette consist of a large ante-chamber, two salons,
and an inner room, where he usually sits and writes, and in which, of
late, he has had his bed. These rooms are _en suite_, and communicate,
laterally, with one or two more, and the offices. His sole attendants in
town, are the German valet, named Bastien, who accompanied him in his
last visit to America, the footman who attends him with the carriage,
and the coachman (there may be a cook, but I never saw a female in the
apartments). Neither wears a livery, although all his appointments,
carriages, horses, and furniture, are those of a gentleman. One thing
has struck me as a little singular. Notwithstanding his strong
attachment to America and to her usages, Lafayette, while the practice
is getting to be common in Paris, has not adopted the use of carpets. I
do not remember to have seen one, at La Grange, or in town.
When I show myself at the door, Bastien, who usually acts as porter, and
who has become quite a diplomatist in these matters, makes a sign of
assent, and intimates that the General is at dinner. Of late, he
commonly dispenses with the ceremony of letting it be known who has
come, but I am at once ushered into the bed-room. Here I find Lafayette
seated at a table, just large enough to contain one cover and a single
dish; or a table, in other words, so small as to be covered with a
napkin. His little white lap-dog is his only companion. As it is always
understood that I have dined, no ceremony is used, but I take a seat at
the chimney corner, while he goes on with his dinner. His meals are
quite frugal, though good; a _poulet rôti_ invariably making one dish.
There are two or three removes, a dish at a time, and the dinner usually
concludes with some preserves or dried fruits, especially dates, of
which he is extremely fond. I generally come in for one or two of the
latter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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