Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)Trollope, Frances Milton
History
Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)
Trollope, Frances Milton
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
There is one branch of the "gay science," if I may so call it, which I
always expect to find in France, but respecting which I have hitherto
been always disappointed: this is in the humble class of itinerant
musicians. In Germany they abound; and it not seldom happens that
their strains arrest the feet and enchant the ear of the most
fastidious. But whenever, in France, I have encountered an ambulant
troubadour, I confess I have felt no inclination to linger on my way
to listen to him. I do not, however, mean to claim much honour for
ourselves on the score of our travelling minstrels. If we fail to
pause in listening to those of France, we seldom fail to run whenever
our ears are overtaken by our own. Yet still we give strong proof of
our love of music, in the more than ordinary strains which may be
occasionally heard before every coffee-house in London, when the noise
and racket of the morning has given place to the hours of enjoyment. I
have heard that the bands of wind instruments which nightly parade
through the streets of London receive donations which, taken on an
average throughout the year, would be sufficient to support a theatre.
This can only proceed from a genuine propensity to being "moved by
concord of sweet sounds;" for no fashion, as is the case at our costly
operas, leads to it. On the contrary, it is most decidedly mauvais ton
to be caught listening to this unexclusive harmony; yet it is
encouraged in a degree that clearly indicates the popular feeling.
Have I then proved to your satisfaction, as completely as I
undoubtedly have to my own, that if without a national music, at least
we are not without a national taste for it?
LETTER LVI.
The Abbé Deguerry.--His eloquence.--Excursion across the
water.--Library of Ste. Geneviève.--Copy-book of the
Dauphin.--St. Etienne du Mont.--Pantheon.
The finest sermon I have heard since I have been in Paris--and, I am
almost inclined to think, the finest I ever heard anywhere--was
preached yesterday by the Abbé Deguerry at St. Roch. It was a
discourse calculated to benefit all Christian souls of every sect and
denomination whatever--had no shade of doctrinal allusion in it of any
kind, and was just such a sermon as one could wish every soi-disant
infidel might be forced to listen to while the eyes of a Christian
congregation were fixed upon him. It would do one good to see such a
being cower and shrink, in the midst of his impotent and petulant
arrogance, to feel how a "plain word could put him down."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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