It is impossible to avoid frequently drawing a contrast between a fête at Versailles or an opera at Paris, in which all the pleasures and all the splendours of life are combined with the most exquisite art, and an Hôtel Dieu, where all that is painful, all that is loathsome, and even death itself, are accumulated in one mass of horror. Such is the composition of great cities! By an admirable policy, pleasures and luxury are rendered subservient to misery and pain. The theatres of Paris pay on an average the yearly sum of a hundred thousand crowns* to the hospital. It often happens in these charitable institutions that the inconveniencies counterbalance the advantages. One proof of the abuses attached to them is, that patients dread the very idea of being removed to them. The Hôtel Dieu, for example, was formerly very well situated, in the middle of the city, near the bishop's palace. The situation, now, is very bad; for the city is become overgrown; four or five patients are crowded into every bed, the victim of the scurvy communicates it to his neighbour, and in return receives from him the small-pox, and a pestilential atmosphere spreads incurable disease, and death, not only through the building destined to restore men to healthful life, but through a great part of the city which surrounds it. M. de Chamousset, one of the most valuable and active of citizens, has computed, from accurate authorities, that, in the Hôtel Dieu, a fourth part of the patients die, an eighth in the hospital of Charity, a ninth in the London hospitals, and a thirtieth in those of Versailles. In the great and celebrated hospital of Lyons, which has long been one of the best conducted in Europe, the average mortality has been found to be only one fifteenth. It has been often proposed to divide the Hôtel Dieu of Paris into smaller establishments, better situated, more airy, and salubrious, but money has been wanting to carry the plan into execution. Curtæ nescio quid semper abest rei. * 25,0002.-T. Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers, to be destroyed; but when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so. Yet the Hotel Dieu of Paris has a revenue amounting to more than a million, and every day increasing; and the Parisians have rivalled each other in their endowments of it.t * We cannot help remarking in this place, that Germain Brice, in his Description of Paris, speaking of some legacies bequeathed by the first president Bellievre to the hall of the Hôtel Dieu, named St. Charles, says, "every one ought to read the beautiful inscription, engraved in letters of gold on a grand marble tablet, and composed by Oliver Patru, one of the choicest spirits of his time, some of whose pleadings are extant, and in very high esteem." Whoever thou art that enterest this sacred place, thou wilt almost everywhere behold traces of the charity of the great Pomponne. The gold and silver tapestry and the exquisite furniture which formerly adorned his apartments, are now, by a happy metamorphose, made to minister to the necessities of the sick. That divine man, who was the ornament and delight of his age, even in his conflict with death, considered how he might relieve the afflicted. The blood of Bellievre was manifested in every action of his life. The glory of his embassies is full well known, &c. The useful Chamousset did better than Germain Brice, or than Oliver Patru, one of the choicest spirits of his time." He offered to undertake at his own expense, backed by a responsible company, the following contract; The administrators of the Hôtel Dieu estimated the cost of every patient, whether killed or cured, at fifty livres. M. Chamousset and the company offered to undertake the business, on receiving fifty livres on recovery only. The deaths were to be thrown out of the * About 40,0002.-T. + We retain this account of the Hôtel Dieu as curiously illustrative of the class of abuses which, without the greatest circumspection, creep into all establishments of the kind.-T. account, of which the expenses were to be borne by himself. The proposal was so very advantageous, that it was not accepted. It was feared that he would not be able to accomplish it. Every abuse attempted to be reformed is the patrimony of those who have more influence than the reformers.* M. A circumstance no less singular is, that the Hôtel Dieu alone has the privilege of selling meat in Lent, for its own advantage; and it loses money thereby. Chamousset proposed to enter into a contract by which the establishment would gain; his offer was rejected; and the butcher, who was thought to have suggested it to him, was dismissed.† Ainsi chez les humains, par un abus fatal, CHARLES IX. CHARLES IX. king of France, was (we are told) a good poet. It is quite certain that while he lived his verses were admired. Brantôme does not, indeed, tell us that this king was the best poet in Europe; but he assures us that " he made very genteel quatrains impromptu, without thinking (for he had seen several of them); and when it was wet or gloomy weather, or very hot, he would send for the poets into his cabinet, and pass his time there with them." * This, if not said, has doubtless been thought, even in Lincoln's-inn Hall. + In 1775, under the administration of M. Turgot, this ridiculous privilege of the Hôtel Dieu was abolished, and replaced by an impost on victuals brought into the city. Before this, the people of Paris were under the necessity of having unwholesome and very dear food during the whole time of Lent. Yet some have ventured to regret this ancient usage; not because they thought it useful, but because it was a monument of the power which the clergy had too long possessed over public order, and the abolition of the usage accelerated the downfal of that power. Had he always passed his time thus, and, above all, had he made good verses, we should not have had a St. Bartholomew: he would not have fired with a carbine through his window upon his own subjects, as if they had been a covey of partridges. Is it not impossible for a good poet to be a barbarian? I am per'suaded it is. These lines, addressed in his name to Ronsard, have been attributed to him : Sa lyre, qui ravit par de si doux accords, Te soumets les esprits dont je n'ai que les corps; Où le plus fier tyran ne peut avoir d'empire. The lyre's delightful softly-swelling lay These lines are good. But are they his? Are they not his preceptor's? Here are some of his royal imaginings, which are somewhat different : Il faut suivre ton roi qui t'aimes par sur tous These are worthy the author of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Cæsar's lines on Terence are written with rather more spirit and taste; they breathe Roman urbanity. In those of Francis I. and Charles IX. we find the barbarism of the Celts. Would to God that Charles IX. had written more verses, even though bad ones! For constant application to the polite arts softens the manners and dispels ferocity: Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros. Besides, the French language scarcely began to take any form until long after Charles IX. See such of Francis I.'s letters as have been preserved-" Tout est perdu sors l'honneur"- "All is lost save honour" was worthy of a chevalier. But the following is neither in the style of Cicero nor in that of Cæsar "Tout a fleure ynsi que je me volois mettre o lit est arrivé Laval qui m'a aporté la serteneté du lévement du siège." "All was going so well that, when I was going to bed, Laval arrived, and brought me the certainty of the siege being raised." We have letters from the hand of Louis XIII., which are no better written. It is not required of a king to write letters like Pliny, or verses like Virgil; but no one can be excused from expressing himself with propriety in his own tongue. Every prince that writes like a lady's maid has been ill educated. CHINA. SECTION I. WE have frequently observed elsewhere, how rash and injudicious it is to controvert with any nation, such as the Chinese, its authentic pretensions. There is no house in Europe, the antiquity of which is so well proved as that of the empire of China. Let us figure to ourselves a learned Maronite of Mount Athos questioning the nobility of the Morozini, the Tiepolo, and other ancient houses of Venice; of the princes of Germany, of the Montmorencys, the Chatillons, or the Talleyrands, of France, under the pretence that they are not mentioned in St. Thomas, or St. Bonaventure. We must impeach either his sense or his sincerity. Many of the learned of our northern climes have felt confounded at the antiquity claimed by the Chinese. The question, however, is not one of learning. Leaving all the Chinese literati, all the mandarins, all the emperors, to acknowledge Fohi as one of the first who gave laws to China, about two thousand five hundred years before our vulgar æra. Admit that there must be people before there are kings. Allow that a long period of time is necessary before a numerous people, having discovered the necessary arts of life, |