Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 - Patrick Fraser Tytler (good books to read in english txt) 📗

discussion, a Frenchman will suddenly stop, and, with a look of perhaps more solemn importance than he bestowed upon the subject of debate, will adjust the ruffle of his brother savant, adding some observation on the propriety of adorning the exterior as well as the interior of science. [48]"Leur badinage," says Montesquieu, "naturellement fait pour las toilettes, semble etre provenu a former le caractere general de la nation. On badine au conseil, on badine a la tête d'une armee, on badine avec un ambassadeur."

The vanity of the whole nation, it is well known, is without all bounds; and although this is most apparent, perhaps, and less unequivocally shewn in every point connected with military affairs, it is yet confined to no one subject in particular, but embraces all—in arts, science, manufactures; in every thing, indeed, upon which the spirit and genius of a nation can be exercised, it is not too much to say, that they believe themselves superior to every other nation or country. Nay, what is very extraordinary, so much have they been accustomed to hear themselves talk in this exaggerated style; so natural to them have now become those expressions of arrogant superiority, that vanity has, in its adoption into the French character, and in the effects which it there produces, almost changed its nature.

In other countries—in our own, for instance, a very vain man is an object of ridicule, and generally of distrust. In France he is neither; on the contrary, there appears throughout the kingdom a kind of general agreement, a species of silent understood compact amongst them, that every thing asserted by one Frenchman to another, provided it is done with sufficient confidence and coolness, however individually vain, or absolutely incredible, ought to be fully and implicitly believed. It is this excessive idea which the French instil into each other of their own superiority, joined to the extreme ignorance of the great body of the people, which composes that prominent feature in their national character—their credulity—and which has long rendered them the easiest of all nations to be imposed upon by political artifice, and the submissive dupes of those travelling quacks and ingenious charlatans, who in this country are more than commonly successful in ruining the health and impoverishing the pockets of their devoted patients. An instance of this occurs to me, which happened to myself when residing in the south of France.

At one of the great fairs where I was present, there appeared upon an elevated stage, an elderly and serious-looking gentleman, dressed in a complete suit of solemn black, with a little child kneeling at his feet. "Messieurs," said he to the multitude, and bowing with the most perfect confidence and self-possession—[49]"Messieurs, c'est impossible de tromper des gens instruits comme vous. Je vais absolument couper la tête a cet-enfant: Mais avant de commencer, il faut que je vous fasse voir que je ne suis pas un charlatan. Eh bien, en attendant et pour un espece d'exorde: Qui est entre vous qui à le mal au dent?" "Moi," exclaimed instantly a sturdy looking peasant, opening his jaws, and disclosing a row of grinders which might have defied a shark. "Monsieur, (said the doctor, inspecting his gums), it is but too true. The disorders attending these small but inestimable members, the teeth, are invariably to be traced to a species of worm, and this the most obstinate, as well as the most fatal species in the vermicular tribe, which contrives to conceal itself at the root of the affected member. Gentlemen, we have all our respective antipathies; and it is by means of these that the most fatal and unaccountable effects are produced upon us. Worms, gentlemen, have also their prevailing antipathies. To subdue the animal, we have only to become acquainted with its disposition. The worm, Sir, at the bottom of your tooth, is of that faculty or tribe which abhors copper. It is the vermis halcomisicus, or copper-hating worm. Upon placing this penknife in the solution contained in this bottle," (continued he, holding up a small phial, which contained a green-coloured liquid), "it is, you see, immediately changed into copper." The patient then, at the doctor's request, approached. A female assistant stood between him and the crowd, and in a few minutes the tooth was delivered of a worm, which, from its size, might certainly have given the toothache to the Dragon of Wantley,

"Who swallow'd the Mayor, asleep in his chair,
And pick'd his teeth with the mace."

The peasant declared he felt no more pain, and the crowd eagerly pressed forward, (with the exception, we may believe, of the coppersmiths amongst the audience), and purchased the bottles containing this invaluable prescription. Before I had left the party, I discovered that the doctor, previously to the performing another trick, had borrowed from the crowd a gold piece of twenty francs, two pieces of five francs, a silver watch, and several smaller articles, nor did it appear they had the slightest suspicion that the learned doctor might have changed these articles as well as the penknife; and that although there were copper-hating worms, there might exist other kinds of human vermin, which might not reckon silver among their antipathies. This characteristic vanity, and the excessive credulity of the people, were strikingly exhibited in another ludicrous adventure of the same kind, which happened to us when I was resident at Aix.

We were alarmed one morning by a loud flourish of trumpets, almost immediately under our windows. On looking out, we beheld a kind of triumphal car, preceded by six avant couriers, clothed in scarlet and gold, mounted on uncommon fine horses, and with trumpets in their hands. In the car was placed a complete band of musicians, and it was, after a little interval in the procession, followed by a superb open carriage, the outside front of which was entirely covered with rich crimson velvet and gold lace. The most singular feature about the carriage was its shape, for there projected from it in front, a kind of large magazine, (covered up also with a cloth of velvet,) which was in its dimensions larger than the carriage itself. In this open carriage sat a plain looking, dark, fat man, reclining in an attitude of the most perfect ease, and genteelly dressed. The whole cortege halted, in the course of Aix, almost immediately below our house. I joined the audience which had collected around it. Of course all was on the tiptoe of expectation. There was a joyful buzz of satisfaction through the crowd, and endless were the conjectures formed by our own party at the window. At length, after a flourish of trumpets, the gentleman rose, and uncovering the large magazine, showed that it contained an almost endless assemblage of bottles, from the greatest to the smallest dimensions. He then, advancing gravely, addressed himself to the audience in these words: [50]"Messieurs, dans l'univers il n'ya qu'un soleil; dans le royaume de France il n'ya qu'un Roi; dans la medicine il n'ya que Charini." With this he placed his hand on his heart, bowed, and drew himself up with a look of the most glorious complacency. This exordium was received with the most rapturous applause by the crowd, who, from having often seen him in his progress through the kingdom, had known before that this was Charini himself, the celebrated itinerant worm doctor. "Gentlemen," he then proceeded, "it has been the noble object of my life to investigate the origin and causes of disease, and fortunate is it for the world that it has been so. Attend, then, to my discoveries: Worms are at the bottom of all disease,—they are the insidious, but prolific authors of human misery; they are born in the cradle with the infant; they descend into the grave with the aged. They begin, gentlemen, with life, but they do not cease with death. Behold, gentlemen," he continued, "the living and infallible proofs of my assertions," (pointing to the long rows of crystal bottles, filled with multitudes of every kind of these vermin, of the most odious figures, which were marshalled in horrible array on each side of him), "these, gentlemen, are the worms which have been, by my art, extracted from my patients; many of them are, as you see, invisible to the naked eye;" upon which he held up a small phial of pure water. "Not a single disease is there, and not a single part of the human body which has not its appropriate and peculiar worm. There are those whose habitation is in the head;—there are those which dwell only in the soles of the feet;—there are those whose favourite haunts are in the seat of digestion;—there are those (happy worms) which will consent to dwell only in the bosoms of the fair. Even love," said he, assuming an air of most complacent softness, and casting his eye tenderly over the female part of his audience, "even love is not an exception; it is occasioned by the subtlest species of worms; which insinuate themselves into the roots of the heart, and play in peristaltic gambols round the seat of our affections. Painters, gentlemen, have distinguished the God of Love by the doves with which he is accompanied. He ought, more correctly, to have been depicted riding upon that worm, to which he owes his triumphs. Behold," said he, holding up a phial in which there was enclosed a worm of a light colour, "behold the fatal love-worm, from which I have lately had the happiness to deliver an interesting female of Marseilles!" The crowd were enchanted, purchased his bottles in abundance; and I heard afterwards in Aix, that by this ingenious juggling, he had contrived to amass a fortune sufficient to purchase a large estate, and to maintain, as we had witnessed, a cavalcade worthy of an ambassador.

It is difficult to conceive any thing more ridiculous than the characteristic vanity and scientific expressions, which are employed by the French workmen. The wig-makers, tailors, barbers, all consider their several trades as in some measure allied to science, and themselves as the only beings who understand it.—This they generally contrive to communicate to you with an air of mysterious importance. "Monsieur," said a French barber to a friend of mine, an English sea captain who came in to be shaved; "you are an Englishman—sorry am I to inform you, but I do it with profound respect, that the science of shaving is altogether misunderstood in England. In their ignorance of its principles, they have neglected the great secret of our art. Sir," said he, coming closer up to him, and putting his hand to his own chin with an air of solemn communication, "I am credibly informed that in England they actually cut off the epiderme. Now, mon Dieu," continued he, turning up his eyes, and raising his soap-brush in an attitude of invocation, "who is there in France that will be ignorant that, in the destruction of this invaluable cuticle, the chin of the individual is tortured, and the first principles of our art degraded!"

I have already hinted at the ignorance of the French, as a component part of their national credulity. This ignorance, as far as our opportunities of observation extended, in travelling across France, appeared to be deep and general; not only amongst the lower orders, but, on many subjects, pervading also the higher classes of the people. The only subjects upon which Napoleon considered that any thing like attempts at a national education should be made, were those connected with military affairs; mathematics, and the principles of mechanical philosophy.—Schools for these were generally founded in all the principal towns in the kingdom; it was there the younger officers of the army received their military education, and there were many public seminaries for public education, in addition to the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, where the pupils were maintained and educated at