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CHAPTER XI.

David.-Place de la Concorde.-L'Eglise de Madeleine.-Printshops. Notre Dame.- Museum or Palace of Arts. - Hall of Statues. Laocoon. - Belvidere Apollo. -Socrates.

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DURING my stay in Paris I visited the gallery of David. This celebrated artist has amassed a fortune of upwards of two hundred thousand pounds, and is permitted by his great patron, and friend Bonaparte, to occupy the corner wing of the old palace, from which every other man of genius and science, who was entitled to reside there, has been removed to other places, in order to make room for the reception of the grand National Library, which the first consul intends to have deposited there. His apartments are very magnificent, and furnished in that taste, which he has, by the influence of his fame, and his elegance of design, so widely, and successfully diffused. Whilst I was seated in his rooms, I could not help fancying myself a contemporary of the most tasteful times of Greece. Tunics and robes were carelessly but gracefully thrown over the antique chairs, which were surrounded by elegant statues, and ancient libraries, so disposed, as to perfect the classical illusion. I found David in his garden, putting in the back ground of a painting. He wore a dirty robe, and an old hat. His eyes are dark and penetrating, and beam with the lustre of genius. His collection of paintings and statues, and many of his own studies, afforded a perfect banquet.

He

CHAP.

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DAVID.

He was then occupied in drawing a fine portrait of Bonaparte. The presence of David covered the gratification with gloom. Before me, in the bosom of that art, which is said, with her divine associates, to soften the souls of men, I beheld the remorseless judge of his sovereign, the destroyer of his brethren in art, and the enthusiast and confidential friend of Robespierre. David's political life is too well known. During the late scenes of horror, he was asked by an acquaintance, how many heads had fallen upon the scaffold that day, to which he is said coolly to have replied, "only one hundred and twenty !! "The heads of twenty thousand more must fall before the

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great work of philosophy can be accomplished."

It is related of him, that during the reign of the Mountain, he carried his portfolio to the front of the scaffold, to catch the last emotions of expiring nature, from the victims of his revolutionary rage.

He directed and presided at the splendid funeral solemnities of Lepelletier, who was assassinated by Paris, in which his taste and intimate knowledge of the ceremonies of the ancients, on similar occasions, were eminently displayed.

Farewell, David! when years have rolled away, and time has mellowed the works of thy sublime pencil, mayst thou be remembered only as their creator; may thy fame repose herself upon the tableau of the dying Socrates, and the miraculous passage of the Alpine hero, may the ensanguined records of thy political frenzy, moulder away, and may science, who knew not blood till thou wert known, whose pure, and hallowed inspirations have made men happier, and better, till

thou

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thou wert born, implore for thee forgiveness, and whilst, with CRAF. rapture she points to the immortal images of thy divine genius, may she cover with an impenetrable pall, the pale, and shuddering, and bleeding victims of thy sanguinary soul !

The great abilities of this man, have alone enabled him to sur vive the revolution, which, strange to relate, has, throughout its ravages, preserved a veneration for science, and, in general, protected her distinguished followers. Bonaparte, who possesses great taste" that instinct superior to study, surer than reasoning,

and more rapid than reflection," entertains the greatest admiration for the genius of David, and always consults him in the arrangement of his paintings and statues. All the costumes of government have been designed by this artist.

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David is not without his adherents. He has many pupils, the sons of respectable, and some of them, of noble families residing in different parts of Europe. They are said to be much attached to him, and have formed themselves into a military corps, for the purpose of occasionally doing honour to him, and were lately on the point of revenging an insult which had been offered to his person, in a manner,, which, if perpetrated, would have required the interest of their master to have saved them from the scaffold.

But neither the gracious protection of consular favour, nor the splendour of unrivalled abilities, can restore their polluted possessor, to the affections and endearments of social intercourse. Humanity has drawn a sable circle round him. He leads the life of a proscribed exile, in the very centre of the gayest city in Europe. In the gloomy shade of unchosen

seclusion,

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PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.

CHAP. seclusion, he passes his ungladdened hours, in the hope of covering his guilt with his glory, and of presenting to posterity, by the energies of his unequalled genius, some atonement for the havoc, and ruin of that political hurricane, of which he directed the fury, and befriended the desolations, against every contemporary object that nature had endeared, and virtue consecrated.

After leaving the gallery of David, I visited la Place de la Concorde. This ill fated spot, from its spaciousness, and beauty of situation, has always been the theatre of the great fêtes of the nation, as well as the scene of its greatest calamities. When the nuptials of the late king and queen were celebrated, the magnificent fireworks, shows, and illumina, tions which followed, were here displayed. During the exhibition, a numerous banditti, from Normandy, broke in upon the vast assemblage of spectators owing to the confusion which followed, and the fall of some of the scaffolding, the supporters of which were sawed through by these wretches, the disorder became dreadful, and universal; many were crushed to death, and some hundreds of the people, whilst endeavouring to make their escape, were stabbed, and robbed. The king and queen, as a mark of their deep regret, ordered the dead to be entombed in the new burial ground of l'Eglise de Madeleine, then erecting at the entrance of the Boulevard des Italiens, in the neighbourhood of the palace, under the immediate inspection and patronage of the sovereign. This building was never finished, and still presents to the eye, a naked pile of lofty walls and columns. Alas! the gloomy auguries which

followed

L'EGLISE DE MADELEINE.

PRINT SHOPS.

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followed this fatal spectacle, were too truly realized. On that CHAP. spot perished the monarch and his queen, and the flower of the french nobility, and many of the virtuous and enlightened men of France, and in this cemetery, their unhonoured remains were thrown, amidst heaps of headless victims, into promiscuous graves of unslacked lime!

How inscrutable are the ways of destiny!

This spot, which, from its enchanting scenery, is calculated only to recal, or to inspire the most tender, and generous, and elegant sentiments, which has been the favoured resort of so many kings, and the scene of every gorgeous spectacle, was doomed to become the human shambles of the brave and good, and the Golgotha of the guillotine! In the centre, is an oblong square railing, which encloses the exact spot where formerly stood that instrument of death, which was voted permanent by its remorseless employers.

A temporary model in wood, of a lofty superb monument, two hundred feet high, intended to be erected in honour of Bonaparte and the battle of Marengo, was raised in this place, for his approval, but from policy or modesty, he declined this distinguished mark of public approbation. I was a little surprised to observe, in the windows of the principal print shops, prints exposed to sale, representing the late king, in his full robes of state, under which was written, Le Restaurateur de la liberté, (an equivoque, no doubt) and the parting interview between that unhappy sovereign and his queen and family in the temple, upon the morning of his execution.

This little circumstance will show the confidence which the

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