Les Miserables, Wilbour Translation

THE year 1817 was that which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assumption not devoid of stateliness, styled the twentysecond year of his reign. It was the year when M. Bruguiere de Sorsum was famous. All the hair-dressers' shops, hoping for the return of powder and birds of Paradise, were bedizened with azure and fleurs-de-lis. It was the honest time when Count Lynch sat every Sunday as churchwarden on the official bench at Saint Germain des Pres, in the dress of a peer of France, with his red ribbon and long nose, and that majesty of profile peculiar to a man who has done a brilliant deed. The brilliant deed committed by M. Lynch was that, being mayor of Bordeaux on the i2th of March, 1814, he had surrendered the city a little too soon to the Duke of Angouleme. Hence his peerage. In 1817 it was the fashion to swallow up little boys from four to six years old in great morocco caps with ears, strongly resembling the chimney-pots of the Esquimaux. The French army was dressed in white after the Austrian style; regiments were called legions, and wore, instead of numbers, the names of the departments. Napoleon was at St Helena, and as England would not give him green cloth, had had his old coats turned. In 1817, Pellegrini sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier reigned; Odry was not yet in existence. Madame Saqui succeeded to Forioso. There were Prussians still in France. M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the fist and then the head of Pleignier, Carbonneau, and Tolleron. Prince Talleyrand, the grand chamberlain, and Abbe Louis, the designated minister of the finances, looked each other in the face, laughing like two augurs ; both had celebrated the mass of the Federation in the Champ-de-Mars on i4th of July, 1790; Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis had served him as deacon. In 1817, in the cross-walks of this same Champ-de-Mars, were seen huge wooden cylinders, painted blue, with traces of eagles and bees, that had lost their gilding, lying in the rain, and rotting in in the grass. These were the columns which, two years before, had supported the estrade of the emperor in the Champ-deMai. They were blackened here and there from the bivouacfires of the Austrians in barracks near the Gros-Caillou. Two or three of these columns had disappeared in the fires of these bivouacs, and had warmed the huge hands of the kaiserlics. The Champ-de-Mai was remarkable from the fact of having been held in the month of June, and on the Champ-de-Mars. In the year 1817, two things were popular Voltaire-Touquet and Chartist snuff-boxes. The latest Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother's head into the fountain of the Marche-aux-Fleurs. People were beginning to find fault with the minister of the navy for having no news of that fated frigate, La Meduse, which was to cover Chaumareix with shame, and Gericault with glory. Colonel Selves went to Egypt, there to become Soliman-Pacha. The palace of the Thermes, Rue de La Harpe, was turned into a cooper's shop. On the platform of the octagonal tower of the hotel de Cluny, the little board shed was still to be seen, which had served as observatory to Messier, the astronomer of the navy under Louis XVI. The Duchess of Duras read to three or four friends, in her boudoir, furnished in sky-blue satin, the manuscript of Ourika. The N's were erased from the Louvre. The bridge of Austerlitz abdicated its name, and became the bridge of the Jardin-du-Roi, an enigma which disguised at once the bridge of Austerlitz and the Jardin-des-Plantes. Louis XVIII., absently annotating Horace with his* finger-nail while thinking about heroes that had become emperors, and shoemakers that had become dauphins, had two cares, Napoleon and Mathurin Bruneau. The French Academy gave as a prize theme, The happiness which Study procures. M. Bellart was eloquent, officially. In his shadow was seen taking root the future Attorney-General, de Broe, promised to the sarcasms of Paul Louis Courier. There was a counterfeit Chauteaubriand called Marchangy, as there was to be later a counterfeit Marchangy called d'Arlincourt, Claire d'Albe and Malek Adel were masterpieces ; Madame Cottin was declared the first writer of the age. The Institute struck from its list the academician, Napoleon Bonaparte. A royal ordinance established a naval school at Angouleme, for the Duke of Angouleme being Grand Admiral, it was evident that the town of Angouleme had by right all the qualities of a seaport, without which the monarchical principle would have been assailed. The question whether the pictures, representing acrobats, which spiced the placards of Franconi, and drew together the blackguards of the streets, should be tolerated, was agitated in the cabinet councils. M. Paer, the author of L'Agnese, an honest man with square jaws and a wart on his cheek, directed the small, select concerts of the Marchioness de Sassenaye, Rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. All the young girls sang I'Ermite de Saint Avelle, words by Edmond Geraud. The Nain jaune was transformed into the Miroir. The Caf6 Lemblin stood out for the emperor in opposition to the Caf6 Valois, which was in favour of the Bourbons. A marriage had just been made up with a Sicilian princess for the Duke of Berry, who was already in reality regarded with suspicion by Louvel. Madame de Stael had been dead a year. Mademoiselle Mars was hissed by the body-guards. The great journals were all small. The form was limited, but the liberty was large. Lc Constitutionnel was constitutional; La Minerve called Chateaubriand, Chateaubriant. This excited great laughter among the citizens at the expense of the great writer.