The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris Read Online Free PDF
Author: David McCullough
Tags: Americans, History, France, Biography, Paris, Paris (France), Physicians, 19th century, Authors; American, Artists, Intellectuals - France - Paris - History - 19th Century, Artists - France - Paris - History - 19th Century, Physicians - France - Paris - History - 19th Century, Americans - France - Paris, United States - Relations - France - Paris, Americans - France - Paris - History - 19th Century, Paris (France) - Intellectual Life - 19th Century, Intellectuals, Authors; American - France - Paris - History - 19th Century, Paris (France) - Relations - United States
vaults—the immense pillars which supported them … my mind was smitten with a feeling of sublimity almost too intense for mortality. I stood and gazed, and as the light increased, and my observation became more minute, a new creation seemed rising to my view—of saints and martyrs mimicked by the painter or sculptor—often clad in the solemn stole of the monk or nun, and sometimes in the habiliments of the grave. The infant Savior with his virgin mother—the crucified Redeemer—adoring angels, and martyred saints were all around—and unearthly lights gleaming from the many rainbow-colored windows, and brightening as the day advanced, gave a solemn inexpressible magic to the scene.
Charles Sumner could hardly contain his rapture. Never had a work of architecture had such powerful effect on him. The cathedral was “the great lion of the north of France … transcending all that my imagination had pictured.” He had already read much of its history. Here, he knew, lay the remains of Rollon, the first Duke of Normandy, the bones of his son,William Longsword, of Henry II, the father of Cœur de Lion, even the heart of Lionheart himself.
And here was I, an American, whose very hemisphere had been discovered long since the foundation of this church, whose country had been settled, in comparison with this foundation, but yesterday, introduced to these remains of past centuries, treading over the dust of archbishops and cardinals, and standing before the monuments of kings. …
How often he had wondered whether such men in history had, in truth, ever lived and did what was said they had. Such fancy was now exploded.
In an account of his own first stop at Rouen and the effect of the cathedral on him and the other Americans traveling with him, James Fenimore Cooper said the common feeling among them was that it had been worth crossing the Atlantic if only to see this.
With eighty miles still to go, most travelers chose to stop over at Rouen. Others, like Nathaniel Willis, eager to be in Paris, climbed aboard a night diligence and headed on.
Great as their journey had been by sea, a greater journey had begun, as they already sensed, and from it they were to learn more, and bring back more, of infinite value to themselves and to their country than they yet knew.
French diligence (stagecoach).
The cathedral at Rouen.
Title page of
Galignani’s New Paris Guide,
indispensable companion for newly arrived Americans.
View of the Flower Market
by Giuseppe Canella, with the Pont Neuf in the background.
The rue de Rivoli, with the Louvre on the left.
Writer Nathaniel Willis loved Paris from the start, but conceded, “It is a queer feeling to find oneself a
foreigner
.”
A typical high-fashion French couple of the 1830s.
The Marquis de Lafayette
by Samuel F. B. Morse, painted for the City of New York at the time of Lafayette’s triumphal return to America in 1825–26.
Samuel F. B. Morse
, a self-portrait painted at age twenty-seven.
James Fenimore Cooper
by John Wesley Jarvis, painted when Cooper was thirty-three.
On the following pages: Morse’s
Gallery of the Louvre
, with Morse and student in the foreground, unidentified student to the right, Cooper with his wife and daughter in the left hand corner, Morse’s friend Richard Habersham painting at far left, and (it is believed) sculptor Horatio Greenough in the open doorway to the Grand Gallery.
George P. A. Healy,
self-portrait painted at age thirty-nine. Like nearly all American art students, Healy spent long hours at the Louvre making copies of works by the masters.
Schoolmistress Emma Willard, champion of higher education for American women, was delighted by the number of women at work on copies at the Louvre.
Four O’Clock: Closing Time at the Louvre
by François-Auguste Biard. Americans were astonished by the spectacle of so
Charles Sumner could hardly contain his rapture. Never had a work of architecture had such powerful effect on him. The cathedral was “the great lion of the north of France … transcending all that my imagination had pictured.” He had already read much of its history. Here, he knew, lay the remains of Rollon, the first Duke of Normandy, the bones of his son,William Longsword, of Henry II, the father of Cœur de Lion, even the heart of Lionheart himself.
And here was I, an American, whose very hemisphere had been discovered long since the foundation of this church, whose country had been settled, in comparison with this foundation, but yesterday, introduced to these remains of past centuries, treading over the dust of archbishops and cardinals, and standing before the monuments of kings. …
How often he had wondered whether such men in history had, in truth, ever lived and did what was said they had. Such fancy was now exploded.
In an account of his own first stop at Rouen and the effect of the cathedral on him and the other Americans traveling with him, James Fenimore Cooper said the common feeling among them was that it had been worth crossing the Atlantic if only to see this.
With eighty miles still to go, most travelers chose to stop over at Rouen. Others, like Nathaniel Willis, eager to be in Paris, climbed aboard a night diligence and headed on.
Great as their journey had been by sea, a greater journey had begun, as they already sensed, and from it they were to learn more, and bring back more, of infinite value to themselves and to their country than they yet knew.
French diligence (stagecoach).
The cathedral at Rouen.
Title page of
Galignani’s New Paris Guide,
indispensable companion for newly arrived Americans.
View of the Flower Market
by Giuseppe Canella, with the Pont Neuf in the background.
The rue de Rivoli, with the Louvre on the left.
Writer Nathaniel Willis loved Paris from the start, but conceded, “It is a queer feeling to find oneself a
foreigner
.”
A typical high-fashion French couple of the 1830s.
The Marquis de Lafayette
by Samuel F. B. Morse, painted for the City of New York at the time of Lafayette’s triumphal return to America in 1825–26.
Samuel F. B. Morse
, a self-portrait painted at age twenty-seven.
James Fenimore Cooper
by John Wesley Jarvis, painted when Cooper was thirty-three.
On the following pages: Morse’s
Gallery of the Louvre
, with Morse and student in the foreground, unidentified student to the right, Cooper with his wife and daughter in the left hand corner, Morse’s friend Richard Habersham painting at far left, and (it is believed) sculptor Horatio Greenough in the open doorway to the Grand Gallery.
George P. A. Healy,
self-portrait painted at age thirty-nine. Like nearly all American art students, Healy spent long hours at the Louvre making copies of works by the masters.
Schoolmistress Emma Willard, champion of higher education for American women, was delighted by the number of women at work on copies at the Louvre.
Four O’Clock: Closing Time at the Louvre
by François-Auguste Biard. Americans were astonished by the spectacle of so
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