173 At first, I felt: Sand, Le Diable à Paris: Paris et Les Parisiens, 205.
174 The carefree Parisian audience: Ibid.
174 “the proud, free character”: Gurney and Heyman, eds., George Catlin and His Indian Gallery, 235.
174 “one of the most curious collections”: Constitutionnel, June 22, 1845.
175 Seeing the collection: Observateur, October 9, 1845.
175 “remarkable power”: Moniteur Industriel, November 16, 1845.
175 Little Wolf, shattered, “heartbroken”: Catlin, The Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians, 272.
175 Chopin mentioned her in a letter: Chopin, Chopin’s Letters, 287.
175 “her feeble form wasted away”: Catlin, The Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians, 276.
175 In the midst of his grief: Ibid., 277–80.
176 Still more acclaim followed: Ibid., 285, 293.
176 Ever the showman: Saxon, P. T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man, 143.
176 Moreau Gottschalk, who grew: Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. IV, 442.
176 “retired”: Catlin, The Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians, 311.
176 “I thus painted on”: Ibid., 312.
176 Catlin’s Indian exhibition: Dippie, Catlin and His Contemporaries: The Politics of Patronage, 125.
177 Before leaving Paris: Truettner, The Natural Man Observed: A Study of Catlin’s Indian Gallery, 53.
177 “My occupation was changed”: Catlin, The Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians, 323.
177 By the time Healy returned: Healy, Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter, 165–66.
6. Change at Hand
The correspondence of a diplomat serving abroad is necessarily of two kinds, official and private. In the case of Richard Rush, his extensive correspondence, all in his own hand, is divided. The official communications with Washington are at the National Archives, his private or personal letters at the Library of Congress.
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179 How then can strangers: Rush, Occasional Productions, Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous, 462.
179 “increased a hundred fold”: Willson, America’s Ambassadors to France (1777–1927), 218.
179 “daily fire”: Ibid.
179 In a long career in public service: Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. III, pt. 2, 231–33.
180 was still impressively handsome: See Sparks, “Political Portraits with Pen and Pencil: Richard Rush,” United States Magazine, Vol. VII (1840).
180 On the afternoon of July 31: Rush, Occasional Productions, Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous, 303.
180 “sufficiently grand”: Richard Rush to his sons, September 20, 1847, Richard Rush Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
180 I am representing a great nation: Richard Rush to his son, October 6, 1847, Richard Rush Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
181 Last night we were at Mr. Walsh’s: Rush, Occasional Productions, Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous, 336–37.
181 “the appearance of things”: Richard Rush to James Buchanan, September 24, 1847, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
182 “loose thoughts”: Ibid.
182 “They are thrown out”: Ibid.
182 “decamp”: Cooper, Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper, Vol. V, 313.
182 “serious troubles”: Ibid., 240.
182 “profound and universal”: Galignani’s Messenger, January 6, 1848.
182 “Notwithstanding all the reform banquets”: Richard Rush to James Buchanan, January 22, 1848, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
182 “We are sleeping on a volcano”: Mansel, Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution, 1814–1852, 397.
182 “formidable”: Richard Rush to his sons, February 20, 1848, Richard Rush Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
183 We were too near to be pleasant: Baker, Richard Morris Hunt, 41.
183 “I have seen enough blood”: Howarth, Citizen King: The Life of Louis-Philippe, 319.
183 The poor King and his government: Ibid., 334.
184 “general confusion[and]uncertainty”: Richard Rush to James Buchanan, February 24, 1848, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
184 “moderation and magnanimity”: Richard Rush to James Buchanan, March 4, 1848, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
184 “The responsibilities of my public station”: Rush, Occasional Productions, Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous, 366.
184 “But the French people were themselves”: Ibid., 367.
185 “Was it for me to be backward when France”: Ibid., 368.
185 As representative of the United States: Galignani’s Messenger, March 1, 1848.
185 “full and unqualified approbation”: Message from the President of the United States, April 3, 1848, Executive No. 32, U.S. Senate, 30th Cong., 1st sess.
185 “wonderfully, miraculously tranquil”: Richard Rush to George Bancroft, March 24, 1848, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
186 “very civil and good tempered”: Emerson, The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Sealts, Vol. X, 270–71.
186 “criminal excesses”: Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 15th edition, 1827.
186 They did not and could not employ: Richard Rush to James Buchanan, July 3, 1848, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
187 “On his way he passed my door”: Ibid.
187 “So vast and horrible a desolation”: New York Daily Tribune, July 13, 1848.
187 “ beautifulrevolution”: Saul K. Padover, Karl Marx: An Intimate Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), 252.
187 “battlefield”: Rush, Occasional Productions, Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous, 449.
187 “Scattered wisps of hay”: Ibid., 450.
187 None can understand a country: Ibid., 461–62.
188 Of the more than seven million votes cast: Mansel, Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution, 1814–1852, 414.
188 “species”: Fuller, At Home and Abroad, 250.
188 He comes abroad: Ibid., 250–51.
189 “instinctively bustling”: Ibid.
189 “thinking American”: Ibid., 252.
189 [He]recognized the immense advantage: Ibid.
189 “passably pretty ladies with excessively”: Fuller, New York Tribune, May 12, 1847.
189 The air, half military, half dandy: Ibid.
190 I saw them and touched them: Ibid.
190 “takes rank in society like a man”: Fuller, The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. IV, 256.
190 “brilliant shows”: Ibid., 259.
190 “It is too plain that you should conquer”: Ibid.
191 “If that is a painting”: See biographical sketch of “William Morris Hunt” in American National Biography, ed. Garraty and Carnes (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), 397.
191 shared a bright, fifth-floor apartment: The building where the Hunt brothers lived at 1 rue Jacob still stands.
191 “Mr. William Hunt is our most”: Thomas Gold Appleton to his father, December 22, 1852, Massachusetts Historical Society.
191 “with a very slender purse”: Blackwell, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women, 2.
192 “either mad or bad”: See biographical sketch of Elizabeth Blackwell in Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. I, 320.
192 “not constituted”: Blackwell, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. See Introduction by Amy Sue Bix, 24.
192 “the aspect of a great moral”: Ibid., 76.
192 She was twenty-eight: Passport application, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
193 “sage-femme-in-chief”: Blackwell, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women, 161.
193 “So send a welcome greeting”: Ibid., 165.
193 Imagine a large square of old: Ibid.
193 “all pretty and pleasant”: Ibid., 163.
193 “eaten i
n haste”: Ibid., 167.
193 “a little deformed woman, elderly”: Ibid., 161.
194 “en service”: Ibid., 168.
194 “If they answer promptly and well”: Ibid.
194 Alternately satirical and furious: Ibid., 169.
194 “seeing all that was remarkable”: Ibid., 180.
194 “How kind everybody was!”: Ibid., 188.
194 “Yet the medical experience was”: Ibid., 186.
195 “I am a native of the state of Kentucky”: Farrison, William Wells Brown: Author and Reformer, 140.
195 “we shall break … in pieces every yoke”: Ibid., 150.
196 “freely”: Ibid.
196 Curious to know more about him: Ibid., 151.
196 “It is with great concern”: Alexis de Tocqueville to Richard Rush, Paris, June 27, 1849, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
197 “Liberty and Union, now and forever”: De Mare, G. P. A. Healy, American Artist, 169.
197 According to a pamphlet: Voss, “Webster Replying to Hayne: George Healy and the Economics of History Painting,” American Art, Vol. XV, no. 3 (Fall 2001), 40.
197 “my big picture”: Healy, Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter, 166.
198 Healy put the final touches: Webster’s Reply to Hayne still hangs in the place of honor at Faneuil Hall.
198 “It was a proud moment that”: Boston Transcript, September 22, 1851.
198 The countenance—an admirable likeness: New York Times, October 13, 1851.
198 “We must answer decidedly”: Voss, “Webster Replying to Hayne: George Healy and the Economics of History Painting,” 48.
199 “However onerous to an artist”: Healy, Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter, 166.
199 “a very castle of a man”: Memorial of James Fenimore Cooper, 7.
199 Irving was one of those notables: Ibid., 12.
199 “I never met with a more”: Ibid., 36.
7. A City Transformed
Often it is the secondary characters in events of the past, like secondary characters in the theater, who have the most pertinent or entertaining observations to contribute. This is certainly the case with the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and what he wrote about their time together in Paris. Harriet Beecher Stowe in Europe, The Journal of Charles Beecher, is pure delight and certainly confirms that she was not the only one in the family with talent. Likewise, the chronicle of Napoleon III and his Empress would not be the same absent all that is unfolded by their American dentist Thomas W. Evans in his book The Second French Empire.
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201 At last I have come: Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Vol. II, 158.
201 “sleepwalker”: Horne, The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune, 1870–1871, 21.
201 Victor Hugo, on the other hand: Ridley, Napoleon III and Eugénie, 225.
201 The British ambassador was “charmed”: Gooch, The Second Empire, 17.
201 Richard Rush found the president: Rush, Occasional Productions, Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous, 514.
201 William C. Rives of Virginia: William Rives to Secretary of State Clayton, November 14, 1849, Library of Congress.
202 “He was very much better”: Gooch, The Second Empire, 305.
202 As a private person: Ibid., 305.
202 “His vulgar pleasures”: Ibid.
202 To Evans, the president: Evans, Memoirs of Dr. Thomas W. Evans: The Second French Empire, 3.
202 “extraordinary self-control”: Ibid., 7.
202 “My power is in an immortal name”: Gooch, The Second Empire, 12.
203 Like Louis-Philippe: Evans, Memoirs of Dr. Thomas W. Evans: The Second French Empire, 3, 7.
203 “Do you forget my years of study”: Gooch, The Second Empire, 11.
203 Then in 1846 he shaved off: Ibid., 71.
203 “It stands for order”: Ibid., 15.
204 The air was “soft and hazy”: New York Times, November 6, 1851.
204 They eat, drink: Ibid.
204 There were, however, Evans later wrote: Evans, Memoirs of Dr. Thomas W. Evans, 6.
204 At a formal reception: Ibid.
204 “Rubicon”: Ridley, Napoleon III and Eugénie, 295.
205 In a matter of hours: Carson, The Dentist and the Empress: The Adventures of Dr. Tom Evans in Gas-Lit Paris, 20–21.
205 The American minister, William Rives: Secretary of State Daniel Webster to William Rives, January 12, 1852, Webster, The Papers of Daniel Webster, Diplomatic Papers, Vol. 2, 1850–1852, 186.
205 “Napoleon the Little”: Gooch, The Second Empire, 2.
205 The author of this crime: Ibid., 284.
206 To a large part of the nation: Carmona, Haussmann: His Life and Times, and the Making of Modern Paris, 179–80.
206 He put a new prefect of the Seine: Gooch, The Second Empire, 200.
206 “according to their degree of urgency”: Carmona, Haussmann: His Life and Times, and the Making of Modern Paris, 9.
206 “demolition artist”: Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City, 305.
207 “I could never forget”: Carmona, Haussmann, 298.
207 Haussmann was vigorous: Jordan, Transforming Paris: The Life and Labors of Baron Haussmann, 50.
207 With its population now more than a million: Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City, 297.
207 The plan was to improve public health: Ibid., 301.
208 Streets and boulevards would be lined: Ibid., 313.
208 The emperor directed: Ibid.; Horne, The Fall of Paris, 23.
208 “At every step is visible”: Levenstein, Seductive Journey: American Tourists in France from Jefferson to the Jazz Age, 87.
208 Les Halles, a great new central market: Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City, 316.
209 “Is there not something”: Lytton, The Parisians, 107.
209 In the twists and curves: Ibid., 107.
209 By 1869 some 2.5 billion: Korn, History Builds the Town, 62.
209 “When building flourishes”: Shapiro, Housing the Poor of Paris: 1850–1902, 33.
209 Acting on “inside” information: Carson, The Dentist and the Empress, 69–75.
210 “floating palaces”: New York Times, October 12, 1854.
210 The Arctic: Shaw, The Sea Shall Embrace Them: The Tragic Story of the Steamship Arctic, 25.
210 “God grant the time”: New York Times, October 12, 1854.
211 Two years later, in the spring of 1853: Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life, 233.
211 Over half a million British women: Ibid., 244.
212 “a saint”: Fields, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 154.
212 They crossed on the steamship Canada: Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life, 233.
212 “At last I have come into a dreamland”: Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Vol. II, 158.
212 “a little bit of a woman”: Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life, 244.
212 Hatty was a natural “observer”: Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe in Europe: The Journal of Charles Beecher, 163.
213 “My spirits always rise”: Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Vol. II, 164.
213 Whole families come, locking up their door: Ibid., 153.
213 There were grayheaded old men: Ibid.
214 “All is vivacity”: Ibid., 147.
214 Seeing the emperor: Ibid., 182.
214 “talked away, right and left”: Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe in Europe, 155.
214 “Poor Hatty!”: Ibid., 156–57.
214 “very touching”: Ibid., 165.
214 Surely the “life artery”: Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Vol. II, 149.
214 “And there is no scene”: Ibid.
215 As the instinct: Ibid.
215 “sublimity”: Ibid., 150.
215 “rules of painting”: Ibid., 157.
215 He chooses simple: Ibid., 161.