01-085 [Family]
1883.08.2 Rue de Rennes, Paris
From: José Rizal
To: Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso
Some monuments in Paris — Pantheon — Jardin des Plantes — Abbey of Cluny — Julian Baths — France’s national holiday — Palace of Versailles.
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124 Rue de Rennes, Paris
2 August 1883
MY DEAR PARENTS,
The last time I wrote you I had to cut off abruptly my letter because I lacked time to finish it to my liking. Since then nothing new has happened to me, so that I’ll say in this nothing more than I wished to write in that letter: To talk about some monuments in Paris and its environs which I have visited and to make some little observations, and I’ll begin with the Pantheon.
This has had two names — that at of St. Genevieve after the saint to which it was dedicated and that of Pantheon for containing the sepulchers of all the great men of France. The plan of the building was made by Soufflot and its construction was begun under Louis XV. I say it is very magnificent and it is in fact. Its interior has this form, the first I have seen. Its elegant columns, its lofty cupola, the brilliant light that penetrates through it — all give it the theatrical, monumental aspect of a very elegant edifice, but not of a Christian church such as are usually seen. I believe that this is due to the two steps that are on each side, the absence of a choir and decorations, though there are excellent frescoes. It’s simply splendid. For 16 centimes one can go down to the underground vault; [it] is immense, semi-illuminated by the light that penetrates through some insufficient skylights. The guide who conducts us carries a lantern. There are the sepulchers of the philosophers Voltaire and Rousseau, fathers of modern ideas. Voltaire has a magnificent statute by Houdon. Rousseau’s tomb is in front of it. A hand holding a torch emerges from his tomb. Those who say that this is not in very good taste are right and moreover it is quite equivocal, because it could be said that he set the world on fire or he illuminated the world. There also are the tombs of Marshal Lannes, Soufflot, and others. There is a place where an echo reverberates in a way that is surprising – by beating a kind of drum one hears cannon shots, thus reproducing all the noise of a battle.
In the Jardin des Plantes there is a museum of natural history which I believe I have already mentioned. There I found the egg of the epyornis[1] as large as half of loaf of sugar.[2] That is, like a lanka,[3] though very much bigger. Could it be the [rock]? Beside it an ostrich egg appears like the tiny egg of a dove. There is a very large number of monkeys ranging from the one that resembles a dog, or rather the synocephalus, to the gorilla. I don’t know yet if Darwin’s theory is very acceptable; it would be advisable to study it to determine on what to rely concerning the creation of man. I saw there also bulls and other big animals. The aurochs is the biggest I saw, though it does not resemble much the bison that we know over there; and I saw a Normandy cow which is about four fingers taller than I at the withers. Our carabao and our other animals are not missing there; but it took me pains to find the carabao as it looked like a pig beside the others, so small it seemed, and nevertheless it must be one of the biggest of those over there. I shall not tell you anymore about the desiccated lions, tigers, panthers, and bears of which there is an infinity there, nor of the crocodiles, alligators of all kinds, from the one with a head like this to the one that we have over there; nor of the tortoise ranging from one which is a meter and a half long and a meter tall to the smallest of about the size of a copper coin. There is a very pretty cicala [cicada]. I would not finish mentioning all those desiccated animals, fishes, whales, that occupy three floors of a big building. One German says that this museum is as good as that one at London, though not better arranged. But indeed I’m going to tell you about two large cabinets full of little birds of all colors, ranging in size from the blowfly to a half pipit.[4] They are green, blue, red, gold, violet, dark, bronze, but all are brilliant. Their beaks, like needles, are shiny as if varnished. They are enough to make Emilio and Antonio[5] dream for a week. I stood ecstatic before those marvels, those winged rubies and topazes. As to the butterflies, I have not yet seen the yellow and black specimens, but even then they occupy an immense space – all the walls of our ante hall cannot hold them. There are some very small ones of the size of an onzita[6] and there are very big ones, there are all blue, all flesh, all red, yellow, black; there are mixed colors; there are these that resemble the rainbow. Philippine birds that abound there are the calos and the talic-tics; there are at least eight specimens; one of them is from south Luzon, perhaps from Laguna. The geology section! That was marvelous: All kinds of metals, crystals, precious stones, soils, antediluvian and pre-Ademic fishes. There I saw red, yellow, and white emeralds, green and blue topazes, rubies of all colors, brilliants and diamonds of all colors; a copy of the Regent. It takes four hours just to go around without looking closely. One leaves that place dispirited and with the sad thought that one does not know the names and properties of so many beings and so many things. So many things unknown to me. And nevertheless I saw there a small girl, accompanied by a professor, who was studying all those minerals, their names, their classifications and she was not very far behind!
In the Jardin are roses of all colors and of all kinds of petals in excess. There I saw a Lebanon cedar. After finishing infinity of course, if possible, I’ll return to Paris to study science and on the agriculture. A countryman of ours, Cunanan,[7] is studying this science here in Paris in one of the government schools. Here [an] agriculturist is much more learned than many bishops and lawyers over there. It is a very deep study that I was astounded to find a gardener of a town giving me the botanical classification of all plants. Everybody here talks to you about thermometers, barometers, archometers, history, physics, just as there we talk about the miracles of St. Augustin and St. Procopio of which we are better informed than the saints themselves.
I visited also the old Abbey of Cluny, an old Gothic edifice, very well preserved, former residence of the reverend monks which they kept as their lodging-house whenever they came to Paris. It is very big and very beautiful and the poor monks rested there. It is now a museum of antiquities of the middle age and the modern period. There are many curious things belonging to the pious generations, so much praised for their Christian virtues by the layman who knows history. There I saw the padlocks that husbands put on certain parts of the body of their wives so that they might not err; the instruments of the Inquisition; paintings, religious has reliefs side by side obscene ones that the blessed monks had on their choirs. I believe that at that time the locksmiths must have been very stupid or the husbands were very stupid, that they would like always to place the devil beside God in order to mix the useful with the sweet as a wise precept demands.
Beside this abbey are the Julian thermal baths, or rather the Ronan baths of the emperors. The building is simple but big, solid, and majestic. There are Roman statues, altars, etc. It is said that it was there that Julian the Apostate was burnt. I could hardly believe it. In this same Hotel de Cluny there is a department where all kinds of footwear used in the world can be studied. So that you may see how complete it is, I saw there slippers with red tops, designs, and embroidery of the Chinese of Rosario Street,[8] straw slippers costing a peseta, and other used ones. It is there and not elsewhere that we can find out which country has the smallest feet but natural ones. Our women are not left behind. Upon going down the Hotel de Cluny I saw a woman that at first I took for a Filipino mestizo: Blue skirt, white shawl, and with the same coiffure as a Filipino woman, only her sleeves were very narrow in the European style. Were it not for her Nordic physiognomy and her speaking French fairly well, I would have been deceived, I inquired who she might be and nobody knew.
The 14th July is the national holiday here, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille. All houses, excepting those of establishments are closed; there are fantastic illuminations, fireworks; traffic is suspended; Paris at night seems like a float in a Holy Week procession. In the Bois de Boulogne there are a parade and review of troops: 40,000 soldiers. Numerous people go there despite the continual rain. Zamora, Paterno, and I paid 3 pesetas each to stand up on some poor benches; others paid more and every now and then a bench collapsed and women, young ladies, old men, and children fell rolling the ground, and there was general laughter. Then they would climb up again and again they fell. Besides us was a serious Englishman standing on a large barrel full of water and as the poor Englishman feared that the cover might give and he would have a sulbo[9]bath he stood balancing himself on the rim of his throne that cost him 3 francs. And he himself laughed. Finally at two o’clock sharp the review began. The president of the republic as well as the ministers had arrived ten minutes before in order not to miss any part of the programme. I was surprised that all of them came in carriages drawn by two horses only. I almost looked down on them comparing them with our captains general and archbishops who have the good sense of always riding in carriages drawn by four horses, and Mr. Yriarte who once did the same. The more horses draw one’s carriage the more important and smart one is. I have always believed this and no friar can convince of the contrary, not even the most eloquent preachers of Manila. I refrain from describing the spectacle of that militia, the cadets, of St. Cyr[10] who, they say, are all smart and competent; those of the chief of staff, the engineers — that youth whose duty is to take revenge[11] and to pay a debt, whose patrimony is without blemish and without victory, attracted my attention; then the infantry, a forest of bayonets; afterwards the cavalry with their shining helmets and floating manes of the horses that give them a martial air and serious aspect; the artillery and all the cuirassiers on horseback dressed in shining armor moving rapidly. Forty thousand men, seven times the population of Calamba. Foreign governments sent there their military men to see that review.
Later we saw the Palace of Versailles, former residence of the Bourbons and the Bonapartes, now a vast historical museum. This palace is at most one hour by train from Paris. It is a beautiful and grand palace built under Louis XIV, with its garden, park, and its two Trainons, or rather two small country palaces, if such they can be called. Although I saw it hurriedly, nevertheless I was able to note the rooms of Napoleon I, his study, the hall where Marshal Bazaine was tried, the rooms of Louis XIV, XV, XVI, those of the queens, their wives — these in the Grand Trianon. In the Petit Trianon only traces of the life of Marie Antoinette are visible — the great simplicity, even in her dressing and work rooms. There is a plan, a hemisphere, there said to have been made by Louis XVI. There is also a cluster of flowers one of which is a clock. The rooms of Napoleon I are of yellow color. They assert that Napoleon did not use to live on those palaces. In the carriage house we saw many carriages, the most conspicuous being a gold one which is the biggest and the most beautiful and was used once when Charles X was crowned, valued, at the minimum, [at] one million francs.
The garden and the park are most beautiful: There where formerly walked only a gilded youth and a pompous court, full of various preoccupations, passions perhaps, miseries perhaps misfortune, perhaps, now that place is desolate and hardly…
[The rest of the letter is missing]
[1] Epyornis is an ostrich-like bird whose eggs are a foot long and 9 inches in diameter, genus Aepyornis.
[2] A pilon of sugar was sugar molded in large clay jars, weighing about 100 pounds. This was the way sugar was marketed in the Philippines during the Spanish regime.
[3] Or, langka Artocarpus integrifolia L.
[4] Pipit is Tagatog name for the northern willow warbler, Acanthopneus te borealis.
[5] His nephews, son of Narcisa and Anotonino López.
[6] Onzita was an old Spanish gold coin, the size of the present (1960) Philippine silver ten-centavo piece.
[7] Mariano Cunanan, wealthy landowner of Pampanga, who was then studying agriculture at Paris. It was he who offered to finance the Colegio Moderno that Rizal planned to establish at Hong Kong.
[8] It was in downtown Manila, a Chinese business district. The name of the street as well as its character remains to this day (1960).
[9] Tagalog word meaning “dip”; that is, a “dip bath.”
[10] The state military academy in France, the equivalent of the American West Point Military Academy.
[11] Rizal alludes to the cry of the French patriots for “Revenge” after the War (1870-71) when the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were annexed by thé néw Gérman Empire (1871-1919).