xxxii INTRODUCTION

grasp it. Every time I walk into the Square it is new to me. Still I verily believe that I now know more about it than any English architect, and than most French, and I have improved in my drawing in these three months considerably; the different style of Gothic quite beat me at first, and still it does in a great degree. I have not yet once succeeded in giving the true effect of a highly ornamental flamboyant niche, though I think I have come nearer it than most people.”¹

Ruskin’s visit to France was during the exciting period of ‘48, and more than one passage in this volume was coloured by the revolutionary events of that year.² In a letter to W. H. Harrison, we learn his impressions and reflections:³-

(CALAIS, October 24, 1848.)-... So much fêting and fairing and drinking, singing, and swearing I never saw nor heard since I was first in France-but all set off and foiled by an under evidence of distress, degradation and danger, the most utter and immediate: I have been in Paris for two days: it had always a black, rent and patched, vicious and rotten look about its ghastly faubourgs: but to see-as now is seen-all this gloom without the meanest effort at the forced gaiety which once disguised it-deepened by all the open evidences of increasing-universal-and hopeless suffering: and scarred by the unhappy traces of a slaughterous and dishonourable contest-is about as deep and painful a lesson-for those who will receive it-as ever was read by vice in ruin. But the melancholy thing is the piteous complaining of the honest inhabitants-all suffering as much as the most worthless, and not knowing what to do-or where to look. I think the only cheerful face that I saw in Paris was that of Marrast⁴ the President of the Assembly (whom we saw at the theatre)-a countenance hardly fine, but prepossessing, thoughtful, and hopeful. I saw no other face that did not bear the signs either of melancholy-anxiety-or outwearied dissipation-more

¹ In Rouen, as in many other cities of France and Italy, Ruskin’s memory survives in sacristans who love their buildings. “It may be,” says Mr. Theodore Andrea Cook in his account of St. Ouen, “that the old Sacristan, for your good fortune, will be living still to tell you of the greatest Englishman he has ever heard of, John Ruskin, who often looked into that quaint mirror of Holy Water, and watched the strange reflection of the arches soaring upwards in the nave” (The Story of Rouen, 1899, p. 240).

² See pp. 25, 261-263, 266; and cf. Vol. IV. p. 31 n.

³ Louis Philippe had, it will be remembered, been driven out early in the year, and the Republic proclaimed on the basis of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” and with the promise to find work for all. Reaction against the system of national workshops led to the revolt of eastern Paris in June, and the four days’ battle of the barricades. Theirs assumed the leadership of the party of reaction in the Assembly, and events were drifting towards the election of Louis Napoleon as President (Dec. 10).

⁴ Marrast (1801-1852) was successively member of the Provisional Government of 1848, Mayor of Paris, and President of the National Assembly.

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