A French traveller who saw him at his second inauguration has thus described him: "I shall never forget the deep impression I felt when I saw come on to the platform the strange-looking great man to whom the American people had been so happy as to intrust their destinies. The gait was heavy, slow, irregular; the body long, lean, over six feet, with stooping shoulders, the long arms of a boatman, the large hands of a carpenter, extraordinary hands, with feet in proportion.... The turned-down shirt-collar uncovered the protruding muscles of a yellow neck, above which shot forth a mass of black hair, thick, and bristling as a bunch of pine-boughs; a face of irresistible attraction.
"From this coarse bark emerged a forehead and eyes belonging to a superior nature. In this body was sheathed a soul wondrous by its greatness and moral beauty. On the brow, deep-furrowed with lines, could be detected the thoughts and anxieties of the statesman; and in the large black eyes, deep and penetrating, whose dominant expression was good-will and kindness mixed with melancholy, one discovered an inexhaustible charity, giving to the word its highest meaning, that is, perfect love for mankind."[240]
The nation was saved, and when the work was done Lincoln went to his doom and fell, as he had long foreseen, a victim to the cause for which he had fought.
When the news of his tragic death reached France, the emotion was intense; party lines at that solemn hour disappeared for a moment, and the country was unanimous in the expression of her horror. The Emperor and Empress telegraphed their condolences to Mrs. Lincoln; the Senate and Chamber voted addresses of sympathy; M. Rouher, the premier, interrupted by applause at every word, expressed himself as follows in proposing the vote: "Mr. Abraham Lincoln has displayed in the afflicting struggle which convulses his country that calm firmness which is a necessary condition for the accomplishment of great duties. After victory he had shown himself generous, moderate, and conciliatory." Then followed these remarkable words: "The first chastisement that Providence inflicts on crime is to render it powerless to retard the march of good.... The work of appeasement commenced by a great citizen will be completed by the national will."
Addressing the Chamber in the same strain, its President, Mr. Schneider, said: "That execrable crime has revolted all that is noble in the heart of France. Nowhere has more profound or more universal emotion been felt than in our country.... After having shown his immovable firmness in the struggle, Mr. Lincoln, by the wisdom of his language and of his views, seemed destined to bring about a fruitful and durable reconciliation between the sons of America.... France ardently desires the re-establishment of peace in the midst of that great nation, her ally and her friend."
But more noteworthy than all was the feeling of unofficial France, that of the whole people. Trying to describe it, the American minister to France, but recently taken from among us, Mr. Bigelow, wrote home: "The press of the metropolis shows sufficiently how overwhelming is the public sentiment"; and sending, only as samples, a number of testimonials of sympathy received by him, he added: "They will suffice to show not only how profoundly the nation was shocked by the dreadful crime which terminated President Lincoln's earthly career, but how deep a hold he had taken upon the respect and affections of the French people."
Once more, owing to the death of a great American, the whole nation had been moved. From thirty-one French cities came addresses of condolence; students held meetings, unfavorably seen by the imperial police, little pleased to find how closely associated in the sentiments expressed therein were admiration for Lincoln's work and the longing for a republic similar to that over which he had presided. The youthful president of such a meeting thus conveyed to Mr. Bigelow the expression of what was felt by "the young men of the schools": "In President Lincoln we mourn a fellow citizen; for no country is now inaccessible, and we consider as ours that country where there are neither masters nor slaves, where every man is free or is fighting to become free.
"We are the fellow citizens of John Brown, of Abraham Lincoln, and of Mr. Seward. We young people, to whom the future belongs, must have the courage to found a true democracy, and we will have to look beyond the ocean to learn how a people who have made themselves free can preserve their freedom....
"The President of the great republic is dead, but the republic itself shall live forever."
Deputations flocked to the American legation, "so demonstrative" that the police more than once interfered, as if to remind the delegates that they were not living as yet in a land of liberty. "I have been occupied most of the afternoon," Bigelow wrote to Seward, "in receiving deputations of students and others who have called to testify their sorrow and sympathy. Unfortunately, their feelings were so demonstrative in some instances as to provoke the intervention of the police, who would only allow them in very limited numbers through the streets.... I am sorry to hear that some have been sent to prison in consequence of an intemperate expression of their feelings. I can now count sixteen policemen from my window patrolling about in the neighborhood, who occasionally stop persons calling to see me, and in some instances, I am told, send them away."[241]
A unique thing happened, unparalleled anywhere else. A subscription was opened to offer a commemorative medal in gold to the unfortunate widow, and this again did not overplease the police. The idea had occurred to a provincial paper, the Phare de la Loire; its success was immediate. All the great names in the Liberal party appeared on the list of the committee, Victor Hugo's conspicuous among them, and with his those of Etienne Arago, Louis Blanc, Littré, Michelet, Pelletan, Edgar Quinet, and others. In order to allow the poorer classes to take part, and so as to show that the offering was a truly national one, the maximum for each subscriber was limited to two cents.
The poorer classes took part, indeed, with alacrity; the necessary sum was promptly collected; the medal was struck, and it was presented by Eugene Pelletan to Mr. Bigelow, with these words: "Tell Mrs. Lincoln that in this little box is the heart of France." The inscription, in French, is an excellent summing up of Lincoln's character and career: "Dedicated by French Democracy to Lincoln, President, twice elected, of the United States—Lincoln, honest man, who abolished slavery, re-established the Union, saved the Republic, without veiling the statue of liberty."[242]
The French press had been unanimous; from the Royalist Gazette de France to the Liberal Journal des Débats came expressions of admiration and sorrow, by the writers of greatest repute, present or future members, in many cases, of the French Academy, Prévost-Paradol, John Lemoine, Emile de Girardin, the historian Henri Martin, the publicist and future member of the National Assembly of 1871, Peyrat, and with them some ardent Catholics, like Montalembert.
"Who among us," said the Gazette de France, "would think of pitying Lincoln? A public man, he enters by the death which he has received in the midst of the work of pacification after victory into that body of the élite of the historic army which Mr. Guizot once called the battalion of Plutarch. A Christian, he has just ascended before the throne of the final Judge, accompanied by the souls of four million slaves created, like ours, in the image of God, and who by a word from him have been endowed with freedom."[243]
In his La Victoire du Nord aux Etats Unis, Montalembert expressed, with his usual eloquence and warmth of heart, the same sorrow at Lincoln's death, and the same joy also at the "success of a good cause served by honorable means and won by honest people.... God is to be thanked because, according to the surest accounts, victory has remained pure, unsullied by crimes or excesses.... That nation rises now to the first rank among the great peoples of the world.... Some used to say: Don't talk to us of your America with its slavery. She is now without slaves; let us talk of her."