Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume I Part 17

In other ways, too, it is impossible not to allow that there exists in France a very perceptible want of refinement as compared to England.

No Englishman, I believe, has ever returned from a visit to Paris without adding his testimony to this fact; and notwithstanding the Gallomania so prevalent amongst us, all acknowledge that, however striking may be the elegance and grace of the higher cla.s.ses, there is still a national want of that uniform delicacy so highly valued by all ranks, above the very lowest, with us. Sights are seen and inconveniences endured with philosophy, which would go nigh to rob us of our wits in July, and lead us to hang ourselves in November.

To a fact so well known, and so little agreeable in the detail of its examination, it would be worse than useless to draw your attention, were it not that there is something curious in tracing the manner in which different circ.u.mstances, seemingly unconnected, do in reality hang together and form a whole.

The time certainly has been, when it was the fashion in England, as it is now in France, to call things, as some one coa.r.s.ely expresses it, _by their right names_; very grave proof of which might be found even in sermons--and from thence downwards through treatises, essays, poems, romances, and plays.

Were we indeed to form our ideas of the tone of conversation in England a century ago from the familiar colloquy found in the comedies then written and acted, we must acknowledge that we were at that time at a greater distance from the refinement we now boast, than our French neighbours are at present.

I do not here refer to licentiousness of morals, or the coa.r.s.e avowal of it; but to a species of indelicacy which might perhaps have been quite compatible with virtue, as the absence of it is unhappily no security against vice.

The remedy of this has proceeded, if I mistake not, from causes much more connected with the luxurious wealth of England, than with the severity of her virtue. You will say, perhaps, that I have started off to an immense distance from the point whence I set out; but I think not--for both in France and England I find abundant reason to believe that I am right in tracing this remarkable difference between the two countries, less to natural disposition or character, than to the accidental facilities for improvement possessed by the one people, and not by the other.

It would be very easy to ascertain, by reference to the various literary records I have named, that the improvement in English delicacy has been gradual, and in very just proportion to the increase of her wealth, and the fastidious keeping out of sight of everything that can in any way annoy the senses.

When we cease to hear, see, and smell things which are disagreeable, it is natural that we should cease to speak of them; and it is, I believe, quite certain that the English take more pains than any other people in the world that the senses--those conductors of sensation from the body to the soul--shall convey to the spirit as little disagreeable intelligence of what befalls the case in which it dwells, as possible. The whole continent of Europe, with the exception of some portion of Holland perhaps, (which shows a brotherly affinity to us in many things,) might be cited for its inferiority to England in this respect. I remember being much amused last year, when landing at Calais, at the answer made by an old traveller to a novice who was making his first voyage.

"What a dreadful smell!" said the uninitiated stranger, enveloping his nose in his pocket-handkerchief.

"It is the smell of the continent, sir," replied the man of experience. And so it was.

There are parts of this subject which it is quite impossible to dwell upon, and which unhappily require no pen to point them out to notice.

These, if it were possible, I would willingly leave more in the dark than I find them. But there are other circ.u.mstances, all arising from the comparative poverty of the people, which tend to produce, with a most obvious dependency of thing on thing, that deficiency of refinement of which I am speaking.

Let any one examine the interior construction of a Paris dwelling of the middle cla.s.s, and compare it to a house prepared for occupants of the same rank in London. It so happens that everything appertaining to decoration is to be had _a bon marche_ at Paris, and we therefore find every article of the ornamental kind almost in profusion. Mirrors, silk hangings, or-molu in all forms; china vases, alabaster lamps, and timepieces, in which the onward step that never returns is marked with a grace and prettiness that conceals the solemnity of its pace,--all these are in abundance; and the tenth part of what would be considered necessary to dress up a common lodging in Paris, would set the London fine lady in this respect upon an enviable elevation above her neighbours.

But having admired their number and elegant arrangement, pa.s.s on and enter the ordinary bed-rooms--nay, enter the kitchens too, or you will not be able to judge how great the difference is between the two residences.

In London, up to the second floor, and often to the third, water is forced, which furnishes an almost unlimited supply of that luxurious article, to be obtained with no greater trouble to the servants than would be required to draw it from a tea-urn. In one kitchen of every house, generally in two, and often in three, the same accommodation is found; and when, in opposition to this, it is remembered that very nearly every family in Paris receives this precious gift of nature doled out by two buckets at a time, laboriously brought to them by porters, clambering in _sabots_, often up the same stairs which lead to their drawing-rooms, it can hardly be supposed that the use of it is as liberal and unrestrained as with us.

Against this may be placed fairly enough the cheapness and facility of the access to the public baths. But though personal ablutions may thus be very satisfactorily performed by those who do not rigorously require that every personal comfort should be found at home, yet still the want of water, or any restraint upon the freedom with which it is used, is a vital impediment to that perfection of neatness, in every part of the establishment, which we consider as so necessary to our comfort.

Much as I admire the Church of the Madeleine, I conceive that the city of Paris would have been infinitely more benefited, had the sums expended upon it been used for the purpose of constructing pipes for the conveyance of water to private dwellings, than by all the splendour received from the beauty of this imposing structure.

But great and manifold as are the evils entailed by the scarcity of water in the bed-rooms and kitchens of Paris, there is another deficiency greater still, and infinitely worse in its effects. The want of drains and sewers is the great defect of all the cities in France; and a tremendous defect it is. That people who from their first breath of life have been obliged to accustom their senses and submit without a struggle to the sufferings this evil entails upon them,--that people so circ.u.mstanced should have less refinement in their thoughts and words than ourselves, I hold to be natural and inevitable. Thus, you see, I have come round like a preacher to his text, and have explained, as I think, very satisfactorily, what I mean by saying that the indelicacy which so often offends us in France does not arise from any natural coa.r.s.eness of mind, but is the unavoidable result of circ.u.mstances, which may, and doubtless will change, as the wealth of the country and its familiarity with the manners of England increases.

This withdrawing from the perception of the senses everything that can annoy them,--this lulling of the spirit by the absence of whatever might awaken it to a sensation of pain,--is probably the last point to which the ingenuity of man can reach in its efforts to embellish existence.

The search after pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt certainly betokens less refinement than this sedulous care to avoid annoyance; and it may be, that as we have gone farthest of all modern nations in this tender care of ourselves, so may we be the first to fall from our delicate elevation into that receptacle of things past and gone which has engulfed old Greece and Rome. Is it thus that the Reform Bill, and all the other horrible Bills in its train, are to be interpreted?

As to that other species of refinement which belongs altogether to the intellect, and which, if less obvious to a pa.s.sing glance, is more deep and permanent in its dye than anything which relates to manners only, it is less easy either to think or to speak with confidence.

France and England both have so long a list of mighty names that may be quoted on either side to prove their claim to rank high as literary contributors to refinement, that the struggle as to which ranks highest can only be fairly settled by both parties agreeing that each country has a fair right to prefer what they have produced themselves.

But, alas! at the present moment, neither can have great cause to boast. What is good, is overpowered and stifled by what is bad. The uncontrolled press of both countries has thrown so much abominable trash upon literature during the last few years, that at present it might be difficult to say whether general reading would be most dangerous to the young and the pure in England or in France.

That the Hugo school has brought more nonsense with its mischief, is, I think, clear: but it is not impossible that this may act as an antidote to its own poison. It is a sort of humbug a.s.sumption of talent which will pa.s.s out of fashion as quickly as Morrison's pills.

We have nothing quite so silly as this; but much I fear that, as it concerns our welfare as a nation, we have what is more deeply dangerous.

As to what is moral and what is not so, plain as at first sight the question seems to be, there is much that is puzzling in it. In looking over a volume of "Adele et Theodore" the other day,--a work written expressly "_sur l'education_," and by an author that we must presume meant honestly and spoke sincerely,--I found this pa.s.sage:--

"Je ne connais que trois romans veritablement moraux;--Clarisse, le plus beau de tous; Grandison, et Pamela. Ma fille les lira en Anglais lorsqu'elle aura dix-huit ans."

The venerable Grandison, though by no means _sans tache_, I will let pa.s.s: but that any mother should talk of letting her daughter of "dix-huit ans" read the others, is a mystery difficult to comprehend, especially in a country where the young girls are reared, fostered, and sheltered from every species of harm, with the most incessant and sedulous watchfulness. I presume that Madame de Genlis conceived that, as the object and moral purpose of these works were good, the revolting coa.r.s.eness with which some of their most powerful pa.s.sages are written could not lead to evil. But this is a bold and dangerous judgment to pa.s.s when the question relates to the studies of a young girl.

I think we may see symptoms of the feeling which would produce such a judgment, in the tone of biting satire with which Moliere attacks those who wished to banish what might "faire insulte a la pudeur des femmes." Spoken as he makes Philaminte speak it, we cannot fail to laugh at the notion: yet ridicule on the same subject would hardly be accepted, even from Sheridan, as jesting matter with us.

"Mais le plus beau projet de notre academie, Une entreprise n.o.ble, et dont je suis ravie, Un dessein plein de gloire, et qui sera vante Chez tous les beaux-esprits de la posterite, C'est le retranchement de ces syllabes sales Qui dans les plus beaux mots produisent des scandales; Ces jouets eternels des sots de tous les temps, Ces fades lieux communs de nos mechans plaisans; Ces sources d'un amas d'equivoques infames Dont on vient faire insulte a la pudeur des femmes."

Such an academy might be a very comical inst.i.tution, certainly; but the duties it would have to perform would not suffer a professor's place to become a sinecure in France.

LETTER XXVII.

Objections to quoting the names of private individuals.--Impossibility of avoiding Politics.--_Parceque_ and _Quoique_.--Soiree Ant.i.thestique.

It would be a pleasure to me to give you the names of many persons with whom I have become acquainted in Paris, and I should like to describe exactly the _salons_ in which I met them; but a whole host of proprieties forbid this. Where individuals are so well known to fame as to render the echoing of their names a matter of ordinary recurrence, I can of course feel no scruple in repeating the echo--one reverberation more can do no harm: but I will never be the first to name any one, either for praise or for blame, beyond the sanctuary of their own circle.

I must therefore restrict myself to the giving you the best general idea I can of the tone and style of what I have seen and heard; and if I avail myself of the conversations I have listened to, it shall be in such a manner as to avoid the slightest approach to personal allusion.

This necessary restraint, however, is not submitted to without regret: it must rob much of what I would wish to repeat of the value of authority; and when I consider how greatly at variance my impressions are on many points to some which have been publicly proclaimed by others, I feel that I deserve some praise for suppressing names which would stamp my statements with a value that neither my unsupported a.s.sertions, nor those of any other traveller, can be supposed to bear. Those who best know what I lose by this will give me credit for it; and I shall be sufficiently rewarded for my forbearance if it afford them a proof that I am not unworthy the flattering kindness I have received.

We all declare ourselves sick of politics, and a woman's letters, at least, ought if possible to be free from this wearily pervading subject: but the describing a human being, and omitting to mention the heart and the brain, would not leave the a.n.a.lysis more defective, than painting the Parisians at this moment without permitting their politics to appear in the picture.

The very air they breathe is impregnated with politics. Were all words expressive of party distinctions to be banished from their language--were the curse of Babel to fall upon them, and no man be able to discourse with his neighbour,--still political feeling would find itself an organ whereby to express its workings. One man would wear a pointed hat, another a flat one; one woman would be girt with a tri-coloured sash, and another with a white one. Some exquisites would be closely b.u.t.toned to the chin, while the lapels of others would open wide in all the expansive freedom of republican unrestraint. One set would be seen adorning Napoleon's pillar with trophies; another, prostrate before the altar of the elder Bourbon's monumental chapel; a third, marshalling themselves under the b.l.o.o.d.y banner of Robespierre to the tune of "Dansons la Carmagnole;" whilst a fourth, by far the most numerous, would be brushing their national uniforms, attending to their prosperous shops, and giving a nod of good-fellowship every time his majesty the king pa.s.ses by.

Some friends of mine entered a shop the other day to order some article of furniture. While they remained there, a royal carriage pa.s.sed, and one of the party said--

"It is the queen, I believe?"

"Yes, sir," replied the _ebeniste_, "it is the lady that it pleases us to call the queen. We may certainly call her so if we like it, for we made her ourselves; and if we find it does not answer, we shall make another.--May I send you home this table, sir?..."

When politics are thus lightly mixed up with all things, how can the subject be wholly avoided without destroying the power of describing anything as we find it?

Such being the case, I cannot promise that all allusion to the subject shall be banished from my letters; but it shall be made as little predominant as possible. Could I indeed succeed in transferring the light tone in which these weighty matters are generally discussed to the account I wish to give you of them, I need not much fear that I should weary you.

Whether it be essentially in the nature of the people, or only a transitory feature of the times, I know not; but nothing strikes me so forcibly as the airy, gay indifference with which subjects are discussed on which hang the destinies of the world. The most acute--nay, often the most profound remarks are uttered in a tone of badinage; and the probabilities of future events, vital to the interests of France, and indeed of Europe, are calculated with as idle an air, and with infinitely more _sang froid_, than the chances at a game of _rouge et noir_.

Yet, behind this I suspect that there is a good deal of st.u.r.dy determination in all parties, and it will be long ere France can be considered as one whole and united people. Were the country divided into two, instead of into three factions, it is probable that the question of which was to prevail would be soon brought to an issue; but as it is, they stand much like the uncles and nieces in the Critic, each keeping the other two in check.

Meanwhile this temporary division of strength is unquestionably very favourable to the present government; in addition to which, they derive much security from the averseness which all feel, excepting the naughty boys and hungry desperadoes, to the disturbance of their present tranquillity. It is evident that those who do not belong to the triumphant majority are disposed for the most part to wait a more favourable opportunity of hostilely and openly declaring themselves; and it is probable that they will wait long. They know well, and are daily reminded of it, that all the power and all the strength that possession can give are vested in the existing dynasty; and though much deeply-rooted feeling exists that is inimical to it, yet so many of all parties are firmly united to prevent farther anarchy and revolution, that the throne of Louis-Philippe perhaps rests on as solid a foundation as that of any monarch in Europe: the fear of renewed tumult acts like the key-stone of an arch, keeping firm, sound, and in good condition, what would certainly fall to pieces without it.

In addition to this wholesome fear of pulling their own dwellings about their ears, there is also another fear that aids greatly in producing the same result. Many of the riotous youths who so essentially a.s.sisted in creating the confusion which ended in uncrowning one king and crowning another, are, as far as I can understand, quite as well disposed to make a row now as they were then: but they know that if they do, they will most incontestably be whipped for it; and therefore, though they pout a little in private, they are, generally speaking, very orderly in public. Every one, not personally interested in the possible result of another uproar, must rejoice at this improvement in discipline. The boys of France must now submit to give way before her men; and as long as this lasts, something like peace and prosperity may be hoped for.

Yet it cannot be denied, I think, that among these prudent men--these doctrinaires who now hold the high places, there are many who, "with high thoughts, such as Lycurgus loved," still dream of a commonwealth; or that there are others who have not yet weaned their waking thoughts from meditations on faith, right, and loyalty. But nevertheless, all unite in thinking that they had better "let things be," than risk making them worse.

Nothing is more common than to hear a conversation end by a cordial and unanimous avowal of this prudent and sagacious sentiment, which began by an examination of general principles, and the frank acknowledgment of opinions which would certainly lead to a very different conclusion.

It is amusing enough to remark how these advocates for expediency contrive each of them to find reasons why things had better remain as they are, while all these reasons are strongly tinted by their various opinions.