Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume I Part 24

"A quoi pensez-vous, Madame Trollope?" said she: "vous avez l'air de mediter."

I deliberated for a moment whether I should venture to tell her exactly what was pa.s.sing in my mind; but as I deliberated, I looked at her, and there was that in her countenance which a.s.sured me I should have no severity to fear if I put her wholly in my confidence: I therefore replied very frankly,--

"I am meditating; and it is on the position which unmarried women hold in France."

"Unmarried women?... You will scarcely find any such in France," said she.

"Are not those young ladies who have just finished their quadrille unmarried?"

"Ah!... But you cannot call them unmarried women. _Elles sont des demoiselles._"

"Well, then, my meditations were concerning them."

"Eh bien...."

"Eh bien.... It appears to me that the ball is not given--that the music does not play--that the gentlemen are not _empresse_, for them."

"No, certainly. It would be quite contrary to our ideas of what is right if it were so."

"With us it is so different!... It is always the young ladies who are, at least, the ostensible heroines of every ball-room."

"The ostensible heroines?"... She dwelt rather strongly upon the adjective, adding with a smile,--"Our ostensible, are our real heroines upon these occasions."

I explained. "The real heroines," said I, "will, I confess, in cases of ostentation and display, be sometimes the ladies who give b.a.l.l.s in return."

"Well explained," said she, laughing: "I certainly thought you had another meaning. You think, then," she continued, "that our young married women are made of too much importance among us?"

"Oh no!" I replied eagerly: "it is, in my opinion, almost impossible to make them of too much importance; for I believe that it is entirely upon their influence that the tone of society depends."

"You are quite right. It is impossible for those who have lived as long as we have in the world to doubt it: but how can this be, if, upon the occasions which bring people together, they are to be overlooked, while young girls who have as yet no position fixed are brought forward instead?"

"But surely, being brought forward to dance in a waltz or quadrille, is not the sort of consequence which we either of us mean?"

"Perhaps not; but it is one of its necessary results. Our women marry young,--as soon, in fact, as their education is finished, and before they have been permitted to enter the world, or share in the pleasures of it. Their destiny, therefore, instead of being the brightest that any women enjoy, would be the most _triste_, were they forbidden to enter into the amus.e.m.e.nts so natural to their age and national character, because they were married."

"But may there not be danger in the custom which throws young females, thus early and irrevocably engaged, for the first time into the society, and, as it were, upon the attentions of men whom it has already become their duty not to consider as too amiable?"

"Oh no!... If a young woman be well-disposed, it is not a quadrille, or a waltz either, that will lead her astray. If it could, it would surely be the duty of all the legislators of the earth to forbid the exercise for ever."

"No, no, no!" said I earnestly; "I mean nothing of the kind, I a.s.sure you: on the contrary, I am so convinced, from the recollections of my own feelings, and my observations on those of others, that dancing is not a fict.i.tious, but a real, natural source of enjoyment, the inclination for which is inherent in us, that, instead of wishing it to be forbidden, I would, had I the power, make it infinitely more general and of more frequent occurrence than it is: young people should never meet each other without the power of dancing if they wished it."

"And from this animating pleasure, for which you confess that there is a sort of _besoin_ within us, you would exclude all the young women above seventeen--because they are married?... Poor things!... Instead of finding them so willing as they generally are to enter on the busy scenes of life, I think we should have great difficulty in getting their permission to _monter un menage_ for them. Marriage would be soon held in abhorrence if such were its laws."

"I would not have them such, I a.s.sure you," replied I, rather at a loss how to explain myself fully without saying something that might either be construed into coa.r.s.eness of thinking and a cruel mis...o...b..ing of innocence, or else into a very uncivil attack upon the national manners: I was therefore silent.

My companion seemed to expect that I should proceed, but after a short interval resumed the conversation by saying,--"Then what arrangement would you propose, to reconcile the necessity of dancing with the propriety of keeping married women out of the danger which you seem to imagine might arise from it?"

"It would be too national were I to reply, that I think our mode of proceeding in this case is exactly what it ought to be."

"But such is your opinion?"

"To speak sincerely, I believe it is."

"Will you then have the kindness to explain to me the difference in this respect between France and England?"

"The only difference between us which I mean to advocate is, that with us the amus.e.m.e.nt which throws young people together under circ.u.mstances the most likely, perhaps, to elicit expressions of gallantry and admiration from the men, and a gracious reception of them from the women, is considered as befitting the single rather than the married part of the community."

"With us, indeed, it is exactly the reverse," replied she,--"at least as respects the young ladies. By addressing the idle, unmeaning gallantry inspired by the dance to a young girl, we should deem the cautious delicacy of restraint in which she is enshrined transgressed and broken in upon. A young girl should be given to her husband before her pa.s.sions have been awakened or her imagination excited by the voice of gallantry."

"But when she is given to him, do you think this process more desirable than before?"

"Certainly it is not desirable; but it is infinitely less dangerous.

When a girl is first married, her feelings, her thoughts, her imagination are wholly occupied by her husband. Her mode of education has ensured this; and afterwards, it is at the choice of her husband whether he will secure and retain her young heart for himself. If he does this, it is not a waltz or quadrille that will rob him of it. In no country have husbands so little reason to complain of their wives as in France; for in no country does the manner in which they live with them depend so wholly on themselves. With you, if your novels, and even the strange trials made public to all the world by your newspapers, may be trusted, the very reverse is the case. Previous attachments--early affection broken off before the marriage, to be renewed after it--these are the histories we hear and read; and most a.s.suredly they do not tempt us to adopt your system as an amendment upon our own."

"The very notoriety of the cases to which you allude proves their rare occurrence," replied I. "Such sad histories would have but little interest for the public, either as tales or trials, if they did not relate circ.u.mstances marked and apart from ordinary life."

"a.s.suredly. But you will allow also that, however rare they may be in England, such records of scandal and of shame are rarer still in France?"

"Occurrences of the kind do not perhaps produce so much sensation here," said I.

"Because they are more common, you would say. Is not that your meaning?" and she smiled reproachfully.

"It certainly was not my meaning to say so," I replied; "and, in truth, it is neither a useful nor a gracious occupation to examine on which side the Channel the greater proportion of virtue may be found; though it is possible some good might be done on both, were the education in each country to be modified by the introduction of what is best in the other."

"I have no doubt of it," said she; "and as we go on exchanging fashions so amicably, who knows but we may live to see your young ladies shut up a little more, while their mothers and fathers look out for a suitable marriage for them, instead of inflicting the awkward task upon themselves? And in return, perhaps, our young wives may lay aside their little coquetries and become _meres respectables_ somewhat earlier than they do now. But, in truth, they all come to it at last."

As she finished speaking these words, a new waltz sounded, and again a dozen couples, some ill, some well matched, swam past us. One of the pairs was composed of a very fine-looking young man, with blue-black _favoris_ and _moustaches_, tall as a tower, and seeming, if air and expression may be trusted, very tolerably well pleased with himself.

His _danseuse_ might unquestionably have addressed her husband, who sat at no great distance from us, drawing up his gouty feet under his chair to let her pa.s.s, in these touching words:--

"Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen, About the world have times twelve thirties been, Since Love our hearts and Hymen did our hands Unite commutual in most sacred bands."

My neighbour and I looked up and exchanged glances as they went by. We both laughed.

"At least you will allow," said she, "that this is one of the cases in which a married lady may indulge her pa.s.sion for the dance without danger of consequences?"

"I am not quite sure of that," replied I. "If she be not found guilty of sin, she will scarcely obtain a verdict that shall acquit her of folly. But what can induce that magnificent personage, who looks down upon her as if engaged in measuring the distance between them--what could induce him to request the honour of enclosing her venerable waist in his arm?"

"Nothing more easily explained. That little fair girl sitting in yonder corner, with her hair so tightly drawn off her forehead, is her daughter--her only daughter, and will have a n.o.ble _dot_. Now you understand it?... And tell me, in case his speculation should not succeed, is it not better that this excellent lady, who waltzes so very like a duck, should receive all the eloquence with which he will seek to render himself amiable, upon her time-steeled heart, than that the delicate little girl herself should have to listen to it?"

"And you really would recommend us to adopt this mode of love-making by deputy, letting the mamma be the subst.i.tute, till the young lady has obtained a brevet to listen to the language of love in her own person? However excellent the scheme may be, dear lady, it is vain to hope that we shall ever be able to introduce it among us. The young ladies, I suspect, would exclaim, as you do here, when explaining why you cannot permit any English innovations among you, "Ce n'est pas dans nos moeurs."

I a.s.sure you, my friend, that I have not composed this conversation _a loisir_ for your amus.e.m.e.nt, for I have set down as nearly as possible what was said to me, though I have not quite given it all to you; but my letter is already long enough.