The Cockaynes in Paris Part 6

"I thought you had some idea of going to the Museum of Artillery this afternoon, to see whether or not you approved of the French guns."

Mr. c.o.c.kayne laughed at the sarcasm, and again gave Sophonisba his arm, and went under the colonnades of the Rue de Rivoli, wondering, by the way, why people stared at him in his plaid suit, and at his daughter in her brown hat and blue veil. Mrs. c.o.c.kayne wondered likewise. The French were the rudest people on the face of the earth, and not the politest, as they had the impudence to a.s.sert.

When the party reached the colonnades of the Grand Hotel du Louvre, they found themselves in the midst of a busy scene.

The _Magasins du Louvre_ stretch far under the Hotel, from the Rue de Rivoli to the Rue Saint-Honore. Year after year has the stretching process continued; but now the great company of linen drapers and hosiers have all the s.p.a.ce that can be spared them. The endless lines of customers' carriages in the Rue Saint-Honore and on the _Place_ opposite Prince Napoleon's palace betoken the marvellous trade going on within.

The father of the English family here turned his back upon the great shop, and glancing towards the Louvre and the Church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, exclaimed--"Marvellous scene! A sight not to be equalled in the world. Yonder is the old church, the bell of which tolled the----"

"You're making a laughing-stock of yourself," Mrs. c.o.c.kayne exclaims, taking her husband firmly by the arm. "One would think you were an hotel guide, or a walking handbook, or--or a beadle or showman. What do you want to know about the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew now? There'll not be a mantle or a pair of gloves left. Come in--do! You can go gesticulating about the streets with Carrie to-morrow, if you choose; but do contrive to behave like an ordinary mortal to-day."

Mr. c.o.c.kayne resigned himself. He plunged into the magnificent shop. He was dragged into the crowd that was defiling past the fifteen-sous counter, where the goods lay in great tumbled ma.s.ses on the floor and upon the counter. He was surprised to see the shopmen standing upon the counter, and, with marvellous rapidity, telling off the yards of the cheap fabrics to the ladies and gentlemen who were pressing before them in an unbroken line. Beyond were the packers. Beyond again, was the office where payment was made, each person having a note or ticket, with the article bought, showing the sum due. A grave official marshalled the customer to the pay-place. There was wonderful order in the seeming confusion. The admirable system of the establishment was equal to the emergency. An idea of the continuous flow of the crowd past the silk and mixed fabric counters may be got from the fact that many ladies waited three and four hours for their turn to be served. One Parisian lady told Mrs. c.o.c.kayne that, after waiting four hours in the crowd, she had gone home to lunch, and had returned to try her fortune a second time.

Poor c.o.c.kayne! He was absolutely bewildered. His endeavours to steer the "three daughters of Albion" who were under his charge, in the right direction, were painful to witness. First he threaded corridors, then he was in the carpet gallery, and now he was in the splendid, the palatial shawl-hall, where elegant ladies were trying on shawls of costly fabric, with that grace and quiet for which Parisians are unmatched.

"This is superb! Oh, this is very, very fine!" cried the ladies. "How on earth shall we find our way out?"

Now they sailed among immensities of silk and satin waves. Now they were encompa.s.sed with shawls; and now they were amid colonnades of rolls of carpet.

Mrs. c.o.c.kayne stayed here and there to make a purchase, by the help of Sophonisba's French, which was a source of considerable embarra.s.sment to the shopmen. They smiled, but were very polite.

"This is not a shop, it is a palace dedicated to trade," cried c.o.c.kayne.

"Stuff and nonsense," was his answer; "take care of the parcels. Yon know better, of course, than the people to whom it belongs."

The c.o.c.kaynes found themselves borne by the endless stream of customers into a vast and lofty gallery. Pater paused.

"This is superb! It would have been impossible to realize----"

"Don't be a fool, c.o.c.kayne," said his wife; "this is the lace department. We must not go away without buying something."

"Let us try," was saucily answered.

Mrs. c.o.c.kayne immediately settled upon some Chantilly, and made her lord, as she expressed it in her pretty way, "pay for his impudence."

The silk gallery was as grand and bewildering as the lace department; and here again were made some extraordinary bargains.

Obliging officials directed the party to the first staircase on the right, or to turn to the left, by the furnishing department. They made a mistake, and found themselves in the _salons_ devoted to made linen, where Mrs. c.o.c.kayne hoped her husband would not make his daughters blush with what he considered to be (and he was much mistaken) witty observations. He was to be serious and silent amid mountains of feminine under linen. He was to ask no questions.

In the Saint Honore gallery--which is the furnishing department--Mr.

c.o.c.kayne was permitted to indulge in a few pa.s.sing expressions of wonder. He was hushed in the splendour of the shawl gallery--where all is solid oak and gla.s.s and rich gold, and where the wearied traveller through the exciting scene of a _Grande Occasion_ at the marvellous shops of the Louvre, can get a little rest and quiet.

"A wonderful place!" said Pater, as he emerged in the Rue de Rivoli, exhausted.

"And much more sensible than the place opposite," his wife replied, pointing to the palace where the art treasures of Imperial France are imperially housed.

"_Grande Occasion!_" muttered Mr. c.o.c.kayne, when he reached the hotel--"a grand opportunity for emptying one's pocket. The cheapness is positively ruinous. I wonder whether there are any cheap white elephants in Paris?"

"White elephants, c.o.c.kayne! White fiddlesticks! I do really think, girls, your father is gradually--mind, I say, _gradually--gradually_ taking leave of his senses."

"La! mamma," unfortunate Carrie interposed, raising her eyes from a volume on Paris in the Middle Ages--"la! mamma, you know that in India----"

"Hold your tongue, Miss--of course I know--and if I didn't, it is not for _you_ to teach me."

Mr. Timothy c.o.c.kayne heaved a deep sigh and rang for his bill.

He was to leave for London on the morrow--and his wife and daughters were to find lodgings.

CHAPTER VII.

OUR FOOLISH COUNTRYWOMEN.

I Introduce at this point--its proper date--Miss Carrie c.o.c.kayne's letter to Miss Sharp:--

"Grand Hotel, Paris.

"DEAREST EMMY--They are all out shopping, so here's a long letter. I haven't patience with the men. I am sure we have had enough abuse in our own country, without travelling all the way to Paris for it; and yet the first paper I take up in the reading saloon of the hotel, contains a paragraph headed _Le Beau s.e.xe en Angleterre_. The paragraph is violent. The writer wants to know what demon possesses the Englishwomen at this moment. I might have been sure it was translated from an English paper. The creature wants to know whether the furies are let loose, and is very clever about Lucretia Borgia, and Mary Manning, and Mary Newell! One would think English mothers were all going to boil their children. This is just what has happened about everything else. In certain English circles slang is talked: therefore women have become coa.r.s.e and vulgar. The Divorce Court has been a busy one of late; and scandals have been 'going round' as the American ladies in this hotel say; therefore there are to be no more virtuous mothers and sisters presently. Upon my word, the audacity of this makes my blood boil. Here the ladies paint, my dear, one and all. Why, the children in the Tuileries gardens whisk their skirts, and ogle their boy playmates.

Vanity Fair at its height is here--I am not going to dispute it. Nor will I say papa is quite in the wrong when he cries shame on some of the costumes one meets on the Boulevards. My dear, short skirts and grey hair do _not_ go well together. I cannot even bear to think of grand-mamma showing her ankles and Hessian boots! But what vexes and enrages me is the injustice of the sudden outcry. Where has the slang come from? Pray who brought it into the drawing-room? How is it that girls delight in stable-talk, and imitate men in their dress and manners? We cannot deny that the domestic virtues have suffered in these fast days, nor that wife and husband go different ways too much: but are we to bear all the blame? Did _we_ build the clubs, I wonder? Did you or I invent racing, and betting, and gambling? Do _you_ like being lonely, as you are, my dear? When women go wrong, who leads the way? The pace is very fast now, and we _do_ give more time to dress, and that sort of thing than our mothers did. I own I'm a heavy hand at pastry, and mamma is a light one. I couldn't tell you how many shirts papa has. I should be puzzled to make my own dresses. I hate needlework. But are we monsters for all this? Papa doesn't grumble _very_ much. He has his pleasures, I'm sure. He dined out four times the week we came away. He was at the Casino in the Rue St. Honore last night, and came home with such an account of it that I am quite posted up in the manners and costumes of _ces dames_, yes, and the _lower_ cla.s.s of them. The mean creature who has been writing in the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ gives us no benefit of clergy. We have driven our brothers out into the night; we have sent our lovers to Newmarket; we have implored our husbands (that is, _we_ who have got husbands,) not to come home to dinner, because we have more agreeable company which we have provided for ourselves. Girls talk slang, I know--perhaps they taught their brothers! I suppose mamma taught papa to describe a woman in the _Bois_ as 'no end of a swell,'

and when he is in the least put out to swear at her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INFLEXIBLE "MEESSES ANGLAISES."

_They are not impressionable, but they will stoop to "field sports."_]

"Now, my dear, shall I give you _my_ idea of the mischief? Papa thinks I go about with my eyes shut; that I observe nothing--except the bonnet shops. I say the paint, the chignons, the hoops, and the morals--whatever they may be--start from here. My ears absolutely tingled the first evening I spent here _en soiree_. Lovers! why the married ladies hardly take the trouble to disguise their preferences.

"I was at an emba.s.sy reception the other night. Papa said it was like a green-room, only not half so amusing. They talked in one corner as openly as you might speak of the Prince Imperial, about Mademoiselle Schneider's child. There were women of the company whose _liaisons_ are as well known as their faces, and yet they were _parfaitement bien recues_! Theresa is to be heard--or was to be heard till she went out of fashion--in private salons, screaming her vulgar songs among the young ladies. When I turn the corner just outside the hotel, what do I see in one of the most fashionable print-shops? Why, three great Mabille prints of the shockingly indecent description--with ladies and their daughters looking at them. Those disagreeable pictures in the Burlington Arcade are, my dearest Emmy, moral prints when compared with them. We have imported all this. Paris is within ten hours and a half of London, so we get French ways, as papa says, 'hot and hot.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENGLISH VISITORS TO THE CLOSERIE DE LILAS.--SHOCKING!]

"Who admires domestic women now? Tell an English _creve_ that Miss Maria is clever at a custard, and he will sneer at her. No. She must be witty, pert; able to give him as good as he sends, as people say. Young Dumas has done a very great deal of this harm; and he has made a fortune by it. He has brought the Casino into the drawing-room, given _ces dames_ a position in society, and made hundreds of young men ruin themselves for the glory of being seen talking to a Cora Pearl. _Now_ what do you think he has done. He has actually brought out a complete edition of his pieces, with a preface, in which, Papa tells me, he plays the moralist.

He has unfolded all the vice--crowded the theatres to see a bad woman in a consumption--painted the _demi-monde--with a purpose_! All the world has laboured under the idea that the purpose was piles of gold. But now, the locker being full, and the key turned, and in the young gentleman's pocket, he dares to put himself in the robe of a professor, to say it was not the money he cared about--it was the lesson. He is a reformer--a worshipper of virtue! We shall have the author of _Jack Sheppard_ start as a penologist soon. My dear, the cowardice of men when dealing with poor women is bad enough; but it is not by half so repulsive as their hypocrisy. Ugh!

"Any news of the handsome Mr. Daker? It strikes me, dear Emmy, 'Uncle Sharp' didn't send him up from Maidstone with a letter of introduction to his niece for nothing.

"Your affectionate friend, "CARRIE C."

CHAPTER VIII.

"OH, YES!" AND "ALL RIGHT!"