The Idler in France Part 14

Who could behold them as I have done, in that sick room, without acknowledging that, despite of all that has been said of the deleterious influence of courts on the feelings of those who live much in them, the truly good pa.s.s unharmed through the dangerous ordeal?

Went to the Theatre des Nouveautes last night, where I saw _La Maison du Rempart_. The Parisians seem to have decided taste for bringing scenes of riot and disorder on the stage; and the tendency of such exhibitions is any thing but salutary with so inflammable a people, and in times like the present.

One of the scenes of _La Maison du Rempart_ represents an armed mob demolishing the house of a citizen--an act of violence that seemed to afford great satisfaction to the majority of the audience; and, though the period represented is that of the _Fronde_, the acts of the rabble strongly a.s.similated with those of the same cla.s.s in later times, when the revolution let loose on hapless France the worst of all tyrants--a reckless and sanguinary mob. I cannot help feeling alarmed at the consequences likely to result from such performances. Sparks of fire flung among gunpowder are not more dangerous. Shewing a populace what they can effect by brutal force is a dangerous experiment; it is like letting a tame lion see how easily he could overpower his keepers.

Mr. Cuthbert and M. Charles Laffitte dined here yesterday. Both are excellent specimens of their countries; the former being well-informed and agreeable, and the latter possessing all the good sense we believe to be peculiar to an Englishman, with the high breeding that appertains to a thoroughly well-educated Frenchman.

The advance of civilization was evident in both these gentlemen--the Englishman speaking French with purity and fluency, and the Frenchman speaking English like a born Briton. Twenty years ago, this would have been considered a very rare occurrence, while now it excites little remark. But it is not alone the languages of the different countries that Mr. Cuthbert and M. Charles Laffitte have acquired, for both are well acquainted with the literature of each, which renders their society very agreeable.

Spent last evening in the Rue d'Anjou, where I met Lady Combermere, the Dowager Lady Hawarden, and Mrs. Masters. Lady Combermere is lively and agreeable, _un peu romanesque_, which gives great originality to her conversation, and sings Mrs. Arkwright's beautiful ballads with great feeling.

Mr. Charles Grant[4] dined here yesterday. He is a very sensible man, possessing a vast fund of general information, with gentle and highly-polished manners. What a charm there is in agreeable manners, and how soon one feels at ease with those who possess them!

Spent, or mis-spent, a great portion of the day in visiting the curiosity shops on the _Quai Voltaire_, and came away from them with a lighter purse than I entered. There is no resisting, at least I find it so, the exquisite _porcelaine de Sevres_, off which the dainty dames of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth feasted, or which held their _bouquets_, or _pot pourri_. An _etui of_ gold set with oriental agates and brilliants, and a _flacon_ of rock crystal, both of which once appertained to Madame de Sevigne, vanquished my prudence.

Would that with the possession of these articles, often used by her, I could also inherit the matchless grace with which her pen could invest every subject it touched! But, alas! it is easier to acquire the beautiful _bijouterie_, rendered still more valuable by having belonged to celebrated people, than the talent that gained their celebrity; and so I must be content with inhaling _esprit de rose_ from the _flacon_ of Madame de Sevigne, without aspiring to any portion of the _esprit_ for which she was so distinguished.

I am now rich in the possession of objects once belonging to remarkable women, and I am not a little content with my acquisitions. I can boast the gold and enamelled pincushion of Madame de Maintenon, heart-shaped, and stuck as full of pins as the hearts of the French Protestants were with thorns by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; to which she is said to have so greatly contributed by her counsel to her infatuated lover, Louis the Fourteenth. I can indulge in a pinch of snuff from the _tabatiere_ of the Marquise de Rambouillet, hold my court-plaster in the _boite a mouches_ of Ninon de l'Enclos, and cut ribands with the scissors of Madame de Deffand.

This desire of obtaining objects that have belonged to celebrated people may be, and often is, considered puerile; but confess to the weakness, and the contemplation of the little memorials I have named awakens recollections in my mind fraught with interest.

I can fancy Madame de Sevigne, who was as amiable as she was clever, and whose tenderness towards her daughter is demonstrated so naturally and touchingly in the letters she addressed to her, holding the _flacon_ now mine to the nostrils of Madame de Grignan, in whose health she was always so much more interested than in her own.

I can see in my mind's eye the precise and demure Madame de Maintenon taking a pin from the very pincushion now before me, to prevent the opening of her kerchief, and so conceal even her throat from the prying eyes of the aged voluptuary, whose pa.s.sions the wily prude is said to have excited by a concealment of a portion of her person that had, in all probability, ceased to possess charms enough to produce this effect, if revealed.

This extreme reserve on the part of the mature coquette evinced a profound knowledge of mankind, and, above all, of him on whom she practised her arts. The profuse display of the bust and shoulders in those days, when the ladies of the court left so little to the imagination of the amorous monarch on whose heart so many of them had designs, must have impaired the effect meant to have been achieved by the indelicate exposure; for--hear it ye fair dames, with whose snowy busts and dimpled shoulders the eyes of your male acquaintance are as familiar as with your faces!--the charms of nature, however beautiful, fall short of the ideal perfection accorded to them by the imagination, when unseen. The clever Maintenon, aware of this fact, of which the less wise of her s.e.x are ignorant or forgetful, afforded a striking contrast in her dress to the women around her, and piquing first the curiosity, and then the pa.s.sions, of the old libertine, acquired an influence over him when she had long pa.s.sed the meridian of her personal attractions, which youthful beauties, who left him no room to doubt their charms, or to exaggerate them as imagination is p.r.o.ne to do, could never accomplish.

This very pincushion, with its red velvet heart stuck with pins, was probably a gift from the enamoured Louis, and meant to be symbolical of the state of his own; which, in hardness, it might be truly said to resemble. It may have often been placed on her table when Maintenon was paying the penalty of her hard-earned greatness by the painful task of endeavouring--as she acknowledged--to amuse a man who was no longer amusable.

Could it speak, it might relate the wearisome hours pa.s.sed in a palace (for the demon _Ennui_ cannot be expelled even from the most brilliant; nay, prefers, it is said, to select them for his abode), and we should learn, that while an object of envy to thousands, the mistress, or unacknowledged wife of _le Grand Monarque_, was but little more happy than the widow of Scarron when steeped in poverty.

Madame de Maintenon discovered what hundreds before and since have done--that splendour and greatness cannot confer happiness; and, while trying to amuse a man who, though possessed of sovereign power, has lost all sense of enjoyment, must have reverted, perhaps with a sigh, to the little chamber in which she so long soothed the sick bed of the witty octogenarian, Scarron; who, gay and cheerful to the last, could make her smile by his sprightly and _spirituelles_ sallies, which neither the evils of poverty nor pain could subdue.

Perhaps this pincushion has lain on her table when Madame de Maintenon listened to the animating conversation of Racine, or heard him read aloud, with that spirit and deep pathos for which his reading was so remarkable, his _Esther_ and _Alhalie_, previously to their performance at St.-Cyr.

That she did not make his peace with the king, when he offended him by writing an essay to prove that long wars, however likely to reflect glory on a sovereign, were sure to entail misery on his subjects, shews that either her influence over the mind of Louis was much less powerful than has been believed, or that she was deficient in the feelings that must have prompted her to exert it by pleading for him.

The ungenerous conduct of the king in banishing from his court a man whose genius shed a purer l.u.s.tre over it than all the battles Boileau has sung, and for a cause that merited praise instead of displeasure, has always appeared to me to be indicative of great meanness as well as hardness of heart; and while lamenting the weakness of Racine, originating in a morbid sensibility that rendered his disgrace at court so painful and humiliating to the poet as to cause his death, I am still less disposed to pardon the sovereign that could thus excite into undue action a sensibility, the effects of which led its victim to the grave.

The diamond-mounted _tabatiere_ now on my table once occupied a place on that of the Marquise de Rambouillet, in that hotel so celebrated, not only for the efforts made by its coterie towards refining the manners and morals of her day, but the language also, until the affectation to which its members carried their notions of purity, exposed them to a ridicule that tended to subvert the influence they had previously exercised over society.

Moliere--the inimitable Moliere--may have been permitted the high distinction of taking a pinch of snuff from it, while planning his _Precieuses Ridicules_, which, _malgre_ his disingenuous disavowal of the satire being aimed at the Hotel Rambouillet, evidently found its subject there. I cannot look at the snuff-box without being reminded of the brilliant circle which its former mistress a.s.sembled around her, and among which Moliere had such excellent opportunities of studying the peculiarities of the cla.s.s he subsequently painted.

Little did its members imagine, when he was admitted to it, the use he would make of the privilege; and great must have been their surprise and mortification, though not avowed, at the first representation of the _Precieuses Ridicules_, in which many of them must have discovered the resemblance to themselves, though the clever author professed only to ridicule their imitators. _Les Femmes Savantes_, though produced many years subsequently, also found the originals of its characters in the same source whence Moliere painted _Les Precieuses Ridicules_.

I can fancy him slily listening to the theme proposed to the a.s.sembly by Mademoiselle Scudery--the _Sarrades_, as she was styled--"Whether a lover jealous, a lover despised, a lover separated from the object of his tenderness, or him who has lost her by death, was to be esteemed the most unhappy."

At a later period of his life, Moliere might have solved the question from bitter personal experience, for few ever suffered more from the pangs of jealousy, and a.s.suredly no one has painted with such vigour--though the comic often prevails over the serious in his delineations--the effects of a pa.s.sion any thing but comic to him.

Strange power of genius, to make others laugh at incidents which had often tormented himself, and to be able to give humour to characters in various comedies, actuated by the feelings to which he had so frequently been a victim!

I can picture to myself the fair _Julie d'Angennes_, who bestowed not her hand on the _Duc de Montausier_ until he had served as many years in seeking it as Jacob had served to gain that of Rachel, and until she had pa.s.sed her thirtieth year (in order that his pa.s.sion should become as purified from all grossness, as was the language spoken among the circle in which she lived), receiving with dignified reserve the finely painted flowers and poems to ill.u.s.trate them, which formed the celebrated _Guirlande de Julie_, presented to her by her courtly admirer.

I see pa.s.s before me the fair and elegant dames of that galaxy of wit and beauty, Mesdames de Longueville, Lafayette, and de Sevigne, fluttering their fans as they listened and replied to the gallant compliments of Voiture, Menage, Chapelain, Desmarets, or De Reaux, or to the _spirituelle causerie_ of Chamfort.

What a pity that a society, no less useful than brilliant at its commencement, should have degenerated into a coterie, remarkable at last but for its fantastic and false notions of refinement, exhibited in a manner that deserved the ridicule it called down!

CHAPTER XII.

Spent last evening in the Rue d'Anjou: met there la Marquise de Pouleprie, and the usual _habitues_. She is a delightful person; for age has neither chilled the warmth of her heart, nor impaired the vivacity of her manners. I had heard much of her; for she is greatly beloved by the d.u.c.h.esse de Guiche and all the De Gramont family; and she, knowing their partiality to me, treated me rather as an old than as a new acquaintance.

Talking of old times, to which the Duc de Gramont reverted, the Marquise mentioned having seen the celebrated Madame du Barry in the garden at Versailles, when she (the Marquise) was a very young girl.

She described her as having a most animated and pleasant countenance, _un pet.i.t nez retrousse_, brilliant eyes, full red lips, and as being altogether a very attractive person.

The Marquise de Pouleprie accompanied the French royal family to England, and remained with them there during the emigration. She told me that once going through the streets of London in a carriage, with the French king, during an election at Westminster, the mob, ignorant of his rank, insisted that he and his servants should take off their hats, and cry out "Long live Sir Francis Burdett!" which his majesty did with great good humour, and laughed heartily after.

Went last night to see Mademoiselle Mars, in "Valerie." It was a finished performance, and worthy of her high reputation. Never was there so musical a voice as hers! Every tone of it goes direct to the heart, and its intonations soothe and charm the ear. Her countenance, too, is peculiarly expressive. Even when her eyes, in the _role_ she enacted last night, were fixed, and supposed to be sightless, her countenance was still beautiful. There is a harmony in its various expressions that accords perfectly with her clear, soft, and liquid voice; and the united effect of both these attractions renders her irresistible.

Never did Art so strongly resemble Nature as in the acting of this admirable _artiste_. She identifies herself so completely with the part she performs, that she not only believes herself for the time being the heroine she represents, but makes others do so too. There was not a dry eye in the whole of the female part of the audience last night--a homage to her power that no other actress on the French stage could now command.

The style, too, of Mademoiselle Mars' acting is the most difficult of all; because there is no exaggeration, no violence in it. The same difference exists between it and that of other actresses, as between a highly finished portrait and a glaringly coloured transparency. The feminine, the graceful, and the natural, are never lost sight of for a moment.

The French are admirable critics of acting, and are keenly alive to the beauties of a chaste and finished style, like that of Mademoiselle Mars. In Paris there is no playing to the galleries, and for a simple reason:--the occupants of the galleries here are as fastidious as those of the boxes, and any thing like outraging nature would be censured by them: whereas, in other countries, the broad and the exaggerated almost invariably find favour with the G.o.ds.

The same pure and refined taste that characterises the acting of Mademoiselle Mars presides also over her toilette, which is always appropriate and becoming.

Accustomed to the agreeable mixture of literary men in London society, I observe, with regret, their absence in that of Paris. I have repeatedly questioned people why this is, but have never been able to obtain a satisfactory answer. It tells much against the good taste of those who can give the tone to society here, that literary men should be left out of it; and if the latter _will_ not mingle with the aristocratic circles they are to blame, for the union of both is advantageous to the interests of each.

Parisian society is very exclusive, and is divided into small coteries, into which a stranger finds it difficult to become initiated. Large routes are rare, and not at all suited to the tastes of the French people; who comment with merriment, if not with ridicule, on the evening parties in London, where the rooms being too small to contain half the guests invited, the stairs and ante-rooms are filled by a crowd, in which not only the power of conversing, but almost of respiring is impeded.

The French ladies attribute the want of freshness so remarkable in the toilettes of Englishwomen, to their crowded routes, and the knowledge of its being impossible for a robe, or at least of a greater portion of one than covers a bust, to be seen; which induces the fair wearers to economise, by rarely indulging in new dresses.

At Paris certain ladies of distinction open their _salons_, on one evening of each week, to a circle of their acquaintances, not too numerous to banish that ease and confidence which form the delight of society. Each lady takes an evening for her receptions, and no one interferes with her arrangements by giving a party on the same night.

The individuals of each circle are thus in the habit of being continually in each other's society; consequently the etiquette and formality, so _genant_ among acquaintances who seldom meet, are banished.

To preserve the charm of these unceremonious _reunions_, strangers are seldom admitted to them, but are invited to the b.a.l.l.s, dinners, or large parties, where they see French people _en grande lenue_, both in dress and manner, instead of penetrating into the more agreeable parties to which I have referred, where the graceful _neglige_ of a _demi-toilette_ prevails, and the lively _causerie_ of the _habitues de la maison_ supersedes the constraint of ceremony.

Such a society is precisely the sort of one that literary men would, I should suppose, like to mingle in, to unbend their minds from graver studies, and yet not pa.s.s their time unprofitably; for in it, politics, literature, and the fine arts, generally furnish the topics of conversation: from which, however, the warmth of discussion, which too frequently renders politics a prohibited subject, is excluded, or the pedantry that sometimes spoils literary _causerie_ is banished.

French people, male and female, talk well; give their opinions with readiness and vivacity; often striking out ideas as original as they are brilliant; highly suggestive to more profound thinkers, but which they dispense with as much prodigality as a spendthrift throws away his small coin, conscious of having more at his disposal. Quick of perception, they jump, rather than march, to a conclusion, at which an Englishman or a German would arrive leisurely, enabled to tell all the particulars of the route, but which the Frenchman would know little of from having arrived by some shorter road. This quickness of perception exempts them from the necessity of devoting much of the time and study which the English or Germans employ in forming opinions, but it also precludes their being able to reason as justly or as gravely on those they form.

Walked in the gardens of the Tuileries to-day. What a contrast their frequenters offer to those of the Luxembourg! In the Tuileries, the promenaders look as if they only walked there to display their tasteful dresses and pretty persons.

The women eye each other as they pa.s.s, and can tell at a glance whether their respective _chapeaux_ have come from the _atelier_ of Herbault, or the less _recherce magasin de modes_ of some more humble _modiste_.

How rapidly can they see whether the Cashmere shawl of some pa.s.sing dame owes its rich but sober tints to an Indian loom, or to the fabric of M. Ternaux, who so skilfully imitates the exotic luxury; and what a difference does the circ.u.mstance make in their estimation of the wearer! The beauty of a woman, however great it may be, excites less envy in the minds of her own s.e.x in France, than does the possession of a fine Cashmere, or a _garniture_ of real Russian sable--objects of general desire to every Parisian _belle_.