The Ways of Men Part 10

It is hard to make people understand the enthusiasm these decorations have excited in both teachers and pupils. The directress of one of our large schools was telling me of the help and pleasure the prints and casts had been to her; she had given them as subjects for the cla.s.s compositions, and used them in a hundred different ways as object-lessons. As the children are graduated from room to room, a great variety of high-cla.s.s subjects can be brought to their notice by varying the decorations.

It is by the eye princ.i.p.ally that taste is educated. "We speak with admiration of the eighth sense common among Parisians, and envy them their magic power of combining simple materials into an artistic whole.

The reason is that for generations the eyes of those people have been unconsciously educated by the harmonious lines of well-proportioned buildings, finely finished detail of stately colonnade, and shady perspective of quay and boulevard. After years of this subtle training the eye instinctively revolts from the vulgar and the crude. There is little in the poorer quarters of our city to rejoice or refine the senses; squalor and all-pervading ugliness are not least among the curses that poverty entails.

If you have a subject of interest in your mind, it often happens that every book you open, every person you speak with, refers to that topic.

I never remember having seen an explanation offered of this phenomenon.

The other morning, while this article was lying half finished on my desk, I opened the last number of a Paris paper and began reading an account of the drama, _Les Mauvais Bergers_ (treating of that perilous subject, the "strikes"), which Sarah Bernhardt had just had the courage to produce before the Paris public. In the third act, when the owner of the factory receives the disaffected hands, and listens to their complaints, the leader of the strike (an intelligent young workman), besides shorter hours and increased pay, demands that recreation rooms be built where the toilers, their wives, and their children may pa.s.s unoccupied hours in the enjoyment of attractive surroundings, and cries in conclusion: "We, the poor, need some poetry and some art in our lives, man does not live by bread alone. He has a right, like the rich, to things of beauty!"

In commending the use of decoration as a means of bringing pleasure into dull, cramped lives, one is too often met by the curious argument that taste is innate. "Either people have it or they haven't," like a long nose or a short one, and it is useless to waste good money in trying to improve either. "It would be much more to the point to spend your money in giving the poor children a good roast-beef dinner at Christmas than in placing the bust of Clytie before them." That argument has crushed more attempts to elevate the poor than any other ever advanced. If it were listened to, there would never be any progress made, because there are always thousands of people who are hungry.

When we reflect how painfully ill-arranged rooms or ugly colors affect our senses, and remember that less fortunate neighbors suffer as much as we do from hideous environments, it seems like keeping sunlight from a plant, or fresh air out of a sick-room, to refuse glimpses of the beautiful to the poor when it is in our power to give them this satisfaction with a slight effort. Nothing can be more encouraging to those who occasionally despair of human nature than the good results already obtained by this small attempt in the schools.

We fall into the error of imagining that because the Apollo Belvedere and the Square of St. Mark's have become stale to us by reproduction they are necessarily so to others. The great and the wealthy of the world form no idea of the longing the poor feel for a little variety in their lives.

They do not know what they want. They have no standards to guide them, but the desire is there. Let us offer ourselves the satisfaction, as we start off for pleasure trips abroad or to the mountains, of knowing that at home the routine of study is lightened for thousands of children by the counterfeit presentment of the scenes we are enjoying; that, as we float up the Golden Horn or sit in the moonlight by the Parthenon, far away at home some child is dreaming of those fair scenes as she raises her eyes from her task, and is unconsciously imbibing a love of the beautiful, which will add a charm to her humble life, and make the present labors lighter. If the child never lives to see the originals, she will be happier for knowing that somewhere in the world domed mosques mirror themselves in still waters, and marble G.o.ds, the handiwork of long-dead nations, stand in the golden sunlight and silently preach the gospel of the beautiful.

CHAPTER 21-Seven Small d.u.c.h.esses

Since those "precious" days when the habitues of the Hotel Rambouillet first raised social intercourse to the level of a fine art, the morals and manners, the amus.e.m.e.nts and intrigues of great French ladies have interested the world and influenced the ways of civilized nations.

Thanks to Memoirs and Maxims, we are able to reconstruct the life of a seventeenth or eighteenth century n.o.blewoman as completely as German archeologists have rebuilt the temple of the Wingless Victory on the Acropolis from surrounding debris.

Interest in French society has, however, diminished during this century, ceasing almost entirely with the Second Empire, when foreign women gave the tone to a parvenu court from which the older aristocracy held aloof in disgust behind the closed gates of their "hotels" and historic chateaux.

With the exception of Balzac, few writers have drawn authentic pictures of nineteenth-century n.o.blewomen in France; and his vivid portrayals are more the creations of genius than correct descriptions of a caste.

During the last fifty years French aristocrats have ceased to be factors even in matters social, the sceptre they once held having pa.s.sed into alien hands, the daughters of Albion to a great extent replacing their French rivals in influencing the ways of the "world,"-a change, be it remarked in pa.s.sing, that has not improved the tone of society or contributed to the spread of good manners.

People like the French n.o.bles, engaged in sulking and attempting to overthrow or boycott each succeeding regime, must naturally lose their influence. They have held aloof so long-fearing to compromise themselves by any advances to the powers that be, and restrained by countless traditions from taking an active part in either the social or political strife-that little by little they have been pa.s.sed by and ignored; which is a pity, for amid the ruin of many hopes and ambitions they have remained true to their caste and handed down from generation to generation the secret of that gracious urbanity and tact which distinguished the Gallic n.o.blewoman in the last century from the rest of her kind and made her so deft in the difficult art of pleasing-and being pleased.

Within the last few years there have, however, been signs of a change.

Young members of historic houses show an amusing inclination to escape from their austere surroundings and resume the place their grandparents abdicated. If it is impossible to rule as formerly, they at any rate intend to get some fun out of existence.

This joyous movement to the front is being made by the young matrons enlisted under the "Seven little d.u.c.h.esses'" banner. Oddly enough, a baker's half-dozen of ducal coronets are worn at this moment, in France, by small and sprightly women, who have shaken the dust of centuries from those ornaments and sport them with a decidedly modern air!

It is the members of this clique who, in Paris during the spring, at their chateaux in the summer and autumn, and on the Riviera after Christmas, lead the amus.e.m.e.nts and strike the key for the modern French world.

No one of these light-hearted ladies takes any particular precedence over the others. All are young, and some are wonderfully nice to look at.

The d.u.c.h.esse d'Uzes is, perhaps, the handsomest, good looks being an inheritance from her mother, the beautiful and wayward d.u.c.h.esse de Chaulme.

There is a vivid grace about the daughter, an intense vitality that suggests some beautiful being of the forest. As she moves and speaks one almost expects to hear the quick breath coming and going through her quivering nostrils, and see foam on her full lips. Her mother's tragic death has thrown a glamor of romance around the daughter's life that heightens the witchery of her beauty.

Next in good looks comes an American, the d.u.c.h.esse de la Rochefoucauld, although marriage (which, as de Maupa.s.sant remarked, is rarely becoming) has not been propitious to that gentle lady. By rights she should have been mentioned first, as her husband outranks, not only all the men of his age, but also his cousin, the old Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville, to whom, however, a sort of brevet rank is accorded on account of his years, his wealth, and the high rank of his two wives. It might almost be a.s.serted that our fair compatriot wears the oldest coronet in France. She certainly is mistress of three of the finest chateaux in that country, among which is Miromail, where the family live, and Liancourt, a superb Renaissance structure, a delight to the artist's soul.

The young d.u.c.h.esse de Brissac runs her two comrades close as regards looks. Brissac is the son of Mme. de Tredern, whom Newporters will remember two years ago, when she enjoyed some weeks of our summer season.

Their chateau was built by the Brissac of Henri IV.'s time and is one of the few that escaped uninjured through the Revolution, its vast stone corridors and ma.s.sive oak ceilings, its moat and battlements, standing to-day unimpaired amid a group of chateaux including Chaumont, Rochecotte, Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, Chenonceau, within "dining" distance of each other, that form a centre of gayety next in importance to Paris and Cannes. In the autumn these s.p.a.cious castles are filled with joyous bands and their ample stables with horses. A couple of years ago, when the king of Portugal and his suite were entertained at Chaumont for a week of stag-hunting, over three hundred people, servants, and guests, slept under its roof, and two hundred horses were housed in its stables.

The Duc de Luynes and his wife, who was Mlle. de Crussol (daughter of the brilliant d.u.c.h.esse d'Uzes of Boulanger fame), live at Dampierre, another interesting pile filled with rare pictures, bric-a-brac, and statuary, first among which is Jean Goujon's life-sized statue (in silver) of Louis XIII., presented by that monarch to his favorite, the founder of the house. This gem of the Renaissance stands in an octagonal chamber hung in dark velvet, unique among statues. It has been shown but once in public, at the Loan Exhibition in 1872, when the patriotic n.o.bility lent their treasures to collect a fund for the Alsace-Lorraine exiles.

The d.u.c.h.esse de Noailles, _nee_ Mlle. de Luynes, is another of this coterie and one of the few French n.o.blewomen who has travelled. Many Americans will remember the visit she made here with her mother some years ago, and the effect her girlish grace produced at that time. The de Noailles' chateau of Maintenon is an inheritance from Louis XIV.'s prudish favorite, who founded and enriched the de Noailles family. The Duc and d.u.c.h.esse d'Uzes live near by at Bonnelle with the old Duc de Doudeauville, her grandfather, who is also the grandfather of Mme. de Noailles, these two ladies being descended each from a wife of the old duke, the former from the Princesse de Polignac and the latter from the Princesse de Ligne.

The d.u.c.h.esse de Bisaccia, _nee_ Princesse Radziwill, and the d.u.c.h.esse d'Harcourt, who complete the circle of seven, also live in this vicinity, where another group of historic residences, including Eclimont and Rambouillet, the summer home of the president, rivals in gayety and hospitality the chateaux of the Loire.

No coterie in England or in this country corresponds at all to this French community. Much as they love to amuse themselves, the idea of meeting any but their own set has never pa.s.sed through their well-dressed heads. They differ from their parents in that they have broken away from many antiquated habits. Their houses are no longer lay hermitages, and their opera boxes are regularly filled, but no foreigner is ever received, no ambitious parvenu accepted among them. Ostracism here means not a ten years' exile, but lifelong banishment.

The contrast is strong between this rigor and the enthusiasm with which wealthy new-comers are welcomed into London society or by our own upper crust, so full of unpalatable pieces of dough. This exclusiveness of the t.i.tled French reminds me-incongruously enough-of a certain arrangement of graves in a Lenox cemetery, where the members of an old New England family lie buried in a circle with their feet toward its centre. When I asked, many years ago, the reason for this arrangement, a wit of that day-a daughter, by the bye, of Mrs. Stowe-replied, "So that when they rise at the Last Day only members of their own family may face them!"

One is struck by another peculiarity of these French men and women-their astonishing proficiency in _les arts d'agrement_. Every Frenchwoman of any pretensions to fashion backs her beauty and grace with some art in which she is sure to be proficient. The dowager d.u.c.h.esse d'Uzes is a sculptor of mark, and when during the autumn Mme. de Tredern gives opera at Brissac, she finds little difficulty in recruiting her troupe from among the youths and maidens under her roof whose musical education has been thorough enough to enable them to sing difficult music in public.

Love of the fine arts is felt in their conversation, in the arrangement and decoration of their homes, and in the interest that an exhibition of pictures or old furniture will excite. Few of these people but are _habitues_ of the Hotel Drouot and conversant with the value and authenticity of the works of art daily sold there. Such elements combine to form an atmosphere that does not exist in any other country, and lends an interest to society in France which it is far from possessing elsewhere.

There is but one way that an outsider can enter this Gallic paradise. By marrying into it! Two of the seven ladies in question lack the quarterings of the rest. Miss Mitch.e.l.l was only a charming American girl, and the mother of the Princesse Radziwill was Mlle. Blanc of Monte Carlo. However, as in most religions there are ceremonies that purify, so in this case the sacrament of marriage is supposed to have reconstructed these wives and made them genealogically whole.

There is something incongruous to most people in the idea of a young girl hardly out of the schoolroom bearing a ponderous t.i.tle. The pomp and circ.u.mstance that surround historic names connect them (through our reading) with stately matrons playing the "heavy female" roles in life's drama, much as Lady Macbeth's name evokes the idea of a raw-boned mother-in-law sort of person, the reverse of attractive, and quite the last woman in the world to egg her husband on to a crime-unless it were wife murder!

Names like de Chevreuse, or de la Rochefoucauld, seem appropriate only to the warlike amazons of the Fronde, or corpulent kill-joys in powder and court trains of the Mme. Etiquette school; it comes as a shock, on being presented to a group of girlish figures in the latest cut of golfing skirts, who are chattering odds on the Grand Prix in faultless English, to realize that these light-hearted _gamines_ are the present owners of sonorous t.i.tles. One shudders to think what would have been the effect on poor Marie Antoinette's priggish mentor could she have foreseen her granddaughter, clad in knickerbockers, running a petroleum tricycle in the streets of Paris, or pedalling "tandem" across country behind some young cavalry officer of her connection.

Let no simple-minded American imagine, however, that these up-to-date women are waiting to welcome him and his family to their intimacy. The world outside of France does not exist for a properly brought up French aristocrat. Few have travelled; from their point of view, any man with money, born outside of France, is a "Rasta," unless he come with diplomatic rank, in which case his position at home is carefully ferreted out before he is entertained. Wealthy foreigners may live for years in Paris, without meeting a single member of this coterie, who will, however, join any new club that promises to be amusing; but as soon as the "Rastas" get a footing, "the seven" and their following withdraw.

Puteaux had its day, then the "Polo Club" in the Bois became their rendezvous. But as every wealthy American and "smart" Englishwoman pa.s.sing the spring in Paris rushed for that too open circle, like tacks toward a magnet, it was finally cut by the "d.u.c.h.esses," who, together with such attractive aides-de-camp as the Princesse de Poix, Mmes. de Murat, de Morny, and de Broglie, inaugurated last spring "The Ladies'

Club of the Acacias," on a tiny island belonging to the "Tir aux Pigeons," which, for the moment, is the fad of its founders.

It must be a surprise to those who do not know French family pride to learn that exclusive as these women are there are cliques in France to-day whose members consider the ladies we have been speaking of as lacking in reserve. Men like Guy de Durfort, Duc de Lorges, or the Duc de Ma.s.sa, and their womenkind, hold themselves aloof on an infinitely higher plane, a.s.sociating with very few and scorning the vulgar herd of "smart" people!

It would seem as if such a vigorous weeding out of the unworthy would result in a rather restricted comradeship. Who the "elect" are must become each year more difficult to discern.

Their point of view in this case cannot differ materially from that of the old Methodist lady, who, while she was quite sure no one outside of her own sect could possibly be saved, had grave fears concerning the future of most of the congregation. She felt hopeful only of the clergyman and herself, adding: "There are days when I have me doubts about the minister!"

CHAPTER 22-Growing Old Ungracefully

There comes, we are told, a crucial moment, "a tide" in all lives, that taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. An a.s.sertion, by the bye, which is open to doubt. What does come to every one is an hour fraught with warning, which, if unheeded, leads on to folly. This fateful date coincides for most of us with the discovery that we are turning gray, or that the "crow's feet" or our temples are becoming visible realities.

The unpleasant question then presents itself: Are we to slip meekly into middle age, or are arms be taken up against our insidious enemy, and the rest of life become a losing battle, fought inch by inch?

In other days it was the men who struggled the hardest against their fate. Up to this century, the male had always been the ornamental member of a family. Caesar, we read, coveted a laurel crown princ.i.p.ally because it would help to conceal his baldness. The wigs of the Grand Monarque are historical. It is characteristic of the time that the latter's attempts at rejuvenation should have been taken as a matter of course, while a few years later poor Madame de Pompadour's artifices to retain her fleeting youth were laughed at and decried.

To-day the situation is reversed. The battle, given up by the men-who now accept their fate with equanimity-is being waged by their better halves with a vigor heretofore unknown. So general has this mania become that if asked what one weakness was most characteristic of modern women, what peculiarity marked them as different from their sisters in other centuries, I should unhesitatingly answer, "The desire to look younger than their years."

That people should long to be handsomer or taller or better proportioned than a cruel Providence has made them, is natural enough; but that so much time and trouble should be spent simply in trying to look "young,"

does seem unreasonable, especially when it is evident to everybody that such efforts must, in the nature of things, be failures. The men or women who do not look their age are rare. In each generation there are exceptions, people who, from one cause or another-generally an excellent const.i.tution-succeed in producing the illusion of youth for a few years after youth itself has flown.

A curious fatality that has the air of a nemesis pursues those who succeed in giving this false appearance. When pointing them out to strangers, their admirers (in order to make the contrast more effective) add a decade or so to the real age. Only last month I was sitting at dinner opposite a famous French beauty, who at fifty succeeds in looking barely thirty. During the meal both my neighbors directed attention to her appearance, and in each case said: "Isn't she a wonder! You know she's over sixty!" So all that poor lady gained by looking youthful was ten years added to her age!

The desire to remain attractive as long as possible is not only a reasonable but a commendable ambition. Unfortunately the stupid means most of our matrons adopt to accomplish this end produce exactly the opposite result.