Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume II Part 3

There was, however, such a saucy look of determination to do what they knew was absurd, that I gave them credit for being aware of the nonsense of what they applauded, from the very fact that they did applaud it.

It is easy enough sometimes to discover "le vrai au travers du ridicule;" and these silly boys were not, I am persuaded, such utter blockheads as they endeavoured to appear. It is a bad and mischievous tone, however; and the affecting a vice where you have it not, is quite as detestable a sort of hypocrisy as any other.

Some thousand years hence perhaps, if any curious collectors of rare copies should contrive among them to preserve specimens of the French dramas of the present day, it may happen that while the times that are gone shall continue to be cla.s.sed as the Iron, the Golden, the Dark, and the Augustan ages, this day of ours may become familiar in all men's mouths as the Diabolic age,--unless, indeed, some charitable critic shall step forward in our defence, and bestow upon it the gentler appellation of "the Idiot era."

LETTER XLVII.

Palais Royal.--Variety of Characters.--Party of English.--Restaurant.--Galerie d'Orleans.--Number of Loungers.--Convenient abundance of Idle Men.--Theatre du Vaudeville.

Though, as a lady, you may fancy yourself quite beyond the possibility of ever feeling any interest in the Palais Royal, its restaurans, its trinket-shops, ribbon-shops, toy-shops &c. &c. &c. and all the world of misery, mischief, and good cheer which rises _etage_ after _etage_ above them; I must nevertheless indulge in a little gossip respecting it, because few things in Paris--I might, I believe, say nothing--can show an aspect so completely un-English in all ways as this singular region. The palace itself is stately and imposing, though not externally in the very best taste. Corneille, however, says of it,--

"L'univers entier ne peut voir rien d'egal Au superbe dehors du Palais Cardinal,"

as it was called from having been built and inhabited by the Cardinal de Richelieu. But it is the use made of the s.p.a.ce which was originally the Cardinal's garden, which gives the place its present interest.

All the world--men, women and children, gentle and simple, rich and poor,--in short, I suppose every living soul that enters Paris, is taken to look at the Palais Royal. But though many strangers linger there, alas! all too long, there are many others who, according to my notions, do not linger there long enough. The quickest eye cannot catch at one glance, though that glance be in activity during a tour made round the whole enclosure, all the national characteristic, picturesque, and comic groups which float about there incessantly through at least twenty hours of the twenty-four. I know that the Palais Royal is a study which, in its higher walks and profoundest depths, it would be equally difficult, dangerous, and disagreeable to pursue: but with these alt.i.tudes and profundities I have nothing to do; there are abundance of objects to be seen there, calculated and intended to meet the eyes of all men, and women too, which may furnish matter for observation, without either diving or climbing in pursuit of knowledge that, after all, would be better lost than found.

But one should have the talent of Hogarth to describe the different groups, with all their varied little episodes of peculiarity, which render the Palais Royal so amusing. These groups are, to be sure, made up only of Parisians, and of the wanderers who visit _la belle ville_ in order to see and be seen in every part of it; yet it is in vain that you would seek elsewhere the same odd selection of human beings that are to be found sans faute in every corner of the Palais Royal.

How it happens I know not, but so it is, that almost every person you meet here furnishes food for speculation. If it be an elegant well-appointed man of fas.h.i.+on, the fancy instantly tracks him to a _salon de jeu_; and if you are very good-natured, your heart will ache to think how much misery he is likely to carry home with him. If it be a low, skulking, semi-genteel _moustache_, with large, dark, deep-set eyes rolling about to see whom he can devour, you are as certain that he too is making for a salon, as that a man with a rod and line on his shoulder is going to fish. That pretty _soubrette_, with her neat heels and smart silk ap.r.o.n, who has evidently a few francs tied up in the corner of the handkerchief which she holds in her hand--do we not know that she is peering through the window of every trinket-shop to see where she can descry the most tempting gold ear-rings, for the purchase of which a quarter's wages are about to be dis-kerchiefed?

We must not overlook, and indeed it would not be easy to do so, that well-defined domestic party of our country-folks who have just turned into the superb Galerie d'Orleans. Father, mother, and daughters--how easy to guess their thoughts, and almost their words! The portly father declares that it would make a capital Exchange: he has not yet seen La Bourse. He looks up to its n.o.ble height--then steps forward a pace or two, and measures with his eye the s.p.a.ce on all sides--then stops, and perhaps says to the stately lady on his arm, (whose eyes meanwhile are wandering amidst shawls, gloves, Cologne bottles, and Sevres china, first on one side and then on the other,)--"This is not badly built; it is light and lofty--and the width is very considerable for so slight-looking a roof; but what is it compared to Waterloo-bridge!"

Two pretty girls, with bright cheeks, dove-like eyes, and "tresses like the morn," falling in un-numbered ringlets, so as almost to hide their curious yet timid glances, precede the parent pair; but, with pretty well-taught caution, pause when they pause, and step on when they step on. But they can hardly look at anything; for do they not know, though their downcast eyes can hardly be said to see it, that those youths with coal-black hair, favoris and imperials, are spying at them with their lorgnettes?

Here too, as at the Tuileries, are little pavilions to supply the insatiable thirst for politics; and here, too, we could distinguish the melancholy champion of the elder branch of the Bourbons, who is at least sure to find the consolation of his faithful "Quotidienne," and the sympathy of "La France." The sour republican stalks up, as usual, to seize upon the "Reformateur;" while the comfortable doctrinaire comes forth from the Cafe Very, ruminating on the "Journal des Debats," and the chances of his bargains at Tortoni's or La Bourse.

It was in a walk taken round three sides of the square that we marked the figures I have mentioned, and many more too numerous to record, on a day that we had fixed upon to gratify our curiosity by dining--not at Very's, or any other far-famed artist's, but tout bonnement at a restaurant of quarante sous par tete. Having made our tour, we mounted au second at numero--I forget what, but it was where we had been especially recommended to make this coup d'essai. The scene we entered upon, as we followed a long string of persons who preceded us, was as amusing as it was new to us all.

I will not say that I should like to dine three days in the week at the Palais Royal for quarante sous par tete; but I will say, that I should have been very sorry not to have done it once, and moreover, that I heartily hope I may do it again.

The dinner was extremely good, and as varied as our fancy chose to make it, each person having privilege to select three or four plats from a carte that it would take a day to read deliberately. But the dinner was certainly to us the least important part of the business.

The novelty of the spectacle, the number of strange-looking people, and the perfect amenity and good-breeding which seemed to reign among them all, made us look about us with a degree of interest and curiosity that almost caused the whole party to forget the ostensible cause of their visit.

There were many English, chiefly gentlemen, and several Germans with their wives and daughters; but the majority of the company was French; and from sundry little circ.u.mstances respecting taking the places reserved for them, and different words of intelligence between themselves and the waiters, it was evident that many among them were not chance visitors, but in the daily habit of dining there. What a singular mode of existence is this, and how utterly inconceivable to English feelings!... Yet habit, and perhaps prejudice, apart, it is not difficult to perceive that it has its advantages. In the first place, there is no management in the world, not even that of Mrs.

Primrose herself, which could enable a man to dine at home, for the sum of two francs, with the same degree of luxury as to what he eats, that he does at one of these restaurans. Five hundred persons are calculated upon as the daily average of company expected; and forty pounds of ready money in Paris, with the skilful aid of French cooks, will furnish forth a dinner for this number, and leave some profit besides. Add to which, the sale of wine is, I believe, considerable.

Some part of the receipts, however, must be withdrawn as interest upon the capital employed. The quant.i.ty of plate is very abundant, not only in the apparently unlimited supply of forks and spoons, but in furnis.h.i.+ng the mult.i.tude of grim-looking silver bowls in which the _potage_ is served.

On the whole, however, I can better understand the possibility of five hundred dinners being furnished daily for two francs each, by one of these innumerable establishments, than I can the marvel of five hundred people being daily found by each of these to eat them.

Hundreds of these houses exist in Paris, and all of them are constantly furnished with guests. But this manner of living, so unnatural to us, seems not only natural, but needful to them. They do it all so well--so pleasantly! Imagine for a moment the sort of tone and style such a dining-room would take in London. I do not mean, if limited to the same price, but set it greatly beyond the proportion: let us imagine an establishment where males and females should dine at five s.h.i.+llings a-head--what din, what unsocial, yet vehement clattering, would inevitably ensue!--not to mention the utter improbability that such a place, really and _bona fide_ open to the public, should continue a reputable resort for ladies for a week after its doors were open.

But here, everything was as perfectly respectable and well arranged as if each little table had been placed with its separate party in a private room at Mivart's. It is but fair, therefore, that while we hug ourselves, as we are all apt to do, on the refinement which renders the exclusive privacy of our own dining-rooms necessary to our feelings of comfort, we should allow that equal refinement, though of another kind, must exist among those who, when thrown thus promiscuously together, still retain and manifest towards each other the same deference and good-breeding which we require of those whom we admit to our private circle.

At this restaurant, as everywhere else in Paris, we found it easy enough to cla.s.s our _gens_. I feel quite sure that we had around us many of the employes du gouvernement actuel--several anciens militaires of Napoleon's--some specimens of the race distinguished by Louis Dix-huit and Charles Dix--and even, if I do not greatly mistake, a few relics of the Convention, and of the unfortunate monarch who was its victim.

But during this hour of rest and enjoyment all differences seem forgotten; and however discordant may be their feelings, two Frenchmen cannot be seated near each other at table, without exchanging numberless civilities, and at last entering into conversation, so well sustained and so animated, that instead of taking them for strangers who had never met before, we, in our stately shyness, would be ready to p.r.o.nounce that they must be familiar friends.

Whether it be this _causant_, social temper which makes them prefer thus living in public, or that thus living in public makes them social, I cannot determine to my own satisfaction; but the one is not more remarkable and more totally unlike our own manners than the other, and I really think that no one who has not dined thus in Paris can have any idea how very wide, in some directions, the line of demarcation is between the two countries.

I have on former occasions dined with a party at places of much higher price, where the object was to observe what a very good dinner a very good cook could produce in Paris. But this experiment offered nothing to our observation at all approaching in interest and nationality to the dinner of quarante sous.

In the first place, you are much more likely to meet English than French society at these costly repasts; and in the second, if you do encounter at them a genuine native gourmet of la Grande Nation, he will, upon this occasion, be only doing like ourselves,--that is to say, giving himself un repas exquis, instead of regaling himself at home with his family--

"Sur un lievre flanque de deux poulets etiques."

But at the humble restaurant of two francs, you have again a new page of Paris existence to study,--and one which, while it will probably increase your English relish for your English home, will show you no unprofitable picture of the amiable social qualities of France. I think that if we could find a people composed in equal proportions of the two natures, they would be as near to social perfection as it is possible to imagine.

The French are almost too amiable to every one they chance to sit near. The lively smile, the kind empress.e.m.e.nt, the ready causerie, would be more flattering did we not know that it was all equally at the service of the whole world. Whereas we are more than equally wrong in the other extreme; having the air of suspecting that every human being who happens to be thrown into contact with us, before we know his birth, parentage, and education, is something very dangerous, and to be guarded against with all possible care and precaution. Query--Do not the Germans furnish something very like this juste milieu?

Having concluded our unexpensive repast with the prescribed ta.s.se de cafe noir, we again sallied forth to take the tour of the Palais Royal, in order to occupy the time till the opening of the Theatre du Vaudeville, with which, as we were so very close to it, we determined to finish the evening.

We returned, as we came, through the n.o.ble Galerie d'Orleans, which was now crowded with the a.s.sembled loungers of all the numerous restaurans. It is a gay and animated scene at any time of the day; but at this particular hour, just before the theatres open, and just after the gay people have all refreshed their animal spirits, Paris itself seems typified by the aspect of the lively, laughing, idle throng a.s.sembled there.

One reason, I believe, why Paris is so much more amusing to a looker-on than London, is, that it contains so many more people, in proportion to its population, who have nothing in the world to do but to divert themselves and others. There are so many more idle men here, who are contented to live on incomes that with us would be considered as hardly sufficient to supply a lodging; small rentiers, who prefer being masters of their own time and amusing themselves with a little, to working very hard and being very much ennuyes with a great deal of money. I am not quite sure that this plan answers well when youth is past--at least for the individuals themselves: it is probable, I think, that as the strength, and health, and spirits fade away, something of quieter and more substantial comfort must often be wished for, when perhaps it is too late to obtain it; but for others--for all those who form the circle round which the idle man of pleasure skims thus lightly, he is a never-failing resource. What would become of all the parties for amus.e.m.e.nt which take place morning, noon, and night in Paris, if this race were extinct? Whether they are married or single, they are equally eligible, equally necessary, equally welcome wherever pleasure makes the business of the hour. With us, it is only a small and highly-privileged cla.s.s who can permit themselves to go wherever and whenever pleasure beckons; but in France, no lady arranging a fete, let it be of what kind it may, has need to think twice and thrice before she can answer the important but tormenting question of--"But what men can we get?"

The Vaudeville was very full, but we contrived to get a good box au second, from whence we saw, greatly to our delectation and amus.e.m.e.nt, three pretty little pieces,--"Les Gants Jaunes," "Le Premier Amour,"

and "Elle est Folle;" which last was of the larmoyante school, and much less to my taste than the lively nonsense of the two former; yet it was admirably well played too. But I always go to a vaudeville with the intention of laughing; and if this purpose fail, I am disappointed.

LETTER XLVIII.

Literary Conversation.--Modern Novelists.--Vicomte d'Arlincourt.--His Portrait.--Chateaubriand.--Bernardin de Saint Pierre.--Shakspeare.--Sir Walter Scott.--French familiarity with English Authors.--Miss Mitford.--Miss Landon.--Parisian pa.s.sion for Novelty.--Extent of general Information.

We were last night at a small party where there was neither dancing, music, cards, nor--(wonderful to say!) politics to amuse or occupy us: nevertheless, it was one of the most agreeable _soirees_ at which I have been present in Paris. The conversation was completely on literary subjects, but totally without the pretension of a literary society. In fact, it was purely the effect of accident; and it was just as likely that we might have pa.s.sed the evening in talking of pictures, or music, or rocks and rivers, as of books. But Fate decreed that so it should be; and the consequence was, that we had the pleasure of hearing three Frenchmen and two Frenchwomen talk for three hours of the literature of their country. I do not mean to a.s.sert that no other person spoke--but the frais de la conversation were certainly furnished by the five natives.

One of the gentlemen, and that too the oldest man in company, was more tolerant towards the present race of French novel-writers than any person of his age and cla.s.s that I have yet conversed with; but nevertheless, his approval went no farther than to declare that he thought the present mode of following human nature with a microscope into all the recesses to which pa.s.sion, and even vice, could lead it, was calculated to make a better novelist than the fas.h.i.+on which preceded it, of looking at all things through a magnifying medium, and of straining and striving, in consequence, to make that appear great, which was by its nature essentially the reverse.

The Vicomte d'Arlincourt was the author he named to establish the truth of his proposition: he would not admit him to be an exaggeration of the school which has pa.s.sed away, but only the perfection of it.

"I remember," said he, "to have seen at the Louvre, many years ago, a full-length portrait of this gentleman, which I thought at the time was as perfect a symbol of what is called in France le style romantique, as it was well possible to conceive. He was standing erect on the rocky point of a precipice, with eye inspired, and tablets in his hand: a foaming torrent rolled its tortured waters at his feet, whilst he, calm and sublime, looked not 'comme une jeune beaute qu'on arrache au sommeil,' but very like a young incroyable s.n.a.t.c.hed from a fas.h.i.+onable salon to meditate upon the wild majesty of nature, with all the inspiring adjuncts of tempest, wildness, and solitude. He appeared dressed in an elegant black coat and waistcoat, black silk stockings, and dancing pumps. It would be lost labour," he continued, "should I attempt to give you a more just idea of his style of writing than the composition of this portrait conveys. It is in vain that M.

le Vicomte places himself amidst rocks and cataracts--he is still M.

le Vicomte; and his silk stockings and dancing pumps will remain visible, spite of all the froth and foam he labours to raise around him."

"It was not D'Arlincourt, however," said M. de C***, "who has either the honour or dishonour of having invented this _style romantique_--but a much greater man: it was Chateaubriand who first broke through all that was left of cla.s.sic restraint, and permitted his imagination to run wild among everything in heaven and earth."

"You cannot, however, accuse him of running this wild race with his imagination en habit bourgeois," said the third gentleman: "his style is extravagant, but never ludicrous; Chateaubriand really has, what D'Arlincourt affected to have, a poetical and abounding fancy, and a fecundity of imagery which has often betrayed him into bad taste from its very richness; but there is nothing strained, forced, and unnatural in his eloquence,--for eloquence it is, though a soberer imagination and a severer judgment might have kept it within more reasonable bounds. After all that can be said against his taste, Chateaubriand is a great man, and his name will live among the literati of France; but G.o.d forbid that any true prophet should predict the same of his imitators!"

"And G.o.d forbid that any true prophet should predict the same of the school that has succeeded them!" said Madame V***--a delightful old woman, who wears her own grey hair, and does not waltz. "I have sometimes laughed and sometimes yawned over the productions of the _ecole D'Arlincourt_," she added; "but I invariably turn with disgust and indignation from those of the domestic style which has succeeded to it."

"Invariably?" ... said the old gentleman interrogatively.

"Yes, invariably; because, if I see any symptom of talent, I lament it, and feel alarmed for the possible mischief which may ensue. I can never wish to see high mental power, which is the last and best gift of Heaven, perverted so shamelessly."