Chapter VI: Letter XVI

Ladies’ Boarding Schools.--Names of Professors in the
Prospectus.--System of Education.--American Schools.--Preference
for Science.--High Intellectual Acquirements not approved.--Learned
Women.--American Girls.--Comparison of French and American
Society.--The care to preserve Female Beauty.--Expression of the
Mouth.--Dress of American Women.--Notions of the Maternal
Character.--Studies in Ladies’ Schools.--Literary
Associations.--Société Geographique.--French Lady Authors.--Living
Writers.--Chateaubriand--Beranger--Lamartine--Victor Hugo--Casimir
de la Vigne--Alfred de Vigny--Guizot--Thiers--Thièrry
Ségur--Lacretelle--Sismondi.

Paris, December 25th, 1835.

I am going in my usual way to write you what has most engaged my attention during the last week. I have been breaking into ladies’ boarding schools, and turning and twisting about the school-mistresses, and making them explain their plans of education; which they have done very obligingly, leading me through their dormitories, refectories, and school-rooms. The French women are so kind in showing you any thing. In the street, I often chose to lose myself a mile or two rather than impose upon their good nature. The organization of their schools has nothing different from the French boarding schools of Philadelphia. Their elementary branches are the same. Their foreign languages are German, English, and Italian; and these, with drawing, dancing, and needlework, make up the programme of studies. Most of the schools are in airy situations, with large gardens, having baths, and gymnastic exercises attached. Rewards and punishments are as usual; bulletins of conduct are sent to the parents, and public examinations are made to astonish the grandmothers and bring the schools into notoriety.

All the professors are printed up ostentatiously in the prospectus. One is “_Danseur de l’ Académie Royal de l’Opera_;” another is “_Professeur du chant au Conservatoire_;” a “_Chevalier de la legion d’honneur_” teaches you your “pot-hooks;” and an “_Instituteur du duc de Bordeaux_,”--“_de la Reine de Portugal_,” _&c._ your parts of speech. In the best schools the annual charge for boarding and education, including the foreign languages, is about two hundred dollars. Dancing and drawing are each three, and the piano six dollars per month.

A French woman is emphatically a social being, and prepares herself for this destination. A philosophical apparatus is no part of the furniture of her school-room; nor does she rashly study Latin, nor any of the “inflammatory branches.” But she makes herself well acquainted with all that is of daily use; her geography, history of France, mythology and the fashionable literature, and tries to be very expert in the “use and administration” of this learning; she talks of books and their authors, especially the drama, of the fine arts, of social etiquette, of dress and fashions, and all such common topics, better than other women. She studies the graces of language, and all the rhetoric of society, as an orator, that of public life. She learns to speak, not with the tongue only, but with the action, gesture, voice, and expression, which may give life and magic to her conversation.

You will hear her talk of the “_jeu du visage_,” and she thinks a woman, who has no variety of face, had better have no face at all. I take the liberty of thinking so too; extending only the rule to the whole woman, body and soul. What is she, after all, without variety? any thing is better; a fish without seasoning is better. I had almost said that a woman much oftener palls the appetite of her husband by uniform goodness, than by her caprices and levities. I have found it pleasant, after having a chill, even to have a fever by way of variety. And why should not the eloquence of common life be quite as important as that of the bar, or senate, or pulpit? since it is of daily use, and the other only occasional, and since much more important interests are affected by it.

A French woman does not limit her views of education to her maiden years, nor to her domestic and nursery duties, not being destined to be imprisoned by her husband, or devoured by her own children; nor to her marriage settlement; for this is the business of her mother; her aim is to prepare the qualifications of womanhood; and her ambition is not to win the unbearded admiration of boys, for her intercourse is to be with men, competent, from taste and understanding to judge of her acquirements, as well as to add something to the polish of her mind, by their manners and conversation. But the taste of gentlemen here, even of the learned, seeks not so much science in a lady as a certain knack in conversation, which may give a good grace to all that she says.

In our American schools science has taken precedence every where of letters; it has not only the principal seats at the universities, but in our best female academies is thought to be the most exalted and necessary kind of knowledge. It is so interesting to see a young miss expert at her sines and tangents; and presiding over a cabinet of minerals.

Why, a New England lady analyzes the atmosphere and gossips hydraulics at her tea-table. I have been puzzled there upon theories of geology, or meteorology, at a wedding. “Sir, this is a trap formation,--the angle seventeen minutes and three seconds.”--I do not mean to depreciate this kind of learning, but I would not make it the principal object of a gentleman’s, much less, a lady’s education. Calculations of science have little to do with the affections; they exercise only the mechanism of the understanding; and leave the imaginative power--the power which adorns and illustrates by images--unemployed; and the mind, under a mathematical training, becomes too systematic for the irregularity of human affairs.

The partiality for science prevails in gentlemen’s education, also in Europe. The chief professorships of the colleges are scientific, and in the Institute, the Academy of Sciences, like Aaron’s rod, has swallowed up all the rest. But in the female schools such inquiries are postponed, at least, to the ornamental and agreeable. A French lady is of the romantic school, and thinks the classic too severe for feminine charms. Therefore, all studies which do not supply the materials of daily conversation, and have no immediate connection with some purpose of her social existence are rejected from the general plan of female instruction.

Acquirements highly intellectual in a lady, are not much approved by the French tutors and others with whom I have conversed. They think them dangerous to her domestic qualities. A Parisian lady living continually in society, having such accomplishments, would become too much the property of the other sex. Besides, such an education, they say, made Madame de Stael a libertine, Madame Centlivre, and two or three more, licentious, and Madame Montague a sloven and something else, and so they run on. One might ask them in return what it made of Mesdames Barbauld, Hamilton, Porter, Edgeworth, Hemans, and that good old blue-stocking saint, Hannah More. It is true that learning is more attractive, and will always be more courted and flattered than even beauty; and in this sense it is dangerous. The Greeks gave Minerva a shield, and turned Venus loose without one; it was apparently for this reason. Learning in France always studies books and the world together; the “Blue Stocking” is not known here, nor is there any equivalent term in the language. The “_Precieuses Ridicules_” is of a different character. So at least the learned woman has not to dread this opprobrious designation, which so terrifies ladies in some other countries. I know one, not of the Tuileries, but the Collieries, who, under the awful apprehension of Blue Stockingism, almost repents of her learning; hides her Virgil, and disowns her Horace altogether. There are places where ladies think proper to apologise for their virtues, and ask pardon for being in the right.

A French lady is not afraid to show her possessions. She shows her learning, and knows how to show it without affectation. She displays it as she does her pretty foot and ankle; she does not pull up her clothes expressly for the purpose. As for me, I love a learned woman, even in her blue stockings; and without them I love her to idolatry;--I mean a reasonable idolatry, which leads to a higher reverence for the Creator from an admiration of his best works. One of the grand purposes of a Frenchwoman, is to seem natural; and, indeed, if a lady is natural, even her singularities add to her perfections, whilst affectation makes even her sense and beauty insipid and ridiculous.

I talked with one of these mistresses about you American girls. She says you come too soon into the world, and take too many liberties when in it. This, she thinks, interferes with education, and awakens inclinations and passions which had better sleep until the girls have grown up. She says that tender plants should be kept a long while in the nursery; that to play well in the concert, one must play well at home, and that the whole of youth is even too little for acquirement. “These young ladies, you see, are not unhappy from the restraints they undergo; and they are not less accomplished I assure you. By coming sooner into society, they would acquire a bad tone, a bad manner, a bad air, which a mature age and judgment might be unable to correct. In a word, sir, a young lady below eighteen sees enough of the world over her mother’s shoulders.” So talked this impertinent little woman.

A Frenchwoman has no attentions from society while a girl, and consequently, no wit till she is married; exactly the period at which American ladies generally lose theirs. A smile and a few timid glances under the wing of her beautiful mamma, is all the little thing dares venture. But the American girl has the reins of her conduct a good deal in her own hands, and therefore grows prudent; she has her reason and judgment sooner developed. She has all the serpentine wisdom and columbine innocence so recommended in the Scriptures in her looks and actions. I feel, my dear sisters, all the admiration and respect which is due to you, but with my utmost efforts I cannot help falling a little in love with this innocent indiscretion of the French.

It would have puzzled the evil spirit more to tempt Eve after the fall than before it; yet I like her in the first state better. Their not coming into the world before the full time, I like also well enough. My tastes are not girlish. The eye indeed reposes with delight upon the green corn, but the ripened ear is better. I know, indeed, all the sweetness which a fine day pours out upon Chesnut-street; but ---- I like better your mothers. They who give tone to society should have maturity of mind; they should have refinement of taste, which is a quality of experience and age. As long as college beaux and boarding school misses take the lead, it must be an insipid society in whatever community it may exist.

Middle age in this country never loses its sovereignty, nor does old age lose its respect; and this respect, with the enjoyments which accompany it, keeps the world young. It turns the clouds into drapery, and gilds them with its sunshine; which presents as fine a prospect as the clear and starry heavens. Even time seems to fall in with the general observance. I know French women who retain to forty-five and often beyond that age the most agreeable attractions of their sex.--Is it not villanous in your Quakerships of Philadelphia to lay us, before we have lived half our time out, upon the shelf? Some of our native tribes, more merciful, eat the old folks out of the way.--Don’t be mad; you will one day be as old as your mothers.

An important item here in a lady’s studies (and it should be a leading branch of education every where) is her beauty. Sentiment and health being the two chief ingredients and efficient causes of this quality, have each its proper degree of cultivation. Every body knows that the expression of the eye, the voice, and the whole physiognomy, is modified by the thoughts or passions habitually entertained in the mind. Every one sees their effects upon the face of the philosopher and the idiot; upon that of the generous man and the niggard; but how few have considered that not only is this outward and visible expression nothing but the reflection of the mind; but that the very features are in a material degree modelled by its sensations.

Give, for example, any woman a habit of self-complacency, and she will have a little pursed up mouth; or give her a prying and busy disposition, and you will give her a straight onward nose. What gives the miser a mouth mean and contracted, or the open-hearted man his large mouth, but the habitual series of thoughts with which we are conversant? Determination stiffens the upper lip, and this is the lip of a resolute man. Peevish women and churls have thin lips; and good humour, or a generous feeling, or a habit of persuasion, rounds them into beauty. I have read that it was common amongst the rakes about Charles the Second to have “sleepy, half-shut, sly and meretricious eyes,” and that this kind of eye became fashionable at court. So every feature has its class of sensations by which it is modified; and this is not forgotten in the education of the Parisian young ladies. They take care that, while young and tender, they may cherish honest and amiable feelings, if for no other reason than that they may have an amiable expression of countenance--that they may have Greek noses, pouting lips, and the other constituents of beauty.

Our climate is noted for three eminent qualities, extreme heat and cold, and extreme suddenness of change. If a lady has bad teeth, or a bad complexion, she blames it conveniently upon the climate; if her beauty, like a tender flower, fades before noon, it is the climate; if she has a bad temper or even a snub nose, still it is the climate. But our climate is active and intellectual, especially in winter, and in all seasons more pure and transparent than these inky skies of Europe. It sustains the infancy of beauty, and why not its maturity? it spares the bud, and why not the opened blossom or the ripened fruit? Our negroes are perfect in teeth, and why not the whites?--The chief preservative of beauty in any country is health, and there is no place in which this great interest is so little attended to as in America.

To be sensible of this, you must visit Europe. You must see the deep-bosomed maids of England upon the _Place Vendôme_, and the _Rue Castiglione_. There you will see no pinched and mean-looking shoulders overlooking the plumpness and round sufficiency of a luxuriant tournure. As for the French women, a constant attention to the quantity and quality of their food is an article of their faith; and bathing and exercise are as regular as their meals. When children, they play abroad in their gardens; they have their gymnastic exercises in their schools, and their dancing and other social amusements keep up a healthful temperament throughout life. Besides, a young lady here does not put her waist in the inquisition. Fashion, usually insane, and an enemy to health, has grown sensible in this; she regards a very small waist as a defect, and points to the _Venus de Medicis_, who stands out boldly in the Tuileries, in vindication and testimony of the human shapes; and now among ladies of good breeding a waist which cannot dispense with tight lacing is thought not worth the mantua-maker’s bill--not worth the squeezing.

When I left America, the more a woman looked like an hour-glass, like two funnels or two extinguishers converging, the more pretty she was considered; and the waist in esteem by the cockney curiosity of the town, was one you would pinch between thumb and finger; giving her a withered complexion, bloated legs, consumptive lungs and ricketty children.--If this is not reformed, alas the republic!--A Frenchwoman’s beauty, such as it is, lasts her her lifetime, by the care she takes of it. Her limbs are vigorous, her bosom well developed, her colour healthy, and she has a greater moral courage, and is a hundred times better fitted to dashing enterprises, than the women of our cities.

The motherly virtues of our women, so eulogised by foreigners, are not entitled to unqualified praise. There is indeed no country in which maternal care is so assiduous; but also there is none in which examples of injudicious tenderness are so frequent. If a mother has eight or nine children (the American number) and wears out her life with the cares of nursing them, dies, and leaves them to a step-mother, she is not entitled to any praise but at the expense of her judgment and common sense; and this is one of our daily occurrences in America.--If a mother should squander away upon the infancy of her child, all that health and care which are so necessary to its youth and adolescence, or if by anticipating its wants she destroys its sense of gratitude, and her own authority, and impairs its constitution and temper by indiscreet indulgences--instead of being the most tender, she is the most cruel of all mothers--this happens commonly in all countries, and in none so much as in America.--If a mother should toil thirty years, and kill herself with cares, to procure for her son the glorious privilege of doing nothing, perhaps the means of being a rake and prodigal; she is a stupid mother, and such mothers----

But ---- I forget I have a reputation all the way from Mohontongo-street to Adam-street, and I must take care how I lose it. Do you be a good little mother, and economise your health and good looks; and remember that a little judicious hard fare and exposure will not injure your children’s happiness, and that not the quantity, so much as the quality of your maternal cares is useful and commendable. I do not preach rebellion, but if I were any body’s wife, and he should insist on killing me off for the benefit of his children, or to get a new wife--I should insist particularly on not being killed.

The system of ladies’ schools here, is more reasonable than that of their worse halves. There is a better adaptation of studies to the capacity and future destination of the scholars, and to the uses of society; and being open to a fair competition, and to public patronage only, there is a better management of the details.

The gentlemen’s colleges engross all the higher branches, and give them a specific direction, embracing only three or four of the employments of society, and these are, consequently, so overstocked, as to make success in them no better than a lottery. The community is, therefore, filled with a multitude of idlers, who falling often into desperate circumstances, either plot some treason against the state, or prowl, for a thievish subsistence about the gambling houses.--His Most Christian Majesty must have as many lives as a cat to escape them.

There are also in Paris, a great many literary associations, to which ladies have access; and this gives the opportunity of a decorous intercourse of the sexes, which serves to elevate both in the eyes of each other. Woman, associated with man in his intellectual, as in his domestic pursuits, assumes the station, which, by nature, as by the rules of every polished and literary society, she is entitled to. These societies furnish agreeable entertainments for Sundays, or holidays; and they have the good effect of introducing the Muses, naturally awkward, into company, and making them acquainted a little with the Graces.

I attended, a Sunday ago, a meeting of one of these, the--“_Société Polytechnique_,” in the great saloon of the _Hôtel de Ville_. At the one end was an elevated platform, and mounted upon it a President and the usual apparatus of a meeting. Along each side were arranged the readers and orators, and distinguished guests. After a “_Rapport_,” read by the secretary, of the doings of the society, the speakers recited pieces of their own composition--some in rhyme, and many without rhyme or reason. Some were designed to make us laugh, and others to cry, and we did both with great acclamation.--Music closed the scene; a duo by “Italian Artists,” and some one screamed a song on the piano. It is one of the advantages of a large city, that its meetings never want the dignity of a crowd, whatever be the occasion.--The bishop has his at Notre Dame, and punch his at the Champs Elysées.

I have been, also, to the “_Société Geographique_.” There were Captain Ross, from the North Pole, and--what remains of him from American bugs and musquitoes--Captain Hall, and Baron Humboldt, and other Barons. An honorary badge of the society was presented to Captain Ross, with warm acclamation. I waited to the very end, for a lecture announced in the bill about--what do you think?--the “_Beaux Arts en Amerique_.”--But it was all about negroes and squaws, and such “copper fronts as Pocahontas.” It gave a history, circumstantially, of a great crusade of catguts, got up in Paris, a dozen of years ago, for Brazil, which scraped an acquaintance with Don Pedro, and spread the gamut all over Patagonia. Polyphemus threw away his pipe, and sang nothing but, “_Tanti Palpiti_” to his sheep, and the sheep bleated nothing but _mamma mia_, in reply.--“_Ainsi, Messieurs_, (this is the ending,) _cet immense progrés est dù à la Grande Nation, dont nous nous honorons d’etre une humble partie_.” From the “_rapport_” of this “société,” it seems to be a most valuable institution. The topics are various and useful, and its researches are carried by correspondence into every corner of the earth.

I must say a word of a school I visited this morning called the “_Ecole Orthopedique_,” to correct physical deformities, and slovenly habits. Here all that is gross in human nature is refined, all that is crooked reformed. There are as many branches as at the university. One professor ties strings a foot long about your ankles, to prevent too much stride, and another “straightens legs for both sexes.” Angular knees, and stoop shoulders, and such little freaks, are affairs of a fortnight. I have seen, with my own eyes, a girl whose face, they say, was running one way and her feet the other; people walking after her were continually treading on her toes, and in less than six months she has been turned round. The highest chair in this school is for teaching “sitting”--it is occupied by the President. There is also a chair for “walking,” and one for “standing still.” In some countries these are thought mere simple operations to be performed by any one who has wherewith to stand or sit upon.

Let me now introduce you to the French Lady Authors. The family is so small I shall happily have room for them on the rest of this page. The Dowager on the list is the _Duchesse d’ Abrantes_, with her Memoirs; and next her the _Princesse de Salm_, who wrote an “Opera of Sappho” and “Poetical Epistles,” very good for a Princess; also a work called _Vingt-quatre heures d’une femme sensible_, in which there is a display of rich and brilliant fancy. I never read it.

_Madame Tastu_ wrote a volume of little poetry very much loved for its tenderness, and _Mademoiselle Delphine Gay_ (now Madame Girardin) also a volume of miscellaneous poetry, very pretty and delicate, and she is almost a Corinne for extemporising; last of all, the exquisite Baroness _Du Devant_ (George Sand), the gayest little woman in all Paris, who has written novels full of genius, and fit almost to stand along side of Aphra Behn’s and Lady Mary Montague’s verses. When they publish an edition, with little stars * * _in usum Delphini_, I will send you a copy.--I shall perhaps have room also for the gentlemen.

The patriarch is _Chateaubriand_. It is idle to talk about him. He sold the copyright of his works for twenty years only at five hundred and fifty thousand francs. Who has not read his Génie du Christianisme, Martyrs, Journey to Jerusalem, Amerique Sauvage, Atala, &c. He has written also “Memoirs of his own Times,” not to be published till his death. Every one is anxious to read them. The oldest of the poets is _Beranger_. His songs are worthy of Pindar in boldness and sublimity, and not unworthy of Anacreon in liveliness and grace. I have only room for four lines:--Napoleon in his glory.

---- dans sa fortune altière,
Se fit un jeu des sceptres, et des lois;
Et de ses pieds on peut voir la poussière,
Empreinte encore sur le bandeau des rois.

At his death;

Il dort enfin, ce boulet invincible
Qui fracassa vingt trones â la fois!

Another special favourite, the poet of romance and melancholy, is _Lamartine_. He has written “_Meditations_;” also _La Mort de Socrate_, and the last canto of “Childe Harold.” Here are eight of his lines.--The “Golfe de Baia.”

O, de la Liberté vieille et sainte patrie!
Terre autrefois féconde en sublime vertus!
Sous d’indignes Cæsars, maintenant asservie,
Ton empire est tombé! tes heroes ne sont plus!
Mais dans ton sein l’ame aggrandie,
Croit sur leurs monumens respirer leur génie,
Comme on respire, encore dans un temple aboli,
La majesté du Dieu dont il etait rempli.

He now makes eloquent speeches in the Chamber of Deputies.--Politics run away with all the genius, and rob even the schools of their professors. Only think of such a man as Arago prating radicalism in the Chamber of Deputies. The Muses weep over his and Lamartine’s infidelity.

I have read _Victor Hugo_ lately, and love him and hate him. Like our mocking-bird, he mingles the notes of the nightingale with the cacklings of the hen. But I must not abuse him, the ladies all love him so. Only think of “_Bug Jargal_,” the “_Dernier jour d’un Condamné_;” and above all, “_Notre Dame de Paris_;” and think only of poor little Esmeralda, put so tragically to death on the Place de Grêve in spite of her little goat Djali, and her little shoe.--I have read his tragedies, _Hernan_, _Le Roi s’amuse_, and _Marie Tudor_; parbleu! and “_Lucrece Borgia_.” His poetic works are _Les Orientales_; a collection of odes; _Les Feuilles d’Automne_, &c.

Victor Hugo is yet in the full tide of youth, and so is _Casimir de la Vigne_. The latter represents to-night, at the Theatre Français, his _Don Carlos_; he has already reaped much glory from his _Vêpres Siciliennes_, _Paria_, _Comedienne_, and _Ecole des Vieillards_, and still greater from his Poetic Lamentations, the Messeniennes, which are full of patriotic sentiment, expressed in the richest graces of poetry.

_Alfred de Vigny_ has written a pretty poem, the _Frégate_, and two biblical pieces, _Moïse_, and the _Femme Adultère_; but his great praise is _Cinq Mars_, one of the best compositions of the French historical romance.--Scribe, Picard, and Duval have written so many vaudevilles, that one has a surfeit of their names. _Dumas_ is a dramatic writer of first-rate merit for these days. His Antony, Therèse, Henry V., and Catharine Howard, are all played with success. _Jules Janin_ has a great fund of wit; his _Ane Mort_, _Femme Guillotinée_, _Chemin de Travers_, you can read with the certainty of being pleased.

I have said nothing of Leclercq, Langon, Balsac, Meremy, and Lacroix, who have all their share of admiration, especially from the fair sex.

When the vapours have smothered the sun, and when it rains, as it does always, instead of inhaling charcoal, or leaping from the Pont Neuf, I go into a “cabinet de lecture,” and read _Paul de Kock_. No author living can carry one so laughingly through a wet day. If you are fond of the genuine wit of low life, neither Fielding, nor Smollett, nor Pigault Lebrun, will disgust you with Paul de Kock. But here comes the end of my paper, what shall I do with the rest? I will just string them together by the gills.--Give _Guizot_ credit for a History _de la Civilisation_, a translation of Gibbon, and a score or two of volumes on the English Revolution; _Mignet_ and _Thiers_ for a History of the French Revolution, and _Barante_ for his Dukes of Burgundy; _Sismondi_ for a History of the Italian Republics, of The French, and the Literature of the South; and _Daru_, of Venice; _Thierry_, of the Conquest of England; _Capefigue_, the Reform; _Lacretelle_, The 18th Century; _Ségur_, a Universal History; _Michaud_, of the Crusades; _Delaure_, of Paris; _Michelet_, of Rome; and _Précis de l’Histoire de France_. _Cousin_ has written the “Philosophy of History;” _Keratry_, Metaphysics, and Novels; and _Villemain_, _Melanges de Litterature_, and _M. de la Mennais_ is praised for his “Indifference in matters of Religion.”--The French were strangely deficient in history before the present century, not even having furnished a good history of their own country; they have now supplied their deficiency in this department of letters.--Now with all due respect, and a full sense of the distinction, I place myself at the bottom of this illustrious group. Your obedient, humble servant.