Chapter VIII: Letter XVIII

Parisian habits.--The Chaussée d’Antin.--Season of Bon-bons.--Jour
de l’An.--Commencement of the Season.--The Carnival.--Reception at
the Tuileries.--Lady Granville.--The Royal Family.--Court
Ceremonies.--Ball at the Hotel de Ville.--French Beauty.--A Bal de
Charité.--Lord Canterbury.--Bulwer.--Sir Sydney Smith.--The Court
Balls.--Splendid Scene.--The Princess Amelia.--Comparison between
Country and City Life.

PARIS, January 25th, 1836.

As your husband has gallantly allowed me the exclusive pleasure of writing to you this week, I am going to use the privilege in giving you his biography for the year 1836. For a wife to judge of her husband’s conduct from her husband’s letters, is absolute folly.--He rises at day-break, which occurs in this country, at this season, about nine; he makes his toilet with Parisian nicety, breakfasts at eleven, and then attends his consultations, till three. After this hour he runs upon errands. Paris covers eight thousand five hundred square acres, and he has business at both ends of it; I have to run after him, just as a man’s shadow would, if people in this country had shadows, a league to the east, and then a league to the west, only because he don’t know a Frenchman calls his mother a _mare_, and a horse a _shovel_. As he and his partner do not comprehend each other, and he cannot communicate with the world out of doors, you may imagine I have got myself into a business.

And here are all nations of the earth to be interpreted, and all sexes; French, Spaniards, Italians, Poles, and modern Greeks. “God’s life, my lords, I have had to rub up my Latin.” One might as well have been interpreter at Babel. We dine at six, and have all the rest of the day to ourselves.--Then comes smoking of Turkish tobacco in a long pipe, then a cup of good coffee and the little glass of quirsh; and then conversations--conversations, not about burning Moscara, and the Bedouin brothers; or whether beet sugar should be taxed; but that which it imports more our happiness to know, what vintage is the wine, and whether we are to pass the evening at the Italien, or Grand Opera. Our host, who is a French gentleman, a man of the world, and refined in learning, adds the perfume of his wit to the little minutes as they go fluttering by.

_A propos_ of good coffee, I will tell you how to make it. Make it very strong, and then pour out with your right hand half a cup, and with your left the milk, foaming and smoking like Vesuvius upon it; it is reduced thus to a proper consistency and complexion, retaining its heat. Strange! that so simple a process should not have superseded the premeditated dishwater of our American cities. This is the _café au lait_ of the breakfast; the coffee of the dinner is without milk.

At length conversation flags, and we sit each in a “_Fauteuil_,” recumbent, and looking silently upon the Turkish vapour as it ascends to the upper region of the room, till it has obscured the atmosphere in clouds as dark as science metaphysic; and then we sweeten ourselves with open air and evening recreations--

“Vive Henri Quatre! vive ce roi vaillant!”

And so we stroll, arm in arm, through the Boulevards to the “Rue Favart,” and there drink down Grisi until the unwelcome midnight sends us to our pillows. This repairs us from the cares of the day, and raises us up fresh and vegetated to the duties of to-morrow. I must not forget to tell you, we live now in the _Rue Neuve des Maturins_, a little east of the Boulevards. I was quite disdainful of this unclassic ground after so long an abode among the Muses; but this street is more than classic, it runs right-angled into the aristocratic _Chaussée d’Antin_; is full of honour and high fare, and ennobled by some of the best Parisian blood.

Your husband--I suppose by living here, has got into the _bel air_ of the French. (I forgot to put a _dash_ under his name.) He has his share of Favoris, and mustachios, and a coat from Barde’s that would win the ear of a countess. Barde makes coats for “crowned heads,” and takes measures at Moscow;--and he never ties his cravat--(I mean your husband)--just in front, but always a quarter of an inch or so to the left; nor sends a lady a red rose, when white roses are in the fashion; and though he speaks nothing yet of the French jargon, he makes Paris agreeable to every one. Folks, to be liked in this country, are obliged to be amiable--a violent effort sometimes for me. In this respect we have an advantage at home, where poor people only are required to have wit, and twenty thousand a-year may be as big a fool as it pleases.

This is the season of _bon-bons_. I think I see you, and little Jack and Sall, parading your littleness upon the Boulevards--which I presume you will do this time next year. Here is the whole animal creation in paste, and all the fine arts in _sucre d’orge_. You can buy an epigram in dough, and a pun in soda-biscuit; a “Constitutional Charter” all in jumbles; and a “Revolution of July” just out of the frying-pan. Or, if you love American history, here is a United States’ frigate, two inches long, and a belly-gut commodore bombarding Paris--(with “shin-plasters”)--and the French women and children stretching out their little arms, three quarters of an inch long, towards heaven, and supplicating the mercy of the victors, in molasses candy.

You will see also a General Jackson, with the head of a hickory-nut, with a purse, I believe, of “carraway comfits,” and in a great hurry pouring out the “twenty-five millions,” a king, a queen, and a royal family, all of plaster of Paris. If you step into one of these stores you will see a gentleman in mustachios, whom you will mistake for a nobleman, who will ask you “to give yourself the pain to sit down,” and he will put you up a paper of _bon-bons_, and he will send it home for you, and he will accompany you to the door, and he will have “the honour to salute you”--all for four sous.--But I must get on with my biography.

We went, the first day of the year, to the Palace, and saw the king and the queen with our own eyes. I must tell you all about it. Paris usually comes to town three months before this. The gentry, and the woodcock, and all the Italian singers come in October, and every thing runs over with the reflux of the natives, and the influx of foreigners. Of the latter, the greater part are English, who, to escape the ignominy of staying in London at this season, or being uneasy on their seats, (I mean their country seats,) come hither to walk in the Rue de la Paix, and sleep in the Rue Castiglione. You will see now and then a knot of American girls, who sun themselves upon the Boulevards, or sit in the Tuileries to do mischief with their looks upon bearded Frenchmen.

But the gaieties at this season only essay their little wings; they do not venture beyond the opera and private parties, and a display of black eyes and fashionable equipages at the Bois de Boulogne, until the close of the year. Then all the sluices are set loose. Then magnificent beauty encircles the boxes at the opera, decked in all the gems which the “swart Indian culls from the green sea,” and overlooks the gazing deluge of spectators from the pit, and the nut-brown maids of Italy and France wave around the ball-room in all the swimming voluptuousness of the waltz. Grisi warbles more divinely at the Italien, and, at the Grand Opera, more sweetly, Taglioni

“Twirls her light limbs, and bares her breasts of snow.”

“Due pome acerbe, e pur d’ivorio fatte,
Vengono e van, come onda al primo margo,
Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.”

Harlequin now puts on his fustian mantle, and all Paris, her caps and bells, turning out upon the Boulevards, and men and women run wild through the streets. This is the Carnival, which will continue gathering force as it goes, till the end of February, as a snow-ball upon your Pine-Hill comes down an avalanche into the valley. On Shrove-Tuesday all will be still--operas, balls, concerts, fêtes, the racket of the fashionable soirée, and the orgies of the Carnival will be hushed; and then the quiet and social parties will employ the rest of the season.

My Lord Granville will be “at home” on Monday, and the Duchess de Broglie “at home” on Saturday; in a word, every one that can afford it will be “at home” one evening in the week, receiving and entertaining with gaiety and simplicity his friends, until the dogstar shall send again the idle world to its shady retreats of Montmorency and St. Cloud. The first drawing-room or “reception” at court, on the New Year’s night gives the watch-word, and announces that the season of mirth has begun. This is followed by the regular court-balls, and balls ministerial and diplomatic; and the balls of the bankers and other opulent individuals bring up the rear.

We put ourselves in a black suit, in silk stockings and pumps, with a little, military tinsel, under the arm; stepped into a _remise_ (a remise is a public carriage disguised as a private one) and in a few minutes stood upon the broad steps of the Tuileries; from which we were conducted up into the rooms, with no more ceremony than writing our names upon a registry in the hall.--The English and French books say that we Americans have a great _penchant_ for kings, and that we run after nobility and titles more than becomes republicans. Whether this be true or not, and whether it is really an inclination of human nature that, like other passions, will have its way, I do not stop to inquire; with me I declare it to be mere curiosity; I had the same when a mere child, for a puppet show, without wishing to be “Punch” or “Judy.” But here I am moralising again when I should be telling you of the “Reception.”

You must imagine a long suite of rooms, and the edges all round embroidered with ladies, strung together like pearls--ladies dressed in the excess of the toilet, and many hundred lustres pouring down a blaze of light upon their charms; and the interior of the rooms filled with gentlemen clad in various liveries, mostly military--in all you may reckon about four thousand, including Doctor C. and _me_. Here was my Lady Granville ambassadress and her Lord; I love a broad pair of shoulders on a woman--even a little too broad; and here was the fair Countess of Comar Plotocka. The richest mine that sleeps between your Broad and Sharp Mountains would not buy this lady’s neck. I have heard it valued at three millions. It would make a rail-road from here to Havre.

I have half-a-mind to put in here as a note, that we Americans in our citizen coats, and other republican simplicities, make no kind of figure at a court. When one contemplates brother Jonathan by the side of Prince Rousimouski, all gorgeous in the furs of the Neva--I can’t find any other comparison than that character of arithmetic they call _zero_; for he seems of no other use than to give significance to some figure that is next to him. It is strange how much human dignity is improved by a fashionable wardrobe; I have seen a nobleman spoiled altogether by a few holes in his breeches.

The king, the queen, the princes and princesses entered about nine; they passed slowly round the rooms, saluting the ladies, saying a few words to each, with a gentle inclination of the head, and a proportionate jutting out at the head’s antipodes:--the latter part of the compliment intended for us gentlemen. At the end of this fatiguing ceremony the royal family retired, bowing to us all in the lump.--I forgot to say, that being apart in a corner, as a modest maid who sits alone, the queen in passing dropped me a curtsey for myself. When her Majesty bowed to the whole multitude the honour was wasted by diffusion. To have one all to one’s self was very gratifying. They now posted themselves in a room at the south end of the company, accessible by two doors, through one of which gentlemen were admitted Indian file, and introduced personally to the king, the king standing on the right, the queen on the left of the room, and the little queens in the middle.

It was an imposing ceremony; and this was the manner of the introduction. For example, the Doctor, entering, gave his name and nation to the Aid-de-Camp, who pronounced it aloud; the king then _prit la parole, et un verre d’eau sucrée, de la manière suivante_: “You are from Philadelphia, I am glad to see you.”--And then the Doctor, who had studied his speech in the ante-chamber, replied, “Yes.”--After this he bowed a little to the queen, and walked out with an imperturbable gravity at the left door, as I had just done before him. We then went home, and told people we had spoken to the king.--This is a Reception at the Tuileries. To give you an account of the other charming fêtes we have seen this month, will require another sheet.--The hour is late, I bid you good night.

January 26th.

The first fête of which we partook was a great ball given at the Hotel de Ville, to relieve the poor of the “Quartier St. Germain.” Here, as every place else, where there is a chance of an innocent squeezing, there was a crowd. There were two thousand souls, all dancing in the same room; and the ladies, whom I include in the article of souls, were dressed _dans l’excès de la belle coiffure_. The Queen and Madame Adelaide, and other such like fine people, who were announced in the newspapers, hoaxed us by not coming. However, we danced all the poor out of the hospitals. We put on our rustling silks that the grisettes might get a blanket for their shivering babies, and our dear little prunellas, that they might have a pair of sabots, and a little bit of wool about their feet in the Faubourg St. Germain. Charity affects people in different ways. In Philadelphia it gives one a chill, or it sends one with a long face to pray at St. Stephens’; here, to “cut pigeon wing” at the Hotel de Ville.--The bill of fare was only ices, lemonades and eau sucrée--no liquors.

A Frenchman is always fuddled enough with his own animal spirits, and needs no rum. In all French parties in high life there is little ceremony about eating and drinking; it is economical to be well bred. Dancing is performed in the same monotonous dull way as in America. The “_pirouettes_ and _entrechats_” are a monopoly of the Opera Français. English gravity was always afraid of being caught cutting a caper, and John Bull leads his lady through a dance as if conducting her to her pew. The fashion of now-a-days is any thing English, especially English whims and nonsense. “They are not dancing, but only walking in their sleep,” is a _bon mot_ of his Majesty, who is not much addicted to wit--better if he were; Fieschi would never have thought of killing him. But they are better walkers than we are. They are better dressed, too, though with less cost. In our country the same dress suits all ladies of the same size, being always made after the last doll that came over by the packet, only a little more fashionable. And so we are

“Laced
From the full bosom to the slender waist,
Fine by degrees and beautifully less.”

And some of us

“Gaunt all at once and hideously little.”

In Paris, a mantua-maker is a _bel esprit_, and does not follow rigidly but studies to soften a little the tyranny and caprices of fashion, and she knows the value of the natural appearances in the constitution of beauty. The fashions have, to be sure, their general feature, but the shades of differences are infinite. The woman and the frock, though not indissolubly united, seem made for each other. The French lead fashion; we follow it: their genius is brought out by invention; ours quenched by imitation. I looked on upon this ball with all the gaze of young astonishment. Staring is an expression of countenance you will never see among savages and well-bred people; I am somewhere between the two.

Your husband dived into the crowd, to try to discover some pearl of French beauty; ineffectually. One is at a loss, he says, for a temptation. He is so anatomical! he would like better Helen’s skeleton than Helen herself. We don’t see the same thing in a woman by a great deal--or in anything else. Travellers don’t see the same things in Paris. Baron Rothschild and Sir Humphrey saw not the same thing in a guinea; and how many things did not Phidias see in his Venus, which neither you nor I will ever see in it.

The French women are nearer ugliness than beauty; but what women in the world can so dispense with beauty? Their cavaliers are handsomer, yet the exquisite creatures are loved just the same. I wonder if the peacock loves less his hen for the inferiority of her plumage, or she him the more for the elegance of his? The principal charm of a woman is not in the features; a lesson useful to be learnt. A turn-up nose once overturned the Harem, so says Marmontelle; Madame Cottin was an ugly thing, and yet killed two of her lovers; there are on record the examples of two women with only an eye each, who made the conquest of a king; La Vallière supplanted all her rivals, with a crooked foot. Ninon was not handsome, but who knows not the number of her victims? Self-flattery and the flatteries of admirers spoil pretty women, till at last, like sovereigns, they receive your homage as a tribute that is due, and enjoins no acknowledgment, and thereby they counteract the influence of their charms.--“But as I was saying--Pray, my dear, what was I saying?”--I will think of it to-morrow.

January 27th.

I cannot afford to give you all these sweetmeats at a single meal; I must serve you up a small portion for the dessert of each day. Ball the second. This was one of the most splendid and fashionable of the season; also a _bal de charité_--given at the theatre Ventadour a few nights ago. A great number of Carlist nobles having lost their pensions and places, by the disaster of Charles X., have become poor, and this was to comfort them with a little cash. The parterre and stage formed an area for the dancing, and an array of mirrors at the furthest end doubled to the eye its dimensions, and the number of the dancers.

It was a vast surface waving like the sea gently troubled; and the boxes, filled with ladies, exhibited the usual display of snowy necks, and glittering ornaments overhead. The saloon and lobbies too, adorned with little groves of shrubbery, had their full share of the multitude. Here was the late Speaker of the Commons, Sutton, now better named for a ball-room, my Lord Canterbury, and my Lady Canterbury; and here was Bulwer, brother of Bulwer; and Sir Sydney Smith and other knights from afar; and all the _bel air_ of the Paris fashionables; not the old swarm of St. Germain, the Condés and Turennes, the Rochefoucaulds, Montausiers, Beauvilliers and Montespans; but all that Paris has now the most elegant and aristocratic.

Here was Madame la Duchesse de Guiche, and who can be more beautiful? And the Duchesse de Plaisance, airy and light as Taglioni; and the prettiest of all Belgian ambassadresses, Madame le Hon--_coiffé à ravir_. And the night went round in the dance, or in circulating through the room, or in sitting retired upon couches among the oranges and laurels, where sage philosophy looked on, and beauty bound the willing listeners in its spell. The music was loud and most exhilarating. In some parts of the house were all the comforts of elbowings, shufflings, crammings and squeezings, and on the outside all the racket that was possible of screaming women, and wrangling coachmen, from miles of carriages through every avenue. Some were arriving towards morning, and others have not arrived yet. This is the ball of the Ventadour.

We reached home just as Aurora was opening her curtains with her rosy fingers, and we crept into bed. The tickets were at twenty francs; ices, _eau d’orgéat_, and _eau sucrée_, were the amount of refreshments.

I have just room for a word of the Court Balls; and they are so much prettier than any thing else in the world, I am glad they come in last to your notice. They are held at the king’s palace, the Tuileries; where a long suite of rooms are opened into one, and filled with a stream of light so thick and transparent, that the men and women seem to swim in it as fish in their liquid element. Between three and four thousand persons are exposed to a single coup-d’œil; the men gorgeously attired in their court-dresses; the women in all the sweetness of the toilet.

It is impossible to look in here without recognising at once the justice of Parisian claims upon the empire of fashion. Here is the throne and sceptre of the many-coloured goddess; and here from every corner of the earth her courtiers come to do her homage.

The king, on entering, repeats nearly the same ceremony as at his “Reception” of the new year; others of the royal family follow his example. A pair of cavaliers at length lead out the two princesses, and the ball begins through the whole area of the rooms.

To see so many persons, elegantly and richly attired at once entangled in the dance; crossing, pursuing and overtaking each other; now at rest, now in movement; and seeming to have no other movement than that communicated by the music; and to see a hundred couples whirling around in the waltz, with airy feet that seem scarce to kiss the slippery boards; first flushed and palpitating; then wearying by degrees and retiring, to the last pair, to the last one--and she the most healthful, graceful and beautiful of the choir, her partner’s arm sustaining her taper waist, foot against foot, knee against knee, in simultaneous movement, turns and turns, till nature at length overcome, she languishes, she faints, she dies!--A scene of such excitement and brilliancy, you will easily excuse my modesty for not attempting to describe.

As an episode to the dancing, there is a supper in the _Salle de Diane_, where you have a chance of seeing how royal people eat; with a remote chance of eating something yourself. A thousand or more ladies sit down, and are served upon the precious metals, or more precious porcelain; the king and princes standing at the place of honour, and a file of military-looking gentlemen dressed richly, along the flanks of the table. What a spectacle! Ladies eating out of gold, and kings to wait upon them.

I sat opposite the royal ladies, and looked particularly at the little Princess Amelia, with her pouting lip “as if some bee had stung it lately.” She just tasted a little of the roast beef, and the fish, and the capon, and other delicacies of the season; and then a bit of plum-pudding, and some grapes, and peaches, and apricots, and strawberries; and then she sipped a glass of port, and when her glass was out, my Lord Granville with great presence of mind filled her another; and then she finished off with a little burgundy, champagne, hermitage, Frontignac, bucella, and old hock--all which she drank with her own dear little lips.

These delicate creatures do almost every thing else by deputy, but eating and drinking. After the ladies, we gentlemen were admitted _en masse_, with not a little scrambling; which was the objectionable part of the _fête_. I was hungry enough to have sold my birthright, but did not taste of any thing; it required not only physical strength, but effrontery, and I have been labouring under the oppression of modesty all my life. Have you ever been to a dinner at the--“White House?” that’s like the finale of the king’s supper in the _Salle de Diane_.

In my greener days, I saw the dance in my native Tuscarora, and went to see it twenty miles of a night upon a fleet horse, my partner behind, twining around my waist her “marriageable arms.” I have now seen the balls of the French court, which are called the most splendid in the world. The difference of dress, of graces, and such particulars, how vastly in favour of the Tuileries!--but as far as I can recollect and judge from the outward signs, the enjoyment was as vastly on the side of the Tuscarora.--Beauty is of every clime, as of every condition. I have seen Alcina’s foot upon the floors of the Ventadour, and upon a rock of the Juniatta, and all the varieties of human expression through all the ranges of human society. I have seen the humble violet upon the hill top, and the saucy lily in the valley. As for the pure and rapturous admiration of beauty and female accomplishment--alas, I fear it is not the growth of the libertine capital.--I am persuaded, that to have lived much in the country, conversant with natural objects, and subject to the privations of a country life, is essential to the perfection of the human character, and of human enjoyments. In a city, the pursuits are frivolous; they narrow the mind, and are pernicious to its most delightful faculty--the imagination. The passions are developed there too early, and worn out by use.--The Tuileries, lighted with its tapers, and “glittering with the golden coats,” is beautiful; the ladies’ bright eyes, and the pure gems that sparkle upon their snowy necks too are beautiful. But I have been at Moon’s Drawing Room upon your “Two Hills,” and have gathered its pure light from your piny leaves; the stars and heavenly bodies looking on in their court dresses.

To walk in the Rue Rivoli as the sun descends towards the west is delightful, and in the Tuileries amidst its marble deities, or upon the broad eastern terrace, which overlooks its two rows of fashionable belles.--But I have walked in the lone valleys of the Shamoken, and have seen the Naiads plunge into their fountains; I have walked upon the Sharp Mountain top, exhilarated with its pure air and liberty, raised above the grovelling species, and held communion with the angels--this is more delightful still. Numa communed with his Egeria in the sacred grove; Minos with his Nymph under the low-browed rock, and Moses retired to the mountain to converse with the Almighty. The pleasures of a city life stale upon the appetite by use; the delights of the country life “bring to their sweetness no satiety.”

I had intended to put you up the whole of the Paris Balls in this letter, but the Masquerades remain for another occasion. My time has run out; the last grain of sand is in the dial. Good night.