NOTES ON PARIS 
 
 \y 
 
 D.C.L. OXON, ETC. 
 
 TRANSLATED WITH NOTES 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS 
 
 ^ 
 
 /' 
 
 -J CO 
 
 V 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1875 
 
T)f 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S75, by 
 
 HENRY HOLT, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 AA^^" 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 John F. Trow & Son, 
 
 printers and stereotypers, 
 
 305-213 East -iith Street, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 M. FREDERIC-THOMAS GRAINDORGE 
 
 Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Jena 
 
 Special Partner in the House of Graindorge & Co., Oils and Salt Pork. 
 
 CINCINNATI, U.S.A. 
 
 COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED 
 
 BY 
 
 H. TAINE 
 
 Executor, 
 
'* J'ai la r Intermezzo de Heine 
 
 I^e Thomas Grain-d^ Orge de Taine 
 
 Les deux Goncout : 
 
 Le temps jusqu' a I'heure ou s'acheve 
 
 Sur I'oreiller I'idee en reve 
 
 Me sera court." 
 
 Theophile Gautier, 
 
 Emaux et Famees — 
 Une bonne Soiree. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 III. 
 
 .IV. 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII., VIII. 
 
 IX., X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 xxni. 
 
 XXIV. 
 XXV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface v 
 
 First Notes i 
 
 M. Graindorge to the Reader 13 
 
 A Drawing-room 24 
 
 Public Balls 36 
 
 Advice to my Nephew, Anatole Durand, as to 
 THE Manner in which he should Conduct 
 
 Himself in Society 49 
 
 The Parisienne 60 
 
 Young Girls , 72 
 
 Young Men 99 
 
 At the Embassy 129 
 
 The World 146 
 
 " Les Italiens " 158 
 
 A Proposition, New, and Suited to the Ten- 
 dencies of Modern Civilization, Designed 
 TO Assure the Happiness of Households, 
 and to Establish on a Sound Basis a First- 
 class Institution, Hitherto Left to Arbi- 
 trary Direction and to Chance 169 
 
 A Dinner Party 182 
 
 A Wedding 196 
 
 The Leading Young Lady 207 
 
 The Leading Young Man 226 
 
 Artists 243 
 
 Morals 266 
 
 Conversation 283 
 
 Society 299 
 
 A Week 315 
 
 A Tete-a-Tete 332 
 
 M. Graindorge 348 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The duties of an executor are very delicate, 
 and it is not without difficulty that I have been 
 able at last to review, complete, and publish the 
 notes of M. Graindorge, in the manner desired 
 by him. The family raised difficulties, and the 
 original manuscripts are almost illegible. M. 
 Graindorge wrote the long, confused English 
 hand, complicated by commercial abbreviations, 
 and contracted by the use of German characters. 
 I got through it at last, after some delay, but 
 reo^ret not to have been able to do more with it. 
 M. Marcelin, whom he also honored with his 
 friendship, wished besides to raise a monument 
 in his memory. He had several views taken of 
 the apartment of the deceased, by a photograph- 
 ist in repute. By the aid of several portraits he 
 had obtained the principal traits of the person and 
 costume of M. Graindorge ; he had added those 
 of his secretary, of his nephew, and of other per- 
 sons spoken of in this volume. With intelligent 
 care he had not shrunk from the presentation of 
 the strangest objects — not even from the great 
 stuffed crocodile which ornamented the boudoir ; 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 not even from the portrait of Sam, the black ser- 
 vant, who showed his everlasting- white teeth in 
 the ante-chamber. Moreover, calling up his own 
 recollections, he had thoughts of illustrating with 
 sketches the drawing-room, the theatre scenes, 
 and the incidents of travel related by M. Grain- 
 dorge. Other occupations have not permitted 
 the execution of this plan, but I hope that some 
 day he will be more at liberty. Meanwhile the 
 reader will regret that in this last duty his pencil 
 has not made up for the deficiencies of my pen. 
 
 I often spent the evening with M. Graindorge, 
 and I always took pleasure in his conversation. 
 His learning was not extensive, but he had trav- 
 elled, and his mind was well stored with facts. 
 He was neither pedantic nor prudish, and his 
 coffee was exquisite. What I particularly liked 
 in him, was his taste for general ideas ; he 
 reached them naturally, and perhaps the Parisian 
 reader may find that he was too much inclined to 
 them. I do not know that he was a favorite in 
 society. The American phlegm had hardened him 
 too much, and the habit of business had made him 
 too plain spoken. He was a tall, thin man, who 
 spoke without gestures, and with an unchanging 
 countenance ; not that he was devoid of imaeina- 
 tion or emotions, but from a habit of self-restraint 
 and a horror of display. There was nothing of 
 the man-of-letters in his conversation, save its 
 cold irony. But as he was fond of reading, and 
 had received a classical education, he could and did 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 vu 
 
 write very much as other people do. Ordinarily 
 he stood erect, his back to the fire-place, and 
 dropped his phrases one by one without any in- 
 flection of voice. His phrases in themselves were 
 mere stateTnents of facts, dull, and very precise. 
 At first they produced no impression, but an hour 
 afterwards their nakedness and their monotony 
 were forgotten, and only their fulness and correct- 
 ness were felt. It was clear that he only talked 
 to fulfil a duty to society ; his greatest pleasure 
 was in hearing others talk. We had very few 
 ideas in common, but our method of reasoning 
 was the same ; that was enough to make our 
 conversation agreeable. He stood contradiction, 
 and willingly accepted criticism, even to the prac- 
 tice of it upon himself, with his own hands taking 
 to pieces the inner wheels of his mind and char- 
 acter, to explain his actions, his opinions, and 
 notably his worse traits. To my idea he had suf- 
 fered too much in his youth, and fallen too much 
 back on himself in his riper years. Moreover, 
 he had made the great mistake of becoming an 
 amateur ; I mean by this, that he had detached 
 himself from everything, that he might be free to 
 go everywhere. Real life is only to be found by 
 incorporation in something larger than our own 
 personality, by belonging to a family or a society, 
 a science or an art. When we accustom our- 
 selves to look upon any one of them as of more 
 importance than ourselves, we participate in its 
 permanence and strength ; if not, we vacillate, 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 and grow weary, and break down : who tastes of 
 everything gets a distaste for everything. M. 
 Graindorge knew his disease, but felt too old to 
 cure it. While on this subject, I will relate an 
 anecdote which shows both his way of looking 
 at things, and the clearness of his perception. 
 One day, at the close of a long, philosophic con- 
 versation, he said to me, as a sort of summing 
 up : " Louis XL, at the end of his life, had a 
 number of little pigs dressed up as gentlemen, 
 bourgeois and canons. They were taught by the 
 stick, and danced before him in these costumes. 
 That unknown lady whom you call Dame Nature 
 does the same thing. She, too, has probably a 
 humorous turn ; only after we have learned to 
 play our parts well, by dint of sound thrashing, 
 and she has had her hearty laugh at our grim- 
 aces, she sends us to the sausage-maker and 
 the pickle shop." This way of explaining life 
 seemed to me extravagant, and drawn from his 
 own experience. I took up the idea which I 
 hinted at a moment since, and tried to insinuate 
 it, but in quite a general way, and without the 
 least personal application ; in a word, with all 
 the care of which I am master, and all the respect 
 which a young man likes to show to age. He 
 took his cigar from his mouth, reflected a mo- 
 ment, then said in his slow way :^ The conclusion 
 you omit to draw is, that it would be better for 
 me if I were dead ; that is my opinion too." And 
 as I protested, greatly scandalized, and with 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 some emotion, he smiled — a thing which did not 
 happen to him twice a month ; and added in the 
 same tone : " When you are fifty-five, and have 
 the Hver complaint, you will find that opinion' 
 the most comfortable of pillows. He has left to 
 me his Turkish coffee machines and his. supply 
 of segars. I am an heir, and yet dare to believe 
 that even my outspoken regret for his death is 
 sincere. 
 
 H. Taine. 
 
Notes on Paris. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST NOTES. 
 
 December 7th. 
 
 Last night at " Les Italiens," Cosi fan tutte 
 with Frezzolini. 
 
 I sat in the balcony ; of seven women near me, 
 six were lorettes. 
 
 Two of about twenty-eight, one a thorough 
 Boucher in type, a Httle faded ; the other in 
 Titian's style — voluptuous, fair, with small, full 
 ears, hair puffed in clouds over the forehead, 
 dropping in loops behind the head, and caught 
 up with a golden comb ; a skin, striking in its 
 dull, heavy whiteness. In Titian's time she 
 would have been simply bustling and stupid ; to- 
 day, bold, degraded, used to contempt and 
 insult, she represents ten years of lotions, vice, 
 powder, midnight vigils, and patds de foie gras. 
 All that she has learned of life is to eat and 
 drink of the best, and in plenty; her only 
 
2 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 thought is of her suppers. She is already 
 stuffed to the full as a fatted goose. Just now 
 she was describing to her friend her last dinner 
 — a pretty bit of gluttony — and rolling her eyes 
 in gastronomic beatitude as she told of the wine, 
 and the coffee, and the service. 
 
 In the box behind me the old Prince de 
 
 N , with an opera-dancer and an actress from 
 
 " Les Varietes." He shows them off in this way 
 every Saturday. The opera-dancer has the 
 usual sharp voice and the style of an apple- 
 woman — a pretty contrast to her three-button 
 white gloves. Her talk is loud, and not of the 
 choicest. When Fleur-de-lys and Doralice burst 
 into tears at the loss of their lovers, she called 
 out in a loud voice, while every one about her 
 was silent : " All that ado for Carrau ! " Carrau 
 is the actor who plays second lover — a poor 
 stick, without any voice, but good-looking. 
 Five or six men turned round and laughed ; she 
 was satisfied ; she had had her little success. 
 The rest of her conversation was in the same 
 style. " Alboni is so tight laced that her skirts 
 tilt. How thin she looks in black ! But what 
 sort of stuff is this opera? I can't under- 
 stand a word of it. Why do they roll their 
 eyes like loto-balls ? I like the tight-rope better 
 than this ! " 
 
 Below us sits a respectable woman. There is 
 no mistaking that ; her dress is not cut so low 
 on the shoulders — the whole style and manner 
 
FIRST NOTES. 3 
 
 are different. The dashy lorette seems always 
 to be thinking of her pleasures ; this lady to be 
 hoping that some attention may be paid to her — 
 a shade of difference. 
 
 It is easy to see that this pretty, well-dressed 
 woman has no other thought. She wishes to be 
 noticed — the centre of attraction, to the exclusion 
 of all others. A beautiful, yes, even a pretty 
 woman is as exacting, as vain, as susceptible of 
 admiration, craves enjoyment and flattery, as 
 much as ever prince, or actor, or author, even. 
 
 To judge from their appearance and toilettes, 
 they are divine. What infinite prorriise of 
 pleasure, what refined taste and elegance in the 
 lace and bows which frame their lovely busts, in 
 the white flowered silks in which they are 
 wrapped. But be careful not to hear their con- 
 versation, nor to inquire into their feelings, if 
 they have any. 
 
 December 15TH. 
 
 A wedding soiree at a restaurant. They are 
 clerks ; the groom a head clerk, earning a little 
 something besides his salary in some other small 
 occupation ; all told, about four thousand francs. 
 The young girl has a dower of fifty thousand 
 francs from her father, an inspector of streams 
 and forests in the provinces. 
 
 This cafe elegance is shabby. The chairs are 
 faded, the stair-carpet is sticky. One is tempted 
 to write on the door, Nopccs et festins.^ The 
 
4 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 waiters bring glasses of sugar and water, with 
 the weakest flavor of currants. They talk famil- 
 iarly with the guests, and what a conversation ! 
 " You are to have ices and all sorts of good 
 things ! " — a style of impertinence quite Pari- 
 sian. 
 
 This phase of society is not pleasing. The 
 toilettes, the pretension of these people to be of 
 the upper class, are at once lowered by their 
 constrained airs, odd noses, clumsy manners — by 
 the very shape of their heads even, which the 
 monotony of their daily lives has ended in brutal- 
 izinof. Amonof them are a few whose vulo-ar re- 
 finement is still more disagreeable. Nothing is 
 becoming which is not habitual ; nothing more 
 ridiculous than the extravagance of once a year. 
 
 There is only one safe way of life for those 
 whose incomes are less than twenty thousand 
 francs : to stay at home, after the Geneva or 
 English fashion, never to receive, to avoid all 
 show, to visit only two or three old friends ; to 
 spend for your own comfort, in good, plain din- 
 ners, in good linen, the money which others 
 spend on their balls and soirees ; otherwise, you 
 will always be cramped and always ridiculous. 
 Marry in private, with no one present but the 
 witnesses — the father and mother. These grand 
 feeds, these country dances by gaslight, are only 
 fit for peasants who eat their full once in a life- 
 time, or for the working-man whose limbs need 
 stretching. 
 
FIRST NOTES. 5 
 
 The pianist, a man of about thirty-six, dull and 
 stupid, looked queer enough in his dress suit, his 
 mustache, and his Sunday-go-to-meeting air. 
 From under this exterior there peeped a weak- 
 ness for petits verves. He hammered away 
 mechanically for his fifteen sous an hour. I 
 could not help thinking of the funeral mourners, 
 with their threadbare coats and their rusty black 
 hats. * 
 
 The bride is a good, fat, motherly little 
 woman, round as a ball ; looking as if she would 
 like nothing better than to roll into some hole. 
 About eleven in the evening she gets up a little 
 courage, plays the married woman, talks about 
 the ordering of her household — '' how we will do 
 this and that" — " go here and there." He, gay 
 and animated, bows away to the company, smiles, 
 flits around, swings his arms and legs about, and 
 keeps up a constant movement of his head and 
 eyes, southern in its vehemence ; his coat tails 
 flap like wings. 
 
 They first saw each other six weeks ago. 
 They accepted each other at the third meeting. 
 To-day, a piano, a noisy gathering, sugar and 
 water flavored with currant jam ; and these two 
 bodies and souls are tied together for a life-time. 
 
 December 17TH. 
 
 An evening sociable. People of the very best 
 society. Yet what incongruities ! 
 
6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 A young girl has just sung a modern air. I 
 do not know what ; at all events, a love song of 
 the most passionate kind ; the music full of 
 extraordinary bursts like those of Schubert's Sere- 
 nade. Please to observe that you would be 
 the coarsest, most indecent of men, if, even in 
 the presence of the mother, the father, the aunt, 
 the grandmother, and all the squadron of gov- 
 ernesses, duennas, and near relations of the fam- 
 ily, you should dare even to allude distantly to 
 the very subject which she has just been explain- 
 ing to you at full length in song. 
 
 Grand parade of musical ladies — among them 
 
 Madame de V , a young married woman of 
 
 twenty-three, with eyes upturned to heaven — I 
 mean to the ceiling — with a look of expectation. 
 She has sung " Spring Longings '' with languish- 
 ing airs, as a running commentary on the music. 
 The husband is radiant with joy ; he brings the 
 music and plays the impresario. For my part, I 
 would as soon see my wife undress herself in 
 public. 
 
 Everywhere the actress and the milliner crop 
 out. I looked at all these faces over their rich 
 dresses and lace-covered shoulders. The dresses 
 are beautiful, poetic even — but their heads ! 
 
 Madame de V and her husband came 
 
 home day before yesterday at seven in the morn- 
 ing. The same evening they went to two other 
 soirees. These young women are insatiable ; 
 every evening they drive to balls, theatres, din- 
 
FIRST NOTES. y 
 
 ners ; this lady, six days in the week, to two or 
 three balls of an evening — staying long enough 
 to sit for a moment, to exchange one set phrase 
 for another equally set, to make a sign to her 
 husband, who waits in the doorway, and to wrap 
 herself arain in her burnous in the dressine- 
 room. 
 
 Always the same smiling face. The expres- 
 sion is studied, and she lights upon a smile as a 
 dancer on the tips of her toes. Of what use is 
 her beauty. She is but a doll ; after ten minutes 
 conversation you are glad to get away from her. 
 As for her husband, he is a clumsy dwarf of a feb 
 low, who cares for nothing but truffles. After all, 
 she is right to trot him about, he eats too much 
 and would take on too much stomach. 
 
 December 2ist. 
 
 Now-a-days in society when men talk to ladies 
 it is in a tone of banter. They have caught this 
 air by associating with another class of women 
 with whom they are always on a war footing. 
 The old chivalrous, respectful manner has gone. 
 The devoted and complimentary manner, even 
 the deferential air is only to be found now in men 
 
 of fifty. Mme. Andre M told me yesterday, 
 
 that it was very disagreeable, and that no one 
 could say where this will end. I have noticed 
 the same tone in her husband. No more no less 
 than in the others. 
 
8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 December 23D. 
 
 Women hate above all things to be left to them- 
 selves in a drawing-room ; they had rather be 
 bantered. All crowded together, several rows 
 deep, they yawn decently behind their fans ; im- 
 prisoned by a wall of dresses, there is no such 
 thing as breaking through. All motion impossi- 
 ble for the whole evening ; no conversation — they 
 never talk willingly among themselves ; they mis- 
 trust each other because all are rivals, either in 
 dress or beauty; they can only smile while in- 
 wardly fretting. 
 
 The men stare at them, leaning in the door- 
 ways ; they use their eye-glasses as though they 
 were at a bazar, and in fact it is an exhibition of 
 flounces, diamonds and shoulders. 
 
 Bitterness soon shows itself. The women 
 have an old grudge against matrimony, having 
 found in it nothing but deceptions. " The men 
 have had their youth, their illusions, they have 
 lived ; but we ? " They are furious to find them- 
 selves the successors of five or six fast women. 
 One of them constantly came back to one phrase. 
 •' I must know life ; " understand by that intoxica- 
 tion, intense sensation, a palpitation of heart 
 and nerves, a whirlwind which carries all before 
 it — the senses, the reason. Their language is not 
 extravagant, but what are their thoughts ? None 
 can measure the dark places, the pit-falls, which 
 are to be found beneath the frozen surface of so- 
 ciety. 
 
FIRST NOTES. g 
 
 Mme. Andre M. dotes upon the novels of 
 Henri Murger; there she finds what to her is 
 real sentiment. I have known German women 
 to read, over and over again, Fanny and Madame 
 Bovary.'' They are weary of their every-day din- 
 ner, and crave a night supper. Once on this road 
 they can be made to go a long way. 
 
 They are ordered to limit themselves to the 
 tame feelings of caged squirrels, to lead a regu- 
 lar life, carefully measured, laid out by line, as free 
 from passion, as that of a Dutch philosopher ; and 
 at the same time they are taught the art of satis- 
 fying, of arousing and of exciting the wildest im- 
 aginations, and the most exquisite desires. My 
 dear you may set all ablaze about you, but you 
 must keep cool yourself. 
 
 January 3D. 
 
 At the opera two young women and their hus- 
 bands in my box. 
 
 I hear a hum of words ; moire antique, spangled 
 velvet, tarletan, poplin, guipure, flounces, and 
 the like. 
 
 In this circle, where incomes range from forty 
 to eighty thousand francs, it is quite impossible 
 to think of any thing else. Madame M. and 
 
 Madame de B have been brought up quite 
 
 simply, yet find no time for anything. There are 
 always stuffs to be chosen, ribbons to be matched, 
 hats to be trimmed, laces to be compared and the 
 
lO NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 clress-maker to be scolded. Their afternoons are 
 spent in the shops ; the husband can make no 
 use of the carriage. 
 
 They are right after all ; they supply the 
 Frenchmen with the commodity he most values, 
 pleasure. He would not know what to do with a 
 more durable or decided sentiment. He would 
 be embarrassed, agitated, worried. All that he 
 needs is a passing tickle of the imagination, a 
 pleasant promise of pleasure thrown in his way. 
 
 My two young women are just made for that. 
 Always the same smiling and graceful amiability. 
 They smile even before this horrible, terrible 
 drama of Trovatore ; they are quite at their ease. 
 
 Imagine a person taking an ice or melting a 
 meringue in the mouth. Such is their frame 
 of mind, a continual petty enjoyment, without 
 thought or reflection. 
 
 Every one has his own degree and variety of 
 self-enjoyment — as it were his moral and natural 
 temperature ; oscillating around it, and perpetually 
 striving to reach it. This temperature in a Vol- 
 taire, for instance, displays itself in the sparkle of 
 a gay and brilliant supper-table, in the sensation 
 one feels when stirred up by twenty bright ideas, 
 as though there were a bottle of champagne 
 effervescing in the brain. The temperature of 
 Verdi is that of a struggling spirit in revolt, 
 indignant, who has long smothered his wrath, 
 until at last it breaks out in a clap like thunder. 
 An odd audience this to pass judgment on Verdi. 
 
FIRST NOTES. 1 1 
 
 Here are critics, men of taste, scoffers, wholly 
 unable to forget themselves or feel real emotion. 
 They interested themselves, first in the make up 
 of Azucena. ** She is not so bad, her Bohemian 
 skirt is quite in character." 
 
 Now comes the recitative, with its tragic har- 
 rowing pathos ; all the horror of fierce Span- 
 ish passion, all the bloody grandeur of the mid- 
 dle ages. The ladies exchange opera-glasses ; 
 they are busy examining the precise shade of the 
 skin of Azucena. "■ Heavens ! she looks like a 
 smoked ham ; " and they laugh with an air of dis- 
 gust. This reminded me of the famous scene in 
 the last act of Don Giovanni; when the little 
 devils bounded in: every one in the boxes had 
 their little joke. They lost sight of the tragic 
 solemnity of the music. 
 
 January 4TH, " alceste " at the opera. 
 
 The house was very cold and only warmed up 
 with the ballet. The audience is made up three- 
 fourths of mere pleasure-seekers, who come 
 to listen to a grand dramatic poem as they 
 would go to the cafe or the vaudeville. Scribe, 
 Alexandre Dumas the elder, Adolphe Adam 
 give the measure of the Frenchman. Still by 
 reason of the Parisian compost, there is a small 
 set of true judges, and if necessary these can lift 
 the rest to their level. But native sympathy, 
 the inborn knowledge of the beautiful, the ca- 
 
1 2 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 pacity of illusion, belong to Italy and to Germany. 
 At Berlin, music is listened to in a silence like 
 that of a church ; — here it is laughed at. 
 
 As a natural consequence, there is no end of 
 blunders. The circles left on the stage by the 
 watering-pots are seen from the best boxes, and 
 destroy the illusion. The hard and weary ex- 
 pression of the dancing-girls contrasts sharply 
 with the music ; they elbow and chaff each other 
 in the side scenes. The ballet is in low taste. It 
 is only a market for girls. These have all the 
 gestures and little vulgar tricks of the trade. A 
 nauseous voluptuousness to suit the customer. 
 There is not ten per cent, of real beauty in the 
 ballet. Here is the bold solicitation of the side- 
 walk; their limbs, in pink tights, shown to the 
 hips ; the air of the tight-rope ; and yet withal, 
 with their frog-like hands, their thin and spidery 
 arms, and their set round steps, which remind one 
 of the rope-dancers, they imagine that they rep- 
 resent the noble processions of ancient Greece. 
 
 Men of the world who live for pleasure and 
 reach it one time in ten, shop-keepers who run 
 after it and never reach it at all, courtesans and 
 a flash mob who sell it or steal it. Such is Paris. 
 One only end : pleasure and display. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 M. GRAINDORGE TO THE READER. 
 
 To Monsieur Marcelling director of La Vie 
 
 Parisienne. 
 
 Monsieur : Since you see fit to make known 
 to your readers the author of the odd notes 
 which you have been kind enough to print in 
 your journal, I propose to myself the honor of 
 a self-introduction. It is not the easiest or the 
 least embarrassing thing to do. No matter. It 
 is only proper that your readers should have 
 some idea of the man who is to chat with them 
 once or twice a week over their breakfast. 
 
 I am fifty-two years old. I have an income 
 of eighty thousand francs, earned in the salt pork 
 and petroleum business, and I am utterly devoid 
 of imagination. What is more, I left Paris forty 
 years ago, and I have been home hardly six. 
 Not the best qualification, you will say, to fit 
 me to describe the life of Paris. I shall probably 
 be called a barbarian ; perhaps I have been 
 already. 
 
 If such be the case. Monsieur, the fault is in 
 my early training. My father had an idea that 
 a French college is little better than a barrack, 
 and that there is nothing to be learned there 
 
14 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 except to smoke in the entries, and to make the 
 acquaintance of the pretty young ladies who 
 dance with so much agiHty in the Rue Cadet ^ 
 between eleven and twelve o'clock of an evening. 
 So he sent me to Eton, England, where I con- 
 structed quantities of Greek verses, particularly 
 Iambics ; besides this, I blacked the boots of the 
 big boys, and gave and took several dozen hard 
 knocks a week. I have never found great profit 
 from the Greek verses, even the Iambics ; but 
 the sciences of boot-blacking and fisticuff have 
 proved useful to me. I take the liberty of 
 recommending them to your son, if, by chance, 
 you have one. 
 
 When I was eighteen years old, my father, 
 judging that by this schooling in Greek verse and 
 hard hitting, my brains had become strong 
 enough, and my ribs sufficiently tough, sent me 
 to Germany, to the University of Heidelberg. 
 I bought a red cap with a gold band, and walked 
 up and down the gardens of the old castle, swell- 
 ing out my chest to give me a manly air ; and, 
 though my eyesight is of the best, I put on a 
 learned look with a pair of spectacles. For five 
 years I smoked a countless number of pipes, and 
 gave and took some sabre cuts ; once on account 
 of a servant-girl to whom one of my companions 
 had been disrespectful, and on another occasion 
 in defence of the principle of an interior sense, 
 against a skeptic who denied it, and again, apropos 
 of the objectivity and personality of the Infinite. 
 
M. GRAINDORGE TO THE READER. 
 
 15 
 
 I was dumb with admiration at the divisions and 
 sub-divisions into which our professors packed 
 everything divine and human ; I scraped with 
 my foot each time that the privat-docent'* spoke 
 too quickly, so unwilHng was I to lose a single 
 word. It seemed to me that all the sciences, 
 numbered and labelled, stowed themselves away 
 in my head as in a nest of pigeon-holes. I was 
 beginning to have an idea of the Absolute, even, 
 and was dreaming of immortal discoveries, when 
 my father died, leaving me without a sou. 
 
 In Germany, Monsieur, such advertisements 
 as this are not uncommon in the journals : " A 
 young man of a complete classical education, 
 speaking and writing several living tongues, 
 skilled in the law, chemistry and mathematics, 
 the son of a father well known in the world of 
 letters, provided with the most honorable recom- 
 mendations, solicits a situation as clerk at a sal- 
 ary of eight hundred francs." I had not so many 
 qualifications, and was very well satisfied to find 
 a place in the service of Messrs. Schwartz & Co., 
 of Hamburg, oil merchants, who sent me travel- 
 ling to oversee their shipments and deliveries. 
 I had long, straight hair, an absorbed air, and I 
 did not pay half the attention I should to the oils ; 
 but I was soon forced to get over this nonsense. 
 One day a sailor — a great stout fellow whom I 
 had ordered to pass down a barrel — shrugged 
 his shoulders, and said to me, " Euer Gnaden, 
 monseigneur."5 I jumped for him, and with half 
 
1 6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 a dozen blows of my fist cut up his face. He 
 obeyed at once ; the whole crew began to treat 
 me with good will, and I got my first notions as 
 to the proper manner of managing mankind. 
 Three weeks later, while we were put in at 
 Cuba, I walked out one day, to take the air, 
 some two hundred steps from the port, leaning 
 on the arm of a comrade. I was still quite fee- 
 ble, having taken the fever in my utter inability 
 to digest the bad water and ship-bread. I saw 
 some of those Chinamen who sell themselves for 
 ten years for a measure of rice a day, two dollars 
 at the end of the year, a shirt and a straw hat 
 every two years, and rattan-cuts at the pleasure 
 of the purchaser. One of them followed me. I 
 took pity on him and gave him some alms. Five 
 minutes later, at a turn in the road, a heavy blow 
 from a stick well laid on by the hand of this same 
 Chinaman, knocked me down. My comrade 
 returns the blow : down goes the Chinaman. I 
 get up and go back limping to the ship. "And 
 the Chinaman ? " I asked on my return. " Oh, 
 don't trouble yourself about him ; his friends 
 arrived in time to finish him and bury him ; in 
 the first place, that they might have his shirt ; 
 in the second, that they might not get into trou- 
 ble should we make complaint to the authorities." 
 I bandaged my head, which was slightly dam- 
 aged, and reflected long. It seemed to me that 
 mankind was not quite so disposed to fraternity 
 as I had supposed. Eight days later, at Baton- 
 
M. GRAINDORGE TO THE READER. 
 
 17 
 
 Rouge, at a public dinner-table, I ask my neig-h- 
 bor to pass me a dish. He takes it, smells it, 
 finds it to his taste, sets it before him, and 
 gravely eats it up, without taking the least notice 
 of me. This was my left-hand neighbor. At 
 the same moment my right-hand neighbor calls 
 once, twice, for a slice of ham. The waiter does 
 not hear him. Without another word he shies 
 his plate at the waiter's head. The waiter, 
 whose ear is cut open, seizes a chair and knocks 
 the gentleman down. He is in turn knocked 
 over by another gentleman, who draws his 
 bowie-knife. All this while three or four Amer- 
 icans who had finished their breakfast remained 
 quietly seated at the chimney corner, their feet 
 on the mantel-piece, on a level with their heads ; 
 each one whittling a small bit of wood with 
 the little pocket-knife which they always carry 
 with them — this being their main amusement. 
 They only turned their heads, whistling, with the 
 same air of curiosity they would have shown at a 
 boxing-match. That was enough for me. My 
 education was finished. With my first savings I 
 hired a professor of single stick, I bought a gun, 
 I practised on the crocodiles in the river, I got 
 rid of my metaphysics and my politeness, and I 
 began to walk straight ahead in the right direc- 
 tion, that where the money lies, 
 
 I will not weary you with all my beginnings ; it 
 would be too long, perhaps too crude ; in France, 
 the naked truth is not popular. Only please to 
 
1 8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 remember that I have eaten my leek, as you say 
 here, and not always my full either. Nor are 
 leeks to be had by eve^-y body. Moreover, in 
 America, it is the popular opinion that from 
 twenty to thirty it is the true food for a man. 
 When about thirty, I had a plantation, nineteen 
 slaves, and five hundred pigs. Slaves and pigs I 
 treated alike well, but I found my profit in it. 
 Here I imagine, that you are going to cry out 
 and call me a wretch, a slave-holder. No doubt. 
 Monsieur, there are bad masters ; when my neigh- 
 bor Mr. Wright, found one of his horses rubbed, 
 he applied a blister to the driver as large as the 
 sore on the horse, and made him keep this little 
 notice on until the horse was healed. For my 
 part, if a negro was bad, I sold him ; that was my 
 great punishment ; I have never given twenty 
 lashes in my life. I can assure you that on 
 Sundays my boys slept the most voluptuous of 
 sleeps, all in a heap, their oily skins stretching and 
 sweating in the sun. As for the pigs, they have 
 the same tastes as the blacks, with more sense. 
 They are quite distinguished personages, these 
 animals, with the instincts oi grand seigneurs and 
 the cunning of politicians. They go in troops to 
 the acorn patch, I mean to the promenade, and 
 pass their days under the great oaks, capriciously 
 pushing their stroll quite far, sometimes a league 
 away from the farm, gourmets and adventurers 
 that they are, so dainty and skilful in finding and 
 turning up the choicest roots with their great 
 
M. GRAINDORGE TO THE READER. 
 
 19 
 
 snouts. They are sociable, but with an eye to 
 their own interests like the rest of us. When a 
 bear makes his appearance they form a ring 
 showing their tusks. If perchance one of them 
 goes astray and is caught, they all cry out to- 
 gether as loud as possible ; then when the bear 
 has had his fill they finish up the remains of their 
 companion. You see they are truly practical. 
 At sunset the horn is sounded ; they gallop in 
 from the four quarters of the horizon, and like 
 your gentlemen find the table set ; the little ones 
 crowd together rosy and fresh as Rubens' Cupids, 
 get themselves all inside of mammoth pumpkins, 
 eat their bellies full, lick their chops, and come 
 out in triumph all yellow. Pardon me these lively 
 memories : I have lived. Monsieur, for ten years 
 among these animals ; many a time at your opera 
 have I sighed for their music. The first year I 
 sold two hundred, then a thousand, then two 
 thousand a year. My name was known at Cin- 
 cinnati, and, like many another, I could have built 
 myself a Greek house with gothic belfries, have 
 become a captain in a fire company, treasurer of 
 a society for the anatomical and clinical education 
 of young lady surgeons. But my dreams were 
 of Paris, and I knew well that there was no use 
 in my returning there unless I returned rich. 
 The oil wells were just discovered in Pennsyl- 
 vania. I pitched into oil head foremost. I went 
 into a store for three months, I perfected the ed- 
 ucation of my smell, I handled the barrels, the 
 
20 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 soap, the rosin, the tar ; I tasted the samples. 
 I thought of nothing but jars, measures, casks, 
 valves and cocks ; of liquids, some yellow, some 
 green, others straw and slate colored, all sticky, 
 ropy and greasy, each with its price, its flavor, its 
 odor, and its mark. Thus prepared, I established 
 a warehouse, bought a tract of land, pierced a 
 well ; I struck oil and a good run ; I drew out in 
 twenty-four hours, five thousand quarts of oil, and 
 I made a profit of four hundred dollars a day. 
 The only inconvenience about these magnificent 
 wells is, that they sometimes take fire ; my suc- 
 cessor was broiled alive with half of his men. Do 
 not be alarmed. Monsieur, I was paid. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this success, neither the 
 oil nor the salt pork satisfied my soul ; the Amer- 
 icans love business for its own sake, not I. I 
 was not married, I had not, as they, twelve or fif- 
 teen children to provide for ; I did not, like my 
 neighbors, the planters, see any special pleasure 
 in building a church. On Sunday, when they 
 rode three leagues on horse-back to hear a 
 Methodist sermon, I felt no desire to follow their 
 example. Twice each year, they had a shout- 
 ing, what we in France call a htirlement ; this is a 
 sort of edification meeting — a platform is raised, 
 a half dozen preachers take turns in preaching 
 upon predestination, damnation, and other equally 
 agreeable topics. In the intervals, psalms are 
 sung. The audience come in from a twenty-mile 
 circuit ; they camp about the platform tying their 
 
M. GRAINDORGE TO THE READER, 2 1 
 
 horses to the trees. At the end of forty-eight 
 hours they warm up ; one of the audience jumps 
 upon the platform and confesses his sins aloud, 
 then another, then two or three together ; sobs and 
 tears begin ; this serves as an outlet for their soli- 
 tary and sad imaginations. I kept cool and that 
 went against me — I shut myself up on Sunday, 
 in a high room from which I saw the sun set all 
 red between the domes of the great trees ; I had 
 my Heidelberg pipe and some old Greek books 
 annotated at Eton. I read your reviews, your 
 books, the books of Germany and of England. 
 The old Adam awoke within me ; I found myself 
 younger than I was ; reading your ideas, observ- 
 ing the spirit and boldness of your views, your 
 adventurous campaigns in the field of philosophy 
 and letters, it seemed to me as though I were at a 
 ball. One fine morning instead of dropping down 
 again among my hams and my barrels, I sold my 
 land and my shop, put my fortune in English 
 Consols and embarked for Europe in the Persia. 
 I have traveled much, but no where. Monsieur, 
 have I had so warm a reception as in Paris. You 
 certainly excel in the art of making life pleasant ; 
 perhaps that is the only thing you do excel in ; at 
 all events, for him who wishes simply to converse 
 and amuse himself, this town is paradise itself. I 
 was a little beset to be sure the first days ; a rich 
 man, even though there be not much left of him, 
 is well run after. I have had to dismiss three 
 valets-de-chambre one after another ; my pretty 
 
22 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 neighbors paid them for the honor of my special 
 patronage. Even to-day I pass for a bear in 
 several houses where I did not marry the daugh- 
 ter. But all that finally settled down — I have 
 given some very fair dinners, and due considera- 
 tion has been shown to my wines and my truffles. 
 I have loaned money to several musicians and 
 literary people, and I have always neglected to 
 ask its repayment ; in return I have their tender 
 affections. I never wear diamond rings, and I 
 never allude to the price of stocks, so that I am 
 neither found more impertinent nor more stupid 
 than others. The American war broke out just 
 in time to give me a proper footing in society ; I 
 supplied information upon the North and the 
 South, I argued as long as any one cared to lis- 
 ten upon cotton and President Davis, and the 
 lady of the house never regretted having sent me 
 an invitation. For my own part, I go into the 
 world as to the theatre, with more pleasure than 
 to the theatre ; the actors are better in the world 
 than on the stage and certainly more finished; 
 and after so many years passed in America it is 
 finish that I like most to see. I have a comfort- 
 able warm carriage which takes me out and 
 brings me home, and a spry valet-de-chambre 
 who dresses me. My tailor is no fool, and I am 
 too old to be at all timid. There is no office that 
 I care to solicit, and I have no pretensions to sus- 
 tain. I have no other desire but to listen and to 
 look on ; I listen and look on ; no woman is un- 
 
M. GRAINDORGE TO THE READER. 23 
 
 willing- to be looked at, no man who does not like 
 to be listened to. Sometimes while buttoning my 
 overcoat an idea occurs to me, I write it down on 
 my return ; hence my notes. You see, dear Mon- 
 sieur, that there is no pretension to literature in 
 this. It was not in America that I could learn the 
 pretty French language ; I admire it but I am 
 quite unable to imitate it. In my eyes and in the 
 eyes of a stranger, the style of your witty writers 
 is very much like those Articles-Pa^'is,^ which 
 none can manufacture but the true Parisian, so 
 light so brilliant are they, and yet made of nothing. 
 I only know how to jot down my thoughts 
 when they come and as they come, to describe 
 the furniture of a drawing-room after the manner 
 of an appraiser, in broken sentences and with all 
 sorts of absurd remarks. I write for myself, not 
 for the public ; remember that I have spent my 
 life among biblical heads and in the oil trade 
 after a German education, and throw away what 
 you choose of my scribblings. I do not know 
 whether your readers will even excuse what re- 
 mains. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DRAWING ROOM. 
 
 December 25TH, 
 
 Mme de L was standing against the man- 
 tel, slightly bent forward, in that fine attitude 
 which becomes her so well, her eyes sparkling, 
 and with such a smile ! Her slight supple figure 
 close fitted in a dress of black velvet. Her round 
 and divinely white shoulders rose luminous from 
 this deep darkness, and the lines of her neck 
 undulated in graceful curves, even to the braids 
 of her hair twisted beneath her golden comb. 
 This curving line of living naked flesh sprung de- 
 liciously from the rich and sombre surroundings. 
 
 There is no such thing as a real soiree without 
 women in full dress ; and none have the right to 
 wear elegant and low cut dresses unless they 
 have an income of sixty thousand francs. There 
 is in dressing, a supreme point to be aimed at as 
 in genius ; a perfect toilette is equal to a poem. 
 There is a taste, a choice in the placing and 
 the shade of each satin ribbon, in the pink silks, 
 in the soft silvered satin, in the pale mauve, in 
 the tenderness of the softer colors, still more ten- 
 der beneath their coverings of guipure, their puf- 
 fings of tulle, and the ruches which rustle with 
 
A DRAWING ROOM. 
 
 25 
 
 every motion. Shoulders and cheeks wear a 
 charming tint in this luxurious nest of blonde 
 and lace. This is the only poetry left to us, and 
 how well they understand it ! What art, what 
 appeal to the eye in these white waists which fit 
 the figure so closely, in the chaste freshness of 
 these glistening silks. There is no age by can- 
 dle light ; the splendor of the shoulders effaces 
 all change of feature even. The women know 
 this well. Two friends at the corners of the 
 mantle-piece, (are they friends because they act 
 as foils to each other's beauty ?) the one a full 
 figure, her dress cut extremely low, yet without 
 the least want of propriety, a diadem of diamonds 
 in her head, and a Saint Esprit^ in her bosom, 
 displays her blonde and ample beauty ; a very 
 Rubens' goddess in a light yellow silk covered 
 with lace puffings. All this palpitates and trem- 
 bles at every step she takes; the light sinks 
 deep within the satin fullness of the shoulders, 
 and seems there to make its home ; she turns her 
 neck, and the look from her great tranquil eyes is 
 firm and serene as that of a woman of the 
 Renaissance. 
 
 The other in a velvet dress, cut square in front 
 after the fashion of Henri Quatre, with a border 
 of magnificent lace in which she is framed like a 
 cameo, lifts up her ardent Jewish head crowned 
 by a diadem of tresses darker than the raven's 
 wing. About the throat, black necklaces ; on the 
 head and well forward over the hair, a black 
 
26 NOTES ON PARIS, 
 
 head-dress. The hair falls in lustrous masses 
 rich and heavy upon the neck, and her dark eyes 
 burn like those of one of Calderon's Spanish 
 women. 
 
 This must be enjoyed with an artist's eye, for 
 a moment, as a passing illusion; as a dazzling 
 phantom soon to vanish ; otherwise the senses 
 become troubled, and you realize the passions 
 of the 1 6th century. 
 
 A moment later, and I figured to myself the 
 other side of the picture, with which I am famil- 
 iar. The first, an admirable musician, wearies 
 her husband to death with her piano, her con- 
 certos, and her endless scales. I enjoy the fruit, 
 he has the pit. The second has quarrelled with 
 hers ; they meet once a day at table. Dress has 
 been the apple of discord in this establishment ; 
 I would lay a wager from the looks of the hus- 
 band that they quarrelled yesterday. Sixty 
 thousand francs income, and last year her dress- 
 maker's bill, eighteen thousand. He has been 
 forced to appeal to the confessor to bring his wife 
 to terms. Take these people for what they are, 
 for actors or actresses ; what is most comical is 
 that they are paying for the pleasure you enjoy. 
 
 But it is hard to retain this standpoint. The 
 illusion carries you away. You fancy perfection, 
 happiness, and as you go down stairs you have 
 an opera in your head. " // tressaille en voiis des 
 phrases de romany^ How true this saying of 
 poor de Musset ! Then again the sensation is 
 
A DRAWING ROOM. 
 
 27 
 
 peculiar, when from the window of your carriage 
 at midnight you see the people splashing in the 
 mud which shines on the sidewalks. 
 
 A dark sky, spotted with flames of trembling 
 light, hung over the river like the lid of a tomb. 
 A long thread of Hght stretched itself at regular 
 intervals motionless and silent as the torches of a 
 catafalque. The river flowed in uncertain move- 
 ment, horrible and mournful. There were yet 
 a few lanterns alight in a washerwoman's boat. 
 These poor creatures wash Hnen till midnight to 
 earn four sous a day. 
 
 I visited this house again — I like it ; there is 
 never too much of a crowd ; there is no stiffness, 
 and amusement enough ; but how many things 
 are requisite to this end. 
 
 To begin with, one hundred thousand francs 
 income ; all of this is necessary for a life of 
 elegance. — An ancient splendor : for six genera- 
 tions there has been great wealth in the family ; 
 nothing of the parvenu here. Neither the exclu- 
 siveness of a coterie nor yet ambition. I fly, as 
 from the plague, those houses where people go to 
 pay their court and repeat their catechisms ; M. 
 
 de L has no office, wants none, and has no 
 
 children to establish. He is an epicurean who 
 takes life easily and lightly, sarcastic without 
 ill-nature, and on whom fortune has uniformly 
 smiled. Nothing like good fortune to make a 
 
28 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 man amiable. With that, and beyond all that, 
 literary, an artist almost ; an amateur of all that is 
 beautiful or pretty ; polite and graceful in his man- 
 ner, the most delicate flatterer I have ever met. 
 Without either passions or profound ideas, but 
 of decided tastes, a tact never at fault, a profu- 
 sion of the most delicate attentions, a correct and 
 exquisite form of diction ; one could write down 
 what he says. In a word, a born grand seigneur 
 and courtier. 
 
 Besides, having been a naval officer, his mind 
 is stored with facts without prejudice to his good 
 breeding. There is no class whose style is bet- 
 ter and manners more quiet and agreeable than 
 the naval officers. It is a necessity with them, 
 living so near one another ; any rough friction 
 would be unendurable. It was at New Orleans 
 where he was on service that I made his acquain- 
 tance. 
 
 He loves pleasure, that is his strong point; 
 but pleasure of a delicate and refined kind. He 
 enjoys all beautiful things with the mind, the 
 imagination, the eye, indeed, with all his senses. 
 His cook is an artist. Four dishes, perhaps, skil- 
 fully prepared, but no more. An overloaded table 
 is a mark of provincialism or of newly gotten 
 wealth, It is not the correct thing for the guests 
 at nine o'clock in the evening to be dull and 
 silent, stuffed to the full, like fat poultry. — Ten 
 or twelve persons at the most, who know each 
 other, or who are distinguished by their rank and 
 
A DRAWING ROOM. 29 
 
 talent. When there is so much of a crowd that 
 the guests do not know how to take each other, 
 conversation flags, and light, spirited, varied con- 
 versation is the best of desserts. — Well-dressed 
 women pleasing to the eye as a bouquet of flow- 
 ers ; neither embarrassed nor yet forward, who 
 can discuss music and letters with discretion and 
 judgment, who know the world, have travelled, 
 who are not prudes, and who have flourished all 
 their lives in an atmosphere of devotion, of at- 
 tention, in a sure and refined state of comfort and 
 ease. — Above all a light and discursive conver- 
 sation running over twenty subjects in a moment, 
 a conversation made up of portraits, of anecdotes 
 of public men, of the side scenes of politics and 
 society, but always free from both pedantry and 
 intolerance — With this a constant delicate tone of 
 flattery so agreeable that it is pleasant to hear, 
 even though felt to be false, and better still a 
 way of insinuating approval, by a word, a witty 
 phrase or a new image. — In short, good taste in 
 everything, which is the very essence of refined 
 enjoyment. 
 
 This is French and Parisian — a nation never 
 changes ; when we fall back upon the source of all 
 this, we find ourselves in the eighteenth century. 
 
 There is here an aristocracy, not of title nor 
 power, nor yet perhaps of heart ; but at least of 
 education, of taste, and of wit. In the evening 
 Andre Zschokke played with all his usual dash 
 and brilliancy ; after him a delicate and graceful 
 
so 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 young woman, married, but still timid and mig- 
 nonne in her pale silk dress. She played a waltz 
 and nocturne of Chopin. I thought, as I listened 
 to her, what an amount of nurture and careful gar- 
 dening was needed to raise such a flower, what 
 precocious culture could have inspired a head of 
 twenty-two to understand music so delicately 
 sad, so aerial, so strangely shaded, and of so soft 
 and wild a perfume. She is rich, respected, has 
 been brought up as all young girls under her 
 mother's eye in semi-ignorance. How could she 
 at one bound learn to comprehend so much ? 
 The sensitiveness of women's nerves takes the 
 place of education and experience. They divine 
 what we only learn by study. 
 
 I must not forget to describe this residence ; 
 this accompaniment is required to sustain the 
 melody, 
 
 A quiet old hotel in a street of hotels ; no 
 shops in sight, no show of goods in the open 
 street, no poor muddy devils ; all these things 
 are spots ; dreams of luxury and ease to be 
 happy must be undisturbed. 
 
 This street, Barbet-de-Jouy, is in fact an aris- 
 tocratic paradise ; in its rear are stretched out 
 great gardens full of old trees. It has almost a 
 country air. Yesterday, the 28th December, a 
 moist soft breeze shook the tops of the branches, 
 the delicate brown net work of the boughs, the 
 
A DRAWING ROOM. 3 1 
 
 hanging tresses of the birch trees ; the sun disap- 
 peared in the depths of the sky, in streams of 
 purple glory, and cast golden trellises aslant upon 
 the hangings through the half open doors. 
 
 They have kept the enormous old stair-case of 
 the eighteenth century, with its chiselled iron 
 banisters up which three persons may walk 
 abreast, and where modern costumes like the 
 wide panniers of former days may spread them- 
 selves at their ease. In the ante-chamber, are 
 trophies of arms, Chinese curiosities, and a thou- 
 sand fanciful objects which the master of the 
 house has brought home from his voyages ; the 
 polished steel of the yataghans and carbines, 
 reflect the evening light in grave severe shim- 
 mer, while the lackeys in furs and gold lace, 
 quiet and reserved, stand erect with an air of 
 decoration like a troop of heiduques. 
 
 The ceiling of the great drawing-room is twenty 
 feet high ; here at least, a rare thing in Paris, one 
 may breathe, and what is better the eyes do not 
 suffer. It is not plated with gold, embellished 
 with statues, illuminated with paintings like the 
 rooms of the millionaire of yesterday, who seek- 
 ing beauty was caught by glitter. A few old pic- 
 tures, neither holy subjects nor yet tragedies ; two 
 or three portraits of illustrious men or celebrated 
 women ; here and there a quiet country scene ; 
 nothing for show, everything for enjoyment ; be- 
 tween two threads of conversation, the eye rests 
 upon some glorious Venetian beauty, who with 
 
32 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 head turned is trying on a necklace of pearls, 
 while the wavy light plays on the pale silk of her 
 skirt, or upon some sculptured frame embrowned 
 by age, where diminutive figures and graceful 
 foliage chase each other in sharp relief; the red 
 silk hangings, in flower pattern, enfold and har- 
 monize in their bold grave color all these various 
 master-pieces of beauty and of art. 
 
 In the rear is a small parlor arranged by his 
 wife, for the young girls and the ladies, virgin in its 
 freshness, all white with light threads of gold which 
 spring out in long rocket shapes, clustering and 
 flowering, undulating in the cornices and in- 
 terlaced in delicate arabesque ; curtains of pale 
 pink fall gracefully, swathed in lace ; arm chairs 
 of yellow silk embroidered in floss flowers stretch 
 their twisted feet over the heavy silken carpet, 
 which seems to be made only to receive the little 
 satin slippers and to feel the shiver of the training 
 robes. Here and there in the angles, green 
 plants with tangled foliage climb all alive among 
 the sparkling gildings, to the very heart of the 
 lights themselves. Arums droop their satin vases 
 from the consoles and the strange orchids, whose 
 pulp is rosy as woman's flesh, open their pearly 
 breasts which palpitate at the slightest touch. 
 
 Everything here is on the same level ; almost 
 every man, almost every woman is at the very 
 summit of this civilization and of this society, the 
 one by their toilette and their taste, the others 
 by their rank and culture. They are all like so 
 
A DRAWING ROOM. t^t^ 
 
 many hot-house plants, the perfume of which you 
 enjoy as you pass them, and which give out their 
 best as you pass them without further trouble to 
 you than to inhale their perfect fragrance. 
 
 I finished the evening at a bourgeois ball — the 
 contrast was strange. 
 
 On the fourth story, Greffulhe Street, at the 
 apartment of a chef -de-bureau ; ^ fifteen thousand 
 francs a year to spend ; the ceiling about as high 
 as that of an entresol. 
 
 In this society, the women are not women ; 
 their hands are not hands, but paws ; a peevish 
 vulgar air, a demi-toilette, ribbons which clash in 
 color. It is hard to say why, but the eye is 
 shocked, and, as it were, sullied. Their gestures 
 are angular, wanting in grace. They are work- 
 ing machines and nothing more. 
 
 True society can only be made up of people 
 who by their fortune are above trade, or who 
 by their genius outstrip their specialty. These 
 only have general ideas ; the rest are machines, 
 no more no less. 
 
 These half fortunes have only one resource: 
 to take refuge in the every- day life of home and 
 in the practice of virtue. 
 
 Trade deforms. There was near me a wealthy, 
 retired tradesman ; he had acquired the cun- 
 ning and gross physiognomy of a pig — his little 
 
 eyes shone behind his spectacles. He was ill 
 3 
 
34 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 shaven, and wore a villainous white silk neck-tie 
 stuffed about his ears. He was dull, chev/ed and 
 twisted his words, and could no' express himself. 
 He had written a pamphlet on American cotton ; 
 that was his way of entering into literary life. 
 But he had stood thirty years in succession at the 
 door of his dry-goods store, crooking his back 
 before every one that came in, saying : 
 
 " What can I do for Madame this morning ? 
 If Madame wishes poplin, we have a fine piece 
 which we opened yesterday ; in every way de- 
 sirable, and which cannot fail to suit Madame." 
 
 There is no getting rid of such a stamp as this 
 puts upon one. 
 
 All these heads would seem quite respectable 
 in the interiors of Teniers. But among these 
 gildings and under the chandelier ! 
 
 Two chefs-de-bureau : They have grown old 
 behind a grating, making pens, paring their nails, 
 spurred on at home by their wives ; . obHged in 
 order to get together a dower for their daughters 
 to economize in the butter and candles, in the 
 fuel even ; humble before their superiors, and 
 their whole soul absorbed in the hope of an in- 
 crease of a hundred francs in their salary. 
 
 A judge : He has dried up in too warm a 
 room, under the banter of the lawyers, among 
 low and disturbed physiognomies, in noisome ex- 
 halations and doubtful odors ; the petty crimes of 
 society have a bad smell. 
 
 In such a life as this the features become 
 
A DRAWING ROOM. 35 
 
 drawn, the expression a grimace ; the man looks 
 as if he had chronic colic or headache. His 
 complexion is earthy, dull as troubled water, the 
 shoulders stoop. He can neither walk nor sit 
 down ; his movements are convulsive, stiff or 
 crooked. So with his mind ; thoughts are no 
 longer prompt and free. He is choked by a 
 fear of committing himself, and by a lust for 
 gain. He no longer sees things as they are, 
 but through the interested medium of his office 
 or his shop. When silk, lace, or the black coat 
 enwrap and adorn these melancholy spines, they 
 are unpleasant objects to look upon. They are 
 walking deformities. 
 
 Always the same vice of Parisian life ; a crav- 
 ing for show, and a want of good sense. These 
 people would be happy, and, what is more, almost 
 agreeable, seen under their own lamps, in their 
 large comfortable arm-chairs, with a warm carpet 
 and soft hangings ; the husband in his dressing 
 gown, smoking his pipe, the wife in her white 
 cap with a simple ribbon, busy with her needle. 
 This is the wholesome and sensible life of Ger- 
 many ; this was the old Flemish life. These 
 people prefer to pitch their money out of the 
 window and make themselves grotesque. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PUBLIC BALLS, 
 
 Eleven o'clock at night. I shall pass a pleas- 
 ant evening. There is no amusement outside of 
 Paris ; no gayety but at Paris balls ; at least I 
 was so told in America. 
 
 At the Casino rue Cadet."" 
 
 About six hundred persons, a bad smell of gas 
 and tobacco, the heat and steam of a crowded 
 room. There are some little nooks for drink- 
 ing, a sort of saloon where people elbow each 
 other about, a large dance hall with a chalked 
 and sprinkled floor, here and there shabby velvet 
 sofas, the cast-off furniture of some lodging house. 
 
 Many of the women are pretty, with regular 
 features, but all are used up and daubed with 
 paint. They eat suppers and sit up all night ; 
 in the morning plenty of pomatum and cold 
 cream ; to this they owe their unique complex- 
 ion. Their voices are shrill, thin, and sharp. 
 Mariette, the Toulousaine, has one of these hard 
 wiry voices, the result of petits verres. Demi- 
 toilettes, a cross between the grisette and the 
 lady. I wager that twenty of these opera cloaks 
 are hired for the night, or will be to-morrow in 
 pawn. 
 
PUBLIC BALLS. 
 
 Z7 
 
 Mariette attracts the most attention. People 
 climb up on the benches ; the two rows close up 
 on either side, the men crowding to suffocation 
 to see her dance. A dark complexion, almost 
 bistre, a large figure, thin, but all muscle. She 
 lifts her leg above her head ; her dress is ar- 
 ranged to allow of this gymnastic feat. 
 
 She perspires, wipes her face, strains herself 
 like a rope-dancer ; this is thought very fine. 
 My neighbor pretends to say that she spends 
 twenty thousand francs a year. 
 
 She talks, and not without spirit, but what she 
 says cannot be put on paper. 
 
 She dances sweeping up her skirts by the 
 handful, (I have already said that her dress is 
 arranged to admit of gymnastic feats, but I must 
 repeat it). As her foot reaches the level of her 
 eye she touches it with her hand. Great ap- 
 plause and hurrahs. 
 
 The rope-dancers are better performers, but 
 she warms up her public. 
 
 The women are jealous of her. One along 
 side of me said : ** Mariette dances well, but she 
 is too canaille." 
 
 I saw only three or four men, who from their 
 dress and manners seemed to be gentlemen ; but 
 I did not hear them speak. Some crosses of the 
 legion of honor ; but the cross of honor does not 
 always fall to men of good taste. The rest of 
 the audience is made up of students and clerks. 
 Many of them apparently clerks in stores, omni- 
 
38 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 bus conductors, barber's boys, and wine mer- 
 chants. The clothes and hats look as though 
 they came from some pedler's van. The men 
 dance and kick up their heels like the women. 
 
 The only explanation for this is in the extreme 
 dullness and weariness of their daily toil. Just 
 as sailors fresh from shipboard rush about the 
 suburbs of a city, the clerk who has been 
 measuring with his yard stick all day, the omni- 
 bus conductor who has an evening free, takes 
 pleasure even in seeing other people use their 
 limbs. 
 
 The women amuse themselves just as the 
 workingmen take to their drink. They make a 
 great noise, gesticulate violently, and say coarse 
 things from the very need of excitement ; add to 
 this their pleasure in being looked at. It is im- 
 possible to take count of the hundred thousand 
 furious and rampant vanities which lift their heads 
 in such a place. All women of this class, and 
 many a woman of the best society even, envy 
 actresses. 
 
 A craving for excitement ; here is the true 
 word ; to get into the light, into the broad day, 
 to have their nerves shaken, to feel the intense 
 agitation of enjoyment, to have the head full of 
 champagne, nothing is more thoroughly French ; 
 there is a little of Madame Bovary in every 
 French woman. But here the intoxication is of 
 common wine. 
 
PUBLIC BALLS. 39 
 
 August 25TH. 
 
 At Mabille.'° 
 
 How often I had heard it spoken of! Young- 
 men dream of it. Strangers take their wives to 
 see it. Historians will some day speak of it. 
 
 The Champs Elysees seemed doleful enough 
 as I crossed them ; a darkness to be felt, so full 
 was it of dust and thick noisome emanations ; 
 cigars, street-lamps, human vapor ; indistinct in 
 this vague gloom some wretched dusty, decaying 
 yellow trees ; here and there flickering streaks 
 of gas-light, and an occasional gleam of carriage 
 lanterns crawling monotonously along like poor 
 glow-worms. Everywhere hurrying, crowding 
 shadows endlessly crossing and recrossing each 
 other, and looking like so many spectres as they 
 passed the gas-light. 
 
 Two or three oases of light glared out upon 
 this wide -spread gloom. These were the Cafe 
 concerts. Women in ball dresses walk up and 
 down between the screens of gilded pasteboard, 
 in a raw white light. They are painted, pow- 
 dered, their look is both bold and constrained. 
 They are on show at so much an hour. They 
 feel that the public only cares for the display of 
 their persons, that it listens, if at all, with one 
 ear only, and that the men are yawning, smok- 
 ing, and talking, and stretching their legs during 
 the music. 
 
 One of them, smiling, taps her heart with her 
 hand to mark the time of a flourish. Fifteen 
 
40 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 or twenty of the paid claque applaud. An en- 
 core is called for, she begins the act again, with 
 a gesture of thanks. 
 
 My neighbor grumbles. 
 
 " Will you shut up, old ragbag ? " 
 
 A crowd of bourgeois and workmen throng the 
 outside of the building, and stretch their necks to 
 see the singers, and get a little amusement free. 
 They seem to enjoy this spurious pleasure : a 
 vulgar brilliancy, a two-penny splendor, a vile, 
 and exaggerated enjoyment. This is what these 
 people call happiness. 
 
 At ten o'clock in the evening, I go to Mabille. 
 It is a grand ball night. Two-francs entrance 
 for men, one franc for women ; numerous ser- 
 geants-de-ville — a crowd to see the people go in. 
 
 A grand alley-way variegated with colored 
 glass ; diminutive groves, round plots of illumi- 
 nated green. Small blue jets of gas stretch along 
 the ground through the flowers. Light and trans- 
 parent vases are mixed in rings over the grass. 
 There is a faint odor of grease and oil. The 
 trees, wan and dim in the oblique light, look 
 strange and unearthly. The imitation Corin- 
 thian vases, the scenes painted in deception, to 
 give an appearance of length to the alleys, are 
 simply contemptible. Above this rural arrange- 
 ment jut out the sharp corners and heavy 
 masonry of an enormous building. The rough 
 ground hurts the feet. Decidedly, I am not en- 
 thusiastic. 
 
PUBLIC BALLS. 
 
 41 
 
 In the centre, a kiosk for the musicians ; they 
 are above the average, but the leader marks his 
 time too noisily. 
 
 Around the orchestra a flagged circular plat- 
 form for the dancers. They are actually dancing 
 and wiping the perspiration from their faces in 
 this horrible heat. 
 
 The men are said to be hired ; the women 
 exhibit themselves gratis though they feel that 
 they are despised. How odd that people can 
 take any pleasure in staring at these poor girls, 
 most of them faded, all looking degraded or half 
 scared, as they dance in their hats and cloaks and 
 black bottines ! One is tempted to give them 
 twenty francs, and send them all to the kitchen 
 to eat a beefsteak and drink a glass of beer. 
 
 The men are worse ; they frisk about, a miser- 
 able mob of loafers, tap-house pimps, slovenly, 
 greasy, weary-looking, and all with their hats on. 
 
 A great moving circle floats around the 
 dancers. Women, some accompanied, some 
 alone, in white gauze, in small hats with little 
 black patches on their faces ; the most of them 
 too fat or too thin. Suspicious toilettes, nearly 
 all extravagant or tumbled, in bad taste, the toi- 
 lette of an over-dressed shop-woman, of a dress- 
 maker with the remains of her shop on her back. 
 
 The conversations are curious; a tall dashy 
 woman with large hoops, and hair crimped and 
 powdered, elbows a gentleman, who says to her. 
 
 " What ! is that you, Theodora ? " 
 
42 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 " Yes ! and you ; you are back again ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "In Paris?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 ** You are coming to see me ? " 
 
 -Where?" 
 
 " Rue des Martyrs, 6%" 
 
 " Always the same name ? " 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " At what time ? " 
 
 " Any time in the afternoon." 
 
 " Very well ! one of these days." 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 "We will see." 
 
 "Soon?" 
 
 " We will see." 
 
 "This week?" 
 
 " We will see." 
 
 "Well! good-night. Miserable wretch ! They 
 all put you off just so." 
 
 Many strangers, Germans, Italians, English, 
 especially the latter, who chuck them under the 
 chin. Addresses are exchanged, and prices are 
 disputed as at the Bourse. Here and there a 
 touch of nature, a genuine expression of feeling ; 
 a beautiful girl, fresh, daintily gloved, and charm- 
 ing in her light blue silk dress, almost a lady in 
 appearance, cries out in a loud tone to the gen- 
 tleman who is with her, and in hearing of the 
 whole Cafe. " Leave me alone, will you, I won't 
 be bothered so ! " 
 
PUBLIC BALLS. 43 
 
 At last I find an empty corner near the great 
 saloon which is deserted ; this is the place for the 
 fashion ; that is easy to see. The dresses are 
 proper and in good taste. Courteous manners — 
 the people here seem at their ease and quite at 
 home ; they laugh and banter in that easy way, 
 which is so French, skimming everything in a mo- 
 ment, scarcely ever touching, never dwelling on 
 anything. One of them said of the dancers on 
 the platform : They turn like caged beasts, that 
 is the Barriere du Combat ". The spice of this 
 hardly appears here, but there tossed off with a 
 light gesture, the thrust went home. 
 
 There is a woman with them to whom they talk 
 in a familiar way ; to each other perfect cour- 
 tesy ; to her the very reverse ; one of them, quite 
 tall, with an enormous beard and the air of an 
 officer, said something spicy to her in a high key ; 
 some things more than spicy even ; there was a 
 laugh ; she smiled and looked embarrassed. He 
 went on and ended with a bit of Rabelais ; fresh 
 laughter. She is not badly dressed, not even 
 pretentiously ; her manners are good enough ; 
 but with this class of women, it is the style to be 
 coarse. I suppose the men find some pleasure 
 in trying how far they can go ; the proprieties and 
 decencies of life are trodden upon, very much as 
 plates are smashed after supper, for the fun of the 
 thing and the noise it makes. The only fault in 
 this woman is that she still blushes ; that she is 
 neither one thing nor the other, courtesan nor 
 
44 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 lady — all of these creatures with two or three 
 brilliant exceptions are of this pattern ; half timid, 
 half bold ; they do not seem to accept their posi- 
 tions. 
 
 One dressed all in white, in trailing muslin and 
 flowing embroidery, leaned easily over one of the 
 chairs and chatted with the men, with apparent 
 indifference to attention. She talked well, even 
 agreeably. At last she rose, shook hands with 
 her two neighbors and crossed the great saloon 
 alone ; a woman of thirty-two, an intelligent, 
 though weary expression. She walked well, and 
 seemed neither embarrassed nor bold. 
 
 I listened to her for ten minutes ; her tone was 
 not too loud ; evidently in the eyes of these peo- 
 ple she had made a position ; they treated her as 
 a companion ; she had acquired the standing of a 
 man, of an able man even, with friends and influ- 
 ence, able to help others, to know her place and 
 to keep it, and to make others keep in theirs — 
 She said of Adrien de Beaugency, her former 
 lover: " He still notices me, though he is mar- 
 ried. Night before last at the Gymnase, he took 
 his wife's opera-glass to look at me. He bows 
 to me in the Bois. Is it not strange ? " 
 
 All this said naturally without a shade of bitter- 
 ness, or the least air of a victim ; in a word with 
 a knowledge of the world. 
 
 Her neighbor asks if Madame de Beaugency is 
 not jealous. " Oh ! she knows very well what 
 passed between us. If a woman undertake to be 
 
PUBLIC BALLS. 
 
 45 
 
 jealous of the past life of her husband, she will 
 have her hands full. After all it was I who made 
 the match. I knew his brother after him, and I 
 made his match too." 
 
 " That then is the reason why they never speak 
 of you except with respect and esteem." 
 
 Here she broke off the conversation ; she made 
 no point of her great generosity. She is no or- 
 dinary woman. She turned at once to another 
 topic and began to talk of one of her friends, a 
 short thickset fellow, full of fun. She knows how 
 to play with conversation, without wearying her 
 listeners. No quality more rare. The most 
 celebrated of these women, coming down-stairs 
 yesterday to her billiard room in her lace morning 
 gown, found two men playing. " How much 
 are the stakes — Remember, the winnings are 
 mine." She has an income of forty thousand 
 francs, yet the habit of picking up a hundred 
 sous still clings to her. 
 
 Towards midnight a thorough rout. The ball- 
 room becomes a market ; I was taken for a rich 
 stranger from my sleeve buttons ; my arm was 
 taken and my hand squeezed ; I was compelled 
 to dismiss two young persons who were too 
 charming. 
 
 As I wished to see everything, I went over to 
 the bal Perron at the Barriere du Trone ". Seven 
 sous admission and the right to twenty-five cen- 
 times of refreshment ; this a " guinguette " '3. A 
 pretty word is "guinguette" and a pretty sound 
 
46 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 it has to the ears ! You may find guinguette at 
 the Opera Comique, or in the prints of the 
 1 8th century, or in Beranger's songs. The very 
 word calls up pretty, sly faces, nicely fitting little 
 caps, graceful and flexible figures — all the gayety, 
 all the vivacity so peculiar to France and Paris 
 are there, is it not so ? Well, let us take a look 
 at this guinguette ; a hundred low grisettes, and 
 fifty women of the town whose acquaintance 
 with St. Lazare '"* and the Prefecture of Police, 
 you recognize at once from their shining, livid 
 complexions, their plastered hair, the bold or 
 wretched expression of their faces. My neigh- 
 bor said to a vulgar creature who was dancing : 
 " Has the Salpetriere '^ come down to the bal du 
 Trone to-day? " — " No, but Mazas '^ has emptied 
 itself to-day into the bal du Trone. "'^ A distinc- 
 tion is made between them. 
 
 The chief characteristic here is that with one 
 or two exceptions all these people are thin and 
 small. Several of them look like children : 
 there are some women only four feet high. 
 All are stunted, dwarfed, pitiful, badly made. 
 From generation to generation they have drank 
 bad wine, eaten dog chops, breathed the foul air 
 of Bobino,'^ and worked too hard in order to 
 amuse themselves too much. Their faces are 
 warped, shrivelled; their eyes are burning. In 
 this lower grade of Parisian life, the nature of 
 man is passed through an alembic and comes out 
 
PUBLIC BALLS. 
 
 47 
 
 concentrated, burned, spoiled. Ordinary wine 
 reduced to common spirits. 
 
 Here we have the true type of the Parisian 
 workingman. In his blue blouse, with his push- 
 ing air, the head thrown back, he spins around 
 at an incredible speed. His vanity is transpar- 
 ent, and he cannot conceal his desire to be dis- 
 orderly, and through all this there crops out a 
 low sensuality. His head is round. He is quick 
 and sprightly, intensely fond of display. A hero 
 at Sebastapol, a fanatic on a barricade. 
 
 There is a fight at the door, and the police 
 have been drawn away for a moment from their 
 surveillance of the ball, to put it down. In- 
 stantly a row in the hall, legs flying in the air, 
 an infernal can-can. The police return, and all 
 is quiet again — like school-boys at their capers 
 who suddenly see the master returning. We 
 are all unruly boys. We need the ferule, too. 
 
 Here you get your money's worth. The mu- 
 sicians blow away indefatigably. Hardly is one 
 quadrille over before another is set a-going. 
 The floor manager hurries about pushing and 
 coupling the dancers with a speed and activity 
 really wonderful. Not a moment's pause be- 
 tween the figures. What a difference between 
 this wild fury of this ant swarm and the calm con- 
 tentment, the quiet enjoyment of the pleasure 
 gardens in Germany. 
 
 There are two or three soldiers in the orches- 
 tra ; one at the drum, another at the cymbals, 
 
48' NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the latter with spectacles, serious and attentive 
 as though he were about to touch off a mine. 
 The cornet-a-piston has taken off his coat, and is 
 blowing away, leaning back on his chair with 
 dripping forehead and red cheeks. The octave 
 flute is a hunchback, a poor dried-up fellow, 
 with a peaked, charcoal face, and eyes which 
 shine like flames. A good, patient old grey- 
 beard is scraping the bass viol. They make all 
 the noise they can. 
 
 The company sip their coffee, smoke, gulp 
 down great bumpers of beer, take in the noisy 
 scene with eager eyes and ears. It is their relief 
 from the treadle or the plane. But it is sad to 
 see among them six or eight little working girls, 
 who seem to be respectable, and several families, 
 father, mother, and children who have come to 
 look on. It is here that they learn that pleasure 
 consists of brawling and drunkenness. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ADVICE TO MY NEPHEW, ANATOLE DURAND, 
 AS TO THE MANNER IN WHICH HE SHOULD 
 CONDUCT HIMSELF IN SOCIETY. 
 
 My nephew, I have an income of eighty thou- 
 sand francs, a touch of Hver complaint and no 
 children. For these reasons I do not doubt 
 that you will read this, my advice, with profound 
 attention. 
 
 It is even probable that you will compliment 
 me upon it, and that you will give me to under- 
 stand that I am full of talent. I receive compli- 
 ments from ten to eleven in the morning ; but be 
 careful about your expressions. 
 
 I advise you not to follow the modern fashion 
 of treating your near relations like comrades. 
 If, for instance, to congratulate me you should tap 
 me on the stomach and say : " Bravo, old fellow, 
 hurrah for my literary uncle ! " you would find 
 several slight objections to that sort of thing. 
 Sam, my servant, would show you the door, or I 
 myself would throw you out of the window. 
 
 You may put upon your visiting cards, Anatole 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 in full ; Anatole gives an air of distinction to Du- 
 rand ; particularly should you marry. Madame 
 Anatole Durand ! These Christian names in full 
 serve now-a-days to set off mediocrity. But 
 should I ever find on one of your cards, Anatole 
 du Rand or D'Urand, you may put on mourning 
 for the dollars I have picked up in the salt-pork 
 and oil business. 
 
 You live too high ; at twenty-four you have al- 
 ready the shoulders of a man of thirty-six. But 
 after all this torso style is a success. For ten 
 years a shade of brutality has been accepted as 
 the last touch of elegance.. Now that women 
 copy the magdalens, the men may as well have 
 the stout backs and broad shoulders of porters. 
 
 When you go to grand receptions, wear 
 polished boots worth twenty-eight francs at the 
 lowest, forty francs if you can afford it. For 
 about forty francs you are a gentleman ; the 
 bootmaker will soften the leather, take in the sole 
 a little, establish a slight decline from the instep 
 to the great toe, spread over the whole a de- 
 lightful varnish ; and from the feet the rest of the 
 man is inferred. A bald forehead is fashionable 
 now ; it is an announcement that one has lived. 
 But it is as well to add to it a full beard, healthy 
 cheeks, strong teeth, an air of strength, in short, 
 the proof that you still live, About 1830, the 
 
ADVICE TO MY NEPHEW. 
 
 51 
 
 spiritual consumptive was in fashion ; to-day it is 
 the jolly matter-of-fact air that is most successful. 
 After the reign of nerves, the reign of muscle. 
 
 Do not trust too much, however, to appear- 
 ances. Of thirty women in a drawing-room, 
 twenty-five are mere woodcocks, who make a 
 flutter with their feathers, and whose sole chirp 
 is the last phrase in vogue ; but there are five 
 who are shrewd, and they will pass judgment on 
 you. Day before yesterday, stretched on a pink 
 ottoman between two pretty women, you spread 
 your feathers ; you passed your large, soft hand, 
 loaded with rings, through your hair. You had 
 turned back the lapels of your coat, and thrown 
 out your handsome chest ; you leaned your head 
 back with an air of satisfaction, and were talking 
 nonsense, delighted to find yourself listened to, 
 and to be talking so well. After you had dis- 
 tributed your favors and had risen to take else- 
 where your blooming air and charming smile, 
 they looked at each other for a moment without 
 speaking, and I saw the corners of their delicate 
 mouths drop almost imperceptibly, while the 
 trembling of their laces betrayed just the slightest 
 shruof of their shoulders. 
 
 Of all the men that I know, he that has the 
 greatest success with them is sixty years old. 
 
52 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 (Please not to put on that knowing air of yours, 
 and fancy that I mean to hint at M. Frederick- 
 Thomas Graindorge ; M. Frederick-Thomas 
 Graindorge has lived too long in America to be 
 other than a taciturn, and thoroughly American 
 animal.) 
 
 The fortunate sexagenarian whom I propose 
 to you as a model makes use of the simplest kind 
 of diplomacy, that of the high society which ended 
 in '89. He admires and loves the ladies ; they 
 instantly see this. When he approaches a petti- 
 coat, he feels that he is in the presence of a being 
 so delicate, precious and fragile, as hardly to be 
 touched with the finger ends. He enters into 
 their ideas, draws out from them delicate expres- 
 sions and singular judgments of men and things, 
 and frees the way for witty sayings which would 
 have remained hidden and never dared to take 
 their flight before another. He follows the soar- 
 ing, winding course of their wandering imagina- 
 tions. He is charmed by their conversation, by 
 the wavy motion of the clusters in their coiffure, 
 by the laughing or pouting curves of their lips. 
 He seems to say to them, " Shine and smile. 
 You make us happy beyond our desserts." 
 
 This example is not contagious, and for this 
 reason I propose it to you. 
 
 Behave yourself well and correctly, even when 
 you are bored. Do not frown, that is impolite. 
 
ADVICE TO MY NEPHEW. 
 
 53 
 
 Do not smile to yourself, that gives an air of self- 
 sufficiency. Do not move the muscles of your 
 face, else you will seem to be talking to yourself. 
 Do not stretch yourself at length in arm-chairs, 
 these are the manners of the tap-house. Do 
 not lean too far forwards, or you will seem to be 
 contemplating your boots. Let your body make 
 an angle of forty-five degrees with your limbs. 
 Assume the vacant and composed expression of 
 a prince at a ceremony. You may, if you like, 
 turn over the leaves of a photographic album. 
 
 The best of men in Paris lie ten times a day ; 
 the best of women twenty times a day, the fash- 
 ionable man a hundred times a day. No esti- 
 mate has ever been made as to how many times 
 a day a fashionable woman lies. 
 
 In every household there is some sore spot, as 
 in every apple a worm. 
 
 Three weeks are passed in joint examination, 
 three months in love, then come three years of 
 dispute, thirty years of toleration, and the children 
 
 bec:in over apfain. 
 
 Women marry to get into society, men to get 
 it of it. 
 
 out of it. 
 
54 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 When a woman makes up her mind as to a 
 man, she pictures him as on his knees and 
 devoted, never as he is, or for what he is worth. 
 If she find him ridiculous in this attitude, there 
 is an end of it ; be he first among men, to her he 
 is an absurdity. She avoids him at dinner- 
 tables; will not dance with him, and asks herself 
 why he is not sent into the hall. 
 
 When a woman comes into society and her 
 object is not to fish up a husband or a lover, then 
 it is to fish up an ideal husband or lover for her- 
 self or another. All their ideas run in that cur- 
 rent as all streams to the sea. 
 
 Little do women care for wit, or beauty, or 
 true merit ; they acknowledge them, but only 
 with their lips. " I like him," that is the word 
 which says everything, and carries all before it. 
 Very much like the choice of a hat or a ribbon ; 
 " I like it." This phrase means she finds some 
 secret harmony, some keen delight, the satisfac- 
 tion of some strange personal desire, extreme, 
 eccentric, even. So an easy carriage, fresh 
 gloves, a gay, witty phrase, a penetrating tone of 
 voice have each their influence ; in short, the 
 style of cookery best suited to her palate — in a 
 word, " I like cherries, I take cherries." 
 
ADVICE TO MY NEPHEW. 55 
 
 It is in the nature of the feminine mind that 
 unless when under excitement, her ideas are 
 vague and melt into each other. 
 
 You pierce them as a faint glimmer of light 
 breaks through a rosy fog. 
 
 At her first ball a young girl asks : ** Did I 
 walk well ? Shall I fall if I dance ? " 
 
 At the second : " Was I thought pretty ? 
 Had I a success ? " 
 
 At the third : " The lights were splendid, the 
 music delicious, I danced every time, my feet 
 went alone, I felt intoxicated." 
 
 At the fourth: ** Am I to the taste of M. 
 Anatole d'Urand, who has an uncle in the salt 
 pork and oil trade ? " 
 
 Balls are useful. The conversation means 
 nothing, but those two strange animals, the male 
 and female, mysterious, infinite in their mutual 
 relations, learn to know each other. 
 
 Many maladies are caused by crinoline and 
 corsets. Thin bodies, narrow shoulders. Out 
 of four two are bones of some promise ; one, 
 bones which promise nothing; a fourth go to Nice 
 with the consumption ; another fourth will at 
 twenty-six drag out six days of the seven in an 
 invalid's chair. 
 
56 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 On the other hand, because your promised 
 wife has red cheeks and innocent eyes, do not 
 therefore conclude that she is an angel, but that 
 she is sent to bed at nine o'clock, and that she 
 has been fed on mutton chops. 
 
 What if your nails be pink ? That is no rea- 
 son why you should scratch your nose in public. 
 
 You looked very hard the other day at Miss 
 Marguerite S . She is just out of the con- 
 vent ; she never lifts her eyes but to take coun- 
 sel from those of her mother ; she is pious. She 
 has been preserved in religion like a bon-bon in 
 sugar. I warn you that you will find her one of 
 the surprise bon-bons. A fortnight ago she took 
 one of her companions to task for presenting a 
 devout Catholic to her. " But why ? " her friend 
 asked her. " I do not know." " But after all 
 you have some reason." "Well!" "Well! 
 what?" "Well! It seems to me that a man 
 like that must be either half-witted or crazy." 
 Where the devil did she pick up that idea ? At 
 the convent ? Impossible. In a newspaper ? 
 She never reads one. In some book? They 
 are all chosen for her, and questionable passages 
 carefully cut out with the scissors. Is it in con- 
 versation ? She has never said nor heard a 
 word out of her mother's presence, or that of her 
 
ADVICE TO MY NEPHEW, 57 
 
 aunt, or grandmother — three unapproachable 
 arguses. Perhaps some day at some ball when 
 some such person was talked of she noticed a 
 passing smile. That is enough ; the smallest 
 spark as it flies may fall on such heads as on a 
 can of gunpowder. When they know nothing 
 they imagine everything. 
 
 Three ways to behave when a lady leaves the 
 piano : 
 
 If at a distance, raise your hands perceptibly to 
 applaud ; a good way to show your sleeve-but- 
 tons and your neat gloves. 
 
 If near by, fire off your whole list of adjectives 
 in a low voice : " Admirable, perfect taste, bril- 
 liant style, true feeling." If the musician be 
 rather silly, let go your great epithets : " Ravish- 
 ing, tremendous." If you would win her good 
 graces, learn a few technical terms: "Skilful 
 reprise, change of key, minor passage, these 
 trills are strings of pearls, etc." The high style 
 consists in knowing the names of the chief works 
 of the great masters, and in repeating them in a 
 low voice in a familiar way, as the initiated enter 
 the temple of mysteries. Thereupon conversa- 
 tion is opened with you ; admiring confidences 
 are exchanged, the charming pianist is as well 
 satisfied with her mind as with her fingers, and 
 begins to entertain feelings of esteem for M. 
 Anatole Durand or D'Urand. 
 
58 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 Last method. It is the finest, but difficult 
 of execution. Study in Berlioz, F^tis, etc., the 
 biographies of the masters ; learn the differ- 
 ences of their styles, with anecdotes in sup- 
 port; lead off from this in an improvised ap- 
 preciation of the genius of Mozart or Weber ; 
 lay stress upon the delicacy, the elegance of 
 style, the poetic charm beyond vulgar reach, 
 and leave it to be understood, never saying it, 
 of course, that the fair interpreter has the soul 
 of the composer. Here she finds herself at last 
 understood. That leads where you will. 
 
 Four varieties in society : lovers, the ambitious, 
 observers, and fools. 
 
 The fools are the happiest. 
 
 I have met great men in it; ordinarily they 
 have no kind of success ; I mean truly great men. 
 They are always preoccupied, and if they throw 
 themselves into a conversation, they either shock 
 others or are shocked themselves. 
 
 A fixed idea is like the iron rod which sculp- 
 tors put in their statues. It impales and sus- 
 tains. A great man is absorbing because he is 
 himself absorbed. 
 
 Do not find in this a reason for swallowing, 
 as you did yesterday, two cups of tea, three 
 
ADVICE TO MY NEPHEW. 
 
 59 
 
 cups of chocolate, two cakes, and a lot of sand- 
 wiches. 
 
 No one can exist in society without some spec- 
 ialty. Eighty years ago it was only necessary to 
 be well dressed and amiable ; to-day a man of 
 this kind would be too much like the gar9ons at 
 the cafes. The ordinary dlegant now-a-days 
 talks horses, and races, and breeding. I recom- 
 mend political economy to you ; that will bring 
 you into notice among men : add to this society 
 verses ; this does well for country visits. 
 
 When you put on your white cravat, do not 
 swear at the stupidity of the custom. A draw- 
 ing-room is a permanent exhibition ; you are a 
 commodity and commodities are not disposed of 
 unless properly exhibited. 
 
 The only trouble in this is its hypocrisy. You 
 are all dogs, each running after his bone ; dinner 
 is necessary — that I agree to ; but for God's 
 sake ! do not say that you despise the bone, and 
 if possible do not smack your chops so often. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE PARISIENNE. 
 
 I. 
 
 October 4Th. 
 
 Two months in Germany ; on my return to 
 Paris I was taken by surprise. Quite another 
 style of woman. 
 
 Yesterday I bought some gloves I have no use 
 for, some tea which I do not like ; tea or dog- 
 grass, it matters little which ; I am almost tempted 
 to go out and buy some more ; the way in which 
 the women sell it is worth all the money it costs. 
 
 Two young girls came forward to receive me ; 
 they walked as well as real ladies ; the body float- 
 ing forward without any apparent movement of 
 the feet, their silk dresses rustling most discreetly. 
 I lost my head among the Chinese names of the 
 teas ; I asked some explanations ; a chair was 
 brought to me ; I wanted to see their little ges- 
 tures, hear a little more of their warbling — neither 
 embarrassment nor boldness ; sweet modulated 
 voices, intelligent and willing smiles, a wonderful 
 facility^of comprehension, delicate graceful move- 
 ments, the manners, the tact of a lady receiving 
 her guests. It is not only as a matter of specula- 
 tion and to sell their wares ; all this without 
 
THE PARISIENNE. 6 1 
 
 premeditation, and naturally ; they take pleas- 
 ure in pleasing, as in dressing- coquettishly, in 
 smoothing their hair, in framing their busts in 
 a mosaic border, in binding their wrists in white 
 cuffs. They are rather pale ; they sit up too late 
 in warm rooms, under brilliant lights, and then 
 rice-powder does its work; another point of re- 
 semblance to the ladies of the drawing-room. 
 Honestly they are fully their equals : the same 
 range, the same limits. They know it well. In 
 France a lady's maid, at the bottom of her heart, 
 believes herself the equal of her mistress. " I am 
 as witty, I am quite as pretty ; if I had her 
 dresses, you would soon see it." And indeed six 
 months later, a suitable lover gives her the 
 chance ; they learn everything, even orthogra- 
 phy ; spicy repartee they have by birthright, and 
 as far as sentiments go the level is the same. 
 
 This is not intended for satire ; there is a great 
 deal of good in them ; clearness and decision of 
 character, a talent for administration ; if need be, 
 perseverance and courage. An hour later I 
 passed through the rue des Lombards. Until 
 midnight the young woman remains seated in 
 her glass cage keeping the books ; she has a 
 foot-stove, and for fifteen consecutive hours she 
 never moves. Molasses, leather, porcelain, the 
 salesmen, the customers, the clerks, the servants, 
 the children, from Monday morning till Saturday 
 night she has an eye to them all ; her orders are 
 clear ; her books exact ; she is obeyed. She is 
 
62 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 a g-ood lieutenant, often better than her captain. 
 Man sometimes allows himself to be humbugged ; 
 when he has stormed awhile his attention is 
 blunted. If the adversary be insinuating, offer a 
 good dinner, assume an air of good-nature and 
 straightforwardness, the man may yield, and make 
 a bad bargain ; but let the woman lift her finger, 
 he understands, stops. "■ On the whole, no ; to- 
 morrow we will talk of it ; I will consult my wife." 
 — At night he is catechised, and in the morn- 
 ing he is iron-plated with distrust and, new argu- 
 ments. Suppose that he does not consult her, 
 she leaves her glass box, steps between them. 
 *' But, my friend, you know very well that . . ." 
 and thereupon she takes up the discussion on 
 her own account ; the lost ground is regained in 
 a single charge. She will hold firm a full hour if 
 need be, and her piercing voice, her intelligence, 
 keen as a knife, will in the end shut the mouth of 
 her adversarv. If interests are at stake, she 
 does not stand upon words ; her ideas are fast 
 within her brain like pins inside a pin-cushion ; 
 no getting at them to pick them out, the whole 
 thing must be taken to pieces ; the mind of man 
 is accessible to reason, the mind of woman is not. 
 I know women who have made clerks of their 
 husbands to the great profit of the establishment. 
 He in shirt sleeves nails up the cases, runs the 
 errands, and takes his petit verre with the heavy 
 customers ; she dry, dark, commanding; gives 
 orders, superintends the workmen, takes upon 
 
THE PARISIENNE. 
 
 ^Z 
 
 herself the decision of all important questions, 
 settles what pattern is out of fashion, and to be 
 gotten rid of at a loss. Buttons are in question. 
 She has just the degree of brains necessary to 
 invent a fashionable and cheap button, 
 
 I believe that their ambition, the proudest wish 
 of a French woman, is to be the lady of a cafe, 
 a handsome cafe be it understood ; a pretty 
 woman, well dressed, spending her time smiling, 
 and selling, in state at her post, half decent, and 
 half enticing, agreeable for five minutes, and to 
 everybody, in a hall which is at once a shop and 
 a drawing-room ; she is there like a kid in its 
 meadow. 
 
 How strong these contrasts are ! What a 
 perfect picture a Paris cafe presents of the Pari- 
 sian, his instincts, his habits — true of the French 
 of both sexes. I was at Nuremberg a fort- 
 night ago ; before leaving, my friends took me 
 to a beer house ; the upper classes go there 
 as well as others. An odd place for amusement. 
 A crowd of men of all ranks of society ; some in 
 dress-coats, some in blouses, in the raw light of the 
 gas, in a cloud of smoke, in the ron-ron of a deaf- 
 ening conversation, in the steam of close-packed 
 bodies which keep each other warm, all elbow- 
 ing, one another, drinking, smoking pipes, and 
 spitting. They are comfortable enough ; their 
 senses are dull. They like this heavy, dirty air 
 as they would a warm thick overcoat ; their en- 
 joyment is in quiet. They smoke peacefully or 
 
64 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 talk by turns without interrupting one another. 
 Many of them seem congealed. Before answer- 
 ing they are in suspense a quarter of a minute. 
 You can see the clock within slowly getting in 
 motion, one wheel pushing the other, until at last, 
 after many a stop, the hour strikes ; moreover, 
 they are as deaf to impatience as bears enveloped 
 in fat, insensible because of this natural mattress. 
 The queens of this place are of the same stamp ; 
 how different from our French women ! Two 
 women, the two women of the house — the daugh- 
 ter, a fresh little ball, looks you in the face in a 
 straightforward way as she offers her beer ; the 
 mother, tall, placid, stoutly built, looking like an 
 honest heifer chewing the cud ; what is more, 
 though eight months ciiceinte she circulated 
 around the tables without embarrassment. 
 
 You can hear from here the flying criticism 
 of a Parisian restaurant ! But on the other hand, 
 in the room up-stairs, some fifteen young men, 
 clerks, scholars, students, seated about a long 
 table, have taken their pipes from their mouths 
 and drawn each one a piece of music from his 
 pocket. The one at the centre of the table gave 
 a signal and they at once began a choral of the 
 most severe and noble kind, a composition of, 
 old Bach. The tzvo women wiped their eyes 
 with their aprons. A pretty toilette or a senti- 
 ment of this kind ; which is worth the most ? 
 
 That depends on circumstances. There are 
 
THE PARISIENNE. 
 
 65 
 
 days when I prefer lobsters, others when I Hke 
 oysters better. 
 
 II. 
 
 Shopkeeper, lady, or lorette, these are the 
 three callings of a French woman ; they excel in 
 these and only in these. 
 
 A matter of temperament. Suppress the head- 
 dresses, the toilettes, the rank ; all outside equip- 
 ments, and take a look at the interior being. The 
 interior being is a sharp little hussar, a knowing, 
 bold young scamp whom nothing disconcerts, in 
 whom the sentiment of respect is wholly want- 
 ing, and who believes himself the equal of all. 
 Petticoats are not in question : it Is the soul we 
 are lookino- at. When we think we are teachinor 
 them timidity at home, they only catch an imita- 
 tion of it, and even this mask cracks after three 
 months of marriage and society ; their ideas 
 come too quickly, too clearly ; instantaneously the 
 will is complete and the action springs from it. 
 They must command, or at least be independent. 
 
 Subordination stifles them ; they beat them- 
 selves against rules as a bird against the bars of 
 his cage. 
 
 For example : the husband walks up and down 
 the room asking himself how he shall spend his 
 evening ; the wife gets nervous, jumps up as 
 though moved by springs, and says with her short 
 sharp voice: "Why do you turn about as 
 though you were in a cage ? Will you ever be 
 
66 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 done ? Just like you men, busybodies, who never 
 make up their minds." Her mind is made up ; 
 she cannot understand how one can waver in 
 such indecision. 
 
 The father, at table, said that he liked, I forget 
 what; the daughter interrupts him — " Papa, .jy<9z/ 
 are like me." At sixteen, she has made herself 
 the central figure involuntarily ; she sees every- 
 thing as it affects herself, her father as well as 
 the rest. The last child, a baby three years 
 old, is playing with her doll in her corner ; her* 
 uncle comes in and asks her what she is doing ; 
 " Uncle, open your eyes : you will see!' Though 
 only three years old she has already made her 
 uncle feel that her uncle is a fool. 
 
 On the other hand I saw one of these vv^omen, 
 the day of a great failure, when the men remained 
 in their chairs struck with consternation, their 
 arms hanging and lifeless, draw herself up and 
 say : " Crying will do no good ; what we want is 
 bread for the children : I will keep the accounts. 
 Charles, go for the books and we will write them 
 up. 
 
 See again in Raffet'^ that poor vivandiere whose 
 son was killed by a ball ; she does not stop to 
 cry ; she picks up the musket, bites off a cartouch ; 
 her teeth are set, she takes aim : ** Oh, the ras- 
 cals ! " 
 
 An English or a German woman would have 
 wept, have thought of God, of the next world, etc. 
 She behaved like a man. 
 
THE PARISIENNE. 67 
 
 In fact woman in France is a man, but a man 
 passed through the crucible, fined down and con- 
 centrated. They have our imitation, our miHtary 
 vivacity, our taste for society, our love of display, 
 our craving for amusement, but with more nerve 
 and enthusiasm. 
 
 Hence they require the same employments that 
 we do, only of a finer order, those where the pas- 
 sions are controlled, where characters are ob- 
 served, where there is struggle and victory, not 
 brutally and by main force, but by address and 
 skill : — the ambassadress, the shop-keeper, the 
 courtesan. Tell me if there be a spot in the 
 world where drawing-rooms, shops and alcoves 
 are more fashionable resorts than in Paris ? 
 
 The Peruvian, the Wallachian, the morose Eng- 
 lishman, the parvenu, all come here to live. It is 
 because the Parisienne stirs them up. For that 
 she has two talents. 
 
 First talent : she knows how to say, to listen 
 to, and to provoke the most equivocal things. 
 Every man is inclined that way, because in all re- 
 spectable society such conversation is forbidden. 
 Decency wearies him like a dress-coat and a stiff 
 collar ; he wants sometimes to be at his ease, not 
 absolutely naked, but in his shirt sleeves. The 
 countless little repressions which he imposes on 
 himself, or which are imposed on him, have pro- 
 voked a dull rebellion within. The more serious 
 a man is by profession, the greater the odds that 
 there is a scamp within. It is this scamp the 
 
68 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 courtesan draws out of his prison. You may 
 think with what pleasure he gambols on the 
 carpet ; the greater because the carpet is luxuri- 
 ous, the furniture elegant, the mistress of the 
 house often beautiful, always well dressed, at 
 least dressed in the fashion. Equivocal words 
 sound strangely on her lips. How dainty a 
 morsel from a woman in ball dress ! This grave 
 scamp, in a dress-coat, of whom I spoke just now, 
 runs to this feast just as he ran once, in his round- 
 about and turned-down collar, after the green 
 apples in the neighbor's garden. 
 
 Second talent : The Parisienne is a person, not 
 a thing ; she knows how to talk, to will, to guide, 
 her man — she is full of repartee, of persuasion, 
 of caprice ; degraded though she be, she holds 
 up her head. I have forgotten the name of that 
 little actress of the last century, who took from 
 the neck of her lover — a duke — his cordon of the 
 Saint Esprit,'' saying : " Down on your knees and 
 kiss my slipper, old duke ! " One like her in our 
 time asked her protector to purchase her a house. 
 Three days after he gives her a pocket-book. She 
 opens it, sees nothing in it but bank bills, and 
 throws it in his face: " Old egotist that you are, 
 I asked you for a house ; you would not take the 
 trouble to buy it for me yourself." He found this 
 charming. He had not been used to such inde- 
 pendence. It is only the French women who are 
 capable of these flashes. Out of Paris, in London, 
 the women of Cremornc Gardens arc crazy 
 
THE PARISIENNE. 69 
 
 creatures, who jabber and drink, or correct busi- 
 ness women who look after their interests. In 
 the small houses of the suburbs, you will find 
 pretty decent little women who are almost ladies, 
 and only ask for a steady life and the comforts of 
 a home ; the others, gloomy and despairing, let 
 themselves go. In Paris they have an eye to 
 their future ; it is they that fleece the men. They 
 have their salons, give occupation to honest 
 women ; they are pointed out as they pass — they 
 set the fashions. Beneath these celebrities, the 
 second-rates find situations, set up glove shops, 
 even marry. They are dishonest Figaros, but 
 they are Figaros for all that. 
 
 III. 
 
 Mme. de B is certainly one of the most ac- 
 complished ladies in Paris. None presides with 
 greater elegance. Has she any other talent, and 
 does she employ any other means than this ? 
 About ten o'clock she may be found at her fire- 
 side in a long chair, slight, graceful, in a dress of 
 pearl gray, with all kinds of muslin and lace rust- 
 ling about her small arms and swan-like neck; a 
 Jeanne of Naples, something like Raphael's por- 
 trait, but more of a blonde. She is not a cabinet 
 minister, she is not a marshal of France, she has 
 no appointments in her gift, she lives beyond the 
 Arc de I'Etoile, but for all that people go to visit 
 her from the four corners of Paris. She has two 
 modes of proceeding : Flattery and the Cuisine. 
 
;o NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 The Cuisine. Towards fifty, often towards 
 forty, man has renounced many a thing, his for- 
 tune is made ; how to be rid of ennui. As for the 
 heavy pleasures, he buys them ; his great affair in 
 Hfe is to keep up his rank and importance ; but 
 that is a matter of business and hence a source of 
 ennui. The bustle of vanity only half interests 
 him ; he becomes practical ; and if he have a good 
 stomach it is to its indulgence that he leans. To 
 sit eight or ten, before delicate fare, under softened 
 lights, among well dressed women, with gay 
 guests, whose only thought is of the present 
 hour ; to sip an exquisite wine, long and care- 
 fully treated, preciously, carted in its little osier 
 sleigh ; to twist the wing off a fat quail, to feel trick- 
 ling in his throat the juicy melting pulp of a pate 
 offish seasoned with truffles ; many a man whispers 
 to himself that the cherubim and seraphim are 
 not so happy, and would not exchange the state of 
 his nervous organs of taste for all the music of 
 the " thrones or dominions, or principalities or 
 powers." The evening before she gives a din- 
 ner, she takes her carriage, goes herself to the 
 caterer's, chooses her dessert. She writes her 
 own orders to Isigny, to Nerac ;^° has each dish 
 sent to her from the special place without the 
 intervention of any third party, etc. But this is 
 a science in itself; I should never be through 
 with it. 
 
 Flattery. All the world flatters, but the fools 
 can only say in various ways: "Ah! monsieur. 
 
THE PARISTENNE. 
 
 71 
 
 what a talent you have ! Ah ! madame, how 
 pretty you are ! " When the patient is not too 
 stupid, he drops his head, lets the phrases run 
 themselves out, expresses his thanks with a smirk, 
 and growls in an undertone, " Shut up, hand 
 organ." She on the contrary does not display 
 her approbation, she conceals it. When praise 
 rises to her lips, she restrains it and you see that 
 she restrains it. You admire her actions and not 
 her words. She enters into your thoughts, com- 
 pletes them, helps you to work them out, makes 
 you talk well, and contents you with yourself. 
 She discusses with you and gives you the pleas- 
 ure of convincing her ; she does not yield all at 
 once, resists just long enough to prove to you 
 how superior you are. Whenever I leave her 
 house I am persuaded that I am a very intelligent 
 person, that my voyages are the most interesting 
 thing in the world, that nothing is more curious 
 than America, that I was wholly right when I 
 turned manufacturer and tradesman, that salt 
 pork and petroleum are delightful subjects of con- 
 versation, and that a stuffed alligator would look 
 well in her boudoir. 
 
 She takes every one on their weak side. 
 Among women of inferior stages, the lorette and 
 the shopwomen do the same ; one mind in three 
 different persons ; the same talent, the same need ; 
 the talent and the need of the French woman to 
 make their profits out of man by giving him 
 pleasure. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 I. 
 
 June 3D. 
 
 The gardens of the Tuileries are a drawing- 
 room, a drawing-room in the open air, where 
 little girls learn the art, the prettinesses and the 
 wisdom of the world, the art of coquetting, and 
 showing off their little graces without compro- 
 mising themselves. 
 
 I have just been listening to two of them 
 (seven and ten years old), who had made up 
 their minds to invite a new-comer to join them. 
 They examined her well in the first place ; they 
 satisfied themselves that she was of their set in 
 society ; then all at once, with a sprightly toss of 
 their heads, they walked up to the bonne with the 
 requisite mixture of assurance and modesty, pre- 
 cisely that of a lady who crosses a drawing-room 
 to address another. 
 
 You know the attitude : the figure slightly 
 bent, the shoulders held gently back, the skirts 
 rounded and a set smile as she advances lightly on 
 the tips of her toes, exchanging passing glances 
 with her acquaintances until the very moment when 
 the two skirts are about to graze each other ; at 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. y^ 
 
 this instant she dips in her dress with a graceful 
 courtesy, her mouth opens Hke a full-blown rose, 
 an angelic and troubled smile plays around the 
 corners of her flattering, mocking lips, and all at 
 once the compliments flow and roll out like a 
 cascade of pearls to meet a flow of compliments 
 of the same kind. 
 
 The little one who settled on this step this 
 morning, had the deliberately thoughtless air 
 of a coquette of ten years' experience. An 
 utter want of sincerity ; she makes use of her 
 impressions, she exaggerates them, she as- 
 sumes them. She is acting a part, affectionate 
 or angry. She is always on the stage ; all at 
 once she turns to the bojine and coaxes her 
 with little ways, only because it is pretty and 
 becoming to be affectionate. Another has the 
 short, bold manners and style of a horsewoman. 
 A third rolls her eyes already dreamily, as if in a 
 waltz. They chatter and chirp, spread out their 
 dresses, bend their figures, arrange their curls 
 just as they will twenty years hence. They 
 have nothing more to learn ; they know their 
 trade already : the great trouble for their 
 mothers will now be to hold them in until they 
 are married. 
 
 Is it their fault ? Their mothers have taught 
 them to coquette ever since they could walk. 
 Who has ever seen here real children in petti- 
 coats or jackets, and good stout shoes, really 
 merry, rosy, a little tanned by the sun, even with 
 
74 NOTES ON PARIS, 
 
 disordered hair, running about and making a 
 noise ? That would shock the mother at once ; 
 these are the vulgar ways of the children of 
 common people ; the most serious of her lessons 
 has been — " Behave yourself properly." Her 
 desire has always been that her daughter should 
 do honor to her bringing up : she has always 
 scolded her for getting dirty, for mixing with 
 badly dressed children ; she has encouraged her 
 in her petty, sentimental or malicious repartees. 
 For her daughter as for herself, she holds per- 
 fection to be in grace, in elegance, and in toilette. 
 
 She has had no fear of making her too preco- 
 cious and artificial. Her little tricks have given 
 her pleasure ; she has made her repeat her cour- 
 tesies, she has taught her to recite little fables 
 with inflection of voice and gesture, sometimes in 
 public, and above all, she has dressed her like a 
 doll. 
 
 My three little girls have shining braids, no 
 single hair of which is not smoothly laid, little 
 casaques tight to the figure, elegantly puffed out, 
 fine closely-fitting silk stockings, and pretty, fresh 
 gloves to play hoop with. Try to persuade their 
 mother that she had better put them in blouses, 
 and leave their hands bare. The ideal model 
 governs this as it does everything else : always, 
 in all situations the French fall back on their 
 worldly instincts as a polichinello on his bit of 
 lead. 
 
 But on the other hand, what pretty, smiling, 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 75 
 
 cunning ways, what delicate little feet, light, 
 springy as those of birds ! There are here mas- 
 ter-pieces of grace, of petulant and nervous viva- 
 city, of becoming toilette, of chatter sparkling as 
 the song of the bird cage. After all, they follow 
 the law of their nature, and have amused me for 
 an hour. They ask nothing more, nor I either. 
 
 June 4TH. 
 
 I copy from a romance of M. About" this 
 letter of a young girl of sixteen, to another 
 young girl of sixteen ; it is perfect. M. About 
 is a thorough Frenchman, quite in love with the 
 eighteenth century, slightly akin to Voltaire, own 
 cousin of Beaumarchais and of Marivaux. This 
 is why he paints Frenchwomen so correctly. 
 
 " Dear little Dcsir dc plaire," (how well they 
 understand each other ! Nowhere but in Paris 
 does a young girl, freshly blown from her geo- 
 graphy and French, so quickly see through the 
 characters of her best friends.) 
 
 " Here I am, back from the country. Henriette, 
 Julie, and Caroline also, the serious Madeleine 
 sends me word (in a fait assavoir'^'^^, that she will 
 be here to-morrow. With you — and without you 
 nothing is nice — the sextuor will be complete." 
 (Here is a prettily turned compliment, a bit of 
 light satire — three different keys in as many 
 phrases — petulance and a natural and even style. 
 Find me this anywhere else in Europe !) 
 
76 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 " Mamma has determined that the first reunion 
 of the inseparables shall be held at our house ! " 
 (In a year she will say "at my house ! ") 
 
 " What a splendid day we shall have ! I jump 
 for joy. Don't set down to any other reason the 
 blot which has just fallen right in the middle of 
 my letter. Pray beg gruff papa to send you to 
 rue St. Arnaud, No. 4, before dawn ; you will be 
 taken back to your den after dinner." (Fathers 
 are domestics imposed by nature ; when cross or 
 ugly they are dropped in the vestibule with the 
 umbrellas.) 
 
 " Perhaps we may dance, but we shall certainly 
 have a long chat and laugh like madcaps, and 
 that, after all, is better than anything." (Philo- 
 sophy already ! She is right, the philosophy is 
 of her temperament — that of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury.) 
 
 " We must arrange our winter amusements on 
 a grand scale, as our respectable professors of 
 literature would say." {K ?>QX2XQ}i\ en passant iov 
 those who deserve it.) " I do hope that we shall 
 see each other every day until we are married, 
 and even afterwards." (She thinks of this, and 
 talks of it already ; at sixteen this is her one 
 idea. At eight she only thought of her sweet- 
 meats.) 
 
 " There is a whole plan of campaign to be laid 
 out ; my brother, the soldier, who has just come 
 home on a six months' furlough, will help us. He 
 will not believe that you are a huryzlred times 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 77 
 
 prettier than I." (A compliment.) " These lieu- 
 tenants of artillery are shockingly incredulous." (Is 
 it possible to season a compliment more delicate- 
 ly ?) "Till Monday! till Monday! till Monday! 
 There goes another blot ! The blotter^^ ^j^. 
 braces you with both arms ! " The little cry of 
 the swallow, a rippling flow, sweeping along im- 
 petuous and giddy words, caressing and charm- 
 ing expressions, and beyond all an irresistible 
 craving for pleasure, for excitement, for action ; 
 nerves stretched like harp strings, a will which 
 nothing can restrain, subordinate or govern. 
 You can picture her, three years hence, a mar- 
 ried, fashionable woman, saying to her husband, 
 who is in business : 
 
 " My dear, let us go to-night to hear Do7t 
 Jttan ; I have taken a box. Pray do not say 
 that you have not the time to spare ; yes, you 
 have time, you must have time ; Mario sings 
 too well for me to miss it, and it is so long 
 since I heard him ; I shall die of disappointment 
 if I do not hear him this evening ; yes, yes, this 
 evening, not another evening ! You must leave 
 your friend for once, he is stupid, he is from the 
 country, and his nose is red ; what business have 
 people with red noses to make appointments and 
 take up other people's evenings ? There ! it is 
 understood! Heavens, I jump for joy! and you 
 too, you must jump for joy ! I assure you I will 
 do you credit ; look at my lovely new mauve 
 dress. We have a front box. There, monsieur, 
 
yS NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 be nice now ; you are nice ! You shall not say a 
 word, I shut your mouth, so ; there, is not that a 
 pretty way of shutting your mouth ? John, call 
 the carriage ! " 
 
 (Ten years later, she is twenty-eight, the same 
 scene, with this variation :) 
 
 "An appointment? I know all about your 
 appointments ; a pretty excuse, and quite new, 
 for leaving me to a tete-a-tete with my lamp. 
 But that is always the way; the man has all 
 the profits of matrimony, the woman all its 
 ennui. Madame may amuse herself with her 
 embroidery as she did when a little girl ; mon- 
 sieur will gad about as he did when a young 
 man ! Do you suppose that I do not know that 
 your club appointment is at the Bouffes Parisiens'"'* 
 or somewhere else? After all you are right, 
 I dare say, no better place to push along your 
 business and arrange for your deliveries ! Pretty 
 deliveries, to be sure, and very decent ! Do you 
 suppose I don't observe you at the opera ? You 
 sleep through all the music, and only wake up 
 for the ballet. Very well ! I shall be better 
 alone than with a commercial block, a philosophic 
 stick, whose ideal wears pink tights. Ah ! poor, 
 abused, forsaken creatures that we women are ! 
 Good evening, sir ! John, order the carriage ! " 
 
 June 3D. 
 I have finished this little romance ; it is witty, 
 clever, and perfect to the last degree. I had 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 79 
 
 already heard M. About spoken of abroad ; I 
 was told of him : 
 
 " Of the new generation, he is the most con- 
 spicuous ; he not only writes prettily, but in a 
 style wholly original, unique. We import his 
 books as we do the jewels and the fashions of 
 Paris ; nothing like him, at all like, him in Ger- 
 many or England. Since Marianne^^ and the 
 Paysan parveitu, you have had nothing more 
 national." 
 
 His Captain Bitterlin,^^ father of the charming 
 young girl to whom the letter I have quoted 
 above was addressed, said to her one day as she 
 sat dreamily at the table : 
 
 " Attention, my dear ! You are making eyes 
 at the decanter." 
 
 This is sharp but true ; in her soul she is a 
 grisette. 
 
 The same charming person having chosen a 
 lover, says to her father : 
 
 " My dear father, I am in love with a young 
 man whom you will like when you see him, and 
 whom I will show you when you promise me 
 that you will not harm him. If I were not a sub- 
 missive and respectful child I would wait till I came 
 of age and marry him in spite of you, without 
 other dower than the twenty-four thousand francs 
 my mother left to me." 
 
 This is rather severe, but it is not an impossi- 
 ble case. They are naturally decided : to the 
 grisette they add a bit of the hussar. True 
 
8o NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 modesty, virginal and perfect candor, blushing 
 timidity, startled delicacy, are either entirely ab- 
 sent in their characters, or are lost early. They 
 are flowers, if you choose, but flowers which open 
 at the first warmth of the sun; at the second 
 they are already overblown ; the young girl dis- 
 appears, the woman remains, and too often this 
 woman is almost a man, sometimes more than a 
 man. From the age of fourteen they practise 
 upon their families or their fathers. 
 
 My friend B , a physician, heard his 
 
 daughter say one evening that she wanted to go 
 to the marriage soiree of one of her friends. 
 
 " But you had fever this morning ! " 
 
 " No matter for that," 
 
 " But you are still in bed and shivering! " 
 
 " I shall wrap up warmly." 
 
 " Louise, the fever will return ! " 
 
 " Papa, if I do not go, I shall have the fever of 
 rage." 
 
 " My dear child, I never heard of the fever of 
 rage ; it will be a new variety to announce. I 
 will write a fine account of it, and be chosen to 
 the Academy." 
 
 " Papa, I must go." 
 
 The father yielded ; where is the will of fifty 
 that can resist the will of twenty ? She returned 
 home worn out at one o'clock in the morning, 
 and the fever set in again. The poor man was 
 up every hour of the night, watching her, giving 
 her cooling draughts. He had gone up fifty- 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 8 1 
 
 seven pairs of stairs in the course of the day, 
 and the next morning when I saw him, he looked 
 as thouorh he had been disinterred. 
 
 They are too intelHgent, too soon awakened 
 and disenchanted, too quick to see the weak and 
 ridiculous sides of things. On the other hand 
 they are too self-willed ; their desires are too 
 violent and too numerous ; beyond all, their 
 craving for flattery, for admiration, and for pleas- 
 ing and strong sensations, is too eager and over- 
 ruling. Profound and sublime sentiment, and 
 native simplicity, which bring willing subordina- 
 tion, are alike wanting. They are above and 
 below obedience, incapable of submission to 
 authority, or of respect for anything. 
 
 This is why the sole object of education is to 
 check their growth, to hold them back, to hinder 
 the growth of their wings. I know families 
 where young men are not admitted for fear that 
 ideas may be awakened ; only the promised hus- 
 band when accepted by the parents. Mme. de 
 M said to me with pride : 
 
 " Never has my daughter (she is twenty) gone 
 out alone, nor passed an hour alone, night or 
 day, out of my sight, or that of her governess." 
 
 All this reminds us that we are the neighbors 
 of Italy. The climate ripens them too early and 
 unbridles the imagination. Hence the convent, 
 the real convent as in southern countries, or the 
 home arranofed like a convent. Where self-con- 
 trol is wanting some other control is necessary ; 
 
 6 
 
82 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 instead of personal supervision, forced confine- 
 ment. The same rule holds good in politics : the 
 gendarme outside is all the more disagreeable 
 because of the want of vigilance of the gendarme 
 within. 
 
 My poor B pretends that in certain board- 
 ing schools all professors have been suppressed, 
 even the old and ugly. There was found written 
 in the copy-books of the little girls, " I love you, 
 I adore you," addressed to those poor shams. 
 Besides, a young girl's boarding school is a school 
 of coquetry. Emulation, which is good for men, 
 is pernicious for women ; they are rivals in their 
 compositions as in their toilettes ; their vanity 
 and inquisitiveness grow enormous, and then 
 down they come upon the husband. 
 
 Look at them after two years of marriage and 
 you will see what was hatching under this modest 
 
 appearance. Mme. B had three daughters, 
 
 she has brought them up in the Catholic faith, 
 she has broken them in ; she kept them all three 
 in a little sleeping room without fire, bent over 
 their geography and glued to their tapestry, I 
 saw their modest faces, their downcast eyes, their 
 humbled demeanor. In a year's time the little 
 serpent stretched himself out, stood up on its tail 
 and hissed. The eldest, who was mute, now chat- 
 ters endlessly, snaps and snarls from under her 
 husband's wing ; no one puts such venom in a 
 compliment as she ; her repartee reminds you of 
 Figaro and Dorine,^^ The youngest, who has 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. <^t^ 
 
 married a humanitarian politician, chants philo- 
 sophic and religious motets at table, after his 
 model ; reasons upon the sciences, starts general 
 ideas ; this becomes her about as well as a pair 
 of trousers ; you are reminded of the whistling 
 imitations of the parrot ; the husband's ideas are 
 there, to be sure, but spoiled, distorted in unnatu- 
 ral shapes. He has overflowed. She catches and 
 scatters the droppings of his abundance. She 
 has just finished a pamphlet on the improvement 
 and future of woman. The third, an angel, spent 
 a week at Brighton with an officer — and when I 
 knew her she was so naively innocent, yes, a 
 chrysalis. 
 
 At a ball. 
 
 I have carefully examined all the heads I see 
 
 except the two little G . The lesson is not 
 
 a pleasant one ; physical impetuosity, sharp and 
 wilful tones ; something excited, dry and narrow- 
 minded ; sudden and imperious passions, a ner- 
 vous irritability, followed by floods of tears at the 
 slightest contradiction ; a merely superficial in- 
 telligence, nothing but stereotyped phrases — half 
 actresses, half princesses. 
 
 They dress well, they are bright enough, but 
 there is no nobility in them, and they are too 
 much given to lying. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 II. 
 
 June 15TH. 
 
 A visit to Ville d'Avray, to my friend S- 
 
 chief of division in a ministerial bureau ; thirty 
 thousand francs income. A villa freshly painted, 
 with a Swiss lawn, twenty-two yards square, and 
 seven trees. Two young girls, fifteen and six- 
 teen, are taking the fresh country air in new 
 gloves, tulle pelerines, tight boots, irreproachable 
 corsets, at eight o'clock in the morning. They 
 are very fond of me ; my pockets are always full 
 of bonbons and trinkets, 
 
 " Ah ! it is M, Graindorge," says Madame 
 
 S . " Good morning, my dear sir, how kind 
 
 of you to come so early ; we must show you our 
 cottage ; oh, yes indeed, a real cottage ! There is 
 very little green about it, but we cannot do with- 
 out some green. These poor children need the 
 country air so much ! and it does them so much 
 good ! always on the grass stretching their arms 
 and limbs, and no constraint ; plain dresses, real 
 jackets such as they wore when they were seven 
 years old. They are so childlike ; you cannot 
 think how childlike they still are ! Would you be- 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 ^i 
 
 lieve that only yesterday Jeanne, reciting to me 
 the history of Louis Quatorze, said, ' But, mam- 
 ma, how could he love that La Valliere when he 
 was already married ? Was he then a bigamist ! ' 
 It brought tears to my eyes ; was it not pretty ? 
 It was she who said to me when she was three 
 years old, and I was talking to her of the good 
 God who is up in the sky : ' Just like the birds, 
 then ; has he a beak ? ' She had already begun to 
 think for herself Ah ! Monsieur Graindorge, it is 
 a great pleasure to be a mother ! Men who have 
 remained bachelors like yourself have no idea 
 how much they have lost. My husband said 
 this very thing to me this very morning ; he is 
 quite gallant. But you too are gallant, and we 
 are always delighted to see you. How hot it is 
 to-day, is it not ? Pray, sit down." 
 
 I made my bow. I have been in France now 
 seven years, but I cannot yet quite receive as I 
 should these cold showers of Parisian amiability. 
 
 A rattling musketry fire of scales and trills ex- 
 plodes in the little boudoir drawing-room. 
 
 " That is Jeanne ! They are in their nest, 
 they have just been arranging it ; come in and 
 tell us how you like it ; they have good taste ! " 
 
 That is true enough. No nest prettier, more 
 coquettish and elegant. The whole room is 
 hung in white and blue chintz of exquisite fresh- 
 ness ; a thin thread of gold rises in graceful 
 windings, enclosing the mirrors. Great white 
 porcelain jars open out their snowy cups, full of 
 
86 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 wild trailing honeysuckle, of moss roses, of 
 azaleas still moist with dew. The softened light 
 creeps under the bhnds, through the majolica of 
 the windows, and spreads itself over the carpet 
 like a cloth of sunlit mist. On the table, two or 
 three albums, scattered in studied negligence. 
 At the two ends of the mantle-piece some 
 sketches signed with their initials ; one picture 
 only, a large portrait of Marie Antoinette, and 
 what pretty little feminine knick-knacks on the 
 etageres. 
 
 Jeanne is at the piano, Martha standing at her 
 side. Two modern names : it is the last fashion. 
 Martha is slight, and with her gently curved 
 neck looks like a delicate titmouse. The other 
 is moving her fingers languidly up and down the 
 ivofy keys, with a half smile on her pouting lip. 
 Both in white dresses of immaculate freshness, 
 striped with pink, with bright red puffs around 
 the neck and sleeves ; not low in the neck, 
 but low enough. It is warm, and we are in 
 the country. They are modest, timid even with 
 strangers; they hesitate before speaking; they 
 blush a little at the sound of their own voices ; 
 they risk an easy little movement, then hesita- 
 ting, suddenly frightened, they check themselves. 
 You feel that there is within a burning fire, a 
 tremulous sensitiveness always under restraint; 
 a birdlike delicacy and vivacity. The pretty 
 creature is so frail, that one is always afraid of 
 crushing it ; so lively that it seems always about 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 87 
 
 to take its flight. All this thrills and palpitates 
 beneath the light swayings of the skirts, with the 
 balancing movement of the curls which roll along 
 the temples, with the gentle tremblings of the 
 voice which tries its note. 
 
 " You will be fifty-three the twenty-first of 
 next July, Graindorge, my good friend." 
 
 "That is true, sir, but so much the more rea- 
 son why I should renew my youth in admiration 
 of these hot-house plants." 
 
 And it seems indeed as though these were two 
 hot-house flowers. You perfectly understand 
 that the real charm is in the surprise, in the ap- 
 pearance, in the sudden novelty, in the imagina- 
 tion which all at once builds castles in the un- 
 known ; that you must stay motionless, that at 
 the touch of the fingers all the leaves will drop 
 off. This is the effect produced on one after a 
 half hour's ride on the railroad in company with 
 dull and sharp bourgeois faces. This grace, this 
 strange suavity, touches you like an air of Mozart, 
 which suddenly breaks on your ears in some long 
 vulgar street, like a beautiful hawthorn which 
 nods to you from some dry hedge. If the haw- 
 thorn had been in a pot under your window, had 
 you heard the preparatory roulades and exercises 
 of the singer, you would not have felt much 
 emotion. 
 
 Goethe said : Treat your soul as you would an 
 insect ; it will amuse you to take note of its in- 
 stincts, to foresee its somersaults and its move- 
 
88 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 ments. I rather say: Treat your soul as you 
 would your violin, and supply the motifs for its 
 airs. 
 
 Little by little I was taken into their confidence, 
 and Martha said to me : 
 
 " Will you come Wednesday to the class ? It 
 is one of the great days. Rue d'Astorg, 27. M. 
 d'Heristal. Oh ! he is a very respectable gen- 
 tleman, he has the legion of honor, and mamma 
 says he is so fatherly. Everybody goes there 
 now ; all my friends are there. He makes little 
 speeches on the happiness of mothers, that draw 
 tears to the eyes, and he is so correct and amia- 
 ble ! Never a scolding word when your exer- 
 cise is not well done ; he never laughs at you ; 
 he consoles you and tells you that the next will 
 be better. Always well dressed ; is he not, 
 Jeanne ? A blue coat with gilt buttons, and such 
 white linen ! We do laugh a little because he is 
 always looking at his nails, and takes out his 
 handkerchief so prettily ; M'lle Volant, who sits 
 next to him, says that he puts sweet benjamin 
 on it. Altogether he is as carefully gotten up as 
 a lady. We are very glad to go to him, our in- 
 structress was so tiresome ! Don't you remem- 
 ber Mademoiselle Eudoxie ? She had a red 
 nose, and such hands ! Was it not so, Jeanne, 
 and such an air of suofared vineear? ' Youne 
 ladies, you will begin your analysis over again. 
 Young ladies, hold yourselves straight. Young 
 ladies, well-brought up persons do not walk in that 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 89 
 
 way. Young- . ladies, no talking at table.' A 
 real prison. When we were eating, absolutely 
 forbidden to open our mouths. And such a way 
 of encouragement when we were to play the 
 piano before any one ! And such principles ; 
 she had her mouth full of them. Louise Volant 
 says it is that which spoiled her teeth. Always 
 principles. She sells them, that is her business. 
 In a word, Madame Volant told mamma that the 
 class was charming ; such a nice set ; and we 
 have been going there for six months." 
 
 " And what do you do there ? " 
 
 "All kinds of things. Compositions. We 
 have had the Death of Joan of Arc ; Conversa- 
 tion of Two Angels, moved to pity by Earthly 
 Sufferings ; a Mother on her Knees before a Lion 
 about to devour her Child ; Joseph sold by his 
 Brethren : Hymn to the Sun ; that was where 
 we had hard work. You understand, a hymn 
 to the sun ! At first I could find nothing to say, 
 nor Jeanne either. We cried over it, we felt so 
 stupid. M. d'Heristal told us that we must in- 
 spire ourselves, exalt our imagination. Then we 
 walked up and down the room with great long 
 steps, we embraced each other very hard, we 
 held each other's wrists tight, we turned up the 
 whites of our eyes as they do at the theatre, and 
 it all came right away. When we began we 
 could only find a half page ; now we write six. 
 To-morrow we will compose our hymn before 
 the second breakfast." 
 
90 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 " And what shall you say ? " 
 
 " Oh ! we do not know yet ; we must be alone, 
 and then we talk in a loud voice. Do we not, 
 Jeanne ? And then — that depends." 
 
 " Jeanne always talks about little lambs, mead- 
 ows enamelled with flowers, children kneeling 
 every evening on their little pink beds, to ask 
 the blessing of the good God ; I always talk of 
 the chariot of thunder, of the lightning, the 
 winged messenger, and the thunderbolt, the 
 voice of the Most High. That does very well. 
 M. d'Heristal is always satisfied; he says that 
 we have style, and intends to enroll us on the 
 list of honor." 
 
 " Do you read that aloud, and yourselves ?" 
 
 " Ah ! you are right, that is hard. Would you 
 believe that the first time Jeanne could not get 
 through and began to cry. As for me, I thought 
 my voice would stick in my throat. I was red, 
 red ! but mamma looked cross at me and then 
 I read along without the least idea of what I was 
 saying; I was as in a dream. M. d'Heristal paid 
 me some compliment ; then I got a little more 
 courage, I drank a mouthful of sugared water _ 
 and I felt a voice, a force ! It was just as at a 
 ball when the light dazzles your eyes and the music 
 fills your head, and you turn and turn without 
 knowing how ; but you can go on turning until 
 five o'clock in the morning. Last time, he said 
 to a new scholar that her phrases were heavy ; 
 upon that she sobbed aloud, her mother took 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. gi 
 
 her in her arms, salts were given to her, she had 
 a real nervous attack ; he read the rest of her 
 composition himself; fortunately, it was very 
 good and then she came to. But for all this, 
 it is terrible : every eye is fastened upon you, the 
 mothers and aunts are there, sometimes the 
 papas with their eye-glasses and their trinkets. 
 You feel like hiding in a mouse-hole. But some- 
 times it is very amusing, and there are lots of 
 comical people. Time before last there came 
 an English girl. Miss Flamborough, red as a 
 poppy, with a shawl red enough to frighten the 
 cows, a kind of short jacket without a waist ; she 
 never dared to raise her eyes, she only looked at 
 her feet and her copy-book — she will surely take 
 to the spade. That day mamma was scandal- 
 ized: would you believe it. Mile. d'Estang wore 
 a cashmere shawl ? A thing perfectly unheard- 
 of, no one wears a cashmere before she is 
 married ; but she is a Creole and knows no 
 better. I assure you it was a pretty sight, 
 almost as pretty as a ball ; there were flowers ■ 
 in the jardinieres, servants in livery to open the 
 doors ; fresh toilettes, and such head-dresses ! 
 You can learn more there than you can from the 
 journals of fashion. Mile. d'Estang had earrings 
 like those in the Campana Museum,^^ with emer- 
 alds. The brother of Mile. Herie, an artist, has 
 designed her a winter toilette, all in black velvet, 
 with a trimming of swan's-down. The face and 
 neck of Mile. d'Argeles are too long, but she 
 
Q2 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 braids her hair into a diadem to make her head 
 broader, and as she has the brown Spanish 
 complexion she dresses all in dark blue with 
 standing trimmings and embroidery in con- 
 trast, and fringes over the whole waist. Oh ! 
 it will be soon Wednesday ! Five days more : 
 Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, 
 twelve hours in each day : no, twenty-four hours, 
 for I dream of it. Jeanne, my darling, embrace 
 me. 
 
 Thereupon they threw themselves into each 
 other's arms and jumped like kids on the grass — 
 a nervous expansion. In two years more they 
 will embrace each other for the show of the 
 thing — it is becoming and piquant : they will find 
 a coquetry in it, just as you would pass a bunch of 
 cherries under the noses of the men to give them 
 an idea how delicious the taste of them would be. 
 Four years hence, if they be not married, they 
 will take little children on their knees in drawing- 
 rooms full of people, kiss and pet them with all 
 sorts of caresses and pretty little names, to show 
 what good mothers they would be. Nerves, co- 
 quetry, maternity : there is nothing else in woman. 
 
 The crank was turning, just as well to take 
 advantage of it ; so I risked the very simple 
 remark that the Heristal class must be more 
 amusing than the catechism. 
 
 " Because of the grey and black dresses which 
 are the catechism uniform ? No, the catechism 
 class was very nice ; Jeanne kept her eyes cast 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 93 
 
 down with the air of a Madonna. But we worked 
 hard enough, did we not, my dear little Jeanne ? 
 To think that she was first seven times in succes- 
 sion. She had the first medal at the end of the 
 year. Papa called her his little theologian. I 
 was only one of the first ten. All the world was 
 there, Mile. Eudoxie, mamma ; sometimes even 
 we asked papa's advice, and he would tell us 
 what books to consult. Fortunate that he did — ■ 
 there was no other way for us to get along. 
 Madame Volant and the other mammas were 
 there by the side of their daughters, with a lead 
 pencil and copy-books to take notes ; their fing- 
 ers trotted quick, quick, quick, like race-horses. 
 They wrote down everything. Louise Volant 
 once brought in a resume seventeen pages long 
 on the love of God, another time twenty-four 
 pages on the dignity of the Church, with quota- 
 tions from St. Augustine. For us, mamma took 
 notes of the end, Mile. Eudoxie of the beginning, 
 I and Jeanne of the middle, and once we made a 
 rt^sume of thirty-two pages ; in the evening papa 
 read Bossuet to us ; Jeanne has such a memory 
 that she can tell you right off all the heresies and 
 all the Councils. For this we were accused and 
 complained of. These young ladies are all so 
 jealous ! but Monsieur the Abbe replied that it 
 was edifying to see parents instructing themselves 
 in religion in this way. And the day that Jeanne 
 went to receive her medal the mammas were furi- 
 ous ; I nearly jumped out of my skin for joy. I 
 
94 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 was so impatient that I said to myself twenty 
 times a minute : * The medal is not for you, young 
 ladies ; the medal is not for your daughters, my 
 ladies ; it is for my Jeanne.' Jeanne, you were 
 lovely as an angel." 
 
 A deluge of kisses. This young girl is just 
 running over. She should ride on horseback, 
 take long walks, go to the gymnasium, learn 
 geography. But that is none of my business. 
 Another slight crack of the whip to finish off 
 with. 
 
 " And this dear piano ? " 
 
 They burst out laughing. 
 
 " That is too bad — you are skeptical. You 
 know very well that I was brought up in Ger- 
 many; I adore music." 
 
 " The ophicleide or the trombone ? " 
 
 " Abominable ! You have no respect for any- 
 thing — the piano ! the piano ! " 
 
 " Very well, sir." 
 
 And she runs like a fawn, throws open the 
 door, throws open the piano, and with both 
 hands, begins a run of scales. And such a run ! 
 She rattles them off with all her might, humming 
 2l frou frou accompaniment. 
 
 "Jeanne, help me with \};\^frou frou. To the 
 front with the scales ! Monsieur must be satis- 
 fied ! " 
 
 The wind has changed. No more confidences 
 for me ; I could get nothing more out of them 
 than a charivari. 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 95 
 
 " Young ladies, nothing so shocking as cal- 
 umny to a sensitive heart. I shall drown myself 
 to-night on my way home, if there be any water 
 in the Seine. I acted in perfect good faith, how- 
 ever. I had brought you a music book with a 
 collection of Schumann. What is to become of 
 me ? My God, my God ! " 
 
 " A music book, a music book ! Where is 
 your music book ? A salmon-grey cover ! what is 
 this gibberish on the outside ? German ? What 
 has your German printed there ? " 
 
 " Some instructions, a kind of catechism, for 
 the use of beginners." 
 
 " A catechism ? That must be charming. M. 
 Graindorge, M. Graindorge, you will be good 
 now and translate it for us." 
 
 Here are the instructions. While I read, their 
 expressions were a study for a painter ; they 
 opened their eyes wide. In these twenty phrases 
 you feel all the gravity, the profound convictions 
 and hidden emotion, which in Germany control 
 musical education. Imagine two pet cats over a 
 crab. 
 
 " The principal thing is the education of the 
 ear. Learn early to distinguish the major, the 
 minor, the different keys. Try to note what 
 sounds the bell, the window glass when struck, 
 the cuckoo clock, give. 
 
 " There are persons who think that they can 
 accomplish everything by the agility of the fin- 
 gers, and who, until an advanced age, employ 
 
96 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 several hours each day in mechanical exercises. 
 It is as though a man should apply himself every 
 day to the pronouncing of A, B, C, with con- 
 stantly increasing rapidity. Employ your time 
 better. 
 
 " As for time, the play of many virtuosos is like 
 the walk of a drunken man. Do not take such 
 people for models. 
 
 " When you play, do not trouble yourself as to 
 who is listening. 
 
 " Play always as though a master were listen- 
 ing to you. 
 
 "■ You should not only know your pieces with 
 your fingers ; you should also know how to hum 
 them without the piano. Cultivate your musical 
 perceptions to such a point that you can retain, 
 not only the melody, but the harmony of a piece. 
 
 " You must learn to understand music by read- 
 ing it. 
 
 " Never play a piece until you have first read 
 it. 
 
 " When you are older, never play any popular 
 piece. Time is too precious ; one who would 
 know that which is good even, need have a hun- 
 dred lives. 
 
 '* Never help to circulate bad music ; on the 
 contrary, do all that you can to repress it. 
 
 " Never play bad music. You should never 
 even listen to it, unless forced. 
 
 ** Always consider it a horrible thing to change 
 or omit anything in the music of good composers, 
 
YOUNG GIRLS. 
 
 97 
 
 or to introduce new or popular ornaments. It is 
 the greatest outrage you can inflict upon art. 
 
 " Choose for companions, those who know 
 more than yourself, 
 
 " The rules of morality are also the rules of art. 
 
 " Be self-sustained ; inquire seriously into life 
 as well as into other arts and sciences. 
 
 " One may always learn." 
 
 Here they yawned dreadfully. 
 
 " But, my dear Monsieur Graindorge, this is as 
 gay as a funeral. The man who wrote all that. 
 was a Trappist, was he not ? He should have 
 added to his rules, ' Brother, all must die ! ' 
 Easy enough to see that the Germans live on 
 sour-kraut. We French girls don't make such a 
 fuss. We learn to raise and lower our five fin- 
 gers, one after the other ; ut, re, mi, fa, sol ; 
 after that scales ; then exercises — Cramer, 
 Czerny, Doehler and the rest of them. I am 
 now in Czerny. Louise Volant is only as far as 
 Cramer. Then the fingers run— see— in this way. 
 (And the white fingers began to gallop with the 
 prettiest runs.) You take a graceful position, 
 and put on a serious air — wait a moment — like 
 this. (And she put on the most mockingly sen- 
 timental air in the world.) Then the head is 
 raised towards the ceiling for a moment — see — 
 like this. (Here she arranged a curl which did 
 not need any arrangement. Then pcfuf, a heavy 
 note, and ron, ron, ron ; listen now. This is the 
 * MoiLvement perpetuel.' " 
 
98 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 And in fact this is the name of the piece, a 
 real express-train. The gallop lasted ten min- 
 utes ; her cheeks grew purple, her eyes brilliant : 
 a thorough race-horse. Her sister clapped her 
 hands, I clapped my hands, the father and mother, 
 who just then came in, clapped their hands. We 
 assured her that she would be the first at the next 
 musical reunion of Mme. de Heristal, and by my 
 soul she deserves it ; at dinner we talked over 
 the dress she should wear, and we settled upon 
 crimped hair, puffed, and with a braid ; we are 
 sure of a great triumph. She was in high spirits, 
 and while escorting me to the doorstep, as I 
 kissed her mother's hand after the ancient fashion, 
 she said to me with a courtesy : " Brother, all 
 must die." 
 
 I thought of her future husband, as I sat 
 dreamily in my carriage, driving home. Happy 
 man ! If any education can excite the nerves 
 and the vanity, surely it is this. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 YOUNG MEN. 
 
 I. 
 
 During the past few days, I have seen five or 
 six fashionable young men, and wished to de- 
 scribe them ; but my thoughts have been wander- 
 ing elsewhere, I know not why, to America. Per- 
 haps by contrast ; the only thing that I can write 
 to-day is the story of the first young American 
 whom I knew intimately. 
 
 I was at New Orleans, and we had hunted to- 
 gether more than once. At sunset we used to 
 go all the way down the canal to the great bayou 
 which leads to Lake Pontchartrain ; the crocodiles 
 take their siesta in the mud. They must be shot 
 in the eyes, otherwise the ball glances from their 
 hide, or in the belly when they are good enough 
 to show this organ, which is not unusual. For 
 they are gentlemen in their habits, and willingly 
 stretch themselves at full length on the sand, as 
 on a sofa, in easy, comfortable attitudes. On the 
 other hand, once hit, they are very comical, and 
 pirouette in the water, cutting pigeon -wings, 
 whirling and vaulting for all the world like opera 
 dances. 
 
 Only the day before yesterday, seeing Mr. 
 
lO® NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 Merante spin like a top, I was struck with the 
 resemblance. But the crocodile is the better of 
 the two. The movements of his tail are ex- 
 tremely fantastic. In fact, this amusement is ex- 
 cellent after dinner, and I prefer it to bilHards. 
 
 My friend, Jonathan Butler, was a very good 
 shot, and on such occasions was very amusing. 
 For that matter he never laughed, and rarely 
 spoke, unless at such times. But once on the 
 bank of the bayou, he rubbed his big hands and 
 was happy. " Tom," said he to me, " do you see 
 that gentleman yawning over there, under that 
 cane branch, with that handsome pair of jaws ? 
 Don't you see a resemblance to Parson Booby 
 of Kentucky, who came psalm-singing to my 
 mother's yesterday ? Absolutely the same jaws, 
 and a white waistcoat like this fellow. Here is 
 for the white waistcoat of the parson ! Paf I 
 Down he goes ! . . . The parson is not decent ! 
 see how he kicks about ! ah ! ah ! his belly up ! 
 I beg your pardon, reverend sir, I fear I have 
 spotted your white waistcoat. Here is for the 
 next ! " At these times the expression of his eyes 
 was not pleasant ; his nostrils swelled and his 
 cheeks reddened. 
 
 He was Yankee by race, and English in tem- 
 perament ; in this quite different from the youths 
 of New Orleans, who are ordinarily of French 
 descent, pale, delicately made, nervous, like Cre- 
 oles. He was six feet high, and stout in propor- 
 tion, although only twenty-eight years old ; broad 
 
YOUNG MEN. lOi 
 
 in the shoulders, with flesh solid and motionless 
 as that of a bull. The greater part of the time 
 he was in repose, and, when talking, made but 
 few gestures. But when he had drank, or was 
 in bad humor, his lips began to tremble, his 
 breathing to grow heavy, and no one cared to 
 disturb him, for it was easy to see that once 
 started, he would drive straight ahead through 
 everything, with his eyes shut, I had seen him 
 of a stormy night, when the waters poured down 
 in a deluge, rush out of the club at one o'clock 
 in the morning, crying that he was not a dog to 
 stay in doors and sleep on the straw. In five 
 minutes he had walked to the river side, un- 
 moored his boat, and dashed out into the river, 
 where great trunks of trees were rolling down, 
 swept by the rushing waters. The great muddy 
 river whirled in the storm, the mast cracked. 
 We called him back as loudly as we could ; he 
 paid no attention to us, but steered his boat, head 
 bare, and with herculean strength. We gave 
 him up for lost ; the next morning he came back, 
 wet through, as though he had passed the night 
 under water, but refreshed and good-humored, as 
 a sanguine man who has been let blood, and who, 
 no longer troubled by his swelling veins, feels 
 easy and comfortable. A year before my arrival 
 there was fiehtine on the Mexican frontier. He 
 suddenly left his handsome, well-furnished house 
 — his English home, with all its adornment of 
 Creole luxury — on horseback, with his pack of 
 
I02 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 hounds, two carbines, a compass, a large wrap, 
 and pushed straight through the woods alone, 
 living by the hunt, hanging his hammock at night 
 to some tree, and sleeping under the watch of his 
 dogs. He returned at the end of three months, 
 after seven or eight hundred miles of travel, 
 having killed a respectable number of Indians 
 and Mexicans, well and strong, but with the scar 
 of a knife in his cheek. The dogs, fed upon 
 animal food, had become so savage that he was 
 obliged to send them out of the city. These 
 expeditions had given him a great popularity 
 among the rich young men ; and all the more 
 because he was obliging and unpretending. Be- 
 sides, he was wholly free from any puritan stiff- 
 ness or prudery. His Creole education had 
 covered over his English character; his mother, 
 a proud French woman, allied to the old families, 
 had brought him up in the manners of the an- 
 cient noblesse^ and with a hatred of cant. It 
 must be said here, that in this elegant society the 
 Yankees pass for a lot of impudent grocers. In- 
 deed, among them, at Cincinnati, for instance, 
 there is a law against billiards ; fifty dollars fine 
 for the sale of a pack of cards. You will find, in 
 the open woods, revivals which last three days. 
 The preachers relieve each other, describing the 
 agony of the sinner, his death, the progress of 
 corruption, the fires of hell, all the details of the 
 broiling, and this minutely, with cries and ejacula- 
 tions, until they fall weary to the ground, while 
 
YOUNG MEN. 
 
 103 
 
 around them their hearers cry Hosannah ! at the 
 top of their lungs, sometimes for three or four 
 hours together, and the young women He with 
 their faces to the ground, sobbing and in convul- 
 sions. On the other hand, the gentlemen of Cin- 
 cinnati go to market themselves, eat with their 
 knives, spit incessantly, even at table, and on the 
 dresses of ladies. You will find these pretty man- 
 ners in a romance of Cooper''^. There are two 
 lovers ; the young girl will not marry the young 
 man from religious scruples ; after much discus- 
 sion he goes away to the Polar seas, to catch 
 walrusses. He gets his nose frozen, which con- 
 verts him. She, however, continues to look after 
 her cooking, and goes to meet the vessel, a stew- 
 pan in her hand. As soon as she sees him from 
 a distance, she cries out to him, " Do you believe 
 now in the direct, or only in the symbolic media- 
 tion for sins ? " " In the direct mediation." • Wild 
 with joy, she drops the stew-pan, and they are 
 married. Naturally these preaching shoemakers 
 are not agreeable in society. That is why our 
 friend Jonathan Butler, although a Protestant, 
 never preached, even by example. According to 
 the fashion, he had for a mistress a pretty quad- 
 roon, who was none too faithful to him. His 
 carriage was new and his horses admirable ; his 
 negroes, a little overwhipped perhaps, obeyed 
 his every glance. No doubt, he was thought 
 proud by the common people, because he never 
 spoke to them, and the devout shopwomen called 
 
I04 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 him Moloch or Satan, in a whisper, as he passed. 
 But he was never approached, except hat in 
 hand, and had he wanted twenty carbines, he 
 would not have had to knock at twenty-one doors 
 to find them. 
 
 It was in July, and the heat was so great that 
 during- the day two men and five or six horses 
 had fallen sun-struck in the streets. The mus- 
 quitoes rose in clouds fi'om the river sides. To- 
 wards evening a heavy unwholesome breeze, 
 irritating to the nerves, blew up the dust. Butler 
 and I went into one of those American bar-rooms 
 where people stand up the length of the counter, 
 and swallow sandwiches, slices of lobster' and 
 glasses of whiskey. He had been morose dur- 
 ing the morning, and had just been bitten two or 
 three times by musquitoes. I tried to joke with 
 him, but he would not answer ; he called for a 
 glass of rum, and drank it scowling, without a 
 word. I called to him to come away with me ; he 
 did not seem to hear. Five or six Kentucky 
 gentlemen stood staring at him, in a familiar way, 
 roUing their quids in their mouths, and picking 
 their teeth with their knives, and were evidently 
 disgusted by the elegant cut of his white panta- 
 loons. He stared at them too, in return, and 
 certainly not in a friendly way. Just then he 
 asked the waiter for a match. " Right away, 
 sir." A half minute after he asked for a match 
 again ; his voice was hoarse — the waiter was ser- 
 ving the Kentuckians. He called out a third 
 
 w- 
 
YOUNG MEN. 
 
 105 
 
 time, and his face was purple ; — this waiter was in 
 the habit of serving him — to him it seemed as 
 though his domestic had been stolen from him. 
 The fourth time the poor devil, hurried on all 
 sides, still thought he had time to push over to 
 the Kentuckians their last sandwich, and passed 
 by him, running. Butler, raising his arm to its 
 full length, planted his bowie-knife in the waiter's 
 back. The blow was struck so hard that the 
 spine was heard to crack, broken by the handle 
 of the knife. The man fell, with his face to the 
 ground, stifling ; he tried to raise himself on his 
 elbows, stretched out his throat to catch the air, 
 then with a hiccough vomited a stream of blood 
 from his mouth, and died on the spot without a 
 cry. The knife stuck in the wound, and Butler, 
 who remained standing, absorbed as one in a 
 dream, allowed himself to be taken and led away. 
 The next day nothing else was talked of by 
 the whole town, the negroes included, except this 
 event. The negroes thought that the young Mas- 
 sa had been a little hasty ; " but," said they, " if 
 he called the waiter four times, it was the fault of 
 the waiter." But as their imaginations began to 
 work, they wondered whether Mr. Butler would 
 be hung with his white pantaloons and pink cra- 
 vat ; whereupon, they shook their heads in a 
 mysterious way, and showed their teeth. The 
 fashionable young men regretted that Mr. Butler 
 had used his knife instead of a cane ; " had it been 
 a cane, it was not one blow that the fellow de- 
 
Io6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 served, but a dozen." But on account of the knife 
 he would have to go over to Europe for four or 
 five years. But the shopkeeper and the laboring 
 classes were furious. They called meetings at 
 which they talked for hours against the aristocracy 
 fattened on the substance of the people, cited 
 Jefferson, and declared that if the free sons of 
 America did not obtain justice and protection 
 from their magistrates, they would re-enter into 
 possession of their natural rights (an allusion to 
 the Lynch law). The affair began to look badly, 
 particularly considering the manner in which 
 the judge acted. He was a Frenchman, an old 
 shipmaster, brave and honorable to a fault, who 
 had no special love for the lower classes, but who 
 had been brought up in the fixed principles and 
 in the close logic of the philosophy of the last 
 century. He said openly that he would make 
 no distinction of persons, and that the gallows 
 was made for all assassins alike. The alarm was 
 taken, and he was asked to explain himself. He 
 replied, that it was the business of the jury to 
 find a verdict, but that the verdict once rendered 
 he should apply the law. As he was quite poor, 
 a friend of the family called upon him, one morn- 
 ing, with a hundred thousand dollars in bank 
 notes ; he took the package and pitched it and 
 the bearer to the bottom of the staircase. The 
 jailer, a less scrupulous person, was then ap- 
 proached ; the judge dismissed him, and put in his 
 place a great, raw-boned, phlegmatic fellow, a 
 
YOUNG MEN. 
 
 107 
 
 kind of puritan psalm-singer, who never left his 
 post day or night, and upon whom threats and 
 promises slipped like water from polished steel. 
 The judge was again visited, and as the feeling 
 of exasperation heightened he was made to un- 
 derstand that he was trifling with his own life. 
 From that time he never went out unless armed, 
 and accompanied by five or six blacks, as resolute 
 as himself. One evening two pistol shots were 
 fired at him, and he was slightly wounded in the 
 shoulder. Two willing arms and a loaded carbine 
 were ready for him in every shop ; when he 
 walked out, he was followed by numerous eyes, 
 to watch over and protect his life ; every com- 
 mon man acted as a body-guard. The public 
 fury rose so high, that no one dared longer to 
 threaten him. The trial was had in the usual 
 manner; there were twenty witnesses, and the 
 accused made no denial. An attempt was made 
 to prove that he was drunk ; but he had only 
 taken one glass of rum. He made matters worse 
 by his savage silence, and the haughtiness of his 
 replies. " He is a furious mad dog," said the au- 
 dience ; " he must be struck down." The jury, 
 made up of merchants and mechanics, called to 
 mind that there had been several murders during 
 the last month, and that business was injured by 
 them ; and the judge putting on his cap, accord- 
 ing to custom, sentenced Jonathan Butler to be 
 hanged. 
 
 All the well-bred young gentlemen began an 
 
Io8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 agitation. Councils were held ; they were satis- 
 fied that such a sentence as this could not be 
 executed on such a man. Hanging, especially, 
 seemed to them an infamous punishment, only fit 
 for a Yankee or a negro ; their honor was com- 
 promised if they did not prevent it. Madame 
 Butler, the mother of the prisoner, saw the princi- 
 pals in the movement, and the first Monday in 
 August offered two hundred thousand dollars to 
 the jailer. It was the whole fortune of the family. 
 Moreover, an engagement was taken to embark 
 him, his family and Butler on a vessel of which 
 they were sure, which should sail for Europe the 
 same evening. Dazzled by the sum, he shut his 
 eyes, grew pale, then went to his sideboard, took 
 out his great Bible, showed a text which he had 
 underlined and which he had read every morning 
 for a month past: "Thou shalt not forswear 
 thyself."3° After which he went out and refused 
 to speak to any one. Two days later the friends 
 of Butler learned that the hole was being dug 
 into which to set the gibbet. The next day at 
 four o'clock in the morning, well armed to the 
 number of about a hundred and fifty, they at- 
 tacked the prison. There were only about twenty 
 soldiers, who made but slight resistance and will- 
 ingly returned to the guard-room. There was 
 another more numerous troop at the entrance of 
 the harbor, but the colonel and the chief officers, 
 men of the upper class, had taken care to leave an 
 hour previous, one to inspect the end of the lake, 
 
YOUNG MEN. 
 
 109 
 
 the other for a hunt in the forest; they had con- 
 sig-ned their troops to the barracks. The friends 
 of Butler had provided themselves with hand- 
 spikes, with augurs and with files, and begun 
 to work upon the great door ; but as they found 
 it to be very thick, solidly locked and barred, 
 they attacked it with a beam which they used as 
 a ram. The door resisted. Then they piled 
 logs of wood against it and set fire to them. This 
 was successful ; the thick planks grooved into 
 the iron crumbled into charcoal, and the heavy 
 machine fell to pieces. But they had been more 
 than a half hour at work, and the noise of 
 the battering ram, added to the light of the 
 flames, had given the alarm. Still the shop- 
 keepers did not dare to move. Some of them 
 were seen on their doorsteps, carbine in hand ; 
 but they did not form into a body, and the appear- 
 ance of the assailants was too determined for 
 them. All at once, up a street which leads to 
 the river, there came a sea of men, half clad and 
 ragged, howling like savages, and armed with 
 iron bars, pickaxes and knives. They were the 
 poor Irish laborers employed on the docks, who 
 wanted the satisfaction of seeing a rich English- 
 man hung. The young men fired one volley 
 and a considerable number of dirty blouses fell. 
 But Paddy beats the world when there is a chance 
 of having his own bones broken or of breaking 
 the bones of other people. Moreover, they had 
 taken their morning whiskey : they worked so 
 
no NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 hard with their iron bars and their bowie-knives 
 that in a quarter of an hour the affair was over. 
 The friends of Butler dispersed and retreated, car- 
 rying their wounded with them, and the Irishmen, 
 wild with success, spread themselves over the 
 taverns, leaving about a hundred of their fellows 
 to watch the prison. The shopkeepers joined 
 forces with them, and thenceforward, night and 
 day, the prison was guarded by volunteers in 
 such a way that it would have been necessary to 
 fight half the town, in order to force it. 
 
 The last hours were approaching, and the man 
 was driven into the last corner from which there 
 is no escape, and in which he must face death. 
 An inquisitive, curious fellow who, from the height 
 of a window, well situated for the purpose, 
 watched Butler with a long glass, saw him look 
 that evening at the setting sun, his mouth wide 
 open and with staring eyes, motionless and stiff" 
 as though witnessing some horrible or sublime 
 spectacle ; then fall upon his knees, and seize his 
 head in his two hands. At night, instead of 
 sleeping quietly as had been his habit, he walked 
 around his room, and the jailer, who listened to 
 his steps, heard towards midnight a storm of 
 sobs. A powerful man and never having wept in 
 his life, the heaving of his chest sounded like the 
 death agony of a bull. Towards morning he was 
 found looking very pale, and as though worn 
 out by some great debauch. He had written a 
 great deal, then crumpled and tossed the papers 
 
YOUNG MEN. HI 
 
 into the four corners of his room. One of them 
 seemed singular, and contained these words : 
 " The setting sun was the heart of Christ, and 
 its rays pierced my eyes. I threw myself towards 
 him, I pressed his feet in my arms ; then I rose 
 and tried on my knees to embrace his body, as I 
 embraced my mother. Then I looked into his 
 face ; it was pale as the gray leaves of winter 
 washed by the rains and dying on the branches. 
 I fainted, but reopening my eyes, I again saw 
 the faces of the angry crowd beneath me, all kind 
 and compassionate, in the purple rays of the 
 eternal sun. It seems to me that I have a knife 
 wound in my stomach." Thereupon the jailer 
 took confidence and hoped that he would make 
 a good end. 
 
 Only one more day remained, and his mother 
 obtained permission to take her last farewell. 
 She came dressed in black ; when she got out of 
 the carriage, her eyes dry and burning, her face 
 calm, all present, even the Irishmen, took off 
 their hats. She was not searched before going in ; 
 in America women are more respected than in 
 France. Moreover, even had she brought a file, 
 the prisoner could not have made use of it ; 
 there were six guards near his door, and fifty 
 under his window ; but it was not a file that she 
 brought. They remained together nearly an 
 hour, and neither sobs nor cries were heard ; 
 after which she came out as cold as before ; she 
 did not faint until she was within her carriage. In 
 
1 1 2 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the night, the jailer heard a stifled cry, and a 
 quarter of an hour later, one or two groans ; he 
 thought that the prisoner's conversion was being 
 accomplished, and prepared his spiritual consola- 
 tion for the morning. On going into the room 
 in the morning, he found Butler dead, his face 
 to the ground, with three stabs in his chest. 
 There was a splash of blood on the wall, and a 
 pool of blood near his chair ; the knife was still 
 sticking in the third wound. He had stabbed 
 himself three times, and in the intervals he had 
 again written. — The first time he had only un- 
 buttoned his coat ; the blade had slipped along 
 one of the ribs, and only cut the flesh. Then he 
 had taken off his shirt, and feeling with his fin- 
 gers for a suitable place, he had waited for a 
 quarter of an hour before beginning again. — The 
 second time, the knife had penetrated deep, 
 though too low and too much to the right. 
 The blood had flowed freely, and he had seated 
 himself, opening the lips of the wound, persuaded 
 that all was nearly over. After waiting another 
 quarter of an hour, he had found himself very 
 feeble and feverish, but with his mind clear 
 enough to know that he had not succeeded. At 
 I that moment and for five minutes later, his cour- 
 age failed -him. His two wounds burned him ; he 
 excited himself uselessly. Thereupon he had 
 drank the half of a decanter of water, washed his 
 hand and his head ; that done he became again 
 master of himself, and made up his mind not to 
 
YOUNG MEN. 
 
 113 
 
 die by the rope like a negro. He remained quiet 
 for a half hour, avoiding all movement and 
 staunching the wound with a handkerchief; for 
 he had written, " If the blood again begins to 
 flow freely, I shall either faint or have no longer 
 the force to strike true, and to-morrow I shall be 
 hanged." He declared that this time he should 
 place the point of the knife where he felt the beat- 
 ing of the heart, and that he would force it in, 
 pressing upon it by degrees with both hands ; 
 but while kneelingf aofainst his bed so as to make 
 no noise, and to arouse no one by his fall. The 
 last line indicated the hour ; twenty-three min- 
 utes past eleven, and he had taken the precau- 
 tion to wind up his watch. 
 
 This young man was thoughtless, and had prof- 
 ited little by his experience. The heart is not easy 
 to reach ; it is better to stab one's self in the neck. 
 The carotid artery passes two inches below 
 the angle of the chin, only covered at this point 
 by the skin and a thin muscle. By driving in 
 the knife, and pressing it inwards, it may be cut 
 easily at the very first blow. The brain is in- 
 stantl)^ paralyzed, and death comes without any 
 suffering. The only point is to execute the two 
 motions together, pushing and turning obliquely, 
 very much as you would cut a slice of bread from 
 
 a loaf. 
 
 8 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 YOUNG MEN. 
 
 11. 
 
 I paid a visit last Saturday to M. Anatole Du- 
 rand, or Du Rand, my nephew. This young 
 scamp makes a sorry use of the allowance which 
 I am good enough to make him. The domestic 
 who opened the door for me has the air of a 
 major-domo. Monsieur my nephew was buried 
 in an easy-chair, his heels as high as his head, 
 and was smoking a cigar as good as my own. I 
 looked at him closely ; he had the air of a stuffed 
 turkey all dished. I bowed to him gravely. He 
 started, but found not a word to say. I compli- 
 mented him upon his stuffed arm-chairs, and upon 
 his superb divans in brown leather, after which, 
 feeling restless, I inspected the apartments. 
 There are some extremely handsome etageres in 
 the dining-room. My nephew has a taste for old 
 Sevres. In the bed-room are two Baudouins,^' 
 and several slightly, very slightly, clad statuettes, 
 quite in good taste. This done, I lighted a cigar 
 and said to him : 
 
 "Anatole, is there anything more beautiful 
 than virtue ? " 
 
 " What did you ask, uncle ? " 
 
YOUNG MEN. U^ 
 
 " I say, my friend, there is nothing more beau- 
 tiful than virtue. Take, for instance, M. de 
 Montyon, or M. Bordier, the old notary. Read 
 the newspaper, and see what a noise they make 
 in the world every year ! They have left large 
 sums to encourage good actions, or as rewards to 
 the writers of great books ; and in consequence, 
 every one knows their names, and talks about 
 them. That stirs one up, you see ; it is so pleas- 
 ant to become famous. There is a baron, I for- 
 get his name, who by his will encourages sur- 
 geons to greater perfection in their treatment of 
 the stone. Well ! since this will was made, 
 enouo^h charminof instruments have been in- 
 vented to fill a shop ; people now submit to the 
 operation without making faces. The thing is 
 done so quickly and delicately, that it is rather a 
 pleasure. Is not that enough to awaken emula- 
 tion in a generous soul ? Listen, my friend : you 
 are young, and youth is the age of generous feel- 
 ing. Give me your opinion frankly. There is a 
 disease from which I would gladly deliver the 
 human race — the rheumatism. I know what it 
 is ; I have two varieties of it. Can a fortune be 
 better employed after death, than in offering a 
 few hundred thousand francs to the laborious 
 man of science who will discover the specific 
 remedy ? Ah ! young man, young man, your 
 eyes glisten ! What a good thing it is, my 
 friend, to interest yourself in mankind ! " 
 
 My nephew did not seem to be interesting 
 
Il6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 himself in the least in mankind ; indeed, he seemed 
 quite cut up, and let his segar go out. Upon see- 
 ing which, I said, to console him : 
 
 " My poor Anatole, I am in trouble. Our 
 salt-pork factory at Cincinnati is in danger. My 
 correspondent writes me that Professor Thick- 
 skull, of the Academy oi Hog-and-Swine-for-the- 
 world, has just invented a machine which defies 
 competition. Everything is done by steam ; it is 
 a Httle masterpiece of elegance and precision. — 
 The pigs are pushed one by one through a dark 
 pipe, at the end of which a perpetual rise-and-fall 
 of knives cuts their throats one by one ; two 
 minutes, — A little sled rolls the animal into the 
 washing-room ; one minute. — There, it is scraped 
 and polished like a pair of boots by mechanical 
 brushes ; seven minutes. — Another sled carries it 
 to the cutting-room, where mechanical trenchers 
 clean and quarter it ; six minutes. — Two pulleys 
 carry it away, and drop it limb by limb on layers 
 of salt in barrels ; three minutes. — The barrel is 
 closed, and leaves on a small railroad ; two min- 
 utes. — All told, twenty-one minutes to cure a pig 
 in every detail, and to send it off to the ware- 
 house. This is wonderful ! Come to-morrow, 
 and I will show you the models and draw- 
 ings in my study. Thickskull will make three 
 millions of dollars ; he will get the contract for 
 the Federal army. This annoys me. First, it 
 touches my pride — I was the first pork factor of 
 the American Union ; secondly, my pocket— the 
 
YOUNG MEN. 
 
 117 
 
 hams brought me in thirty thousand francs a 
 year. I could, it is true, send my instructions to 
 my agent, who is an honest man. He has only 
 failed seven times. But then Thickskull may 
 grease his fingers for him, and I must have my 
 own man there. Twenty-five hours hence to 
 Liverpool, twelve days from Liverpool to New 
 York. Anatole, what say you ? My thoughts 
 turned to you." 
 
 My nephew's face had assumed a very remark- 
 able expression. The two corners of the mouth 
 had dropped like those of a pike. His round, 
 wide-open eyes looked like two loto balls, and 
 close to the edges of his carefully curled and well 
 smoothed hair, two drops of pearly sweat stood 
 on his rosy skin. 
 
 " Calm yourself, my friend ; I approve of this 
 noble ardor, but you are too eager ; never be 
 hasty in matters of business. We will talk of this 
 again ; meanwhile, tell me whom you expect to- 
 day ; I see this drawing-room is in full dress. I 
 noticed a great punch-bowl in the ante-chamber, 
 and your servant was just now taking down all 
 sorts of dishes and culinary matters. I am not 
 de trop ? " 
 
 " Not at all, dear uncle ; I pledge you my word 
 I am the most steady fellow in the world ; I only 
 expect friends, all nice people : this is my day." 
 
 So it is ; monsieur my nephew has a day just 
 
Il8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 as any pretty woman. I watched him as he 
 moved about the room giving his orders. And 
 true enough, in what does he differ from a pretty 
 woman ? He is not so pretty, and that is about 
 all ; in everything else, on the same level. His 
 mind is occupied in about the same way ; when 
 he has thought over his toilette, his furniture, how 
 to play his little parts of a young gentleman, he 
 is at the end of his chapter of ideas. He has a 
 wardrobe full of boots and bottines ; for two years 
 he oscillated from Renard ^^ to Dusautoy, to fix 
 himself on Renard, unless perhaps he should re- 
 turn to Dusautoy. As for waistcoats, he is said 
 to have a genius in that line ; the first cutter at 
 Renard's holds him in respect, and the trier-on 
 with the fine figure who serves for the shop ad- 
 vertisement is not more proud of his form than 
 he. I studied his bachelor neglige, his panta- 
 loons with socks attached, his charming summer 
 coat and waistcoat to match, and the exquisite 
 mauve cravat which he wore around his standing 
 collar, with its fresh turned-down points. His 
 chin is smooth shaven, but his ample whiskers 
 are joined by his mustache, and over his face 
 there flit by turns a blase air and a look of self- 
 satisfaction. His hands are white and soft ; on 
 his pink fingers he wears a large ring ; from time 
 to time he lifts his hands to let the blood run 
 from them. Sometimes, by a mechanical gesture, 
 he carries them to his ear, which is small ; or to 
 his collar, a chef-d' wuvre of taste and audacity ; 
 
YOUNG MEN. H^ 
 
 or to liis hair, which Hes in graceful wavy lines 
 upon his temples. He understands his smile ; he 
 moderates it, or keeps it half way between ease 
 and ennui. He knows how to bend his neck, to 
 cross his legs, rest his chin in his hands, stretch 
 himself in easy-chairs, listen to or say the most 
 insipid things without a yawn. My nephew, 
 what an amiable creature you are ! and how little 
 you would have to learn, if, all at once changed 
 into a woman and lady of fashion, you were 
 obliged to arrange your own head-dress, to wear 
 false braids, to round out a puffing skirt, and to 
 twist yourself with the requisite mixture of grace 
 and decency through the affectations and non- 
 sense of a reception ! 
 
 How does he pass his days ? He gets up at 
 nine, wraps himself in his dressing-gown, and his 
 servant brinofs him his chocolate. He reads the 
 newspaper, smokes cigarettes, lounges till eleven, 
 when he dresses. This is an operation of itself. 
 He has had a large table set up in his dressing- 
 room, seven feet long, wide in proportion, with 
 three basins, I know not how many boxes, phials, 
 and lookinor-orlasses. There are three brushes for 
 the head, one for the beard, one for the mustache, 
 pincers to draw out hairs, plasters with which to 
 stick those which are obstinate, pomades, es- 
 sences, soaps. I went in ; it was like an arsenal. 
 After this he breakfasts, smokes again, turns over 
 the leaves of a novel, and pays some visits. 
 Last year he finished his law reading ; that took 
 
I20 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 two hours a day ; he dragged his ball and chain 
 with an air of fatigue ; it was the last link of his 
 university chain. Now he is free and he is 
 happy, doing nothing, reading nothing. I be- 
 lieve that he has run over La Vie de Jesus, ^3 but 
 only that he may be able to talk about it, to be in 
 the fashion. His great invention this year is a 
 cane-head. He took to Verdier^"* a dozen sticks 
 which were sent me from Brazil, and in exchange 
 he ordered this cane-head, which has given him 
 a reputation in the world. One day, in the early 
 spring, he made a wager that he, with some 
 twenty young men of his club, would go out to- 
 gether in white waistcoats, white coats, tall 
 white hats. This expedition set the fashion, and 
 he was not a little proud of his audacity and his 
 success. 
 
 About four o'clock he takes a turn in the Bois. 
 He has a fair horse. He rides well, and does not 
 look badly. Ordinarily, he dines at the club. 
 He generally gets home by midnight. Twice a 
 week he goes to the theatre ; he prefers the Pa- 
 lais Royal ;-^^ perhaps twice more he takes up6n 
 his arm one of the figurantes of the Theatre Ly- 
 rique.3^ I knew of a six-months' attachment of 
 his to a modiste ; that is all. He is quite steady, 
 as he said just now ; he has no violent passions, 
 not temper even. Nearly all the young men are 
 so now-a-days ; moderate in everything, even in 
 their follies. They are afraid of excess ; they 
 cut grooves for their vices to run in ; they are 
 
YOUNG MEN. I2i 
 
 bourgeois, who carefully avoid fatiguing, much 
 more exposing, themselves. Vanity, which is 
 the last spring of human action, still urges them 
 on, but not too far My nephew gives bouquets 
 
 to Mademoiselle X , but he will not go to 
 
 Clichy37 for her. In his eyes one woman is as 
 good as another ; love is agreeable, just as good 
 cookingf is. Aloncrside of one restaurant are 
 other restaurants. When he has supped here, 
 up to the time that he is thirty, he will think of 
 dining at home — that is, of marriage. After he is 
 married he will stay in the country seven months 
 out of twelve, and grow fat. He might have 
 been married almost when he left college ; he 
 was born ripe. 
 
 What is he good for ? The devil of an idea 
 has he ever had of learning anything, of acting- 
 for himself, or on his own judgment. Speak to 
 him of a long voyage, even of pleasure, for in- 
 stance a tour to Jerusalem or Cairo, he makes a 
 wry face. In his heart of hearts he would rather 
 see one of Sechan's decorations at the opera. I 
 sent him over to London ; he was bored to death 
 by the fogs and visits. When he found that the 
 theatres and casinos of the place were only fit foi 
 counter-jumpers, he came back in a hurry. He 
 likes country parties well enough, and chateau 
 life. He has quite a success in it, because he 
 wears fresh gloves, and dances well ; his real 
 preference is for exquisite and heavy dinners, and 
 those great arm-chairs with pitched backs, in 
 
122 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 which digestion is so easy in the open air, aided 
 by a cigar. At his age, men of my time were all 
 crazy about politics and literature. I belonged 
 to a society for the regeneration of the human 
 race, and we' had fisticuff fights at college over 
 the Orieiitales of Victor Huo^o. As for him, he 
 looks upon literature as he does upon love — it 
 helps to pass an evening, when there is nothing 
 else to do with his evening. He likes amus- 
 ing novels, but not those that are sad, or hard 
 to understand. He has read Madame Bovary, 
 but will take good care not to read it over again. 
 If a new Paul de Kock should come up, fashion- 
 able, and a little more decent than the other, 
 that would be the style of novels he would have 
 on his table. As for political theories, they all 
 fell overboard in 1848. In his view, the phrases 
 which are made about public affairs are only 
 means employed to hook an office. I have 
 sometimes talked to him of the choice of a 
 career ; he would resign himself to it, if neces- 
 sary, as to any disagreeable labor, whatever it 
 might be, no matter what ; only he would not 
 like anything away from Paris, nor too engross- 
 ing. He wants his evenings, his mornings, his 
 Sunday, one day of absence each week, two 
 months' vacation, and he says his digestion suf- 
 fers when he has to work between the hours of 
 meals, from eleven to five o'clock. 
 
 Is there anything surprising in this ? His en- 
 tire education has been employed to narrow and 
 
YOUNG MEN. 12'. 
 
 discipline him. He wrote themes and Latin verses 
 at college until he was twenty ; in short, the 
 daily occupation of a caged squirrel. He looked 
 through the bars with his schoolmates. From 
 such a narrow spot as this, life seems a perpetual 
 holiday. A promenade on the boulevard in 
 gloves and new boots, with plenty of pretty 
 women to stare at, and no tutor to say a word 
 about it. He was taught nothing practical ; he 
 had only to study his daily lessons to obtain his 
 freedom ; the door open, he threw away his long 
 gown of Greek and Latin, like so many cast-off 
 clothes. Once at home, his mother put him in 
 cotton ; he soon became used to it. Neither 
 labor nor effort was asked of him, only decent 
 behavior, and no expensive follies. " Do not 
 stay out too late ; tic your cravat properly." 
 Those, I believe, are all the principles that were 
 provided to him. For examples, he had seen his 
 father, and his father's friends, taking the best of 
 care of themselves, looking after their fortune, 
 increasing their comfort, estimating the cost and 
 pleasure of a country house, of a set of furni- 
 ture, of a dinner. He does the same thing ; he is 
 a barn-yard fowl. Can one be otherwise, if born 
 in a barn-yard ? He spreads his tail in a proper 
 manner, as is the sole business of a turkey-cock. 
 Is it right to expect anything more of him .-* A 
 little while since, I compared his tastes, his habits, 
 his ideas, to those of a pretty bourgeoise. In 
 fact, he has been brought up like a young 
 
124 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 bourgeoise lady. He has learned his Latin, she 
 her piano ; there they are even : the one is as 
 mechanical as the other. He has been to college, 
 she to a convent ; like her, he has looked out 
 through the cracks of the door, and both have 
 pictured the world to themselves as a holiday 
 when they put on light gloves, and eat straw- 
 berry tarts. He has been taught by his parents, 
 as she by hers, to respect appearances, to avoid 
 scandal, to dread exertion, to like choice cuts ; 
 and he dreams of an office, as she of a husband. 
 The office and the husband are only so many means 
 to make a figure in the world, and amuse them- 
 selves wholly without trouble ; they both hold to 
 this, the one just as the other ; if they dream of 
 anything else, it is of a carriage, or a comfortable 
 and pretty chateau. Both look upon driving to 
 the Bois, in a new equipage, as supreme happi- 
 ness. Perhaps in the recesses of her brain the 
 woman has some other craving ; for as a woman 
 she has nerves, and as a young girl she has been 
 cloistered until her marriage. But, all things con- 
 sidered, I put them on the same level ; such are 
 the young couples of our time ; a pair of chickens 
 on a perch. 
 
 Three strokes of the bell. The friends of my 
 nephew come in from the club. Presentations. 
 As I have not the air of a pedant, the conversa- 
 tion becomes easy at once. The punch comes 
 to our aid, and my nephew goes to bed at two 
 
YOUNG MEN. 1 25 
 
 in the morning. It is I that break in on his 
 habits. 
 
 The first is a viscount, twenty-eight years old, 
 of a good family in the Franche-Comte. But 
 what a family ! A father, two daughters, an 
 aunt, a governess. They never visit Paris, nor 
 even Besancon. The father spends his time 
 walking about, looking after his property, dining, 
 and warming himself at the chimney-corner. He 
 is so dull of mind that he never even reads the 
 newspaper, the governess reads it to him ; she is 
 the strong head of the family. Neither drawing 
 nor music ; orthography, ciphering, and the rest 
 of a primary education. For amusement the 
 young girls work tapestry at the window ; the 
 governess prepares the patterns.— Books, never. 
 Tired of this sort of life, they have taken a dis- 
 like to the country and wish to marry, but on 
 two conditions : that the husband be a good 
 Catholic, and live in a city. The father insists, 
 besides, that he shall be of noble birth, and that 
 he be content with a dower of seven thousand 
 francs income ; no one as yet found in these con- 
 ditions. As a distraction, they make up infinite 
 amounts of clothing for the poor, or nightcaps 
 by the dozen. Bickerings have set in ; the gov- 
 erness has to serve as a pad between the aunt and 
 the father, between the daughters and the aunt, 
 between the father and the daughters. Add reli- 
 gion and its practices. Since ideas are absolutely 
 wanting, scruples have sprouted like thistles in 
 
126 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 fallow ground. Finding their cure too indulgent, 
 they put queries on points of conscience, by let- 
 ters to the theologians of Besan^on. For in- 
 stance, they asked whether the cure had a right 
 to allow them fish in Lent ? It was replied that 
 Saint Liguori authorized small fried fish. My 
 young friend here takes their share of amuse- 
 ment for them. He only returns to the sheep- 
 fold in September, the hunting season. He was 
 an attache in one of the embassies, and played 
 havoc at the petty courts of Germany among the 
 canonesses ; after this he travelled all over 
 Europe, and went through a complete course of 
 comparative gallantry. Weary at last, he fell a 
 peg lower. In this respect his erudition is uni- 
 versal ; he is proud of it, and gives the most ex- 
 act details. All this, with an amiable ease and 
 the prettiest flow of words ; there is no pride in 
 his vanity ; in this, his style is quite above that of 
 the bourgeois, who, when they plume themselves 
 upon any talent, assume all the airs of an author. 
 He says, that now he is fixed at Paris, that it is 
 not worth while to travel so far, that all the early 
 fruits and vegetables are imported here, and as 
 for the true sauce, it can be found nowhere else. 
 
 A banker's son. This year, for two months in- 
 vestments paid fourteen per cent ; these are the 
 news which he has heard talked about at dinner 
 and breakfast since he was eight years old. Six 
 months ago his father, hearing that a poor devil 
 of an inventor was sued for debt, bought up the 
 
YOUNG MEN. 
 
 127 
 
 engagements, became sole creditor, got hold of 
 the patent for a song — the affair was a method of 
 preventing the escape of gas. That done, he 
 jumps into a cab, runs through the offices, sees all 
 those who have influence, gives gratuities to useful 
 underHngs, secures the application of his process 
 in all the bureaux of administration. He will 
 make a hundred thousand francs. "And the in- 
 ventor?" " Oh ! he will invent something else ; 
 these fellows are like moles — stop their hole, 
 they will bore another ; but then it is you that 
 deserve the credit of the second hole." At the 
 bottom of his heart he admires the sagacity of 
 his father. But only if he profit by it. I told 
 him that in America a father had a right to cut 
 off his son to the last cent. That seemed mon- 
 strous to him. " But those fellows are savages ! 
 What ! I may have had horses and patent 
 leathers, and my father could, if he chose, make 
 a common scrivener, a miserable starveling of me ? 
 Why not a water-carrier or an errand-runner at 
 once ? " I urged him on, and found that he 
 looked upon children as the proprietors of their 
 parents, and that it is a favor to let them live. 
 This man is heavy moulded, both in flesh and 
 blood, not of a high-bred race like the last. He 
 treats women like horses, and horses like women. 
 He does this to raise himself in the world ; the 
 coarse fist of his grandfather, the cattle-dealer, 
 still shows through his yellow glove. 
 
 A young substitute,^^ appointed a few years 
 
128 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 ago to Bordeaux, two thousand francs income 
 and twelve hundred francs salary. He has come 
 up to Paris for a week to rub the rust off, but 
 without any enthusiasm. He is a sedate fellow. 
 He holds court three hours at the Palace of 
 Justice four times a week ; the rest of the time 
 he strolls about, reads novels, and occupies him- 
 self with photography. He is down there with 
 his family ; this is the reason why he had to wait 
 so long for his appointment. He wished to re- 
 turn to Bourganeuf or its neighborhood, and go 
 back into his shell ; without ambition, he will 
 advance slowly. He will be a judge at forty, the 
 president of a tribunal at fifty. He will marry 
 well ; the magistracy gives title to suitable dow- 
 ers ; he will be esteemed, will dine out often and 
 well ; he does not aim higher, he loves his ease ; 
 just as though he were stuffed. — Stuffed or 
 spoiled, which will be the better for Anatole ? 
 
 Stuffed. — After eight days' reflection this is my 
 answer ; in this modern material there is nothing 
 out of which to make fast livers even. My 
 nephew shall have a place next month as super- 
 numerary in the Treasury Department. He will 
 make pens five hours a day, think of becoming a 
 second clerk, dream of a day of furlough, and 
 will be quite at the height of his century. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 AT THE EMBASSY. 
 
 A grand reception to-day ; the ambassador has 
 changed his hotel and gives a fete. 
 
 A large gravelled court opening upon two 
 streets ; carriages enter from one and go out by 
 the other without crowding. It is filled with 
 orange and laurel trees in large boxes. Superb 
 cuirassiers on foot and mounted stand in groups 
 at the entrance and in the anofles ; the lieht 
 flashes from the polished steel of the armor, and 
 is lost among the green leaves ; above, the moon- 
 less sky spreads its dark curtain, embroidered 
 with stars. 
 
 To the left, in the midst of the half darkness, 
 crossed by gleams of light, the grand stairway 
 spreads out in open double spiral, the tracery of 
 its iron banisters, with their delicate, superb chis- 
 elHngs of the style of the eighteenth century. 
 Greenhouse plants, satin arums ^^ and purple cacti, 
 with their rough trembling stamens, rise in tiers 
 upon the steps, while rare orchids and drooping 
 plants capriciously interlace their fibrils and clus- 
 ters in twining braids. Light streams from the 
 branches of countless lustres. Three rows of 
 lackeys, in lace and gold, stand at the entrance, 
 
I30 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 holding wax torches. Elegantly dressed women 
 are going up the steps, carelessly displaying mag- 
 nificent moires, resplendent in broken rays ; rich 
 silks, on which the light plays in vanishing sheen ; 
 laces which flutter like the wings of the dragon- 
 fly ; diamonds sparkling in the light ; white shoul- 
 ders tremulous with life ; graceful necks which 
 turn beneath a wealth of curls, and the flash of 
 golden combs. Leaving the cold, black streets of 
 these old quarters of the. city, you seem to enter 
 a blazing furnace of light. 
 
 The ambassador has had the good sense not to 
 allow his hotel to be spoiled by the taste of any 
 modern upholsterer. No trifling embellishments 
 in this gallery, which serves for an entrance way, 
 in these hieh drawinc^-rooms, which stretch out 
 in long suites ; the walls, hung in red or yellow 
 silk, keep all their amplitude ; and their air of 
 grandeur is not disfigured by paintings of the 
 modern school, so extravagant in manner, so mi- 
 nute in detail, and of which the sentimentality 
 and picturesqueness are so artificial and studied. 
 He has even shut out the pretty, affected little pict- 
 ures of the eighteenth century. He collected his 
 gallery in Italy, at Florence, and it is all here, not 
 piled up as in a museum, but disposed in orna- 
 ment of his rooms ; the rooms are not arranged 
 for it. Grand pieces of the nude, a torso proudly 
 posed, a knee, an opulent shoulder, start out from 
 the dull tints of the hangings, or from deepest 
 shade ; on either side you feel yourself in the 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 131 
 
 presence of a solemn, noiseless life, grand in its 
 virility, prolonged beyond the tomb by the breath 
 of the great century from which it sprang. An 
 Erigone of Carrachi moves forward on a car 
 drawn by tigers ; the round fulness of her throat 
 and bended flanks floats in transparent shade ; 
 her purpled cheek, her gracious smile, play in 
 bright radiance in the sombre red of the draper- 
 ies, beneath the naked arms and little sportful 
 bodies of the Loves which fly through the air with 
 golden crowns. Large mantels of white marble 
 shine from distance to distance, among rows of 
 lackeys, red suisses,*° green and ribboned chas- 
 seurs,*' grave ushers with silver chains on their 
 black dress-coats. Groups follow each other in 
 long files through the gallery : generals, court 
 dresses, Hungarian officers, diplomatists seamed 
 with embroidery, naval officers in gold lace ; uni- 
 forms of all nations, and starred with decorations ; 
 the dresses of the ladies trail and rustle on the 
 carpets ; the gallery is so wide that they do not 
 crowd each other ; they spread out in ample 
 folds ; their freshness is yet unfaded, the faces 
 are all in smiles. You may follow the sway of a 
 leaning figure, the slight form of a bust or an 
 arm outlined at a distance on the hangings, the 
 easy movements of the groups as they gather and 
 break. Happy the lackeys who need go no 
 farther ! I unfortunately must go in ! 
 
 A furnace, a crowd of heads, jammed together 
 pell-mell, seeking to move, and each repeating the 
 
132 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 same mechanical smile. Where are the bodies ? 
 and beyond all, good heavens, what is to become 
 of the heavy laden trains ? This gives no con- 
 cern ; enough to take care of their heads ; where 
 it passes the rest can follow ; first an arm, then 
 another, then the bust ; the rest is compressi- 
 ble. 
 
 Have you ever seen a gardener's hut ? Onions, 
 carrots, parsnips, laid out on planks pierced with 
 holes ; their vegetable tails drop through the 
 holes and fall beneath the plank, in an inextricable 
 and grotesque entanglement ; the only thing 
 needful is, that above the plank the heads shall 
 not touch each other. Such is the faithful image 
 of an ambassador's grand soiree. 
 
 A furnace and a boiling mass. Every quarter 
 of an hour the boil thickens ; the open folding doors 
 turn in a new human fluid, which mixes with the 
 rest, turning and eddying. You can see it advance 
 slowly like oil, each flow advancing more slowly 
 than that before it. 
 
 Eleven o'clock. The paste is made, no more 
 flow ; the first two rooms have reached that state 
 of glutinous consistency in which a spoon may 
 stand ; impossible either to advance or retreat. 
 Elbows begin politely, discreetly to edge their 
 way, as a wedge is driven between two pieces of 
 wood. Faces lose their natural expression, and 
 those which are painted begin to come off. 
 
 Oh Lord, my God ! thou who didst draw out 
 the Hebrews from the fiery furnace, thou who didst 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 1 33 
 
 deliver your elect ones from the aspic and the 
 basilisk, I render unto thee thanks ! Thou didst 
 not make me woman, and I have no tail to protect 
 but that of my coat, which is short. By a special 
 act of your mercy, I am thin, and no elbow can 
 conveniently enter my sides as a cushion. Thou 
 didst lead me to America, where I raised pigs, 
 which has hardened my muscles, and my shoul- 
 ders can endure the pressure of my neighbors 
 without too much suffering. By a special dis- 
 pensation of thy Providence, I have neither bun- 
 ions nor corns ; up to this moment my feet have 
 been only three times trodden upon, and, thanks 
 to thee, not upon the little toe, but the great toe, 
 which is hard and resistant. I have not dined too 
 heartily, and have no fear of apoplexy. Thanks be 
 unto thee. Lord, for thy many mercies ! I may 
 get a crook in my back, but I shall be spared the 
 lamentable fate of that fat general, who is growing 
 red in the face, and is about to burst. 
 
 What could I do to amuse myself while wait- 
 ing for this glue to melt ? I had still room enough 
 to take out my watch and see the time. Suppose 
 that we count the bows of the ambassador ; a bow 
 each second — that is to say, sixty each minute, 
 three thousand six hundred each hour ; fourteen 
 thousand in a soiree of four hours. He has a 
 salary of two hundred and fifty thousand francs 
 a year, and I think that he earns them. 
 
 A little while ago I managed to reach him, and 
 I said, pressing his hand : " Monsieur the Am- 
 
134 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 bassador, I offer you the assurances of my re- 
 gard." 
 
 " Offer me what you will, my dear friend, I 
 should prefer a chair." 
 
 I put my hand on my heart, with a look of re- 
 spectful compassion, then looked down at his 
 feet. He had brand-new boots on. My God ! 
 grant that his boot-maker has the trick of making 
 large boots. 
 
 A plunge to the right, a plunge to the left ; 
 the ambassadress and her daughter, at the en- 
 trance of the second salon, are doing the same 
 thing that he is. If ever I become ambassador, 
 my first secretary and several of my attaches 
 must be five feet six, well built, married to vigor- 
 ous wives, feed them well, and insist on their 
 wearing a large spread of petticoats. Three of 
 them shall stand around me at receptions, and 
 their wives around my wife ; they shall serve as 
 ramparts. In the morning I shall take a cold 
 bath and be rubbed down ; at dinner I shall eat 
 nothing but chops, and when I leave my draw- 
 ing-room, I shall have a well- warmed bed, a bot- 
 tle of Bordeaux, and several very tender beef- 
 steaks. 
 
 The too full vase overflows insensibly towards 
 the third salon, and an advance is made, each one 
 feeling for his limbs ; all mine are safe, God be 
 praised ! I have made all my bows ; I am in 
 sight of port. A concealed ante-chamber, a kind 
 of passage-way opening at right angles upon the 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 
 
 135 
 
 main gallery, with a window embrasure, and a 
 eood arm-chair hidden behind the curtains. The 
 whole procession must pass by ; I know this ex- 
 cellent arm-chair well, and by a miracle it is 
 empty. 
 
 That he who invented arm-chairs deserved to 
 have altars raised to him, is my only idea for a 
 quarter of an hour. My second idea, that at this 
 particular moment I am by far the happiest man 
 in these five drawing-rooms ; princes, marshals, 
 pretty women, do not come up to my ankle. My 
 third idea is, that I have saved my eye-glass. 
 Let us take a look at these poor devils. 
 
 Three young English officers, in white trow- 
 sers and red coats. Two have a noble air, and 
 are perfectly dignified and calm. The third is a 
 simpleton, looks as though he were made of 
 sheet iron, and drags his open hands behind him. 
 
 Lady Bracebridge (I change the names), forty- 
 live, stout, a red silk dress, cut so low as to make 
 one shudder, her face the color of her dress ; ma- 
 jestic, a real monument, bastions, etc. Her 
 daughter, ridiculously dressed, lean, her skirts 
 puffed out like a balloon, looks enceinte all 
 round. 
 
 A Prussian general, covered with crosses, 
 short, stout, purple ; his eyes, of the white of an 
 overboiled lobster, stand out in the universal red 
 of his apoplectic face. He drags his wife after 
 
136 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 him, and even in the second drawing-room, they 
 talk as loud as though in a tavern. 
 
 The Marquis Ricciardi, a well-known miser ; 
 with an income of a million, he lends on security 
 by the week ; tall and yellow, thin-lipped, and 
 seemingly troubled by a chronic colic. 
 
 Mr. Harris Braggs, citizen of the United 
 States: "Ah! you have lived in the United 
 States ? Well, you will do us the justice to own 
 that we are the only young nation with a future 
 before it. In three years we have killed five 
 hundred thousand of our people." 
 
 Count Borodunoff, a rough creature, square- 
 built, bearded, accustomed to cold, who has eaten 
 lamb cooked in its wool, and slept in his cloak 
 under the frost of the mountains of Persia. 
 There is something of the auroch and the bear in 
 these Russian temperaments ; for conversation, 
 the equivocal stories of the eighteenth century, 
 and some insipid compliments to the ladies. 
 His daughter, pale, cold, motionless, a solid 
 statue of snow, has nothing in her head but milli- 
 nery ; an odd contrast ; in these wild, primitive 
 natures nothing takes root but Parisian frivolity. 
 
 B , an academician who won his seat by his 
 
 good dinners ; the stomach is the road to the 
 heart. The legs of a deer, the eye and skull of 
 a bald vulture ; no one pays visits with more as- 
 siduity, nor divines more quickly, from the manner 
 of the servant, whether he may insist on getting 
 in, if the master of the house be really visible. 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 
 
 137 
 
 In a word, he has his academic green coat, he is 
 satisfied, he can preach morals to others officially. 
 At present he has but one thorn in his side : his 
 wife, a plucked owl who is walking with him, her 
 nose in the air, low-necked, showing her collar 
 bone. 
 
 Madame d'Arbes. I have talked with her five 
 or six times ; I never see her without pleasure ; 
 she is the most successful type of woman, of the 
 French woman, and of the woman of fashion. No 
 gallantry ; she has not the time for vices ; all her 
 vital force is expended in the sparkle of the brain. 
 Have you ever paused before an aviary in the 
 country, to study the action of a goldfinch, as it 
 hops, chirping about, picking up its food, never 
 weary, living in the air, with a hundred and 
 twenty fancies and sixty motions in a minute ? 
 
 " Oh ! how happy I should be on that upper 
 perch ! " No, I was better on that lower perch. 
 The feathers on my breast are not nicely 
 smoothed. I am hungry, let me eat a grain of mil- 
 let. No, a crumb of bread is better. No, a sip 
 of water will refresh me. Just one flap of my 
 wings to stretch my muscles. Hop, hop, hop. 
 A roulade to clear my throat. Cuic, cuic, cuic. 
 There goes a fly, if I could catch him ! There 
 goes a sunbeam ; I will chase it ! Piot, plot, 
 plot. Ah ! what pretty little feet I have ! Tra- 
 deridera, how pleasant life is ! What is the sun 
 about up there ? How tired he must get, moving 
 so slowly ! Certainly there is nowhere in all this 
 
138 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 world a prettier goldfinch than I." Change the 
 words ; put toilette, dinners, concerts, in the prop- 
 er places, and you have the lively assortment of 
 ideas which dance about in this pretty head. The 
 brain darts a ceaseless succession of wishes 
 through all her nerves — little short fancies, which 
 pass instantly to execution, and are as soon driven 
 out or crossed by others. Her eyes sparkle, the 
 flowers dance in her head-dress, her bosom throbs, 
 her hands make a thousand little gestures, her 
 voice vibrates ; never a pause. She goes to four 
 soirees of an evening, and when she returns home 
 the balls of the morrow buzz in her head like a 
 hive of bees let loose. Always smiling and nat- 
 urally ; she is happy ; and she will always be 
 happy if she only see five hundred trifles flit- 
 ting before her every hour ; elegant rooms, lus- 
 tres, silk dresses, decorated gentlemen, singers, 
 ritournels, hunting equipages — whatever you like, 
 so it be brilHant and new. She was born in a 
 state of exciteinent, and would die if she were 
 quiet. 
 
 Would we complain ? A machine, constructed 
 and balanced after a special manner, can only act 
 in conformity with its construction and balance. 
 Sometimes it is a pretty work of filagree, in which 
 electric needles, mounted on a delicate pivot, 
 tremble at the least variation of heat or air ; 
 what can come from it except glittering sparks ? 
 on the contrary, a machine of solid bones and 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 139 
 
 bilious flesh, roughly built, can only operate by 
 slow, strong, and persistent pressure. 
 
 The bishop of Carthage. He was thought too 
 intelligent, and remained grand-vicar too long. 
 His slightest word was watched. We have no idea 
 of the bickerinofs and miseries of ecclesiastic life. 
 Resigned, self-reflected, deadened, faded, sad- 
 dened, crushed, and yet self-contained, he passes 
 by with a prudent and melancholy smile. 
 
 Several artists and men of letters. Too hard 
 work and too much pleasure ; Paris is an over- 
 heated hot-bed, aromatic, and infected by the 
 stronor concentrated manure which either burns out 
 or hardens man. How many of their companions 
 have died on the road ? The most of those who 
 remain are sick, or anxious ; bordering on impo- 
 tence, or compelled to live in solitude and wean 
 themselves from their affections and natural ten- 
 dencies in order to preserve their producing power. 
 Some resort to stimulants, others turn to me- 
 chanical exaggerations, copy themselves, assume 
 a style, exaggerate each year further and further 
 the whims of their talent, even to contortion. 
 The public is blas^ ; it listens only to those who 
 shout the loudest. Every artist is like a charlatan 
 whom the eagerness of competition compels to 
 strain his voice. Add to this the necessity of going 
 into society, of gaining friends and protectors, of 
 obtaining notoriety, of selling and pushing his 
 work, of earning each day something more and 
 more to satisfy the wants of children, wives, mis- 
 
140 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 tresses, and his own increasing needs. A dress 
 costs seven hundred francs, and is worn four 
 times. My daughter is nearly twenty ; how give 
 her a dower and find a son-in-law? Two or 
 three temperaments, bronzed like those of Napo- 
 leon's generals, and there are some heads boldly 
 drawn, solid in color, of which medals might be 
 struck. 
 
 On the other hand, in this enormous pell-mell, 
 each talent may find the nourishment which it 
 needs. Balzac was riofht in his love for this 
 great manure heap, where, by the side of all kinds 
 of excrescences, there grow all types. A mystic 
 may here find a dozen mystics, and go to the end 
 of his mysticism. A colorist lives with color- 
 ists, and carries the descriptive phrase as far 
 as it can go. An amateur of outline may hear 
 Etruscan conversation seven times a week. The 
 speculative philosopher, the practical pagan, is not 
 restrained, as at Geneva, or Oxford, or Florence, 
 by an obligatory religious or political costume. 
 Each one chooses his books, friendships, opinions, 
 the conduct which is suited to his instinct, and 
 the instinct, thus sustained, gets its full growth. 
 Only here are to be found courtesans, intriguers, 
 maniacs, politicians, heroes, workmen, each com- 
 plete and perfect in his style. In a single bed of 
 rich and rotted earth, infinitely complex, constantly 
 renewed, and turned over, where a hundred 
 thousand laboratories and twenty sewers have 
 thrown their detritus and their refuse, there 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 141 
 
 might be grown monstrous cabbages, toad- 
 stools, embossed with gigantic excrescences, 
 divine pineapples, intoxicating roses, asparagus 
 in January, blue dahlias, and what not ; and 
 there would be no more curious garden for a 
 botanist. 
 
 But infatuations grow as fast as energies. 
 They acquire an exterior of politeness and of 
 suitable modesty ; but in truth, at the bottom of 
 the heart, and stimulated by cliques, every self-love 
 becomes colossal. Man is solidly shut in by the 
 illusion that he has built around himself, and will 
 never get out of it, because he employs all his 
 power to thicken it. Always, after a discussion 
 on the beautiful, on art, the artist permits his 
 friend to see more or less that he is of the same 
 opinion as himself " Look, my friend, in the 
 matter of art, there are only you and I ; — and after 
 all, you ? " 
 
 The Duchess of Krasnoe, a Russian, the 
 Diana of Tauris, beautiful and grand as a 
 daughter of Jupiter, pale and white with the 
 whiteness of snow, eyes of light blue, beneath 
 pale silken hair ; a blue robe, bordered with 
 swan's-down, suggests a perfect bust, and her 
 marble arms hang gracefully along a figure 
 which is as slender as they are full. She walks 
 as though she saw nothing, with the serious 
 demeanor of a queen, her eyes open and calm as 
 those of a statue. One is tempted almost to 
 bend the knee. 
 
142 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 A wave of grave personages, counsellors of 
 state, directors-general, prefects, academicians, 
 high functionaries with salaries of twenty or 
 twenty-five thousand francs. They have worked 
 and visited for thirty years to reach this. Latterly 
 I have seen a half dozen of them at their houses ; 
 everywhere the same interior ; a third story, rue 
 des Mathurins or rue Montaigne, two women ser- 
 vants, a little waiting boy, the same drawing- 
 room with embroidered covers, the same gilded 
 buffet between the windows, the same requisite 
 display of cold, common and decent semi-splen- 
 dor, the same narrow and pretentious lives ; the 
 salary is too small, it is all eaten up, and to 
 obtain the retiring pension they wear themselves 
 threadbare. No rest save society, which wearies ; 
 and from time to time a trip to the Springs, which 
 is too expensive. A continual struggle between 
 the necessary display and the necessary economy ; 
 which to choose ? The budget, which is so large, 
 is still too small ; the functionaries, by reason of 
 their multitude, are reduced to crumbs ; each one 
 is rationed ; each one must live meanly in order 
 that all may live at all. Their faces show it, yel- 
 low, hollow, drawn, or puffed with unhealthy fat ; 
 the air of the bureaux is unwholesome ; that of 
 the drawing-room still more so. Here they laugh, 
 bow, do their best to appear brilliant and ami- 
 able ; but the general effect is that of a troop of 
 monkeys — dressed-up, weary, worn-out old mon- 
 keys, who have suffered too much. There is wear 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 143 
 
 and tear in another direction, also ; when you 
 know them a Httle, and they are no longer afraid 
 of compromising themselves, their conversation 
 becomes at once equivocal. They interchange 
 gay stories of their youth ; you soon see that they 
 have thrown off their harness. The quondam 
 dissipated student reawakens beneath the grave 
 bourgeois. " Those were good days." — " Are 
 they all over ? " — They reply by a knowing 
 smile. The French morale is patent. "I re- 
 spect the decencies of life ; I remain a man of 
 honor, good to those who are about me. I work 
 hard ; that is quite enough. Paris is discreet, 
 convenient, and I do not wish to be a dupe."— 
 One went a little further. " I am in love for five 
 minutes." — " Oh," replied his neighbor, " that is 
 too little ; one should^ have a solid foundation 
 dish, compare, return ; a man of the world dines 
 at home and dines out also." 
 
 What are people looking after here ? For 
 there is no conversation ; it is too hot ; one is 
 swamped in the crowd ; the toilettes of the ladies 
 are lost. I find for these crowds and exhibitions 
 the following reasons : 
 
 There are girh to marry ; they are put on show. 
 
 Some young men are thinking also of marrying 
 well. 
 
 There are women to whom one can only pay 
 court here. 
 
 Some come to show their positions, and prove 
 to others that they are in society. 
 
144 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 In fact, it is a club ; business can be talked in 
 the doorways. 
 
 Young women, even old women, find an even- 
 ing alone with their husbands horribly stupid. 
 People are the same, go where you will, even 
 among the great and the rich. They need 
 change, amusement, movement, just as the bar- 
 bers' boys and the milliners, who go in the even- 
 ing to the balls in the Latin quarter.'*^ 
 
 I who find fault with them, why am I here 
 with them ? I acted mechanically, I followed the 
 crowd ; I had not the good sense to content my- 
 self alone this evening at home. Have I had any 
 pleasure ? After being dazzled for five minutes, 
 what have I seen except a procession of sharp 
 elbows and of set faces ? In fact, I had a more 
 beautiful spectacle in America, when in the even- 
 ing, at the sound of the horn, I saw swarming 
 through the trees the round backs of my pigs, 
 when the slanting rays of the sun, lighting up the 
 depths of the green, showed the merry rascals 
 upon the moss, and among the acorns, stuffed 
 with a full day's feed, when their cries, like five 
 hundred bagpipes, rose through the shrieks of 
 the parrots, and the whole of my old forest 
 trembled and shone with its myriads of sparks, 
 and the rise and swell of its eternal murmur. 
 
 It is best not to look too narrowly into one's 
 pleasures. Here is the account current of my last 
 evening at the opera ; I have set down in one 
 
AT THE EMBASSY. 
 
 145 
 
 column my agreeable, in another my disagree- 
 able, sensations : 
 
 A pretty pastoral rondo 
 
 Passionate duo of second act 
 
 Clatter of the finale 
 
 Learned harmony of the sextuor 
 
 View of Messina in the third act 
 
 Fat tenor, a real turkey-cock 
 
 The prima donna climbed too high and 
 
 squealed 
 
 Incomparable stupidity of the figurants 
 
 dressed as lords 
 
 The figurantes are worse 
 
 The orchestra good but too noisy 
 
 Too thin paws of the dancing-girls 
 
 Emaciated arms: I felt like offering them 
 
 beefsteaks 
 
 Dolls' smiles, mechanical and sad 
 
 First actor's legs and head, front view. . . . . 
 
 Same : profile view 
 
 First dancer a furred angora ; bad enough to 
 
 turn your stomach 
 
 Entre actes 
 
 Grumbling neighbors 
 
 Pretty fresh young girls in the baignoir on 
 
 the right 
 
 Debit. 
 
 Credit. 
 
 o 75 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 I 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 SO 
 
 I 
 
 00 
 
 I 
 
 SO 
 
 I 
 
 SO 
 
 I 
 
 00 
 
 2 
 
 00 
 
 2 
 
 00 
 
 2 
 
 CO 
 
 3 
 
 00 
 
 I 
 
 GO 
 
 17 
 
 75 
 
 fr. c. 
 I 00 
 I 50 
 
 3 00 
 
 2 25 
 
 3 00 
 
 5 00 
 
 15 75 
 
 Balance to my debit, two francs, plus ten francs 
 
 for my orchestra chair. Total, twelve francs 
 
 dead loss. 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 I have been to " Les rialze7ts" every Tuesday 
 and Saturday for the last two months, and am 
 here again this evening. This is better than all 
 the drawing-rooms, the most abused as well as 
 the most select. 
 
 I. 
 
 It is too brilliant ; from the orchestra, a quad- 
 ruple garland of lighted boxes and of women in 
 full dress rises in stages beneath the splendor of 
 a lustre of five hundred jets of flame. The light 
 flickers through the warm air laden with perfumes 
 and human emanations. The dark and moving 
 groundwork of the orchestra is agitated in the 
 entre-actes in a strange bustle. Faces, some 
 bright, some weary, appear in sharp outline be- 
 neath the crossing reflections and the countless 
 sparks of burning light. The dry rustle of con- 
 versation rises and swells. Looking at them so, 
 turning, bowing, gesticulating, twisting their 
 bodies, imprisoned in their narrow shells, you are 
 reminded of a swarm of insects crowded together 
 in a funnel. 
 
 This shows the kind of pleasure in demand ; a 
 
THE WORLD. 1 47 
 
 craving for excite7nent ; a word constantly on 
 the lips in Paris. Balzac said that he should die 
 of fifty thousand cups of coffee. He might have 
 added that he had lived on fifty thousand cups of 
 coffee. Parisian society does as he did ; it is for 
 this reason that he has described it so well. 
 
 How often have I looked at the heads in the 
 boxes ! You stand for a quarter of an hour, 
 motionless, absorbed, before a delicate, ardent 
 face which detaches itself alone, as in a frame, 
 within the circle of your opera-glass. Insensibly 
 you are lifted out of your seat, drawn away ; you 
 approach for a nearer look, and seek to divine 
 the strange spirit which burns and shines beneath 
 this envelope of silk, of satin, and of gaze. 
 
 Cleopatras ; the rottenness and culture of Egypt 
 forced into life, eighteen centuries ago, flowers as 
 intoxicating and splendid, as sickly and danger- 
 ous, as those of the Parisian compost heap, from 
 which we draw our vigor and our ills. At first 
 sight they are sphinxes. Look them squarely in 
 the face ; at two steps' distance they do not 
 change countenance, not a muscle quivers. With 
 three opera-glasses turned straight upon her, the 
 youngest is motionless. She will not notice your 
 presence ; not a blush comes to her forehead, 
 not a quiver to her lips ; she goes on talking, 
 looking about through her glass. She treats 
 you as though you were only a wooden peg on 
 which three pieces of black cloth are hanging. 
 She is like a soldier in uniform, under fire ; the 
 
148 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 nerves are braced, but the front serene and head 
 erect. But the head-dress, the robe, a bit of rib- 
 bon, a twisted curl, the Hghtest and most care- 
 less of the movements of her fan, each one has 
 its voice, and each one cries out : 
 
 " I desire ; I shall have more ; I desire, and I 
 shall have, without stint and always." 
 
 One in front of me, with dilated nostrils, and 
 mobile lips, seems like a porcelain lamp lighted 
 by an interior flame ; her cheeks are growing 
 thin. The pupils brightened by the intense 
 white of the iris, the slightly hollow eyes express 
 desire and determination. She is pale, and her 
 eyes are pale. Her wonderful black hair, slightly 
 crisped, is the proudest, boldest of diadems, and 
 the white knots fastened on one side lend to this 
 magnificence a bright and fantastic charm. If 
 she talk or listen, it is for civility's sake ; her 
 hand plays negligently with the end of her lace 
 handkerchief; she is in repose, or at least seems 
 to be so. But how restless this repose ! The 
 most delicate and charming young panther is not 
 more prettily coquettish or more nervous than 
 she. Above all, her smile is alarming. She has 
 tasted of everything, drank in all the spiced delights 
 of our high-seasoned modern literature ; she has 
 gone through Balzac, George Sand and Flau- 
 bert, not as we, carelessly, or with critical pur- 
 pose. She has, in imagination, lived the lives of 
 their heroines, Mme. Bovary, Indiana, Mme. 
 Graslin, Mme. Marneff.'*' She has followed them 
 
THE WORLD. 
 
 149 
 
 with an inward eye of emulation, with the inten- 
 sity of lazy curiosity ; on her sofa in the long- 
 country afternoons ; she has multiplied and 
 heightened her sensations by what she has seen in 
 society, by constant visits to the theatre, by the 
 rivalry of dress ; she has fed on imagination and 
 inordinate longings. Parisian irony has passed 
 it all througfh its alembic. The critical sense is 
 awakened by every object and every pleasure. 
 An exacting taste and cutting wit, always prompt 
 and ready, have destroyed the possibility of 
 every ordinary enjoyment, every serious thought : 
 " I laugh at you and everything else. I wish 
 to amuse myself, not in the common way, but in 
 splendor and the pursuit of delicate and intense 
 pleasure. Find me these; these I need, these 
 you owe to me ; I have a right to them, as the bird 
 to its flight, or the horse to his speed." 
 
 II. 
 
 Shall I prove this to you ? Listen to the story 
 
 of a toilette ; Mme. S , three steps distant 
 
 from me, wears a dress which cost six hundred 
 francs. The husband, a writer of romances, 
 earns just six hundred francs a volume for each 
 edition published. His capital to-day is fifty 
 thousand francs ; he had one hundred thousand 
 six years ago ; each year he breaks in upon it. 
 But the dress is of a charming shade of pink, 
 with small figured flounces, which glisten like 
 scales ; and her superb shoulders rise out from 
 
I50 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 their round and smooth satin above a narrow 
 knot, which permits a view in all its fulness of 
 the fine white arm, as it rests in graceful curve on 
 the velvet of the box. 
 
 What will they not do for a dress ? There is 
 in Paris an old photographer, quite the fash- 
 ion some five years ago. This man under- 
 stood the art of notoriety and the display of his 
 wares ; he had a shop furnished in the fashion, 
 with Sevres vases and old illustrated books in full- 
 calf bindings tastefully arranged. By degrees the 
 mania seized him, he became a collector, bought 
 old Sevres, rare books ; he kept his carriage, 
 drove to the Bois, went to his shop in his equip- 
 age, spent his money royally. Protests, disasters, 
 failure ; seven per cent to the creditors. His wife, 
 formerly a milliner, set up a small dress-making 
 establishment. He gives advice, the tide of fash- 
 ion sets in, they take a first story on the boule- 
 vard. To-day he again drives his carriage, and 
 women do all sorts of mean thinofs to be dressed 
 by him. This little dry, dark, nervous creature, 
 who looks like a dwarf burned in the fire, re- 
 ceives them in his loose velvet coat, proudly 
 stretched out on his divan, a cigar in his mouth. 
 He says to them: **Walk, turn round; well; 
 come back in a week. I will compose you a 
 suitable toilette." It is not they who choose ; it 
 is he : they are only too happy — and to be served 
 by himself a personal introduction is necessary. 
 Mme. Francisque B , a lady of the best so- 
 
THE WORLD. 151 
 
 ciety, an elegant woman, went to him last month 
 to order a dress. " Madame, by whom are you 
 presented tome?" — "What do you mean?" — 
 " I mean that I dress no one who is not pre- 
 sented to me." She left, stifling with indignation. 
 Others remain, saying : " Let him be rude as he 
 likes, provided he dress me. After all, the tip- 
 top go to him." — Some of these, his favorites, 
 visit him for inspection before going to balls. He 
 gives little tea-parties at ten o'clock. To those 
 who express their surprise, he replies : " I am a 
 great artist ; I have Delacroix's feeling for color, 
 and I co7npose. A toilette is worth a picture any 
 day." If you lose your patience with his exac- 
 tions : " Sir, in every artist there is something of 
 the Napoleon.' When Monsieur Ingres was paint- 
 ing the Duchess of A he wrote to her one 
 
 morning : ' Madame, I must see you this evening 
 at the theatre in white, with a rose in the middle of 
 your head-dress,' The duchess countermanded 
 her invitations, put on the dress, sent out for the 
 head-dress, and went to the theatre. Art is 
 divine ; the bourgeois are made to take our 
 orders." 
 
 III. 
 
 The young men leave their stalls, wander 
 through the passages, standing on the tips of 
 their toes, stretching their necks to catch a 
 glimpse through the round glass into the interior 
 of the boxes. The look is that of those poor 
 
152 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 devils who stand before Chevet's"** windows in 
 long contemplation of a basket of peaches, or a 
 rich open terrine. 
 
 Conversation in the boxes. All the women of 
 fashion, and the demi-monde who are in the thea- 
 tre, are reviewed in turn. The men say witty 
 things, and stare outrageously through their opera- 
 glasses. To tell the truth, the music wearies 
 them ; they are here only to accompany their 
 wives ; I know one who always brings his jour- 
 nal of political economy. Most of them like the 
 Grand Opera better, and only enjoy the dancing ; 
 the ballet wakes them up. Thereupon the 
 women seem discontented, and their look says : 
 " Gross sensualists ; that is what men are." 
 
 The fashionable key now is practical raillery. 
 The actors are treated like so many paid manni- 
 kins. What a profession is that of an actor ! 
 what careless, weary, mocking looks from the 
 boxes ! In the very middle of a performance 
 people talk and look about with their opera- 
 glasses, while the prima- donna whines with frantic 
 struggles. 
 
 She is felt of, weighed, her toilette and voice 
 are estimated aloud in the semi-virtuous boxes, 
 in a low tone in the virtuous boxes — the ideal is 
 not one moment present. " She screams well." 
 — That is a fair abridgment of their praises. — 
 Some pedants announce their appreciation of her 
 method in technical terms. — Othello was being 
 given. There was a debutante ; at the tragic 
 
THE WORLD. 153 
 
 moment some one in a back box cried : " She has 
 backbone ; how much is she paid ? — Nothing. 
 She is on exhibition ; she pays for the privilege, 
 either by money or otherwise ; she is fat enough 
 for that." 
 
 In the circle, in full view, three or four boxes of 
 lorettes make quite a show. Their skirts puff up 
 to the very edge of the box : their hair, built up in 
 crimps and curls, attracts the eye like the fleece 
 of some exotic animal ; Roman earrings rattle 
 above the over-whitened shoulders ; they lean 
 forward purposely : they must be either wanton 
 or majestic ; they put on little airs, they smile to 
 excess ; such as you see them, with their seven- 
 franc gloves, their new carriage, their two lack- 
 eys, their hundred-franc box, their boyish man- 
 ners, they think themselves ladies ; and in misan- 
 thropic moments we ask if they are not right. 
 
 The sound of a faint and distant bell. The 
 fourth act begins, and a tide of black coats all at 
 once chokes up the passages. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I do not know why, but when I see them file 
 along, the thought of old Rome and of old Alex- 
 andria always comes up to me. One by one as 
 I close my eyes these modern heads look to me 
 like busts, and I seem to see in living motion 
 those of the fourth century in the Campana 
 museum.^^ 
 
 Then, as now, man had been fined down and 
 
154 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 narrowed by culture, by the display of pleasures 
 and the concentration of effort ; the great cap- 
 itals had inflamed the passions ; the soul of 
 man, infinitely complicated in its sentiments, no 
 longer felt the truly beautiful, which is simple ; 
 and a realistic art like that of Henri Monnier, 
 Champfleury, Daumier and Biard then copied 
 the deformities and the meanness, of which we 
 also are full to overflowing. 
 
 I made some notes to-day before some of 
 these antique busts ; go and see them, and tell me 
 whether these are not the heads and the bodies 
 which we meet to-day under black hats. 
 
 Diocletian, a haggard miser, old, grumbling be- 
 tween his toothless gums. 
 
 Commodus, a pale youth, sickly and strange, 
 with protruding eyes, looking like a dwarf; a sort 
 of bastard, the product of some monstrous cross, 
 restless, and troubled. 
 
 The whole back of the gallery, emperors, 
 empresses, consuls, great personages. — The dull 
 wrinkled clerk at twelve hundred francs. — The 
 thin gentleman with his chronic colic. — The sour 
 old woman, dried up with stomach aches. — That 
 calf's head, with its hanging puffy cheeks. — That 
 face with its giddy, dazed expression. — In a 
 word, all the petty individual absurdities ; the 
 jarring marks of trade, the littleness of human 
 nature ; all that portrays our likeness to the sick, 
 the bourgeois, the idiot, the corpse ; all that 
 shows man at table, in his dressing-gown, at 
 
THE WORLD. 155 
 
 his wardrobe, scolding his servants, earning two 
 sous. 
 
 What a contrast with the Greek moulds, the 
 heroic statues which stand alongside ! bodily life 
 in the open air, healthy, hardy, proud ; enduring 
 youth : agility, force, serenity ; the single and sim- 
 ple joy of a still virgin soul ; inborn nobleness, a 
 general aptness of understanding ! How far off 
 we are from that ! Almost as far as these sorry 
 Romans of the decline and fall. See the judge, 
 yellow from bad air, wrinkled by impatience, 
 stiffened by decorum ; this lawyer, with his wide- 
 awake, polecat head and his shining spectacles ; 
 this clerk, dried up in his overheated office, his 
 body half crooked, his complexion dim as the 
 water of a dirty stream. A kind of internal stake is 
 thrust into them deeper and deeper each year, de- 
 composing their features, distorting their forms. 
 They live, however ; and all this put together 
 makes up a brilliant civilization. We all resem- 
 ble these dancers, these actresses, these women 
 who open the boxes at the theatre ; all these 
 inhale the odor of gas, are lighted by the foot- 
 lights, turn night into .day ; and the whole to- 
 gether is the finest of our twenty theatres. 
 
 Not precisely similar, however. These people 
 of the fourth century were worn out ; although 
 wasted, we still live ; indeed, we live too fast. 
 Our Paris may burn us, but it brightens us also ; 
 some survive, and are all the more beautiful for 
 the process. I was shown a box of fashionable 
 
156 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 men— men of letters, travellers, and fast livers. 
 Three of them had that dead, immovable tint of 
 complexion which neither sun nor suppers nor 
 work can injure ; and heads like those of Vespa- 
 sian and Tiberius. Numbers have fallen by the 
 roadside, but those who endure are twice dipped 
 and tempered, and live in the flame as in their 
 element. 
 
 Even the lesser, people of ordinary trades, 
 with their faded or ruddy faces, are full of will, of 
 dash, or at least of stubbornness and of energy. 
 They run under the lash of competition, and they 
 will run till their last breath. They will earn 
 money ; they will rise in the world : they will 
 struggle against their wives, they will have their 
 mistresses, they will push their children forward, 
 they will still be gay and witty at their suppers. 
 In vain our lamp, with its concentrated flames, 
 spits out noisily and dirtily its corroding sparks ; 
 what though it smell so badly, it throws its light ; 
 at times it has its renewals and splendors, which 
 no well-ordered and wisely moderated machine 
 can ever equal. 
 
 You saw that sudden and superb flash in June, 
 1 848, in those street loafers of whom the revolu- 
 tion made soldiers. 
 
 V. 
 
 Fraschini screams too loud ; like Tamberlik 
 he holds and forces his notes to an excess which 
 will wear him out. Verdi does the same ; vul- 
 
THE WORLD. 157 
 
 gar, powerful, full of life, violent, nerves and 
 muscles in full tension, sparing neither himself 
 nor any one else, he would squeeze out and absorb 
 at once all the substance of passion and of 
 pleasure, even though he fell dead on the spot the 
 moment after. He resembles his audience, and 
 this is why his audience understand him. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LES ITALIENS. 
 
 It seems to me, that the last time I was at 
 " Les ItaHens " I was unjust to the audience. It 
 was very hot, and perhaps I was nervous when I 
 scratched off my notes. 
 
 A charming young girl of sixteen in the third 
 box, front. The box is hired by the year. Her 
 father and mother accompany her ; sometimes the 
 brother also, an elegant, a member of the Jockey 
 Club, with irreproachable cravats, a little self- 
 willed head, a dry manner, a haughty, defiant 
 air, and the hard look of a man accustomed 
 to manage and drive horses and fast women — 
 the women more roughly than the horses ; quite 
 i*egularly also, a great tall fellow, evidently from 
 the country, bearded and shaggy, with the air ot 
 an ourang-outang of distinction ; probably a hus- 
 band in expectation. A high family in excellent 
 position. The mother presents quite an appear- 
 ance, with her remains of beauty. Excellent 
 horses and superbly furred lackeys at the en- 
 trance. 
 
 Her name is Marguerite; she is mirthful, but not 
 
LES ITALIENS. 
 
 159 
 
 to excess; neither giddy nor prematurely quiet. 
 She is a happy child, wealthy, born in splendor, 
 to whom rich toilettes, balls, a chateau, are as 
 natural as air, and who might very easily say of 
 people who complain that they have no bread, 
 "Why don't they buy cakes, then ? "^^ " Such a 
 person is a rare creature in this world of enriched 
 plebeians, ambitious workers, forever smarting 
 under some trouble, or eaten up by covetous de- 
 sires. I have been watching her five or six even- 
 ings ; she refreshes and relaxes me. There is 
 contrast in it. When I observe the Parisians on 
 the boulevard, at the Bourse, at the cafe or the- 
 atre, I always seem to see a pele-mele of busy 
 and maddened ants, on whom pepper has been 
 sprinkled. 
 
 A very pretty toilette night before last ; a waist 
 of blue silk, close-fitting and showing her figure ; 
 rising a little in front upon the bosom ; above, a 
 soft nest of lace. Very modest and still very 
 young, her dress is cut quite high in the neck ; a 
 simple rose in her hair. But this delicate figure 
 so closely fitted, this sweet virginal white hid- 
 ing and indicating the bosom, is a skilful inven- 
 tion ; the invention is not hers, she follows the 
 fashion ; her mother dresses her ; she is still too 
 young to suspect the exact effect of her toilette ; 
 her ideas are too vague and too new ; it is I who 
 at this moment am explaining this effect as a 
 sculptor, as a man of the world ; she would blush 
 
l6o NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 to hear my explanation — and yet, in the half day- 
 light of her thoughts, she has some suspicion of 
 it ; she knows that it is becoming to her, that 
 another style of waist would not be so becoming, 
 that she pleases, and that the eye is attracted to 
 her figure. She goes no further ; she half sees, 
 in a diaphanous and golden mist, a whole aurora 
 of things. A very rose asleep ; while the vapors 
 of morning are vanishing, and masses of luminous 
 whiteness are spreading over the pearly sky, she 
 listens, motionless and as in a dream, to the 
 beatings of distant wings, the indistinct rustle of 
 a whole world of insects which will soon come 
 buzzing and murmuring around her heart. 
 
 (To the devil with metaphors ; one can say 
 nothing precisely with them, and when I read 
 these notes again, I shall no longer see her face 
 or recall her air.) 
 
 The coloring perfectly pure, the mouth quite 
 small ; on her half-parted lips a smile, a sweet 
 smile, graceful, quiet ; a rich, melodious voice ; 
 nothing hurried or timid ; she says ordinary 
 things without effort, without desire to say them 
 otherwise ; she does not dream of being witty, 
 she lives a natural life. Parisian life has not yet 
 caught her in its current ; she floats in it as a 
 swan on some beautiful lake. 
 
 (Decidedly I shall not get out of my meta- 
 phors to-day. — After all, since they will rise to 
 the surface, I must believe that it is the best way 
 of telling what I feel.) 
 
LES IT ALIENS. l6i 
 
 It is clear that she is at her ease ; that she does 
 not dream of rivalries, of intrigue, of coquetry ; 
 that she has never had a thought for money, that 
 our cares have never grazed her ; that beauty, 
 ornament, respect, admiration, have never failed 
 her ; she has never dreamed that they could fail 
 her ; do you for a moment think that water or 
 light can ever fail you ? She puts out her hand 
 in the morning, and finds a fresh toilette at her 
 bedside. When the curtains are drawn, is it 
 possible that the light should fall otherwise than 
 on a fresh toilette ? There is a little bell within 
 her reach ; do not bell-ropes always end in a 
 ladies'-maid ? The great court spreads wide in 
 front of the house ; can great courts exist with- 
 out an equipage ? On this equipage there grow 
 a coachman and lackeys, as cherries on a cherry- 
 tree. As for the grave porter who respectfully 
 throws open the folding-doors, the door produces 
 him naturally, with his new livery and red face. 
 Here is the Parisian definition of olives : little 
 green balls generally found around ducks. 
 
 She does not listen to Cenerentola ; she con- 
 tinues to talk in the very best passages, in the 
 sextuor. She listened no more, two days ago, to 
 Trovatore, From time to time she stretches out 
 her white throat with a swan-like movement, 
 smiles slightly, gives a moment's attention. In 
 her habits of thought, she is a princess ; the mu- 
 sicians are here for her, as in old times at the 
 
 court, paid workmen, listened to or not at pleas- 
 11 
 
1 62 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 ure, and dismissed by a gesture. It is only in 
 our century that artists are treated on a footing 
 almost of equality. Formerly, a painter was a 
 superior upholsterer, an undertaker of decora- 
 tions ; a poet, a musician, served for court festivi- 
 ties ; they were protected, and given their dinners 
 in the pantry; if they were admitted to the real 
 table, they were made sport of. Santeuil died 
 because the Prince of Conde emptied his snuff- 
 box into his drinking glass. Mozart was kicked 
 by the prince bishop of Salzburg. 
 
 She is here, because it is a fashionable place, 
 because she has nothing to do, because from the 
 box a review can be had of the gay world, be- 
 cause her carriage, her servants, her maid, are 
 here to serve her, to bring her and take her away, 
 without a thought of her own. Of the one hun- 
 dred and twenty francs that the box cost, she has 
 never thought a moment. If by chance she think 
 of it some day, she will only see six little round 
 yellow pieces, which pass from a hand to a 
 pocket. She would be very much surprised if 
 she were told that they would pay the room rent 
 of one of the women who open the boxes. As for 
 the passions and sadness expressed on the stage, 
 the grandeur of the music itself, all that we feel in 
 an opera, we that have tasted life and felt its 
 experiences, she has no suspicion of them. All 
 this is beyond her age and her experience. 
 
LES ITALIENS. 
 
 163 
 
 For her, these are nothing more than badly 
 dressed players ; the flowered cloak of Don 
 Mao'nifico is threadbare. The actresses seem to 
 
 O 
 
 her to be miserably gotten up. In her eyes 
 they are beings of another species ; ladies'-maids, 
 who ape real ladies. When the Trovatore sung, 
 she only saw his beard, which was too large, and 
 his mouth, which he opened too wide. I will 
 wager that she would have just the same feeling, 
 should she see a juggler lifting heavy weights. 
 " Poor man," she would say, " he will hurt him- 
 self" In the bottom of her heart she thinks these 
 passionate scenes grotesque. She cannot under- 
 stand why the actors go on in such mad fashion. 
 The great lamentation of the orchestra, the 
 long and painful sobs, the swelling sounds, which 
 rise like the furious shouts of shrill voices, affect 
 her in the same way as the vulgar, muddy people 
 who gather in jostling crowds in the boulevard 
 of a rainy day. She casts a glance upon the 
 handles of the violins when the bows grate, and 
 the fingers are so busy ; she thinks then of the 
 spry little mice which turn their cages so indefati- 
 gably. Last year, when the Hell of Dore was the 
 fashion, I saw in a drawing-room just such young 
 girls turning over the leaves of the beautiful 
 satin pages with cries of pleasure. " Oh ! how 
 pretty ! Oh ! the funny heads ! Oh ! the ser- 
 pents ! Oh ! my God ! he has a pitchfork ! " 
 That year, I believe, Alceste was given at the 
 opera, and the young women, during the terrible 
 
1 64 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 air of the sacrifice, whispered, stifling with laugh- 
 ter, " But it is real meat the}^ are putting on 
 the altar ; open the opera-glass, quick ! Oh, 
 heavens ! they are real chops ! " I will wager 
 my life the music they like the best is the Rendez- 
 vous bourgeois^^ 
 
 (It is I who am the bourgeois, the fool. What 
 a miserable habit always to be looking on the 
 worse side of everything, as I do ! I was much 
 happier a little while ago, as I thought of that 
 blue dress, and pictured to myself that mignonne 
 dimple which hides in her neck beneath her 
 golden hair. Well, be it as it may, there is no 
 creature perfect. A fine discovery certainly, and 
 much good it is to me to run my nose against a 
 solid truth. Nothing is ti^ue, but form and the 
 dream it suggests ; it is with music, not with rea- 
 soning, that it should be commented upon.) 
 
 At midnight, returned home ; by a bright fire 
 and in a warm room, when all the servants are 
 gone to bed, and there is stillness, when nothing 
 more is heard but the distant roll of some belated 
 carriage — how comfortable one is in an easy-chair ! 
 The theatre and acting of every kind are coarse 
 things ; indeed, all reality is coarse. There is 
 nothing wholly beautiful, and wholly sweet, but 
 waking dreams. Then you forget yourself, and 
 watch mechanically the slowly moving hands of 
 the clock. The inward images come, take shape, 
 and vanish. Fragments of melody rise up to 
 
LES ITALIENS. 
 
 165 
 
 memory ; they seem so vivid, you are at once face 
 to face with the charming, passionate soul of the 
 master ! What a happiness to be freed from the 
 actors, the foot-Hghts, the frippery of the theatre, 
 from all the veils which fall between our feeling 
 and his feelino- ! It is not Verdi who sincfs 
 within me at such times, nor Rossini, nor any 
 Italian; it is Mozart. I went last year ten times 
 to hear Cosi fan tutte, and it is with those airs 
 in my memory that I think of the fresh and 
 graceful face that I saw this evening. 
 
 I recall the scene, and the warm, luminous 
 country wherein it is laid. The terrace rising on 
 the seashore among the cactus bushes, with the 
 bowers engarlanded with roses, on the edge of 
 which a fig-tree rests its heavy, jagged leaves. 
 Felicity, tenderness, love overflowing, lonely and 
 tranquil, are there in their native land. The air 
 is so soft that to breathe it is happiness enough. 
 The distant landscape is so velvety that the eye 
 never wearies of it. The broad sea stretches 
 out in front, radiant and peaceful, and its lustrous 
 color has the delicacy of the full-blown periwinkle. 
 A mountain Hfts to heaven its brow striped with 
 blue and gold ; the light dwells in its hollows ; it 
 sleeps there imprisoned by the air and distance, 
 clothing the hill-side as with a garment; and still 
 beyond, the last ranges of the hills, wrapped in 
 pale violet, float and disappear in the changeless 
 blue. The richest ornaments of hot-house plants, 
 the pearly veins of the orchis, the tender velvet 
 
1 66 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 which fringes the wings of the butterfly, are not 
 more soft, and at the same time more splendid. 
 The thought turns naturally to the most beauti- 
 ful objects of luxury and nature, to silken skirts 
 streaming with light, to the embroidery which 
 stripes a moire, to the rosy, living flesh which 
 throbs beneath the thin veil. Can one think of 
 aught else than happiness and love? 
 
 Mozart has thought of nothing else. The play 
 is absurd, and so much the better. Need a dream 
 be probable ? May not true fantasy, pure and 
 thorough sentiment, plane above the laws of life ? 
 In the land of the ideal, as in the forest of '"As 
 you like it" are not the lovers freed from the ne- 
 cessities which constrain us and the chains under 
 which we crawl ? These lovers wear the disguise 
 of Turks to test the attachment of their mistresses ; 
 they feign to poison themselves ; the waiting-maid 
 is physician and notary by turns ; and their mis- 
 tresses believe it all. I also would fain believe in 
 these follies for a moment, for as few moments as 
 you choose ; and it is just for this reason that the 
 emotion I feel is so delightful. I will do as the 
 musician does : I will forget the intrigue. The 
 piece is satirical and comic ; with him I will look 
 upon it as sentimental and tender. On the boards 
 there are two Italian coquettes who laugh and lie ; 
 but in the iJtztsic no one laughs and no one lies. 
 At the most they smile ; and even tears are next 
 neighbors to smiles. When Mozart is gay, he 
 never ceases to be noble. He is not a bon vivaiit. 
 
LES ITALIRNS. 
 
 i6y 
 
 a mere brilliant epicurean, as Rossini is. He makes 
 no mockery of his feelings. He is not satisfied 
 with a vulgar joy. There is supreme delicacy in 
 his gaiety. If he indulges in it, it is only at inter- 
 vals, because his soul is flexible, and in a great 
 artist as in a perfect instrument there is no chord 
 wanting. But his base is a whole-souled love of 
 perfect and happy beauty. He will not long 
 make sport of his mistress ; he will adore her ; he 
 will stand with his look long fixed upon her eyes 
 as on those of a divinity. He will feel his heart 
 melting before her, and the smile which parts his 
 lips is a sign of happiness. What is much better, 
 he has put goodness in his love. He does not 
 dream of enjoyment, as Rossini does ; he is not 
 transported like Beethoven by a sublime senti- 
 ment, by the violent contrast of a heaven suddenly 
 opening in the midst of a protracted despair. 
 His dream is to render the person he loves 
 happy. What a heavenly air the cavatina of 
 the second act ! How suavely melancholy and 
 tender ! How the sweet melting accompaniment 
 twines around the melody, and how, an instant be- 
 fore, the sad notes of parting swelled and fell in 
 affectionate caressing modulation ! Mozart is as 
 good as he is noble, and it seems to me that were 
 I a woman I could not help falling in love with 
 him. 
 
 The flutes and voices accord among the fine 
 dashes of the violins which capriciously inter- 
 weave their embroidery. The voluptuous har- 
 
1 68 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 mony comes in like a cloud of perfumes which the 
 slow breeze has gathered up in its passage over 
 some garden in bloom. Fresh cheeks, laughing 
 eyes appear in flashes, and the blue corsage, the 
 leaning form, the round and dazzling shoulder, 
 detach themselves clearly on the border of the 
 terrace. Beyond, the great open sky, the azure 
 sea, shine ever on in the serenity of their joy and 
 of their immortal youth. 
 
 One, two, three o'clock in the morning. My 
 fire is out ; I have taken cold, and to-morrow I 
 shall have a cold in the head. But I have drawn 
 out of my young girl all that she was worth. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A PROFOSIT/OiV, NEW, AND SUITED TO THE 
 TENDENCIES OE MODERN CIVILIZATION, 
 DESIGNED TO ASSURE THE HAPPINESS OE 
 HOUSEHOLDS AND TO ESTABLISH ON A 
 SOUND BASIS A FIRST-CLASS INSTITUTION, 
 HITHERTO LEFT TO ARBITRARY DIRECTION 
 AND TO CHANCE. 
 
 Utile Dulci. 
 
 To Monsietir the Director of La Vie Parisienne. 
 Monsieur : It is with a sentiment of profound 
 pity and regret, that an impartial observer 
 witnesses to-day the growing anxiety of French 
 famihes concerning the most important affair of 
 life ; I refer to marriage. In other countries, in 
 Germany, in America, young people choose for 
 themselves. They are allowed to walk together, 
 and to become acquainted with one another ; each 
 one is the arbiter and the workman of his own life. 
 Here the parents bear all the burden. Toward 
 fifty-five, many quiet persons, who until then 
 have passed their evenings in taking tea, and 
 whist-playing, feel all at once the necessity of 
 giving balls ; this is because there is a grown-up 
 young girl in the house. It is sad to see the 
 stout mother struggling to give herself a waist, 
 and, after a long eclipse, displaying in the bright- 
 ness of the chandeliers her shoulders of fifty, 
 
170 NOTES ON PARTS. 
 
 which had better be under cover. It is sad to 
 see the father accosting his slightest acquaintance 
 on the boulevards, and by means of a half-dozen 
 preconcerted phrases soliciting their good offices. 
 It is still more sad to see him put on his harness 
 four times a week — I mean his dress-coat, set off 
 by a white cravat — make himself a way to two arm- 
 chairs, in a crowded ball-room, install his wife 
 and his daughter, and then leave them to hunt up 
 dancers and other presentable young men. The 
 young girl, dressed off like a shrine, puffed out 
 like a balloon, covered with ribbons, sits motion- 
 less, her eyes downcast, under the exploring fire 
 of forty eye-glasses ; while the mother, between 
 two ladies whom she does not know, unable 
 either to talk or move, reddens with heat and 
 fatigue, opens her eyes in a set way, crab-fashion, 
 looks to see what time it is, and makes heroic 
 efforts to keep awake. But the spectacle is 
 truly painful in the country ; there the tribulations 
 of parents are endless ; the consumption of new 
 gloves, of hair nets, of caps, of bottines, grows 
 all at once monstrous ; country parties and 
 carriage-hire multiply ; an infinite amount of 
 poultry perishes, a sacrifice to the public good ; 
 and as the stomach is the road to the heart, 
 venerable bottles are drawn from their spider 
 webs each Saturday to entice an unusual crowd of 
 guests. If it be estimated that a family in such 
 circumstances gives in two years' time eight or 
 ten balls, as many dinners, and takes the 
 
A NEW PROPOSITION. 
 
 I7T 
 
 daughter to a hundred balls and dinners ; if to 
 this budget extraordinary be added the neces- 
 sary supplements to the daily toilette ; if to all 
 that be joined the cabs, coupes, coaches, carriage 
 of the father's letters, and the infinite number of 
 diplomatic phrases {^Time is moitcy) which he 
 has had to compose and pronounce, — the total 
 expenses may be summed up at about a year's 
 income — say twenty thousand francs, for the 
 middle classes. 
 
 Is not this a severe load for these poor parents, 
 and is it not afflicting to see such a disproportion 
 between the cost and the result of advertisement ? 
 How many candidates for a young girl's hand 
 are in this way recruited ? Fifty or sixty vaguely- 
 possible, five or six who will be seriously looked 
 into, and among whom a choice must be made. 
 Such is the figure which is given to me by 
 several ladies singularly expert in matrimonial 
 statistics, and in which, I think, full confidence 
 may be placed. Now, I ask if five or six candi- 
 dates is a satisfactory result for twenty thousand 
 francs of advertisement } This puts their average 
 at four thousand francs, and certainly that is too 
 dear ; particularly if it be considered that two at 
 least, when closely looked into, have presented 
 cases of redhibition; that two others when 
 brouQ-ht within the enclosure have shown some 
 unacceptable paces ; and that finally the last, the 
 happy preference, has only been permitted to 
 drag the pretty caleche because the pretty 
 
172 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 caleche could not remain indefinitely under the 
 shed. 
 
 A good proof that the choice is too limited is 
 the enormous part that chance has in the result. 
 For want of a sufficient supply in the market, the 
 choice is made at random, as occasion serves. 
 My young landlord was signing a power of 
 attorney two months since before his notary. 
 An idea strikes the notary. He measures him 
 from head to foot, verifies that he is not yet bald, 
 adds up inwardly the total of his property, and 
 cries out, " Parbleu ! my dear fellow, you are 
 just in time. Twenty years ; pretty ; blonde ; good- 
 natured ; solid family ; fortune in real estate ; two 
 hundred thousand francs cash, perhaps more ; 
 three hundred thousand francs in expectation ; 
 the farm is on the line of a projected railroad." 
 The marriage was arranged. My old friend 
 
 B paid a visit one day at a house where a 
 
 country cousin had just arrived on a visit to 
 Paris to renew her false set of teeth, made of 
 hippopotamus bone.'^^ He is very polite ; she 
 found him agreeable ; made inquiries about him, 
 learned that he had a daughter, thinks of a 
 charming government attorney of her neighbor- 
 hood, a person quite out of the common line, 
 who the past year out of twelve cases had 
 obtained twelve convictions, of which three were 
 capital, and would be presented for the cross of 
 honor the next year. The marriage was thus 
 'arranged. It is by such lucky hits that the 
 
A NEW PROPOSITION. 173 
 
 cogs are started. I myself, Monsieur, some 
 time after my return, when the dollars gained in 
 salt pork and oils surrounded me with a lumi- 
 nous halo, and that a future Madame Frederick- 
 Thomas Graindorge sometimes flitted before 
 my too tender eyes, — I myself have seen mar- 
 riages spring up before me in the most absurd 
 ways. For instance, once on the boulevard a 
 friend tapped me on the shoulder just when the 
 beginning of digestion gave a little more intimacy 
 to our conversation ; on once leaving the corn 
 doctor ; again when after taking a plunge at 
 Deligny's,"*^ I came to the surface of the water 
 blowing like a porpoise. Certainly a system of 
 publicity so inadequate that these sorts of acci- 
 dents are necessary adjuncts, is but a poor kind 
 of fishing tackle, and one may surely express 
 astonishment that in the general improvement 
 of machines, unfortunate parents can find no 
 better net than this. 
 
 Many honorable promoters of industry have 
 sought to remedy the evil by establishing matri- 
 monial agencies, which register both the offer 
 and the demand, and bring into general commu- 
 nication throughout France the customer and 
 the purveyor. Truly, and my hand upon my 
 heart, 1 ask myself why a market of this kind, so 
 regular, so convenient, so well ordered, so like 
 the Bourse of Paris and the London Stock 
 Exchange, has not received more general consid- 
 eration. I believe for my part that those who 
 
174 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 decry it do so from pure hypocrisy. For what is 
 more useful and justifiable than a Bourse for 
 affairs ? Is not marriage an affair ? Is anything 
 else considered in it but the proper proportions ? 
 Are not these proportions values, capable of 
 rise and fall, of valuation and tariff? Do we 
 not say, a young girl of one hundred thousand 
 francs, of two hundred thousand francs ? Are not 
 life-situations, a handsome figure, a chance of 
 promotion, articles of merchandise quoted at five, 
 ten, twenty, fifty thousand francs, deliverable 
 only against equal value ? Is not my nephew, 
 M. Anatole Durand, worth a hundred per cent 
 more since he is said to be set down in my will ? 
 If by good fortune he should call himself 
 D'Urand or Du Ranz (a Swiss title of nobility — 
 a cow on an azure field), would he not be worth 
 a hundred thousand francs more? What is 
 there more desirable and more in conformity 
 with the great principles of political economy 
 than to offer to each value the largest possible 
 market ? Do you know of any other way of 
 bringing it up to its true price ? What should 
 a legislator on commercial matters regard beyond 
 the concurrence of all the buyers among them- 
 selves, and of all the holders of merchandise 
 among themselves, so that no one may buy 
 above or sell below the current rate ? People 
 declaim against marriage brokers. What else, 
 I pray you, are the good friends, cousins, aunts, 
 near relations, notaries, physicians, confessors. 
 
A NEW PROPOSITION. 
 
 175 
 
 who take the field, except obhging, sometimes 
 official brokers ? You reply that they are not 
 paid. Indeed they are, and often in kind, by 
 favor, after the marriage, and at least by din- 
 ners, politeness, consideration, and services great 
 or small. I add finally that in practice nothing 
 more is heard of these susceptibilities ; that the 
 promoters of this industry are gaining ground ; 
 that every year their business increases ; that 
 many persons of the very best society have been 
 married by them, without any one being the 
 wiser ; that a certain musical drawing-room, very 
 much frequented and difficult of entrance, sup- 
 plies places where, for certain considerations, 
 introductions and interviews are arranged ; that 
 a certain well-dressed personage, respected in 
 society, who, with an income of only six thou- 
 sand francs, spends twenty thousand francs a year, 
 receives from them the necessary money to pay 
 for his varnished boots and dress his orroom. But 
 pride restrains parents, and it is stated as a mat- 
 ter for reijret that hio^h-toned families of eood 
 position in society refuse, to their great injury, 
 to have recourse to these salutary establishments, 
 by which alone they can be saved from their 
 deplorable embarrassment. 
 
 Many a time I have thought over this sad 
 state of things. Although an old merchant, and 
 more than half an American, I have a heart which 
 feels for those who suffer. I never see a father 
 trotting around in a cab, or a mother sitting as a 
 
i;6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 wall-flower, without putting myself in their place. 
 I desire the improvement of my country. I be- 
 lieve that if marriage has been unhappy in itself, 
 and difficult of attainment, it is because we have 
 not studied the means of facilitating and ameli- 
 orating it. I am convinced that the remedy, as 
 well as the evil, is to be found in our institutions 
 and our character. I have thought long on this 
 subject. I have studied the genius of my century 
 and of my country; I have taken into account 
 the administrative and centralizing spirit of 
 France, its reigning prejudices, its new wants. I 
 have profited by the institutions which are already 
 in operation, the inventions which are spreading 
 themselves on every side ; I have taken due note 
 of recent examples ; in short, I have spared my- 
 self neither time nor trouble. At last I have 
 arrived at a new idea, the praises of which it 
 does not become me to sing, but the utility and 
 beauty of which are so signal that even the sim- 
 plest development cannot fail to rally to it gene- 
 ral approbation. 
 
 II. 
 
 I propose to establish an universal matrimonial 
 agency, having its headquarters at Paris, with 
 agencies in each department of France and 
 abroad. This agency must, necessarily, be 
 under the control and direction even of the Gov- 
 ernment. It should form a distinct administra- 
 tion of it, similar to the other great branches of 
 
A NEW PROPOSITION. lyy 
 
 public service ; and men most eminent for their 
 tact, as well as for the purity of their reputations, 
 should be placed at its head. Existing agencies 
 can be absorbed in this, just as recently has been 
 the case in the matter of military substitutes ; and 
 in the second case, as in the first, it will be for 
 the great good of the public. 
 
 Every person who may desire to have recourse 
 to the agency will be expected to supply complete 
 and correct information upon the health, the phy- 
 sique, and the family of the applicant, medical 
 certificates, mortgage clearances, title-deeds, evi- 
 dences of income and of property, legal attesta- 
 tions as to correct life and habits. It is easy to 
 see what security and loyalty this step would 
 bring to marriage contracts. 
 
 As the two most esteemed and best informed 
 classes in France are the ecclesiastics and the 
 magistrates, and as, moreover, both the one and 
 the other are public functionaries, they will be 
 expected, each in his jurisdiction, and for the 
 candidates of his jurisdiction, to furnish to the 
 administration a moral portrait, which will go upon 
 file, with written observations by the school di- 
 rectors, heads of administration and other func- 
 tionaries, under whom the candidate may have 
 studied or been employed. Our admirable 
 French centralization may thus find an ingenious 
 and new employment, wholly satisfactory to the 
 family,^ and singularly calculated to promote 
 morality. 
 
 13 
 
1^8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 A grand photographic estabHshment should be 
 attached to the central agency, with a sub-agency 
 for each departmental subdivision. For a dower 
 of fifty thousand francs, a family will be entitled 
 to two portraits, one seated, one standing ; the 
 first a rear, the second a front view. For a 
 hundred thousand francs, the portrait will be a 
 sixth of natural size. For two hundred thousand 
 francs a quarter of natural size, and in addition, a 
 portrait on horseback. For two hundred and fifty 
 thousand francs the file will comprise a special 
 photograph of the skull (to attest the preserva- 
 tion of the hair), of the open mouth (to show the 
 state of the front and back teeth), of the feet 
 and hands (to show the aristocratic dimensions). 
 For exceptionally large sums a portrait of the 
 future husband may be required, in full dress, in 
 walking-coat, in dressing-gown, even in his night- 
 cap, or occupied in shaving. (This is essential, to 
 prevent any disappointments.) These portraits 
 and proofs may be consulted by any person who 
 can justify in a daughter to marry, and a suffi- 
 cient dower. You see what an extension the_ 
 art of photography will at once take, and the 
 travelling expenses, and deceptions which will be 
 saved to the candidates and their families are 
 infinite. 
 
 Each offer inscribed at the agency shall be ac- 
 companied by a demand, specifying approximately 
 the amount of fortune, and the kind of position 
 demanded in exchange. These offers should be 
 
A NEW PROPOSITION. j ^g 
 
 classified in the offices according to amounts and 
 professions. Every week a list posted at the 
 Bourse, and divided into categories, will publish 
 the number and kind of inscriptions, male and fe- 
 male. It will be seen, for example, by the weekly 
 statement that there are inscribed so many lyceum 
 professors, so many first captains, so many magis- 
 trates at three thousand francs, so many dowers 
 of sixty thousand francs offered, and bid for. Im- 
 mediately a rate will be established as for other 
 values. If, for instance, magistrates are in great 
 demand, their value will rise immediately : I mean 
 that they may pretend to larger dowers. The fluc- 
 tuations of commercial and political transactions 
 will have their effect upon this market, as upon 
 all others. A threat of war will send down the 
 value of officers. The news of peace in America 
 will raise the value of merchants. Each one, on 
 opening his journal in the morning, will have the 
 pleasure of finding his value inscribed, and 
 quoted ; by watching the rise and fall, he may 
 choose the moment when his matrimonial quota- 
 tion will reach the highest figure, and may marry 
 in conformity to it. I must abridge ; but the in- 
 telligent reader sees at a glance that my proposi- 
 tion will carry into marriages the precision, the 
 facility, the good sense, the logic we find in the 
 affairs of the Bourse, but which, by some inex- 
 plicable blunder, have not yet been introduced 
 into the affairs of the heart. 
 
 I stop. Monsieur, for it would require too 
 
l8o NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 much space to develop the happy consequences 
 which would flow from so sensible a project ; 
 one word more to throw light upon the philoso- 
 phic truth which gives authority and support 
 to my plan. I venture to believe, that here I 
 am in the great current of my century and my 
 nation. If there be a striking trait which distin- 
 guishes this age from all others, it is that the 
 positive sciences are in the ascendant, and that 
 their application is extending everywhere unceas- 
 ingly ; everybody is now occupied with statis- 
 tics, political economy, publicity, industrial, com- 
 mercial and practical customs ; on the other hand, 
 the striking trait, which distinguishes our nation 
 from all others, is that it is capable of, and eager 
 for organization, that private enterprise prospers 
 less than public institutions ; that it calls for cen- 
 tralization and government in everything. Now, 
 I ask you, is it possible to conceive a project 
 more in conformity with these two tendencies ; 
 which gives more guarantee to private interests, 
 more publicity to commerce, more regularity to 
 operations, more scope to affairs ; which creates 
 at once more commercial men and more func- 
 tionaries ; which renders life at once more con- 
 venient and more mechanical ; which brings man 
 nearer to those stamped and quoted values, duly 
 registered and circulating, to which he is striving 
 to assimilate himself? I do not know how public 
 opinion will receive this fertile conception ; but 
 happen what may, I have the approval of my 
 
A NEW PROPOSITION. 
 
 I8l 
 
 conscience ; I know, I feel, my hand on my 
 heart, that if the germ sprout, I shall not have 
 been useless to my kind. My conviction is so 
 strong, that I stand ready to pay in the first capi- 
 tal, persuaded that it will bring me in ten per 
 cent, more than if invested in salt pork and oils. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A DINNER PARTY. 
 " Madame, dinner is served." 
 
 The lady of the house rises with an air of com- 
 posure, and takes the arm of the most dis- 
 tinguished of her guests. He curves his arm, 
 bends gracefully, thinks of something to say, and 
 puts on a smile. There is a little disorder after 
 all. The men look hurriedly about them for a 
 console, on which to place their hats ; they halt 
 between modesty and politeness. Shall I offer 
 her my arm ? Is my cravat in order ? Shall I 
 go in second ? Shall I go in third ? But there 
 is no time for longer hesitation ; three black 
 coats pounce at once upon the nearest petticoat ; 
 the owner of the petticoat makes a chance 
 choice and the procession begins. At the tail 
 of it walks the odd man, with a half-satisfied, 
 half-reserved air, before the fine stiff lackeys. 
 Ah ! what a noble presence is theirs ! How well 
 they are powdered ! What a ministerial air ! I 
 have seen ambassadors and ministers of State. 
 I prefer the lackeys ; this stately mien is a part 
 of their business ; there is no gravity like theirs. 
 But above all they have the essential aristocratic 
 
A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 183 
 
 organ, calves — first-class calves are worth a hun- 
 dred francs additional wages ; a white-covered 
 calf above a buckled shoe carries one back to the 
 best days of Marly and Versailles. Alas ! if we 
 should turn up our trowsers how few of us dried- 
 up, bloated city deformities would be held fit for 
 lackeys ! 
 
 The ladies seat themselves, arranging and 
 spreading out their skirts. The gentlemen try 
 discreetly to read with their eye-glasses their 
 names on the little white paper which marks their 
 places ; they take them, bowing, and coughing to 
 clear their throats, and bury themselves beneath 
 the dresses on either side. An army of glass and 
 decanters sparkles all along the line ; each plate 
 has its little battalion ; the candelabras throw 
 their thousand bright jets of flame upon this bril- 
 liant arsenal ; silks, ribbons, and diamonds dance 
 in the light. In the centre of the table a large 
 vase, above which azaleas and arums lift up their 
 plumes of streaked satin and the delicate fringe 
 of their blooming flowers ; the clatter of spoons 
 and plates sounds like the rattle of hail on the 
 windows. What shall I say to the lady who sits 
 next to me ? 
 
 My nephew, Anatole Durand, who dines here 
 to-day for the first time, seems somewhat embar- 
 rassed ; he is sure to dine too freely ; in a quarter 
 of an hour his eyes will be inflamed and his cheeks 
 ablaze ; he will torment himself for an idea, and 
 
184 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 end in saying something ridiculous. Nephew 
 Anatole, at your last ball, after a pause of six 
 minutes, you said to the young girl you were 
 dancing with, a delicate, charming creature whom 
 I had in imagination selected for your wife : 
 
 '* Mademoiselle, you live at Chatou ? "*^ " Yes, 
 sir." " A wretched place to live in ! " And there 
 the conversation dropped. 
 
 " Nephew, if you will talk so little, try to find 
 something better to say." 
 
 For my part, I am quite at my ease ; I have 
 the salt pork and oil trade in reserve. From a 
 remark on some dish, on the lamp even, I pass 
 naturally enough to meat or petroleum, and let off 
 one or two stories ; my conversation once har- 
 nessed up, runs along of itself, like an omnibus- 
 horse on his daily track. When the champagne 
 comes in, I describe the American female : bony, 
 puritanical, well versed in her Bible, political 
 economy, and anatomy. I establish a parallel 
 between this preaching woman and any one you 
 choose. Rewarded by a smile and my conscience 
 at ease, I leave for the smoking-room. And as I 
 am over fifty-three, the lady who sat next me is 
 sure to say, as she enters the drawing-room, and 
 loud enough to be heard : '* Monsieur Graindorge 
 is certainly an oddity, but very agreeable." 
 
 Seated at the middle of the table is an ex- 
 ambassador, to-day senator ; he is the central 
 
A DINNER PARTY. 
 
 185 
 
 figure. A wooden face, not a muscle moves. I 
 have often remarked this expression in poHticians, 
 most often in men in office. From being so 
 much in pubHc view, they seem to catch the 
 motionless look of a face in fresco. This gentle- 
 man does not seem to be either amused or weary. 
 There he sits, passive, rigid, as void of sensation 
 as a sentry in his box. What is still more strik- 
 ing, he is by no means absent-minded. His 
 thoughts are not wandering elsewhere. They 
 are congealed, busied only in keeping up the 
 majesty of his air, and the erectness of his atti- 
 tude — not even this ; the erect attitude and the 
 majestic air are now habitual. It is no longer 
 an effort to maintain them. The animal assumes 
 the grave attitude without any interference from 
 the soul. Free from all care, the soul feels no 
 need of existence ; a dull half-smile perpetually 
 dw^ells upon his magisterial lips ; imposing 
 wrinkles mark his nose ; his long, sharply-cut 
 features resemble those of a bust. August spec- 
 tacle ! Indeed, with his red ribbon and his deco- 
 ration he is a splendid sight, particularly at table 
 or at whist, still more when he makes his ceremo- 
 nious bow. Then you ask yourself why is he not 
 always bowing ; certainly not because it is fatigu- 
 ing to him. That cannot be, the stoop and rise of 
 his body are too perfect ; it is hard to conceive 
 of muscles and a spine so disciplined, so sure of 
 themselves. Here are the correctness and elas- 
 ticity of the automaton. This evening he is in 
 
^186 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 a talkative vein ; he converses in carefully written 
 phrases with the banker sitting next to him, 
 about saddles of mutton, a remarkable dish, 
 carefully prepared in Austria and England, little 
 understood in France, but which, however, has at 
 last, after many attempts, found a suitable inter- 
 preter in the cook of M. de Rothschild. 
 
 First lady on his left, a thorough Parisienne ; 
 weary of her diplomatic stick, she has turned 
 towards her neighbor on the other side, a young 
 man. Twenty-four years of age, three rows of 
 large pearls in her head-dress, two broad rolls of 
 hair drawn back over her temples, which give her 
 a most fantastic and piquant air ; a slight figure, 
 shoulders in constant motion, the lightest, most 
 mignonne possible dress of rustling, gold-embroi- 
 dered satin ; the nose a trifle' long, but her teeth 
 are perfect, and her black eyes have a fire, a verve, 
 and a constant joyousness which illumine every 
 thought and every movement. Her merit is in 
 her frankness. She loves pleasure and the enjoy- 
 ment of gay and brilliant life, and she openly 
 avows it. For her, life only begins with candle- 
 light, at eleven in the evening, in gay society, in 
 the blaze of jewels, among embroidered, lustrous, 
 and silvery dresses, which spread and rustle on 
 the pink ottomans. Two or three parties each 
 evening, five or six dinners every week, " Les 
 Italiens," the opera, and in addition a drive to 
 
A DINNER PARTY. 1 87 
 
 the Bois after dinner, or a round of visits received 
 or returned, are not too much for her. She is 
 never weary or depressed ; she moves through the 
 world Hke a ship on the high seas, in fine weather, 
 all sails set. This mode of life has so pervaded 
 her being, that every shade of thought is colored 
 by it. Other young women are hypocritical about 
 their love of music, not she — she plays and laughs 
 at her playing ; instead of falling into ecstasies 
 over Beethoven and Mozart, she listens to Verdi 
 or Rossini, and that for ten minutes, no longer ; 
 a piece of music is no more to her than an iced 
 sherbet ; it fills up a quarter of an hour agree- 
 ably enough ; she has no desire to be thought a 
 woman of sentiment, or pretence to the vague 
 melancholy of a soul " incoinprise." These 
 German importations have made no impression 
 on her. She is a thorouMi Frenchwoman of the 
 eighteenth century, not unlike that Marquise, 
 who, before consenting to receive a great general, 
 asked, "Is he agreeable?" Far from paying a 
 grave, respectful homage to serious things, she 
 only touches them with the end of her parasol, 
 looks at them a half minute, curls her lip slightly, 
 and passes on. In politics she only knows of 
 two parties, the gloved and the unwashed. Relig- 
 ion is an admirable thing in itself, but then the 
 vicar has such bad manners ! Nothing more 
 praiseworthy than the domestic virtues, but what 
 to think of a lady who keeps kitchen-accounts ? 
 Painting is a great art, but why do painters have 
 
1 88 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 such bad eyes and wear spectacles ? M. de ■ 
 
 is the first statesman of the age, but he has the 
 head of a nut-cracker and the figure of a barrel. 
 She pushes this to such an extent that she is not 
 even vain ; she does not lose her time in comparing 
 herself with her neighbors ; their pretty toilettes 
 do not in the least disturb her ; on the contrary, she 
 enjoys them ; these toilettes are a part of the bril- 
 liant atmosphere she loves ; jealousy and rivalry 
 are wrinkled, grumbling intruders, whom she will 
 not admit to her society ; her disposition is too 
 gay, too like that of a ball-room, for such visitors 
 as these, her head too full of the buzz of ideas, 
 of rapidly changing thoughts of pleasure. You 
 should hear and see her as she relates the small- 
 est matter, tells the slightest incident of daily life ; 
 there is such spirit in look and action, such pre- 
 cision and clearness of accent in each word, such 
 dash in each idea, that to hear her gives zest to 
 life. 
 
 Four years married. Her husband took her 
 first to the Rhine, then to Italy. Then there 
 was the town establishment to arrange, the 
 equipages, the country house ; that took up 
 about two years. Now she plays with him as 
 with a ball ; not that she is malicious, but she 
 turns everything into amusement, even her hus- 
 band when he is by. He is growing fat, and be- 
 gins to puff. She teases him after dinner when 
 he is drowsy. She makes him run her errands. 
 The poor man, warm-blooded, and of a full habit, 
 
A DINNER PARTY. 189 
 
 cannot resist it, and for a year past has been fall- 
 ing in love with her ; he watches her at table, 
 he is uneasy. She is too amiable to the world 
 in general. Buy yourself a fine knife of well- 
 tempered, inlaid steel ; the sharper it be, and the 
 better the hilt, the deeper will it pierce your 
 breast. 
 
 This evening she is tormenting a new celebrity, 
 a composer. The unfortunate musician has just 
 published three nocturnes ; there is no more 
 sleep for him, he is overwhelmed with the mag- 
 nitude of his work. He has lost his taste for 
 venison and truffles. He pours wine down his 
 throat, and takes it for water. He is not at ease 
 unless some one is talking to him of his noc- 
 turnes. She has been talking music to him since 
 the soup, but not a word of his nocturnes. She 
 stops on the very verge, notes his greedy look, 
 then turns all at once to ordinary commonplaces. 
 As each quarter of an hour passes, she grows 
 more brilliant, and he more sad. About the time 
 the champagne comes in, he is in utter despair. 
 " My poor nocturnes ! " At this moment she 
 begins to sing the praises of Gounod. He wipes 
 his forehead with his hand, and by way of conso- 
 lation, asks for champagne. 
 
 The first courses are over. A slight pause. A 
 vague feeling of beatitude steals like a perfume 
 over the soul. Hunger is appeased, but the ap- 
 
I90 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 petite not yet satisfied. Digestion is good, but it 
 will be better. The stomach is the conscience of 
 the body, and when it is in enjoyment, all the 
 rest partakes of its pleasure. The guests notice 
 the arrival of the second order of courses in 
 voluptuous ease. Without definite thought, with- 
 out special remark ; but vaguely taking in the 
 glitter of the porcelain, the gay dresses, the soft 
 luxurious stuffs, the delicate and ingenious order- 
 ing of all this splendor. Thought loses itself, 
 watching the inclination of a graceful head ; the 
 sparkle of a diamond ear-drop ; in long admira- 
 tion of a lovely full-blown rose, nestling in fair 
 brown hair. On all sides, gay conversation, 
 smiles, seeming delight. This is the true Feast, 
 the solemn assemblage, most revered of all 
 worldly ceremonies, amid which the odorous 
 vapor of the meats rises in delicate spirals, like 
 the smoke of some august sacrifice. 
 
 The fourth guest on the left, a large landed 
 proprietor, late financier, now deputy for one of 
 the provinces, landed like a seal on the floor of 
 the chamber. Passionately fond of fish pate, a 
 gourmet of the first order. He has hot-houses, 
 and supplies his friends with pineapples. His 
 neighbor, a young referendary,^" still green, is try- 
 ing to cajole and flatter him, to draw him out in 
 politics and Hterature. He makes short answers, 
 and his knit brow seems to say : " What with 
 this creature, and his fine phrases, I am losing 
 the flavor of this sauterne." 
 
A DINNER PARTY. igi 
 
 A woman of forty, melancholy. She has noth- 
 ing to do, and her nose is growing red. 
 
 Who is this at the end of the table, with close 
 shaven chin and black whiskers ? That toady 
 de D ! He is everywhere. 
 
 An assistant professor in the Law School, tall, 
 thin, with spine bent, always bowing ; presented 
 to everybody, pushing himself everywhere, assid- 
 uous everywhere, intriguing everywhere. Not 
 an idea, not a semblance either of talent or 
 conversation, with the gift neither of speech nor 
 of the pen ; yet he will succeed. He comes here, 
 as to ten other houses, twice a week, stands 
 before the fire-place, pays his court to all the 
 ladies, exchanges three empty phrases with 
 each man that comes in. He shows himself, 
 and is seen ; the image of his dull head and ob- 
 long figure engraves itself by mere force of repe- 
 tition on every memory. Impossible to forget 
 him, he is always in sight. He dwells in every 
 memory as the Dubarry Restorative, or the Rap- 
 hanel Siccative. Take him at his true value if you 
 will, that is, as a nullity, yet you cannot get him 
 out of your head. When the lady of the house 
 has a gap to fill in her list of guests, there he is, 
 his name under her pen. The minister, hesitating 
 between two candidates, will be sure to think of 
 him as a compromise ; he is a proper person, 
 who will keep in the shade, whose nomination will 
 
192 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 offend no one. He is good-tempered, wears an 
 everlasting smile, and can lean against the wall 
 with decorum for a whole evening. He will look 
 at the pictures, dance with the wall-flowers. He 
 dresses correctly, he does very well for one more, 
 as a bit of crockery on an etagere. Profit by his 
 example, nephew Anatole, there is the germ of an 
 Academician. 
 
 One of the ten prettiest women in Paris ; per- 
 fectly regular features, always in fresh toilette; 
 but a mere doll. Her husband an elegant but- 
 terfly. Not a care ; they seem made for one 
 another; to drive to the Bois, to dance, to go 
 about, bowing to their friends, and paying their 
 visits. They send out seven hundred cards 
 every New-year's Day. She has smiled so much, 
 that at twenty-eight some imperceptible wrinkles 
 are already beginning to show themselves about 
 her eyes and lips. 
 
 When I approach her, I inwardly foresee the 
 gesture, the movement of the head, and the reply 
 my words will provoke. When you pull the 
 strings of a bird organ you always know what 
 tune it will play. Pretty showy canary, hopping 
 so coquettishly about the polished bars of your 
 gilded cage, near your well-filled seed-box, your 
 plumage is soft and sleek, your delicate little 
 claws dance all day long without fatigue, your 
 beak picks up with saucy air the choice grains of 
 millet with which you are so bountifully supplied. 
 
A DINNER PARTY. 1(^3 
 
 your throat has its repertoire of sharp and pretty 
 Httle cries, and I would pay a hundred francs for 
 you, cage included ; but I should rather have you 
 stuffed than alive. 
 
 I believe they are laughing, though in a quiet 
 way, at the other end of the table. An attache 
 seated near an English authoress, a religious per- 
 son, is trying to defend French novels, which are 
 accused of corrupting our morals. After several 
 passes and replies, he said to her with an air of 
 sincerity: "Miss Matthews, you judge us se- 
 verely, because you have not read us enough ; 
 permit me to send you to-morrow a French novel 
 just out, famous already, the most profound and 
 the most useful of the moral writings of our day. 
 It is written by a sort of monk, a true Benedictine, 
 who has been to the Holy Land, and was even 
 shot by the infidels. This monk lives in a her- 
 mitage near Rouen, shut up day and night, and 
 ceaselessly at work. He is very learned, and has 
 published a book on the archaeology of Carthage. 
 He ought now to belong to the Academy ; there 
 are hopes that he may succeed Monseigneur Du- 
 panloup. He is not only a man of genius, but 
 thoroughly conscientious. He studied dissection 
 for a long time with his father, who was a physi- 
 cian, and understands the moral by the physical. 
 If he has a fault, it is that he is too exact, too 
 painstaking, too indifferent to praise. His aim is 
 to warn young women against idleness, vain curi- 
 osity, the danger of reading bad books. His 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 name is Gustave Flaubert, and the title of his 
 book is, ' Madame Bovary, or the Consequences of 
 Indiscretion.' " 
 
 . Miss Matthews was reassured: *'Tell me 
 where I can buy it ; I will translate it as soon as 
 I return to London, and we will have it distrib- 
 uted by the Wesleyan Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of Sound Doctrine." 
 
 Champagne is served a second time ; ceremony 
 is by degrees relaxed ; the chairs are slightly 
 moved from their places ; several of the guests 
 are leaning lightly on the table ; conversation is 
 engaged in with more familiarity and gayety, by 
 twos and threes, as chance assorts its little groups. 
 The servants, idle, napkin on arm, are beginning 
 to think of clearing the table ; and in the confused 
 sound of voices which cross each other, such 
 short phrases as these are heard : " Gounod is 
 only a half talent, a German seed diluted in 
 French sauce. — Buy Graissessac, they are fall- 
 ing. — Your true saddle of mutton is only eaten 
 with pepper. — There is only one contemporary 
 poet, Lecomte de Lisle. — The Theatre Fran- 
 
 ^ais would not have Henriette B ; there 
 
 would have been too many claqueurs in the or- 
 chestra stalls. — Don't talk to me of Meyerbeer : 
 he has genius, I admit, but too artificially served 
 up for me. — Those ribbons are so becoming to 
 you ! Only such delicate figures as yours can 
 
A DINNER PARTY. l^^ 
 
 stand such wide ribbons ! — I was wrong to touch 
 that ice ; I shall have a stomach ache. — M. Thiers 
 is the first orator of the century, — As M. Scribe 
 is the first dramatist of the century. — As M. Auber 
 is the first composer of the century. — As Horace 
 Vernet is the first painter of the century. — My 
 dinner sits heavy; I shall go to the smoking 
 room." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A WEDDING. 
 
 I. 
 
 It is ten o'clock: the bride is dressed, and 
 has taken her position with her mother at the 
 door of the large drawing-room ; two or three 
 near kindred have arrived ; the lackeys have 
 their gloves on, and are ready to announce the 
 visitors. 
 
 I know the house, it has been turned upside 
 down ; it has had its toilette made also ; two days 
 of upholstering, new hangings, hired furniture ; all 
 the old thinofs have been stuffed into the alcoves 
 and closets. The small drawing-room has been 
 freshened up, the father's study transformed into 
 a third drawing-room ; two bed-rooms have been 
 thrown open ; the beds, all nicely covered in silk 
 of delicate tints, look well in their lace dresses. 
 The easy-chairs are soft and comfortable, some 
 of them in dark corners, where I may yawn at my 
 ease. 
 
 The whole display is correct, and in perfect 
 taste. Moreover, it is a very genteel marriage, 
 twenty-eight thousand francs income to begin 
 upon, and as much more in expectation ; a re- 
 spectable family, well connected, rich bourgeois; 
 
A WEDDING. 
 
 197 
 
 the groom rides well, has a great beard, a landed 
 estate in Le Perche, is already member of the 
 General Council, and is thinking of running for 
 deputy. His bows are perfect ; he brings up the 
 rear with the father-in-law, and receives the men ; 
 impossible to be more correct in behavior ; every 
 ten minutes he goes up to the bride and says a 
 word ; his manner is neither too devoted nor too 
 stiff. His arm is ready, his spine curved at the 
 proper angle, a smile on his lips ; he escorts the 
 ladies to the small drawing-room, where the rosy, 
 majestic notary and his clerk, who stands as stiff 
 as a fashion pattern, present the pen for the 
 signature of the contract. 
 
 A sound of carriages rolling, then suddenly 
 stopping. Roll upon roll, at first indistinct, now 
 increasing, then crossing and redoubling with 
 others, at last a confused thunder. The glasses 
 rattle, the coachmen shout to each other; the 
 pavement shines with strange reflections, and in the 
 perfect darkness of the street the lights from the 
 gas-lamps waver like so many dancing plumes. 
 The women in their cloaks and hoods enter and 
 mount the stairs, rounding out their crushed 
 skirts ; in the ante-chamber they take a moment- 
 ary look at the glass ; then all at once, as though 
 by word of command, put on their airs of cere- 
 mony. Each has her own. Madame S calls 
 
 up her simple smile. Madame de B advances, 
 
 puffed out and resplendent, with an undulating 
 motion, measured and precise as a military march. 
 
198 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 Little Louise D swims along, slight and 
 
 nervous, under the shelter of the solid rampart of 
 her moving bastion of a mother. Some look as 
 though they were marching to the assault of a 
 city, others like soldiers entering after a victory ; 
 a good eye can detect the character of each in her 
 attitude. 
 
 No end of compliments and embraces ; the 
 bride and her mother each minute and a half 
 plunge deep into their skirts. The rooms fill 
 up ; satin shoulders crowd each other on the vel- 
 vet sofas ; the flowers in the hair dance with the 
 movement of heads ; there Is a continuous mur- 
 mur, a low and general whisper, accompanied by 
 the rustle of silk. The men, looking grave, in 
 their ribbons and decorations, begin to move 
 about with an air of severity and resignation be- 
 coming to their rank and years. The groom and 
 his father-in-law are saying for the ninetieth 
 time, " How kind in you to have come ! " The 
 groom hears for the ninetieth time, " I congratu- 
 late you, my dear boy. You are a lucky fellow." 
 Hand-shaking, feeling accents. The pen of the 
 notary is heard scratching in the next room. 
 The near friends slip away into the second bed- 
 room, the one which is hung in pink, and exam- 
 ine the casket of jewels which lies spread open 
 on white velvet. The heat increases, and I be- 
 gin to think of the ice-cream. 
 
 The father meanwhile is mutterino- this little 
 monologue : " It is a matter of fifteen hundred 
 
A WEDDING. I go 
 
 francs for the evening and the dinner. My boots 
 are too tight, and I would enjoy myself much 
 better at the club. But after all this is a grand 
 review day, I must show myself in this way. 
 Here I show off my friends — three grand crosses 
 and ten commanders of the Legion of Honor, a 
 marshal of France, two first-class presidents, a 
 dozen counts and veritable marquises. All this 
 goes to the credit of my daughter. I am a man 
 of settled position, and here is the proof of it. 
 If my son-in-law want a post under government, 
 and I take a fancy myself to see my name in the 
 Monitcur, if I wish to become the manager of 
 some company, the good things of the world will 
 come to me naturally ; the water always runs to 
 the river." 
 
 Little intermittent solos of the mother : 
 " Jeanne is too tight-laced. — Mon Dieu ! she 
 has forgotten to be affectionate to the presi- 
 dent's wife. She thinks her sharp as vinegar,^' 
 Jeanne my darling, remember your husband's 
 election. — The ices do not come.^ — Jeanne, you 
 have torn your glove. — That lamp is going to 
 flare. — Jeanne, you do not look pleased enough. 
 Jeanne, don't look so delighted. — My dress is 
 going to split in the back." 
 
 General chorus of young girls, sotto voce: "I 
 would like a blonde better. — For my part, I 
 never should dare to talk in that way to my 
 bridegroom. — His red ribbon is becoming to him. 
 He has only one, my brother has three : a red, a 
 
200 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 yellow, and a parti-colored one. — Will she sign 
 first? That is a lucky sign, they say that then 
 she will be mistress in her own house. — Ah ! 
 mon Dieu ! real diamonds ! What a lovely little 
 cross, what pretty antique ear-drops ! — She has a 
 nice figure, but I like the shade of my hair better 
 than hers. — Pearl-gray is pretty, but she should 
 have puffs on the sleeves. — Is it Thursday that 
 she receives ? Jeanne, my dear, let me embrace 
 you warmly, just as I love you." 
 
 II. 
 
 I am an old friend ; Jeanne has presented her 
 husband to me ; I watched her as she did it ; 
 nothing could be more Parisienne, and so tho- 
 roughly fashionable. 
 
 This is inborn in her, and her education has 
 perfected it by simultaneous repression and 
 stimulation. The prettiest attitude of a thorough- 
 bred, is when he rears and paws the ground 
 under the curb. 
 
 An exquisite mixture of modesty and assur- 
 ance. It cannot be said that she has any mind. 
 Her mind is in the arrangement of her dress, in 
 her attitude, in the choice of that pale heather 
 which twines its berries in the meshes of her 
 hair. Besides, any real display of mind would 
 be quite in bad taste. In society this is only 
 permitted to married women, and at about thirty. 
 But she can talk ; she will take the lead in her 
 drawing-room agreeably enough, throwing in 
 
A WEDDING. 20 1 
 
 here and there those little phrases which start 
 ideas, and give a new turn to conversation. It is 
 not worth while to look for too much mind in the 
 dialogue of society ; to be perfect, it should not 
 be wholly void of sense, but nearly so. Sallies of 
 wit, sarcasm, originality, depth of thought, would 
 jangle sadly with its ordinary key ; everything 
 must be toned down. I am sure that in these 
 three hours the two hundred persons here present 
 have not produced a single idea, or a single word 
 worth noting. Its charm consists in manner, in 
 delicate modulations of voice, in changes of tone, 
 occurring without effort or abruptness, in an all- 
 pervading perfume of easy compliment and refined 
 language. Jeanne said to me : " Good-evening ! " 
 That, surely, does not require any great amount 
 of genius, but the sound of her voice was soft 
 almost as that of a flute, and the little courtesy 
 she made in her glistening and rustling skirts, 
 remains in the memory like some graceful picture. 
 That is enough. No one asks her for ideas ; 
 who ever troubled himself about the ideas of a 
 ballet ? 
 
 All this comes from the life she has led. We 
 men cram ourselves with reasoning ; we put our- 
 selves on a diet of Latin and mathematics ; we 
 stow away great rectangular ideas in our heads, 
 in all sorts of pigeon-holes ; hence our heaviness 
 and strength, and the stiff, machine-like move- 
 ment of our actions and our judgment. But 
 geography and the catechism only flow over the 
 
202 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 minds of these women ; nothing goes in ; the dry 
 and disproportionate formules sHp off like a shower 
 from a silk umbrella. Beneath this formal rain, 
 their true being forms itself, a being composed of 
 pure sensations, repugnances, sympathies, of im- 
 ages and vague ideas, which undulate and vibrate 
 continually. This produces an unexpected ac- 
 cord, strange in its perfect delicacy and correct- 
 ness. We are dumb, open-mouthed in surprise. 
 How is it possible that so ill-constructed an in- 
 strument can give forth such harmonious and 
 pure sounds ? 
 
 On the other hand, in this class of society at 
 least, the sound is quite feeble, and the scale of 
 notes quite limited. No serious or profound emo- 
 tion here. She is talking easily and quietly with 
 this young man, who to-morrow will be her hus- 
 band. She does the honors ; they seem to be 
 already two years married. She needs no self- 
 constraint to reach this half-smiling gayety. 
 She enters into marriage as she would step 
 into a carriage for a pleasant pleasure party. 
 Her only thought is of satisfaction in being 
 suitably established, with all the requisite acces- 
 sories—a well-dressed husband, of good family, 
 devoted, pleasing on horseback, four months 
 at Paris, eight months in a little chateau, balls 
 and toilettes in abundance, and twenty thousand 
 francs of marriage gifts. The bubblings of fervid 
 passion, the silence of resolve or suppressed an- 
 guish, the thought of a life at stake, or of an ideal 
 
A WEDDING. 
 
 203 
 
 attained, are a thousand miles off. She talks to 
 me of her head-dress, and asks some information 
 about the hotels at Nice, etc. A graceful doll, 
 agreeable to take upon his arm, a credit to him 
 in society, attractive in manner, awakening and 
 stimulating his taste by the perfections and nov- 
 elty of her toilettes ; that is all that the bride- 
 groom will find, and in faith I believe he would 
 be sorely embarrassed should he find anything 
 
 more. 
 
 III. 
 
 The great beadle advances solemnly, striking 
 the ground with his cane. All the candles are 
 lighted, the host and the tabernacle shine bril- 
 liantly between the columns, the copes and stoles 
 of the priests throw out fiery spangles, as the 
 gold-embroidered damask is set in motion by 
 their genuflections. On either side of the altar 
 the two frescos of Flandrin ^^ display their proces- 
 sions of noble, intellectual personages. In front, 
 enthroned in full view of all the company, in their 
 large arm-chairs of crimson velvet, the near rela- 
 tives, the bride pale as a spectre, the mother in 
 lace fit for a queen. All is sparkle and splendor. 
 The rich folds of the hangings catch in their vo- 
 luptuous clasp the trembling purple rays. The 
 organ peals fade away, and are lost in soft modu- 
 lations, by turns tender and grave, here and 
 there in light arpeggios which flit like a swarm 
 of golden bees scattering through the serene at- 
 mosphere. 
 
204 
 
 NOTES ON PARTS. 
 
 A very pretty opera, something like the fifth 
 act of Robert le Diable, but Robert le Diable is 
 more rehgious. In every Latin country, in 
 France, and above all at Paris, all is show and 
 ostentation. 
 
 M. Belamy, a famous preacher, delivers an 
 academic discourse, in rounded and perfect 
 phrase, with compliments for everybody — a 
 compliment to the mother, "who, to every men- 
 tal distinction, unites every delicacy of feeling" 
 (she has written a pamphlet on the Association 
 of the Holy Infancy). A compliment to the 
 father-in-law, "who, after having carried the flag 
 of France into remote countries where it had not 
 floated for six centuries, now offers to our degen- 
 erate age the rare and perfect union of the model 
 warrior and faithful Christian— (late colonel in 
 Africa; now churchwarden in his parish.") Com- 
 pliments to an academician present, "whose ex- 
 quisite style, drawn from the pure sources of the 
 grand seventeenth century, recalls, etc." Compli- 
 ments to a deputy, "whose eloquence excites and 
 soothes at will." CompHments to the young mar- 
 ried couple. All this, well delivered, in symmetric 
 periods, with chosen rhetoric, in an appropriate 
 tone. He sports with his cadences. An excel- 
 lent tenor : my neighbor, relating the scene to a 
 late arrival, said : " He made quite a hit." 
 
 IV. 
 
 A small boy and girl, pretty, and nicely 
 
A WEDDING. 
 
 205 
 
 dressed in tight-fitting velvet jackets, take up 
 alms. The company smile as they drop in their 
 offerings. Quite a pretty little interlude. 
 
 V. 
 
 Conversation in the church : " Jeanne is pretty, 
 but the groom is dull. — He is solemn as a stick ; 
 what a stupid air it gives him ! — That is the 
 regular style ; I should like to see you at it 
 once. — Have you some ten-sous pieces ? Give 
 me one ; I am not a relative, and have nothing 
 about me for the alms-bag, but gold pieces. — 
 Good - morning, good - morning ! What ! you 
 here. What brings you, the groom or the 
 bride ? The bride ; she is charming. — For my part, 
 I stay in the side-scenes, where one can move 
 about. — What do you think of Flandrin ? — Ah ! 
 yes, that great concern on the right is well 
 enough. — But the rest of it is an Etruscan 
 salmis, with biblical pretensions. A narrow 
 idealist, that man has ransacked his brain to 
 appear cold. — Come here, Bernard ; this is 
 shameful ; so this is your military punctuality ? — - 
 Don't speak of it ; for leave of absence my 
 colonel is a real bull-dog. — The bride is reading 
 her prayer-book ; there is modesty for you. — 
 What ! vocal music ; it is a twelve-hundred-franc 
 wedding. — No, fifteen hundred. You forget the 
 great hangings, and the carpet on the church- 
 steps. — Have you heard Madame de Lagrange ? — • 
 She sings well, good style and manner, but stiff 
 
2o6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 as a ramrod. — Here comes the wise and medita- 
 tive Varillon at last, in his white cravat, a great 
 book under his arm. — It is for my lecture at one 
 o'clock ; I am going to the sacristy ; I only cross 
 the church ; a shake of the father's hand, that is 
 all that is necessary. — Let us follow ; boum, boum, 
 bouf ! — In queue just as at the theatre. — Have you 
 said a word for me to your chief? — Not yet ; the 
 wretch was away. — Close up in front, — Where is 
 the father ? — There in that crowd, where they are 
 shaking hands. — A thousand congratulations, my 
 dear sir. — Delighted to have seen you ; a 
 thousand thanks. — Have you had enough, Ber- 
 nard? — I am off — (The Suisse.) — This way, gen- 
 tlemen, the passage to the right (pif, paf !). — Move 
 on, ladies, if you please ; keep in line, gentlemen 
 (pif, paf, boum !). — Fresh air ! thank Heaven ! we 
 are out of it. — The poor girl has made a hundred 
 and fifty courtesies, and polished off forty old 
 mugs. — Wait till I button my overcoat. — Beggars, 
 domestics, a staring crowd in line. It is the exit 
 of '.' Les Italiens " over again. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 
 
 My liver has troubled me this winter ; that is 
 what one gets from travelling in India. I have 
 kept my room, and for want of anything better 
 to do, I have taken a fancy to see the world as it 
 is painted ; on my table are the Comedies of Emile 
 Augier, and of Alexandre Dumas the younger. — 
 They paint to the life ; it is their business. Two 
 roles are always striking in their plays, as indeed 
 everywhere, — those of the lovers. — In fact, by 
 profession these characters are worthy of love ; 
 that is, as perfect as possible. Let us see a mo- 
 ment what perfection is in France in 1865 ; and to 
 begin with what is perfection in woman. 
 
 Formerly the thing was simple enough ; a 
 young girl was locked up in a box until she was 
 fifteen years old. At about this age she began 
 to go out, but under the semi-feudal skirts of her 
 mother. Her father, grave as a church sexton, 
 mounted guard alongside ; she dropped her eyes 
 and held herself straight ; those were her two first 
 duties. To delay the dawn of ideas and feelings, 
 to keep the soul in its candid and primitive ignor- 
 ance, to teach obedience and silence — that was 
 
2o8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the whole of education, repressive in everything. 
 I see every now and then two old ladies, who 
 have described their childhood to me. They were 
 brought up in Paris, but behind gratings and 
 gratings with closed blinds. No theatres, no 
 society, no holidays. At long intervals, at ten 
 o'clock in the morning the governess, escorted by 
 a faithful servant, carried them to the Jardin des 
 Plantes. When they went into the country, a 
 carriage came for them into the court of the 
 house ; arrived at their destination, they were 
 forbidden to run in the park ; they were to re- 
 main in the flower-garden in front, and never to 
 pass the two great vases on the second step. In 
 the drawing-room their embroidery, set in the 
 window jamb, marked the place from which they 
 were not to move. If any one bowed to them 
 they were to make their courtesy and withdraw. 
 At a quarter to eight they wished good-night re- 
 spectfully, first to the grand parents, then to their 
 mother, their uncle, their two aunts ; at eight 
 o'clock this ceremony was over ; at a quarter past 
 eight they were in bed. During the day they 
 embroidered, sewed for the poor, sung hymns, 
 visited their bird-cages, read Berquin, grew ten- 
 der over the white cat, which they called ' dear 
 little madame,' and looked every month for a 
 visit from a friend, a bourgeoise, but of the old 
 stock, who having some talent of her own, and 
 taking advantage of the general breaking down 
 of social distinctions, had obtained permission to 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 209 
 
 copy with her own hand the Essais dc Moralc^^ of 
 Nicole. 
 
 Imagine just such personages on the stage ; 
 give them some natural wit, add that native gen- 
 erosity of feeling which is common to all who 
 know nothing of life, and you have an Agnes 
 who has taken lessons in deportment, and of the 
 better kind, because they are not those learned 
 from a master, but from the daily example of the 
 family. A cloistered virgin, who knows how to 
 courtesy and to smile; is there anything more 
 charming? Timidity, blushes, natural move- 
 ments repressed by a sense of exquisite and 
 constant propriety, an imperceptible smoothing 
 down of thoughts and passions as they rise for the 
 first time to the surface ; in a word, the transfor- 
 mation of the child, who in a day at a word be- 
 comes woman ; the furtive glance gently stealing ; 
 the half-frightened eyes on the point of tears ; the 
 delicious inward disorder ; the dull crackling of 
 the frail, ardent, nervous organization through 
 which new ideas burst forth in flashes of sparks 
 — you will find all this in the writings and minia- 
 ture pictures of the last century, in the Marianne-^ 
 of Marivaux, in the prints of Moreau.^'^ Modest 
 carriage, piquant faces, delicate little arms nest- 
 ling in lace frills, pretty ankles perched like bird- 
 claws on high-heeled shoes, bodices you could 
 clasp in your two hands, adorable and correct 
 courtesies, saucy airs and graces half hidden in 
 attitudes of perfect modesty ; curiosities and fan- 
 14 
 
2IO NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 cies which now take alarm at their own being, but 
 wliich will soon not even take alarm at being 
 seen. Champagne in bottles ; the corks have 
 been thoroughly driven in by ecclesiastical mallets. 
 How the sparkling fluid laughs and foams already 
 beneath the glass ! This is the true drink of the 
 Frenchman, and each spectator in the parterre, 
 seeing the seal unbroken, holds out his glass, 
 puts his mouth forward, and already feels the 
 vapor rising from his palate to his brain. 
 
 The cork flies ; it went off in 1789 with many 
 a thing else, and it became necessary to look up 
 other types. Not such an easy matter ; one 
 of my friends, a dramatic author, confesses to me 
 that it is too much for him. At the theatre there 
 are fine eyes, fresh cheeks, charming figures ; 
 build upon that a scaffolding of false hair, and 
 dresses six yards long. But what to put into the 
 mouth of the doll ? The pranks of a spoiled 
 child, the affectations of a young girl, the oglings 
 of a grisette ; here and there a bit of graceful 
 good-nature, of the album style of sentimentality. 
 Beyond this nothing. The education of the old 
 school has disappeared, that of the new has 
 not yet begun ; they float between the remains 
 of the past and the first sketches of the future ; 
 half provoking and half timid, neither virgins 
 nor wives, half male, half female, with the recol- 
 lections of school-girls, the weak fancies of ac- 
 tresses. The luckless dramatic author says to 
 himself, striking his head, " I must marry a petti- 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 21 1 
 
 coat at the end of my piece. What shall I put 
 into this petticoat ? " 
 
 A little hussar, and he has a hundred reasons 
 to one for his choice. 
 
 First reason : the temperament. Nine times in 
 ten, the base of a Frenchwoman's nature is self- 
 willed vivacity ; they are by instinct stirring and 
 sharp, active and decided, prompt in their judg- 
 ments, confident in their opinions, incapable of 
 subordination. In German countries, woman 
 seems to be made from another stuff than man, 
 and serves as his complement ; here nothing of 
 the kind ; here woman is more refined and sub- 
 limated in essence, with a more excitable ner- 
 vous system than man ; his comrade in case 
 of need, his equal always, and his master if she 
 can manaee it. — Now see how modern education 
 strengthens this imperious, self-willed personality. 
 The father and mother have made a cold, indiffer- 
 ent marriage, in which affection had no part, and 
 the harsh points of their two characters have 
 jarred against one another like two blocks of ice, 
 neither melting, in painful and continuous friction ; 
 at first distasteful to each other, they at last have 
 grown tolerant ; first resignedly, then by force of 
 habit. Then came the children ; a litde girl, 
 the passionate, long-repressed desire for an 
 object of adoration pours itself out in ample 
 stream in the new bed which is opened to it. 
 She is rosy and fair ; all the dreams of grace and 
 ideal beauty, all the poetic longings so eagerly 
 
212 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 and vainly cherished by the youth, awaken again 
 in the father's breast, and this time nothins^ sullies 
 or destroys the fair dreams. The child would be 
 ungrateful indeed if she were not happy. What 
 has she to refuse, and how may she displease ? 
 Nothing is asked of her, and everything is lav- 
 ished upon her. She is like a young colt let 
 loose on the pasture. "Eat, my child; how 
 sweet of you to eat so much ! " Her follies are 
 only gay sallies, her wilfulness mere playfulness ; 
 what is prettier than a young hlly when she kicks 
 up her heels ? Full-grown, she jumps the hedges, 
 grazes on the crops, coaxes her rickety old sire 
 to follow her in her sportive gambols. "My 
 father and I," said one of these frisky runaways, 
 " we do all that I choose." " 
 
 And now we see her in society. The very first 
 day, if she be not too stupid, she is on its very 
 pinnacle. A man of real merit cannot reach such 
 a high position, not by fifteen years of hard labor. 
 She has only to show herself and she is hailed 
 queen ; young men crowd about her, women 
 of thirty grow uneasy ; compliments buzz about 
 her ears in swarms. One of my friends, a lady, 
 told me that after her first ball she honestly 
 thought herself a marvel. So many admirers 
 and such devotion ! Just so with princes. They 
 believe, naturally enough, that the rest of the world 
 was created to dust their furniture, and that the 
 sun is a mechanical lamp, which is kind enough to 
 wind itself up purposely to light their way. — Ob- 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 2\X 
 
 serve that my young- girl has solid reasons, in 
 hard cash, for making a divinity of herself She 
 knows the amount of her dower, and with her 
 quick wit she has already weighed the value of 
 marriage and of each suitor. " The Turks buy 
 their wives, we buy our husbands. ... So long- as 
 mine be not a bore at home, and a mortification to 
 me in society, I care for nothing more."^^ — In 
 fact, if she marry, "it is because there is no other 
 career open to a young girl." She needs a man 
 to take her out, to travel with ; he is a necessary 
 upper servant, a chamberlain, a household direc- 
 tor, he ensures her respect. No doubt " the 
 male condition is the better; " but unable to 
 obtain the condition, she obtains the man. For 
 the article needed, and properly guaranteed, she 
 pays the price ; he engages to give his arm ; the 
 petticoat and dress-coat are sewed together. 
 The petticoat by this contact enters into all the 
 privileges of the male garment. 
 
 Little boots, a dolman or an embroidered 
 casaque, pantaloons, a hat, cane, belt and men's 
 gloves, and what more does she need to be a 
 hussar ? Is it the dash of the cavalier } She 
 assumes it, understands the offensive and defen- 
 sive, holds her ground against real men, fences 
 with her tongue, and blow for blow, steel crossed 
 with steel, she ventures upon dangerous skir- 
 mishes, from which she comes out, her vanity 
 in triumph and her delicacy in rags.— Is it knowl- 
 edge of the world ^ She goes to the Bois, to 
 
214 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the races, to the theatre ; the loose frankness of 
 conversation has taught her the manner of Hfe of 
 the Magdalens. Except our physiological novels, 
 she is familiar with all our literature ; except a 
 physiological detail, she knows our life. — Is it the 
 word of command, and the habit of authority ? 
 Three times a week her father puts on his tight 
 boots, and her mother goes to sleep, with her 
 eyes open, on a sofa, in order that she may dance. 
 From the height of her dower she looks down 
 upon the procession of her suitors, and laughs at 
 their cringing attitudes. " Love is a flattery of 
 which I never take but the half to myself; I know 
 that my person and the dower I am supposed to 
 have make up a pretty sum total." " — In a word, 
 she has seen men in contemptible attitudes, on 
 their knees before a money-bag ! For this she 
 cut them willingly with her whip. Aggressive, 
 quarrelsome, well-informed, imperious and scep- 
 tical, you see that she is fit for the regiment. 
 
 In this regiment there are many companies. 
 Here let us proceed in order. 
 
 Mile. Hermine Sternay.^^ She is the daughter 
 of a general, and in case of need could fill her 
 father's place ; she has the coolness and decision 
 of a corps commander. When an attempt was 
 made to frighten her into a separation from the 
 man she loved, she said, " I am never afraid, aunt, 
 as you very well know." When her proud and 
 imperious grandmother questions her, she replies 
 with a calm air of conviction and a shade of 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 
 
 215 
 
 contempt. — When as a punishment she is sent to 
 the convent, " she eats, drinks, talks, and laughs 
 with her comrades, just as before." — When in the 
 presence of her hesitating or angry parents she 
 meets the man she loves, after ten months' 
 absence, she offers her hand, calls him Jacques, 
 and is no way disturbed by her grandmother's 
 exclamations: "We shake hands frankly and 
 openly before the whole world, which seems to 
 me much more proper than waiting for an oppor- 
 tunity to talk to each other secretly in a corner. — 
 May I ask what your plans are? " — " Yes, dear 
 grandmamma. If you had asked me to tell you 
 sooner, I should have told you sooner. I intend 
 to marry Mr. Jacques Vignot, because I love him. 
 Until then, dear grandmamma, you will put me 
 back in the convent which I left this morning, and 
 you will do just what you should do ; for besides 
 that it would no doubt be disagreeable to you 
 to have a disobedient grandchild like myself con- 
 stantly about you, for my part it is the place 
 where I most wish to remain until I am twenty- 
 one ; what I most desire is to learn all the use- 
 ful things that I do not yet know." You see 
 that she has a good head on her shoulders, and 
 knows what she is about. At the convent she 
 had mused upon the character of Jacques ; she 
 discovered that he needs in a wife a solid per- 
 son, fit for all weather ; and after weighing every- 
 thing, she said to him, " I have thought it all 
 over, Jacques, I tell you, and I believe that I am 
 
2i6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the woman you need for a wife." — I have classed 
 her among the hussars, but I think she would 
 pass muster in the cuirassiers. 
 
 Mile. Mathilde Durieu,^^ only fifteen years old, 
 but precocious, of good, strong sense, with the 
 sagacity of a man of business and the mature 
 judgment of a head of a family. She loves her 
 cousin, tells him so to his face, and he dodges 
 her with phrases. " How poetical ! . . . Really, 
 you do not" love me ; let us say no more about it. 
 I do not threaten to kill myself, nor to go into a 
 convent, not even never to marry : on the con- 
 trary, I shall do all that I can to forget you ; but 
 I wish that this interview, which is to have such a 
 great influence on my life, shall have an influence 
 on yours also." And thereupon she traces him a 
 plan of life, advises him to take up some occupa- 
 tion to make his fortune, in order to marry the 
 woman he prefers, rich or poor. He goes to 
 Sologne. To inform herself, she reads heavy 
 treatises on agriculture to such advantage that 
 she is able to explain " the best methods of fer- 
 tilization known at the present day, the difference 
 between the silicious soil full of stones, and the 
 calcareous land full of chalk, and even of magne- 
 sium," etc. Just then, by a sudden tack, she 
 obtains consent to her marriage with her cousin ; 
 but learning all at once that her cousin is in love 
 with another, she gives him up to her rival, and 
 in the prettiest way, and with a matchless dex- 
 terity and decision of character, she performs 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 
 
 217 
 
 upon herself at one stroke that delicate opera- 
 tion, the cutting out of the heart. Charming 
 child ! How she handles the lancets for one of 
 her age ! I have enrolled her in the hussars, but 
 she is to be surgeon-major of the regiment 
 
 We are in want of a band. Fortunately I have 
 at hand one of the most charming novels of our 
 day. Renee Maupcrin.^ Mile. Renee Mauperin 
 is an artist, not only in practice, a musician and a 
 painter, but an artist in spirit, in heart, and in 
 language; in short, as the author says, a "roar- 
 ing melancholy ; " that is to say, a nature capable 
 of lively sensations, of original impressions, and of 
 wild fancies. She talks slang, swims in the Seine 
 (in bathing costume) with a suitor whom she sees 
 for the first time ; she frightens him off by her 
 scandalous behavior, she plays the scamp and the 
 loafer, she says the most outrageous things in the 
 midst of the gravest conversation even, lets her 
 tongue and herself go, and her father, while pre- 
 tending to scold her, in his heart admires her. 
 Dear little fifer, what shrill tunes, what devilish 
 marches, what gay and sparkling country dances 
 you will whistle on your flageolet ! with what a 
 saucy air you will march to the attack in front of 
 the battalion ! And how loudly all our little hus- 
 sars are calling for you to be the scapegrace of 
 the regiment ! 
 
 I have been looking for a complete hussar, 
 and I believe that I have found one in Mile. 
 Antoinette, of les Vieux Gar9ons.^' This young 
 
2i8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 person has just made a successful debut ; appar- 
 ently the public is delighted with her ; she is full 
 of impetuosity, petulance, a craving to see and 
 handle everything, even the most dangerous sub- 
 jects ; a nervous courage, the dash of the young 
 soldier who has never felt a wound, a constant 
 inward stir of sudden and vehement sensations, a 
 crackling of ideas, which contact with the world 
 will set off like a powder magazine ; she canters 
 about at home and in the neighbors' houses like 
 one who rides on horseback for the first time. 
 What gives such zest to the spectacle is, that in 
 all her gambols she still wears the dress of a nun ; 
 while her boots, sword, feather and the rest of her 
 costume are those of the hussar. What a piquant 
 object ! Wait a little ; leave the recruit time for ex- 
 ercise, and at the end of a year her husband will 
 tell you what she retains of her composite equip 
 ment, the petticoat or the riding- whip. 
 
 Do not call me sceptical ; I grant them all the 
 virtues of their profession. Are not pride and 
 courage the qualities of a hussar ? Breaking 
 bones is just his occupation. I would like for 
 once to see a human beinof who is not eenerous at 
 twenty ; if only because twenty. My feminine hus- 
 sar is capable of enthusiasm. See her at her best ! 
 Mile. Francine Desroncerets ^^ at one-and-twenty 
 finds that the fortune of her father is in serious 
 danger. She obtains a general power of attorney, 
 pays his debts, puts her own fortune in trust for 
 her father's benefit ; in this way secures to him his 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 219 
 
 customary comforts, cares for him as for a child, 
 looks out that he does not fall again into the risky- 
 inventions which have ruined him. Here is a 
 good action, courageously and well performed. 
 In the same manner a young officer volunteers to 
 carry a dispatch right in the teeth of the enemy's 
 cannon, without troubling himself about amputa- 
 tions or the hospital. Notice how alike the two 
 characters are. She is ** a first-class woman." 
 She keeps the business in her own hands, she re- 
 fuses to let her father know anything about it, she 
 holds her own against him ; she leads and con- 
 trols him like a prodigal child. She has the ring- 
 ing accent of a strong will ; she resists her rival in 
 his affections, and his indiscreet friends with the 
 stern stoicism and the sad irony of set resolve. 
 She holds her own against calumny. She exag- 
 gerates her role of attorney and miser, as a soldier 
 courts wounds, and when at the close the notary 
 Guerin hints a suspicion of her scrupulousness, 
 she puts him down with a disdain of manner and 
 an explosion of pride which an officer summoned 
 to surrender might well envy her. If ever there 
 were a creature armed for resistance, for govern- 
 ment or war, it is she, — Observe that having been 
 always unfortunate she is of all the most pure. — 
 The generosity of the others is of a different 
 order. Mile. Clementine Bernier^^ "will marry 
 whom you choose and when you choose, if only 
 before Christmas, so as to pass the winter at 
 Rome." A husband is found, and though a 
 
220 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 charming man, and very much in love with her, she 
 treats him Hke a servant. As upon this he clears 
 out, and what is more, becomes a great man, she 
 goes after him, and in a spurt of nervous heroism 
 shares his danger ; that sort of heroism has never 
 surprised me much. Mile. Gabrielle Chabriere,^'^ 
 who has a bright, intelligent husband, hard work- 
 ing, very devoted and tender, wants to run off with 
 a lover, because her lover talks passion while her 
 husband talks business. But all at once, the hus- 
 band having displayed more eloquence than the 
 lover, she discovers that the lover "is only a 
 child," and that " the husband is a man." Where- 
 upon she remains at home and says, " O father 
 of the family ! O poet ! I love thee ! " Notice to 
 lawyers, notaries, bankers, clerks, magistrates, all 
 business men, Hke her husband ; they are hereby 
 summoned to be poetical twice each month, that 
 they may keep their wives. In fact, what is best 
 liked in the regiment I am describing, is the 
 display, not the service, and the colonel who 
 wears the finest feathers gets the most recruits. 
 — Miles. Fernande Marechal and Clemence 
 Charrier ^^ are not comfortable in their fathers' 
 house, and despair of marrying the men of their 
 choice ; thereupon, with marvellous prompti- 
 tude, they take the first comer the moment he 
 appears. "As well him as another, after all! " 
 One has spoken three times to her suitor, the 
 other not even once. A small matter ; they 
 marry blindly. The bans are at once published, 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 22 1 
 
 and eight days later, after a mass and a toilette ! 
 — the devil take me if I were not about to say- 
 something improper ! but, in company with this 
 kind of modesty, it always seems to me as though 
 I were among my hussars. 
 
 These women are chaste, others pass for such ; 
 there is Mile. Calixte Roussel,^^a very skilful per- 
 son, who fishes up a refractory suitor at the end 
 of her line. A very skilful person ; she practises 
 all sorts of manoeuvres, opens confidences, insin- 
 uates reticences, prolongs leave-takings, provokes 
 committals, with a dexterity and a frankness of in- 
 itiative which Celimene^^ herself could not outdo. 
 After all, if there be no one to help, one must look 
 after one's own happiness; when husbands at- 
 tempt to hide, they must be hunted up. If need 
 be, they go themselves openly to ask a husband's 
 hand in marriage, like Mile. Hackendorf ; ^^ or 
 even into his very bedroom, to make a declara- 
 tion of love, like Mile. Marcelle de Sancenau.^' 
 "You will consent to be my wife ? I shall be 
 delighted ; and why do you wish to marry me ? " 
 " Because you are not like the rest of the men." 
 This young girl, whom you see before you, is a 
 virtuous girl, and asks nothing more than to be a 
 virtuous woman, if she find an intelligent hus- 
 band who will understand and control her. 
 Sacrifice yourself ! — marry me ? — " Which of 
 the two is in the better style ? On my honor I 
 am reminded of that saying of old Jeanne d'Al- 
 bret, in Charles IX.'s time: "Strange as I be- 
 
222 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 lieved this court to be, I found it still stranger ; 
 the men here do not pay court to the women, but 
 the women to the men." In this regard Madame 
 de Simerose ''° is the chef d' cetivre. " She is a vir- 
 tuous woman, and even worse than that." This 
 admirable education of ours has left her with 
 all her ignorance, while stimulating all her ener- 
 gies ; she knows nothing, and wants everything. 
 She turned her husband out of doors because he 
 was a man, and now she is mademoiselle just as 
 before ; but at the same time, in law she is ma- 
 dame, and does not in the least regret it, for she 
 is her own mistress — mistress of her time and of 
 her fortune. " I keep the position which was 
 made for me, in spite of me ; and, between our- 
 selves, I find it a very good one. I have no 
 children, I am rich, I am free. I believe I am ac- 
 countable for my actions only to myself." She 
 receives, gives dinners, does the honors at home 
 like the master of a house, deals with men as a 
 man, rejects advice, silences insinuations, and 
 walks her way, head upright, iron-plated, the 
 code of law in her hand, amid the curiosity of the 
 world, the gallantry of admirers, and the entrea- 
 ties of her husband. Her pride is at its height, 
 and all the more because her conscience is clear. 
 If she accept a love affair, it is only on condition 
 that it be platonic. Well ! when this love fails 
 her, all at once, irresistibly, in an outburst of 
 spite and of accumulated passion, she throws her- 
 self at the head of the first comer. Fortunately 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 223 
 
 for her he is in a chivalrous mood, otherwise in 
 six months her reputation would be tarnished ; 
 and if she is saved it is only by a miracle. 
 What say you to this ? and what do you think of 
 the dash with which they rush into independence, 
 and the audacity with which they assume the ini- 
 tiative ? They have all the vehemence of virility, 
 without the curb of experience ; and since we are 
 now in the cavalry, I can very well compare them 
 to hussars, who go into a charge with unbridled 
 horses. 
 
 Still this martial air is effective, and the emi- 
 nent personage of our time and of our stage is 
 the unassigned volunteer, Albertine de Laborde, 
 Suzanne d'Ange, Seraphine Pommeau, Olympe 
 Taverny,^' and the rest of the camelia sellers. 
 These are thorough men, and make no pretence 
 of being anything else ; self-supporting, attack- 
 ing, conquering, fleecing, roughly treated, and 
 insolent in turn, keeping a cool head in the midst 
 of continual dangers, hoarding and cheating, ex- 
 hibiting themselves, and in a constant round of 
 pleasure, looking upon the world as an enemy 
 and a prey. In all these traits we recognize the 
 woman who, feeling her strength, has turned 
 guerilla and highwayman, and who only holds to 
 her sex as an arm and a decoy ; others, virtuous or 
 semi-virtuous, only go to the half-way of their 
 temperaments and characters. This one alone 
 goes to the very end, and it is for this reason that 
 to-day she sets the fashion, lays down the law in 
 
224 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 dress ; her manners are copied, and she is the 
 talk of the town. She is felt to be superior, 
 a queen among women ; notwithstanding their 
 apparent scorn, ladies vaguely admire her, ask 
 questions about her, in the bottom of their hearts 
 envy her freedom and her license, foresee in her 
 a rival, find traces of her in the ways of their 
 husbands, and that there may be a fair field, dis- 
 play themselves in turn, in voluptuous toilettes, 
 in equivocal charades, and tableaux vivants. Far 
 from checking these excesses, the husband lends 
 a hand to the wheel. He has lived at the club, 
 and with this style of women, and retains at home 
 his old habit of loose conversation. My friend, 
 
 Maximilien de S , two years married, tells his 
 
 wife his whole past life, informs her about all the 
 famous Magdalens. She learns fast ; a week 
 ago, she said of one of these fast women who was 
 driving her basket wagon in the Bois, "Who is 
 it, you ask ? She is not fashionable, that one ; my 
 husband don't know her." And a hundred other 
 similar traits ; young people like to live at their 
 ease. The husband treats the wife as his com- 
 panion, with freedom, as a person before whom 
 he can say anything. Everything is said to her, 
 even the most monstrous things, but in decent 
 language. Indeed, it is her pride not to be 
 prudish ; she reads everything, goes everywhere ; 
 at thirty-five she resembles us men ; like us, she 
 has used up all her superfluous life ; often she is 
 a model of discretion ; an intrigue, and particu- 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG LADY. 
 
 225 
 
 larly an intrigue of any duration, is too risky ; the 
 danger destroys the desire. Here you find her 
 poHtic as a man, fond of conversation ; a mentor 
 tolerant of the follies of her sons ; she has risen 
 in rank ; she is an old indulgent officer, who 
 understands evolutions, and knows how to com- 
 mand the company. She lives by the side of her 
 husband, like an equal, in a state of decent divorce, 
 in a union of interests, and in a companionship of 
 habit. Look at M. and Mme. Leverdet.^^ 
 
 A fine result ; this is what the emancipation of 
 woman ends in, I have seen the beofinninof of 
 similar manners in America and England, In 
 America we have flirtation, women with doc- 
 tors' degrees, and members of philanthropical 
 societies. In England there are the fast girls, 
 daring horsewomen, and precocious reasoners; 
 Mr. Stuart Mill, a great genius, almost proposes 
 to give political suffrage to women. What a pity 
 that I have not thirty years more to live ! If this 
 goes on, in 1900 there will be a pretty sight. 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE LEADING YOUNG MAN 
 
 I believe that the change is still greater in the 
 young man than in the young woman. 
 
 Formerl}^ the part was easy enough ; when- 
 ever near a woman, no matter whom, to have 
 a smile on the lips, and be ready to drop 
 on his knees. I have before me La Nou- 
 velle Heloise, with the engravings (what will a 
 man with a liver complaint not read?). It was 
 that savage, Rousseau, who first said that gal- 
 lantry was ridiculous, and made of his lover a 
 violent plebeian, a vulgar declaimer, a forerunner 
 of Didier," of the workman Gilbert, and other 
 of Victor Hugo's stage lovers. But how differ- 
 ently the engraver has understood the matter ! 
 What a charming young fellow the Saint Preux 
 of the print ! What a fine leg ! What a delicate 
 and smiling countenance ! How well-combed, 
 and how well-dressed ! The carefully drawn 
 stocking covers an irreproachable calf; the gay- 
 est colors flutter on his coat and small-clothes ; 
 lace frills are gracefully twisted about the ends 
 of his pink sleeves ; a pigeon-breast waistcoat 
 curves its lustrous folds about his stylish jabot. 
 He is devoted and tender ; when he drops on one 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN 
 
 227 
 
 knee to kiss the delicate little hand of the sufferine 
 Julie, you see at once that he has taken dancing 
 lessons of the best masters. When among the 
 rose-bushes he receives " the first love kiss," he 
 is not rude, he does not go crazy as the book 
 describes him, he does not rumple her dress, he 
 rounds his two arms with every possible precau- 
 tion, he enjoys with delicate fondness the charm- 
 ing fruit which meets his lips. He is of the 
 time when it was asked of a great general, as I 
 have before quoted : " Is he agreeable ? " In fact, 
 had he gained ten battles, that was no excuse for 
 not being agreeable to the ladies, and not know- 
 ing how to offer a bouquet, to turn a verse or slip 
 in an insipid compliment. These were the re- 
 mains of the elder days ; the lady was always 
 the feudal chatelaine. It was the duty of every 
 man to be at her service ; if the sentiment had 
 disappeared the show of it remained ; in the 
 place of pages and knights, she had her "atten- 
 tives." A youth entering upon the world had 
 only one care — to find two fair hands ready to 
 lead him ; the two fair hands formed him, led him, 
 aided him in his career, and in return deigned to 
 accept compliments and petty attentions from him 
 for eight hours a day. To-day a man of twenty 
 would rather saw wood ; a woman would look 
 upon the flatterer for a country bumpkin of the 
 first water; and I find on opening a comedy of 
 Augier, that the correct reply to this old-fashioned 
 
2 28 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 devotion is an ironical smile, and " Thanks, Lin- 
 dor." 
 
 Hence, the part of the leading young man is 
 much less important than it was. This is the 
 reason why at eleven o'clock in the evening, 
 when you enter a drawing-room, you see two dis- 
 tinct crowds : the one white, pink, showy, all in 
 bloom, motionless ; these are the women caged in 
 their enormous hoops, and the velvet of the arm- 
 chairs : the other made up of thin figures end- 
 ing in bald or half-bald skulls, but stirring ; these 
 are the men who walk about on the frontier, or 
 look on through their eye-glasses, leaning in the 
 doorways. Each new arrival salutes the lady of 
 the house, exchanges with her three phrases of 
 twenty words each, takes a careful half-turn 
 about the room, and keeps clear of the female 
 enclosure. At the most, here and there on the 
 extreme frontier, a black coat may talk for ten 
 minutes with a petticoat. Three times out of 
 four he is not entertained, and she is bored ; the 
 two sexes are strangers to each other. Towards 
 midnight the rooms are deserted ; five or six 
 men and women who are intimate friends may re- 
 main. The women then complain of the neglect 
 of the men, and the men excuse themselves as 
 they best can ; this makes a pretty little inter- 
 change of hypocrisy, of half-disguised flattery, 
 and of little transparent allurements. I who 
 by reason of my age and profession know the 
 value of this coin, I thus establish the budget of 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN. 229 
 
 the situation ; four causes have brought about 
 this creneral dedine in tlie market value of eal- 
 lantry. 
 
 1. Man is overworked. He goes to the 
 Bourse, frets and figures about important busi- 
 ness, is forced to earn largely because of the 
 enormous rate at which the expenses of life and 
 of the family are increasing. The doctor, the 
 lawyer, the banker, the artist, the public man, is 
 so worn out when evening comes, that he cannot 
 take the trouble to entertain the ladies. We are 
 all plebeians, our time is money ; the leisure and 
 careless indifference of the last century are things 
 of the past ; our arms drop from sheer weariness 
 under the fencing of complimentary politeness. 
 Permit us to stretch ourselves in an easy-chair, 
 and toast our toes in the English fashion, beside 
 some quiet woman who embroiders and makes 
 tea ; or after the French manner, to smoke a 
 segar with a friend who will let loose his para- 
 doxes, or pass an idle hour with a mistress who 
 will amuse us with her drollery, 
 
 2. The habit of quoting values. Young and 
 old, we are all positivists, the young even more 
 so than the old. Woman is a great loser by this 
 operation ; she needs an audience, not of analy- 
 zers, but of poets. Love lives upon illusions, 
 on vague and charming dreams which wrap 
 everything in a luminous fog, on irrational hopes 
 which are in endless pursuit of an unknown 
 and delightful happiness. In what modern head 
 
230 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 will you now find these fairy day-dreams ? He 
 that finds them in himself carefully destroys them, 
 that he may not fall into a snare. He that re- 
 tains a tattered shred of them, knows full well 
 that the illusion is in himself, not in the objects 
 themselves. The last and warmest of our poets 
 has already said : " Q'importe le flacon pourvu 
 qu'on ait I'ivresse." '''^ There is no more intoxi- 
 cation, but there are vials enough left. To-day, 
 in mademoiselle or madame this or that, we see 
 mademoiselle or madame this or that ; that is to 
 say, a petticoat and its contents, a surface and an 
 interior more or less agreeable and respectable, 
 dragging after them a given train of commodities, 
 and encumbrances, of obligations, and of values. 
 At this rate, a prolonged courtship seems a fraud ; 
 the profits do not cover the expenses. Moreover, 
 it is not a pleasant thing to kneel to a woman, if 
 not in love with her ; the attitude is too wearying, 
 even mortifying ; endurable for an hour, for a 
 week it would be intolerable. All things con- 
 sidered, if one must settle down, better that the 
 establishment be openly one thing or the other, 
 proper or improper. They can be arranged 
 with equal ease, cash down, with or without 
 the aid of a notary, but each alike, without either 
 embarrassment or enthusiasm. Money matches 
 and visits to the Magdalens : the spirit of calcu- 
 lation looks carefully after the days the drafts 
 fall due, the amount of pleasure under guarantee, 
 and the ease of the exchano^es. Let us amuse 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN. 23 1 
 
 ourselves, but take care not be cheated. My 
 
 friend B , the pink of stockbrokers, said to 
 
 his son in my presence, day before yesterday : 
 " Now that you are about to read law, you shall 
 have fifteen hundred francs every quarter. Re- 
 member these three maxims : Never keep your 
 mistress under your own roof Never keep the 
 same one more than three months. If you find 
 yourself falling in love with her take a second; — 
 above all, take care how you fall into habits. 
 Be careful of yourself When you find yourself, 
 all warmed up with grand phrases, remember to 
 avoid the blunder of saying them ; that I hold, 
 in reserve for you at thirty-five, an assortment of 
 well brought up, well-dressed young ladies, much 
 more agreeable than your mistresses, and who 
 will bring money to your purse instead of taking 
 it out." Pray tell me what place is there for the 
 passions in such a code of morality as this. 
 
 3. A new emission of stock of virtue. There 
 are women notoriously virtuous, even in the bour- 
 geoisie, whom it would insult to tell them that 
 they are pretty. What is more, young girls are 
 treated with respect. Nothing more rare in our 
 day than a seducer of innocence, like M. de Mor- 
 timer." No man, even of ordinary delicacy, con- 
 ceives any designs upon them ; he waits until 
 they are married. 
 
 4. The enormous disproportion in the educa- 
 tion of the two sexes. As a natural consequence, 
 a want of topics of conversation. The women 
 
232 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 can no longer talk religion as they did in the 
 seventeenth century, nor philosophy as in the 
 eighteenth. All serious reasoning has been left 
 out of her education ; she has been reduced to 
 the piano ; she knows nothing beyond the routine 
 of music, the small talk of society, and the rules 
 of the catechism. On the other hand, each art, 
 science, and profession, being now extremely 
 complex, man, deep and profound each in his 
 specialty, can only discuss it with persons of strong 
 intelligence. In the Germanic countries, young 
 girls speak four languages, are practised in serious 
 reasoning, and listen with understanding to the 
 political and theological theories of their parents 
 and their guests. With us there is no longer any 
 common ground ; after almost superhuman efforts 
 the two sexes still remain distant, entangled in 
 ceremonious phrases, inwardly weary, and with a 
 forced show of outside gayety. When a man is 
 presented to a woman, he says to himself, as he 
 curves his back with respectful grace and a smile 
 of delight, " If I risk a sensible word, she will find 
 me disagreeable or pedantic. If I confine myself 
 to banal compliments, she will think me ordinary 
 and stupid. Dear madam, may the devil take me 
 and you also ; I should be delighted to talk to 
 you, if I had anything to say ! " 
 
 Do you know that in an age of such manners 
 as these, it is not easy to invent lovers for the 
 stage ? Here is what I have found after hunting 
 everywhere. 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN 233 
 
 The old stage lover, Stephane in Gabrielle, '^ 
 Paul in Diane de Lys ; M. de Montegre in 
 L! Ami dcs Fenwies, all successors of Antony, first 
 cousins of the headlong and gloomy lovers of 
 Victor Hugo. During one of my visits to France, 
 I saw their waistcoats in 1830; quite poetic 
 waistcoats ; their hair, roughly thrown back from 
 their high foreheads, announced the day of great 
 passions. " The luxuriant hair, the amber com- 
 plexion, the sonorous and metallic voice, strik- 
 ing out words like medals ; the eyes deep set 
 and strong, behind the heavy brow and muscles 
 of steel ; a frame of iron always at the service of 
 the soul, sudden bursts of enthusiasm, terrible de- 
 spair, all in a moment, while the soul responds to 
 each emotion. . . . They are of that race of men 
 who pass their nights in solitary wandering, or 
 under ladies' windows, live without food, and are 
 always ready to blow out their own brains or those 
 of the rest of the world. Bilious temperaments, 
 enlarged livers ; they should be sent to Vichy." ^^ 
 See in what a tone they are described ; they are 
 phenomena ; nevertheless they are rare, often 
 grotesque, always old-fashioned. M. de Mon- 
 tegre is from the Jura, M. de Nanjac has just 
 returned from Africa. Both have been preserved 
 in their provincial or military life, like a salmon 
 in its pickle, or a sword in its scabbard. As for 
 the Stephane and Paul of Augier and Dumas, 
 they are some offspring of childhood, hatched 
 under the coat-flaps of old Dumas or old Hugo. — 
 
234 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 And observe what a fine part each has given to 
 him. De Nanjac is a high-tempered, self-willed 
 child, who rages and storms and cries, insists 
 upon cutting people's throats, and making a 
 disgraceful marriage. If he is saved from it, it is 
 by no fault of his. — Stephane, after due compari- 
 son, is dismissed by the wife as inferior to her 
 husband, a lavv^yer, who cracks jokes and keeps 
 the house accounts. — Paul is killed by the hus- 
 band with the approbation of the audience. — De 
 Montegre, a simple youth, who contents himself 
 with an innocent love, has the extreme kindness 
 to play the part of a dupe, and to restore the wife 
 to her proper owner. — To be duped, killed, dis- 
 missed, saved. These are the four categories 
 for the enthusiastic lover. Let him go back to 
 the library and fall asleep alongside of Hernani 
 and Othello, and all the rest of them. To-day he 
 is as much out of date as a turban or a ruff; such 
 a creature is a real fire-cracker ; put him out of 
 doors at once, throw him into the cellar. Among 
 our crinolines, our pink ottomans, our fine dinners, 
 our satirical conversations, his explosions are as 
 annoying as they are ridiculous, and there is no 
 peace until he is out of the way. 
 
 Let us come now to those characters which are 
 really of our time. The emancipated young girl, 
 sceptical and defiant, perched on her dower as on 
 a throne. How to approach her. Here is no or- 
 dinary embarrassment for the poor lover. How is 
 it possible to please a woman who is running over 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN. 
 
 235 
 
 with such reflections as these while she listens ? 
 " We all are a pretty clan of rich young girls, 
 who know well enough that we are only in demand 
 for our money, and we are not even indignant that 
 it is so. Whose fault is it ? Ours, or that of these 
 young gentlemen ? We ask nothing better than 
 to be their dupes ; and they do not even take 
 the trouble to deceive us ! The best of them are 
 those who only ask how much we may bring them. 
 . . . One of them asked me my mother's age." ^^ 
 On the other hand, the lover, not to be too cheap, 
 says: "Rich girls, . . brr ! Their dresses rus- 
 tle like so many bank bills ; and I only read one 
 word in their fine eyes. The law punishes all 
 counterfeits." ^^ This changes the style of love- 
 making. The sexes are in a state of hostility. 
 She is insulting ; he is rude. She tells him to 
 go about his business, and he goes ; and then 
 she is compelled to run after him. She asks his 
 pardon, falls at his feet, or even embraces him in 
 public, but this only in the fifth act. General ex- 
 planations ; affecting displays ; marriage. But 
 you will allow that it is a singular thing to see a 
 stage-lover occupied in giving and taking cuffs, 
 except for ten minutes in the last act. 
 
 This pretty state of open or secret warfare be- 
 tween the sexes is now a matter of course. 
 Twenty times have I heard rude and impolite 
 things said in drawing-rooms to ladies. Since 
 they have adopted the bold ways of men, they are 
 treated as such, that is, as enemies or compan- 
 
2^6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 ions. Men fence with them, and, upon my word, 
 they handle their weapons so well that there is 
 no need for any special remorse, if they catch a 
 scratch or two from the sword's point. A matter 
 of habit. There is no other line of conduct pos- 
 sible with fast women. From the ranks of the 
 demi-monde this fashion has crept into that of 
 the best society. Let us count these hostile 
 types. — There is, in the first place, the fool 
 simple, M. de Naton, or M. de Troenes ^° (my 
 nephew, M. Anatole Durand, or D'Urand, is of 
 this variety), a young dunce who yawns before 
 the ladies, and says in his great, lazy voice : "A 
 droll set, for all that, these fashionable ladies ! " 
 When he has made his bow and remarked, in a 
 high key, that it is shocking bad weather, he is at 
 his wits' end. He would like to clear out. He 
 hunts for a cigar in his pocket, and thinks of 
 Titine's boudoir, where he can smoke with his feet 
 up ; or of the suppers, where Loulou sings the 
 Petit tlbeniste^'- so well. — Then there is the smart 
 and chaffing Frederic Bordognon, ^^ " younger 
 son of an oil-merchant, rue de la Verrerie, at the 
 sign of the Three Olives, who is rude to ladies, 
 whose servants would not have taken off their 
 hats to his father." With his forty thousand 
 francs income, he has put on a gentleman's coat 
 but kept the calculating scepticism of the trades- 
 man. " I am about to give notice to the propri- 
 etor of my heart of my intention to leave her. 
 She wishes to raise my rent, and I shall cancel 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN. 237 
 
 my lease." His experience is perfect. Its refer- 
 ence to figures comes up in every joke like a me- 
 tallic note in a free song. " So long as the poor 
 lionne is virtuous, her husband pays two pennies 
 for penny rolls ; the day she loses her virtue he 
 only pays a penny for twopenny rolls. She began 
 by robbing the household ; she destroys it by en- 
 riching it." Having won ten thousand francs at 
 play, he carries them with his first declaration to a 
 pretty woman. The rest of his conduct and con- 
 versation is on a par with this. An epicurean of the 
 positive school. Women had best take care how 
 they fall into such clutches as these. — I pass over 
 a number, and among them some of the best of 
 the class. Will you look at a rather more agree- 
 able character, that of a true Frenchman, hand- 
 some, light, and gay, like those of the last cen- 
 tury; always in spirits, amusing, good-natured, 
 even gallant, and who, all things considered, 
 is not without both worth and politeness.^^ pje 
 too bears the stamp of the century, and his gal- 
 lantries are all on the surface. His levity is bril- 
 liant, his gossip agreeable ; but for all that, he is 
 none the less cautious, shrewd, keen in his watch- 
 ful defence against the adorable creatures who lay 
 siege to his purse. In fact, he knows the value 
 of money, of things and people (himself included), 
 of his wit and his failings. There is nothing that 
 he does not laugh at, and carefully weigh. 
 " Brave Colonel ! uprightness and loyalty in 
 person ! I will not receive him in my house. . . . 
 
2^S NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 The idea pleases me to have sitting at my hearth- 
 stone some sweet young girl who will be the 
 guardian angel of my purse." This is the agree- 
 able and sparkling French mind, but decom- 
 posed by experience of life, as a delicate wine by 
 too strong sunlight. On the surface a frothing 
 foam of drollery ; behind, a thread of bitter irony ; 
 between, a supply of hard, dry, commercial good- 
 sense. No one of these three stimulants is in- 
 toxicating, and I am perfectly sure that when he 
 pays his court to Mme. Lecoutellier, it will be with 
 the Code in his hand. 
 
 It remains to draw into light this calculating 
 rake, and I give him the first part in the play, the 
 sympathetic part. But how to invest with sym- 
 pathy a creature who ill-treats or fights the fair 
 sex ! Well, it has been done, and M. de Jalin, 
 M. de Ryons, are two of the best drawn and most 
 instructive characters of the modern stasre.^'^ To 
 make them endurable, the author has drawn us 
 the first in the demi-monde among women, the 
 tarnish on whose reputations gives him the right 
 to kick them to their kennels ; and the second in 
 society, surrounded by ladies of doubtful virtue or 
 of aggressive innocence, which excuse his insults. 
 One day, moreover, finding a virgin in a married 
 woman, he is all at once carried away by a fit of 
 chivalry, and rises to the rank of a saviour of 
 society. But how coolly and skilfully both play 
 upon the feminine mechanism ! How they put it 
 in action for their own pleasure or the instruction 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN. 239 
 
 of others ? How correctly and with what uner- 
 ring foresight they touch the secret spring which 
 throws out from the young girl the precocious 
 lorette, and from the young married woman the 
 accomplished lorette ! " The declaration you 
 made me a little while ago ? It was only a bit of 
 politeness ; there are women who expect that 
 sort of thing in conversation. — And this way of 
 treating people is sometimes successful with you ? 
 — Much more often than I could wish." These 
 are physiologists and surgeons. They give con- 
 sultations gratis, and ordinarily perform their 
 operations at their clients' houses from a love of 
 the art, sometimes for humanity's sake. " Your 
 house is quite original, and I am sorry I have not 
 visited you before. There is something new here 
 for a collector like myself, and here I really believe 
 is an object I have not on my catalogue." Mean- 
 while they have in hand a complete theory, and 
 it may be truly said they spare.no one. " You 
 have no pity for children. — Women are never 
 children. — Children console one for everything. — 
 Except for having them. — Stop, you wretch ; wo- 
 man inspires all great actions. — And prevents their 
 accomplishment. . . I am resolved never to give 
 either my heart or my honor or my life as a prey 
 to these charming and terrible little creatures, for 
 whom men ruin themselves, dishonor themselves, 
 kill themselves, and whose sole preoccupation in 
 the midst of this universal carnage is to dress 
 themselves up, first like umbrellas and then like 
 
240 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 hand bells." Please to notice that this theorizer 
 is not a " disinterested sheep, but a ram who con- 
 tinues to feed on the common pasture ground : " ^^ 
 if his heart be sixty his senses are thirty. 
 Notice also that this epicurean is not an over- 
 bearinor and brutal Lovelace like the other, who 
 thinks that he does the correct thing " when he 
 has worn mourning a week for his last passion, 
 who died in childbed by his fault. He is, on the 
 contrary, rather good-natured, and glad to oblige 
 the fair sex. All this makes up a complete 
 character, thoroughly modern, not at all hateful, 
 even agreeable and elevated. Given the woman, 
 that is to say '* an illogical, subaltern, noxious " 
 but charming creature, a delicious and pernicious 
 perfume in a crystal vase, how to breathe it 
 cautiously, delicately, not in your own home, but 
 at the homes of others, taking care not to break 
 the glass, and as far as possible turning aside 
 the rough and awkward hands which might break 
 the vase. From Antony ^^ to the lover of the 
 Dame aux Camelias, to the painter Paul, to Olivier 
 de Jalin, to M. de Ryons, the transformation is 
 visible. Between the enthusiasm of 1820 and 
 the positivism of i860, an intervening experience 
 has put man in a state of distrust and of defence ; 
 from a lover he has become sometimes an enemy, 
 often an adversary, more often still a spectator, 
 at most a friend. 
 
 A friend after a skirmish, and under all reserve. 
 For this reason I prefer my own role, and my 
 
THE LEADING YOUNG MAN. 
 
 241 
 
 education is of benefit to me. My poor nephew, 
 Anatole Durand, or D'Urand, sometimes excites 
 my pity. He is embarrassed when I am wholly 
 at my ease. It is because I make no more pre- 
 tensions, and he does. At fifty-five, when a man 
 has lost his hair, and returned from America, he 
 is no lonofer danorerous ; he has the rio-ht to be 
 polite, and something more. This was a right 
 in old times, and I have unearthed it for my own 
 special benefit. Conversation is then no longer 
 a duel, and what an occupation an endless duel 
 is, particularly with a woman ! It is so unpleasant 
 to say hard words, even cold words. It is so 
 agreeable to be agreeabi i to them. You are not 
 obliged to be digging up from your memory the 
 empty compliments of the last century. At first 
 sight, before a word is said, they know whether 
 they please ; to what degree, with what shade ; 
 if they have touched the heart, or the head, or 
 the sense ; if it be by their toilette, their wit or 
 their grace. There is no need of any concealment ; 
 you have only to feel, and to let yourself go. At 
 the end of a quarter of an hour they unbend ; no 
 longer fearing your sarcasm, they stand before 
 your mind as before their looking-glass ; they 
 look in, and finding themselves pleasing, they 
 continue to look in complacently, naturally, from 
 time to time changing their posture and their 
 smile. Find, if you can, a more agreeable part to 
 play than that of a mirror. For my part, I cling 
 to it. After all, six months of opera is deafening ; 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the stage sickens, with its bad taste and tawdry 
 ornaments, and what is the best of lorettes but a 
 comedian in a room ? Of all the spectacles to be 
 seen in Paris, the most charming is the real lady 
 of society. She is a spectacle in an arm-chair ; 
 from her laces to the character of her mind, there 
 is nothing in her which is not a master-piece of 
 modern culture ; to make her what she is, it has 
 needed four or five generations of settled wealth, 
 of elegant manners, and of refined education ; 
 all that taste has invented of utmost delicacy 
 is gathered about her person and her toilette. 
 There she is before you, in her pale silk arm- 
 chair, half inclined, with the graceful motion of 
 a bird, negligent and smiling. The flash of her 
 necklace glitters like living eyes from above the 
 curves of her living shoulders ; her golden comb 
 sinks within bunches of flowers, above the tresses 
 of her wavy hair ; her blooming dress spreads the 
 freshness of its lustrous folds beneath her deli- 
 cate waist ; she chats, she is happy, she is doing 
 the honors of her own charms, and is amply 
 repaid if you take pleasure in it. Upon my 
 honor, I end in the belief that paintings, books, 
 music, are all the inventions of the miserable for 
 the amusement of the sick, and that all these 
 people, spectators, and authors have their eyes 
 shut to the beauties of nature. As for works of 
 art, there are the dead, which we stuff away in 
 libraries or hang up in galleries ; for my part, I 
 am for those which are neither bound in calf-skin 
 nor stuck upon canvas. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ARTISTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 September t4Th. 
 
 I have been spending a month this fall at 
 Fontainebleau, and in the neighboring villages. 
 It is there that artists may be seen in their 
 natural and simple state. But at first I paid but 
 little attention to them. 
 
 Can it be possible that there is a forest like 
 this near Paris ? All my recollections of America 
 come back to me. Nine years ago, when my 
 office work was over about four in the afternoon, 
 I was wont to wander on horseback, through just 
 such noble trees. I cast off all thought of trade 
 and money as a soiled garment ; I felt once more 
 the warm and generous impulses of youth ; it 
 seemed to me that I became a man again. 
 Surely I love trees better than anything in the 
 world. 
 
 Have I enjoyed life in this Paris that I so hun- 
 gered for. While I am here it seems to me that 
 I have not. My drawing-room, my equipage, 
 all the appurtenances of my life, are as uncomfor- 
 table as an eveninof dress. I have made use of 
 my eyes, I have seen a queer menagerie. But 
 
244 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 have I really enjoyed myself? These nine years, 
 looked back upon from a little distance, seem to 
 me a noisy and monotonous sidewalk — the side- 
 walk of the immense rue de Rivoli, smelling of gas 
 and asphalt. What I find best worth thinking of, 
 is the week that I was absent on a hunting party in 
 the Vosges. We had with us a mule, a peasant, 
 and a tent. We lived by the hunt, and camped 
 out in the open wood ; in the evening our man 
 plucked the game ; I roasted it over the live coals 
 on a spit, resting on two crossed sticks ; the 
 branches curled and crackled in the fire, the wind 
 blew the flame to one side with its faint breath ; 
 the sparks danced gayly, the blue smoke went up 
 between the trunks of the trees ; we slept in our 
 cloaks, feet to the fire, and in the morning when 
 we went out we felt upon our foreheads the dew 
 of the great oaks. 
 
 This forest is less natural, but still how beau- 
 tiful ! On the edges of the road the round 
 beeches, golden in glorious bloom, spread out 
 their lace-like foliage. They stretch out in long 
 lines far into the distant horizon, enjoying the 
 free air. The light falls in floods upon their 
 dome-like tops, dances on the leaves, rolls in 
 broad streams from branch to branch, from tier 
 to tier of branches, down to the sward below. 
 A golden vapor, a sparkling and shining dust, 
 floats about them like a transparent gauze. 
 Their white trunks wear a clothing of bark, for- 
 ever smooth and young. Thanks to the abun- 
 
ARTISTS. 
 
 245 
 
 dant nourishment they draw from the deep, rich 
 soil, they preserve a youthful look, even in the 
 vigor of their age. Above their heads the sky 
 stretches its broad arch of tender blue. No pas- 
 sers on this road. The cross of the Great Hunts- 
 man ^^ is just lifting itself above the horizon ; the 
 palace of the Sleeping Beauty could not have 
 been more peaceful. Is it possible that any one 
 has passed by here these hundred years ? On 
 the other side a great grove of timber lies in 
 shadow. The monstrous black trunks sink deep 
 in the soil, and their heads are lost among their 
 fellows. Some of them lean forward, like great 
 boas about to spring. Here and there, at long 
 intervals, the sky pierces through the hollows. 
 But the horizon is all clothed in verdure, now 
 dark and shadowed, and now resplendent in the 
 sunlicrht. The liofht fallinof from above carries 
 with it lonor trains of movinof emeralds, which 
 drop on its passage. The foliage trembles and 
 glistens. An infinite bustle, the murmur of a 
 hundred thousand voices, a rising and falling 
 burden, comes across the dark shadows, and from 
 a sandy steep a troop of pines, all clad in bluish 
 green, hft up a louder song, like a melodious and 
 strange colony. 
 
 Here a raven croaks ; there the red-breasts 
 pipe their clear note. In the profound stillness, 
 the whizz of the grasshoppers is heard, and col- 
 umns of insects are whirling through the heavy, 
 perfume-laden air. An acorn drops on the dry 
 
246 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 leaves ; a beetle grazes a branch with his wings. 
 Gay little voices, delicate bird warbles, come 
 down from out the trees. There is a world of life 
 under these vaults, among these mosses, an infant 
 world, in constant movement, whose stammer 
 reaches the ear, half stifled in the heavy breath- 
 ing of the great sleeping mother. 
 
 Yesterday at eight o'clock in the evening, on 
 the hill of Franchart, the full moon looked like a 
 bit of burnished silver fresh from the smithy. 
 Light airy clouds floated white and feathery in 
 the heavens, swept rapidly along on either side ; 
 their brightness was so great, that the blue be- 
 tween seemed black. The downs lay below all 
 dark in a circle of shade. The white sands glis- 
 tened. Right before me a frail birch lifted up its 
 feathery and charming head ; no motion in its 
 leaves, so still was the air. The ear strains to 
 catch a sound, and in an imperceptible murmur, a 
 league away, discerns the bellow of a stag. 
 
 II. 
 
 September isth. 
 
 The rooms and the habit of the house are primi- 
 tive here, like enough to those of the log- 
 cabins of Arkansas and Illinois — a bed, two lame 
 chairs, perhaps an arm-chair, looking like an In- 
 valide of the Empire ; whitewashed walls covered 
 with rough sketches, prettier in faith, and better 
 
ARTISTS. 
 
 247 
 
 to my taste, than all your exhibition paintings, so 
 natural are they, so full of gayety, of novelty and 
 of careless ease, thrown off in a moment, at 
 random, like flashes of wit. Here are inward 
 fancies, not elaborate and laboriously worked, but 
 easy, brilliant, exaggerated, grotesque, just as 
 they were imagined ; two stalwart huntsmen, in 
 red coats, in the green copse ; spotted dogs in 
 full condition, barking with all their might ; the 
 naked bust of a young girl, in saucy and laughing 
 gesture. M. Prudhomme stepping out of an 
 egg-cup ; three caricatures ; a pine-tree, rigged 
 as a sunshade on a flat sea-shore. 
 
 But the staircase shakes beneath the heavy 
 descending shoes ; there is a stir in the kitchen ; 
 sacks and gaiters are buckled on ; each one eats 
 at random in the attitude which suits him, seated, 
 standing, on the staircase, at the sideboard or table. 
 The little ladies come down in their white petti- 
 coats, eyes half open, still yawning ; they are re- 
 ceived with sallies of fun, which they stand bravely. 
 A few strapping fellows are throwing the spear in 
 rivalry on the road-side ; others more quietly in- 
 clined are watching the dunghill and the chickens 
 pecking at it. The cat is caressed and the dog 
 teased. The host, a drunken fellow, is swallowing 
 his fifth petit verre ; his taste is for fluid, and he 
 is drowning himself in it. I found him the other 
 day on all fours unable to get up alone ; yet even 
 while crawling about he seemed to understand 
 what he was doing. The little servant girl 
 
248 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 is crouched down, blowing the fire, and thinking 
 of the embroidered petticoats on the first floor. 
 For moral protection she has the cufTs of the 
 hostess, and a little volume of mystic devotion. 
 All the heavy labor falls to the share of the fat 
 hostess, who, without fatigue or hurry, cooks, 
 plucks fowls, sweeps, pays out and takes in money, 
 answers questions, and serves the public from 
 morning till night. The peasants who come and 
 go understand very well what goes on here ; they 
 take no offence, but rather enjoy it, with a mali- 
 cious smile and an envious look ; they are the 
 villagers of La Fontaine's fables. 
 
 Each one goes off in the direction that pleases 
 him, and once in the cover of the forest, works or 
 sleeps. I am inclined to believe that the second 
 is the main occupation. At night-fall they may be 
 seen returning one by one, bringing a sun-shade, 
 a hunting spear, a square of canvas, a paint box 
 on their backs. They sit down in the door- 
 way of the inn, on the stone bench, and chat 
 together, watching the peasants' carts as they go 
 by, and the country women who gossip together, 
 tossing their arms about and stretching their 
 limbs. They laze about in ease of conscience. 
 So far as this goes, the villagers are as wise as 
 they ; everything goes slowly in the country. 
 A peasant woman finds it no hardship to stand 
 an hour before a milk-cart, exchanging a word 
 every five minutes with the driver. When night 
 falls, supper is spread on a table without a cloth. 
 
ARTISTS. 249 
 
 between four candles ; for seats, wooden benches ; 
 sometimes two or three chairs in addition. The 
 yellow light flickers about the smoked rafters of 
 the ceiling-, and over the walls bedaubed with 
 grotesque figures ; at last coffee is brought in, 
 and little glasses of rum go the round. It is 
 then that literary discussions take the field, and 
 a roar of philosophy and art rolls through the 
 room. Great reputations are demolished or 
 exalted to the skies ; throats crack. Meanwhile 
 the women, who do not understand a word of the 
 conversation, yawn till their jaws split : one is fast 
 asleep, stretched out at full length on the old 
 square piano ; another takes her ease, and twists 
 cigarettes. When the wranglers have no more 
 voice left, they walk out and take a moonlight 
 view of the forest. One of them has his hunting 
 horn, another imitates the bellow of the stag. 
 Some tell pantagruelistic stories, while the rest, 
 lying on the grass, listen as they smoke their 
 twelfth or fifteenth pipe. The day is over, and 
 all go to bed. 
 
 A hard life that of an artist. There are men 
 of fifty, whose names are famous, who do not 
 earn ten thousand francs a year. 
 
 About thirty, after ten years' study, he begins 
 to produce something ; then sales must be made, 
 and to make sales the artist must have the tact 
 of a salesman. Some go fasting, and put in here 
 and there a three-franc lesson ; but even that is 
 
2 50 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 a chance. Some paint backgrounds for photo- 
 graphers, or large sign-boards. At forty, with 
 real merit, or friends in the newspapers, he may- 
 get into notice by constant exhibition and puffing. 
 About fifty he earns a little money and has caught 
 the rheumatism. 
 
 Each year the number of real artists grows less 
 and less. Taste has declined since the division 
 of patrimonies has broken fortunes into crumbs, 
 and the great profits of the Bourse soil society 
 with new and vulgar wealth. Amateurs sell their 
 galleries, bargain with picture dealers, speculate 
 upon their stores. To succeed, three things 
 are needful : — The first, that at the exhibition 
 some rich bourgeois shall say, " There is a gay 
 hunting scene, which will do very well for the 
 left-hand panel of my dining-room ! " — The second 
 that he feel in the humor to spend his money, 
 that he has faith in his own taste, that his wife 
 does not say no ; in short, that he buys. — The 
 third that his friends, having breakfasted before 
 the picture, order copies. 
 
 But the five thousand pictures of the exposition 
 distract the attention, destroy all beauty. A 
 woman is pretty, alone by her fireside, in her easy- 
 chair : put her among eighty ball dresses and she 
 is lost. How do the two or three miles of pictures 
 which are gotten up each year in Paris find sale ? 
 Reply is impossible. On this route the crowd is 
 greater than on any of the others. For thirty years 
 back the chief characters of novels whose heroes 
 
ARTISTS. 
 
 251 
 
 were formerly young gentlemen, have been artists, 
 especially painters. Thereupon a craze in this 
 direction ; numbers of young fellows, who would 
 have made excellent clerks, have bought gaiters 
 and let their beards grow. What are they to do 
 for their dinners ? 
 
 Many a one is worn out. This one takes a 
 whole summer to finish a study. He rubs out, 
 paints over, rubs out again, ends in losing all true 
 feeling, becomes cross, irritable, talks feverishly, 
 and by fits and starts, like a man who has had a 
 nervous attack. 
 
 Many have utterly thwarted their natures, and 
 after fifteen years of struggle find themselves 
 powerless. Instead of an imagination full to 
 overflow, and an impulse to pour out on the 
 canvas the very superfluity of their brains, they 
 resemble the dried-up spring which at long inter- 
 vals leaks out in miserable drops. A friend comes 
 in. He is stopped by a gesture. " Stand just as 
 you are ; stretch out your arm. Perhaps I have 
 found the attitude I have been looking- for." At 
 last, by mere chance, and after a hundred grop- 
 ing hesitations, they hang up something, and the 
 creature, thus brought into the world by a mir- 
 acle, is a pretentious abortion. 
 
 Some resign themselves to make a business of 
 their art. They paint daubs at forty francs a 
 piece. At the end of a certain time the fine ar- 
 tistic spring is overstrained, worn out, and they 
 remain mere mechanics for the rest of their lives. 
 
252 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 Others return to their homes in the country, stir 
 up their relatives, and paint portraits. Sometimes 
 the department government, aspiring to the glory 
 of protecting the arts, grants them a pension of 
 six hundred francs. The smaller towns are be- 
 ginning to have their exhibitions, and in this way 
 little municipal reputations are acquired. 
 
 Two or three, the most skilful, put off their 
 stout shoes as soon as the salons of the exhibition 
 are opened, return to Paris, move about in society, 
 and wear out enormous quantities of new gloves. 
 They know the critics, they scent the taste of the 
 day, and set up their studios. When amateurs 
 meet a painter in a certain set of society, and find 
 he wears a decent coat, they can hardly offer him 
 less than five hundred francs for a picture. 
 
 Most of them are as nervous about their talent 
 as a woman about her beauty. I have known one, 
 and one of the three or four most famous of our 
 day, to drop his arms in discouragement, and al- 
 most to shed tears, on reading a newspaper crit- 
 icism by a man who had never handled a brush. 
 " But I am only a poor devil, after all, and I may 
 as well throw my pictures out of the window ! " 
 Another, whom we reproach with too much sen- 
 sitiveness to criticism, " I must make a noise to be 
 famous ; the only way to show that I am not a 
 fool. So and so, w^ho are only asses, think as 
 well of their pictures as I do of mine." 
 
 To this must be added other miseries, and first 
 of all those which spring from women ; that is 
 
ARTISTS. 253 
 
 their curse. Married or single they live with old 
 actresses, with models, with grisettes, who have 
 shown their legs at public balls. They cannot 
 shake off the tone of their first employment. Al- 
 phonse Karr said that a passable duchess could 
 be made out of one of these fast little creatures. 
 Never was word more false. The air of a fash- 
 ionable woman, and above all of a virtuous wo- 
 man of the world, is just the very hardest thing to 
 catch. These little creatures always seem to be 
 either fishing for a man or resisting some rude 
 pleasantry. Natural enough, too ; they have done 
 nothing else all their lives. 
 
 I have just seen an extremely handsome speci- 
 men — always well dressed, and with plenty of 
 money. She lifts her skirts by the handful when 
 she sits down at table ; crossing a damp alley she 
 raises her whole overskirt, and shakes her white 
 petticoats in the air. She turns up her sleeves, 
 takes leaning attitudes, assumes a cooing voice, 
 an actress on the stag-e. 
 
 She talks of her affairs, says that she loves 
 painting, takes her neighbors, right and left, into 
 her confidence. The habit of display. Moreover, 
 this fat gentleman needs all this jabber to amuse 
 his idle hours. 
 
 Having ridden yesterday on horseback, she 
 says that she has two black and blue spots on her 
 legs as large as your hand. A bystander, who sets 
 up for a wit, asks her to show where, and as he 
 is witty he conceals the insinuation under a cover 
 
2 54 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 of politeness. She would like to be angry, but 
 cannot help laughing-. She excuses herself for 
 laughing, saying that she is only nervous, but in 
 fact is very much shocked. She calls him a fool. 
 A storm at once, tremendous shouts of laughter, 
 songs mixed up with shrill cries, the clash of 
 glasses, cries of " Madame ! Madame ! " shouted 
 at the top of a powerful voice. She offers him a 
 louis if he will keep quiet, and opens her purse to 
 prove that she has a louis. Applause and shouts. 
 She puts her fingers in her ears, but laughs none 
 the less ; she tries to defend herself, but it is evi- 
 dent that she is not used to it. — The next morning 
 she lets him in by her half-opened door, her feet 
 naked in her slippers. — Here are the manners of 
 the tavern ; there is no delicacy about her. 
 
 Some of them take their perches, and spend 
 the winter here : a sort of housekeeping. A 
 great, faded blonde is the happiness of an animal 
 painter, small and dark, with a heavy bass voice ; 
 contrasts meet, and not in much harmony. He 
 has some chickens, rabbits, pigeons, a dunghill 
 in his yard, three sheep in an enclosure, and has 
 bought a little cow: they all bleat and bellow, 
 and scratch under the windows, in the passage 
 ways, and even on the dirty staircase. She in 
 the story above all this menagerie, lies languidly 
 stretched out on a dirty divan, fretting, and 
 smoking cigarettes : I tried to make her talk, 
 believing her to be good-humored ; not a bit of 
 it; she grew angry, and bawled out her grief: 
 
ARTISTS. 
 
 255 
 
 " The first week it is charming ; the first month 
 all goes well enough ; at the end of a year it is 
 a dreadful bore ; at the end of two years one 
 grows crazy ; impossible to keep on a clean 
 skirt." The man has his occupations here; the 
 noble forest which he knows how to enjoy, com- 
 panionship, and aesthetic discussions. The woman 
 has nothing beyond her housekeeping and the 
 dunghill. She cannot remain a woman ; by that I 
 mean elegant and coquettish : she must learn 
 the self-denial of a German woman, the courage 
 to go every evening, take up her quarters, and 
 catch a cold alongside of the man. — These women 
 make up for it by indulging in scandal, turning 
 and fretting like caged squirrels. — An artist should 
 never have a woman about, once said to me one 
 of the most intelligent of them. " If there be 
 one, then let her be a cook." 
 
 Raised from so low a level, you would suppose 
 that they would be grateful and submissive. 
 Quite the contrary. The Frenchwoman has a 
 passion for equality and excitement in her blood ; 
 the moment she gets on a dress new enough 
 and large enough, she thinks herself as great as 
 the greatest lady. Her mind is too narrow, her 
 ambition too eager, for her to feel or acknowl- 
 edge any superiority ; by nature she is pivotal and 
 domineering ; invariably she takes the lead of the 
 man, be he what he may, lover or husband, an 
 elevated character, or a natural fool, of the artist 
 even more than of any other. He, absorbed in 
 
256 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 his art, spends all his strength upon it ; in the 
 evening he comes in weary, craving quiet and 
 rest. She, rested by a blank day, is in the ful- 
 ness of her force ; the contest is not equal. I met 
 a man at Paris a few days ago, whose pride and 
 energy are well known ; a man universally 
 honored, famous even, of whom strangers never 
 speak but with deference, before whom one feels 
 naturally modest ; his mistress, a grisette of 
 thirty, already wrinkled, though less than usual, 
 was reasoning with him, with wonderful tran- 
 quillity, contradicting him, and giving her own 
 views about literature and morals. She domi- 
 neered it over us all. 
 
 On the other hand artists have the gift of self- 
 deception. The animal painter has a portrait of 
 his faded blonde hanging in his studio ; he has 
 made an Ophelia of her. — Another has converted 
 a slovenly creature into an inspired and poetical 
 gipsy. The mother of Ophelia came on a visit ; 
 a horrible country woman, round as a tub, in a 
 white cap, with a sharp mug. The wretched 
 proprietor of Ophelia is now engaged in turning 
 her into a Dutch matron, virtuous and simple. 
 
 On the whole, I do not see that they are much 
 to be pitied. They can forget themselves ; they 
 can think of the beautiful sunset they have just 
 seen. In the evening, there float over the and- 
 irons pretty hunting-scenes, which they will some 
 day paint. Amazons in long habits with red 
 plumes, stag-hounds which scent the air, hunting- 
 
ARTISTS. 
 
 257 
 
 horns hanging from the necks of the huntsmen. 
 They say to themselves, that this time the picture 
 shall be charming, that they will show their talent. 
 In the meanwhile, they chat about art, and in- 
 dulge in criticism. For five or six hours each day 
 they take no thought of the realities of life. 
 
 Lastly, they have leisure hours, they are not 
 always in harness, they have the gayety and the 
 sportiveness of children. Every evening one or 
 two of the party go out to the edge of the forest 
 and blow the horn for the pleasure of hearing 
 themselves, of making a noise, of distending the 
 muscles of the chest. One of them has seven 
 dogs ; they talk to them, beat them, caress them. 
 From time to time, they arrange little parties 
 among themselves, and have wit enough to leave 
 the women at home. We went to Moret, a 
 pretty Gothic-looking little town. We were six, 
 one of us a horse, which we rode in turn. The 
 dinner was served on the terrace of the inn on 
 the edge of a running stream ; at dessert, there 
 was a general expansion. All the civilities, the 
 whole assortment of worldly ways wholly disap- 
 peared ; only what was natural remained, free 
 from hesitation, affectation, and calculation ; the 
 most of them are men of fine natures ; there is 
 no brutality in this expansion ; the taste for the 
 beautiful rises to the surface ; it is easy to see 
 that it is sincere and the substance and strength 
 of the character. — Another night we went with 
 torches to a grotto in the forest ; the long streaks 
 
 17 
 
258 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 of waving light buried themselves magnificently 
 in the massive shade ; the tresses of flame 
 streamed out over the rocks ; and the sands, 
 suddenly lighted, seemed to roll along in tor- 
 tuous brilliancy. — Nearly every evening they 
 visit each other, drink a glass of rum ; one sits 
 down at the piano, others sing with their natural 
 voices just as it happens, not to show their sing- 
 ing, or to make a display. They laugh at their 
 false notes ; but through the music, they divine 
 the thought of the master, and they feel it too, 
 a thing impossible in the concerts of the world. 
 
 In many respects, they are superior to ordinary 
 men of ambition, and they are surely happier. 
 They live in a higher range of ideas, they are 
 half gentlemen ; their thoughts are not turned 
 towards saving or profit, they have none of the 
 low tricks of trade, nor yet the violent and pain- 
 ful cares of great ambition and of business. 
 Those of the least talent among them know how 
 to ornament a studio prettily, to dispose their 
 plaster casts, their flowers, to make something 
 out of nothing. There are twenty thatched huts 
 arranged as residences, which are charming. 
 Their interiors are invented ; they are not the or- 
 dinary work of the upholsterer. One of them 
 lives in a barn which remains a barn outside ; but 
 within, it is painted in gray green, and is the 
 queerest assortment of sketches, pipes, arms, 
 busts, of hunting-horns, spurs, boots, with two 
 or three bits of old furniture, easy-chairs of the 
 
ARTISTS. 259 
 
 last century, and a gymnastic swing. The horse 
 lives alongside, separated by a wooden partition 
 only, and the dogs crouch at the door ; the 
 master of the house is as much of a hunter as he 
 is a painter ; everything shows that their bodies 
 are as much alive as their minds. Another has 
 a collection of pottery. A third has been gather- 
 ing for ten years the pretty remains of the Renais- 
 sance, furniture of browned oak with twisted legs, 
 old books bound in hog-skin and embossed with 
 little figures, plates of sculptured bronze, choice 
 prints ; the grand Antwerp crucifixion over 
 the fireplace spreads out its athletic figures, its 
 rich naked flesh, its masses of bloomine women 
 kneeling in silken robes beneath their twists of 
 pale hair. Most of the studios are surrounded 
 by grass ; instead of fruit trees, the garden is 
 full of delicate birch-trees, a sturdy young oak, 
 some wild vines, runners which twine their twigs 
 all along the walls ; the study window looks out 
 upon the large plains, across which, on the hori- 
 zon line, the forest stretches itself out long and 
 motionless. 
 
 Very few of these people are rude or unsoci- 
 able, even among those whose outside is rough, 
 and who are without culture ; there is always 
 a natural delicacy of perception, an easy appre- 
 hension of the original, the graceful and the gro- 
 tesque ; the sensibility of their organs is unim- 
 paired ; they catch thought and beauty on the 
 wing ; the imitative talent, the spirit of caricature, 
 
26o NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 are inborn in them. They will act a Marseillaise 
 scene to perfection, sing a Picard song, or tell a 
 Parisian anecdote ; nothing is omitted, the accent 
 and gesture all are there ; with their throats, 
 their noses, their tongue, their hands, they imi- 
 tate forms and sounds, the creaking of a door, the 
 bellow of the stag ; they are mimics, and that by 
 nature. " The stag snuffs the breeze, grunts, there 
 he runs, he comes, he sees us. Patatra, patatra, 
 down he goes." Such is primitive language 
 as suggested by striking images ; we have lost it, 
 because we are all dried up. I always think of 
 Mercutio and of Benedict when I hear them. 
 Their impressions are like those of Shakespeare's 
 youth, fresh, unstudied, and their expressions 
 follow, striking, absurd almost. Buffoonery crops 
 out in the midst of seriousness, and a bit of the 
 scamp also ; not delicate and ingenious, as was 
 the style of the last century, but broad, enormous, 
 such a mixture of poetry and folly as we find in 
 Aristophanes, sometimes even sentimental ; like 
 a choked stream, its waters and its mud burst out 
 together. But in nothing are they as successful 
 as in their sketches. One rainy day two passing- 
 artists painted each a panel of the dining-room ; 
 seen close to, it is a daub of color rubbed on with 
 a broom ; at ten steps' distance they are two gay, 
 bold scenes, dashed and enlivened by a breath of 
 youth. The first is a German drinking carouse ; 
 the company all lying on their backs, all smoking, 
 all with long boots on, all with their feet up on 
 
ARTISTS. 261 
 
 the table methodically raised to the level of their 
 eyes ; this collection of monumental boots which 
 spread themselves before you above these 
 fatherly faces, is food for an hour's laughter ; 
 This is the true German attitude, calculated to 
 give full scope to the meditative mood. It is in 
 this posture that they reason upon the absolute. — 
 The other painted a band of naked nymphs and 
 satyrs dancing on the smooth gravel of the hill- 
 side in a half violet obscurity, in the dim smoke 
 of the twilight, beneath the fading splendor of a 
 southern sky. — When he had finished the picture 
 he took aside a Dutch painter who happened to 
 be present, a decent young man, who appeared 
 rather scandalized by the manners of the place. 
 He told him that Holland was certainly a long 
 way from Paris, that they were, no doubt, very 
 much behindhand there, that the best thing he 
 could do would be to study French and morals 
 in the dictionary of Napoleon the Dutch, where 
 he would find exposed the great modern dis- 
 covery, a code of conduct approved by the gov- 
 ernment, where it is laid down that all French- 
 men must be atheists, that marriage is adultery, 
 and that the first duty of man is to murder his 
 neighbor. " Have you your pistols about you ? 
 For my part I never come to Marlotte without a 
 hunting knife ; at night I bolt my door. " 
 
262 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 III. 
 
 December 28th. 
 
 There is nothing in this vast forest that does 
 not add to it, enjoyment ; a large plain of stunted, 
 thorny junipers bent over by the wind, beaten 
 down upon the red carpet of the heather ; in the 
 middle a bouquet of pretty white birch-trees 
 stripped of their leaves, between whose tresses 
 you see the moving snowy clouds ; on the right 
 a phalanx of pine-trees, their trunks crowded to- 
 gether in serried ranks and pushing forward their 
 black battalion into the luminous country ; in the 
 background, the great broken lines of the hills, 
 spotted by the even whiteness of the gravel and 
 rocky points which shine through the plumes 
 of the beeches. The autumn wind whistles and 
 rises, sweeps growling through the motionless files 
 of the pine-trees and rustles in the foliage of the 
 half-stripped birches, which shake and tremble 
 like so many frightened children. Leaves, golden 
 as the wings of a dead butterfly, take their 
 flight one by one, and whirl in the light as thev 
 fall. 
 
 Looking at these great piles of gray rock 
 thrown here and there, crowning the hills with 
 their indentations and embossing the slopes, the 
 thought turns to the furious torrent of waters 
 which at some time cut these ravines, stripping 
 and dislocating the crest of the hills. This coun- 
 try was once the bottom of a sea, the signs of 
 
AUT/STS. 
 
 263 
 
 which still remain : sand everywhere, devastated 
 banks, half-torn cliffs, rocks mined at their base ; 
 at the outlets, series of blocks which mark the 
 bed of the currents ; the water withdrawn, there 
 remains a dry, white desert. By degrees, the 
 sun has browned the rocks ; mosses have grown 
 up and encrusted themselves on the walls of 
 uneven sandstone ; in their wake, ferns, obstinate 
 stalks of juniper, later, colonies of invading trees, 
 and in the damp depths oaks, which, breathing 
 the air of solitude from century to century, have 
 pushed their trunks deep down into the earth, and 
 lifted high their cupolas into the air. 
 
 The autumnal heather and moss have fastened 
 their tawny skins upon the backs of the hills, and 
 the sun warms them with its lustre. But the 
 bones of primitive rock, outcropping in a hun- 
 dred thousand places, have cracked this vegetable 
 skin. Here and there on the stone circle which 
 marks the horizon, a thin girdle of stray pines 
 winds along between their indentations, and the 
 scattered birches drop their pale tresses. 
 
 You could pass a whole morning here without 
 thought, satisfied to look on only. You want 
 for nothing here ; you may be as happy as the 
 ancient gods, the gods of Homer. 
 
 There are tufts of grasses four feet high, up- 
 springing in verdant rockets. There are oaks 
 which three men cannot span. 
 
 The blue of the sky is so luminous and so 
 intense that the eye perpetually turns to it. 
 
264 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 The air, peopled with rays and reflections, is 
 in full festivity, and the black twisted branches 
 contrast sharply with the surrounding brightness 
 and the deep blue of the sky. 
 
 An old broken-down road winds along, all choked 
 with heather, and its sands, streaked with black 
 earth, and spotted by millions of acorns, are half 
 hidden beneath the prolific vegetation. No words 
 can give any idea of these tall plants, whose native 
 vigor cultivation has not deformed. The rich 
 soil has thrown them into the air in one effort by 
 families ; they shine joyously in the dull heather, 
 and at times a ray of the sun striking them aslant 
 scatters a sheaf of emeralds over the shade. 
 
 And always the sky above this golden foliage, 
 the beneficent, peaceful sky, most magnificent of 
 the gods, most divine of things. 
 
 Of what use are painting and poetry ? What 
 picture or what book can compare with such a 
 spectacle ? They are but mean counterfeits, con- 
 solations at best for persons in confinement. 
 
 These great trees impart to you some of their 
 grandeur : they are heroes happy and serene ; 
 you become so by the contagion of contempla- 
 tion ; you are tempted to cry out to them : "Thou 
 art a noble and powerful oak ; thou art strong ; thou 
 hast the full enjoyment of thy force and of the 
 wealth of thy foliage." The birches, the ash-trees, 
 and the other delicate plants seem like so many 
 pensive women, whose thoughts no man has 
 understood. A timid, graceful thought, which 
 
ARTISTS. 
 
 265 
 
 reaches you half effaced throug-h the whispers and 
 the movements of their dehcate branches. There 
 is meekness and coquetry in the shady hollows, 
 in the beds of rosy heather, in the pathways, 
 which show a bit of their winding ribbon as they 
 skirt along the little stream which darkens the 
 earth between the stones and all at once dashes 
 down in a sparkling rain. It is the sudden look, 
 the roguish prank of a child, of some infant-god 
 who laughs in his liberty. All these charming 
 creatures talk aloud in this silence. Above, 
 overhead, what serenity and what glorious rays 
 in this inextricable network of interwoven and 
 crossing lights which dwell in the domes of the 
 oaks ! Every human care disappears in their 
 presence, like them you abandon yourself to the 
 full enjoyment of life. 
 
 The years are going by : last month I was 
 fifty-four, and how many days a year are there 
 when I feel as young as to-day ? 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MORALS. 
 
 December 2oth. 
 
 It is sometimes disagreeable to be an uncle, 
 not only because every nephew likes to treat his 
 uncle as his banker, for I have taken care of all 
 that ; but because he must give him moral lec- 
 tures. That gives a pedantic air, and between 
 this and the air of a fool there is not much dif- 
 ference. Your nephew looks at the toes of his 
 boots, turning his hat in his hands as though he 
 were watching the water run by. The posture 
 is entirely respectful, but in the bottom of his 
 heart he is saying to himself, " Was not my 
 uncle just as wild as I when he was a boy ? He 
 scolds me for hiring a coupe by the month, and 
 he has two carriages of his own. I gave away 
 a hundred-franc ring the other day, but did he 
 not give away a pair of earrings which cost him 
 a hundred louis cTor ? He complains of the ex- 
 travagance of my tailor ; just ask him to put on a 
 threadbare coat. A little patience, and the storm 
 will pass over, and I shall have time to go and 
 see Georgette." 
 
 In the matter of morals words amount to noth- 
 ing ; in themselves, they are only so many more 
 
MORALS. 
 
 267 
 
 or less disagreeable sounds. It is the education 
 precedent which oives them force and meaning. 
 If this have lodged two or three sensible ideas in 
 the boy's head, talk rationally to him ; if not, as 
 well attempt to strike sparks from a log of wood. 
 You must address yourself to feelings which al- 
 ready exist, and no fine phrases can call them 
 into life in a quarter of an hour. What is there 
 in this boy's brain.-* That is what I ask myself 
 as I see him in his new showy arm-chair, dressed 
 in the last fashion, his hair parted in the middle, 
 and his fingers moulded in his flesh-colored 
 gloves. He has run through three or four edu- 
 cations, and as many courses of moral training. 
 If I make anything out of him it will not be be- 
 cause of my own fine words, but by reason of 
 this education and this moral training. Here is 
 the account-current and the balance-sheet. 
 
 First came the catechism : I only mention this 
 as a matter of form. He then wore a round- 
 about, and recited theological definitions, which 
 he forgot when he put on his first pair of boots. 
 Then he became a man, and dreamed of no other 
 glory than that of wearing his college uniform in 
 the most stylish way. 
 
 Secondly, the family training. He learned not 
 to put his fingers in his nose, an excellent pre- 
 cept, which he forgot when he went to college. 
 He was also taught not to put his fingers in the 
 dish ; not to make too much noise with his jaws 
 while eating ; not to crawl on his knees ; not to 
 
268 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 do all the talking at table : of all this he has 
 retained something. 
 
 Thirdly, his college training. That is the 
 main matter. Here a distinction must be drawn 
 between that which he learned from his mas- 
 ter, and that which he owes to his comrades. 
 
 The first is small enough ; so soon as he could 
 put two ideas together he laughed at his masters ; 
 our young French boys are not over respectful : 
 their respect for others will never choke them. 
 He remarked that one of them was always 
 scratching the end of his nose, and that the 
 other always wound up his phrases as though he 
 were turning an air on the clarionette. He heard 
 that another was unhappy in his domestic rela- 
 tions ; of a fourth, that to obtain the cross of the 
 legion of honor, he had written an article of 
 which he should have been ashamed. As a mat- 
 ter of general principle, he has settled it in his 
 mind that all administrations and all govern- 
 ments are made up of disagreeable creatures. 
 When the prizes were distributed, and his father 
 went with him to pay the regular visit to the 
 director of the lyceum, he heard sundry very 
 proper amplifications on the importance of educa- 
 tion, which is in itself a priesthood. He yawned, 
 and said to himself, "These fellows beat the 
 confectioners at puffing." Nevertheless he has 
 picked up some ideas of justice ; at college, if one 
 stands first it is because of his deserts. More- 
 over, he has got some esteem for literature ; all 
 
MORALS. 
 
 269 
 
 the great men he has heard spoken of are men of 
 letters. He is disposed to beHeve that orthog- 
 raphy is worth knowing ; that Homer and Virgil 
 must not be thought to have been monks of the 
 middle ages, and that Voltaire after all enjoyed a 
 certain amount of esteem in the eyes of the 
 world. 
 
 All this does not amount to much ; his school- 
 mates were of more use to him. He was 
 pretty, spruce, tender; they called him a little girl, 
 rapped him over the head, and made him play at 
 prison-bar ; under this treatment, he got a little 
 force of character and became more manly. Here, 
 too, he picked up some pride and sentiment of 
 honor. School-boys recognize, as a matter of 
 principle, that they are all in league against the 
 master ; that, happen what may, they must never 
 betray a comrade ; that would be cowardly ; if 
 the punishment do not fall upon the guilty, it is 
 his duty to make confession. All this makes up 
 a small assortment of Roman and military virtues. 
 They learn some things not quite so desirable. 
 He feels the necessity of playing the scamp too 
 early. On his return from his Sunday holiday, 
 he feels bound to tell his companions that he 
 has been running after women, that such a week 
 he took punch with some bootmaker's 'prentice- 
 girl ; all this in a half immodest way, with all the 
 details. He must show that he knows the world. 
 In a word, his vanity is brought into full play; a 
 vanity not unlike the noonday sun, which may 
 
270 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 scorch the fruit a bit, but which after all ripens it. 
 This is our modern culture ; no chance for us to 
 pick up any other. The college is a sort of 
 regiment, where the spirit of raillery, precocity, 
 gallantry, debauchery, bravery, imitation, in a 
 word, all the traits of French character, spring 
 spontaneously and at a single growth ; the boy 
 becomes something of a soldier and something 
 of a vagabond. 
 
 About this time he begins to see the world ; 
 his mother takes his arm, and he accompanies 
 her on her visits ; in the country and on his 
 vacations, he meets well-bred women and young 
 girls. At sixteen he is not a little comical. 
 These two educations cross each other and 
 disagree. He wishes to be agreeable, yet to 
 have a manly air. He moves about the young 
 girls, yet finds not a word to say. He tries on 
 cravats without number, and looks in the glass to 
 see if he knows how to smile ; but at the most 
 distant sight of a school-companion, he scowls 
 and puts on a saucy air, that he may not be re- 
 ported at school as effeminate. Among men he 
 does his best to keep up his dignity and spirits; 
 and all of a sudden is as lively as a pup, or as 
 earnest as a setter. He drinks rum, which he 
 detests ; and smokes cigars, which make him sick 
 at the stomach. He talks of nothing but his col- 
 lege pranks, yet thinks that he is laughed at if 
 any one says a word of college to him. In the 
 evening, in the drawing-room, in his white waist- 
 
MORALS. 
 
 271 
 
 coat, he swells out his chest with a self-satisfied 
 air, and blushes if he be looked at, for fear that 
 his dress is not all right. He is always uneasy, 
 and his politeness is as unnatural to him as 
 though he were on pins and needles. About this 
 time also he begins to read the newspapers and 
 the novels of Alexandre Dumas. Thereupon his 
 head is filled with the liveliest fancies. He tries 
 to be heroic and positive, and ends in wishing to 
 be nothing. His desires are weak and incom- 
 plete. He dreams of cavaliers in buff jackets, 
 who carry off beautiful ladies on their saddles, 
 and a bit more of the little sewing-girls, who ac- 
 cept a glass of malaga after a country dance. He 
 thinks of D'Artagnan, who was such a pretty 
 swordsman, and of his cousin Jules, who lifts his 
 leg so saucily at the grisette balls. All around 
 him he hears nothing but disinterestedness 
 preached, and sees nothing but egotism practised. 
 The newspapers lay heavy stress upon patriotism, 
 and grave gentlemen declare the land they pur- 
 chase at a false value to escape the registry tax. 
 A lot of moral maxims, fished up from the works 
 of various authors, is continually floating before 
 his eyes, but only to turn a period, or to make 
 a place for a quotation of Latin verse ; simple 
 ornaments of diction, which do very well in 
 speeches or writings, like vases en a mantelpiece, 
 or pottery in the windows ; at least such is the use 
 he sees made of them. In practice, both men and 
 women only think of amusing themselves, not in 
 
272 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 a large or violent manner, but each one following 
 out his own petty fancy and in his own narrow 
 circle, at the hunt, in the garden, at the toilette, 
 in talkinor scandal at the dinner table without 
 
 O 
 
 offence to his neighbor, because offence to one's 
 neighbor may be dangerous ; content with giving 
 a scratch or so from behind and covertly ; that 
 gives a little zest to life, and does not sensibly 
 alter the general good-humor and comfort which 
 are so important to society. Real reproof is re- 
 served for great follies or great stupidity. By 
 common consent, whoever sets himself ao-ainst 
 any established custom is a fool ; whoever cannot 
 make or keep his fortune is an ass. Outside of 
 these general rules do what you choose, amuse 
 yourself as you like, and it is no one's business ; 
 only don't break your own nose or your neigh- 
 bor's windows. 
 
 About this time, also, he is seriously talked to 
 about his future career. "A man must have an 
 occupation, and make his way in the world. 
 What a poor wretch a man is who does nothing, 
 etc." — But as the devil will have it, the talk on 
 this subject is always in double sense, one which 
 is heard, and the other which is not heard ; 
 naturally the youth only hears the latter. One 
 day he hears two ladies talking of marriage : 
 " My dear, insist on a profession in your son-in- 
 law. That is the only way to keep a man 
 steady ; it is a chain around their necks, without 
 which they run wild." — Another clay, — at three in 
 
MORALS. 273 
 
 the afternoon the notary arrives in his black 
 coat and white cravat. A Paris lady, near by, 
 laughs and whispers in her neighbor's ear : "I 
 thought that there were no more notaries except 
 at the Opera Comique. It is their profession." — 
 The college principal is invited to the house ; he 
 comes in, holding a broad-brimmed hat in his 
 hand, spreading out his chest in a style at once 
 majestic and fatherly. Some one inquires who 
 this big fellow is, who talks so much and says 
 nothing. " That is not a man," replies the neigh- 
 bor ; "that is a prize discourse." — A captain does 
 his duty at a ball and dances till three in the morn- 
 ing. His devotion is explained by saying, that 
 by constant standing at the parades of his regi- 
 ment his legs have become strong and his feet 
 enormous. — One evening on the stage, the bril- 
 liant personage of the play says, a propos of I for- 
 get what rich man: " He died at Marseilles in 
 the oil trade ; " and our collegian notices a con- 
 temptuous smile on the lips of all those who are 
 not in the oil trade. — The same evening, returned 
 home, after a conversation on the bureaux and 
 heads of bureaux in France, he hears some 
 poor wit propose the establishment of a mechani- 
 cal administration made up of officials of boiled 
 leather and varnished wood, each with his green 
 leather apron and his green spectacles, turned by 
 a central steam-engine, with the minister for chief 
 stoker. The worn-out officials should be put on 
 the retired list, and hung up on hooks on the 
 
 18 
 
274 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 ground-floor. They would never grumble nor 
 besmear the tables. The public service will be 
 better and more economical. They would know 
 as much as their predecessors ; it is a reform, 
 and we shall certainly come to it. Then my 
 young friend has pored over the albums of Dau- 
 mier,^^ which lie about on the tables ; certainly he 
 has not drawn from them any special admiration 
 for the habits and professions of the bourgeoisie. 
 The men of the world praise the workers very 
 much as thorough-breds would praise cart-horses. 
 " Good beasts, patient fellows. They are neces- 
 sary, certainly, only let us try not become like 
 them." 
 
 During all this time he has contracted a cer- 
 tain habit ; that is the main-spring. To my view 
 there are three springs which stir a man up^ — the 
 formal speeches he hears, which graze the sur- 
 face of the skin ; sincere phrases which he over- 
 hears, and which startle him and move a leg or 
 an arm ; the habits he picks up set him in motion 
 and push the whole body along. The habit I al- 
 lude to consists in putting his hand in his pocket. 
 As he has always found money in it, he has 
 ended in the belief that there is a natural affinity 
 between money and breeches-pockets. What he 
 sees about him confirms him in this fine idea. 
 His mother's pocket-book was always full, and so 
 was his father's desk. What more natural than 
 for a franc to slip from these places into his own 
 pocket ! Only a little lock to open, or a knob to 
 
MORALS. 
 
 275 
 
 draw, and the diing was done. To suppose the 
 pocket-book or the drawer empty was simply- 
 impossible, absurd. Can you imagine that to- 
 morrow the air will not be fit to breathe, or that 
 the sun will not rise ? So with everything. At 
 the lyceum, or at home, the breakfast-table was 
 reguferly spread and served at ten o'clock. The 
 concierge came every six months, hat in hand, 
 with the receipt for the rent. Four or five times 
 a year the tailor came with his clothes, and it 
 seemed perfectly natural that, if the pantaloons 
 did not sit perfectly, the tailor should go away 
 mortified and send him another pair without de- 
 lay. All this marched on with the regularity of 
 the^ stars in their courses. The contrary would 
 have seemed monstrous. So that at twenty, 
 when he entered society, he had implanted in 
 him, deep down below all his opinions and all 
 his beliefs, the fixed persuasion that the world 
 and society owed him good dinners, table claret, 
 champagne as often as he wanted it, comfort- 
 able lodging, new furniture, well-cut clothing, 
 four pairs of gloves a week, and five hundred 
 francs a month pocket-money. Thereupon he 
 had his first visiting-cards engraved, and began 
 to read law ; a capital way of doing nothing. 
 More than that, he came to me for advice. 
 I gave him some boxes of cigars, and looked 
 into the state of his cravats and his boots. What 
 use in talking ? only the experience of life can 
 instruct him. My only business was to put him 
 
276 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 in the way of instructive circumstances. Let 
 him feel the truth and necessity on his bare 
 skin ; then he will know the varieties of ways of 
 being scorched. If I am jotting down my ideas 
 of life, it is not for him, but for myself I can let 
 this off at my ease ; he will not read a word of it 
 this ten years. 
 
 11. 
 
 My child, your cheeks are rosy, and you enter 
 life like a dining-room, to take a seat at the table. 
 You are mistaken ; all the places are taken. It is 
 not dining, but fasting, that is a matter of course. 
 It is not misfortune but happiness that is against 
 the law of nature. The normal condition of man, 
 like that of the beast, is to be worn out by labor 
 or to die of hunger. 
 
 If this seem strange to you, it is because you 
 have not, as I, lived in a country where truth 
 and hypocrisy show themselves at once, and in 
 their full nakedness. Remember the walk that 
 we took together the other day in the forest. 
 We crushed the ants which happened to be in 
 our path. The little birds were flying about, 
 catching the flies ; the large insects were devour- 
 ing the small. We saw in a rut between two 
 tufts of grass a young hare lying on his back ; a 
 hawk had caught him as he crept from his warren, 
 half eaten him ; the belly was hollow ; ants and 
 beetles and endless hungry creatures were at 
 work at his skin. Of eighteen new-born hares, 
 
MORALS. 277 
 
 one reaches maturity, and there are twenty chances 
 to one against liis arriving at old age. Winter, 
 rain, wild animals, accidents, cut short his days. 
 A foot or a lee broken in the morninor, and he falls 
 a prey before evening. If he escape by miracle, 
 on the first attack of sickness or of age he shuts 
 himself up in his hole and dies of hunger. He 
 makes no resistance, but quietly submits to the 
 order of nature. Look at a sick horse or cat or 
 bird. They lie down patiently ; they do not 
 groan, but await their fate. And in the world 
 things go on in the same way as in this magnifi- 
 cent and perfumed forest. People suffer, and it 
 is reasonable that they should. Do you expect 
 nature to pause in its grand order and change 
 its course to save your delicate nerves and heart ? 
 People kill and eat each other, and there is nothing 
 strange in this either ; there is not food enough 
 for so many stomachs. 
 
 If you would understand life, let this be the 
 beginning and the touchstone of all your reason- 
 ings, and all your desires : that you have no right 
 to anything, and that neither society nor nature 
 owe you anything whatever. If you seek happi- 
 ness from them, you are a fool ; if you think 
 yourself unjustly treated because they do not 
 give it to you, you are doubly a fool. You 
 would fain be honored, but that is no reason why 
 any one should honor you. You are cold, but 
 that is no reason why a warm and comfortable 
 coat should put itself on your back. You are in 
 
278 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 love, but that is no reason why any one should 
 be in love with you. There are changeless laws 
 which control the possession of fame, just as they 
 control your fate in love, or your success in seek- 
 ing fortune. They envelop and master you as 
 the mephitic or wholesome air which surrounds 
 you, as the seasons, which, careless of your com- 
 plaints, freeze or broil you in turn. You are 
 among them, a feeble creature, as a field-mouse 
 among elephants ; keep your eyes about you, take 
 care how you tread, don't venture upon their 
 usual paths ; nibble carefully what little you can 
 of the food they accumulate ; but above all, do not 
 be ridiculous enough to wonder that they are not 
 your servants, and that their monstrous bulks can 
 move without your aid. What life gives you is 
 gratuitous ; a thousand as good as you have been 
 crushed at their very birth. If you find some 
 grains already gathered in your hole, thank your 
 father, who has sought for them at the risk of his 
 life. When you catch a moment of enjoyment, 
 look upon it as a happy chance. Want, anxiety, 
 weariness with suffering and danger, will accom- 
 pany you in your rat-like gambols, or pursue you 
 into your hole. You were content with it, it 
 seemed strong and solid ; true enough, until the 
 first flood blown from one of these great trunks, 
 until the coming of one of these heavy feet. 
 After all, the twentieth day, the fiftieth, or a little 
 later, the result will be the same. The monstrous 
 gallop will catch your little body some evening, 
 
MORALS. 
 
 279 
 
 when you put out your nose at sunset, some 
 fine morning when you go out for your food. 
 May chance grant that the huge foot shall in- 
 stantly crush your sad little carcass ! You will 
 hardly feel it ; I ask nothing better for my friends, 
 for you, for myself But it is likely that death 
 will take you piecemeal, and that this time you 
 will get back to your home with a broken limb, 
 leaving a trail of blood on the sand. Thus lame 
 and limping the next gallop will crush your head 
 and breast, and to-morrow the others will take 
 their turn. Against these sorts of ills, the expe- 
 rience of all the rats and all the rat-holes has as 
 yet found no remedy ; at most, after so many 
 centuries, the little trotting race has found out 
 some habits of the elephants, learned their paths, 
 and to know their comings and goings from their 
 cries. It is not quite so much crushed as it was 
 fifty centuries ago ; but it is still a victim, and will 
 always so remain. Increase your skill as you 
 may, poor rat ; you will not add much to your 
 happiness ; rather try, if you can, to strengthen 
 your patience and your courage. Learn to sub- 
 mit quiedy to the inevitable. Avoid all grotesque 
 contortions and emotions ; why make yourself 
 the laughing-stock of your neighbors ? Reserve 
 the right to self-esteem, since you cannot escape 
 the necessity of suffering. In time, the great 
 feet of the elephants, and the calamities which 
 they cause you, will seem to you quite in order. 
 The best fruit of our science is cold resignation, 
 
28o NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 which, calming and preparing the soul, reduces 
 suffering to a mere bodily pain. 
 
 And if the pitiful creatures could only live in 
 peace with each other ! You have been already 
 told this, over and over again ; you have heard 
 that in each of these rodent families all are allies, 
 all work for the common good ; all, save some 
 marauders, duly punished, faithfully observe the 
 primitive understanding. That is false, and you 
 should know it to be false; otherwise at your 
 first experience in life you will take all the teach- 
 ings of your youth to be so many lies, and self- 
 interest will turn you into a hypocrite or a rebel. 
 Be neither, but look the truth steadily in the face 
 as it is. Man is an animal by nature and by 
 structure, and neither nature nor structure ever 
 lose a sinorle fold. He has the canine teeth like 
 the dog and the fox, and, like the dog and the 
 fox, he once fastened them in the flesh of his kind ; 
 his descendants cut each other's throats with 
 stone hatchets for a morsel of raw hsh. Even 
 now he is not changed ; he is only softened. War 
 rages as of old, only it is confined and partial ; 
 each one fights still for his morsel of raw fish, only 
 it is under the eye of the policeman and not with 
 stone hatchets. There is only a scanty provision 
 of good things, and from every side an unchained 
 covetousness leaps to seize them. Look at a 
 great city, and the swarm of busy people who el- 
 bow each other about. Each man oroes out to 
 hunt in the morning with his family and his ser- 
 
MORALS. 281 
 
 vants, his friends and his protectors, some at his 
 side, others within call ; so soon as the game ap- 
 pears on the horizon, family and servants, friends 
 and protectors, all get ready and scatter them- 
 selves ; traps, decoys, nets, arms (sometimes per- 
 mitted and sometimes illegal), setters and pointers, 
 the whole house, with all the arsenal of the house, 
 set to work, the master at the head: dinner 
 must be had. Remember your dinner and know 
 that you will only dine from the game you bring 
 down. Game is rare, and there are many hunters. 
 Rise in the morning before the rest, go to your 
 bed later, walk quicker, get a keener scent, 
 gather together more dogs, nets, friends and arms ; 
 shut up the game-bag carefully, on your way 
 home ; keep your gun loaded for fear from some 
 corner of the wood some hunter with an empty 
 pouch does not relieve you of your spoil : let it be 
 known that you are brave, and ready to defend 
 yourself; at the first attack even defend yourself 
 with more than necessary vigor : be respected ; at 
 this price and only at this price will you get your 
 dinner. This is a piece of advice for the world 
 in general ; here is a second for a few individuals 
 only. Never ask for anything ; beggars are timid 
 thieves. Accept seldom ; a man under obliga- 
 tion is half a slave. Are you so soft in body 
 and spirit that you must live by another's toil ? 
 Respect yourself, and to do this be not a mere 
 gormandizer. When you have made your shot 
 and bagged your supper, leave the hirelings to 
 
282 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 scour the plain ; let them load themselves down 
 and stuff themselves on their return. What need 
 for you to burden your game-bag and to over- 
 weight your walk? Why take more than you 
 can eat ? Is it decent for you to seize unneces- 
 sarily the game which you take from the lips of 
 some poor devil ? Who compels you to sweat 
 between the furrows all the day long like a hire- 
 ling, when at ten in the morning you have al- 
 ready killed your day's food ? Look about you ; 
 contemplation is a less animal occupation. This 
 great plain smokes and shines beneath the genial 
 warmth of the sun. The jutting woods repose 
 in delightful calm on the luminous blue which 
 surrounds them; these scented pines rise like 
 censers from the carpet of red heather. You 
 may pass an hour in this charming occupation, 
 and for this hour, strange to say, you will not 
 have been a brute. I congratulate you ; you can 
 almost boast of not having lived in vain. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CON VERS A TION. 
 
 Thursday last at the club, B said to three 
 
 or four of us : "I am going to be married ; a 
 pretty girl, virtuous, well brought up, a good 
 family ; we shall have an income to begin with of 
 forty thousand francs." We congratulated him. 
 
 He leaves us and meets an old comrade, 
 
 Maxime A , who calls out to him in great 
 
 haste as he jumps into his carriage: "Good- 
 morning, my dear fellow, good-morning : I am 
 going to be married, you know ? Four millions, 
 my boy, four millions ! " 
 
 He comes back to us, and tells the story with a 
 melancholy air : " My position is as good as that 
 of Maxime ! Morbleu, I was in too much of a 
 hurry ! " 
 
 N has just offered the prettiest necklace 
 
 of pearls to Mile. Leontine of the Opera, and we 
 complimented him on the lovely little shoulders 
 which he has so well adorned. Peuh ! as well 
 her's as another's. ***** 
 
 Emile S , a lawyer, gave us this morning 
 
 this summary of his profession. The law is a 
 
284 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 majestic statue, which we salute, and alongside 
 of which we pass ; jurisprudence changes every 
 twenty years. As there are always ten pre- 
 cedents in one direction and ten in the other, the 
 judge chooses as he happens to fancy, and 
 whether he knows it or not, his choice is always 
 regulated by domestic and personal reasons. 
 Never plead plain, common sense, as though 
 before a just magistrate ; on the contrary, bring 
 into play the motive or special argument which 
 will touch the judge who gives the decision. One 
 an old lawyer, will be naturally reached by 
 reasons of practice ; another an author will be 
 controlled by general considerations ; another is a 
 bigot or a free-thinker, a high liver, or a deceived 
 husband. Touch this chord. The most com- 
 mon practice is to wear out the judge, and to 
 drown him in a flood of contrary reasoning, to 
 humble yourself before him, to hurry him along 
 in a deluge of interpretations, of citations and 
 authorities ; and at the end, in your last reply, to 
 reach him the pole, — that is to say, a broad, clear, 
 conclusive argument, to which he may cling. 
 
 Of every ten judges, nine are wrinkled, shriv- 
 elled, bloated ; their faces cadaverous or in- 
 flamed. The faces of no class of men are so 
 deformed, so drawn, so hollow, so worn, so 
 marked by suflering. This is because they 
 remain seated all day biting their pens, silent, 
 motionless, under the auger of the lawyer who 
 for two hours, three hours in succession, bores 
 
CONVERSATION. 285 
 
 them in the name of the law. This is the inward 
 stake which twists their Hps and strips their 
 skulls. On the other hand they snub the lawyers 
 as though they were domestics. 
 
 Conversation upon sleight-of-hand, the Bourse, 
 and the tricks of lorettes. I leave out all these 
 matters ; they are too well known. For in- 
 stance, in a famous restaurant the private rooms 
 begin with No. 20; this number is printed on 
 the bill-heads and is added in with the sum 
 total. The diner is generally slightly excited ; 
 he has taken champagne ; he is watching madame 
 as she puts on her bonnet ; he omits to verify 
 the addition, or does it carelessly ; in a word, he 
 pays. If he see the fraud, the servant exclaims : 
 "Ah! monsieur, it is that cursed No. 20; an 
 error of the cashier." The proprietor picks up 
 25,000 francs a year by these errors of the cashier. 
 — Another time, the little lady who dines arranges 
 to go up-stairs behind her cavalier, and makes a 
 sign to the servant that she expects ten francs. 
 The servant cries, " Take good care of No. so 
 and so." The charges are stretched a little, and 
 ten francs are added to the bill. 
 
 All this is common enough ; here is something 
 newer. In Normandy, when two peasants have 
 agreed upon their boundary line, they make a 
 hole six feet deep, put a mark in it, for instance 
 some bottles, cover it up with earth, and plant 
 
286 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 a landmark on top. Both are scamps, and would 
 willingly set back the landmark ; but in this case 
 the mark serves as a witness. But often the 
 very first night the most cunning of the two gets 
 out of bed, digs up the bottles, buries them ten 
 yards further in the field of his neighbor, but 
 leaves the landmark in its place. A year later 
 he complains that the landmark has been changed. 
 A judicial examination is had, the place is ex- 
 amined, and the innocent passes for the thief. It 
 seems that the Sg,bot rouge of Henri Murger and 
 the Paysans of Balzac are true pictures. 
 
 Three-quarters of Paris conversations take this 
 speculative turn. What ways are there of picking 
 up an income of fifty thousand francs by taking 
 advantage of human stupidity ? How do the 
 financier, the lorette and the politician set about 
 it ? What should I do myself under similar cir- 
 cumstances ? If a man of the world, my sole rule 
 is not to be wanting in what the world calls 
 honor. If in business, my only care is not to fall 
 into the clutches of the law. If politician, my 
 chief look-out is to keep in the saddle, and, happen 
 what may, in a comfortable post. There are 
 several good places, especially in the treasury ; 
 those of receiver, tax-collector, etc. I went 
 the other day to the tax-office of my district : 
 He is not at home, sir. — ^I would like very much 
 to see him. — That is impossible, sir. — At what 
 hour is he here ? — He is never here, sir. — Then 
 give me his address.— We do not know it." — An 
 
CONVERSATION. 
 
 287 
 
 old clerk does the work of the office ; the place 
 is worth twenty-five thousand francs. I have 
 since learned that the tax-collector is a fashion- 
 able gentleman, and that he has been very lucky 
 at Baden. He writes pretty verses, wears nice 
 boots, and is noted for several quite extraordi- 
 nary waistcoats. 
 
 Conversation is a source of depravity. Be- 
 tween man and man it produces cynicism, because 
 a display of experience, a depth of judgment, and 
 a freedom from illusion are necessary to it. Be- 
 tween woman and man it begets scepticism, be- 
 cause its condition is a mockery of all things, 
 even the most serious. Society changes the wo- 
 man of the world and the man of the world into 
 spoiled children, who spoil each other. The for- 
 mer plays with everything as with so many toys ; 
 the latter breaks everything into pieces to see 
 what is inside. 
 
 Even this is better than the etiquette of society. 
 Anything is better than etiquette. Walk on all 
 fours, if it please you ; take off your coat, your 
 boots, everything you please, only do not recite 
 ready-made phrases. Last winter I gave a suc- 
 cessful evening party. My rooms were deco- 
 rated with tropical flowers, and there was some 
 rare Cape wine. A week later I wished I were 
 out of Paris. I could not enter a drawing-room 
 without receiving a compliment, always the same, 
 
288 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 and I grew gradually savage. When a man or a 
 woman approached me I caught their phrase in 
 advance, could see the particular grimace, the 
 kind and quantity of the smile, the twinkle of the 
 eyes, the depth of the lines about the mouth, the 
 movements of the hips, the twist of the loins, the 
 sharpness and the crescendo of the voice, I no 
 longer saw the face of a sensible man, but the 
 mug of a monkey making grimaces, or the mum- 
 mery of a dancing doll pulled by a string. I 
 ended in becoming as mechanical as they. I con- 
 structed a phrase with variations, which I used as 
 a parry to the thrust of compliments. I recited 
 it, listening to the sound of my own voice and 
 counting the trinkets of my adversary's watch 
 chain. One should keep a secretary, whose busi- 
 ness it should be to pay and receive compliments 
 for him from ten o'clock till midnight every even- 
 ing during the season. 
 
 Let us make a short statistical summary of 
 the fifty persons here before you in a drawing- 
 room. How many are either amusing or inter- 
 esting in conversation ? 
 
 Twenty-five are very proper people, mere bird- 
 organs which grind out staple phrases. Nothing 
 in nature is more rare than originality, and edu- 
 cation diminishes it. The decorum of life cramps 
 the soul and the intellieence. One dares not 
 move for fear of exposing and compromising one's 
 
CONVERSATION. 
 
 289 
 
 self. For fifteen days running, one repeats the 
 last fashionable idea ; and for the next fifteen days 
 that which follows it. There are two phrases 
 upon the Africaine, two on the speech of M, 
 Thiers, two upon the expedition to Mexico, two 
 on the Academy, two on every human thing. It 
 will depend on the speaker whether you will hear 
 one or the other, perhaps an anecdote even ; but 
 as for a sincere and individual judgment, you 
 need not expect it. There is no such thing as an 
 impression. The eyes have seen, the ears have 
 heard, memory retains, the sense of propriety 
 controls, and the mouth gives out its phrase, and 
 that is all. 
 
 This is even more strikinof amongf women than 
 among men. You have been let in by a vesti- 
 bule, decorated with shrubs and flowers, where 
 among the snowy marbles and the heavy roses of 
 the carpeting the ladies display their bare shoul- 
 ders, their hair studded with diamonds, training 
 their full skirts of lustrous moires, scented, proud, 
 spread out on each ascending stair like so many 
 variegated peacocks, or the flame-colored birds of 
 the tropics. You have noticed two or three who, 
 after moving about for a few moments, are gath- 
 ered in a bouquet. One full-blown, in a white 
 embroidered skirt, with a pleated waist, looked 
 like a Venetian woman of the Renaissance. 
 Above the divine softness of the satin you saw 
 her curved and pearly neck, and on the blonde 
 tress of her abundant hair a simple band of float- 
 
 19 
 
290 
 
 lYOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 ing lace. She seemed tall and straight as a Di- 
 ana in the long folds of her mauve dress ; her 
 bodice, ornamented with silver embroidery, deli- 
 cately suggested the thought of a dashy hussar. 
 She walked rapidly, and her dragging train trem- 
 bled like the drapery of a goddess, while the 
 bouquets of brilliants in her hair flashed like 
 sword-blades. A third, frail, slight, the face pro- 
 jecting, with a thin nose, trembling lips, pale eyes, 
 and hair all in disorder beneath her diamonds, 
 seemed to emit flashes and sparks from every 
 part of her person. Seated or standing she 
 never seemed to touch the ground. The inward 
 mettle, the irrepressible outbursts and contortions 
 of her nervous organization, sent momentary shiv- 
 ers through her nervous frame. About this slisrht 
 neck ripples a row of diamonds, ^ — ^a circle of living 
 eyes, pale as the flaming eyes of magic serpents. 
 These women chat and seem delio^hted with their 
 conversation. What would you not give to hear 
 what they are saying. Go near, and you will find 
 out that they are discussing umbrella-handles ; 
 one prefers ebony, and the other mother-of- 
 pearl. 
 
 Thirty of those present are official personages, 
 who have to be on their guard. — These thirty 
 and a dozen others are ambitious individuals, 
 whose object here is to keep in place, or get 
 some promotion. — A dozen of the men and as 
 many of the women are looking for husbands for 
 their daughters. — All these people are reciting a 
 
CON VERS A TION. 2 9 1 
 
 lesson ; impossible to get a true word out of 
 them : talk to them on any subject of interest, 
 and they remind you of clergymen stupidly ad- 
 dressed on religious subjects ; they have their 
 special business ; to make themselves agreeable 
 to the master or the mistress of the house, to be 
 presented to influential people, to avoid all posi- 
 tive declarations, to glide over dangerous ground, 
 to be wholly correct. Nullity or hypocrisy. 
 How can you expect them to talk with precision 
 or confidence, when their bread and butter are in 
 question ? After some years the same self-re- 
 straint is not necessary ; under the pressure of 
 necessity, their initiative and their powers of in- 
 vention have disappeared ; they have no longer 
 any opinion either to conceal or express ; the in- 
 ner has gradually conformed itself to the outer 
 man ; it is no longer the individual who addresses 
 you, but his place or his profession ; a journalist 
 repeats to you, in all seriousness, his leading 
 articles. A millionaire finds himself religiously 
 disposed, and censures the style of literature, 
 which is becominof dangerous ; a father who has 
 daughters to marry thinks the young men are 
 highly immoral. I will wager that of a hundred 
 opinions passed in a half hour by these fifty peo- 
 ple who are talking here, there are not six which 
 are disinterested ; the other ninety-four are the 
 endless repetition of the scene of M. Josse ? ^^ 
 Touch the spring of the mechanism, and you 
 know what tune you will hear. Take a painter, 
 
292 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 even one who is famous, and put him upon paint- 
 ing; he will praise others in direct proportion 
 with the similarity of their style to his own. So 
 with the musician, the author ; the moment they 
 pass an opinion on another of their class, their 
 praise reflects on themselves. This is true to an 
 extent of which you have no idea. Talk of art 
 in a circle of savants or politicians ; it is in their 
 eyes the amusement of idlers. Talk of science 
 in an artist's studio or political gathering ; it is to 
 them nothing more than so much scribbling on 
 waste paper. Talk of politics at a dinner of sa- 
 vants or artists : they look upon it as the non- 
 sense of grave intriguers. Each depreciates the 
 others by instinct, that he may rise by the others' 
 fall. When conversation reaches this point I feel 
 the need of fresh air, and turn on my heel. 
 Say what you will, so long as you do not for- 
 ever come back to yourself; but for Heaven's 
 sake ! do not forever put yourself forward, other- 
 wise the drawing room degenerates into a shop of 
 lying tradesmen cajoling and swindling their cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 I count, besides, five or six new-comers of 
 either sex who are in perpetual trouble whether 
 their hair be smooth or their bow correct. They 
 have nothing to say, and with them all conversa- 
 tion is soon at an end. If the drawing room be 
 serious there are besides say ten figure-heads, 
 members of the Faculty and Law School, young 
 magistrates in fine cravats, bony masters of 
 
CON VERS A TION. 293 
 
 requests,^" mature heads of bureaux, who from 
 time to time come to pay their respects. These 
 guard a circumspect or modest silence, stand 
 upright as statues, warm themselves at the fire- 
 place, examine a portrait or a cornice, look over 
 a pamphlet ; some turn the leaves of the photo- 
 graphic albums and play with their eye-glasses ; 
 all have a melancholy air. Beside them, leaning 
 against the hangings, a half dozen bureaurcatic 
 hogsheads, or commercial dames encircled in 
 satin or moire ; here and there some feathered 
 owl, some sharp-lined carcass framed in flowers ; 
 these are sediments and remains. The mis- 
 tress of the house has said a word to them, and 
 placed them where they stand. I am not mistress 
 of the house ; so much the better for me and so 
 much the worse for her. 
 
 All these deductions made, there remain three 
 or four persons who talk for the pleasure of 
 talking, who take pleasure in the pursuit of ideas, 
 who give themselves up to discussion and in- 
 vention freely and carelessly. They are lost in 
 the crowd, like poppies in the corn ; around them 
 there goes on a lively business in vanity and self- 
 interest. The subterfuges employed to talk of 
 themselves and to make others talk are sicken- 
 ing. My neighbor, at table, eats his fish but 
 does not enjoy its flavor. He is inwardly arrang- 
 ing the little phrase which, once slipped into the 
 
294 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 conversation, is to draw attention to his picture 
 or his book. 
 
 Do my statistics prove that the conversation of 
 society is wearisome? Not at all. 
 
 Politeness, even when untrue, is charming. In 
 this Philinte ^^ is a thousand times right, and Al- 
 ceste only a fool. Moreover, we are everywhere 
 in a state of war ; professional rivalries, ambitious 
 competitions, family discords, antipathies of char- 
 acter. Happily there is a common understanding, 
 that from seven in the evening until midnight, be- 
 tween men with white bands round their necks, 
 and women with nothing on their shoulders, there 
 shall be a truce, and what is still better, that every 
 one shall be devoted, smiling, endless in demon- 
 strations of respect, esteem, admiration and sympa- 
 thy for others, all as delicately and as gayly as pos- 
 sible. A comedy if you choose ; but five or six 
 times of an evening there is a moment when you 
 are under the spell. See if you can do any better. 
 Since happiness and beauty have no real existence, 
 the arts which supply their image have been in- 
 vented. Since there are no such things as real 
 goodness or self-sacrifice, a society has been in- 
 vented which imitates them. Try to get along 
 without it; make a tour through the United 
 States ; take a look at the Yankee, who eats 
 his dinner at the public table with his hat on, 
 and says dogmatically to you, puffing his cigar in 
 your face, "A miserable old world, your Europe! 
 A pile of lackeys and rottenness ! but free 
 
CON VERS A TION. 
 
 295 
 
 America will clean out all that trash ! " — On my 
 honor I prefer a Chinaman, my friend the Manda- 
 rin Tchang-li of Shanghai, who makes me a cere- 
 monious bow which touches the ground, and of a 
 Friday asks me to a fast-day dinner, saying, " We 
 follow to-day the rules of your excellent relig- 
 ion, which is so superior to our own." 
 
 Moreover, you have eyes; you can see what 
 goes on. Traits of vanity and hypocrisy became 
 traits of character, and the words which made 
 you so impatient when you took them for ideas, 
 became interesting when considered as symptoms. 
 This or that grotesque or stupid looking object 
 turns out to be a rare piece or a curious specimen. 
 At a certain time of life, when the heart has lost 
 its interest in many things, and the mind is more 
 attracted by the essence than the form, moral 
 and social botany is the first of amusements. 
 You care little about hearing things talked about 
 well, but wish to examine them yourself; take 
 less pleasure in literature and more in life ; prefer 
 a scene of manners, to a picture of a scene of 
 manners. I now enjoy a conversation in a rail- 
 road car with a tradesman, a student or an officer, 
 as much as a good novel even, or an evening at 
 the theatre. 
 
 Last year one wet afternoon I chatted for three 
 hours on the outskirts of Fontainebleau, with a 
 gamekeeper who was warming himself at. the 
 foot of a beech-tree, holding his little boy on his 
 knees. The smoke rose blue into the gray air, and 
 
296 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 there was no sound but the patter of the rain- 
 drops on the leaves. The man was happy in his 
 condition, and intended that his boy should follow 
 it when old enough. He has a little hut and a 
 garden ; he can kill a rabbit for his own use, 
 even exchange it with the butcher for a pound of 
 real meat ; he receives so much for every squirrel, 
 polecat or fox he kills — altogether about fifteen 
 hundred francs a year. The occupation is whole- 
 some, respectable ; hunting is always a pleasure ; 
 his little girls pick up bags of beech-nuts, etc. I 
 listened to all that. I looked at the little man, 
 savage and gay as a young colt, and it seemed 
 to me that I was reading a novel of domestic 
 life. 
 
 Here and there in the crowd of narrow and 
 shrunken intelligences you may find a feeling, 
 breathing creature ; or at least, from some gesture 
 or tone of voice, particularly in the young, you are 
 pleased to imagine what the poets call a soul ; I 
 mean a fresh and passionate nature ; feeling, in its 
 own individual way, self-reliant, borrowing noth- 
 ing, imitating nothing, combining the elements of 
 a grand multiple and solitary existence ; difficult, 
 indeed almost impossible to get under weigh, 
 unless by some sudden and extraordinary afflu- 
 ence of illusion or enthusiasm ; self-restrained, yet 
 eager, with a far-sightedness capable of seizing at 
 one glance a whole series of situations and their 
 consequences. Sometimes, in the form of the face 
 and the depth of the eye, you think you divine 
 
CONVERSATION. 297 
 
 this wealth and delicacy of nature in women ; the 
 gourmet does not investigate further ; he goes to 
 his corner and enjoys his dream. Superior men 
 sometimes awaken a similar sensation, but only 
 in their days of frankness, when the conversa- 
 tional ice is broken. This has sometimes oc- 
 curred to me, especially at Paris, which is a kind 
 of permanent exhibition opened for all Europe. 
 The last man I saw of the kind was Eugene 
 Delacroix. No one has ever had a more intense 
 and keener sense of visible nature. He said to 
 me, pointing to a Resurrection of Rubens, a copy 
 by his own hand: "Look at this dead body, 
 fat, dull, flabby ; the jaw falling as on the clinique 
 table. It is a corpse, a lymphatic corpse ; Rubens 
 alone thoroughly understood temperaments. You 
 have seen his picture at Munich, that with the 
 damned ; giants, demons with the heads of lions 
 and buffaloes and yet which are not lions or buffa- 
 loes. He alone has comprehended the beastly 
 degradation, the animal origin of man. One of 
 the executioners in the Antwerp crucifixion is a 
 bald eorilla. Our true business is to show the 
 absolute and secret truths of everything. When 
 I left college, I looked into science, I aspired to 
 everything, I made botanical collections, studied 
 eastern languages, but I prefer art ; art is more 
 complete ; the savant knows that in fifty years 
 he will be outstripped. He stands in the ante- 
 chamber of nature ; sometimes the door swings 
 open and he sees a glorious prospect, but then 
 
298 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the door closes again and he is told : * Enough 
 for you, the rest is for others.' " 
 
 Myself, when I see how ill his hand has served 
 his genius, I compare him in a whisper to the 
 great painters of the human frame of the sixteenth 
 century. He is of the same family, but his mis- 
 fortune is to have been born in a bad surround- 
 ing, like a half frozen mammoth petrified by the 
 sudden outbreak of the glacial period. 
 
 Two or three conversations of this character, 
 warmed up by gesture and the sparkle of the eye, 
 are a compensation for many an interior yawm, for 
 many an unprofitable hour spent in the drawing- 
 room, for many a conventional bow. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 The season I was last in London, I often 
 took a Hansom at one o'clock in the morning. 
 The driver is behind, out of sight, and the hind 
 legs of the horse carry you along violently, with 
 a mechanical and stiff stride, without your know- 
 ino- whither or how. The driver had received 
 my orders neither to stop nor to speak. I gen- 
 erally came back by London Bridge and the 
 Strand. Probably there is no sight in the world 
 so grand and so horrible. 
 
 Life is extinct ; there only remains an enor- 
 mous cemeterv. Here and there on some cor- 
 ner a policeman stands stiff and silent as a 
 watcher of the dead ; and at long intervals appear 
 some wandering women, or some spectres in old 
 worn coats, slipping vaguely through the shadow. 
 A sepulchral moon shines in uncertain light 
 above the troubled clouds, and across the vapor- 
 ous emanations of humanity. This is not the 
 sleep of a southern cit}- voluptuously reposing in 
 the arms of tranquil nature ; it is the odor of 
 humanity crushed down by suffering and fever, 
 it is the unwholesome watch prolonged far 
 into the night, by torch-light, by the heavy side 
 
300 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 of death. Ceaseless and eternal the monot- 
 onous streets stretch out their long lines of 
 monumental buildings ; street after street, others 
 again, and still others beyond ; then squares and 
 parks, crescents, all unknown, all silent in the 
 dim light, with their peristyles, their pilasters, 
 their facades, their sidewalks, a constant unroll- 
 ing and mingling of unexpected forms The 
 vast human abyss seems to widen as it deepens. 
 And all is 'empty. Never could one, who has 
 only seen it crowded and noisy, conceive its im- 
 mensity. Crossing the colossal bridges doub- 
 les the horror one feels. The shining and 
 slimy river ripples indistinctly through the fog, 
 bearing on its fetid breast crowds of vessels 
 which rub their sides together, moved hither and 
 thither by the current. The gas-lights flicker 
 in the eddies, and their reflections fall in broken 
 columns and are lost in the distance. To the 
 right, to the left, above, below, loom up through 
 this catafalque of light and darkness a gigantic, 
 uneven row of warehouses and blackened build- 
 ings. Such a mass of stone and brick, so many 
 varieties of style, such a pile of labor and inven- 
 tion crowded together, perpetually built up, 
 and over-built again, without either truce or 
 respite to temper the severity of the constant 
 struggle ! To-morrow these dens will let out 
 their swarms by hundreds of thousands, and the 
 struggle will be renewed more fiercely, and the 
 next day be still more violent. But the darkest 
 
SOCIETY. 301 
 
 thought is that this struggle is hand to hand, on 
 fixed routines, on a ground measured, staked out 
 and closed, each man in his own cell, already 
 bent beneath the weight of a habit and appren- 
 ticeship, as mechanical and artificial as the mon- 
 ^trous brick prison in which he works. There 
 are too many people in the world to-day, too 
 much pressure and too much toil. 
 
 The same sensation sometimes seizes me 
 by night at Paris, but in a lesser degree. Such 
 is the aspect of modern life. The astonishing 
 growth of the human edifice is so great that the 
 enclosures now take in land once open and free. 
 In the marvellous multiplication of competitors, 
 the crowd has crammed the enclosure : the indi- 
 vidual staggers under the weight of the mass, 
 and is walled within an established order. For- 
 merly, and not long since, a man by energy and 
 will could easily cut his way out, and choose his 
 course of life. The ranks were open, and there 
 was room outside. My father, in 1800, with 
 but ordinary mathematical knowledge, became a 
 famous engineer, and would have made a large 
 fortune, if he had not preferred to dance and 
 amuse himself. Thirty years later all the places 
 were taken, and I had to go to America. To- 
 day if my nephew Mr. Anatole Durand, or Du 
 Rand, had not me behind him, he w^ould remain a 
 supernumerary all his life. The world resembles 
 the mob which jams the Place de la Concorde 
 when there are fireworks. The individual is lost 
 
302 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 and crushed ; his force is too small. His elbow- 
 ings and skill will not get him ahead ; he must 
 follow in line, step by step like a sheep in a flock, 
 under the eyes of the policeman. The prodigious 
 moving mass drags him along in its sway or chains 
 him in its own inertness. It not only condemns 
 him to routine ; but stifles him in it — after a cer- 
 tain amount of struggle he resigns himself to his 
 fate ; after that he accepts his life, and does not 
 seek to change it. 
 
 I. 
 
 There are no more highwaymen to take your 
 purse at the point of their swords. This mode 
 of deciding who shall have the money and the 
 other valuables was found to be too simple. 
 Here is the present way of doing things. 
 
 First, manner a legal one : the competitive 
 examination.'^ My friend Edward S , a dis- 
 tinguished man, but of moderate fortune, has a 
 laborious son, a man of ordinary talent ; this son, 
 after ten years of study, bachelor of arts and 
 sciences, presents himself for examination for a 
 supernumerary post in the Treasury department ; 
 two hundred and fourteen candidates are in- 
 scribed ; there are thirteen places. The thirteen 
 fortunate applicants will receive each year for two 
 years a compensation of one hundred and fifty 
 francs, for which they will be expected to copy 
 eight hours a day ; at the end of two years, if 
 they behave well, they will reach the sum of 
 
SOCIETY. 303 
 
 glory, in putting the title of clerk on their cards 
 and one hundred francs a month in their pockets. 
 
 — I met an old comrade this year, Doctor N , 
 
 an old house surgeon, a laureate, author of several 
 medical manuals, a graduate, attached to several 
 hospitals. This poor fellow has been trying for 
 thirty years for a seat in the Faculty. Being 
 methodical in his habits, he has kept for the last 
 ten years a registry of his visits to the judges, 
 and their results ; he had made three thousand 
 seven hundred and twenty-five. Besides this, 
 since he took the post of house surgeon he com- 
 poses, learns by heart, and recites over and over 
 a quantity of little copy books, full of notes, 
 dashes, hyphens and mnemotechnic signs ; as the 
 examination consists of a lesson, recited after 
 several hours of preparation, of unexpected argu- 
 ment, etc., it is necessary to have the head full of 
 as large a mass of facts and formula as possible 
 upon every little division of the immense field 
 covered by medical and natural science. For 
 this reason, the candidates divide the whole sub- 
 ject in advance into compartments, crowd it into 
 a small compact compass, and cram themselves 
 with it; that makes up a mass of indigestible 
 stones which they pile up in their minds, and 
 which stupefies them, makes them uneasy, because 
 by the very virtue of its weight it has a constant 
 tendency to drop out of the holes of the mem- 
 ory. In this manner my friend has obtained all 
 of his promotions, and now aspires to the high- 
 
304 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 est of all, and will obtain it if apoplexy do not 
 strike him down, treadmill horse that he is. I 
 pass by fifty other similar examples. The com- 
 petitive examination stands at the doorway of 
 every career, in the army, the navy, in instruction, 
 in the Streams and Forests, in the bureaus of 
 inspection, in the professorships, in the ministe- 
 rial departments, in the varied services of public 
 and political life. It is a turnstile, not double 
 only, but triple, quadruple, or even indefinitely 
 repeated and contrived, continued by classes, 
 by the notes and lists of promotion in all the 
 great governmental schools, in the administration, 
 even in the army. Consider that at every outlet 
 there is a special stile. An ofiicer finds one which 
 he must pass to become major or to enter into 
 the intendancy ; an artist to enter or remain in 
 the School of Fine Arts, to visit Rome, to be 
 received at the Exhibition, to obtain his first 
 medal, his second, his third, and to reach the 
 cross of the Legion of Honor. And now at last, 
 in imitation of the other exhibitions, the same 
 competitive examination has penetrated even the 
 
 independent professions. The Marquis of 
 
 wants a certificate of honor for his cows. The 
 Duchess his cousin receives an honorable mention 
 for a flock of turkeys. Such is the world to-day : 
 all human life enters into it like the bunch of raw 
 cotton which, thrown into the machine at the door 
 of some great manufactory, becomes regularly, 
 infalhbly — by rolling comb and spindle — thread. 
 
SOCIETY. 305 
 
 tissue, stuff", towel, and pocket-handkerchief, all 
 ready to wipe the furniture, or the nose, of the first 
 comer. Even the evolutions of the turnspits 
 are foretold. An officer knows within a chance 
 or two whether he will be a colonel or a sfeneral 
 at fifty. Not that I blame the system in itself; 
 there must be some system, and this is as good as 
 any ; in every association it is necessary to culi 
 out from the crowd the holders of the winning: 
 tickets, and the modes of choice differ in different 
 countries. But because of their diversity, their 
 development is diverse also. At Liliput, where 
 to rise to high station it was necessary to dance 
 the tight-rope, it was no doubt the size of the 
 calves. In China, where excellence in Latin 
 verse is the one thing needful, it is no doub' 
 classical pedantry. In France it is cerebral weak- 
 ness and a flux of tongue. Look at this me- 
 chanical and monstrous labor of the candidates 
 who are striving to get into the great schools, 
 and then, when they come out from these great 
 schools, see the excessive fatigue and languor, 
 the idle loafing hours at the cafe or at home, the 
 bureaucratic or provincial inertia. Compare the 
 student at the Polytechnic school, nailed fourteen 
 hours a day to his formula, with the engineer who 
 goes about yawning, his wife on his arm, to see 
 that the stones are properly broken. With this 
 crowd in all the careers of life, and this orderly 
 laying down of the halting places, we have in 
 the first place blown our race-horses, and then 
 
306 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 changed them into cab horses. Walk in, my 
 friend, if you be patient and willing to drag a 
 cab : look elsewhere, if your nerves are strong, 
 and you would preserve your dash and spirit. 
 
 II. 
 
 There remains the second mode of success, 
 the extra legal manner ; the art of self-puffing, 
 or of attracting attention. Nothing more diffi- 
 cult. In the day of Louis XV., Ginguen6,*'I 
 believe, reached fame with a piece of verse "La 
 Confession de Zulme." There were then about 
 a hundred drawing-rooms ; now there are four 
 thousand. Then a small select society, now a 
 crowd of people. What shall I do to keep my 
 name before a hundred thousand people } and the 
 more now, that their memories are already loaded 
 down. There are too many names demanding 
 their notice ; every summer there are four thou- 
 sand painters at the Exhibition ; for six months 
 together, hundreds of musicians who buzz in 
 the evening like insects, in the glare of the lights ; 
 every day, at the foot of twenty reviews and 
 fifty newspapers, a whole population of writers — 
 all striving, by article after article, by concerts 
 and pictures, to occupy a corner in this full 
 memory ; not only full but overflowing ; after a 
 time nothing more gets in. Lawyer, doctor, 
 architect, merchant, so long as you remained, as 
 was the old fashion, in the circle in which you 
 were born, you got along ; bad or good, you had 
 
SOCIETY. 307 
 
 your value. You had your place, bad or good, 
 in public opinion, in the world. At Paris you 
 have none ; no one knows you : you are number 
 so and so at a hotel, a hat and coat which eo 
 out in the morninc; and return in the evening. 
 There are twenty thousand just such hats and 
 coats. What mark or cockade to be known by } 
 What color bright enough, what sign peculiar 
 enough, to distinguish you from these twenty 
 thousand signs and colors } You must attract 
 attention!'' No way but this — Call yourself 
 Floridor Barbe-en-croche, or Euph^mius Quatre- 
 sous, and your name will not be forgotten ; if 
 you were a negro, or even a mulatto, I would 
 congratulate you : see the recent success of the 
 black doctor." Publish a memoir on the sickness 
 of the Bordeaux grape ; organize a banquet of 
 wine-bibbers. Make your speech over the des- 
 sert, print it at the expense of the society, add to 
 it a dissertation on infant hygiene, with some 
 feeling words addressed to mothers ; send the 
 whole under cover to each married member of 
 the society. This is the A, B, C of the profes- 
 sion and of every profession. You have only to 
 look at and weigh not only the fourth page, but 
 even every praise or criticism in every journal or 
 review to see the thousand and hundred thou- 
 sand hands of swimmers who are drowning in the 
 general indifference, struggling and trying to 
 catch hold of the smallest chance of notoriety, 
 to get to the air and breathe, not from vanity 
 
3o8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 only, but dire necessity. To-day, publicity is 
 as much money as time. Suppose that you are 
 in the habit of selling your pictures for fifteen 
 hundred francs ; have three pages, over some well- 
 known signature, in three popular newspapers; 
 add to this some little manoeuvring at the auc- 
 tion rooms, and you may sell your next picture, 
 a duplicate even, at four thousand francs. Any 
 object of trade whatever, zinc roofing or clyster- 
 pump, smoke-consuming chimney or set of 
 false teeth in hippopotamus bone, finds so many 
 buyers for so many lines of advertisement ; the 
 proportion is known. Inevitably, perforce, this or 
 that article of consumption or remedy one meets 
 with every day, everywhere — in large letters, 
 in small letters, on the walls, in the newspapers, 
 on the cars, in the cafes, at home, at the houses 
 of friends — impresses its name on the memory. 
 Without wishing to read it, you have read it ; 
 wishing to forget it, you remember it ; the louder 
 it is laughed at the better it is known. Let there 
 come a need for the thing in question — no one 
 near to advise with, no other name to think of; 
 in a hurry, perhaps, and in sheer weariness you 
 say, since that is so general it must be just as 
 good as any other. You go to the given address, 
 swallow it, and do the same thing over again. 
 Last year I met people in the provinces who 
 were treating their children with the Leroy pre- 
 scription just as in 1820; names incrust them- 
 
SOCIETY. 309 
 
 selves on the human memory ; it is as difficult to 
 get them out as to get them in. 
 
 I hope that my experience in this matter may 
 be useful to my cotemporaries. Whatever the 
 talent of those great sales houses who blow their 
 trumpets every day on the fourth page of the 
 newspapers, I still believe that they can take 
 lessons from the method practised in America; 
 and although it troubles my modesty, I will ex- 
 plain the kind of advertisement by which the 
 Society for the manufacture and sale of oils and 
 salt pork, of Frederic-Thomas Graindorge & Co. 
 (New York, Broad street 121, and Cincinnati, 
 National Square 397) has secured the custom 
 of the civilized universe. I had given an interest 
 in my business to the celebrated Barnum, who 
 undertook the operation, and managed it with 
 his usual wealth of imagination. I will not refer 
 to the usual process, the purchase of two pages a 
 week of the great newspapers, the publication of 
 drawings in the smaller papers, the distribution 
 of printed cards on the street corners, the medals 
 of exhibitions, the walking advertisements, etc. 
 The first idea of Barnum was a master-stroke. 
 He was Jenny Lind's manager, and had a humor- 
 ous song written upon oils, salt pork, and Amer- 
 ica, which the comic singer never failed to give 
 at the close of the concert. It was a little farce 
 after the grand piece, and you may imagine the 
 pleasure the audience took in it, wearied as they 
 were by so much sublime music, and who took 
 
3IO NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 as much interest in the divine singer as in a 
 rhinoceros. Now it was announced in the pro- 
 gramme that this national comic song had been 
 composed and sung for the first time in the 
 work-rooms of Frederic- Thomas Graindorge 
 & Co. By suitable measures we had several 
 farces, and even two dramatic pieces, composed, 
 into which this song was introduced : one of 
 them held the stage for a month. Mr. Barnum 
 required, in addition, that the accredited pho- 
 tographer of Jenny Lind should wrap up all the 
 portraits of the heroine in the song, and made a 
 treaty with the principal Barbary organ-grinders' 
 society in New York, that each hand-organ 
 should play the song at least twice a day. — At 
 the same time several reviews and newspapers 
 paid some attention to the song, from an esthetic 
 point of view ; showed that it was a natural pro- 
 duct of the soil, compared it in this light to the 
 songs of Burns and Beranger ; examined, taking 
 into consideration the plays which had served for 
 its frame, whether it did not mark the birth of a 
 new literature, broadly industrial, by means of 
 which America was to raise herself above all other 
 nations. Then one of those bar-rooms where 
 sandwiches and grog are swallowed standing, 
 opened, with a sign in flaming colors, " National 
 Salt Pork, from the house of Frederick-Thomas 
 Graindorge & Co., in all varieties." About the 
 same time, I read with surprise in all the papers, 
 of several terrible accidents in my oil wells, 
 
SOCIETY. 311 
 
 several instances of heroic courage on the part 
 of Frederick - Thomas Graindorge, who had 
 saved fifty workmen from being burned aUve ; 
 as many more instances of genius and sagacity 
 on the part of the same Frederick-Thomas 
 Graindorge, who proposed to buy up all the oil 
 wells, so as to cover the European markets with 
 his products. Six months later, Mr. Barnum 
 discovered among the sweeps of my manufactory, 
 an old idiot, whiskey-loving negress, who had 
 been the nurse of Washington. He showed her 
 all over the United States, teUing her history, 
 and proved by numberless medical certificates 
 that only the daily use of salt pork had kept her 
 alive to so great an age, in such painful labor. 
 Finally (I only cite one of twenty more of the 
 ideas of my dear Barnum), the next year there 
 came out a funny alphabet book, at a penny each, 
 the capital letters of which, painted in bright 
 colors, were all figured by pigs — on their legs, ly- 
 ing down, cut up, in groups, in the most grotes- 
 que postures, with simple or laughable verses in 
 the form of inscriptions. These animals had a 
 great deal of expression, the designer finding 
 some charming studies in their ears, their cork- 
 screw tails, and their snouts ; a few political allu- 
 sions cropped out through the inscriptions, and 
 arrested the attention of those who were up in 
 such matters. I need not say that the name of 
 Frederick-Thomas Graindorge was on the cqver, 
 between the leaves, on the borders, on the blank 
 
312 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 pages, with views of the factory, the scenery, the 
 workmen, the tools, etc. Two hundred thou- 
 sand copies of this work were sold in five years ; 
 and, as books of this kind are handed down from 
 children to children, it is just possible that half 
 a century hence, many a little American will be 
 learning to read the alphabet from Mr Grain- 
 dorge's Pig. — Mr. Barnum, remarking that the 
 finest antique bindings are in hog-skin, proposed 
 to engage a great New York editor of religious 
 books, to bind up an enormous quantity of Bibles, 
 with the name of Frederick-Thomas Graindorge 
 at the bottom, in raised letters ; but I dissuaded 
 him from this, because on no account would I 
 risk a quarrel with the Saints. 
 
 But in these sorts of operations a Barnum is 
 necessary, an acolyte with a strong voice. It is 
 too disagreeable to cry one's self. Moreover, in 
 France, among refined people, especially in the 
 liberal professions, the puff is more repulsive 
 than on the other side of the water. I did this 
 over there, I would not do it here ; it only half- 
 disgusted me with salt pork and oil, but it 
 would be nauseous to me if I had to resort to it 
 to sell a picture or to get patients. But after all, 
 it must be employed even here. There are fif- 
 teen hundred doctors in Paris who do not earn 
 twelve hundred francs a year, yet are expected to 
 be every day in dress coats and white cravats. 
 Two thousand painters paint screens, sign boards, 
 
SOCIETY. 313 
 
 five-franc pictures for export, backgrounds for 
 photographs, and Hve in hopes of an order for 
 some copy of a Louvre picture. The two ways 
 of success, the competitive examination and ad- 
 vertisement, result in effects of the same charac- 
 ter. They jaJe, cramp, overexcite, and spoil 
 man's nature. The competitive examination ex- 
 hausts and makes a beast of burden of him. 
 Puffing makes charlatans and intriguers. If I 
 had a youth of moderate fortune to bring up, I 
 would keep him free from both. I would not 
 teach him the dead languages, literature, or the 
 pure sciences, which create so great a dispropor- 
 tion between our desires and our resources, and 
 which make the first six years of our youth seem, 
 like a fall from the sixth story on the nose and 
 back ; but gymnastic exercises, boxing, the use 
 of his feet, singlestick, swimming, the use of the 
 gun and revolver, to speak and write two or three 
 modern languages, analytical geography in de- 
 tail, and the principal features of industrial and 
 commercial statistics. If he were industrious, 
 honest, and true, he would do as twenty young 
 men I have known at Rotterdam, Hamburg, 
 Glasgow, or Geneva, and whose examples I ought 
 to have followed. He would return at the end 
 of ten years, with a modest fortune, to marry 
 some little friend of his childhood. He would 
 have seen the world, used up his exuberance in 
 bodily fatigue, purified his soul. He would not 
 
314 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 have the spleen as I have, nor be a used-up loafer, 
 a stuffed high liver, like my nephew, M. Anatole 
 Durand, who is only fit for a hair-dresser's show- 
 case, or the dress coat of a resigned and stupid 
 husband. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A WEEK. 
 
 When a woman of thirty-five or forty, of the 
 middle or upper class, has a child after ten years 
 of barrenness, depend upon it you will soon hear 
 of some bed-room tragedy. Sometimes adultery 
 has stepped in ! More often the husband has en- 
 deavored to prevent it ; sometimes he has had to 
 provide against the insanity which was close at 
 hand. Upon the even surface of the bourgeois life 
 the household drama has broken like an abscess. 
 
 Insanity is not a distinct and separate empire ; 
 our ordinary life borders upon it, and we all cross 
 the frontier in some parts of our nature. It is 
 useless to attempt to avoid it, but we must take 
 care and not get more than half way in. 
 
 No human creature is understood by any 
 other human creature. At the most, from habit, 
 patience, interest, friendship, they accept or tol- 
 erate each other. 
 
 To endow a woman with reason, thought, wit, 
 is to put a knife into the hands of a child. 
 
3l6 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 The child is to the mother's eye an undefined 
 man, tractable, on whom the imagination acts 
 without limits, in short, a reduction of the ideal. 
 That is why, in the mother's eye, the husband 
 falls into a secondary place, becomes a purveyor 
 to the child, an upper servant. 
 
 Authority is overthrown by marriage. The 
 characters once tempered, the man is not firm 
 enough to submit with composure to the disap- 
 pointments of the wife ; he yields from pity. 
 The amount of necessary toil increasing, the man 
 grows too weary to resist the persistent will of 
 the woman — he yields from fatigue. 
 
 Civilities and obliging ways, the necessary 
 cheerfulness of good manners, and the constant 
 politeness of society ; no effusion of feeling, but 
 little freedom, a semi-reserve ; a great deal of 
 deference, and a considerable amount of mutual 
 service, but at bottom independence of one 
 another; such was marriage in the eighteenth 
 century. Imagine two partners at a whist table — 
 they are associated together, help one another, are 
 amiable to each other, nothing more. To my idea 
 that is the true French marriage; to be more free 
 or more restricted, is repugnant to the character of 
 the race. But then, as in the eighteenth century, 
 each must have his own apartment, his domestics, 
 in short an income of a hundred thousand francs. 
 
A WEEK. 317 
 
 As many kinds of modesty as there are races. 
 To the English woman it is a duty; to the 
 French woman a propriety. Listen to the demi- 
 mots of virtuous women. They say nothing and 
 
 insinuate everything : why Madame B has 
 
 too few children ; why Madame A too many. 
 
 A mother-in-law, too often a grandmother, gives 
 advice to her son-in-law. A lady informs herself 
 
 of the merits of the lorettes — 
 
 * # * * * 
 
 Here decency is a muslin morning gown, co- 
 quettish, embroidered, complete. But the wind 
 or some person passes. It is opened, or allowed 
 to open, or it opens itself. 
 
 As many kinds of love as there are races. 
 A great tall German, learned, virtuous, phlegma- 
 tic, said one day : " Souls are sisters, fallen from 
 heaven, who all at once recognize and run to meet 
 each other." A little dry Frenchman, hot-blood- 
 ed, witty, lively, replied to him : " You are right ; 
 you can always find shoes to fit." 
 
 As many kinds of imagination as races. 
 Here is the definition of the lucky man in their 
 proverbs : 
 
 The Frenchman says " He was born with his 
 hair dressed." Curls, elegance, the world and its 
 ornaments. 
 
 The Englishman says " He was born with a 
 
3l8 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 silver spoon in his mouth." Practical and vora- 
 cious, food, a good digestion, comfort, a respect- 
 able exterior, and a full pocket. 
 
 The German says " He was born in a happy 
 skin." Vague sentimental vulgarity and the 
 kitchen, hand in hand ; the idealist sausage 
 maker. 
 
 The lorette proper, the elegant little creature 
 of the Bouffes, is rare in Berlin. Here and there 
 an infidelity, and any number of grisettes — that 
 is all. And what is more, the grisette must re- 
 main a working woman. No woman or girl can 
 hire a lodging without proving that she has a 
 trade or a fortune. If a young man wish to keep 
 his mistress in his rooms he must inscribe her as 
 his servant. 
 
 At Vienna there are numbers of petty clerks 
 who are hardly paid at all. There are fifty on 
 the fourth story of the house of Prince Ester- 
 hazy, busy in writing the papers for the adminis- 
 tration of his landed estate. Their daughters 
 want bonnets, to dance, to see the pink lanterns, 
 and hear the music in the pleasure gardens. 
 Tolerant, good-natured, good-humored, a sweetly 
 tender and slightly sentimental sensuality. You 
 say a word to an old woman, and the next morn- 
 ing there steps into your room a little shop-girl, 
 with a modest mien and a prayer book under her 
 arm ; if you keep her a month she will fall in 
 love with you. 
 
A WEEK. 319 
 
 Very few lorettes in England ; yet after all 
 the species begins to take root there. London is 
 Frenchifying ; but imperceptibly. Save the hor- 
 rible evening display at the Haymarket, and two 
 or three luxurious and impudent scandals at 
 Hyde Park, the interloping world is wanting 
 there. Some young men have their liaisons in 
 a remote quarter of the city ; if you become 
 friends with them, after a long time and con- 
 siderable hesitation, they will say to you some 
 evening. 
 
 " Come and see my little girl, she is a perfect 
 lady." You find a decent young woman, the 
 daughter of some farmer, or governess, who 
 receives you in a timid way, does the honors of 
 her tea-table, and blushes at a double-entendre. 
 
 In Italy and Spain the manners of the deca- 
 dence remain. The vetturino of a young architect 
 said to him as he arrived : " You are a young 
 man, I know a nice respectable family. Come with 
 me." He finds the father, the mother, one or two 
 children, a young girl at table. He bows, they 
 bow; the young girl goes with him into the 
 next room, and the father sits down with gravity. 
 This is to get together a dower for her, or to 
 help the family along. 
 
 Indeed the lorette is a French species, which 
 only flourishes in perfection and increases abun. 
 dantly at Paris. We cook up love here, as we 
 do everything else ; this is why rich strangers so 
 gladly come here to spend their money. Many 
 
320 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 of these girls become rich, marry in the provinces, 
 cut a figure, lead exemplary lives. No doubt 
 some of them will be found sweeping the streets, 
 or on the dissection table. But the greater part 
 of them fall into equivocal trade, become glove 
 women, hotel keepers, cashiers in stores and caf s, 
 box openers at the theatres. In England a fallen 
 woman is as the mud in the streets, trodden on 
 and then swept away ; here she falls on her feet, 
 frees herself, catches hold of something, settles 
 into some position, and sometimes cHmbs up again. 
 
 Two signs of the times, the contempt for 
 women and the taste for bric-a-brac. 
 
 In a drawing-room, after dinner, the women 
 are left to themselves and the men go to the 
 smoking-room. Two young men, in a compart- 
 ment of a railway-carriage, light their cigars to 
 prevent the women from getting in and disturbing 
 them. The lady is out of date — woman is the 
 word now. No one speaks of a passion, only of 
 a fancy. If a youth have fallen into some wo- 
 man's hands, he accepts three or four collabora- 
 teurs ; that cuts down the expense. What he 
 wants of his mistress is hare-brained nonsense, 
 a noisy laugh, rough jokes, the words of a fish- 
 woman. She herself drops below her business, 
 becomes coarse, pays the hotel servants to bring 
 her customers, makes no difference between aee 
 and youth ; takes as a rival, to perhaps the most 
 elegant of young men, the theatre lamplighter ; 
 
A WEEK. 321 
 
 loves good dinners, and picks up an income. 
 Love assumes a tone of effrontery, a practical 
 air, a violent and cold manner, the raw and spicy- 
 flavor which some reenlisted corporal would give 
 it, bent on eating up his pay all at once ; or some 
 Rio Janeiro hide merchant, just arrived with full 
 money-bags and an appetite stimulated by the 
 tales of commercial travellers. 
 
 Porcelain, enamels, engravings, paintings, sta- 
 tuettes, Chinese odds and ends, arms — all are the 
 pursuit of collectors now. It is no longer the 
 mania of old age — young men and women take 
 to it. If there be a taste which I see coming to 
 the surface, it is for the twisted shapes and the 
 rascally little inventions of the last century. No 
 more individual taste. We pick up those of our 
 grandfathers. Even this is not a taste, but a 
 mode of distinction, a way of killing time and 
 spending money, the desire to fill up pigeon- 
 holes, of stopping a hole in the series. 
 
 Women and works of art are near relations ; 
 the same decline in both ; the same want of power 
 either to adore or to produce. No more dreams 
 to which imagination or illusion may give shape. 
 The only craving, possession and display. 
 
 From twenty to thirty, man, after much trou- 
 ble, strangles his ideal ; then he lives, or thinks 
 
32 2 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 he lives, in peace ; but it is the peace of the young 
 girl who has assassinated her child. 
 
 To have a true idea of man, or of life, one 
 must have stood himself on the brink of suicide, 
 or on the door-sill of insanity, at least once. 
 
 I am too old, and all is over for me. I can 
 only look on, and at fifty-five that is a respecta- 
 ble occupation. Moreover, I have lived out of 
 the world like an eccentric ; and after all there 
 are still two or three things that I love outside 
 of my own positive interests and sensible pleas- 
 ure. But what does Anatole Durand, my 
 nephew, love t A good dinner, a comfortable 
 place, his ease, and his cigars. And Mademoi- 
 selle Trois Etoiles, whom we are thinking of for 
 him, what does she love 1 
 
 A pretty household and fine state of society — 
 in 1880 we shall see. 
 
 Music is now to women, what mathematics, 
 Latin, etc., are to men — a special and undefined 
 domain. To understand women you must know 
 music. Many study it to the bottom on the 
 dramatic or mechanical side. The effervescence 
 of an actress. Each evening she must have her 
 ration of intense sensations and noisy applause. 
 
 When one has passed a year far out of the 
 
A WEEK. 323 
 
 world, tete-d-tete with science, astronomy or bot- 
 any, it is no longer easy to come clown to the talk 
 of a drawing-room. You feel like a dancer who, 
 neglecting his daily exercise, has grown awkward 
 in his pirouettes. Indeed worldly life is a sprain 
 to all truth. I lie when I ask you with a show 
 of interest about your health or your business. 
 You are lying, when you give me to understand 
 that you took pleasure in visiting and seeing me. 
 If I wish my words to be piquant or decent, I 
 twist and deform the truth. I embellish or 
 moderate or exaggerate my opinion, to make it 
 endurable. I use large adjectives to describe 
 your talent, and small ones to designate my 
 own. I insinuate or lay stress upon, I pile on or 
 take off, I prevaricate or am untrue. Truth can- 
 not leave my hand but as a woman leaves her 
 toilette, painted, rouged, padded, taken in on one 
 side, filled out on the other. After a little, I 
 no longer pay attention to my falsehoods, nor 
 you to yours, and if we divine each the secret 
 thought of the other, it is through, and in spite 
 of the phrases in which we bedizen it. 
 
 Young girls are now taken into the world in 
 their first youth. 
 
 They are brought up in the world, and for the 
 world, in the arts and for the arts, in such a way 
 that falsehood becomes a habit and excitement 
 a necessity. 
 
324 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 Yet whoever has Hved or thought at all 
 knows that only the power of confining one's self 
 to a wearisome and daily labor, the habit of truth 
 to one's self and to others, can render a human 
 creature honorable in his own eyes or endurable 
 in common life. 
 
 The father stands against the door-post, and 
 waits like a sentinel ; the daughter dances, re- 
 ceives compliments, displays her skirts. The 
 father scratches away in his study, and runs 
 about his business in a cab ; the daughter has 
 her head dressed, plays upon the piano, is a sort 
 of ornament in the house. The husband wears 
 himself out with work, the wife wearies herself 
 with doing nothing. — The husband would sleep, 
 the wife must go out. 
 
 Here is a circumstantial case, and what is 
 more, a plain, ordinary case ; it is by such ex- 
 amples that judgment must be formed. 
 
 My nephew, Anatole Durand, has a compan- 
 ion, Henri S , an intimacy which I encour- 
 age ; he has not too many intelligent friends. 
 This one is still young, a professor in a great 
 school, something of an artist, and who has led 
 a reasonable life. Hard-working, cheerful, a 
 year married ; I have seen his wife. He was 
 quite in love the day the contract was signed : 
 
A WEEK. 325 
 
 his spirit, dash, and evident joy, quite stirred up 
 my old nerves. 
 
 He was made happy for the first months by 
 the attraction of novelty, having never known 
 any other women than grisettes and lorettes, and 
 Hving at home witli his torpid old parents. His 
 young wife delighted him with her twenty years ; 
 so graceful, so lively, so fresh, and twelve years 
 younger than he, it was quite a new world to 
 explore. 
 
 She still ariiuses him now and then with her 
 na vet's. " She is a singing bird,' he said once ; 
 "you know we love birds, a child at play; for 
 instance, she tells me in the morning that she is 
 going to wear her blue dress, or to order some 
 pastry for dinner," 
 
 But this playfulness has many drawbacks. 
 She interferes with his work, interrupts him, 
 cannot understand that hours of reflection and 
 quiet are necessary to him, to compose and 
 arrange his thoughts. He has only two hours 
 to himself, from five to seven in the morning, 
 while she is asleep. 
 
 She is rather narrow-minded, like all young 
 girls, and a little self-willed, like all young wo- 
 men. She goes about her pleasures, never 
 dreams that there is any more serious business ; 
 visits her good friends, drags her husband after 
 her. Until recently he has endured this restraint 
 for propriety's sake. " But if it go on, I would 
 rather drown myself, or volunteer in the Mexican 
 
326 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 expedition." Before she was married, her Hfe was 
 confined to this : Seeing her friends, paying visits 
 to five or six grave people, behaving herself pro- 
 perly in a drawing-room, playing upon the piano, 
 etc. She continues this life, and would think it 
 strange to have to change it. 
 
 He did not know her, and could not well have 
 known her. " When I courted my wife, each 
 visit was an inspection; cousins, male and female, 
 uncles, aunts, passed me in review. Nothing but 
 ceremony, no intimate conversations. Of our 
 future projects no chance for a word. One must 
 be gallant; I had to follow my wife's wishes, and 
 that is why our furniture is in such bad taste." 
 
 The void is made, and now all conversation 
 flags between them. She is waiting for a visit 
 from a friend before she makes up her mind 
 whether she shall put a green stitch instead of a 
 yellow stitch in her tapestry. Thereupon he 
 takes advantage of the diversion, seizes his hat, 
 and runs off. Impossible to interest her in his 
 preoccupations, his thoughts, the difficulties which 
 he must surmount, and which are too special for 
 her understanding. Sometimes he lowers them 
 to the level of her intelligence. But they make 
 no impression upon her ; her intelligence and 
 education afford no hook on which to hans: them. 
 She listens to their recital as a part of ordinary 
 conversation and thinks no more of it. 
 
 They disagree on the very ground-work of 
 life — about religion and society. He said out 
 
A WEEK. 327 
 
 loud, rather imprudently too, that many a man 
 has become a priest to avoid being a soldier ; 
 that before fifty a woman has no other ideas than 
 those she had learned from others, etc. She 
 contradicted him ; no deference or submission, 
 even in matters of intellect. He tries to instruct 
 her, and finds a resistance in the soil, which is 
 hard because uncultivated. In fact she has been 
 brought up without ideas or solid reading, just as 
 all young girls, with their little manuals of facts 
 as dry as pebbles, and the catechism of perse- 
 verance laid over it as a stucco and varnish. All 
 the intellectual formation stone of France, all 
 the national bed above which grow the special- 
 ties and superiorities of Paris, are the same as in 
 the middle ages. The little books of devotion 
 of the Mame library give the tone to French 
 education.'" 
 
 Their two lives remain divergent, and he feels 
 it. They will always remain so, and he feels that 
 also. He will not initiate her ; he cannot make 
 of her the second in his life, and is resigned to it. 
 The evenings already seem to him very long and 
 void. How occupy and amuse a woman forever.'* 
 She sits at the piano and plays; passably well 
 or only ordinarily well, it is all one — a gold- 
 finch in a caofe. You cannot forever be tellinq; 
 it to sing and putting the little bucket in its claw ? 
 
 He fortunately perceives that she has an apti- 
 tude which is developing itself — the talent of 
 housekeeping. She had never known what a 
 
328 NOTES OF PARIS. 
 
 louis was. She learns and practises economy. 
 No other outlet for her — that is the only one pro- 
 portioned to her education and her intelligence. 
 Could one have believed it of her, with that 
 pretty face, so expressive in its saucy and original 
 grace } In this way at least she will be useful, 
 and will feel herself useful. 
 
 It is a good household, and both of them be- 
 long to that middle bourgeoisie where good house- 
 holds are to be found in greatest number. 
 
 In bourgeois households bickering; in soci- 
 ety adultery. In the bourgeois households which 
 are fashionable, one or the other, and sometimes 
 both. 
 
 Mother or child, statue on its pedestal, or on 
 the drawing-room arm-chair, woman is the ideal. 
 Wife or mistress, she is often an ally, often an 
 adversary, sometimes an enemy. 
 
 A proverb among the peasantry : A father 
 can support twelve children, and twelve children 
 cannot support a father. 
 
 The child directs the woman, who directs the 
 man, who directs the business of life '^. 
 
 My point of view is false. Things are better 
 
A WEEK. 329 
 
 than 1 have described them. There is a pad in 
 the machine which lessens the severity of the 
 shocks. 
 
 Tliis pad is gayety, carelessness, the habit of 
 forgetting one's self in the excitement of conversa- 
 tion, through the wish to save appearances. The 
 soul of a Frenchman is elastic ; he does not 
 long remain under the pressure of painful ideas. 
 He does not increase his injuries by brooding 
 upon them in silence. He dresses himself, goes 
 to see his friends, talks on all subjects, feels 
 himself called upon to talk brightly and well, to 
 give a piquant or amusing turn to his own story 
 even. He grows gay as he hears himself talk. 
 His griefs, transformed by words become a work 
 of art. He arranges them and thereafter sees 
 them at a distance. He is restored, reanimated, 
 
 renewed by his own actions. Lord B came 
 
 every year to live two months in the Rue de Riv- 
 oli. He said that the very sight of our gestures 
 and our expressions of face made life seem rose- 
 colored to. him. 
 
 You must get out of self, and the outlets vary 
 with characters — the Frenchman has conversa- 
 tion, the German, music, the Englishman, business. 
 
 What is called philosophy suits some temper- 
 aments ; most people might as well eat boiled 
 
 bread. N said to me, " One day feeling 
 
 sad, I stuffed a half dozen serious books into 
 my head. At the end of a week I was still more 
 sad ; I returned to my usual habit of life : a large 
 
33° NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 beefsteak in the morning, a ride on horseback in 
 the afternoon, an evening visit to my mistress." 
 
 Take an alibi. In our climates there is work, 
 hterature and society ; add, for the lower cla,sses 
 brandy, which is the popular literature. In the 
 East it is opium and dreams. 
 
 The happiest man I ever knew was a Calcutta 
 brahmin — a long head, narrow at the temples, 
 and a skull of an enormous height, thin limbs, 
 the complexion of a clay statue baked in the 
 sun ; all his substance seemed to have been 
 drawn up into the brain, and the rest of the body 
 slumbered, reduced to a life torpid as that of hi- 
 bernating animals. His wants were almost null ; 
 he had not even that of perfumes. Five or six 
 ounces of rice a day, water, a roof over his head, 
 some white cotton clothes, two servants. Neither 
 pleasures, nor curiosities, nor vices. He passed 
 the day in silence, seated cross-legged at his 
 door-sill. In this motionless mass only the eyes 
 were alive, fixed like flames. Like many con- 
 temporary pundits he had cast off most of his 
 superstitions, and avowed it. For ten years the 
 English savants had consulted him for their 
 Sanscrit editions. He had mastered the ideas 
 and philosophy of Europe. But one day a doc- 
 tor believing that he had converted him, tried to 
 make him taste beef soup ; he fainted with 
 horror, then ran away, and never appeared again 
 in the land of the British Indians. Later, he 
 recovered his nerves. In my capacity of a half 
 
A WEEK. 331 
 
 German Frenchman, I was permitted to pay him 
 a visit, and for several weeks I saw his strange 
 smile. He approved of our sciences; but at 
 bottom our researches and voyages seemed to 
 him but insect agitations, the piling up and 
 scratching of a lot of poor ants reduced for 
 want of wings to bustle about wretchedly on 
 their feet, incapable of a flight into the air to 
 contemplate space. He shut his eyes, and dis- 
 tinctly saw the wild boar Vishnu inadvertently 
 carrying off the earth on the end of one of his 
 tusks, the enormous milky Ganges, natural off- 
 spring of a god who thought he held a goddess 
 in his embraces, the floating and colossal faces 
 of innumerable gods, and the millions of worlds 
 which rise like vapor from the motionless Being, 
 only to fall back to whence they came. 
 
 I suppose he ended in idiocy or apoplexy : 
 in Europe we have science. That also is a slow 
 and intelligent suicide. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A TETE-A-TETE. 
 
 At the Jardin des Plantes, the servant-girls, 
 soldiers, and small proprietors of the Rue Copeau 
 ordinarily crowd together before the great cage 
 in which the monkeys are. These animals have 
 become wicked, and what is more, sickly. Their 
 constrained and unnatural life has worn off their 
 hair; here and there bits of reddish flesh are 
 visible through their gray or yellow fur. With 
 their grimacing and sour faces, they are a piteous 
 sight. They run about with awkward gestures, 
 crying and cursing, tug at and worry each other 
 for an apple or a biscuit, climb on the poles, and 
 do all sorts of dirty things right in the faces of 
 the lookers-on. They have been depraved by 
 the laughter and teasing of the public ; they pay 
 him back, insulting him with an impudent display 
 of their deformities and their vices. They are 
 his chosen merry-makers ; they tickle his un- 
 healthy fibre, and in this way earn their wretched 
 pittance. 
 
 Such is the impression the smaller theatres 
 make upon me. The actors are spoiled monkeys 
 fined down, and the painted cage where they 
 grimace and kick up their heels every even- 
 ing is worse for the moral and bodily health than 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. ^^^^ 
 
 the grated rotunda, where their fellows of the 
 museum play their pranks. Like their fellows, 
 they are tattered, body and soul. Like their fel- 
 lows, they amuse the public with their physical 
 ailings, the one with his nose, another with his 
 half-frightened air, a third with his broken voice, 
 still another with his overgrown bulk. Like their 
 fellows, they stir up the lower depths of human 
 depravity and sensuality. Like their fellows, 
 they rise to a sort of animal talent, a mixture of 
 imitation and indecency, a raw and silly parody, 
 the spectators of which are no better than the 
 buffoons on the stage. One of these actresses 
 yesterday finished each lewd couplet with a 
 throat-cry and the attitude of a fish-woman ; at 
 the third couplet she stopped, unable to go on, 
 and with the remains of her voice she asked par- 
 don of the audience. I cleared out ; I felt the 
 need of cleansing my soul. I walked three miles 
 in the fresh air, in the moonlight, to the end of 
 the rue de I'Ouest, and went up to see my friend 
 Wilhelm Kittel, a true musician, who lives alone. 
 We were together thirty years ago, at the 
 University of Jena, and many a time have we 
 philosophized, the one against the other, or to- 
 gether, in the little gardens of the faubourgs, 
 where beer is drank under trellises of hops sown 
 with roses. Since then our paths have lain in 
 different directions : I have made a fortune in 
 America, he has made his living by giving les- 
 sons, first at Berlin, then at Paris ; at last, an 
 
334 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 uncle died, quite apropos, and had the good 
 sense to leave him an income of a thousand 
 francs. Now he feels rich ; but rich or poor, he 
 has never given a thought to money. If these 
 thousand francs give him any pleasure, it is be- 
 cause he is no longer forced to lose three or four 
 hours in lessons, every day, to earn his dinner, 
 his clothes, and his lodging. He gave no further 
 thought to his fame ; his character was reserved 
 and his temperament timid ; the intrigues of Paris 
 frightened him. He preferred not to put him- 
 self on show. He stayed at home reading scores, 
 or studied oratorios in the public libraries. He 
 even ended in giving up concerts and theatres ; the 
 showy execution, the gurgling of the singers, the 
 stupidity of the applause, disturbed his dreams. 
 He pretends that an opera can only be well 
 heard from the piano. Five or six celebrated 
 composers are acquainted - with him, and every 
 now and then climb up his four pairs of stairs. 
 Connoisseurs like Reber and Gounod respect 
 him, and are content when he says to them, 
 " That is good." As he is stiff and formal, they 
 never ask more of him. Moreover, he has the 
 cold pride of the phlegmatic temperament. Never 
 has he accepted an invitation to dinner ; it is a 
 rule he has laid down, it is known, and no one 
 presses him. Several times he has said that he 
 would not accept, because he could not return 
 the invitation, and that, at all events, he would 
 not pay in sonatas. In his view, music is a familiar 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. 
 
 335 
 
 conversation ; one does not open his heart for 
 a roast chicken or a cup of tea, and above all 
 does not tell his secret thoughts to strangers. I 
 go to his house on foot, as he comes to mine. 
 At my house, and at his, we dine on one dish and 
 a bottle of wine ; to eat more than this makes 
 the head dull. In this way there is perfect equal- 
 ity between us ; I even feel that I am in his debt, 
 since he brings more conversation than I. I am 
 almost his last companion ; death, marriage, 
 separation, difference in tempers, have made a 
 void about us, and when we are together, we see 
 at a charming distance, in a vague golden vapor, 
 the first dawn of our intelligence, under the influ- 
 ence of Beethoven, ScheUing and Goethe. 
 
 " Frederick," he said to me, as he saw me 
 come in, " there is your arm-chair, light your 
 cigar ; I want to have you there, to play over our 
 old sonatas; you shall look after the kettle." I 
 shook him by the hand, and he sat down at the 
 piano. 
 
 How comfortable it is in this old room 1 It is 
 mine as well as his, and I am more at home than 
 in my own. I like even its dust. The threadbare 
 carpet, the arm-chairs which have been so much 
 sat upon, the library cases full of well-read books. 
 This respectable furniture puts the mind at ease. 
 No need to admire it, it is not here for display ; 
 it does not repeat the old tale of vanity, like 
 
2>2>^ 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 the etaeeres and knick-knacks of a fashionable 
 woman ; its faded colors do not invite the eye ; 
 these old pieces keep in the background, and do 
 their service like good domestics. I am in the 
 great green easy-chair with its large back and 
 arms, and there is no need for me to take the 
 trouble to applaud or bother myself about some 
 new compliment ; I can let myself go, open the 
 door of my inner being, of that delicate existence, 
 which each one hides within himself, and permit 
 it to take its flight, without fear that it may be 
 struck down and crushed to earth ; the tea kettle 
 sings : my feet on the andirons, I watch the 
 little orange-colored or blue flames which lick 
 the splitting bark of the logs. The turmoil of 
 Parisian thought gradually weakens and fades 
 away, and light and dreamy phantasies float 
 about me like morning mists. 
 
 " Wilhelm, you must play for me now the sonata 
 in sol minor, you know, Opus No. 90." 
 
 It is one of the exquisite charms of music not 
 to awaken in us an)^ such thing 2js, forms, nor call 
 up certain landscapes, certain expressions of coun- 
 tenance, certain events or distinct situations, but 
 states of behig, shades of joy or sadness, degrees 
 of nervous tension or freedom from care, serenity 
 of spirit in its richest fulness, or the death-like 
 swoon of unutterable sadness. A whole people of 
 ideas has been swept away, and there only remains 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. 
 
 ^^7 
 
 the human base, the infinite capacity of enjoyment 
 and suffering, the upheavals and depressions ot 
 the nervous and sentient being, the countless varia- 
 tions and harmonies of its agitation and its repose. 
 The mind is as a country from which all the in- 
 habitants have been removed, all the frontier 
 lines and cultivation blotted out ; only the soil 
 remains with its structure, its hills and valleys, 
 the rustling of the winds and waves and the eternal 
 changing poetry of sunlight and of shade. 
 
 " Wilhelm, my soul was not at the right pitch," 
 1 said in a low tone; "begin again, I pray, the 
 second movement, in the major." 
 
 He played again this second movement, so 
 melodious and so tender. A running song of 
 crystalline notes winds in and out above the 
 chords, is lost, returns, and unfolds its rolling 
 wave, like a meadow stream. Sometimes low 
 as the sighs of a flute ; often the deep softness of a 
 woman's voice in loving sadness. At times there 
 is a pause in this sweetness ; the impetuous soul 
 reappears, bursts forth in cascades of precipitous 
 notes, in fine, delicate caprices, in the sharp ring 
 of strange chords ; then all falls again, a swarm of 
 active little voices rise and descend, chasing each 
 other in tremulous agitation ; a charming murmur 
 of sportive waters, which brings back the air to 
 its first channel ; the melody then takes up afresh 
 its measured course, and its clear stream flows on 
 a last time, more tortuously, broader than ever, 
 with its train of silvery sound. 
 
 23 
 
338 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 " More of Beethoven, Wilhelm ; but at length 
 this time; and all that comes to you." 
 
 He played for more than an hour, but I cer- 
 tainly did not look at the clock. That day he was 
 roused, as the English say, and I was as much 
 roused as he. He first played two or three com- 
 plete sonatas, then some parts of symphonies, 
 fragments of sonatas for piano and violin, an air 
 from Fidelio, some other pieces the names of 
 which I did not know. He bound them together 
 with chords and pauses, as a man who, opening 
 his favorite poet, reads now in the middle, now 
 from the end of the volume, choosing here and 
 there a verse, according to the feeling of the mo- 
 ment. I listened, motionless, with eyes fixed 
 upon the hearth, and I followed, as on a living 
 countenance, the movement of this grand and 
 lifeless spirit; dead only for itself; for us it still 
 lives, and we have it all entire in this pile of black- 
 ened paper. How unjust public renown has been 
 to him ! He is acknowledged as sovereign in the 
 realms of the gigantic and the sad. There would 
 they set the bounds of his kingdom. His do- 
 main they would limit to a desert land, swept by 
 hurricanes, desolate and grand, such a land as 
 that where Dante dwells. This solitude is his, 
 and no other emperor but he may enter it ; but 
 he has other domains than this. All that is rich- 
 est and in fullest bloom in the abounding fields, 
 all that is softest and most smilino; in shaded and 
 flowery vales, all that is freshest and most origi- 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. ^^^g 
 
 nal in the early timid dawn — all these are his also. 
 Only amid them all his soul is not at peace. Joy 
 as well as grief moves it in its deepest recesses ; 
 his sensations of dellofht are too intense. He is 
 not simply happy, he is ravished with pleasure ; 
 his is the thought of the man who, after a night 
 of anguish, panting, suffering, looking forward to 
 a still more painful day, sees all at once some 
 quiet morning landscape spread before his sight ; 
 his hands tremble, a deep sigh of relief escapes 
 from his bosom ; all his bent and crushed forces 
 rise up afresh, and the spring of his felicity is as 
 irresistible as the fall of his despair. 
 
 There is zest in each of his pleasures ; his hap- 
 piness is poignant, not soft. His allegro move- 
 ments bound like young colts let loose, stamping 
 upon and crushing the fair meadows where they 
 are at play. His presto movements, still more 
 vehement, more violent, are wild frolics, short and 
 trembling stops. Irregular gallops which hammer 
 the keyboard with their resounding tread. At 
 times, in the midst of his insensate joy, the serious 
 and tragic rush in, and without change of move- 
 ment, with the same fury, his spirit dashes for- 
 ward as to a combat. Intoxicated by the impetuos- 
 ity of Its speed, and with such strange leaps and 
 such variety of fancy, that the spectator pauses, 
 almost terrified by the wild exuberance of this 
 savage nature, by the dizzy fertility of his inven- 
 tion, by the short, crisp movements, the fury of 
 the unfolding rhythm, unexpected, broken and 
 
340 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 redoubled, beyond power of conception, always 
 expressing, yet never exhausting his thought. 
 
 He came and sat by my side, and said to me, 
 " You know his life ? " 
 
 " Not too well, only what the newspaper feuil- 
 letons tell me of it." 
 
 • " Here is his biography by Schindler, a worthy 
 man who was with him the last years of his life. 
 Read it while I make the tea." 
 
 I turned over the leaves of the poor, sheep- 
 covered German volume, in which the faithful 
 companion of the master, a true QsQ.xvs\2.n fantuhts , 
 a sort of Wagner, pupil of another Faust, has 
 gathered all the details he had heard or seen of 
 his life. These minute details seemed no longer 
 vulgar to me. The soul, which I had just seen, 
 ennobled all its surroundings. I saw, once more, 
 the man in his old great-coat, with his battered 
 hat, his broad shoulders, his untrimmed beard, 
 his thick hair on end, walking with naked feet in 
 the morning dew ; writing Fidelia, and Christ in 
 the Garden of Olives, on a stump, from which 
 grew out two oak trunks ; going straight ahead 
 without noticing the obstacles in his path, or 
 heeding the bad weather ; returning in the even- 
 ing to his disordered chamber, the floor covered 
 with books and music, pell-mell, empty bottles, 
 the remains of his breakfast, and his press proofs 
 in a pile in a corner, the mass in re serving for 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. 34 1 
 
 wrapping paper in the kitchen ; usually sombre, 
 hypochondriacal, but suddenly startled by attacks 
 of strange gayety, running over the key-board 
 with a formidable grimace ; silent, reserved, lis- 
 tening to operas with the immobility of an 
 idol ; disproportioned in everything, and unable 
 to accommodate himself to life. But I felt, 
 also, that these strange freaks sprung from an 
 overflowing generosity and grandeur of soul. 
 His love letters, among the phrases of the day, 
 bore these sublime words,'' My immortal beloved." 
 He lived in the ideal world which Petrarch and 
 Dante described, and his passion took nothing 
 from his austerity. Unable to marry he remained 
 chaste, and he loved as purely as he wrote. He 
 hated licentious speech, and blamed the Don 
 Giovanni of Mozart, not only because of its Ital- 
 ian manner, but still more "because a thing so 
 holy as art should not so prostitute itself as to 
 serve to link together so scandalous a story." 
 He carried the same elevation of soul into the 
 other great interests of life ; always proud before 
 princes, waiting for them to salute him first, 
 keeping the same manner before the greatest ; 
 holding the politeness and condescension of the 
 world to be but treason and falsehood, and, like 
 a Rousseau or a Plato, earnestly hoping for a re- 
 public which would make citizens and heroes of 
 all mankind. In the innermost depths of his 
 heart, as in a sanctuary, there dwelt an instinct 
 yet more sublime, that of the divine. To his eyes 
 
342 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 neither the various arts nor the languages of man 
 gave it expression ; music alone in its secret es- 
 sence had some correspondence to it, and he 
 would not be questioned on the one or the other 
 subject. Just then I read this inscription, which 
 he had copied from a statue of Isis, " I am all 
 that is, that has been, that shall be. No mortal 
 man has lifted my veil." Only the old wisdom 
 of the Pharaohs has found a word as august as 
 its thought. 
 
 I laid down the book ; Wilhelm took it up and 
 turned to a page. "Read this also," said he; 
 "you. must have a correct idea of him." It was 
 his testament. Here is the first page of it : 
 
 " Oh, you men, who look upon me as full 
 of hatred, untractable, misanthropic ; how you 
 wrong me ! You know not the reason why I so 
 appear. My heart and my nature were turned 
 from earliest childhood to the tender feelings of 
 benevolence ; to do great things of myself was the 
 object of my desires. But only remember, that 
 since I was six years of age I have been subject 
 to an incurable disease, which the ignorance of 
 physicians has increased, and that, deceived year 
 after year in the hope of its cure, I am forced to 
 the belief that it is incurable. Born with an active 
 and ardent temperament, passionately fond even 
 of the amusements of society, I had to withdraw 
 myself from it early, and to lead a life of solitude. 
 I could not be saying to every one, ' Speak loud, 
 shout, for I am deaf Ah, how could I confess 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. ^^t^ 
 
 the weakness of a sense which I once had in the 
 greatest perfection ! a perfection which few men 
 even of my profession have now, or ever had. 
 No ; that I cannot do ! Almost always alone, 
 except when extreme necessity compels, I hardly 
 dare to enter any society. I must live the life 
 of an exile ; if I draw near any company it is 
 with a cold sweat of anguish. I fear that my 
 unfortunate state may not be understood. But 
 what humiliation, when others hear a flute in the 
 distance, that I can hear nothing; when others hear 
 the shepherd's song, that I hear nothing. Such 
 accidents as these have driven me almost to de- 
 spair ; a little more and I should have put an end 
 to my life. Art alone has kept me from it. Ah ! 
 it seemed that I could not leave the world with- 
 out having brought into the world all that it was 
 my mission to create." 
 
 " Now," said Wilhelm, " Hsten." And he began 
 the last part of the last sonata.^^ 
 
 It is a phrase of a single line, slow and of infin- 
 ite sadness, which comes and goes ceaselessly, 
 like a long and protracted sob : beneath it, 
 smothered sounds drag themselves along ; each 
 accent is prolonged beneath those which follow 
 it, and dies silently away, as a cry subsiding in a 
 sigh ; so ordered that each new burst of suffering 
 has its train of old complaint ; and these are heard 
 through the supreme lamentation, the fading 
 echoes of the early grief. There is nothing bitter 
 in this complaint ; neither anger, nor revolt of 
 
544 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 spirit. The heart from which it sprung says, 
 not that it is wretched, but that joy is beyond its 
 reach ; and finds its peace in resignation. So 
 some poor wretch, mangled by disaster in the 
 desert, lying in the sand and seeing the sparkling 
 jewels of heaven studding the dome of his last 
 night, is slowly lifted from himself, forgets his own 
 existence, no longer dreams of avoiding the in- 
 evitable ; the divine calmness of nature pours 
 over him its secret balm, and, opening his arms, 
 powerless to raise his crippled body, he stretches 
 them towards the ineffable beauty which sheds 
 its lustre across this mystic universe. Insensibly 
 the tears of suffering make room for those of 
 ecstasy, or, more truly, the two are melted in 
 mingled anguish and delight. At times despair 
 bursts forth, but is quickly followed by a rush of 
 poetic thought, and the saddest modulations are 
 exhaled, wrapped in such wonderful and magnifi- 
 cent chords, that the sublime overflows and 
 covers all with its piercing harmony. At the 
 close, after a grand tumult and struggle, the 
 sublime alone remains; the complaint changes 
 to a hymn which rolls in massive sound, swept on 
 in a stream of triumphant notes. All around the 
 song, above, below, in hurrying crowds, inter- 
 laced, unfolded, there rolls a chorus of acclama- 
 tion which increases, swelling as it goes, con- 
 stantly doubling its dash and joyousness. The 
 key-board is no longer equal to the task ; there 
 is no voice which does not take its part in this 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. 34^ 
 
 festival, the deepest with its thunder, the highest 
 with its warbles, all gathered together in one, 
 grand and multiple as that radiant rose which 
 Dante saw, whose every leaf was a happy soul. 
 A song of twenty notes holds in itself all these 
 contrary emotions. So the broken ogive of the 
 crypt of some Gothic cathedral bends in arches 
 beneath the lights of funereal lamps, among the 
 damp, moist walls, in the mournful darkness 
 which hangs about the tombs ; then in the church 
 above, suddenly freed from the weight of stone, 
 leaps forth and rises to the sky in delicate, grace- 
 ful columns, festoons the great windows with its 
 tracery of lace, flowers in trefoil in the illuminated 
 roses, and of the temple makes a tabernacle. 
 
 Invincible power of desire and of dreams ! 
 Choke up their sources as we may, they will not 
 dry. Thirty years of business, of ciphers and ex- 
 perience are piled upon the spring ; it seems to be 
 stopped up, but all at once, at the touch of some 
 great soul, it leaps forth as lively as the first day ; 
 the dike has burst, and the heavy slime which 
 has stopped the outlet and is swept away by the 
 outbreak only adds to the strength of the current. 
 By a singular chance I recalled to mind at this 
 moment the landscapes of India, which alone in 
 their strength and contrasts furnish images anal- 
 ogous to such music. 
 
 At the season of the monsoon the gathered 
 
346 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 clouds lie like a monstrous wall of soot across 
 the sky and sea ; the sea-gulls fly by thousands 
 over this coal-black mass, which moves in terrible 
 darkness, spotted only by their white wings, to- 
 wards the land, swallowing up space and drown- 
 ing the headlands in its vapor. The ships stand 
 out to sea. One of the last days of fine weather 
 I saw, from afar, the Maldives, twelve thousand 
 little coral islands in a diamond sea ; nearly all 
 unpeopled ; the water sleeps in their inlets or 
 throws a silver fringe over their ledges. The 
 sun flings its fiery arrows upon them by hands- 
 ful ; over the whirling water-courses ripples of 
 molten gold sparkle on the oblique waves. The 
 broad water sheet, furrowed with eddies, looks 
 like some metal fresh from the forge, all inlaid 
 with arabesque : millions of sparks glitter on its 
 back as on the incrustation of a breastplate. 
 The very treasure of a rajah, arms and jewels, 
 poignards with mother-of-pearl handles, garments 
 stitched with sapphires, helmets with emerald 
 plumes, turquoise girdles, silks of azure, spangled 
 with gold and studded with pearls. To what 
 compare the burning whiteness of the sky itself? 
 When a fair young woman in the bloom of health 
 and trembling with pleasure, full-dressed, and on 
 her wedding-day, has put her golden comb in 
 her hair, her pearl necklace about her neck, her 
 ruby pendants in her ears ; when all the jewels 
 of her casket light with their flames her flesh of 
 living rose, she oft-times fastens on her forehead 
 
A TETE-A-TETE. 
 
 347 
 
 a floating white veil ; but her face fills it with 
 light, and the gauze in which she hides herself 
 becomes an illuminating halo. So this sea be- 
 neath this sky, in its wealth of rolling splendor, 
 in contrast with the livid clouds, is delicious and 
 sublime as the divine hymn of the great master 
 after the long night of his despair. This sea also 
 disturbs our soul too much ; this sea is too beau- 
 tiful, and arouses too much by sympathy that 
 which Beethoven aw^akes in us of himself In his 
 presence, as in that of this wondrous sea, we take 
 no note of isolated things, of narrow creations, of 
 the fragmentary parts of life. Here is the uni- 
 versal chorus of the living, whose delights or 
 griefs we share : Here is the great Soul whose 
 thoughts we are : Here is Nature in its whole- 
 ness ; ceaselessly wounded by the sorry needs 
 which mutilate or crush it ; yet palpitating amid 
 its own death-services, and from among the 
 myriad corpses which lie strewn around, lifting 
 up forever to the sky its hands laden with new 
 generations, with the heavy, inexpressible, ever- 
 stifled, but ever new-born cry of unsatisfied desire. 
 I looked at Wilhelm ; we were nearly in the 
 same frame of mind, and we approached each 
 other. Heaven help me ! we just missed putting 
 our old faces together ; but we each divined the 
 other's thought ; I in his eyes, he in mine, and 
 we smiled. It is enough at our age to shake 
 hands. Thereupon I went away, without a word. 
 If I am not mistaken, that evening we made tea, 
 but we did not drink it. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 M. GRAINDORGE. 
 
 To Monsieur Marceliii, Director of La Vie 
 Parisie7tJte. 
 
 Monsieur : I have the honor to inform you of 
 the sad loss which Hterature, salt pork and oils 
 have met with in the person of M. Frederic- 
 Thomas Graindorge, doctor in philosophy of the 
 University of Jena, special partner in the house 
 of Graindorge & Co., of New York and Cincin- 
 nati, who died of the liver complaint at his resi- 
 dence, 14 rue des Champs Elysees, the 15th 
 July, 1865, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. 
 
 Formerly a professor of rhetoric and the pri- 
 vate secretary and chiropodist of M. Graindorge, 
 I am in the best situation to give you all neces- 
 sary details of the life, habits and character of 
 my generous and unfortunate patron. Your 
 readers, who know his ideas, will be glad to know 
 something of himself, and since you propose to 
 remunerate me for this letter, I am happy to ac- 
 complish a duty which permits me, without injury 
 to my legitimate interests, to give way to the 
 softest sentiments of my heart. 
 
 Twelve years ago, when M. Graindorge took me 
 into his service, I had the honor to belong to the 
 
M. GRAINDORGE. 
 
 349 
 
 University of France, and for a long time had 
 worn, with exemplary zeal, the robe and cap 
 which I had been called upon to fill. About this 
 time there came out a circular letter from the rec- 
 tor which ordered all professors to cut off their 
 beards. I valued mine, which was black and 
 quite handsome, having noticed the gravity it 
 added to my speech and the influence it gave me 
 over the minds of youth. Strong in the approval 
 of my conscience, and invoking the principle of 
 authority, I protested to m}' superior, who treated 
 my letter as an impertinence, and dismissed me 
 in the flower of my age and talent. I came to 
 Paris, which is the refuge of all men of talent 
 whom fortune has ill used ; but after various 
 useless efforts, I was reduced to taking scrivener's 
 workfor divers persons ; among others, M. Grain- 
 dorge. One day that I took him my copy, I found 
 him complaining of an obstinate corn which he 
 had on the rio-ht side of his left Q^reat toe. As I 
 had always a great passion for natural sciences, I 
 had devoted myself to the branch of physiology 
 which treats of the excrescences of the human 
 body; the only one which, from the advantages 
 of its practical utility and its restricted theory, 
 can be cultivated in the provinces without draw- 
 ing upon its adepts both ecclesiastical censure 
 and the dangerous name of a free-thinker. I 
 offered my services to M. Graindorge ; he did me 
 the honor to take off his sock at once in my pres- 
 ence. Three minutes later the corn was cut out 
 
350 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 by the roots, and M. Graindorge enjoyed inexpres- 
 sible relief. From that moment I have been at- 
 tached to his person. I ran his business errands, 
 arranged his books, prepared his clothes for his 
 evening parties, and every morning put his nails 
 in order. It is thus, monsieur, that for twelve 
 years I have been able thoroughly to study this 
 remarkable man whom we mourn to-day. 
 
 To proceed in order, and observing the rule of 
 transitions, which M. Graindorge too often neg- 
 lected, I will remark, in the first place, that he 
 wore too tight boots. M. Graindorge, although 
 beyond the age of foppery, had still pretensions 
 of his own, and dressed himself with the utmost 
 care. Far be it from me to blame my illustrious 
 and unfortunate friend ; but the sincerity which I 
 profess compels me to say that he spent an hour 
 every morning and an hour every evening in 
 combing and brushing his hair, in perfuming him- 
 self, and in rubbing his skin with an endless num- 
 ber of salves. Are you not, monsieur, of my 
 opinion, that such extreme particularity is quite 
 beneath a man, and that to succeed in the world 
 we should rely wholly on our merit and our intel- 
 ligence ? I can assure you that, for my part, I 
 never employ any other resources, and that, thank 
 God ! those which I have are sufficient in "them- 
 selves. M. Graindorge, on the contrary, looked a 
 great deal to appearances, and never thought his 
 coats well enough made, nor his boots thin enough. 
 He threw back his tall, thin figure, hung his gold 
 
M. GRAINDORGE. 
 
 151 
 
 eye-glass on his nose, which was hooked Hke the 
 beak of an eagle, and I noticed in the evening, 
 when I held his coat for him, that he took quite 
 a pleasure in looking at himself in the glass. He 
 never kicked me but once, and that was one day 
 that, absorbed by literary thoughts, I poured a 
 small bottle of ink over his hands instead of 
 cologne-water. I fell over the divan, for he had 
 a muscular leg ; but, by way of excuse, he handed 
 me a five-hundred-franc note, and I confess that 
 this reparation has often suggested to me the 
 idea of renewing my mistake. Nevertheless I 
 have since contented myself with that grave smile 
 with which I ordinarily protest against human 
 weakness, and each evening I have enjoyed the 
 silent pleasure of feeling myself the superior, at 
 least in my contempt for worldly vanities, of the 
 man to whom chance and an unjust destiny had 
 made me subordinate. 
 
 M. Graindorge having risen, and imposed up- 
 on me perhaps exaggerated services in the care 
 of his feet and his toilet, ordinarily passed the 
 morning in reading. I approve of this occupa- 
 tion: it ennobles the soul, and M. Graindorge 
 sadly needed it to efface the unfortunate traces 
 which a grossly commercial life had left on his 
 mind. But it was useless ; the recollections of 
 salt pork and oil returned too often in his speech 
 and his writings. I myself, at the beginning of 
 this letter, could not avoid alluding to this peculi- 
 arity with an irony as delicate as it was innocent. 
 
352 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 The fact is he was wanting in good taste, and it 
 was to be seen in the choice of his reading. He 
 cared Httle for our classics ; on the other hand, 
 the heavy Hterature of Germany and the inter- 
 minable English reviews were most often in his 
 hand. One day I took the liberty of making this 
 observation to him ; he told me in a sharp way 
 to brush his pantaloons. The wisest counsels 
 were thrown away on this wild nature. I still 
 smile at and measure, myself out of the question, 
 the impassable distance which always separates 
 a man of education from a moneyed man. 
 
 At eleven o'clock, M. Graindorge ordinarily 
 breakfasted on a chicken or a cold partridge, 
 with a bottle of Bordeaux wine. I stood at his 
 side to serve him, and had for myself what he 
 left of the bottle. F'or the first seven years, he 
 always left the half; little by little he came to 
 drink three-quarters, with an increase of satisfac- 
 tion and a simple egotism which ended in wound- 
 ing my feelings. He had even the cruelty to 
 praise his Bordeaux before me, and to say, with- 
 out any regard to me, that it was an excellent 
 wine for the stomach. By what right did he 
 thus usurp my half-bottle ? Who authorized 
 him to remain . ten minutes longer at table, pro- 
 longing my service, delaying my dinner, giving 
 pain to my stomach, and receiving at my hands, yes, 
 from my own hands, two supplementary glasses 
 of wine which legitimately and for seven years 
 had been mine ? It seemed to me that when 
 
M. GRAINDORGE. t^c^ 
 
 O o 
 
 I was deep in these thoughts, his eyes would 
 assume a pecuHar expression. Once M. Grain- 
 dorge said to me, " Celestin " (that is my name, 
 sir : a name honorably borne by my father, and, 
 I dare claim, by myself also), " my poor Ce- 
 lestin, what worries you ? " I put on at once my 
 discreet smile, and excused myself by my literary 
 preoccupations. " Ah ! ah ! " said M. Graindorge, 
 ** it is the muse who is playing her tricks. That 
 is very bad for the digestion, Celestin : go and 
 get me the Jamaica rum," and he poured me out 
 a petit-verre. I drank his health with a respect- 
 ful salutation. But observe my ill-luck: he him- 
 self, meanwhile, finished the Bordeaux wine, my 
 Bordeaux wine ; the only wine which is under 
 lock and key ; the only one which agrees with my 
 nerves. On such occasions a man needs to have 
 great self-control. The ancient philosophers tell 
 us that the true mark of nobility of soul is the 
 courage to endure injustice in silence, and I flat- 
 ter myself I was their worthy scholar on that oc- 
 casion. 
 
 About one o'clock, M. Graindorge went to the 
 club, and from there I know not where. I never 
 wished to know where : a man of my stamp must 
 respect himself, and when his patrons permit 
 themselves amusements which decency con- 
 demns, he should pass by, eyes shut as before a 
 gallery of statues, or before those nudities which 
 the hair-dressers have the impudence to display 
 behind their show-windows. If I had been 
 
 23 
 
354 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 willing to talk with the coachman or the footman, 
 I could have known many a thing : these two sub- 
 alterns have many a time endeavored to be 
 familiar with me, but I politely put them off as 
 a man who knew how to keep his superiority. I 
 might, if I had chosen, however, have been 
 informed of all that was going on ; I often heard 
 them passing their commentaries, in the pantry 
 or on the box, when M, Graindorge, taking me 
 with him, left me in the carriage. Would you 
 believe it, sir? M. Graindorge, who did not 
 blush to let his nephew know of his follies, had 
 not even the excuse of being in love. His only 
 thought was to pass a couple of hours pleasantly ; 
 and for that he spent twenty thousand francs a 
 year, and more. Mademoiselle Concepcion Nunez, 
 the last favorite, was a simple dancing-girl of 
 that Spanish troupe which came lately to Paris to 
 display their extravagant pirouettes. M. Grain- 
 dorge had the partition-walls of three rooms 
 knocked down for her ; that made a grand salon, 
 where he would pass the afternoon three or four 
 times a week, stretched out on a divan, a Turkish 
 pipe in his mouth, looking at the sports of this 
 dancing creature. The apartment was filled 
 with flowers, and the closed blinds only let in a 
 half-lio^ht. The musicians remained in another 
 room, where, in the intervals of the dance, they 
 played slow, sweet, and very sad airs. M. Grain- 
 dorge looked on in silence, or shut his eyes, and, 
 when an air pleased him, touched a knob, which 
 
M. GRAINDORGE. 
 
 355 
 
 made a sign in the other room to repeat the piece. 
 What he Hked most, as the musicians have told me, 
 were the airs of Chopin, all melancholy and dole- 
 ful enough to set one in a fever, and above all a 
 funeral march, which sounded like the groans of 
 a consumptive ready to be put in his coffin. I 
 escaped to the foot of the staircase, at the very 
 first bar. But M. Graindorge seemed to take a 
 strange pleasure in the contrast between the music 
 and the dancing; for I have forgotten to say to you 
 that Concepcion, with her hair entwined with red 
 carnations, with her dark eyes shining like flames, 
 with the intense purple which almost immediately 
 colored her cheeks, seemed like a living flower, 
 but of a life more brilliant and vigorous than we 
 meet with under our sun. When she whirled 
 about in her gold-spangled skirt, or when, a mo- 
 ment after, her figure motionless and thrown 
 back, her bust and shoulders quivering, the flames 
 poured from her eyes as from an unquenchable 
 brazier, I even, though steeled against the follies 
 of youth, — I left the key-hole, and, to change 
 the current of my thought, went to the pantry, 
 where she always kept for me a bottle of that 
 famous Bordeaux which I found so good for my 
 stomach. As for M. Graindorge, he remained 
 as still as one of his barrels of petroleum 
 (excuse this trivial but striking comparison) ; 
 only when he returned to his carriage there were 
 sometimes tears in his eyes. He never applauded 
 or spoke ; when he went away, he kissed the 
 
356 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 hand of Concepcion, in a way peculiarly serious. 
 It is perhaps for this reason that she had so 
 much friendship for him ; she felt herself to be 
 really admired, and had taken an intense hatred 
 to these Parisians, who have no comprehension of 
 dancing. But I also understood dancing ! And 
 the proof of it is that I could not remain at the 
 key-hole ! I was obliged to drink a bottle of 
 Bordeaux to strengthen my head ! I became 
 furious when, at eleven o'clock in the evening, M. 
 Graindorge would tell me to order the carriage ! 
 Why was he on the divan while I remained at 
 the door? Why was it he that furnished the wine, 
 and I that was reduced to drinking it ? He was 
 no younger than I, his manners were no more 
 agreeable ; as far as intelligence and solid merit 
 go, it is not worth my while to enter into any com- 
 parison. I have lived among the best authors, 
 he with salt pork and oil : hence all his privileges. 
 Strange irony of social conventionality ! The less 
 one deserves, the more one has. 
 
 It only remains, sir, to notice some of the per- 
 sonal peculiarities and tastes of M. Graindorge. 
 His obstinacy in wearing tight boots had brought 
 on two corns on the left foot and three on the right 
 foot. With time and care, by the daily use of 
 warm lotions and the file, I had succeeded in re- 
 lieving him of this inconvenience ; not a comfort- 
 able step did he take during the last three years 
 of his life that he did not owe to me ; and if he 
 had been really grateful at heart, he would never 
 
M. GRAINDORGE. 
 
 357 
 
 have put one foot before the other without think- 
 ing of my services. But, when his mind was not 
 distracted by frivoHty, he was full of egotism. I 
 want no other proof than the Notes on Paris, 
 which you did him the honor to print. Not only 
 did I write them under his dictation, or recopy his 
 scribblings, but, moreover, it is I that read the 
 proof, corrected the punctuation and the accents, 
 improved the limping phrases, and sometimes 
 spread over the savage and American style of M. 
 Graindorge the polish to which these semi-bar- 
 barous essays owe your indulgent approval. I 
 may say that for three years I have been not 
 only his secretary, but his collaborator also, and 
 that my zeal has not outrun my discretion. What 
 thanks has M. Graindorge given me ? Where 
 has he mentioned my name ? Is there a single 
 phrase which alludes to my services } In his 
 twenty-four letters he speaks of everything, of 
 his nephew, his friend, his father, of himself, his 
 tastes, his voyages, his apartment ; and of me not 
 a word. W^as it envy ? Did he wish to stifle me .'* 
 Did he think he could prevent me from reaching 
 the public eye ? Did he fear that I would have 
 the credit of his book ? Thank Heaven, I am 
 above those petty jealousies which are so common 
 to authors ; I do not covet my neighbor's goods, 
 I have enough of my own ; if I have any part in 
 the work of M. Graindorge, I surrender it. Far 
 from me to imitate the indelicacy of his way of 
 acting: let M. Graindorge keep his incorrect 
 
158 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 phrases, his vulgar turns of expression, his hashed 
 and bizarre style ; I would be wrong to claim them 
 for mine, and, as you may have noticed, monsieur, 
 to-day his pen has changed hands. 
 
 His will was opened last week, and he was 
 found to have divided his fortune into three 
 shares. He leaves to his nephew, M. Anatole 
 Durand, from this date, an income of twenty thou- 
 sand francs a year, and twenty thousand francs 
 more the day after M. Anatole Durand shall sign 
 his marriage-contract. I approve of this last 
 disposition : it is well to restrain youth ; but forty 
 thousand francs income is a great deal for a sin- 
 gle household, and twenty thousand francs a 
 year too much for a young man alone. What 
 need was there for M. Graindorge to leave so 
 large a fortune in the hands of a vulgar fop, 
 whose pretensions he laughed at, and whose ex- 
 travagance he condemned. And had he not near 
 him well-tried characters who better deserved his 
 gratitude, and who would have done some credit 
 to his money ? M. Graindorge founds, besides, 
 seven annual pensions of three thousand francs 
 each, payable to the beneficiary for fifteen years, 
 for distribution to such needy youth from eigh- 
 teen to twenty-three as have shown proof of 
 merit, and given promise of distinction in the 
 sciences, literature, the arts, law, and medicine, at 
 the choice and by the designation of a commis- 
 sion named by the Academy of Medicine, the 
 Law Faculty, and the five academies. No doubt 
 
M. GRALYDORGE. 
 
 159 
 
 it is impossible not to recognize in this legacy a 
 reasonable idea, if it be a reasonable idea to take 
 from youth the spur of necessity and the merit of 
 effort. For my part, I have always thought that 
 comfort belongs to years of maturity, and not to 
 youth, and that the liberality of individuals is bet- 
 ter employed in rewarding past than future ser- 
 vices. Finally, M. Graindorge, in utter disregard 
 of all modesty, leaves an income of six thousand 
 francs to Mile. Concepcion Nunez ; sundry sums 
 of twenty to fifty thousand francs to friends in 
 comfortable circumstances, who have no need of 
 it ; six hundred francs income to his three domes- 
 tics, who are all three strong enough and yet 
 able to work ; and to me, monsieur, would you 
 believe it? only an annuity of eighteen hundred 
 francs, besides a capital of two thousand francs 
 to set me up at house-keeping, and all the white 
 cravats and dress-coats that there may be in his 
 wardrobe. Eio^hteen hundred francs income, — 
 one hundred and fifty francs a month, five francs 
 a day, — there is my reward for twelve years' ser- 
 vice ! It is for a pitiful liberality like this that 
 for one hundred and forty-four months I have got 
 up before him, gone to bed after him, brushed 
 all his clothes, kept his linen in order, taken care of 
 his feet, written his manuscripts, and had no more 
 for five years than a quarter of his bottle of wine. 
 Could he have thought that with a capital of two 
 thousand francs I could find an apartment like 
 ours, furniture like that to which I have been ac- 
 
36o 
 
 NOTES ON PARIS. 
 
 customed, a writing-desk of ebony incrusted with 
 brass, like that on which I have written so much, 
 arm-chairs, carpets, mirrors, a comfort and ele- 
 gance which by his fault have become indis- 
 pensable to me, and the daily privation of which 
 will make me henceforth curse the day I first 
 knew him ? How long will his dress-coats and 
 white cravats last me? Will he be here three 
 years hence to renew the supply when they are 
 worn out ? Yet he knew that I loved white linen, 
 and that I cannot do without a decent dress. 
 But delicate and noble sentiments were unknown 
 to him, and he brought back from America more 
 dollars than delicacy. 
 
 Saturday last we took our unfortunate friend to 
 the cemetery, where I delivered on his tomb a 
 discourse which was often interrupted by the ap- 
 plause of the company. Two or three of- the 
 friends of the deceased complimented me upon it. 
 For my part, sir, I arn above literary vanity ; I 
 only thought to fulfil a sacred duty, and if to- 
 day, yielding to your persuasion, I have rendered 
 this last homage to the eminent man whom we 
 mourn, it is with the confidence that your readers, 
 in running over this sincere recital, will recognize 
 the sentiments of a heart as faithful to friendship 
 as to truth. If, however, I have a wish to ex- 
 press, it is that, thanks to the publicity of your 
 excellent sheet, I may find a place similar to that 
 which I have just lost, persuaded as I am that 
 some new patron, appreciating at their just value 
 
M, GRAlNDORGE. 36 1 
 
 my moral qualities as well as my literary capacity, 
 will grant me the same privileges I enjoyed with 
 M. Graindorge, adding thereto the compensations 
 which I did not find in my first situation, and the 
 respect which is my due. 
 
 END OF THE NOTES. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 ■ NOPCES ET Festins. A vulgarism for noces et festins — • 
 marriage entertainments — seen on the signs of the lower order 
 of restaurants, especially in the faubourgs. 
 
 " Fanny. A novel of questionable taste and unquestionable 
 immorality, by Ernest Feydeau. — Madame Bovary. A sensa- 
 tion novel, by Gustave Flaubert. 
 
 3 Rue Cadet. A small, narrow street off the Rue du 
 Faubourg Montmartre. At No. i6 is the famous Casifio, an 
 evening dance hall of a low character. See page 2,^. 
 
 * Privat-docent. Class-tutor. 
 
 s EuER Gnaden, Monseigneur. Your Highness, Mon- 
 seigneur. A usual salutation to privileged personages ; here a 
 contemptuous politeness. 
 
 ^ Articles-Paris. Special name given to small articles of 
 ornament or use — pocket-books, false jewelry, etc. 
 
 ^ Saint Esprit. Originally the emblem of the " Order of 
 the Holy Ghost," established by Henry HI. Here it is the 
 Holy Dove, only a part of the emblem, and not worn as a 
 " decoration." 
 
 ^ " II tressaille en vous des phrases de ROMAN." Ro- 
 mantic phrases agitate my bosom. — From line Bomie Fortune, 
 Stanza XXIII. 
 
 9 Chef de bureau. A chief clerk. Here used in a gen- 
 eral sense, and not to designate a government official. 
 
 *^ Mabille. The famous summer dancing garden. Avenue 
 Montaigne, Champs Elysces, " especially frequented by stran- 
 gers and the women of the demi-monde." 
 
NOTES. 2>&^ 
 
 " BarriJire du Combat. An old barrier on the line of the 
 fortifications of old Paris, corner of the Boulevard du Com- 
 bat and the Boulevard de la Butte Chaumont. 
 
 " Barri^re du Tr6ne. Formerly the Barriere de Vin- 
 cennes. This barrier is on the road to Vincennes, at the upper 
 end of the Faubourg Saint Antoine. 
 
 ^3 GuiNGETTE. Small drinking shops on the outskirts of the 
 city, places of great resort on holidays. 
 
 ^ St. Lazare. House of detention and correction for dis- 
 orderly women, Faubourg St. Denis, No. 107. 
 
 ^= SalpetriJire. House of refuge and hospital for aged, 
 indigent, insane, and incurable women, Boulevard de I'Hopi- 
 tal. No. 47. 
 
 '^ Mazas. The chief prison and house of detention, Boule- 
 vard Mazas, No. 23. 
 
 '7 Bal du Trone. Public balls are held on holidays at 
 the rond-point of the Barriere du Trone. The gingerbread 
 fair is held here at Easter. 
 
 ^^ BoBiNO. Popular name for little puppet-shows. 
 
 ^' Raffet. a famous designer and engraver — 1804-1860 
 — pupil of Charlet and G^jB ; he designed the plates for the 
 songs of Beranger : "Le^.cre Bataillon de Waterloo," " Le 
 Carre Enfonc6," etc. 
 
 =° IsiGNY ET N^RAC. IsiGNY, in Normandy, celebrated for 
 its poultry ; N^rac, in Normandy, for its pates of duck liver 
 — " terrifies de Nerac." 
 
 " Romance of M. About. Edmond About. Trente et 
 Qiiara7ite. Letter from Louise de Marannes to Emma Bitter- 
 lin. Chapter IL, Hachette's edition, page 26. 
 
 ^ M'a fait assavoir. a corruption of nia fait savoir, 
 constantly used by the lower classes. Here the young girl 
 uses the bad French of her bonne. — Trejite et Qiiarante of 
 About, Chapter II., Hachette's edition, p. 26. 
 
 ==3 The blot and the blotter — le pate et la patissiere — the 
 pastry and the pastry-cook. In French, pate means blot also ; 
 the idiom cannot be translated. — Trejite et Qiiarante, Chapter 
 II., Hachette's edition, page 27. 
 
364 NOTES. 
 
 =* BouFFES Parisiens. A little theatre in the Passage 
 Choiseul, celebrated for the first production of Offenbach's 
 operettes. 
 
 =s Marianne et le Paysan Parvenu. Novels of the last 
 century, by Marivaux. Vie de Marianne, ou les Aventures de 
 la Comtesse de * * * Paris, 1732. Le Paysan Parvenu, Paris, 
 
 1735. 
 
 "^ Captain Bitterlin, an amusing character in About' s 
 Trente et Quarante. See also continuation, Hachette's edition, 
 
 p. 50- 
 
 =' Figaro et Dorine. Figaro, the valet, in " Le Mariage 
 de Figaro " of Beauraarchais ; Dorine, the maid, in Moli^re's 
 "Tartuffe." 
 
 °^ Campana Museum. An ancient Roman collection pur- 
 chased by the French Government in 1861, and now part of the 
 Musee Napoleon III. in the Louvre ; rich in jewels of gold 
 and precious stones, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, etc. ; a fine 
 collection of antique statues, in reference to which Taine re- 
 marks in his " Italy, Rome, and Naples : " " Our Musee Campa- 
 na at Paris shows, that on reaching the centuries of degeneracy, 
 sculpture ended in the reproduction of morbid personal defects 
 such as deformities and nervous contortions, and other insignifi- 
 cant traits, like the bourgeois characters of Henri Monnier 
 photogi'aphed to the life." — See Durand's translations. Holt's 
 edition, p. 54. 
 
 °3 Romance of Cooper. Rather an exaggeration of a pas- 
 sage in " The Sea Lions ; or, The Lost Sealers," by J. Fenimore 
 Cooper, Chapter XXXIII. 
 
 3" " Thou shalt not forswear thyself ; " in the French, 
 " tu ne prevariqueras pas." The true meaning of the phrase is 
 thou shalt not betray thy trust. The text in the translation is 
 the nearest approach in the Scripture, and is from Matthew v. 2)Z- 
 
 3' Baudouin. Celebrated for his statuettes. 
 
 ^ Renard — Dusautoy. Fashionable tailors on the Boule- 
 vard des Italiens. 
 
 35 La Vie de Jesus. The Life of Jesus, by Ernest Renan. 
 
 3* Verdier. Celebrated for fancy canes, umbrellas, hunt- 
 
NOTES. 365 
 
 ing "implements, often mounted in precious stones and rare 
 chasings ; on the boulevards. 
 
 3s Palais-Royal. A small theatre in the Montpensier gal- 
 lery of the Palais-Royal, famous for its farces and light comedy. 
 
 3^ Theatre Lyrique. On the place du Chatelet, one of 
 the newest Paris theatres, devoted to operas and the lyric drama. 
 
 37 Clichy. The old debtor's prison, nov^^ demolished. It 
 stood in the rue Clichy. Imprisonment for debt has now been 
 done away with. 
 
 ^ Substitute, Deputy attorney-general. 
 
 39 Arums. The English wake-robin, an aromatic plant. 
 
 ''° SuissES. Swiss — Concierge or porter. So called, because 
 formerly this class of servants was chiefly chosen from persons 
 of this nationality. The English word is now often used in this 
 sense. 
 
 *' Chasseurs. Footmen in hunting dress. 
 
 '^ Quartier Latin. The students' quarter ; in proximity to 
 the Sorbonne, the University, Law Schools, etc. 
 
 "•^ Mme. Marneffe. Valerie Marneffe, a striking personage 
 in La Cousine Bette, first of the series of Les Parents Faiivres, 
 by Pialzac. Taine draws an interesting parallel between this 
 character and that of Becky Sharp in "Vanity Fair." "The 
 difference of the two works will exhibit the difference of the 
 two literatures. As the English excel as moralists and satirists, so 
 the French excel as artists and novelists ! — Taine's EngUsh Lit- 
 erature, II., 392 ; Holt's edition, 1872. 
 
 Mme. Bovary. Novel by Gustave Flaubert. 
 
 Indiana. Novel by George Sand. — Madame Graslin, 
 character Le Cure de Village, by Balzac. 
 
 ^ Chevet. The most famous of Paris restaurateurs. In 
 the windows of his shop in the Palais-Royal the rarest and 
 finest varieties of food are daily seen. 
 
 43 Why don't they buy cakes ? " Eh bien alors, qu'ils 
 achetent de la brioche ? " An anecdote attributed to one of the 
 -children of Marie Antoinette, upon hearing the people clamor- 
 ing for bread — probably apocryphal, as it is not mentioned 
 either by Weber or Madame de Campa^\ 
 
366 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 '■^ Rendezvous bourgeois. A famous farce, " Opera Bouffon 
 en un acte et en prose, rnele d'Ariettes," words by Hoffmann, 
 music by Nicolo, first played at the Opera Comique, May 9th, 
 1807. 
 
 '■'' False teeth of hippopotamus' bone. In the French, 
 Osanore. Littre gives this pecuHar origin of the word : " A word 
 made up os bone, av Greek for without, or gold," because in 
 their construction no gold entered. 
 
 '^ Deligny. The Imperial Swimming School, situated on 
 the Quai d'Orsay, and directed by Deligny ; very celebrated. 
 
 ^^ Chatou. a pretty village on the Seine, two leagues from 
 Versailles — a beautiful terrace on the river, with delightful views. 
 
 5° Referendary. An officer in chancery. 
 
 5' Sour as vinegar. In the French, " une chipie aigre." 
 Littr6 says : "An old and popular word, meaning a disdainful 
 and disagreeable woman." There is no correspondent word 
 in English. 
 
 s* Flandrin's frescos. Painted by Hippolite Flandrin, 
 on the frieze of the nave of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul. 
 The frieze is 1 70 metres long and 3 metres high. " This immense 
 composition, painted on a ground of gold, represents two long 
 processions of Christians of both sexes, from the humblest 
 believers up to the Evangelists and the doctors, extends along 
 the two sides of the building in all the majestic simplicity of the 
 Greek manner. It is a pictorial rendering of the idea, ' The 
 gos;pel preached to the nations, opens to them the path to heaven' — 
 Paris Illustre de Joanne.'^ (See page 205.) 
 
 S3 Nicole, Pierre. Essais de Morale, contenus en divers 
 traites sur plusieurs devoirs importants, par M. de Montsigny 
 [P. Nicole], Paris, 1672. 
 
 5* MoREAU, Jean Michel. Born in Paris, 1741 ; died, 1814 ; 
 received at the Academy in 1781. He was celebrated for his 
 vignettes and book ornaments, chiefly etchings. 
 
 ss My father and I, etc. Monpere etmoi nous faisons tout 
 ce que veux. — Mile. Hackendorf, in " L' Ami des Femmes," 
 comedy by Dumas fils, Act II., Scene II. 
 
 ^ The Turks buy their wives, etc. " Les Turcs achetent 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Z^l 
 
 letir femmes, nous achetons nos maris . . . qti il ne soit pas genant 
 chez hit, et pas ridicule dehors, je le Hens quitte du rested — 
 Mile. Clementine, in "Un Beau Manage," comedy by Emile 
 Augier, Act I., Scene XIII. 
 
 If she marry, etc. " Oest qiiil liy a pas d autre carriere 
 pour unefilley — Idem, Act I., Scene XL 
 
 ^' Love is a flattery. L Amour est ime flatterie dont je ne 
 pr ends jamais que la moitie. pour moi ; je sais que ma personne 
 et la dot qiion me suppose fonnent unjoli total. — Idem, Act I., 
 Scene XII. 
 
 ^ Mlle. Hermine Sternay, in "Le,Fils Naturel," comedy 
 by Dumas tils. '■'■ Je ne vieffraie jamais, ma tante ; vous le 
 savez bieny — Act I., Scene VII. 
 
 " Qii' Hermine mange, boit, dort, cause et rit avec ses cama 
 rades comme autrefois.'' — Act III., Scene III. 
 
 " Nous nous tendons franchement la main devant tout le monde 
 et en toute conjiance, ce qui me par ait plus cotivenable que d'at- 
 tendre tme occasion de nous parler tout bas dans un coiji. — jEi 
 peut-on savoir maintenant quels sont vosprojets? — Oui, bonne 
 maman ; si vous me les eussiez demandes plus tot, je vous les 
 aurai dits plus tot. Mes projets sont depouser M. Jacques 
 Vignot, puisque je Vaijne toujours. . . . Jusque-la, mamari, vous 
 me remettrez,je pense, au couvent oiij' etais encore ce matin, et 
 vous auriez bien raison ; car, outre qu' il scr ait sans doute desa- 
 greable d' avoir sans cesse aupres de vous une petite fille aussi 
 desobtissante que moi ; de mon cote, c'est tendroit ouje desire 
 le plus rester,jusqiid vijigt-et-un ans, ay ant le grand dtsir d'ap- 
 prendre toutes les chases utiles queje ne sais pas encored — Act 
 III., Scene IV. 
 
 ^''J'ai bien reflechi, Jacques, et je votes le repete que je crois 
 ttre la compagiie qii il vous faut." — Act IV., Scene IX. 
 
 59 Mlle. Mathilde Durieu, in "La Question d' Argent," 
 comedy by Dumas fils. 
 
 '■'■ De la poesie ! . . . Dtcidtment tu ne niaimes pas, ii en 
 parlous plus. Je ne te menace pas de me tuer, ni dentrer 
 dans un couvent, ni meme de fte me marier jamais : je ferai au 
 contraire, tout mon possible pour foublier: mais je veux que 
 
368 NOTES. 
 
 notre conversation, qui aura n?ie si grande influence sur ma vie 
 en ait sur la ticnney — Act II., Scene VIII, 
 
 " Les meilleures resultats de fertilisation ohtemt jusqu^u ce 
 jour ; ce qui est par exemple, le plus tconomique, de la mariie ou 
 de la cliaux. Je dis que, le sol de ce pays se divise en terres sili- 
 cieuses, d est-d-dire en terres contenant des pier res en grande 
 quantite et en terres calcaires renferinatit beaucoup de chaux et 
 quclquefois de la magnesier — Act IV., Scene I. 
 
 ^° Ren^e Mauperin. a novel by Edmond and Jules de 
 Goncourt. " Au fond, c' est tme melancJiolique tintamar- 
 resqueT — Chapter IV., Charpentier's edition, p. 40. 
 
 ^' Les Vieux Garcons. " The Old Bachelors," comedy by 
 Victorien Sardou. 
 
 ^ Mlle. Francine Desroncerets, in '■'■ Maitre Guerin," a 
 comedy by Emile Augier. '•'■Voila line maitressefemme ; com- 
 meiit se fait il qii elle ne soil pas encore mariee. Parccqu' une 
 maitresse femme tient d consei'ver sa mait?'ise J' —Act I., Scene I. 
 
 ^3 Mlle. Clementine Bernier, in " Un Beau Mariage," — 
 A Fine Marriage — comedy by Emile Augier. '■'■Je me marierai 
 avec qui on voudra et quand on voudra pourvu que ce soit d la 
 Noel . . . pourquoi d Noel . . . pour passer I '/liver d J?ome." — 
 Act I., Scene XII. 
 
 ^4 Mme. Gabrielle Chabri^re. 
 
 "Mais quelle autorite dans son langage et comma, 
 L'autre n'est qu'un enfant a cote de cethomme." 
 
 Act v., Scene VI. 
 " O, p:re de famille ; 6 poete ! je t'aime." 
 
 Act v., Scene IX. 
 
 ^2 Mlle. Fernande Marechal, in "Le Fils de Giboyer," 
 comedy by Emile Augier. " Autant lui qu'un autre apres tout / 
 Sortir de cette maison voild l' important.'" — Act II., Scene X. 
 
 Clemence Charrier, in " Les Effrontcs " — The Brazen- 
 faced, — comedy by Emile Augier. 
 
 ^^ Mlle. Calixte Roussel, in " Ceinture Doree," — Golden 
 Girdle,- — comedy by Emile Augier. 
 
 ^' Celimiiine, from "Le Misanthrope" by Moli6re — the 
 grande coquette of the French stage. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 369 
 
 ® Mlle. Hackendorf, in " L' Ami des Femmes," comedy 
 by Dumas fils. '■'■ Et votes atii'iez accepte d'etre ma femme ? . . . 
 Pa7-faitementy '■'■ Elle sera tine honntte femme si elle trotive 
 un mari intelligent qtii la compretine et la domine. Ce mari 
 elle a trotive I sacrifiez votis ! epousez moir — Act IV., Scene V. 
 
 ^ Mlle. Marcelle de Sancenaux, in "Le Demi-monde," 
 comedy by Dumas fils. Declaration of Marcelle to Olivier, Act 
 v., Scene II. 
 
 7° Madame de Simerose, in "L'Ami des Femmes," by 
 Dumas fils. C est tine honjiete fe7?tme, n' est ce pas ? C est pis 
 que qa. — Act V., Scene III. 
 
 7^ Albertine de Laborde, in " Un P^re Prodique," comedy 
 by Dumas fils. — Suzanne d'Ange, in "Le Demi-monde," 
 comedy by Dumas fils. — Seraphine Pommeau, in "Les 
 Lionnes Pauvres," comedy by Emile Augier. 
 
 7" M. and Mme. Leverdet, in " L'Ami des Femmes," 
 comedy by Dumas fils. 
 
 ^3 Didier, in "Marion de Lorme," drama by Victor Hugo. 
 — The Workman Gilbert, in " Marie Tudor," drama by 
 Victor Plugo. 
 
 ''^ Qu'importe le flacon. What care we for the vial so 
 we have the intoxication of the draught. — " La Coupe et les 
 Levres," of Alfred de Musset. 
 
 " M. DE Mortemer, in "Les Vieux Gar9ons," comedy by 
 Victorien Sardou. 
 
 7^ Gabrielle, comedy by Emile Augier. — Stephane, in 
 "Diane de Lys," comedy by Dumas fils. — "Antony," novel 
 by Alexander Dumas the elder. — M. de MontIigre, in 
 " L'Ami des Femmes," comedy by Dumas fils. 
 
 ^^ The luxuriant hair. Les chevetix ahondants, le ieint 
 ambre, la voix so nor e et metalliqtie frappant les mots comme des 
 medailles, les yetix bien enchdsses dans Horbite et tenant bien au 
 cerveaii, des muscles dacier, tin corps de fer, totijoiirs au service 
 de rdtne, voila pour le physique ; enthtisiasmes rapides, decour- 
 ag-emettts immenses, contetttis dans n?te mintite, tenacite, colere, 
 Jalotisie, voild pour t&me. — " L'Ami des Femmes," comedy by 
 Dumas fils.- -De Ryons, Act II., Scene I. 
 
njo NOTES. 
 
 ^^ My Mother's Age. // y en a un qui a demande TAge 
 de ma mere. — Clementine, in "Un Beau Mariage," Act I., 
 Scene XII. 
 
 75 The law punishes all counterfeits. — Les jeunes filles 
 riches . . . brr ! Le frolemejtt de leur robe ressemlle a un 
 froissemcnt de billets de banque ; ei je ne lis qiHune chose dans 
 leurs beaux yeux. La loi jbunit le contrefacteur. — "Le Fils 
 de Giboyer," Act II., Scene I. 
 
 ^° M. de Troenes, in " Les Vieux Gargons," comedy by Vic- 
 torien Sardou. M. de Naton, in the " Pere Prodigue," comedy 
 by Dumas fils. 
 
 Si Pe-pjt Ebeniste. a coarse, popular song. Loulou, 
 "Un Pere Prodigue," comedy by Dumas fils, Act IV., Scene 
 I. 
 
 ^^ Frederic Bordognon, in " Les Lionnes Pauvres," comedy 
 by Emile Augier. ^^ Moi, Frederic Bordognon / . . . Bordo- 
 gnon ! fils cadet d^un marchand dhiiile, rue de Verrerie d 
 t ens eigne des Trois Olives, si je te racontais men odysee, odysee 
 galante / fai rudoye des femmes dont les laquais n^auraient 
 ■pas salue mon pere." — Act II., Scene I. 
 
 Tel que tit me vois je vais donner conge d ma proprittaire. 
 Est-ce que ta maison li est plus d toi par hasard? . . . Nigaud ! d 
 la proprietaire de mon cccur : elle veut augvienter., je resilie. 
 ■ — Act II., Scene I. Tant que la lionne en question est honnete 
 le viari paie dix centimes les petits pains dun sou ; du jour oU 
 elle ne l est plus, il paie im sou les petits pains de dix centimes. 
 Elle a dtbute par voter la comviunaute, elle V achieve eii Venrichi- 
 issajit. — Act 11. , Scene I. 
 
 ^3 Arthur Lecoutellier in " Maitre Guerin," comedy by 
 Emile Augier. Brave colonel! La droiture et la loyaute 
 mtmes,je ne le recevrai pas chiez moi. — Act III., Scene IV. 
 
 Cette idee me sourit, de faire asseoir a mon foyer une douce 
 jeune fille qui sera I'ange gardien de ma caisse / — Act I., 
 Scene I. 
 
 ^■^ M. de Jalin. Olivier de Jalin, in the " Demi Monde," 
 comedy by Dumas fils. — M. de Ryons, in "L'Ami des 
 Femmes," comedy by Dumas fils. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Z1^ 
 
 Alalheureux ! ingrat ! c'est la femme qui inspire les grandes 
 choses et qui emp^che de les accomplir. — O est que la femme 
 aujourd'hui est un ttre illogique, subalterjie et malfaisant. — • 
 " L'Ami des Femmes," Act I., Scene V. 
 
 ^^ Pasture ground. '■'■ N'est pas un niouton disinter es si, 
 mats un bilier qui continue d pattre sur le pre commimal." — • 
 Mot d'Edmond About. 
 
 ^ Antony. A novel by the elder Dumas. — The Painter 
 Paul. Paul Aubry, a charactei- in " Diane de Lys," a corned) 
 by Dumas fils. 
 
 ^'' The Great Huntsman. ** La croix du Grand Veneur — 
 an obelisk on the grand route, at a place where four roads meet, 
 received its name from a spectral black huntsman supposed 
 to haunt the forest, who appeared here to Henry IV., accord- 
 ing to the story, shortly before his assassination." — Murray's 
 Hand-Book. 
 
 ^ Albums of Daumier. Henri Daumier, born at Mar- 
 seilles 1820, celebrated for his caricatures. His debut was the 
 scene of Robert Macaire in the Charivari. Among his most 
 remarkable albums was " Les Representations Representes," 
 sketches inspired by the Revolution of '48. The reference in 
 the text seems to be to the album entitled, " Les Eons Bour- 
 geois." 
 
 ^ M. JossE. Scene from "Les Bourgeoises a la Mode," by 
 Dancourt. First played, 15 th Nov., 1692. M. Josse. — Act V., 
 Scene X. 
 
 9° Masters of Requests. Maitres de requetes. A kind of 
 magistrate. 
 
 '^ Alceste. The Misanthrope of Moli^re's famous comedy. 
 Philinte, the friend of Alceste. 
 
 ^ Competitive Examination. Le Concours. For an ac- 
 count and severe condemnation of the system, see " Le Cousin 
 Pons," in "Les Cousins Pauvres," by Balzac. "This intelli- 
 gence press was invented by Poisson de Marigny, brother of 
 Madame de Pompadour, appointed director of Les Beaux Arts, 
 about 1746. Since this time, you may count on your fingers 
 the men of genius who have been crowned laureates." 
 
372 no'tjlS. 
 
 ^ Confession of Zulme. Ginguene, Pierre Louis, born at 
 Rennes, April 25th, 1748; died at Paris, November nth, 1826. 
 He arrived in Paris, 1772. He had written at Rennes, 
 among other pieces of verse, La Confession de Zulme. It was 
 printed anonymously, with illustrations, in *' La Gazette de 
 Deux-ponts," in 1771 ; soon became celebrated; was printed 
 with the author's name in 1779. It remains the most perfect 
 and celebrated of his compositions. 
 
 s-t Attract attention. In the French, tirer Foeil — literally, 
 draw the eye. 
 
 9S Black doctor. A famous charlatan in Paris towards the 
 end of the Second Empire. 
 
 s® Mame Library. Alfred Henri Mame, a French printer, 
 born at Tours, August 17th, 181 1. One of the very largest 
 establishments in Europe. Among the series, " La Biblioth^que 
 de la Jeunesse Chretienne," to which the text alludes. 
 
 ^^ Last Sonata. Presumed to be Opus CXI., written in 
 January, 1822. Beethoven died in 1827. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 3if77-7