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The Cammissionnaire.




THE FRENCH AT HOME.
BY
ALBERT RHODES.
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW YORK:
DODD & AMEAD,  PUBTLSI-ERS,
751 BROADWAY.




COPYRIGHT.
DODD & MEAD.
1875.
BOSTON:
STIEREIOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
RAND, AVERY, & Co.




PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
THIS volume is not made up of the notes of a
wayside traveller, who describes what he sees in
a six months' residence or less. Mr. Albert
Rhodes' s opportunities during a lengthy foreign
residence in the consular and diplomatic service
have been unusual; and the result of his observations is here presented in a form that is both
brilliant and instructive. Part of the matter
first appeared in "The Galaxy" magazine, where
the articles attracted general attention.








CONTENTS.
I.
CHARACTER.
French Stature - Physical Characteristics — Out-ofdoor Exercises - Paganisml - Patriotism - Education - Chauvinism - Liberty - Love of Parade
- Government - IMaterial Life - Fine Mental
Organization — Young Men of Fashion - Difficulties of the English Langiuage - Ut de Poitrine -
Old and Young France -The leFrench WToman -
Her Coquetry — The Amlerican 2Womenlan compared
to the French one -The Grisette - Art-FeelingEconomy of Life- Expansiveness of French
Character - Sunday Junketing in the Suburbs of
Paris - Jules and Ldontine - WVit - Dialect.. 15
II.
GALLANTRY.
The Gaul typified in the Chanticleer - Galant Homme
and Homme galant - The PFrench Major Pendennis
- Art in Social Intercourse — Finesse of the
WVoman - Art and Nature in the Drawing-Room
— The Marquise De Crdquy and Benjamin Frank9




10                 CONTENTS.
lin - The ILengths of French Politeness - The
Glove Girl- The Flower Girl - Graceful Evasions of Speech —Fondness for the Amienities of
Life —Refilling Influences of the Art-Feeling —
Blueskin and Rtobert Macaire - Habitual Cajolery - Extravagance of Politeness - The Country
of the Tender - Love-making in the Suburbs of
Paris - Boating - Adolphe and Fifine - The Coup
de Parapluie - Jacques and Fifine.        61
II.
FRENCH LIVING.
The Brotherhood of Brillat-Savarin - The Cafd Anglais - Pleasing Effect of its Dinner - French Food
and Home Food- Various Kinds of Restaurants
in Paris - The People from Oil Creek - Miss
Petrolia - The Man of the Faubourg Saint Antoine - His Ways at Table - Cheap Nourislhment
— Difference in the Well-Being of French and
Americans - Prices of Living in Paris - Dinner
in the Environs - The Princesse De la Rampe -
G-ayety in the Woods- The Ancient Kitchen,
and the Kitchen under the Second Empire.  103
IV.
A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.
In a Studio —The Models — The Difference between the Appearance of mwell-known Painters,




CONTENTS.                   11
and their Work - An Atelier - The Model —
Posing - Directions therefor - Selection of Samson - Enumneration of his Points - The Artistic
Idea of the Beautiful Woman — The Pronounced
Taste for the Easel Picture - Indifference to the
Heroic - Exceptional Efforts in this Field -
The Atelier with Students of both Sexes —The
Alnerican  Woman-Student in her Defence —
Amunsements of the Atelier- Encouragement of
Art... 145
V.
WORDS AND PHRASES.
Chief Characteristics of the French Language - Comparison between it and English - Illustrations
from Groups of French and English Writers -
The Phrase-Feature in French - Strength of English in Delineation, and of French  in Plot —Influence of the French Academy - Compactness of
the Style of To-day —Emerson and Taine —Epigrams - Malherbe - Franklin - Seward and Lincoln - Voltaire - Change of Signification in Words
common to English and French - Slang. 182
VI.
THE RAG-PICKERS.
Public Assistance - A Drowning Man - Resuscitation
- Mouffetard Street - The Ball - The Master of
Ceremonies - The Invitations to Dance - The Man




12                  CONTENTS.
who wanted to die for Justine - The Cat in Connection with the - abbit - PNre J acques' Experience - Cocks' Combs fromn Beeves' Tongues — The
Rag-picker's Lodgings and Nourishment -- His
Language - His Amusements — The Perainbulating Cook - The Marchande dle Quatre Saisons -
Mother Maillardc- The Bird-Teacher - Pleasures
at the Fair —Mother Gingerbread — Cajolery of
Venders - The Poorest Poor of the Great City. 221




THE FRENCH AT HOME.








THE FRENCH AT HOME.
CHARACTER.
THE early Gaul is reputed stalwart and of
good height, and his posterity resembles him
except in stature. The great battles of Louis
the Fourteenth and Napoleon, it is believed,
have done something toward lowering the French
stature, both in the suffering to which the population was subjected, and the indifferent character of progenitors left behind  the armlies
through constitutional disabilities.  This, however, is a theory difficult of demonstration.
The physical characteristics of the present
race show, in comparison with the American,
a frame more compact, limbs rounder, and
stature smaller. The lines of formation in the
extremities are more graceful, especially at tlhe
*            ~~~~~~15a




16          THE FRENCH AT HOME.
point where the wrist and ankle enter the hand
and foot.
J -
The First Salient Feature on Entering the Country.
The lean, lanky person  common in America
is rare in this race. But the type of a large




CHARACTER.               17
class of Englishmen offers a greater contrast, -
he of the long neck, exposed teeth, long, thin
ankles with bony projections, the calves well up
under the hinges of the knee, large feet and
hands, and frowzy complexion; a portraiture in
France which is made the scapegoat of British
eccentricity.
Compared to the Frenchman, the American is
more loosely hung together, and has more swing
and give in gait and gesture. A Frenchman
cannot sprawl. An American does it with facility, over chairs, counters, or dry-goods boxes. In
their repose there is the difference between the
Dorking fowl which perches in the sun, and the
Shanghai who basks his loose limbs in a royal
spread.
Out-of-door exercises of a rough kind, such as
steeple-chasing, yachting, and pedestrianism, do
not enter into the Frenchman's habits. He does
no hard trained rowing, but plays with his oars
as a pretext for donning a fantastic costume, and
repairing to Asnieres or Bougival in pleasure
junketings. He and the water, fresh or salt, do
not seem to be made for each other. He takes a




18        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
swilmning-master as he does a dancing-master,to learn.  One of the establishments which line
the Seine is the scene of his first efforts, where
he is suspended in the water by a rope, held by
the maitre de natation overhead, who, as he walks
slowly along holding the pupil up, encourages
him in the style of a fencing-master, with words
such as, "'Voyons l'-bas, un peu de courage.
Etes-vous pret?  C'est bien, partons - un, deux
--  n, deux " — marking the time with his feet to
the " one, two," with an ardor interesting to a
transatlantic spectator.  On the seashore the
venturesome swimmers are generally English or
Americans. It is the same with boating.  The
Frenchman usually contents himself with sitting
on the beach, looking out on the sea, while the
other two nationalities must be in or of it.
The national exercise is fencing, on which
much time and application is bestowed, both as a
matter of hygiene and a means of defending that
honor about which there is so much ado.  Singlestick and foot-ball come next. There are repulsive
features in boxing which have always prevented
it from  taking root on French  soil.  Public




CHARACTER.                19
wrestling is in vogue.  There is something classic
in this, which appeals to the Athenian-Frenchman's love of art, and it is patronized by high
and low. Kicking is practised as a science,
standing, and on the back, - particularly by the
lower class.  There is no running or jumping to
speak of, of any kind. They excel in fencing,
foot-ball, and wrestling, but are behind English
and Americans in other athletic sports.  In the
easy parade riding about the Bois, they are, perhaps, more graceful than others, but not as firmly
seated.  Some of them  could hardly keep their
saddles in a rough ride across country. In this,
as in many other things, utility gives way to the
ornamental.  A horse trained to climb, arch his
neck, and show riding-school paces, bestrode by
a cavalier who sits easily and bows gracefully, is
the usual limit of aspiration in the way of horsemanship.  Comanche and Mexican riding, if
seen, would be regarded as miraculous.  When
American circus-riders first turned summersaults
on barebacked horses in Paris, it was too much
for the nerves of the public: they cried,'Assez,
assez! "




20         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
Indoors the national game is dominoes. The
habitue of a second-class caf6 has his pipe in a
rack of the place of his choice, and is of routine
attendance.  Smoking ccaporal and drinking beer
are accessories to the game.  There is more
billiard-playing than with us.  They excel in
their carom game, and regard pocketing balls as
a shameful business, much as we look upon the
rolly-bolly of urchins, - in a word, unworthy of
an adult. The monotony of this cafe life to an
active American is tiring, - the eternal rattling
of bones under a cloud of smoke, irritating.
The Bible-taught Anglo-American sees something in the Frenchman which displeases him.
If he is of theological austerity, it shocks him.
He charges him with wickedness, - absence of
moral sense. The Gaul replies, that religion is a
matter of education, and that the- Bible must not
be confounded with a perfect code of morals, as
they are two distinct things, one being an incomplete expression of the other; that the Bibleworshipper endeavors to create an artificial moral
mall instead of educating a natural one; and the
Frenchman puts himself forward as the moral




CHARACTER.               21
man whose nature has not been warped or
thwarted in its growth. He claims, too, to be
more advanced, and predicts that fifty years
hence we shall be standing where he does now.
Such language, of course, has but little weight
in transatlantic estimation, and he continues to
be arraigned for laxity of morals.
But what is puzzling to the austere theologue
is, that there are certain clustering qualities of
symmetrical harmony and goodness found in the
character of the Gaul, which are not the development of an evil, but a virtuous nature. The key
to this apparently paradoxical state is to be found
in the man's love of the beautiful with which he
strives to invest his religion and his life. I-He is
the cultivated pagan of the nineteenth century,
whose faculties are developed in a school of
esthetics where even his acknowledged church is
made subordinate, notwithstanding its prestige
and requirements. The beautiful in art, in nature, in the soul and physical form, is the idea of
which he is possessed; and when this is borne in
mind it is easier to understand and judge him.
The Frenchman has his share of vanity. One




22        TIHE FRENCH AT HOME.
of the forms of it is his ambition to wear a bit of
red ribbon, for which he sometimes sacrifices his
own esteem. Proud of himself and his country,
which he calls "la grande nation," the scream
of the American eagle is not worse than this.
This vanity is the cause of part of his ignorance.
It is common among journalists and publicists of
Paris to write of their countrymen as the wittiest,
politest, best instructed, and most civilized people
of the world,- reiterated from day to day with
conviction of truth.  This is done with scanty
knowledge of other countries; for the French,
as a rule, know less of other peoples than any
of the other enlightened nations,- a knowledge
which is naturally indispensable to a just comparison. They are, in this respect, the Chinese
of the West. The centre of the world and all its
excellences are to be found within the line which
maps out France: beyond that is barbarian waste.
The Frenchman's education, from an American
point of view, is defective in what relates to
geography and history of nations other than his
own. The educated Frenchman will be found to
possess a fair knowledge of the classics (with an




CIARACTER.                23
excellent pronunciation), of mathematics, science,
and art generally, and of the literature and history
of his own country.  An ordinary American lad
would put him to the blush on a question of foreign history or geography.  It might be affirmed
in his presence, without much fear of contradictionD, that Birkenhead was in Ireland, and MIissouri formed part of the Mexican Republic.
Such is his national pride, that he is apt to
believe that all foreigners regret that they are
not Frenchmen.  His Chauvinism  has nothing
analogous in modern history.  In its sincerity,
there is nothing like it this side of biblical days,
when the Jews believed themselves chosen of
God.  According to him, he is of the elect vanguard of civilization, which overcomes obstacles
and shows the way to others.  His country is the
birthplace of noble political conception, and the
cradle of every art.  It is the battle-ground
where truth is vindicated and error is crushed.
From  it go out enduring principles of libert y
and justice, which carry deliverance with them
wherever they are promulgated. Of these things
the typical Frenchman has little doubt.  In his




24         THE FRENCIH AT HOME.
entirety, he is a man standing on a summit, holding in his hand the torch of enlightenment and
progress, whose beneficent rays are thrown broadcast over less favored peoples until they reach the
darkest corners of the earth, for which they never
can be sufficiently grateful.  But —and the but
is terrible- he cannot himself profit by the light
which he so freely gives to others.
In some of this there is truth, but in his Chauvinistic hands it assumes an exaggerated form.
In the midst of his inconstancies, he is constant in his worship of a theoretical' liberty,
designated by his severest critics as Utopian.
He may renounce it a dozen times under discouragement, for he is easily discouraged, but he
comes back to it as the needle points to the pole.
H-e nfumes, harangues, and~ sheds his blood for this
pet idea, until the fruits of victory are almost
within his grasp, when he finds at the last
moment, to use his own words, that he has been
betrayed.  According  to his explanation, the
plan is always perfect, but the men are found
wanting, in being too weak or too strong, too
corrupt, or not of sufficient elasticity for a political




CHARACTER.               25
crisis. And thus the same story is enacted from
father to son.
His history has been a pursuit of liberty, and
it has always eluded him like an ignis fatuus.
To-day he is a revolutionist, resisting tyranny to
the death in the name of freedom; and to-morrow,
as soon as he holds the reins of power, in turn
becomes as much a tyrant as he whom he has
overthrown. Yet he is always a votary of liberty.
Like the thoughtless child brooking no restraint,
who, seizing the butterfly which he admires,
destroys its beauty, so the Frenchman kills liberty
as soon as it is in his power; and this from being
so entirely convinced of the perfection of his
own theories that he regards opposition to them
as wilful perversity, and he proceeds to convert
those holding adverse opinions at the point of the
bayonet. And thus he goes on until the position
of the bayonet is reversed, for, as a German
prince has said, " You can do almost any thing
with bayonets except sit on them."
Thus he is intolerant in goverhing, and turbulent when governed. His thought is bold, but
his action is feeble. He has long torpors and
3




26         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
terrible awakenings, when he wishes to do every
thing at once. He does not respect the law as
much as he does its agents. Law is more or less
abstract; but the agents are palpable, and their
livery and surroundings appeal to his pronounced
sense of the theatrical.
Heo is warm-hearted and confiding, but with
little reverence for men or things.  In the zenith
of the reign of Napoleon IHI. there was no loyalty
for him  such as that which exists for Queen
Victoria of England.  The motives of the best
leaders are often questioned in France.  Cincinnatus himself would not be long above suspicion,
to say nothingo of his simplicity of character,
with which France could never be governed.
There must be the p2anache, the blare of trumpets,
anl l. the gold lace, with those eternal phrases
which have always enraptured the ear of the
nation, "Quarante siecles vous contemplent,"
"L'empire, c'est la paix," andl the rest of it.
H-Ie is a lounger. The sight of a procession
of any kind gives him great pleasure, but a mlartial one with its shrill trumpets plunges him into
ecstasy.  The  slightest ripple  of excitenment




CHARACTER.                27
draws this bacdcaud. A  crowd gathers on the
Pont Neuf, looking intently down into the Seine.
New-comners elbow their way to the parapet.
Tr'he spectators are interested in what is transpiring below; and the thought flashes through the
mind, that there is a man overboard or drowning.
WVhat is it?  Pierre has caught a fish three inches
long!
Hie is constantly complaining of his government, whatever it is, as if each nation does not
lhave as good a government as it deserves, - as if
it depended on the government alone to correct
abuses.  He accuses the administration of doino
too much, and with reason; but he does not attempt to do any thing himself.  I-Ie is taken
charge of, bag and baggage, by the government
on his travels, and carefully looked after in his
domicile as if he were a child.  Even the omnibus conductor in a certain measure takes him
under his protection, demands his fare with an
air of command, and sets him down at his destination as if he were a parcel. The man clothed
in government authority assumes that laconic,
not-to-be-questioned air, which we frequently see




28            THE FRENCH AT HOME..
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        II) —
On the Quays of the Seine.




CHARACTER.                 29
in our naval or army officers on duty. This
official starch  pervades more particularly the
subordinate agents of each branch of the government.  The private citizen is always inclining
himself politely right and left; the official is
oppressed with a sense of his dignity, and seems
to say, "Don't trifle with me, for I have a terrible responsibility on my shoulders."
The Frenchman has ardent longings for liberty
which excite American sympathy, but he has no
patience.  The past seems to show that he is
happiest under a strong governor, but this he
systematically denies.  Few  of them  can  be
trusted with power.  Ambition turns their heads,
and leads them to extremes and oppression; then
society's sub-strata heave, and hurl them  fromn
their places. The love of parade is ingrained,
and theatrical effects disturb their reason.  A
well-contrived dralmatic coup in politics elicits
their admiration in spite of the iniquity of the
thing. In a word, they are artists to the point
of losing moral discernment, - fiom the ministei
to the barber, from the painter to the cook.
Yet few understand liberty in theory bettei




30         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
than they. TheyT discuss it from a higher standpoint than we, show a thorough appreciation of
its advantages, then make a hurried, nervous
effort to put their theories into practice, and, not
meeting with immediate success, sit down in a fit
of discouragement until one strong man gets hold
of the reins again; then it is too late.  They
make the fatal mistake of making their republic
before they make their republicans.
The charge of deceit and falseness sometimes
urged against the Frenchman is, of course, the
result of extreme politeness.  He treats his
fellows with courtesy by system.  The AngloSaxon is impressed by his especial marks of
interest, and he judges the Gaul by himself.
HIe knows that if he were " enchanted" to see
and "I desolated" to quit a fellow-creature, that
man would be a friend for whom he would stand
ready to make sacrifices.  Thus, after an effusive
reception from  the Frenchman, the man from
over the Channel or Atlantic is disgusted when
his mercurial friend can hardly recall his name or
face the next time he meets him.  Yet the Gaul's
intentions are of the best, and more or less philo



CHA RA CTER.              31
sophical.  He tries to get the most out of life,
by making it smooth and pleasant all round.  He
endeavors to cast sunshine into the five or ten
minute halts along life's journey.  Out of peer
and prol'taire he has his tribute of happiness, for
no reasonable person can resist him; and he tries
to give as good as he gets, thus establishing that
system of exchange which makes of the French
the attractive people that they are.  When thrown
for a few minutes with an unthawable creature,
he will not make the attempt to be amiable; and
here he is right again, for life is too short to melt
the ice with which such an one is incrustecl.  In
this case he wraps himself in pleasant souvenirs,
and draws on the past for the present.
Life is compelled to yield all that it has to give.
Every function of man's nature is made to contribute to his enjoyment, and thus his sensuous
life is larger than ours.  This sybarite makes
requisitions upon the five senses to their full
capacity, and thus enriches his existence, where
with us it is often meagre.  Material life is
studied and made a familiar science.  In the
matter of eating, it is carried to a perfection not




32        TIHE FRENCH AT HOME.
given to every foreigner to appreciate, and this
has its effect upon character. Absence of dyspepsia or any malady of the stomach, nourishing
food, easy digestion, good climate, and the best
wine in the world, make of them a comparatively
happy people.  The presiding genius of every
kitchen is hygiene, which never tolerates such
disturbers of the stomach's repose, for instance,
as hot rolls and buckwheat cakes. Some of their
greatest men have not thought it beneath their
dignity to study the pleasures of the palate.
Alexandre Dumas and Brillat-Savarin were frequently in the habit of cooking for their guests,
and the latter wrote a book on the subject which
in point of style is nearly equal to Madame de
Sevigne's; and what between the literary excellence of the book, and the good things of this
world whereof it treats, one's mouth is made to
water in its perusal. A palate and stomach corrupted by hot corn-bread and saleratus biscuit do
not at once take kindly to Gallic nourishment,
and sometimes never. It is not encouraging to
the American reformers of abuse in food and
drink to have a Texan say, after a dinner at the




CHARA CTER.              33
Trois Freres, that he prefers the pork and corndodger of his native State, or that he never
wants to eat a better dinner than that he has in
the Palais Royal for two francs, including a half
bottle of " the best kind of wine."  One can
fancy the effect of such statements on Frenchmen, the shrug and smile of commiseration. I
was once at a small dinner-party in Paris at a
restaurant famed for its wine-cellar, where a
bottle of Chateau Margaux was poured, and one
of the convives, through inadvertence or ignorance, raised the decanter to water his glass,
when an old gargon standing behind him stayed
his arm, saying solemnly, " If you put water in
that wine, God will never forgive you."
Like all people with subtile, impulsive organizations, his capacity for suffering is equal to that
for enjoying.  He cannot remain moody and
depressed any length of time, as the Anglo-Saxon
can.  While the latter begins to contemplate
suicide, he has already thrown himself from  a
Seine bridge or the Vendome Column. The calm,
equable happiness of a heavy nature, which never
rises to his heights of keen enjoyment, nor de



34         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
scends to the depths of his poignant suffering, he
cannot understand.  H-e is always on the crest
of life's wave or in its trough. The Teutonic
medium, never completely at the bottom  or the
top, is not for him. His brain fibre is too fine
for that.
The central point of interest to the young men
who make pretensions to elegance is the Jockey
Club, where one of the requisites of membership
is a certain income. Imitation of the Englishman is in vogue in this society, and it is an
interesting spectacle to see one of these young
gentlemen affecting his ways.  In public he discards his nourishing and toothsome Bordeaux for
pale ale at dinner, and washes down his cold
beef with decoctions of weak tea at breakfast.
Ile has been educated to take tea only in case of
sickness, and when he declares a preference for
it the truth of his statement may reasonably be
doubted. Ie cannot acquire the English language
in spite of fits of assiduity in that direction, but
learns a few words considered indispensable to
every member of his circle.  He pities him who
says club (French sound of u), which he ostenta



CHARACTER.                35
tiously pronounces kleub. He may achieve beef,
but in moments of forgetfulness he says bif:  To
shake hands is considered an English custom,
and he frequently joins the word shek-and to the
action. Ile is responsible for several ill-assorted
marriages between English and French words,
such as boule-dog and black-bouler, and is the
author of such hideous hybrids as dogue-car and
monde-sportique.  On meeting an American or
an Englishman, he makes a heavy draft on his
knowledge of the language, and turns off several
words with expansion, becomes bankrupt, and
goes into liquidation in his own tongue.
The ut de poitrine of all Frenchmen is, of course,
the th. These vexatious consonants, according
to tradition, have driven several of them to selfdestruction.  When it is proposed to repeat such
phrases as " thirty thousand thrushes thronging
through the thicket," one can imagine the heavy
demand made on the last letter of the alphabet.
The young men set in fashion's mould are
generally garbed in the English cut, a trifle modified where the lines are hard, - a natural result
of their finer sense of art. They are an improve



36        THE. FRENCH AT HOME.
ment in manner, if not in dress, on their neighbors
across the Channel. In affecting English ways,
which came in with the horse-race, they have,
however, lost some of their good-breeding as
compared with their seniors who are passing
away. There is a suavity about the elders which
they do not possess.  Young France does not
hold his hat under his arm while talking to a lady
at the side of a carriage or at the door of a dwelling. He raises his hat, and gives the swoop, but
replaces it directly.  His elder is capable of
exposing his bald head to the sun several minutes,
unless commanded to cover. His compliments
are better turned and more insinuating.  To
western eyes his gallantry borders upon extravagance; but there is a French axiom that it is
impossible to be too polite, and this bears him
out in the estimation of his countrymen.
In the upper classes of most countries, foreign
servants are employed to keep up knowledge of a
foreign language, or have it imparted to children,
as well as to comply with the requirements of a
certain vogue. In America they are French, in
England, German (in imitation of the royal




CHARACTER.                37
family Germanized through marriages), and in
France, English. In large establishments it is
not unusual to see the service composed entirely
of the h-droppers, who are employed because
they speak the language of Shakspeare.
The small number, however, of those who
~~
Of the Old School.
admire British manners and customs, is lost in
the rank and file of French society. The nation
is as strong now in its Gallic elements as when
conquered by Coesar; and the young men who
exercise an influence in the general movement
of things, are very different from the elegant




38        THE FRENCHI AT HOME.
nullities who act and try to talk after the British
pattern.
As to the woman of France, her coquetry is
proverbial. It is the oil in the salad. A Spanish
proverb has it that a kiss without a mustache is
like an egg without salt; and the Frenchman
avers that a woman without a certain degree of
coquetry is like a saltless soup.
The woman of rigid principles and adamantine
virtue is everywhere held up for popular admiration, and men say they admire her; and they do
in a lukewarm fashion, but this is equivalent to
the faint praise which damns.  They give an
intellectual assent to her claims for superiority,
and secretly vote her tame. But for her whose
character is flavored with a trifle of coquetry they
stand ready to commit those acts of folly which
are known to be so pleasing to the gentle sex.
Frenchmen affirm that coquetry is a virtue, and
the mother of cleanliness, grace, adornment, and
the desire to please. When it is found in bad
company, such as frivolity, dissipation, extravagance, and the like, it may be presumed that
there is too much salt in the soup.




CHARA CTER.                39
Perhaps the greatest difference'between the
American and the French woman is in the voice.
That of the former is pitched in a high key, is
thin, often metallic, and rises at times almost to
a shriek.  The Gallic woman's has more volume,
is syml:athetic and deeper.  A harmonious tone
in conversation is cultivated, and there are gentle
vibrations in the timbre, which exert a mnagnetic
influence where there is a desire to please.  It is
powerful in declamation, as in the mouth of a
Rachel, and soft and winning in the quiet of
private life.  It is a head-voice in America; in
France it is from the chest. The nasal sounds, unlike those of New England, conle up vibrating from
the chest and throat with strong support from the
mouth, and thus modified are free from the undignified and discordant twang of the eastern coast.
The face of the American woman is more beautiful than that of any other country.  It has
delicacy of coloring and feature, and finesse and
intellectuality in expression; but the body supporting the head, regarded from  an artistic and
hygienic point of view, is inferior.  For breathing and digesting, the upper part is lacking in




40        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
depth. In a word, the American is more fragile:
she is hardly a Diana, and the French is something more, although not the Hebe of Rubens.
The French woman's face is as handsome as
that of any other in Europe, and fades rmore
slowly. At forty she glides into an ehmbonpoint
with an unwrinkled face and a good complexion,
- at the age when the English woman becomes
heavy-necked and frowzy, and the American pale
and wrinkled. the climate has something to do
with this, but doubtless her nourishing food,
generous wine, and out-of-door air, much more.
Her mode of living contributes thereto, - the
exercise and developnment of each function in a
more natural and sensuous manner than with us.
There are ascetic ideas in America which have a
tendency to retard the physical development of
woman; for mind moulds matter. The extremes
of American life are unfavorable to a healthy
growth, in its fastness as well as its asceticism,
where the flesh is corrupted by dissipation, or
mortified by certain religious teachings. Aside
from these causes is a prevalent notion that it is
beneath the dignity of man and woman to occupy




CHARACTER.               41
themselves with what they shall eat and what
they shall drink.
The American has more intellect than her
French sister, but the latter has softness where
she has pertness. There is nervous excitability
and cleverness in one, mellowness and equality
of character in the other. The forced, brilliant
vitality of woman in America is subject to fits of
reaction, for nature has its limit. In the French
woman the mind is more -even and cheerful, and
in the absence of exhaustive and irregular demands made upon it the uniform health is better.
In qualities of a purely mental character, the
equal of the American woman cannot, perhaps,
be found in the world; but, with all her knowledge and intellectual activity, she lacks that
which make the Greeks what they have been, and
the French what they are, - organic cultivation.
Intwined in these words are taste and art. A
riper civilization, though not a purer, shall invest
her with a knowledge of these things and a harmony of character not now possessed; and with
it will come, alas! that decadence in morals
which always marches on the heels of the Beauti



42        THE FRENCHt AT HOME.
ful in every age and in every climate. It is sad
that such heavy tribute should be exacted as the
price of an added enjoyment, but art is inexorable.
The cultivation of the French woman modulates her voice, gives grace of movement in
carriage and gesture, and lends a general charm
to her person. It imparts that wonderful tact
which prevents her from saying a crude or inappropriate thing, and that taste which enables her
to say the proper thilng at the proper time. In
her mouth, a compliment is not an embellished
truth, but an unvarnished fact.  Her plastic
nature receives the impress of those brought in
contact with it. She can place herself en rapport
with the people of all countries, even with those
whose character is foreign to her own, and sympathize with the sentimennt she meets in those
around her. The angular, strong-minded woman
does not exist. The French woman can can do nothing that renders her repulsive to the other sex.
The capable, energetic, speaking woman of America is eccentric and unlovable. The chief endcl
of the French woman's life is to please man; and
she cultivates every feminine quality, knowing




CHARACTER.              - 43
that what he admires in her is to be unlike hinm.
The man-womlan in her own country has but little
success, and she would have much less in France.
Yet the exhibition of talent by woman is not
distasteful, so long as there is no violation of
the rules of art. The speech and action of the
woman of the rostrum, regarded from an artistic
point of view, is not lovely to look upon. The
French woman may sin against Heaven, but not
against her credo of man-pleasing.  She may be
faithless to her marriage vows, and send her
husband to an untimely grave through her infidelity; but it shall be done with order, and that
feminine grace with which she invests all her
acts. The winning external appearance is so
general, that it is hard to discriminate between
the angelic and the anges d'chmues.
4 What appears to be a plain woman at fir'st
sight, at the end of half an hour's conversation
often bears the semblance of a handsome woman,
when she has deployed her grace of speech and
manner, and cajoled her listener with that finesse
which belongs to her as if by patent right.
Cultivation, so far as it exists in America, is




44        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
found only in the higher classes. In France it
reaches down. to the lower. The shop-girl of the
Boulevard, if summoned to wear the coronet of
countess, would do it with the grace of one to
whom it belonged by inheritance. In a few hours
the chrysalis would disappear so effectually as to
lead one to doubt that it ever existed.
And what wonders this grisette does with her
slender resources, - what remarkable adaptation
of means to ends! The simple tasty hat, and
the neat alpaca robe, fitting as well as if made
by the celebrity of the Rue de la Paix, are of her
construction.  Two to one, the tightly drawn
immaculate stockings are of her washing.  A
napoleon, expended in her judicious manner,
provides her with a parasol, a pair of well-fitting
gloves, and bottines; for well gloved and booted
she will be, though the heavens should fall. It
is given to her sister of no other land to represent
so much with so little. From the Batignolles or
the heights of Montmartre she daintily descends
to her daily occupation with the appearance of
one whose life is that of ease and comfort. In
the eyry of the seventh or eighth where she nestles




CHARACTER.               45
is again presented the struggle between cultivation and poverty. The floor is bare but waxed,
and the bed is white. There is the ornamental
1x,Hai,i t Ili
The Grisette.
clock, the crucifix in evergreen, the well-cared-for
pot of flowers, and the chirping canary.




46         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
Even in the women given over to vice, pagan
cultivation redeems it of its most revolting features.  Those who haunt the B]oulevard of a
night in pursuit of their ignoble calling are generally polite, orderly, and well dressed, - in
striking contrast to the Anglo-Saxons of the
same class as seen in Regent Street. In the
romps of the Closerie de Lilas, the grisettes may
be wicked, but they are not coarse.  In the meretricious twirling and leg-lifting of Mabille, virtue
may be thrust out, but there is devotion to art in
the bacchantes themselves and their magnificent
surroundings.
The French pagan subjects every thing to the
rules of art. If morality does not appear in
harmony with them, it is suppressed.  If Virtue
robes herself in uncouth garments, she is not
tolerated.  Vice in the guise of an angel is preferred to goodness which violates the proprieties
of art.
Besides, the French mind is naturally sceptical;
and the smile concerning the devil, and the lake
of fire, has been continually widening since the
time of Voltaire.  The ferocious and vindictive




CHARA CTER.              47
creature in hoofs and horns has given place to
the bonl diable who is the first of blagueurs. The
satanic one has been civilized, patted on the
back, and made a good fellow of. He no longer
goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he
may devour, but assimilates himself to the spirit
of the age, takes his dinners at the wine-renowned
Cafe Anglais, and his coffee at the Cafe Napolitain, where he philosophically looks on the
changing panorama of Boulevard life, and contributes his quota of persiflage at its follies.
This is a fair portrait of the evil one, done with
the Gallic pencil.
Snobbery does not thrive on French soil. Little
importance is attached to the manner of living so
long as it is not offensive. A man may descend
from the asrial heights of a seventh in the Rue
Saint Jacques, eat his dinner in a Duval establishment, and enjoy a social position that shall
be unquestioned.  There are many Rastignacs
who thus pass the day in poverty's twilight, and
appear at night in the blaze of a salon, in a costume which has cost them the earnings of a year.
Politeness in abundance, but no grovelling.




48        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
French perspicacity quickly detects where one
ends and the other begins. Wonders may be
done with/the Gaul as long as he is treated to
gallant speech and courteous manner. I-He cannot resist them, for at bottom he is a bon enfant.
Stroked the wrong way, he is excitable, unreasonable, and quarrelsome.
Paris suits the lean as well as the full purse.
In no great city can one live as cheaply or as
extravagantly. There are still pensions in existene such as that described in the Pere Goriot,
in the Rue Lacepedes and that quarter, where
food and lodging with half a bottle of wine a
clay, and sometimes at discretion, may be had for
eighty to ninety francs a month, — sixteen to
eighteen dollars. To live in one of these houses
is to go back to the last century. With the exception of a few students, they are mostly inhabited by old people with very small incomes, who
have no hope of bettering their condition; here
and there an ancient countess, a broken baron,
an unfortunate tradesman, or what not. They
are still within the pale of comparative comfort,
for the food and houses are for the most part




CHARACTER.                 49
clean. These terms are at the bottom of the
scale for those accustomed to any degree of civ..
ilization. Below this, with cheaper rates, come
dirt and the man in blouse, - not necessarily,
A Figure in the Rue Lacepedes.
but there are always enough of the unclean to
cast a general dirtiness over all. The Siamese
twins, poverty and dirt, are to be found in the
4




50         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
Faubourg Saint Antoine and Belleville, the cheapest quarters of the great city.
There is an infatuation in the little rentiers
about living in the modern Babylon. They could
live three times better in the southern provinces
with what they spend in Paris, but they cannot
be induced to quit the town of their heart.  At
Tours, situated in a charming country on the
banks of the Loire, life is cheaper by half than
at Paris. A  colony of two or three thousand
English, mostly half-pay officers with limited
incomes, settled there some time ago, and apparently attained what they sought, -happiness
at a moderate price.  The Parisian is not bucolic
enough to do likewise.  An hour or two of Vincennes or Bougival from time to time sulfices for
him.
At the top of the ladder of expenditure is the
splendid life in detached mansions - hotels - in
the neighborhood of the Arc de Triomphe, with
chateaux on the borders of seas and rivers for the
summer months. Next are the spacious apartments, abounding in decorations and mirrors, in
the Faubourg Saint Germain, and along  the




CHARA CTER.               51
Champs Elys6es and its tributaries; after, the
modest apartments of the middle classes; then
the pinched little entresols and lofty perches of
the lean-pursed.
There is a fussy expansiveness in the Frenchman which is ungovernable on grand occasions.
The spectacle of an American general in the
hour of victory, self-restrained and impassible,
smoking a cigar, to his eyes must be singular.
He, under similar circumstances, would be falling on somebody's neck, and giving himself over
to lively transports.  Wellington calmly fighting
by the watch, and Napoleon nervously taking
snuff in great pinches from his waistcoat-pocket,
is an illustration of this.
It is not the fashion to repress the expression
of feeling in France.  When the Anglo-Saxon
is of a melting mood, his endeavor is to hide it,
and he resorts to blinds, and talks of a cold. If
his voice gives way under charged feeling, he
explains that it arises from  hoarseness, or, in
short, any but the true reason. There is nervous
apprehension lest any manifestation of it should
be observed. In this respect, the Frenchman is




52         TfIE FRENCH AT HOME.
every thing that he is not. At meeting a friend,
his face is radiant with delight, he folds him to
his bosom, and kisses him on the cheek; at parting with him  for a voyage, he embraces him
again, and the unrestrained tear drops from his
eyelid.  This is done with such natural gracefulness, that it seems a matter of course.
He has dramatic power in voice, expression,
and gesture, and uses incisive language, which
lends itself to his nature with flexibility. He
turns himself inside out before the public.  He
is always communicating his joys and troubles,
and a secret is a heavy burden to him. He
almost lives in the open air. When not sleeping
or working, he is walking the asphalte, sitting in
front of a caf6, chaired in the Champs Elysees,
lounging in the Luxembourg, or pleasure-hunting
in suburban forests.
In unrestrained expression of feeling, and
wayward pursuit of pleasure, regardless of certain considerations which we deem moral, there
is something suggestive of Donmatello in his unconsciousness of good and evil before the fatal
push from the rock.




CHARACTER.               53
A dozen ears may be listening, and he tells
Leontine that he loves her; a dozen eyes may be
looking, and he embraces her; and the declaration and its accompanying act do not provoke
commentary from any of the twelve tongues.
There is a certain shyness about the Englishman in disposing of his food. The Gaul eats in
public at his ease, in an open-fronted restaurant,
or before it on the common thoroughfare. A
scant repast elicits no criticism, and the eater in
simple unconsciousness partakes of it as if he
were between four walls. He takes his food
almost anywhere but where he sleeps. He does
not live in his lodgings, like his neighbors over
the Channel. Out of doors is his home, where
he finds his chief comfort and pleasure. If the
lid could be taken off Paris on a fine Sunday
afternoon, the houses would be found nearly
empty; the gayly-dressed inhabitants would be
off in wide thoroughfares and parks within the
walls, and beyond on grassy slopes and under
trees, gathering flowers, listening to music, disporting in the water, kicking the foot-ball, and
whirling to the deux temps in sylvan balls.




54        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
Sunday in the country is a feature in the programme of Jules, which nothing but bad weather
prevents. In these excursions, Leontine is his
companion. Six days has she worked in the
shop, and the seventh is her holiday, which she
enjoys with a zest which a week's work and an
early mass impart. With him of her choice she
hies her to the woods, by predilection to Robinson, where donkey-riding, swinging, and meandering in the forest are accessories; but the
principal feature is dining in that gigantic tree,
in whose branches has been cunningly installed a
restaurant, with a spiral mount from  first to
second and third floor. Glee and ardor in the
ride, gayety and appetite at the repast, for
belles fourchettes are they. In their character
of birds perched in the topmost boughs, they
sing songs, with accompanying clinks and sallies
during the lively partaking. Leontine, blushing
with excitement, is handsome to look upon;
Jules, gay and gallant, is winning; and yet we
must frown upon them and their Sunday-breaking ways.
Looking on this picture of sylvan enjoyment,




CIIA RA CTER.             55
the guardian of their souls would say, with smiling encouragement, " Right, my children, this is
a day of recreation; amuse yourselves, for life is
short, and man was created to enjoy."  His Calvinistic brother, with stern rebuke, would say,' Sinners, you ale breaking the sabbath; y ou
are on the road to everlasting perdition."  The
spiritual shepherds are indeed wide apart, and
continually diverging.  Meantime Jules and L6ontine amuse themselves to the top of their bent
up in the branches of the colossal tree, eating the
good things of this world, and drinking bumpers
to happiness and long life. Little do they perplex themselves about where they are going after
the curtain has dropped and the lights are out.
They live to-day; and when questioned about the
great to-morrowthey reply, " Apres nous le dbluge!"   No self-questio nings touching future
life, no squaring of present duty with hopes
beyond.  In contemplating this typical couple,
one is unconsciously prompted to look and see if
their ears are not furred and pointed like the
beautiful animals who knew  neither good nor
evil.




.56         TTlHE FRENCH AT HOME.
Mind communicates with mind. quickly.  A
word or speech at a crisis goes through the
Leontine in the Country.
nation like a flash of electricity.  There is a freemasonry extending through all branches of so



CHARACTER.                57
ciety, in the quick comprehension of significant
words, as. the " Jamais " of Rouher and the
" moblots " of the people, which become for the
time household words of the nation.
There is spontaneous movement in the populace, as where Marie Sass of the opera is called
on in the street to sing the old national air, she
complying without hesitation, and the  crowd
taking up the refrain; and where the people daily
carry wreaths and flowers, and depose them at
the base of a statue of Strasbourg in the Place
de la Concorde. An instance of the emotional
side of character is furnished in the memorable
interview of Bismarck and Jules Favre at the
Chateau de Ferrieres, where the latter cannot
restrain tears of mortification in presence of the
conqueror.
There is one leading trait more characteristic
than any other, which no word describes exactly
but blague. Witty, irrepressible chaffing in daily
life is inborn. There is something approximate
in the ready humor of the Irishman; but it is
less keen and intellectual.  In the drawing-room
blague is toned down into elegant raillery, and in




THE FRENCH AT HOME.
the workshop it takes the hue of broad farce.
Its model exponent is the boulevacmdier, who is
familiar with passing events, and is an adept in
the use of slang and idiom.
Dialect phrases meet one at every corner of
Paris, without a knowledge of which the currents
of thought are never understood, though one be
well versed in classic French.  Among young
men generally, especially in the Latin quarter,
the conversational ball scarcely rolls in any other
than dialect grooves, and is nearly as puzzling to
the provincial Frenchmlan on his first arrival as
to the foreigner.  In English, the epigram  -is
cumbrous; in French, it is at home in the club,
the salon, and the street.
A timid young man sits in a railway carriage
opposite to a French Fotheringay, whom  he
hugely admires but dare not address.  I-le softly
approaches his foot until — unspeakable joy! -
it touches hers.  This elicits from her,-'Dites-moi que vous mn' aimez, jeune hommne,
s'il le faut; mais pour l'amour du ciel ne me
crottez pas les bottes."
vWho other thaen  a French actress could say




CHARACTER.                59
this?  A gamin opens a cab door to let a man
out before a theatre, who asks him if the piece
has begun yet.
"Pas encore, mon  ambassadeur; on vous
attend."
In this there is blague and epigram.
These examples are dipped up from the popular
stream, where the water is somewhat muddy.
Higher up at the sources, epigrammatic humor is
furnished of crystal purity by such masters as
Gustave Droz, Edmond About, and Alexandre
Dumas the younger. These three, perhaps, bear
the palm in delicacy and incisiveness.
The power of phrase in daily life is remarkable.
A journalistic charge of clever words, that hits
the bull's-eye of public favor, brings celebrity in
twenty-four hours.  The " et ta soeur? " uttered
in the Facmille Benoiton of Sardou, speedily runs
through France to its extremities.  The grandiloquent word clusters of Victor IHugo, in spite of
their ludicrous side, hold a secure place in the
national heart. A Frenchman may resist to the
death, and, when all other means of subduing fail,
a phrase disarms him. Epigram and woman are




60         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
the two mistresses who share his heart, and they
are nowhere wooed with such assiduity as on
French soil. The popular newspapers, such as
the I" Gaulois " and " Figaro," are not devoted
to news or leaders, but used as anvils to beat
out those little showers of epigrammatic sparks
which so charm the Parisians; and the men of
the pen are all well supported by those of the
pencil, in a style of art in delineation to which
as yet we are unaccustomed.




GALLANTRY.
His emblematic bird, the Gallic cock, typifies
the Gaul, - given to showing off his fine feathers,
of assiduous gallantry to the hens, possessed of
strong affection for his own dunghill, always on
parade. His scarlet wattles answer to the red
ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and the crest
feathers to the Grand Cross. Cut off the rain61




62         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
bow feathers which he wears around his neck, the
glorious wattles, the proud sweeping tail, and the
cock is unhappy. Misfortune takes the name of
rain, and he gives up under it completely, belittles himself, and drags his tail on the ground, as
if he were on the way to the spit to be offered up
on the sacrificial table of man.  Let the sun
come out from  the rain-exhausted  clouds, he
brightens up directly, dries himself with despatch,
and resumes his gallant, crowing life, as if such
a thing as rain never existed.  There is only one
delightful spot in the world, and that is his own.farmyard; all other farmyards and dunghills are
sorry affairs; his is the home of the fat worm
and fine grain; his hens are gayer, prettier, - in
short, possess a chic given to no other hens; here,
in a word, is paradise.  Thedlove competes with
him on the field of delicate attentions to the other
sex,- but quietly, unobtrusively, and sentimentally: the cock is ostentatious, making his court
with much cock-a-doodle-doo and wing-scraping,
and a spice of humbuggery, for he often calls the
hen for the grain of corn which he gobbles
up himself. In matters of the heart and spur




GALLANTRY.                 63
there is no middle course with him; there must
be either brilliant victory or utter discomfiture.
Conveyed away from  his Eden barnyard, the
chivalric bird droops with nostalgia, and degenerates in race.
Whatever the ]Frenchman's notion may be of
the galctnt 7lhomae, his ambition is always to be
considered mmn honzmme galcant.  Scarcely any misfortune or inferiority of looks can rob him of the
impression that he possesses certain  qualities
pleasing to the gentle sex.  If his back be curved,
he will find in it the line of beauty; if his nose
be twisted, he will discover in it a piquant departure from  the ordinary monotonous rule of
facial feature.  I-Ie fights hard against Nature
where she attempts to take away from  him the
r'le he covets by playing some freak with his face
or his body.  If she makes him too fat, he tightly
laces his unwieldy girth,. and moves with a lightsome agility, to remove the impression of unusual
stoutness.  If she takes away the hair from the
top of his head, he employs extraordinary ingenuity in bringing up the forlorn-hope of hairs
from the sides to hide the loss of their brethren
on the top, vanquished by Time.




64        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
His chief adversary in wooing the reputation
of a gallant man is age, which ungratefully turns
upon him in the decline of life, and takes away
his arms; yet he persistently ignores their loss to
the last. The French Major Pendennis, agreeably adorned, neglects scarcely any occasion to
show himself to that sex whose lifelong slave he
has been. That day does not count in his existence where he may not spend an hour or two
on the Boulevard, in admiring the houris of his
earthly paradise, as they pass before him in
equipage and afoot, in a never-ending procession.
That night is a meagre one where he may not
stand in an orchestra stall at the Italiens, with
his back to the stage, to gaze on those princesses
to whom he has sworn eternal fealty, or to promenade in the foyer, and perchance whisper in two
or three of their ears a brace or two of his handsomely-turned compliments.
In the hands of the Gaul. gallantry is elaborated into an art. Nature does more for him
than for the inhabitant of any other country in
this way, and by culture he crowns the edifice.
It is as difficult, he says, to be a gallant man as




GALLANTRY.                  65
to be a poet; there must be the existing faculty
as a foundation, then comes the superstructure
A French Pendennis.
of education.  To be gallant, from his point of
view, is to be possessed of tact, refinement, in-.A




66        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
telligence, taste, and an adoration for women,
young and old, beautiful and ugly. The rules
of the art cannot be written (according to French
authority); but they are divined by inspiration
of its votaries. No rule, for instance, is necessary to teach one of them to take off his hat to
a woman whom he meets on the stairway; he
knows that, as he knows how to eat or sleep.
The finesse and strategy which the woman as
passive employs to him as active is remarkable.
An expression of the eye, a movement of the
lips, a posture of the body, a gesture of the
hand, convey to him words which he reads running. In the woman of the salon, there is a
tacit invitation to the man to be aggressive, - to
make her une petite cour inoffensive, which he on
all occasions considers to be a duty. This sort
of an invitation may be so vague as to be almost
imperceptible, yet it is there, concealed behind a
labyrinth of manner. As a rule, she does this
without any idea of transgressing generally accepted rules of morality. It is the desire to
exercise the especial powers of her sex for an
hour or two, as an agreeable variety to the home




GALLANTR Y.              67
duties of the woman of family; but it sometimes
proves to be a dangerous pastime. It is her
nature to please wherever she finds herself, in
public or in private. In the absence of her own
species, she fondles the cat or canary bird; with
her husband she is full of those agaceries and
douceurs, which contribute the chief joy to his
domestic life. As long as there is a man in her
presence, he assumes an integral importance
denied to those of her sex, and is more her natural complement, apparently, than in countries
where women are satisfied to pass so much of
their time with each other.
She is the acknowledged deity of her drawingroom; and each gallant man who enters, hat in
hand, -a custom which disposes of the question
of what is a man to do with his hands, the object
to which he clings being called the plarnche de
salut, — knows, from  certain indications veiled
from the vulgar, the impression which he produces on his hostess. Nothing is more natural
than her pose as she sits in her drawing-room,
because it is the perfection. of art. The soft
light which falls over her, the color of the back



6(8       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
ground against which she sits, the stray tendril
of hair escaping from the rest, the kind of expression which plays about her face, the carefully
modulated tones of her voice, never rising to
harshness or a high key, the subservient and
auxiliary hues of her apparel, the graceful manceuvring of her hands- all these are made the
subject of close study, and consummate art is
made to look like simple nature. The ordinary
affairs of life are invested with this general
grace: she listens to a tedious recital with apparently as much interest as to an enlivening one,
for want of politeness is heresy: the simple act
of passing a cup of tea is accompanied with a
look and gesture which are irresistible. The
knowledge and performance of this dilettanteism
of daily life are sometimes even made a test of
general capacity, as was done by the Marquise
de Crequy in the case of Franklin. Although
the philosopher was popular with the French
people generally, as the representative of democracy, he was disliked by the leading aristocrats,
like Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and Madame
de Crequy. The latter thought him any thing




GALLANTR Y.              69
but gallant. At a repast where she sat alongside of him, and where he was habited in
the memorable brown coat, brown waistcoat,
breeches of same, and cravat striped with red,
she thus records her impression: " That which
I saw most remarkable in him was his mode
of eating eggs. He emptied five or six into
a goblet, mingling salt, pepper, and butter, and
thus made a joli ragotit philadelphiqcue.  He
cut with his knife the pieces of melon he wished
to eat; and he bit the asparagus, in place of cutting off the point with his knife on the plate,
and eating it properly with a fork. You perceive
it was the mode of a savage."
Thus, in the estimation of the marquise, the
doctor's discoveries in electricity, his practical
benevolence and wisdom, his work in the cause
of freedom and civilization, were held of little
account before the fact that he did not conduct
himself at table like the courtiers of her time.
She would not deign to talk with him on this
occasion; and his genial soul, she givds us to understand, was frozen into silence by her hauteur.
If there was want of affability on the part of




70        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
Franklin in this instance, there is fearful record
to the contrary in a note which he wrote to Madame Helvetius, in which he endeavors to compete with Frenchmen on their own ground; and
the fact of his having done so in a language of
which he betrays ludicrously imperfect knowledge, leaves one to infer, considering his ordinary prudence, that the charms of Madame
Helvetius were of a most incendiary character.
In bestowing a favor in France, there is always
an eye to the surroundings. The cross of the
Legion of Honor, with the insignia and patent,
is sent by the late emperor in an Easter egg to
one of his favorite ministers. The Duchess of
Gerolstein is the recipient of a brougham enclosed in a monster egg of wood. An Arab sheik
performs the Oriental fantasia on horseback
before Louis Napoleon: in the heat and excitement of the performance, he throws off his
jacket, and when he picks it up  afterward
he finds the red ribbon attached to the buttonhole.
In comparison with the rude covering with
which the Briton clothes his acts, the pliant




GALLANTR Y.               71
grace and kindly solicitude of thee Gaul in presence of his fellow-men compel admiration.  Yet,
if one could read the heart of this Briton, it
would, perhaps, be found that his sentiments of
humanity are deeper than those of his neighbor.
The rudest husk sometimes covers the sweetest
kernel. When the Gaul performs a gallant act,
he extracts all the honey that is to be gotten out
of it. If he gives up his seat to a woman, he
takes off his hat, and points to the vacant place
as if he were surrendering an empire, and inviting a queen to enthrone herself thereon.  If he
hoists her umbrella, it is as if he were spreading
out the canopy of heaven over her head. If he
picks up a fallen glove, he offers it to the owner
as if he were placing his sword and honor at her
disposal for the rest of his life. If he quits her
at the foot of a stairway, he looks after her as a
chamberlain of the court might do when her
Majesty mounts the throne. And in each instance the woman meets him half way in grace
and affability. All this makes him happy. The
consciousness of having conducted himself as a
chevalier' without reproach, the probability of




72        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
having produced an impression on the heart of
her whom he has thus encountered, and the recollection of her enticing manner, bring ripples
of pleasure across his mind whenever the scene
recurs to him.
The Frenchman's politeness is carried to great
lengths. He bows with a coup de chapeau, in
the Bois, to the Lais of the Lake, or in the public
gardens. He holds conversation with her at the
theatre, in sight of those who are entitled to
receive his legitimate homage. He bestows costly
favors on her which should' be conferred elsewhere.  Many an Anglo-Saxon would do the
same were he unseen; and this is one of the
most striking differences between the two men:
one does certain acts of which he is ashamed,
and which he covers with a cloak of seeming
virtue; the other, as a rule, makes no attempt to
hide these things and assume the air of one who
holds them in aversion. Morally, there is perhaps but little difference between them; yet the
Englishman is always endeavoring to appear the
better man under his mask of prim conventionality, which irritates the other, who charges




GALLANTRY.               73
him with being a Tartuffe, - in short, a hypocrite.
There is an elasticity and adaptability in the
Gaul, in presence of the woman, of which the
Anglo-Saxon has but a meagre share. The former, before all classes of the sex, cat-like, falls
on his feet, be she countess, bourgeoise, or
grisette; and to be brought unexpectedly in contact with any of them never seems to disconcert
or even surprise him. The Anglo-Saxon is taken
at a disadvantage under similar circumstances,
from which he does not rally immediately. The
susceptibility of the newly-arrived foreigner, for
example, is put-'to'a rude trial when he buys a
pair of gloves. Behind the counter stand several
smiling, self-possessed young women, whose eyes
turn on him with disconcerting steadiness. He
approaches the nearest of them, and signifies his
desire to make a purchase. Are the gloves for
monsieur? They are. Will monsieur give himself the trouble to sit down before the counter?
He slips on to a high stool which brings his head
on a level with hers. She purringly inquires his
number, which he generally does not know, when




74         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
she daintily measures the masculine hand, holding it, after the tape measurement, lightly by the
finger tips, to examine the form of the glove
required.  She in the same tone inquires his
color, to which a Gaul would probably reply,
"Whatever your taste may suggest;" but to
which the newly-arrived foreigner gives an answer
destitute of any kind of embroidery. When she
softly takes his hand in hers again, and looks into
his face with a smile, Americus begins to think
that this is indeed a tender business. Before,
however, he has time to make many reflections
on the situation, she is at work on the hand, and
slips on the glove, caressingly introduces the
fingers, the  operation  sandwiched with  arch
glances and chirrupy speech, and then the glove
is buttoned, and the last fold smoothed out with a
gentle pat. This incendiary performance is followed with the question whether monsieur will
have his other hand treated in the same way.
The moth, of course, will have another go at
the candle; and, by the time he is through,
he is naturally somewhat singed. Happily for
family peace, the betrothed Mary Jane or the




GALLANTRY.                75
espoused Mary Ann cannot look into his heart at
that moment. The eyes of the feminine Mephistopheles behind the counter follow out his retiring
figure with a slight elevation of the eyebrows, and
a terrible monosyllable uttered to one of her companions.
The modest foreigner goes through another
ordeal with the flower-girl. With a smile as
bright and -attractive
as her flowers, she asks
him if he will not have
one. He would prefer
not to encounter those
winning eyes, and en- 
deavors to pass on,
but he may not do so:
she holds him as securely as the Ancient
MIariner held the wed-       Flower Girl.
ding guest, and he signifies his acceptance of the
tendered opening bud. He may not receive it
with his hands: she with her nimble fingers will
attach it to his. button-hole, and the embarrassed
man stands while the girl fondles over the region




76       - THE FRENCH AT HOME.
of his heart, and looks into the whites of his halfaverted eves. And the havoc thus committed in
ten short minutes may not be repaired in six
months. There is no fixed price for such a favor;
and he is told, with an expression that would
have troubled the soul of St. Anthony, that it
is any thing he may please to give. His betrothed Belinda, alas! would think it dear at
any price.
I(l doubling the capes of critical situations in
adroit, evasive phrase, no one is equal to the
Frenchman. This faculty pervades all classes,
and is seen in the daily life and correspondence
of high and low.'' When Madame de Stahl asks
Talleyrand whom he would save first from drowning, were she and a certain other woman — her
rival - in the water at the same time, the diplomatist replies that he cannot swim. A woman
declines to be godmother to an expected child,
as she will be absent when the interesting event
transpires;  but appreciates the  honor, and
deeply regrets that she cannot avail herself of it.
This is known to be a refusal; but is clothed in
such a form that no exception can be made to it.




G4LLANTRY.               77
and pleasant relations are conserved. A father
refuses the hand of his daughter to a young man,
saying that he feels flattered by the proposition;
and if his daughter were not too young, or had
more experience of life, or something else, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to
become his father-in-law. Here again is refusal
smoothed with a graceful covering.  Even a
woman-servant, in declining an offer of marriage,
knows how to say that she is persuaded it would
be very difficult to find a better husband than he
who proposes; but for reasons which have nothing to do with him, and which she cannot explain,
she is obliged to decline, although she thanks
him all the same. A sick man is never told that
he looks badly, should he be at death's door. A
plain woman is made to forget her want of good
looks by an adroit reference to some supposed
compensating quality. Everybody is handsome,
well dressed, happy, and the pictlure of health;
the round of life- " 0 que c'est comme un bouquet de fleurs," as says the popular refrain in
the " Little Ebonist."
But stern moralists say this is equivocation




78         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
and lying, and it is true; but the equivocation
yields harmony, and the lies are as white as
lilies. Through them the rude asperities along
life's journey are softened or made to disappear.
Graceful evasions and snow-white lies go about
like sisters of charity, in this case, to heal and
soothe, but not to wound. They are faults, but
faults whose extenuations transform them almost
into virtues.
Occupations do not absorb Frenchmen to an
extent to render them averse to social commerce;
and, however well they may work, they set apart
a certain portion of time to the amenities of life.
From the seriousness required in work to the
good humor exhibited in play, the transition is
rapid; and the harness is resumed as quickly as
it is thrown off. ~ With Anglo-Saxons, as a rule,
the pursuit of any higher kind of vocation renders them unfit to be men of the world: they get
wound up so tightly in their affairs that they
cannot be unstrung, and are so trammelled by
the artificial forms of society that they are prone
to renounce it altogether as interfering with the
serious aims of life. Thus the life of the Anglo



GALLANTRY.                79
Saxon seems to be special, while that of the Gaul
is dual. In the latter, ambition in science or art
is generally accompanied by the necessity of social expansion, and the two thus march together
in harmony. In the gatherings of the polite world,
where people meet on common ground, there is
a levelling process, which often brings the ordinary man up to the man of genius; for the
former at times throws off sudden impressions
and fancies with a facility and grace denied* to
the latter. Nicolle, the great moralist, speaking
of this scintillant elegant of the salon, said,
I-He conquers me in the drawing-room, but he
surrenders to me at discretion on the staircase."
The Gaul is seldom so absorbed in any occupation as to lose his taste for society. He has a
natural tendency in this direction, which is developed by education. He is a musician who
sings and plays passably well, and is an excellent critic. He draws, and perhaps paints more
or less, which furnishes him with sufficient knowledlge to be a conscientious amateur in painting
and sculpture. He has a natural taste for poetry, and can write tolerable verses with a certain




80        TIIE FRENCH AT HOME.
ease. He is given to fencing and waltzing, and
exhibits taste in his dress and surroundings.
Every contribution is employed, that science and
art have to offer, that will add to the charm of
social life. Conversation is practised as an art,
where epigram, grace, and vivacity are constantly exhibited. Habitual speech is flowery and
flattering. Thus his character is fuller than that
of the specialist across the Channel, whose accomplishments are usually confined to such
things as British politics, horse pleasures, a dead
language or two, and shooting half-tame pheasants.
Amid the rudest trials to which man is subjected, the Gaul will not neglect what he considers the niceties of his person, - his capers and
grimaces. In the hurry of a busy day he will
find time to make an ode to his mistress's eyebrow, or to send her a bouquet. On his weddingday, his buoyant spirits will not destroy his
grace of language, and in his last words at the
hour of death he will still observe the proprieties
of art. The pleasures of society are wooed with
ardor when young, and not abandoned in old




GALLANTR Y.              81
age. Voltaire, at a very advanced age, endeavors to dance with a lady, saying as he does so,
" On dit que c'est le premier pas qui couite, moi,
je trouve que c'est le dernier."  And I have
myself observed an aged ambassador of France,
in private theatricals, who entered on the functions of souffleur with the ardor of a young man
of twenty.
The wide dissemination of art-feeling has a
refining tendency on the manners of all classes.
Beautiful squares and parks, with walks and
shady forests, fountains and lakes, are open to
all. The eyes of the people are made familiar
with architectural beauty as exhibited in the
boulevards, bridges, and public edifices of the
great city.  The magnificent art-galleries are
free to all who wish to see them, and the working
people visit them frequently, especially on Sundays and fete days, when they are kept open
for their benefit.  The round of Pierre's and
Justine's recreation on these holidays usually
begins with a visit to the Louvre, the Luxembourg, or the Exposition, before they are off
on sylvan junketings; and this habit of being
6




82        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
brought face to face with art has an influence on
their lives. Thus the man in blouse is often
familiar with the great pictures of French masters. In the houses of the poor, there are no
vapid, keepsake heads in glowing colors, but
copies of pictures exhibiting more or less merit.
The deep red and blue Daniel in the Lion's Den,
and the doll-faced Mary Ann, surrounded with
an inch of bright mahogany, are not seen on
their walls.   The square, loud-striking, and
loud-ticking clock in red wood, and the plasterof-paris rabbit or cat painted in unnatural hues,
have no places on their mantles. In humble
caf6s are found pictures which would be considered fit to hang in some of the best restaurants
of London and New York.  The signs over
shops show a talent not possessed by our signpainters, and many a gargote has grapes and
vine-leaves painted over its door which merit a
better place.
To see the orderly, smiling people dressed in
their best, going through the galleries of a Sunday, or sauntering in the parks to enjoy nature
and hear the music, is not an unpleasant sight;




GALLANTRY.                83
and it is difficult to believe, for this, that they
are on the road to perdition.  It is doubtful if
the same classes across the Channel occupy
themselves as well on the day of rest.
One of the indications of the general spread
of art is, that it is found even in the worst
classes.  The criminal hero of fiction among
rogues in London is the brutal Blueskin, without any extenuating wit or manner; in Paris it
is Robert Macaire, who, it is true, stops at nothing in swindling and robbery, but attaches much
importance to the form. Blueskin kills with an
oath; MIacaire sends his victim  into the next
world, politely apologizing for the necessity of
the act. When Monsieur Macaire takes the
property of another, he borrows it with polite
speech and profound bow. His conversation is
full of high-flown sentiment, accompanied with
majestic attitudes. The artistic get-up of this
dandy rogue of rents and patches, with his
creaking snuff-box and club-stick, his bland imperturbability and unscrupulous philosophy, his
dilapidated hat gayly cocked on one side, is so
impressed on the mind, that one is almost con



84        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
strained to believe that the man really existed.
To kindred souls in the Faubourg Saint Antoine
there never was such a taking rogue as this; and
better people were never tired of his dandified
airs and rags, as represented on the stage by
Frederic Lemalitre, or portrayed by the pencils
of clever artists like Philipon and Daumier, one
of whose happiest efforts was where Monsieur
Macaire, arrayed in kingly garments, gives royal
opinions of a pernicious character to his follower
Bertrand, who receives them with the commentary of, " Ah, vieux blagueur, va."  The Faubourg St. Antoine laughed over these oddities
until the tears ran down its cheeks; but it would
have turned away from the brutalities of Blueskin with disgust.
There is an uncontrollable desire to cajole or
caress whatever is liked, be it man, woman,
child, or animal. Those who do not fancy this
affectionate familiarity must employ stern dignity
as a fender. They have a proverb to the effect
that they will end by eating out of the hand of
even the most illustrious person, if encouraged.
They soon familiarize themselves with the most




GALLANTRY.               85
awe-inspiring creature, which in the end may
increase their affection, but lessens their admiration. The god-like is short-lived. Their affectionate nature must find expression somewhere.
In the absence of children, it breaks out upon
lapdogs, thoroughbred terriers, cats, and birds.
The solicitude of a childless couple is employed
concerning the health of Tabby or Towser, and
it is a common spectacle to see the woman leading the gayly caparisoned little terrier up the
Elysian Fields for the benefit of his digestion,
stopping occasionally to allow the creature to get
his wind and repose his little tan-colored legs.
It is a case of killing with kindness; for the
animal often becomes plethoric, wheezy, and
dyspeptic from  over care and feeding.  And
what a wealth of sweetness is bestowed on this
spoiled pet! It. is, " Come here, Bibi, and let
me nurse you; "  II Will Bibi have a piece of
sugar?"  "Who loves Bibi most?"   "Does
Bibi love the little mistress?"   " She adores
Bibi, va! " —this, accompanied with cajoling
caress. A satirist avers that the woman often
does this in presence of a man to make him wish




86        THE FRENCi  AT HOME.
he were a dog; and, although one cannot credit
her with such intent, the result is often attained.
The woman coquets with the canary-bird in
the same fashion, in the absence of other society.
She enters upon tender and animated conversations with it, which sound like a page or two of
" Romeo and Juliet," where she plays double,
putting the questions, and making the answers;
and, if the bird have any heart, one would think
he must be captivated by such roucoulement
beyond release. The purring cat, which is here
so often likened to her own sex, also comes in
for his share of the mistress's tender assiduities,
and lolls about in the favor of her smiles.
The extravagance of French politeness has
been remarkable in the past. Three centuries
ago there was such an ado when two people met,
that the Chevalier Marin said that all conversation began with a ballet. Fourscore years ago,
graceful antics and high-flown compliments were
still in vogue; but the deep triplicate salutation,
with the "Beautiful marquise, your bewitching
eyes make me die of love," passed away with the
revolution of'93. The eccentricities of gallant




GALLANTRY.                 8 7
speech and gallant acts constitute one of the
principal arteries  running  through  the body
politic, from its earliest history to the present
time. Under cover of the French dictum that it
is impossible to be too polite, singular extremes
are reached, especially by the elderly men who
affect something of the Regency manners.  In
"Beautiful marquise, your bewitching eyes make me die of love."
some cases it is carried to a point where it might
be called the gymnastics of social intercourse, -
where the man insists on keeping his bald head
uncovered in a hot sun, or runs with hot haste to
convey a lapdog to a woman waiting, or bows
low with a grand swoop of the hat to another
man whom he sees two or three times a day.




88        TUIE FRENCH AT HOME.
There is an historical instance of a well-known,
aged nobleman, who, descending the stairway,
meets a youth of twenty mounting; the nobleman stops to let him go up, and the youth does
the same, inviting the former to pass down; the
nobleman stands firm, and requests the youth to
continue, who responds, " Jamais!" with hand
on heart; he knows too well what youth owes to
age: upon which the elder comnmands him to
mount; when the young man, with a bow, says,
" Youth owes obedience to age," and passes,
thus saving the situation, as be believes.
The Anglo-Saxon does not often give way to
such eccentricities of sentiment.  His colder
temperament  and  extreme  conscientiousness
hold the heart's tongue in check, and unpremeditated acts of gallantry are not frequent in the
race. Walter Raleigh throwing his mantle on
the ground for the royal feet to pass over, and
the king picking up the leg-bracelet of the
Countess of Salisbury, accompanied with the
" Honi soit que mal y pense," are rare instances,
and borrowed at that from Norman chivalry.
The love of the Anglo-Saxon may be deeper,




GALLANTRY.                89
but its expression is more passionate in the Gaul.
In one it nmay be a smouldering volcano: in the
other it is fiery lava bursting forth. The outpouring of the heart runs through the Frenchmnan's daily life, his literature, and his music.
In his love-stories the plot moves on with crescendo  action.  WVhen Gounod's love-smitten
Faust, in the garden-scene, throws himself at the
feet of Marguerite, and carols his'ieLaisse moi
contempler ton visage," sympathy throbs in the
breast of the Gaul; but when, a few minutes
later, Marguerite, in her supreme, sublimated
happiness,   a sort of adieu to earth and earthly
things, - holds her lover in her arms, and cries,
I" Pour toi je veux mourir," an electric shock is
communicated to this spectator, and he shouts
"Bravo," with tears in his eyes.
Thus the Gaul is full of action before his
adored, she meeting him part of the way; and
he hurries into the country of the Tender, and
threads its labyrinths with glowing ardor. The
Anglo-Saxon  cannot throw  himself into  the
business with this abandon: he is haunted by an
apprehension of doing something foolishly senti



90         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
mental, and he clings to his cold reserve. The
Gaul burns his vessels, and talks of death or
possession, a cottage by the lake, two hearts as
one, and the rest of it. And this mercurial
lover assuredly believes every word that he utters
- at the time. He affirms that we are cold and
hard; in a word, that we are not affectionate
like him. When it is urged that we feel as much
as he under our mask of impassibility, he shrugs,
which is his most common sign of incredulity.
Supposing this to be the case, for the sake of
argument, he will say, "What is the use of a
flower that none can smell or see? "  The question is pertinent, and furnishes food for reflection.
When he falls in love, he plunges in to the
ears, — for in this he is a man of no half-way
measures, - and commits what we -consider acts
of folly.  He attacks with impetuosity, and
avers that we cold, slow-moving people do not
understand  love-making; that, whilst we are
skirmishing at the gate, he would be in the
citadel. He is full of it to running over, and,
if the course of love moves on smoothly, he goes




GALLANTRY.                 91
about among his friends, and tells them what an
angel she is, and how happy he is; he takes out
of the pocket covering his heart, her portrait,
slipper, or what not, and, religiously kissing the
treasure, shows it to sympathetic eyes.  He is
capable of getting into her coupe, and sitting
down in her vacated seat, and of finding enjoyment in the act; of taking out of the omniumn
gatherum of the vehicle, with a feverish curiosity, the little ivory mirror in which it is her
wont to scan her lovely features and arrange a
straying tress, the last novel marked at the
place where her beautiful eyes last dwelt, the
paper-cutter which her sweet hand held to cut
the leaves; and of bestowing the honors of osculation on each of these objects.  He does not
rest satisfied until he has pointed her out to one
or more intimate friends at the church or the
theatre, accompanied with the inevitable question, "Eh bien, comment la trouve-tu, mon
cher?"  Whereupon these polite friends strike
the key-note of the lover's idyl, and affirm with
enthusiasm that she is an angel.
Ill their gallantry, the French are often co



92         THIE FRENCH AT HOME.
medians withoat knowing it. To tell where genuine feeling ends and counterfeit begins, would
be difficult. It is not assumed with any sinister
design, but is an inoffensive desire, in the
absence of the real, to play with the semblance.
It is grown children's "' make-believe," is called
posing and is a national trait. There are all
kinds of posing; but the most common is that
which is brought into play between the sexes,
where man assumes those airs calculated to disturb woman's peace of mind, and where she
resembles an angel condescending to visit this
poor earth to dally a few moments with this
adorer. The comedy between them is not without interest. When they become acquainted,
there is flow  of gallant speech and adroit
response.  To them  silence is not gold, but
time is; and they hasten to the bower of Cupid.
Jules swears, that, if she will not accept him, he
will throw himself into the Seine: she may
not believe a word of this, but oh, how sweet to
hear! He loves her to distraction; none other
ever loved as he loves; and the worn platitude
is as fresh and sweet as new-made chocolate



GALLANTR Y.              93
drops to the listening Leontine. How much of
this is true, and how much is false? Alas! Jules
does not know himself.
Of these comedians, the student-rower of the
Latin Quarter is one of the most conspicuous.
His preparations would lead one to suppose that
he was going to do the work of one of the
Oxford or Cambridge crew. He arrays himself
in white flannel shirt with pink border, and
trousers the same; a nautical necktie issues from
a great turn-down collar, and a gayly-bordered
cap is set jauntily on one side of his head.
Thus accoutred, he starts for Marny with Fifine,
on whom  his costume produces its intended
effect. At his destination, by appointment, he
meets two or three other canotiers with their
respective Fifines, when they form a somewhat
noisy group, and the tutoiement is the general
order of speech. They repeat the smart words
and puns they have heard in the theatre or on
the street, accompanied with gestures somewhat
extravagant. They paddle about in the water
an hour, smoke a number of pipes, and laugh at
the sallies of their Fifines, who are so droll.




94         THE FRENCH AT HOME.
When the canotier returns to the town, and goes
to his caf6 in the evening, he tells those whom he
meets that he has been rowing until he is ereinte'.
The pull was terrible; but he is so inured to this
kind of thing, he don't mind it.
To lie on his back under a shady tree, with a
pipe in his mouth and an arm around Fifine's
waist, is probably a more agreeable way of passing the time than pulling stroke in a boat; but
Adolphe is not satisfied with this bucolic picture,
and must needs spin his yarn. Fifine's opinion
of this kind of boating is, that it is simply delightful. She shares with him the pleasures of
the caf6 as well as the rowing, and takes her beer,
and joins in the general conviviality.  She is
something loud in voice and laughter, and said
to be more naughty than the canotier's Fifine of
a score of years ago. But Fifine in her pouting
moments has something to say for herself, and
avers that Adolphe of to-day is degenerate; then
falls upon the whole sex, exclaiming, " Oh, les
hommes, les hommes! Quelle canaille! "  This,
however, is only a fleeting cloud which passes
between them, and in ten minutes it disappears




GALLANTR Y.              95
altogether.  Then she cajoles him  again, and
calls him "mon petit chat" and I mon petit
monstre," peace is effectually restored, and additional bocks are ordered to cement it.
The cafe-restaurant usually frequented  by
Adolphe and his Fifine is kept by some one from
the province of the former, who gives him credit,
being acquainted with the circumstances of his
family.  Here Adolphe orders generously for
self and Fifine, and never troubles himself about
verifying accounts. Fifine thinks it is like fairyland: you order a dinner, it appears, and no
questions asked. This goes on until Adolphe,
become a lawyer, is settled down in his provincial home, when the proprietor of the restaurant
gives him a shock as from a galvanic battery, in
the way of a well-charged bill. If he is not in a
position to pay, the shock is communicated to his
father, who unties the purse-strings with many
shakings of the head and Mon Dieus, -ah, the
young men were not like that in his day! Or, he
makes a marriage of convenience, and gets the
required amount out of his wife's dowry. Here
are the dregs of the flowing bowl which was




96         TlE FRENCH AT HOME.
drunk with so much Don Giovanni laissez-aller,
in the society of the too amiable Fifine.
In this wise does Cupid find the way to Fifine's
heart: As she hurries up the Boulevard Saint
Michel, or passes through the Luxembourg Garden, caught in the rain, a student of the Quarter
-- an Adolphe — steps forward, and offers his
umbrella with himself, to shield her from  the
elements: she probably at first declines, but the
chivalric young man politely insists on her not
exposing herself to the shower; she wavers, when
he hoists the umbrella, and walks away with her
without further parley; and this he calls the coup
deparcacpluie. It is the beginning of his acquaintance with Fifine, and in three weeks they look
as if they had known each other for three years.
He goes to her shop at closing time, and conducts
her to her home in the bird-like nest at the top
of the house.  On Sundays and fete-days he
lounges with her in the Luxembourg Garden; or
the twain get into a third-class railway carriage,
and go to Montmorency to eat cherries, or to
Enghien to sail on the lake, or, better still, to
Robinson to ride the donkeys, and finish up the




GALLANTR Y.               97
day in dining in the branches of the colossal restaurant-tree, so popular with the grisette and the
young man of the Latin Quarter. Thus the day
is what we must regard as a reprehensible round
of gayety. Adolphe says life is short, and Fifine
repeats it; then they sing in chorus, " Let us be
merry while we may, for to-morrow we die."  Or
perhaps Adolphe first encounters the bright eyes
of Fifine as she stands behind the counter of a
magasin, in which case the course of his love
does not run so swiftly as if he made the coup de
pcaarapluie.  If it be a chocolate shop which contains Fifine, here will he buy of the toothsome
stuff two or three times a day in order to exchange sweets for sweets, his compliments being
more sacchariferous than his purchases.  But she
only laughs at these sweet words, for she has
often heard them before,  " Les hommes, voyezvous, ce sont des farceurs."  In spite of these
discouraging words, for she loves to be dearly
won, Adolphe at length finds favor in her sight.
Then does he hang in her ears rings of pure gold,
and crown her pretty head with a new hat. Then
begin the bucolic excursions to Bougival, the
7




98         THE FRENCI AT HOME.
dinners in summer-houses on the borders of
lakes and streams, the dancing, the riding of
wooden horses at neighboring fairs, and swinging
in  circular swings, the
consultation of fortunet</SgA /aa 2! <    tellers, the saunterings in
~      2 P or  - __ the woods, the conjugaI;. j           _A" _   ~  tion of the verb to love,
S-         in which the' M'aimetu "  and " Je t'aime "
are especially and eternally dwelt upon.
The purse of Adolphe is a meagre one at best,
and, after two or three weeks of this junketing,
becomes transparently thin. The pleasures of
his idol and himself may be dispensed with, but
the necessities of life must be paid for until the
remittance arrives from  home.  This he calls
being a sec; and when in this condition every
thing he possesses except what he has on his
back passes into the hands of what he calls his
aunt, and we term uncle.  If this is not sufficient
to bridge the impecunious days, recourse is had
to the ear-rings and silk robe of Fifine, which




GALLANTRY.                 99
find their way to the same receptacle. These
are Lenten days for the loving twain. Their diet
is chastening, and the variety of their pleasures
is restricted. For the time, the days of orchestra
stalls, bisque, Saint Estephe, and coffee on the
Boulevards, are over. Clothed in the simple garments that are left out of the hands of the aunt,
they repair to one of the Duval establishments or
a cremerie, and make their dinner of a three-cent
bouillon, boiled beef, and a
piece of Brie cheese, flanked
with the most ordinary of
the ordinary wine. But they
eat this with Saint Anthony's sauce, which makes all
food palatable, - hunger,-  _X i
and still laugh and amuse
themselves, and find that it -l ais not such a bad world aftel
all.'- When the remittance
comes, Adolphe is what he    The Clothes-buyer.
calls'a flot: their joint wardrobe is withdrawn
from the aunt, and the junketing is resumed.
At last the law is finished, and a letter comes




100        TIIE FRENCH AT HOME.
from the father of Adolphe desiring his son to
return immediately to the paternal roof in some
country town or village. Then is there wailing
in the abode of Fifine au  sixieme. Adolphe
swears that he will never leave her, and the
parental letter is disobeyed.  Papa's second
letter is pathetic: it asks the son if he wishes to
bring the gray-haired locks with sorrow to the
grave. Adolphe remains firm; but the woman
comes to the rescue, for the parental epistle
touches her heart.  She loves Adolphe more than
she loves herself, and counsels him to return to
his home. The man is at length persuaded; and
he leaves her, taking away with him her heart and
the best years of her life. Adolphe goes away,
saying that none other shall ever occupy his heart
but the grisette, and soon marries a girl with a
dowry, not half as pretty as Fifine, whom his
father has long since selected for him.  The
rollicking student is transformed into the staid
country lawyer, who is severe on the follies of
youth. After his departure, the weeping in the
eyry au sixieme is passionate, but not of long
duration.  In a month or two Jacques steps for



GALLANTRY.              101
ward with another umbrella to make the coup de
paraciluie, or becomes one of the best clients of
the chocolate shop, and serves over the counter a
rehash of Adolphe's compliments,  She will
hardly listen to his nonsense; for "Les hommes,
voyez-vous, ce sont des farceurs; je n'en veux
pus."  But his nonsense is so droll she cannot
help laughing, and here Jacques makes a tremendous stride; for, according to the proverbial
wisdom of the great city, when the woman laughs
she is half conquered. Before long Jacques is
standing in the shoes of Adolphe, and new earrings and jaunty hat are the marks of victory.
The junketings to Asnieres and Bougival, the
dinners by the borders of lakes, and the conjugation of the verb aimer, recommence. And
during a moment of tender expansion, as they
saunter in the wood of Vincennes, she confides to
Jacques that she never loved Adolphe as she
loves him. There were certain blemishes which
marred the splendor of Adolphe, but Jacques is
all refulgent with perfection. Ah, the only true
love is the last! Let us be happy to-day, says
Jacques, for to-morrow we die; Fifine repeats it




102       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
with exaltation; and they whirl away in the
mazes of the Closerie de Lilas to the sound of a
crashing music that drowns the click of glasses
and the buzz of busy tongues.
Happy Jacques! Happy Fifine!




FRENCH LIVING.
THE American critic says the Gaul thinks and
talks too much of his dinner; and, wvere eating
A Belle Fourchette.
and drinking for appeasing hunger and thirst
only, there would be justice in the criticism. But
103




104       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
dinner is more than this with him. It is a symposium where psychological and sensuous pleasures
are combined,- a pretext for a re-union of friends
where there is as much talking as eating. This
is in compliance with the Gaul's general rule of
making Nature, in the exercise of her functions,
yield all the pleasure of which she is capable.
In his artistic hands the tearing and swallowing
of his ancestors has been transformed into the
sumptuous banquet adorned with flowers and
beautiful women, and surrounded by mirrors,
statues, and pictures.  In doing this he has
taken the rough diamond, and polished it to the
highest degree of which it is susceptible. According to the Gallic aphorism, " Animals feed,
man eats: the man of intellect alone knows how
to eat."
A couple of diners, who belong to that brotherhood of which Brillat-Savarin was the high
priest, enter the Caf6 Anglais. They are past
the prime of life, as are the greater part of the
clients of this celebrated restaurant, - which,
according to these elders, is a compliment to the
establishment, for they aver that the young have




FRENCH LIVING.             105
uncultivated palates, and hence limited knowledge of food and drink. The two elderly diners
saunter in, and leisurely take their seats. They
have been preparing themselves since breakfast
for the repast of the day in gentle out-of-door
exercise; for nothing annoys them so much as
not to be hungry at the appointed hour. They
select their snow-white table near one of the
windows looking on the boulevard, in order that
the sight may be pleased with the passing promenaders at the same time that the taste is gratified
with nourishment. They settle themselves comfortably in their easy leather chairs, as a softvoiced waiter presents them with the bill of fare
without asking what they want, well knowing
that they require time for reflection. In an ordinary restaurant he fires off his'"Monsieur desire?"
like a shot; but here he gracefully retires to leave
them to that meditation which the importance of
the subject demands. Their sight is not so good
as their palates, and they have recourse to the
monocle, or eye-glasses, to scan, as a Mohammedan does the Koran, the choice bit of literature
which the waiter has left with them, and taste of




106        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
the happiness of anticipation.  To the gourmets
this is the preliminary pleasure of the dinner,
and is counted on as one of its features. HIaving
carefully read through the bill of fare, from pottage to dessert, there is discussion as to selection; but discussion of an easy kind, that rather
sharpens than dulls the fine edge of appetite.
Were they seated in the Foreign Affairs Department on the other side of the Seine, they might
be taken for diplomats discussing each separate
provision of an international treaty.
At length the selections are made: for example, a simple soup, a carp a la Chambord, a
capon stuffed with Perigord truffles, a pheasant
ia la Sainte Alliance, tenderest of asparagus with
sauce a\ l'omazbme, a dish of ortolans a la Provenqale, a pyramid of meringues a la vanille,
and finally a bit of Brie cheese; for the great
Savarin has laid it down that a dinner without
cheese is like a pretty woman with only one eye.
And the swift but smoothly-gliding waiter takes
the prandial programme to the horn of plenty in
the rear, which pours out its treasures year in
and year out before the most critical clients of




FRENCH LIVING.             107
Europe. The wine is more quickly chosen, for
these sybarites know the cellar by heart, -that
famous cellar which runs midway under the
street. One course after another is taken leisurely, and the pleasure of the occupation long
drawn out. They say, " We are not pressed;
let us eat at our leisure, for we always have
the time to die."  They are of the highest guild
in gastronomy, and are able to discover the
superior flavor of the leg of the partridge on
which it has slept, and in what latitude a grape
has ripened from the wine they sip. In eating,
they experience what they call the three sensations, - the direct, the complete, and the sensation of the judgment; in drinking, in addition
to these sensations, those of gutturation, and the
last, - the after-taste of perfume or fragrance
which for a time remains. Pleasant wit and
gentle cachinnation are courted as auxiliaries to
lengthen the appetite and promote digestion.
An hour and a half to two hours is devoted to
the repast; and when the end is reached three
bottles of their dear friends of the cellar are
pleasantly at work under their waistcoats, in




108        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
assisting digestion. In their gentle exhilaration
they feel the need of locomotion; they saunter
out on the boulevard arm in arm, and find each
other and all the world delightful.  They lounge
to the Rue de la Paix or the Madeleine, and
back to the Caf6 Napolitain, renowned for its
coffee, where they take seats at one of the outside tables on the broad asphalte, and sip fragrant coffee to a fragrant cigar. According to
them, the coffee pushes the dinner, which is followed by the sacramental tiny glass of cognac,
in its turn, to push'the coffee. Thus the dinner
marches in single-file discipline from  soup to
cognac, like the queue entering a popular theatre.
Or it is a construction of regular layers, whose
cellar is soup, the ground floor the piece de resistance, the upper stories the lighter courses,
and the crowning of the edifice coffee and cognac;
the chimneys being the wines which run through
them all — after leaving the cellar - to warm and
brighten.
The happy twain, according to Lavater, are
born gourmets: they have round  and  square
faces, sparkling  eyes, small foreheads, short




FRENCH LIVING.             109
noses, full lips, and round chins. They congratulate themselves that they are what they are;
that they are not absent-minded business men,
nor ambitious men, who eat and think at the
same time. The aphorisms of their high priest
are often on their tongues, such as, " Tell me
what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,"
and " The fate of nations depends on how they
are fed." They belong to an extensive brotherhood. The stranger brethren may not recognize
each other away from the feast; but, from the
moment they sit opposite  each other over a
savory dish or a toothsome glass, the recognition
is mutual; as soon even as the incense of a
soigne potage rises to their nostrils, the ties
which bind them  are revealed. Then they are
happy; for next to eating a good dinner is the
pleasure of a comrade to  eat it with,-  a
comrade possessing the genius of the palate,
who is able to march abreast through all the
delightful labyrinths of taste. A companion of
the baser kind, who eats to live, is worse than
none, for his presence wounds the sensitive soul
of him who lives to eat.




110       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
Such is the devotion of some of the bachelor
gourmets to the table, that they do not consider
the presence of women desirable, alleging as an
excuse that they are faulty in the taste of food
and wine, that they are consumers of the saccharine and the acid, which are injurious to a good
mouth. Not that these bachelors love the better
half of their kind less, but the table more; and
they lay it down as a rule to themselves, that,
unless the women are known to be of their guild,
they may not be invited to the feast. These
finical epicures, however, are not embraced inthe
general category of gourmets, who gallantly hold
out against separating the women from their
table, and strive to have them together as one of
the most harmonious combinations.
These are among the frequenters of the Cafe
Anglais, where the addition runs to a figure beyond the resources of the ordinary purse. It
has a vogue - especially in wine - greater than
any other establishment, which must be paid for,
although it may be no better than half a dozen
others, such as Very, VTfour, Philippe, Trois
Freres, and Magny and Foyer on the other side




FRENCH LIVING.             111
of the Seine. In the Cafe Anglais are the reefs
on which many a young man has been wrecked.
With us men often ruin themselves through alcohol, profligacy, and gambling, but rarely from
eating.  We can understand the passion for
drink and gambling, but not that for food whose
indulgence turns rich men into beggars.  The
man who even expresses a taste for the art de la
gueule with us is regarded with general disfavor.
In France men occasionally eat themselves out
of house and home. In Columbus land, among
a certain class of Puritans, the love of the flesh.pots may not be manifested, and the stomach is
ignored; to dwell on the attractions of ecrevisses
aui vin de Sauterne and pain de volaille'a la supreme is sinful, and the pumpkin pie and hot biscuit must be taken with silent resignation. The
Gaul says, that, if they had his kitchen and his
palate cultivation, they would commit the follies
of which he-is guilty; but this only relaxes the
hard lines of their Pilgrim Rock faces into a
smile of commiseration.
There are a number of whet are called secondclass restaurants, such as Voisin, Vachette, Du



112        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
rand, which to a gourmet not too exacting are
as good as those that have been named, and are
chiefly patronized by Frenchmen who understand
prices as well as eating. They are not in vogue,
and this is a sufficient reason to the young man
of fashion for not frequenting them. He repairs,
when out of his club-house, to one of the English
taverns, of which there are several of an inferior
kind in Paris, and breakfasts on a slice of cold
beef, English bread, and a pewter mug of ale,
averring that it is superior to any thing in
France.  He who maikes this statement is called
by his countrymen a poseur. The English racehorse is responsible for this affectation, for it
was unknown before the quadruped came over
the Channel.
There are other restaurants a la carte, which
might be called third-class, where a dinner may
be had for four or five francs, and here the gourmet stops. He will descend to nothing inferior
to this, unless necessity compels him. If he
enters a restaurant where the dinner is already
prepared at a fixed price, it is because he is
forced to it, as the vessel is driven into any port




FRENCH LIVING.             113
in a storm. But the prix fixe establishment,
with its bill of fare chalked out on blackboard
hanging outside to tempt the eye, has charms for
many English and Americans. The gourmet
would sooner have a good soup, one dish, and a
bit of cheese, with suitable wine -the sine qua
non of dinner - than the whole menu of the best
repast at a fixed price. But many prefer cheap
quantity to dear quality; and the restaurants of
specified rate are large and usually crowded.
The prices range from one to four francs, and it
is singular how much is given for the money.
Those ranging from two to two and a half francs
do the largest business, and abound in the Passages and the Palais Royal.  They are frequented by Frenchmen generally from necessity,
and by foreigners of a certain kind from choice.
He whose prandial joys have been confined to
corn bread and pork finds difficulty in ordering
a dinner; and here he finds it ready to his mouth,
and as good as elsewhere: nay, he will stoutly
hold that it is equal to any thing in the Caf6
Anglais. The bill of fare is a flourish of trumpets which promises much, and to him whose
8




114       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
lights are dim the promises are fulfilled. When
the disciple of Brillat-Savarin, lounging through
the Passage Jouffroy, looks down through the
glass doors on such a one in the act of eating, he
is constrained for the time, although a good
Catholic, to believe in Darwin's account of the
origin of man.
The sagacious striker of oil, with his numerous
family, has not been long in the Grand Hotel before he discovers, from his point of view, that
the table d'h6te dinner of the hotel can be had
for half the money outside, in a prix Jixe establishment; and, as soon as he makes the discovery, he abandons the table d'hote, and resorts
regularly - except when drawn from time to time
to an Anglo-American place after his national
nourishment — to a place like the "Diners de
Paris," where all sorts of things are furnished at
four francs. Here, as Miss Petrolia- the eldest
of the family group -writes home to her friends,
they regale themselves on the best Paris affords,
and the bill of fare is enclosed with the letter.
The blandishments of such a repast were never
heard of in the vicinity of Oil Creek, and fill the




FRENCH LIVING.             115
souls of Miss Petrolia's friends with envy, The
celerity with which papa, mamma, and the progeny dispose of the courses at first astonishes the
waiter, but he is too polite to betray it in his face.
He wins his way to their hearts. As soon as he
sees them coming, he tells his brother white aprons
that his Hurons have arrived; and he hurries forward with a polite smile, hangs up their effects,
and bolsters up the smaller members of the
family to a level with the table. This Machiavel
of the napkin studies their tastes, and succeeds
in comprehending something of their language,
for tips are at stake. The oil-striker is restricted
to a few distorted words; but according to him
his children have enjoyed wonderful opportunities
in the way of acquiring *the language, and he
mainly depends on them for extended observation in ordering one of each of the several kinds
which are recorded on the well-filled bill of fare.
On these occasions Miss Petrolia is usually the
mouthpiece -of the group, and, with the aplomb
which the conscious possession of a pure accent
gives, asks, among other things, for ray au bur
noir, pooray de pommes-de-terre, vol an vong,




116       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
chewflur, and fromage de roachfort, to which
papa adds, with a knowing look, -
" And a bottle of that bong Maydock."
And to which a little oil-striker superadds, -
" Et vous ne forgetterez pas la creme a la
glace, gar ong."
All of which the disciplined mind of the waiter
carries faithfully into the kitchen and the winecellar.
They are happy. They shine in the plumes
and ribbons of the Rue de Caire, the garments of
the Belle Jardiniere, and the sparkling jewels of
the Palais Royal, - all brand new; and they sit
around a table served in a manner which Oil
Creek in the wildest flight of its fancy could
never imagine.
A three-years' residence in the posthumous
city of good Americans brings modification in the
group, and furnishes proof of a certain kind of
adaptability in transatlantic people.  The threeyears' varnish of this kind of civilization unfits
them for further residence on the shores of Oil
Creek, and does not prepare them for the civilization which belongs to healthful life.  The




FRENCH LIVING.             117
genuine patriotism which once burned in the
breasts of the oil-strikers, and armed them
against foreign criticism, becomes lukewarm.
Every thing American, to the saleratus biscuit
and molasses of Oil Creek, was once valiantly
upheld and defended.  In the fulness of their
new wisdom they now tell Oil-Creekers that they
know nothing of living, and cast slurs on the
ancient friends of their palate, the hot bread
and the old treacle. It is true, they have got
beyond dinners at a fixed price, and the showy
garments of the Belle Jardiniere; but it is
doubtful if their new, garish life gives them
an equivalent for that which blessed them in
the region of oil. They are doomed to a chrysalis which will not develop into the butterfly, nor
return to its original form. The elders naturally have their hours of nostalgia, - especially
the head of the family, when he sighs after the
old days where he dropped in of an evening,
without ceremony, on a fellow oil-striker, and
partook of the memorable chicken stew  and
flannel cakes, and talked to appreciative ears of
naphtha, pumps, and wells.




118       TEIE FRENCH AT H1OME.
Turning from  the oil prince to the man in
blouse in the Faubourg Saint Antoine, one sees
how one of the poorest classes of the great city
lives. Here, of course, one cannot expect to
find either the nourishment or the manners of the
Montmorencys. In this repast, the soup may
lack in delicacy of flavor, but it is strong and
nourishing; the leg of mutton may smell greatly
of garlic, but it is well cooked; the wine may
have the raspiness of newness, but it has body;
the lettuce may be a trifle old and wilted, but it
is dressed cunningly with fair proportions of oil
and other ingredients. The gestures and words
of the man in blouse, as he addresses himself
to these things, are naturally not those which
grace the dining-room of a dwelling in the Faubourg Saint Germain. After drinking his last
glass of wine, he not unfrequently turns up the
glass so that the rim rests on his thumb-nail, to
show that the libation has been conscientious, -
rubis sur l'ongle, - exhibiting the last drop on
the nail.
In animated accounts or stories, he often introduces his thumb-nail under the front teeth, the




FRENCH LIVING.             119
fingers closed, to signify' nothing whatever,"
usually accompanied with the words, " pas ga."
To call especial attention, he places his forefinger
alongside his nose, which goes with such a phrase
as " Remarquez bien une chose; " and, when he
shakes the same forefinger before him  with a
horizontal gesture, it is a negative movement,
equivalent to "I No, no - nothing of the kind."
When in narrating he arrives at a point in his
personal history where he thinks he conducted
himself worthily, he rises to his feet, draws up
his head, folds his arms, and fixes a penetrating
look on his listener; which may be regarded as the
fit attitude to the word " glorious."  In moments
of unusual expansion and forgetfulness, he will
rub the back of his head with one hand, and at
the same time dart the other back and forth in
front, on a level with the eye. There is a grotesque buffoonery about this performance, which
seems to have no especial signification, is considered vulgar, and its cradle is in the Faubourg Saint
Antoine. When the inhabitant of this quarter
essays to shine in a gallant way, he lards his
speech  with  such words as " gracieusete,"




120       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
" beau sexe," " belle dame," and the like. At
a ball, in inviting a woman to dance, he has
been known to say, Y Voulez-vous en suer une,
avec moi, madame.?" which implies that the
dancing is of a terrible vigor. Over his table
he is given to the broad
pun, which comes within
easy range of his intelligence, and gallant allusions  to  the  " beau
sexe," -as, indeed, all
-, —-    tFrenchmen  are.  This;" -~   man, on the lowest round
of the social ladder as
In the Faubourg Saint Antoine. he may be, does not
quickly eat his dinner in silence, but prepares, as
soon as he sits down, to talk as much as to eat;
and any thing, trivial o: passing, becomes a
theme of animated discussion.
Some years ago a wealthy butcher of the
name of Duval established in the ordinary and
inferior quarters of Paris large restaurants a la
carte, which bear his name. They differ from
others in havino the food cooked on the frurnace




FRENCH LIVING.              121
in the restaurant before the eyes of the client,
who is thus enabled to guarantee himself against
fraud. He is waited on by women, as men entail
too much expense. Cheapness and cleanliness
are the leading features. The restaurants are
well ventilated, gayly frescoed, and the tables are
of marble, usually intended for two or four. The
bill of fare is handed to the client as soon as he
is seated, and whatever he orders is marked
thereon by the waiter. As he passes out, he
stops at the counter, and pays according to the
card thus marked.  As politeness is found here
in every class of life, the first act of the Frenchman when he enters this place, or any other
restaurant, is to raise his hat to the woman of
the counter, who returns his salutation with nod
and smile; and in going out there is the same
exchange of civilities.
There is another kind of restaurant, frequented
by the very poor, which is called the cre'merie,
much inferior to the Duval establishment, with
))ut little difference of price. The creamery is
generally small, badly ventilated, and rather
dirty.




122        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
As a rule, all the restaurants are prepared for
the Friday fast in what the church permits her children to eat. One cannot refrain from smiling at
what is called a maigre repast, consisting often
in the Rue Saint Antoine.
of oysters, a vegetable soup, two kinds of fish,
one of which is with mayonnaise, truffles, a salad
of eggs, a salad of lettuce and cheese, with wine




FRENCH LIVING.             123
and coffee. In fidelity to such a dinner every
Friday there is salvation. Thus the rich man
who eats it may be saved, and the poor man,
hungry through labor, and without the means to
purchase such delicacies, is lost for consuming
three ounces of salt pork. In a word, there is
no fast for the rich, and one that lasts all the
year round for the poor.
Of vegetarians from taste there are none, of
those  firom   necessity  few.  Lamartine  was
brought up as a vegetarian by his mother, who,
in order to estrange him the more completely
from animal food, took him  to the abattoirs to
see the cattle slaughtered.  Until well up in
his teens he did not touch flesh, but at length
gave way to the general custom, and ate like his
fellows; not, as he alleges, that it was a matter
of taste, or that he was any better for it, but
rather out of compliance with the rules of society. Thus we are allowed to infer that a turnip
furnished the same pleasure and nutriment to the
poet as a roasted capon.
Tolerable food comes within reach of the verv
poor. A paper of freshly fried potatoes, which




124        TIHE FRENCH AT HOME.
cabmen are so often seen eating on their stands
while waiting for customers, costs but one or two
sous. An Auvergnatus- ually a water-carrier
or charcoal-burner - frequently makes his dinner
of a piece of Brie cheese (the best and cheapest
in the world, as pronounced at the Great Exposition of Paris by a committee of mixed nationalities) at two sous, a bit of garlic at one son, two
sous of wine, and a great piece of bread for two
more; making a total of seven sous for a repast
which it would be safe to affirm could not be had
in any other great city, of a like quality, for a
like sum. These four articles of food are wholesome, contain the essential qualities of nourishment, and are within the means of the poorest.
There are few, however, who are forced to make
a dinner like this every day. The Saint Antoine
quarter is' one of the poorest in the city; yet, when
one enter~ into its dingy precincts, the nostrils
are saluted with the savory odor of the pot-aufeu, before the dinner hour, on every side. After
the bread -which is eaten in greater quantities
than in any other country - the soup is the best
feature of the French kitchen. What our poor peo



FRENCH LIVING.             125
ple throw away in bones, scraps, and vegetables,
is converted by them into nourishing soup. The
waste of the American kitchen would be regarded
)by them as something sinful, and that which is
abandoned to scavengers by a, well-to-do American
family would suffice to nourish a poor French
one. Whatever the teeth will not go through,
bone or gristle, goes into the pot, where it is
boiled for hours, and made palatable with those
herbs of which every French woman has such
complete knowledge.  Poverty may force the
French housewife to buy the cheap, tough meat;
but with that favorite instrument, the casserole,
she will overcome its obdurate texture and
sinews, and reduce it to a pulpy tenderness. The
saucepan is her principal auxiliary, and nothing
in the way of flesh can resist it.
One of the chief aids to economy in the kitchen
may be traced to the facility offered in buying the
exact quantity required, and no more, of meat or
vegetables, at any hour of the day or evening, in
the green-groceries and charczterie shops found
in almost every square of Paris. The charcutier
is provided with phtes de foie gras, Strasbourg




126        TIHE FRENCH AT HOME.
sausages, and other articles ready for the table,
and prepares chops, truffled meat, game, and
meat of most kinds for the fire; when the housewife has but to light her charcoal, and cook her
repast. If this be not quick enough, she may
repair to the ro'tisseur, - found also in every part
of Paris, - where chickens, ducks, and pheasants
are always turning on a great spit before a blazing charcoal fire, and obtain what she may require
for immediate consumption. Thus, within a few
doors, all that is necessary for the preparation of
a generous repast may be had at once, in quantity
and quality to suit, such as charcoal, wine, bread,
cheese, coffee, nuts, pt6es, fruits, meats, and
vegetables.
The poorest class in the United States is wellto-do compared with the poorest in France, yet it
is not as well fed nor as happy. There is a general cheerfulness in this people which strikes the
foreigner as soon as he enters the country. Race
and climate have doubtless something to do with
it, but hygienic nourishment and a sound stomach
much more. In presence of this fact, one cannot
help regretting the waste of time and energy of




FRENCIT LIVING.           127
reformers and philanthropists who, to bring about
man's amelioration with us, are always addressing themselves to his head, to the neglect of his
stomach. It is an elementary law governing the
human system, that the brain and the stomach are
two neighbors who cannot afford to be at enmity
any length of time without mutual deterioration,
and that an improvement in the condition of one
implies an improvement in the other. Naturally,
this A B C knowledge is familiar to most people,
but it does not yet receive the consideration
which-its importance demands. The foundation
of the Frenchman's happiness is laid in the best
bread in the world both in taste and nutriment,
the most nourishing wine, and the best cookingI
- save in roast beef, in the preparation of which,
as well as in carving, the English enjoy a superiority. Besides the quality of the Frenchman's
food, there is a healthful feature in the usually
well-ventilated apartments in which it is eaten,
and another in the jocularity and leisure attendingI
the repast. Sloppy coffee and hot biscuits are
not conductive to gayety; ice-cold water and thin
soup peppered to the burning point are not joke



128       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
inspiring; and a pot-pourri of water-reeking
vegetables is not productive of a humor to set the
table in a roar. These, in a word, - to say nothing of those enemies of the American table, heat
and haste, - are joy-killers, with sequent dyspepsia.
When the Frenchman in a caf6 puts two of the
little slabs of white sugar in his coffee, and the
remaining two in his pocket, it is not meanness,
but economy. The four consecrated to the demitasse are paid for; and the purchaser may carry
them home to the canary-bird, present them to
the children of the concierge as a means of maintaining pleasant relations with that person, or
keep them for eau sucree. Life is not large as in
the United States, where there is elasticity in the
incomes. Here they are fixed; so much a year,
month, and day. The line about the budget of
expense is rigid, especially in the case of small
rentiers, who abound in France. The man of
three thousand francs a year rides on the top of
the omnibus for three sous; reads the papers in
one of the small reading-rooms for four sous;
smokes one or two sous' worth of Caporal to



FRENCH LIVING.               129
bacco a day, in a pipe; goes to the theatre once
a week for three to five francs, and to the caf6
chantant once or twice, where his consommsation
costs him ten sous each time; he eats two-franc
dinners, followed by that indispensable black
coffee for six sous, with one or two sons gratuity,
at one of the second-class cafes.  The chief part
of his time he strolls on the boulevards, looking
in at the windows or the people, - never failing
under any circumstances to admire a pretty woman, - and ii sitting in the public gardens, all.
of which is gratuitous pleasure.  The man of five
thousand francs enlarges this programme; but
the bachelor of twelve thousand wants' for nothing.  This suma means a snug' little apartment of
two rooms on a street running to one of the
favorite boulevards, with ImcUlsscndre furniture,
each room under the glamour of one color, - pale
rose, suunset beams, azure skvy. or what not; some
good books, a few fine engravings, perhaps a
moderately good oil picture-, a bit of bric-a-brae
in the way of bronze and porcelain; a breakfast
of three or four francs, and a dinner of five to
ten francs, at the Caff; Riche, Vochette, or the




13o        TIL EIlT FR~ENCH AT7' I0 MIE.
club; cabs, theatres, Bois de Bouloggne, and kid
gloves at discretion.  This is the defilnition of
twelve thousand francs, for a bachelor.  Twentyfive thousand, for a bachelor, is an apartment in
the Boulevard Malesherbe, au second, with  a
cook and a man-servant, a horse ani(l conp0, a
box at the French Opera, breakfasts at hrome, ancd
dinners at the Imperial or Jockey Club; the
dwelling econsisting of five rooms, with objects of
art, one or two of some value. Fifty thousand
represents an apartment an premier, with horses,
canrriges, valet, footman, cordozn bleu, a winecellar, a box at the Italian Opera, dinners at
hoime with friends to eat them, the usual art bibelots, a small gallery of paintings, and a good
library; every thing that man requires in bachelorhood.  If any of these single men were
doubled with a wife, the expenses would  be
trebled, perhaps more,  the wants of women
being an unknown quantity. The man of fifty
thousand would have to live, at least, like him
of twenty-five, and he in turn like him  of ten
thousand; which, according  to Frenchmen, is
the  explanation and the justification of the
dowry systems which prevails in France.




FRENCH LIVING.              13t
In the way of private fortune, the lowest round
of the ladder is reached when he who has fifteen
hundred francs a year signs himself rentier, and
lives on it. These poor rich men are found in
the old-fashioned pensions of the Batignolles, in
the vicinity of the Jardin des Plantes, and outside the barriere, where they pay from  ninety to
a hundred francs A month for board and lodging,
both of a meagre description.  They are generally elderly people whose principal happiness
consists in sitting on those benches provided by
a parental government everywhere on the boulevards and in the public gardens.  They are subscribers to the " Petit Journal,"- one sou, -
where they carefully follow the story of unparalleled love and deep-dyed murder carried on for
months in small instalments.  In the  public
squares and the interior strips of park on some
of the boulevards, they patronize the open-air
performances of the cunning juggler and the
spangled tumbler.  They are rarely-seen out of
their own quarter, and their life is a round of
vegetation.  " Charivari" gives a sketch of two
of these:seedy old creatures sunning themselves




132       THE fRENCH AT HOME.
on one of the hospitable benches of the Batignolles. One, striving to impress the other with
his importance, says,"; The great general spoke to me at the review
of the troops."
" Is it possible! What did he say to you? "
" He said -he said-ahem,' Get out of the
way, imbecile.' "
As a rule, every man and woman in France
understands something about cooking. Many in
America know how it ought to be done, but here
they know how to do it. There are amateur
cooks who sometimes vie with the professional
cooks in preparing a good dinner. Alexandre
Dumas, the elder, took more pride in the production of some of his pet dishes than of the
" Count of Monte  Cristo;"  and has been
known, when the conversation turned upon his
novels, to direct it obstinately to the culinary
channel, saying, "Laissons tout cela de c6te, et
dltes-moi plutot des nouvelles de ce ragout que
j'ai fait."  There are few Frenchmen, who, in
case of necessity, would not be able to cook
their own dinner. The French women enjoy the




FRENCH LIVING.             133
same facility in the preparation of food that they
do in making robes and hats. They may not
exercise their faculties in these directions from
The Cook.
being in a condition of life which enables them
to employ others; but the latent capacity is
there, like a second nature.




134       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
In the summer time it is the desire of every
Parisian to dine in the open air; and between
six and seven in the evening the garden restaurants of the city are full of clients. In the environs, the restaurants by border of lake and
stream present an equally animated appearance
well into the night; and here, in cleverly arranged bosquets, in groves, or under vine-clad
lattice-work, the Parisians vivaciously dine. For
the time the occupation of the city is forgotten:
there is but one thing in the world to be done;
and it is to eat, drink, and be merry.  The
mustache-pointed, waist-pressed  soldier fights
his battles over again; and the old bald-headed
gallant, such as Gavarni loved to draw, tells of
the desperate raids he made in the heart of
woman in his younger days. One Gallic Werther
murmurs a page or two of his romantic past,
while another rhapsodizes over the present.
Octave warmly pleads his cause over the table,
and the sportive maiden confesses that she loves
him. It is a rural Babel and one of Watteau's
pictures thrown together, with a running accompaniment of clattering forks and clinking glasses;




FRENCH LIVING.              135
and, over all, intermittent cries of "Garqon,"
with responsive shouts of "Le voila, le voila -
a 1Finstant maemc."
For those of adequate means the restaurants
embowered in the park of Vincennes, or the wellknown Madrid in the heart of the Bois de Boulogne, offer great attractions.  Here come the
winter and fall clients of the Caf6 Anglais and
the Trois Freres, and seat themselves, at a late
dining hour, in a brilliantly lighted bower, where
the ear is pleased with trickling fountains, and
the eye with soft-globed lights shining down on
graceful statues relieved on night-green backgrounds. This is the spot preferred by the princesse de Ia rampe with her following of foolish
swells, where she orders the lobster and champagne style of dinner, which her admirers count
it a privilege to pay for.  Here, with a glass
of the Rheims nectar in her hand, she pronounces Knots which sparkle before the mental
vision of her audience with pyrotechnic brightness, and sings the music of Offenbach with a
grimace and gesture which set the table in a
roar. The princess is rated irresistible. Will




136        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
her highness be crowned with flowers?  Will
she be raised on a pedestal?  Will she take
another glass of champagne?  Singular question the last! Was she ever known to refuse?'1 I1 fait toujours soif chez moi — versez, mes
enfants."  Renversante! -Will the princess sing
that divine song again? The bis runs around
the table, and her highness deigns when the
performance is received with renewed applause.
"Vive la princesse "  Will she sit on a sultanic throne with a crowd of worshippers at its
base?  Will she take another piece of lobster?
She dleigns, for " il -fait toujours faim chez elle."
And all this is garnished with inimitable gestures of hand and foot, in the manner of the
Duchess of Gerolstein.
To cool heads the dinner with the princess
is somewhat threadbare, having already been
served in theatres and journals; but the foolish
swells do not have cool heads, and the farce goes
on without abatement the summer through.
The bucolic restaurant of Jules the student
and Leontine the shop-girl in its simplicity is
very different from the magnificence of the Ma



FRENCH LIVING.              137
drid.  A coarse cloth, but white as snow, covers
their rustic table, the soup is of the old potau-feu kind, which will never go out of fashion
as long as there are healthy palates to appreciate it; a tender radish or two, a good Chateaubriand, " lez-z-z haricots verts," as the facetious
call them; Brie cheese, a bottle or two of fair
Bordeaux, coffee, the petit verre, and  these
two dine,\ as Jules puts it, like a pope.  The
enjoyment of a Trois Freres dinner is not superior to this simple repast, for Jules and Leontine eat with an appetite.  Under the pleasing
stimulant of food and wine, Jules, of course,
does not neglect such an occasion to inform
Leontine, perhaps for the hundredth time, and
in a dozen different forms, of his undying love,
which the reciprocative Ldontine prizes as much
as the dinner, and this is saying much. The
running fire of tender babble is long sustained;
and, when she asks who loves Titine, the question draws the fire of a volley of declarations
from the ever-ready Jules.  "Pas vrai."  Soft,
sinless Gallic oaths attest to the truth.  tHow
much does he love her?  " Tout plein — tout




138       THE FRENCHI AT HOME.
plein. Et toi done, Titine?" - "Ah! je t'aine
bien, va."  And, when the fair and fond Titine
is asked if she will ever cease to love her Jules,
it elicits the grand "Jamais," repeated like an
echo.
To a third party there may be tiresome repetition in this scene, if heard more than once;
but to this tender twain it is always fresh, and
palpitating with interest. In these moments of
prandial expansion, to her lover's eyes Leontine
is, of course, a goddess incarnate with grace and
beauty; and, to her, Jules is something Olympian, with an aureole about his head. After
the repast there is reclining on the grass, where
Leontine sits with that lovely masculine head in
her lap, fondling with the hair; or there is
lounging through the forest, where the twain
gather flowers, and where the grisette pulls off
the petals of the marguerite, accompanied with
the sacramental words, " I1 m'aime un peu,
beaucoup, passionnement, pas du tout," to assure herself of Jules's eternal affection.  Or
Jules takes out his brier pipe and tobacco
pouch, - worked by the lovely hands of the only




FRENCH LIVING.             139
woman in the world, - and whiffs at the Caporal, while perhaps the naughty Leontine does
the same with a cigarette, to place herself a
la hauteur de la situation, as they leisurely
lounge together, forgetful of every thing in this
busy world but themselves.
Their gayety is apt to take the form of song;
and, if veined with sentiment, the old, old story,
as told for the people by one of them, their
most gifted poet, Beranger, is sung with a fine
expression of that wit and pathos which the
songster knew so well to mingle together. If
there are two or three Leontines and as many
Jules, a livelier gayety rules the hour.  Then
the notes of Offenbach and Herve are wafted
through the trees with chorus of voice and clink
of glass.  King Blague presides. A  blaguetur
snatches up a walking stick, in guise of a guitar,
and twangs imaginary strings under fictive window in  burlesque  serenade.   Another, with
goblet of Mephistopheles in outstretched hand
and curious grimace, caricatures the "Veau
d'Or."   Nothing  is sacred; and the " Marsellaise," with its soul-stirring spirit, is turned




140        THE FRENCH AT fOM11E.
into ridicule with imitation of drum refrains and
gestures of drum-nmajor
that would  nmove  the
most melancholy mlan to
mirth.   Trumpets  are
created out of field-stalks,
and the ra-ta-tah is given
in imitation of the pet
~ ~   Q~   t  trumpeters of his late
majesty, the instruments
to one side, and elevated
after the manner of the
A Purveyor of the Palate.
originals, ill broadest
burlesque.
The compatriots of Jules and LUontine are the
inheritors of savory food and toothsome wine.
For several hundred years they have been the
leading  gastronomers.   The  glories  of the
kitchen passed from  Rome to France; and,
although the eagle may now be down, the spit is
still aloft. The person who handled this emblem
of his office two hundred years ago was an
authority that might not be disputed with impunity.  Under Louis XIV. was developed that




FRENCH LIVING.             141
punctilious honor which led Vatel to fall on his
suicidal sword like a Roman of the olden time.
Mlne. de S6vign6 tells how the failure of the fish
drove him to his chamber, where he spitted himself like a turkey, and thus embalms the memory
of the kitchen Cato in history for all time.
In the times of the Regency and Louis XV.,
he who created a new dish deserved well of his
country, and the genius of invention was unceasingly at work in the kitchen.  Dandies and
fashionable women entered the lists with the
professional man in white, and cudgelled their
brains to invent sauces, as men now do to invent
labor-saving machines.
These were what the man in white would call
the good old times, when a cclordon ble  kept his
carriage, and his society was courted by princes
of the blood; when men lived to eat, and dining
out was a profession; but he must admit, however good these times were for him, they were
bad for the state, and that whenever he reached
his apotheosis, in Rome, Athens, or Alexandria,
it was the mark of the decadence of the nation.
This fact is not as pleasant to swallow as one of




142        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
his succulent dishes; but it is well for Monsieur
le Cuisinier to take and digest it, in order better
to understand his mission, which should limit
itself to the hygienic, and to the rejection of the
superfluous and the artificial. HIe cannot evade
the responsibility: he is to some extent accountable for the downfall of nations. With his
seductive plats and wines he helped on the road
to ruin the frail Egyptians and sybaritic Greeks,
and destroyed the stern virtues of Roman warriors. At his inspiration Alexander committed
the follies of the table in the guise of Mercury
or Jupiter, and  Mark Antony arrayed himself
in the sparse garments of Bacchus, and revelled
in the pleasures of the god whom  he  portrayed, in a theatre of Athens, before a public
audience.   At his prompting, Cleopatra, in
shameless paucity of dress, presided at extravagant feasts, destroyed the idea of royal virtue in
the public mind, and softened the heads of great
Roman conquerors.  The man in white, like an
evil genius, was in at the death of the Babylonians, and of the dissolute  inhabitants of
Ephesus and Antioch. He is especially open to




FRENCH LIVING.             143
censure in the part he played in the feasts of the
Roman decadence, where the greatest men of the
time fell into drunkenness and gluttony; and one
cannot help thinking that in Hades these Luculnlus feasts must lie heavy on the conscience of
him who was the presiding genius of the terrible
degringoladce. The Egyptian cook, under similar
circumstances, may find a grain of comfort in
the fact, that, previous to the extravagant repasts
to which he administered, he caused a small
coffin, containing an ivory skeleton, to be carried
around, and shown to each guest, signifying,
"You will one day be like this: enjoy yourself
while you may."  Thus grave admonition was
implied in this lugubrious exhibition; but the
Roman cook let his people go to their doom without a single warning.
Under the Second Empire there was possibly a
tendency in Paris to follow in the footsteps of
old Rome.  Natural and factitious forces conspired to create wealth, prodigality prevailed,
and virile, intellectual life was in danger of
being destroyed in the material. The kitchen
man of Regency days had made his appearance,




144       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
and was beginning to make the placts of ancient
cldays. But the war and the dynastic overthrow
arrested the movement in this direction; and
Paris, riant, reckless, and reeling, has been
sobered by misfortune, and the healthful discipline of a new era. A long carnival has been
gone through with; andl now, doubtless, lost
forces will be recovered, at least for a time, in
the Lenten season of republicanism.




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.
THE studio of X        was at the upper end of
the Luxembourg Garden; the walls were of that
bluish gray affectioned by most painters; and the
The Model.
light was broad and soft. With him were two
women-models, one of whom had been posing.
They were both dressed; one was just completing
10                      145




146       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
her toilet. The easel bore an unfinished picture
of Pelagia in an attitude of meditation under an
olive-tree.  The painter, serious and humorous
by turns, like most Frenchmen, explained his
subject in characteristic speech.
"As you are doubtless aware," said he,
"Pelagia was a celebrated actress in Antioch,
known as the Pearl, who turned the heads of
many foolish young men, as well as those of some
old wise.ones; in a word, the Schneider of Antioch theatricals. In the midst of her gay life and
mundane triumphs, she hears a sermon by Bishop
Gregorius, a celebrated  preacher, whose eloquence brings about her conversion.  In my
picture I endeavor to seize the moment when the
change of heart begins. As you see, she seeks
solitude, and is reclining under an olive-tree in a
posture of melancholy reflection. To bring out
the traits of Pelagia, I employ two models, one
for the face and the other for the figure. As you
have been in Palestine, please tell me if my olivetree is after nature."
As I had often sat under the old olive-trees of
the Garden of Gethsemane and the Valley of




A DA Y WITH THE PAINTERS.    147
Jehoshaphat, under which Pelagia  had  also
doubtless many times reclined, I was able to give
a fair idea of their appearance. This elicited
serious discussion from him for five or ten minutes; when, turning to the models, who were on
the point of going, he said,
" Conduct yourselves wisely, my dear Pelagias,
and you will be happy. Recollect that you are
now butterfly saints who have emerged from the
chrysalis of theatrical depravity which  once
existed in the festive town of Antioch. I shall
expect you at your respective hours to-morrow;
let no pleasure-junketing interfere with your
appointment."
After the departure of the young women, the
painter went with me to an atelier on the other
side of the Seine, where students drew from the
model in classes, and on the way spoke of the
theory of judging of the appearance of men after
their work, and by way of illustration, to show
that there was no foundation for the theory,
referred to GerOme. His older works, the " Gladiateurs," the " Mort de Cesar," and " Phryne6
devant le Tribunal," as well as one of his later,




148        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
" Cleopatre," suggested a pagan taste; and his
genre pictures, like the'I Duel apres le Bal,"
indicated a muclndane dramatic character.  In a
word, his work exhibited a certain sublimated
nmaterialism  which would lead one to expect in
him  a Parisianized Oriental, full of sensuous
tastes; when, in point of fact, he was a slight,
pale man, with large, melancholy brown eyes,
and features of perfect purity of outline, - a
chastened spirit, one would say, full of charity
to all mankind; a monk of the studio, working
sadly but steadfastly in expiation of the sins of
others.  Meissonier, seen through works like the
" Attente," the " Lecture chez Diclerot," the
" Capitaine," the'" Corps de Garde," suggested
a solitary artist in  artistic  apparel living in
Bohemia, who disliked the Philistine spirit of today, and systematically shut himself in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and who, with a
horror of the tastes and habits of the bourgeoisie,
lived in regions unknown to it, - a lonely, picturesque main in sack coat and slouch hat.  AIeissonier in reality was a dapper, red-faced man, who
wore the shiniest of silk hats, and resembled more




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.          149
than any thing else that bourgeois from whom
he fled as from the wrath to come. In the works
of Bouguereau there was a poetical sadness which
indicated a pale student of nature; while in the
flesh he was a jolly, red-cheeked, plump little
man, full of gayety, - especially pleased with
Americans because they bought his pictures.
There was none of the grotesque humor of Gustave Dore's drawings in his face nor his manner,
and he might be taken for almost any one but a
painter.  That consummate master of drawing
who delighted in painting Arab scenes -Boulanger - presented nothing in his appearance either
for or against the probability of the authorship
of his work: he was a thin, sallow-faced little
man, of pleasant expression, and a head entirely
bald with the exception of three stiff little sprouts
of hair, which were always wide awake and unyielding. Lefebvre, as regarded the identification
of personality with work, occupied the same
neutral ground, - a youngish man, quick and decided in speech and movement, with large blue
eyes, and slightly bald; all of which had nothing
to do with his exquisite manner of. painting wo



150       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
man's form.  There was one, however, who
looked exactly like his work, namely, Cabanel;
by exception, to prove the rule against the theory,
a stately, courteous man, with hair and beard
almost white, and, in striking contrast to them,
dark eyes and eyebrows. Miost of his personal
characteristics were found in his pictures. In his
work of the " Naissance de Venus" there was
elegance, purity, and beauty of lines and modelling, and that sombreness in coloring which he
always employed; the purity almost attained to
coldness.  His portraits were posed in a grand
way, elegantly draped. These qualities were all
singularly like the man.
Our arrival at the atelier cut short further discussion of the subject; and we mounted a wellworn stairway of one of the old-fashioned houses
alongside the Seine, to one of the upper stories.
About twenty students were here collected,
awaiting the arrival of the person who was to
pose. A glowing stove made the place excessively warm, with a view  to the comfort of the
expected model. As it was customary to admit
only painters, X —-- advised me not to intimate




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.          151
that I did not belong to the priesthood of art, as
painters, and especially models, disliked the
presence of Philistines - laymen being thus
designated in the language of the atelier.
Presently the model arrived, - a bright, handsome brunette of nineteen or twenty.  There
was a demonstration of welcome from the painters, the door was locked, and she proceeded in a
business-like fashion to prepare for work. When
ready, she mounted a platform about two feet
high, where she fell under a lofty, broad side-light.
Two of the more advanced painters, who acted
as a committee of arrangements, placed her in a
position.  This being the first pose, there was
discussion about the posture to be assumed.
Several times the two placed her, and then retired
a few yards to observe the effect, remarking as
they did so, " Don't hold the arm so stiff," "' Incline the head a trifle," and what not, accompanied with painter's pantomime, such as slowly
sawing the head, shutting out portions with the
intercepted hand, and massing the effects with
half-closed eyes. The fourth trial proved to be a
success, at which a phrase of general satisfaction




152        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
was expressedl.  The two, enjoining her not to
budge, with the others got behind their easels,
and went to work, some taking off their coats.
One modelled in clay: with this exception all
held crayons.  All the faces turned earnestly
toward the canvas, the clay, and the model, and
not a sign of dawdling or frivolity was to be seen.
To them the woman was a statue.  N-othing was
recognized here but art: it took the form of
worship, and he who looked with other eyes than
those of an artist was accounted sacrilegious.
Thus the public opinion of the atelier made them
all artists; and, if the art feeling was not possessed,
it was assumed.
After a time the silence was broken by her
requesting some one to heat up the stove as she
was cold, which brought out one or two ejaculations, and a murmur that we were already in the
interior of Africa; to which she retorted that
they would not think so if they were in her place.
Another long silence was interrupted by her asking the time, at which one of the elders remarked,
" Not yet, mademoiselle."  Again, in  a few
minutes she said she was sure the time must be




A DAY WITHI THE PAINTERS.    153
up.  "It is, my child,"  answered the same
elder: " repose yourself."  She left the stand,
drew a mantle about her, and took a seat by the
stove with a sense of relief.  She was obliged to
look out for herself in regard to the time of posing, as the painters were usually so absorbed as
to forget it.
The repose of the model brought with it a contrast to the previous silence. There was a general buzz, and lighting of pipes and cigarettes.
Two or three compliments were addressed to the
model for her excellent posing; native gallantry
cropped out, and two or three told her she was
an angel or a duchess, to which she replied in
that spirit of raillery with which these things
were uttered.  This was an illustration of French
character, - fond of work, and equally fond of
play.
I approached the model as she sat by the stove,
and entered into conversation with her, when I
learned that she had another occupation, that of
artificial flower maker, by which she earned three
francs a day. Posturing was  naturally more
profitable; she received five francs for the two




1.54      THE FRENCH AT HOME.
hours and a half to three hours she remained in
the atelier, during which she posed about two
hours, the remainder being taken up in rests.
The times of repose she called her entr'ctctes.
Believing me to be a painter, she called my
attention, in a simple, natural way, to the roundness of her arm, the texture and color of the
skin, and the curved lines of her shoulder. She
went on to say in a manner purely professional, -
"lMy arms and shoulders are my best points,
and I occasionally pose for them: I like it much
better than posing for the whole figure."
At length the painter in authority told her it
was tinme to resume the pose, and before stepping
on the platform she looked at his watch. She
was posing for Cynthia, who cast the shepherd
Endymion into a deep sleep in order to kiss him.
One of the painters having acquainted her with
the mythological story of the artful stealing of
the osculation, she observed that she paid very
little attention to such nonsense, - besides, one
could not believe more than half these painters
said about such things. Then she fell cleverly




A DAY WITII THE PAINTERS.        155
into the posture, guided by a few directions. As
they proposed to work on the face, she was instructed to wear a pleased expression. Cynthia
was taken at the moment she is advancing toward
the sleeping Endymion to snatch the kiss, coy,
and yet impelled by sweet temptation.
"Try, my child," said the man in authority,
" to imagine that the young man you love is
lying asleep before you, with his pockets full
of bank-notes."
This had the desired effect: the model could
not help laughing, and the traces of it remained
some time on her face. All fell to work again,
and silence was supreme, as each tried to transfer Cynthia's happy face to canvas. Once in a
while, when, through lassitude or forgetfulness,
she modified the posture, papac- the elder painter
- said to her sharply, "I Mademoiselle, pay
attention; " which showed that, however much
license was allowed during the rests, rigid discipline was exacted in time of work.
When she got through, she made her toilet in
the same business-like way that she had unmade
it. She asked for a looking-glass to complete




106        THE FRENCHI AT HOME.
it, but the article could not at once be found.
" What savages! " said she; " twenty men, and
not one mirror! But I am not surprised at it:
you are such monsters you. are afraid to look at
yourselves."   As Frenchmen like to be* called
monsters by the women, this was taken as a
general compliment.  At length a cracked mirror
— poetically styled staclred - was produced, before which she smoothed out her plumage like a
bird in the sunshine. 1H1er attire was simple: a
sombre-colored little hat, black alpaca robe, dark
brown mantle, closely fitting gloves and boots,
and a parasol in hand, comprised her costume.
Equipped, she had the demeanor of a rosi~re  of
Nanterre, or a convent girl.  The five-franc
piece was handed to her enveloped in paper, a
mark of delicacy.  After making an appointment
for another day, she passed out with a modest,
quiet air, amidst a general chorus of adlieus.
The painters soon followed the model, except
three who remained behind to select other models.
X     was one of these, which permitted me also
to remain.  The trio discussed the defects, as
well as the -points, in the flowerist who had just




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.    157
left, after which it was decided that another
model was necessary to complete their Cynthia.
They also expressed a desire to have a man to
pose for Samson; and, as they were talking about
it, such a one, amongst others, presented himself.
HIe said that he had achieved success as John the
Baptist and Ajax; he averred that he was even
strong enough to do the Laoco6n. He was requested to strip, which he did with despatch.
He was a man of extreme masculine development, looking like a prize-fighter of the heavy
weights. lHe was placed in several postures which
brought out the muscles like cords; and whilst
going through these attitudes he called attention
to his points: " There is a leg for' you, messieurs,
strong enough to support the faXade of the
Mfadeleine. And this breast, - you might break
stones on it. I beg you to examine the arm, a
bundle of ropes twisted together - quoi!"
The Ajax was going on in this strain, when he
was interrupted by one of the painters, who told
him he had too much of one thing. On his asking what that was, he was informed that it was
tongue.




158       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
"'That is a bad foot you have there, my
friend," remarked a painter.' There is nothing the matter with it, monsieur."
" One of the bones is gone. How did you
lose it?"
" What an eye monsieur has! A surgeon took
it out after an accident."
It required a practised eye to note this slight
malformation; but these painters, trained in anatomy like surgeons, were not long in discovering
it. As soon as the model learned that he was to
be engaged to pose for Samson, he said that he
had done it before, and with remarkable success.
Showing his brawny arms, he asked if they did
not also want something else; he was up to the
requirements of the Fighting Gladiator, or any
thing in that line. I ventured to inquire which
gladiator; and he replied, as one who recited an
often-told tale, -
" He of the Louvre, a pugilist: antique, brown
with age; attitude leaning forward; left hand
raised on guard, right hand thrown out back
ready to strike a side-blow; right leg bent;




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.    159
straight line from the head to the, toe of left
foot; muscles vividly revealed in intense development; a wonderful petrifaction, as if he had
been smitten to stone at the instant of striking."
"How well he describes it," I observed to my
companion.
" Yes: he is repeating the catalogue."' After
the departure of the strong man, other models
made their appearance, men and women; but
most of them went away without securing an enengagement. The chief aim of the committeecharged with the business was, to find models
possessing a leading characteristic, - a laughing
man, a fierce one, a noble one; a sad woman, a
gay one; and so on. Naturally, a prime object
of pursuit was the beautiful woman, concerning
whom opinions differed somewhat, but the most
general one was that she possessed abundant
hair, golden or warmly-tinted light brown; a
rather small head, low forehead, eyebrows delicately arched; eyes'a fleur de tOte, contrary to the
idea of the ancients, who put them deep in the
head; that oval outline of face which has been
classic from all time; legs long, and a waist con



160       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
sequently. short. She was a woman of chaste
syunmetry, the reverse of the massive woman of
the old Flemish painters. It was held in the
atelier, that fat destroyed the line of beauty, and
robbed color of its delicate transparency, and
was, in a word, the great enemy of the beautiful
woman. The Grecian nose, describing a straight
line to the top of the forehead, was regarded as
an affectation, and therefore to be cast out of the
temple of art as something pernicious, in obedience to that axiom that nothing is beautiful but
the true.
In the examination of the models, there was
discussion concerning the poising or balancing of
the figure, the rule being that the head should be
directly over the foot on which the body, rests,
and that in whatever direction the head turned
the weighted foot should follow.  Compliance
with this rule brought the figure into the most
natural position. If the head was thrown back
to look up, the foot was moved back to conserve
the equilibrium; and as the head was thrust forward there was the corresponding movement of
the resting foot. The head was never to be




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.         161
turned without a corresponding movement of the
body; the turn beginning at the neck, and descending to the waist. The head was not to be thrown
back except to look up. The license in the use
of arms and legs was greater, yet subject to certain formulas. The hand in any ordinary action
was not to reach higher than the head, the fist
higher than the shoulder, the foot higher than
the knee; and in the tranquil pose the space between the feet should not exceed one foot. The
sympathetic action of the body with the leading
movement was never to be lost sight of; an arm
is raised, and all that side of the body exhibit
the same tendency, even to the heel which rises
from the floor.
The key to art in the matter of posing was to
have the model well poised; for it was held, that,
unless there was solidity in the pose, it was unnatural. Hence the oft-repeated question to the
model, "' Do you feel easy?" and, to satisfy by
comparison, the model was occasionally requested
to take her own natural position, and say whether
she felt as comfortable in the other as this one.
Those who arranged the pose also put themselves
1 1




162        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
in the same attitude, to discover if there was any
constraint in it, and then changed it to others, to
arrive at the poise by comparison, as in the case
of the model. Without familiarity with the pose
on the part of the model, it was impossible to
get that naivete' of movement indispensable in a
true work of art. The affectation which came
from constrained position was what was most to
be avoided; and the aim always in view was, not
to show science in art, but nature. According
to these painters, the grace and nobility of expression in the work of the ancients came to
them, in great part, from  simplicity of pose.
Exaggeration of movement was something fraught
with evil to art; and the, ateliers where it was
practised were referred to as the gymnasiums of
contortionists, the racks of tortured models, and
the homes of body-wrigglers and face-twisters.
The workers in this atelier were opposed to the
representation of heightened, heroic action, designated by them  as extravagant and melodramatic; and in this I think that French painters
generally share their idea. The tendency of art
to-day is toward pictures which represent repose




A DA Y WITH THE PAINTERS.         163
The age is not militant, but peaceful: no civilized
people would now wage a thirty-years' war. The
senses are becoming more refined, and scenes of
violence more revolting; and the general desire
of comfort, and a life free from perils and shocks,
is finding its way into the pictures.  Hence the
fashion of what are called, for want of a better
name, genre pictures, with the peaceful, red-hued
warriors of Meissonier, and the lazy, poetical figures of G6r6me.  Painters, guided by the spirit
of the age, select subjects from modern life that
are not of a harrowing character, - those that
tell of gentle emotions and amiable sentiments,
and little domestic scenes, such as the " BWnidicit6," the " Priere;" and the " Bibliotheque"
of Edouard Frere; the "' Sceurs de Charit, " the
" Pharmacie," the " Toilette," and the " Consolation" of Madame Henriette Brown; and the
views of luxurious life of Toulmouche and Tissot.
The picture-buyers are in a great measure responsible for the genre picture, for the painter
forms himself after their taste.  Two hundred
years ago only rich lords and powerful princes
could own pictures. Now there is general culti



164        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
vation, and a desire to possess, under the restriction of certain limits in the way of price. Besides, apartments are small, which imposes limitation in space as well as in money, and historical
pictures can only find a place in a public gallery.
Thus money, space, and the general taste, are
against the follower of Paul Delaroche.  The
time is past, at least for years to come, for painting such pictures as the " Radeau de la Meduse"
of Gericault, and the " Martyre de Saint Symphorien" of Ingres; for neither the taste of the
public nor the genius of the painters runs in this
direction.  The high horse of art has been ridden so hard as to be run to death, and the mediocrities who have been astride of him during the
last few years hastened the demise.  This one,
like Pegasus, must be mounted by one who knows
how; otherwise he is soon overtaken with ignominious limp and disastrous fall.  Historical art,
in a word, is like tragedy, which must be interpreted by genius; in the hands of mediocrity it
falls into that ridicule from which it is separated
by only a single step.
The genre picture has been popularized in




A DAY WITH THE PA INTERS.    165
some measure by the excess of work in the old
field.  From   gladiators fighting  and dying,
church subjects from the Holy Family through
all the saints, battles full of carnage, agony, and
death, the mind now turns away with a sense of
relief, to the contemplation of the actual and
comparatively tranquil scenes of to-day. Richard Coeur de Lion laying open the head of a
Saracen with his terrible battle-axe does not
possess half the interest of a couple of lovers
under the trusting tree. Ajax defying the lightning is not nearly as engaging as a couple of
chubby, joyous children in the midst of a flock
of poultry. The amateur remorselessly turns
away from Coesar agonizing under the stroke of
Brutus, to dwell on Belinda reading a declaration
from her beloved. Togas, sandals, and Olympian games have had their day, as well as the
after-coming doublet and hose, flounce and ruffle.
The amateur will no longer look at the ancient
Bayard defending a bridge single-handed against
hundreds; but Bayard of the nineteenth century,
uttering his glib and gallant speech in a boudoir,
occupies him for half an hour. He is surfeited




166        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
with the flash of swords, tired of majestic Jupiters and weeping Didos, but is quickly absorbed
in a child tending geese or a tatterdemalion
riding a donkey. The picture which he likes is
hard to fix with a definition. Every other department of painting save this has a name which
interprets clearly what it is. Thus historical,
battle, religious, animal, marine, landscape, and
still-life pictures have names which leave no
doubt as to what they are; but genre is a vague
designation, which covers a wide field of subjects,
— something purely conventional, meaning any
thing from a man to an infant, or a camel to a
mouse. In a desire to arrive at a closer definition, the genre is called by some an easel picture,
which is perhaps the nearest approach that can
be made to a classification. It is a small canvas
which tells a simple story that almost every one
can understand, and this best suits an unheroic
age.
The painters in the school alongside the Seine
were affected by the vogue, as well as the amateurs who linger about Goupil's gallery, and exhibited little ambition to walk in the footsteps o'




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.          167
Ingres and Eugene Delacroix in the regions of
high art, but showed a marked tendency to follow
in the field of those masters who were reaping
harvests in the production of easel pictures.
There are many who think that the present
fashion is injurious to art, and that the masters
who confine themselves to the production of easel
pictures are like composers of music who coinmpose only pretty ballads and waltzes to the
neglect of grand operas; that the grand grouping of the large picture requires the exercise of
the highest faculty of the painter, - that of creation; and that the restricted use of his lesser
faculties in the production of small simple subjects dwarfs his power. Those who favor the
present movement derisively  affix  the word
romantic to the pictures of such as Gros, who
to-day would be a giant reaching head and
shoulders above contemporaneous painters. And
they who remain faithful to the interpretation of
the grand passions are distanced in the race for
honor and gain. It is the expression of the same
prevalent taste which pronounces against the eloquence of the classic orator in favor of the un



168       TIE FRENCH AT HOME.
varnished language of the simple talker, - which
turns away from the grandeur of Mozart to the
easily-comprehended airs of Auber.  All the
arts have undergone a change since the existence
of the last empire, and that materialism which
belonged to it has almost destroyed the taste for
the heroic.  That a certain change from  the
overcharged pictures of the past is a healthy sign,
there is little doubt; but the juste milieu has
been passed, as is generally the case in such
movements, and the other extreme reached. The
picture of Napoleon on a gray horse, galloping
up the Alps, swathed in a voluminous mantle,
with his face turned toward the spectator as if
seeking his admiration, was mock-heroic, and is
now properly condemned. On the other hand,
the picture of the same subject by David, where
the great captain labors up the mountain side on
a led mule, his face lost in melancholy abstraction, is not appreciated at its just value, through
the want of heroic sentiment. Any subject
which bears a resemblance to the act of getting
upon stilts, in the estimation of the majority of
painters and amateurs, now meets with unquali



A DAY WITH THE' PAINT1ERS.         169
fled disapproval, and shows the remarkable reaction which has taken place.
Still occasional efforts are made by men of
talent, out of the popular field, that are attended
with fair results. Of these Bouguereau is one;
and, of the few heroic subjects he has attempted,
The Model at Fifty.
one of the best is the " Flight of Orestes,"
where the stabber of Clytemnestra is pursued by
the Furies; it shows some power, and is very
good in color. I-le has another of the same
order hanging in his atelier, of a scene in the
infernal regions, strong but extravagant. But




170       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
these pictures must be considered rather as experiments; for the heart of Bouguereau dwells in
pleasant scenes of every day, such as Italian
women and children in costume. Cabanel is
generally regarded as the foremost man in the
department of romcantic art. His " Birth of
Venus " has a wide reputation, but is unpleasant
to me both in color and manner of treatment.
Of those that I have seen, his "' Nymph and the
Satyr," — I am not sure of the title, - which
hangs in the Luxembourg, is the best specimen
of his work. The satyr has raised the nymph
from the ground, and encloses her with his left
arm, while his right hand firmly grasps one of
her arms as she struggles for release; her head
is thrown back and turned from him in horror
and disgust, while her massive golden hair almost
sweeps the ground. The contrast is fine between
the dark-brown flesh of the monster and that of
the beautiful and symmetrical woman. The
satyr is crowned with scarlet poppies and green
leaves, a leopard-skin depends from his back,
and his features are relaxed by a sensual grin.
The background, with far-off slaty-blue hills, is




A DAY WITH TIHE PAINTERS.        171
very good. Almost all painters are fond of chiaroscuro, ever since Rembrandt revealed its power;
but Cabanel is an exception. He holds that it is
not necessary to have dark shadows in order to
relieve and to model, and his productions are
comparatively free from them. There is so little
shadow in them that the idea is suggested of- a
little clap-trap in making the light so artificial.
Gustave Moreau is another painter who shows an
inclination to follow in the path which has been
almost abandoned since the death of Ingres
and Eugene Delacroix, and his pictures, the
"Orphans " and the " Young Man and Death,"
show a rare taste and much delicacy. There are
others who occasionally do this kind of work,
but few or none who devote themselves entirely
to it. The case is quite different with painters
of religious subjects, animals, still life, &c., each
one of whom, as a rule, confines himself to his
special branch of art.
In the evening X-  conducted me to another
atelier in the Passage Panorama, near the Boulevard des Italiens. The stairs which we mounted
led up to a little room whose walls were gar



172       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
nished with studies in oil, and shelves upon which
were placed plaster casts of various heads and
figures from the antique, while in separate
corners stood, colossal figures of the Venus of
Milo and the Venus of Medicis. One side of
the room formed an arched doorway, closed by
the heavy folds of a green curtain, which was
pulled aside, when we came full upon a scene
that to me was novel. At the further end of the
atelier, on a carpeted platform, with green
drapery for background, stood what I was
tempted to believe was the wax figure of a
woman, so motionless was she, with the numerous gas-jets, with shining reflectors behind them,
directed full upon her. What first destroyed the
illusion was the movement of the eyes, which
began turning slowly in our direction; save in
this, the woman was as immovable as a statue.
The professor who had charge of the atelier was
much pleased with the immobility of the pose,
and said, " Perfect;" upon which a rosy wave
passed from the temples of the woman over her
face, and disappeared in her shoulders as her
eyes grew something brighter. In looking at the




A DAY WITH THE PAINTERS.         173
model, a new consciousness of the fact was
acquired, that in nature woman is the highest
expression of the beautiful. As the work went
on the fall of a pin might have been heard, for
the professor was a rigid disciplinarian. At
length he ordered a rest, when the working rules,
as in the other atelier, were entirely suspended,
and every one moved about and talked as he
pleased. The model drew a shawl about her
person, and seated herself on the end of the platform.
The painters of this atelier were composed of
both sexes, working together apparently without
difficulty. Six or seven women were present,
two of whom were Americans.  On making the
acquaintance of one of the latter she observed, —
" Some of our countrymen find an impropriety in our working in a mixed atelier, and
perhaps there is, according to society's code.
But, if a woman wants to be a painter, she must
get over her squeamishness; if she wants to
paint strong and well like a man, she must go
through the same training.  The trial to a modest young woman is at first great; but, as soon




174        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
as she is possessed of the art feeling, the first
impression which she receives on entering the
atelier quickly wears away, and she is soon
absorbed in her work like those around her.
There is no sex here: the students, men and
women, are simply painters.  In the atelier,
excessive modesty in a woman painter is a sign
of mediocrity; only the woman who forgets the
conventionalities of society in the pursuit of art
stands a chance for distinction. If the woman
has not a desire, an enthusiasm, to profit by the
advantages of the atelier, she had better never
touch paint nor pencil. This is one of the best
ateliers in Paris to learn to paint in, and this is
a sufficient reason for our coming here.  Society
can no more be governed by the rules of art,
than the atelier can be governed by the rules of
society.  If Rosa Bonheur had occupied her
time looking after the proprieties, she would not
stand where she does to-day."
There was something almost defiant in the
remarks of the young woman, as if she held a
position that required  defending.  What she
said, too, left an inference that she had broken




A DAY WITH THIE PAINTERS.        175
many lances in maintaining herself on what is
regarded as debatable ground.
There was posing  in this atelier day and
night.  The models succeeded each other in
alternation, - men one week, women the next,
varied sometimes by little children, and even an
occasional negro. Every Monday, a number of
models appeared at the atelier to exhibit their
good points, in the hope of being engaged by
the professor.  Each one, as his or her turn
came, stepped on the platform, going through
the various poses with the utmost gravity and
decorum. It was rather a sad spectacle, as most
of them  had to be turned away. On this day,
also, each student selected his or her place for
the entire week, and the first comner had his
name placed first on the list. Then caine the
selection of the pose, which was often a difficult
matter, and constumed sometimes two or three
hours, so various were the pros and cons regarling each pose; often it had to be settled by
vote. As soon as the pose had been agreed
upon, the first name on the list was called,
the student thus summoned selected the best




176       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
place from which to see the model, put his stool
and easel there, and drew a chalk line on the
floor around the spot, with his initials in the
inside, in order to claim it in case it were appropriated by another during an accidental absence
or a tardy appearance. The next student on
the list selected the next best place, and so on
till the end. Those who drew without painting
occupied  low  ranges  of stools immediately
around the model, so as not to interfere with
the view of the painters beyond them.  The
model posed for three-quarters of an hour, beginniing a quarter after the striking of the hour,
and continuing until the next striking, the succeeding quarter being occupied as a rest. As
in the other atelier, the rests were devoted to
amusements, the models contributing thereto as
well as the students.  They made caricatures
of each other; if any one manifested vexation
at being caricatured, he never after had any
peace, for they all drew him then, and with the
most ignoble traits. A person of this kind was
being burlesqued while I was present.  They
drew him as a jumping-jack, and as a devil pop



A DAY WITH' THE PAINTERS.    177
ping out of a box.  He had a turn-up nose
which was dwelt upon with an exaggeration of
form that moved almost every one to mirthfulness; the laughter of the model brought the
tears to her eyes.
A fine-looking old-man model was a favorite
in the atelier, and during his rests went about
among the easels to criticise the work. He had
been a model all his life, and had often posed for
Couture, Lefebvre, G6rome, and other noted
artists; it was said his traits could be recognized in a number of their pictures. Another
model, a powerful fellow who posed for the
strong men, was a prestidigitator, who, during
his rests, performed tricks with cards and handkerchiefs, and juggled tumblers, with, the dexterity and audacity of a circus-performer.  A
younger model was a standing butt for having
at an unfortunate moment boasted that the blood
of the Perigords flowed in his veins. He was
never allowed to forget it; and, when he neglected his pose, one of the young men would cry
out to correct him, 1" The pose, the pose!" and
another would respond, " How can you expect
12




178        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
a Perigord to mind the pose? ridiculous!" et
cetera.
A  number of these ateliers exist in Paris,
offering facilities, not found elsewhere in the
world, to all who desire to learn to paint, drawn,
and model in clay, in addition to the government schools in the Beaux Arts.  A magnificent temple is furnished by the government for
the exhibition of statues and pictures; honors
are conferred on those who distinguish themselves in any branch of art.  The government
galleries, full of treasures in marble and canvas,
are thrown open to all without price, which
renders them as accessible to the poor as to the
rich. Art delineation in books and journals is
general and cheap. Through the -fostering care
of the authorities, joined to a native aptitude,
the art sentiment is more generally developed
than in any other country, and the evidences of
it are seen in many ways.  One of its common
expressions is in the ordinary signs over the shops
and taverns, which are often execnted by men
who merit the name of artists instead of signpainters. One often meets with a piece of still




A DA Y WITH THE PAINTERS.    179
life over the door of an  eating-house or a
wine-shop equal to what hangs on the diningroom  walls of an epicure. As a rule, every
man is an artist in his profession, be he prime
minister mounted on the theatrical tribune of
the chamber, or cook in spotless white behind
his glittering  array of saucepans.   Mantuamakers agonize over the importance of a waist
a quarter of an inch too long, and head-ornarmenters ponder for hours over the question of
putting a rosebud or a japonica in the hair of
madame the countess.  The shoemaker makes
a study of the feet of Monsieur Chose; and,
though they should have the shape of tadpoles,
they shall be hid in forms that are passable.
A Lais takes up a man's. silk hat that has been
sat upon and crushed nearly flat, and wagers
that she shall wear it in the Bois de Boulogne;
the artist in chapeaux is summoned to her aid,
and the unsightly thing, through the power of
artful adjuncts, becomes a picturesque object;
and the day following its exhibition a halfdozen imitations show themselves on the tour du
lac.  The government places graceful groups




180        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
in marble without the portals of the Grand
Opera, and within fixes the form and the number
of petticoats which each danseuse shall wear.
It subsidizes art in its swaddling-clothes in the
conservatories, and maintains it in its maturity
in the same way in theatres and operas.  The
municipality of Paris constructs a capital which
is a monument to art, the most beautiful in the
world. The love of beautiful things is stimulated in every direction; its fruits are seen in
every department of life; and it is plain that
without such encouragement art would never
have have attained  its present development.
The authorities make the study of art a business, as they do the construction of bridges,
the improvement of rivers and highways; and
there is intelligent, educated direction in the
expenditure of money for art purposes, the same
as for practical objects.  Our government may
not go as far in this direction as that of France;
but the. art features of our capital attest that
we might profit by what has been done in that
artistic country, for much of the money that




A DAY WITH TIlE PAINTERS.        181
has been from time to time voted by Congress
for art decoration has been simply thrown
away.
The End of the Model.




WORDS AND PHRASES.
THE chief characteristics of French are clearness, finesse, and  precision.   Its exactness
admits of nothing vague, which is doubtless the
reason why it has been so long employed as the
language of diplomacy.  For the expression of
the wild, the horrible, the lofty, the terrible,- in
a word, the tongue of genius, - English seems
better.  Such  an  opinion, however, is not
accepted by Frenchmen, who naturally consider
their tongue the most perfect of all. It is hard
to judge the capacities of a foreign language
with impartiality, because patriotism  becomes
involved in the question, to say nothing of the
difficulty of understanding it as well as the
native one. To know any one thing well is to
exaggerate its merits; to the carpenter there is
no instrument like the plane, and to the shoemaker there is nothing like leather.  A  few
182




WORDS AND PHRASES.           183
scientists of England have written their books in
French; and one of these, Sir William Jones, the
Orientalist, who apparently wrote with the same
ease in both languages, held that French was the
tongue of science, on account of its remarkable
precision: but I do not recollect his making
mention of any superior feature of his native
language.
French is undoubtedly the language of conversation, in being chiefly composed of epigrammatic phrases and euphemisms, which seem to
fit into every incident of social life.  Peoples
make their language to suit their character, and
the French have naturally made theirs to this
end.  Our vehicle of thought would be too
cumbrous for their airiness and vivacity. On
the other hand, there is a richness in words, and
a rugged boldness and strength, in the English,
which adapt it to the highest kind of eloquence,
and the most stirring poetry. To the man born
with the gift of bringing out its forces, it produces lasting effects that seem to be denied to
the French. The utterances of Lacordaire, the
modern Bossuet, were good for a day or a week;




184       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
but those of one or two of his English or American contemporaries will be remembered by those
who heard them, perhaps, as long as they live.
Had Shakspeare been complete master of
French, and written his plays in the genius of
that language, an Anglo-Saxon cannot help
thinking that part of their power would be gone;
that he would have failed in depth, grandeur,
dignity, and that English humor of which his
race is so fond; also in universality, for the
French mind is not universal.
No one would think of denying to the French
wonderful expression of a dramatic character.
Their effects in speech are clear, well-defined,
striking; and in their production the Frenchman
is an artist unequalled.  Our machinery of
words is heavier, and more difficult to put in
motion; but, when once set going by the man of
genius, the results to us appear to be greater
than can be effected through the French. The
language of France is bristling with points
almost ready made for the tongue; in English
they must be made for use as they are required,
and then, sharpened and burnished as they may




WORDS AND PHRASES.           185
be, are only blunt affairs. Gallic thrusts are
light and rapid like the stroke of a rapier; those
of the English are blunt and heavy as a club.
The Frenchman has all his instruments for each
particular purpose in his language, and kills a
fly with a pin, and an ox with a spear, while we
are apt to kill them both with the same weapon.
One is light artillery, and the other heavy. One
has the sharpness and delicacy of a Damascus
blade; the other, the power of a bludgeon.
English being more a language of words than
phrases, its forms are more varied, and it is
more susceptible of originality.  It allows, and
indeed compels, individual choice; thus each one
is forced in a measure to make a style of his
own. Styles of French writing naturally present
differences, but not so great as in English. In
the former hardly any extremes in a like number
of French contemporaries can be found equal to
those exhibited in a group of English writers,
such as Hawthorne, Charles Reade, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Edgar A. Poe, Charles Dickens, and
Bret Harte, each being distinctly and individually himself. A group of the same number of




186       THE FRENCHI AT HOME.
the most widely differing writers of contemporary
France would probably be composed of George
Sand, Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, Alexandre
Dumas pere, Feydeau, and Paul de Kock; a
more diverging selection might be made of this
nationality, as well as of English; but they are
both approximative, and the best occurring at this
moment. To an impartial and competent critic,
the variety of style presented in the English is
certainly greater than that of the French group;
one is composed of primary colors, and the other
of neutral tints, which in a great measure is the
result of the phrase feature. Given two-thirds
of a phrase in French, the critical reader can
give a good guess as to the remaining words
which complete it. The words are set into their
appropriate places in the sentence as mosaics are
inserted to make up a determinate whole. The
logical sequences of the sentences themselves are
almost as well known as the exact words used for
each occasion of life. Let the incident happen
in a given manner, and the conversation may
almost be supplied in advance. This represses
originality of character in the  style.  Their




WORDS AND PHRASES.            187
method in literary work, too, differs from  ours.
The chief aim with us appears to be the delineation of character, as may be seen particularly in
the works of Thackeray, where there is munch
good description of men and women, but remarkable absence of plot, and consequently but little
dramatic effect.  This talent of personal delineation was also the'chief merit of Dickens. Charles
Reade may be regarded as an exception, for he
makes plots, and works them  out according to
the principles of art.  When a Frenchman does
literary work, he seeks what he calls his mother
idea which pervades all, and on which all rests.
This idea is never lost sight of; it is the pourquoi of every incident, and is the base on which
is constructed what is called in technical language
the chacrpente.  Character delineation is always
made subservient to scenical effects, and is sacrificed where it interferes with. the active and
regular development of the drama.  Character
receives its form and color chiefly from the action
of the romance, while with us it is a portrait
painted by the author. Thus the French are
superior to the English in dramatic construction,
but inferior in personal delineation.




188       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
With us language shapes itself from without
and within.;New words are created and old
ones resuscitated at home, and contributions are
levied on several modern tongues abroad. The
language thus goes on changing and forming
itself in entire freedom, according to the requirements and whims of the people. Foreign tongues
exert but little or no influence on the French
language, and whatever modifications and restrictions are placed on it come from within. There
is a freedom in English in its government and
progress which likens it to a democracy, while
the submission of the French to the wishes of
the French Academy brings it nearer to the
tongue of an aristocracy. The French people
seem to recognize the necessity of some such
authority as the Academy to conserve the purity,
order, and genius of their language, although
they do not at all times acknowledge the wisdom
of the dicta of that distinguished body. The
Academy, for instance,- according to Paris journals, —does not admit the following words:
decigramme, annexion, patroner, ausculter, de6sinvolture, d6tournement, discutable, illogique, in



WORDS AND PHRASES.            189
sulter, progresser, proletcriat; and it declares
that abbe, rabbin, sabbat, and their derivatives
only, double the b; according to which gibbosite'
would become gibosite, gibbeux gibetux, et cetera.
There are critics who hold that the Academy, in
its endeavor to inaugurate such a change of usage
as that involved in the rejection of these words
and the different spelling of others, has transcended its legitimate authority' and that it is
hardly wise to allow elderly scholars out of the
general movement of modern life, like those of
the Academy, to shape the language which is
always changing and moving onward to something
better or worse; and that it would be better to
have the privilege shared by younger men who
are in the midst of the present and in a position
to note the popular currents of speech.
There is such a love of administration in the
French in every department of art and science,
that they hardly get on without it in language;
and so it is handed over to the Academy, where
it is administered upon, like every thing else in
France.  Were such a national institute founded
on this side the water by act of Congress, -if




190       THTIE FRENCH AT HOME.
such a thing were constitutional,- it would be
safe to predict that its opinions would never be
sanctioned as those of the French Academy are.
The individual citizen here would be sure to
exercise his own judgment in a matter of this
kind, as he does in politics.
Whatever the influence of the venerable institution has been, there is an observable tendency
within the last few years toward compactness in
the French language; clearness it has always
had. This tendency is as manifest in our own.
One is soon satisfied of this in looking over the
inflated July orations of the past, and the attenuated, interminable sentences of many of the
early statesmen. Some of the elderly politicians
of to-day still speak and write in this style.
Emerson may be regarded, on this side, as a
kind of John the Baptist of compact, concrete,
virile writing. He of course did not create it,
but he was one of the first to feel the power of
such expression. A man of the old style would
have beaten out one of his compact ten-paged
essays into one of a hundred.  The leading
journals all bear evidence of this change in their




WORDS AND PHRASES.            191
cleverness and directness of statement.  It has
also modified conversation.  Among novelists,
the brief, vigorous sentences of Charles Reade
have made him conspicuous in this kind of work.
But a Frenchman has gone further in this direction than our most advanced, - Hippolyte Taine.
In most of his writing each small group of words
- barely enough, and certainly not one too many
- rapidly and graphically carries the idea to the
readerl; this quickly gives place to another, and
so in succession, the whole showing that aversion
to articles as parts of speech which characterizes
our New England philosopher.
This trait of directness in writing is more
general in all French literature than in ours, and
is still more pronounced in speech. The subject
may be of little interest, but the form is almost
always good. As the French are a nation of
talkers, much of what they say is not worth
listening to, for it is impossible for those who are
continually talking to be always talking well;
but what is uttered is clear and idiomatic as far
as each sentence goes. They talk for the sake
of talking. At a table d'hote or in a railway




192'      THE FRENCH AT HOME.
carriage, they have a knack, seldom possessed
by an Englishman, of slipping easily, unrestrainedly, into conversation with their neighbors,
though they have never seen them before. A
glass of water, handing a newspaper, raising a
window, passing a chair, lighting a cigar, and a
hundred other things, are made the pretexts for
opening up the way; and the conversation has
not progressed five minutes before the beginner
of it has insidiously slipped one or two compliments into the minds of those with whom he
talks, to say nothing of that side-play in which
he appears to attach importance to their opinions,
and to listen to them with an occasional expression of approval. To most people the manner
and speech of this man are very winning. Such
an one meets an English traveller at table, who is
doubtful about a sentence he has just pronounced
to the Gaul, and says to his amiable companion
apparently listening to him with much interest,
that he is afraid that what he has said is hardly
French; to which the Gallic convive answers,
"' No, monsieur, but it deserves to be." Impossible to be more polite. An instance is given of




WORDS AND PHRASES.           193
the opposite kind, showing the love of form in
the last extremity: Malherbe is on his deathbed; to inspire him with fervor and resignation,
his confessor describes the joys of Paradise, in
which description he uses common and poorly
constructed phrases.  Having  completed his
description, he asks the dying man if he does
not feel a great desire to enjoy these celestial
pleasures. Malherbe answers, " Monsieur, speak
of them no more; your wretched style has disgusted me with them."
Franklin left more sayings behind him than
any of his countrymen, and prudence is the pivot
on which they turn. But epigrammatic phrase is
rarer in the mouths of our great men than those of
France. Washington is credited with saying to
Alexander Hamilton that he " almost waited for
him," - an awkward translation of the words of
Louis XIV. The "welcome with bloody hands
to hospitable graves," of Corwin, is rather long
and inflated.  The " irrepressible conflict" of
Seward is one of the best. It was the admionitory signal of national calamity, afterwards
serving as a battle-flag.  The " charity to all
13




194       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
and malice toward none," of Lincoln, is good;
besides, there was a certain twist in the phraseology of the late president which lent itself to
epigram, - a twist difficult to describe, but easily
recognized. The strength of his language is in
striking contrast to the generally attenuated
sentences of twenty or thirty years ago; and, as
the tendency is now toward compactness, his
speeches and papers will doubtless be more
esteemed by posterity than they were by his contemporaries. However good the body of their
speeches may have been, our great men have left
scarcely any little groups of words that live. It
is much the same with the British fathers: but
few had the talent of sending a word quickly and
directly to its exact destination, as a billiard
player pockets a ball; and of these Sydney Smith
was one of the most skilful, and not far behind
him  Horace Walpole, who in character was
half a Frenchman. Every distinguished Frenchman has pronounced his memorable mot, - even
to that humorous creation Joseph Prudhomme,
with his, "1 Messieurs, cc sabre, c'est le plus beau
jour de ma vie."  One of the most quoted is that




WORDS AND PHRASES.            195
of Voltaire, with its alliterative jingle, " Canaux,
canards, canaille," intended as a description of
Holland.  In popular estimation, a life, however
noted, that does not furnish a mtot, is regarded as
incomplete.
It is interesting to note the change of signification in words common  to English  and
French. Susceptible, as employed by us, usually
means impressionable in matters of the heart,
easily won.  The word which takes its place in
French is sensible: thus when a person is susceptible, with them, he or she is sensible. When
they use "' susceptible " it has the significance of
our " sensitive; " thus a person of a touchy, sensitive nature, is susceptible.  Not unfrequently
the Englishman  or American, in the general
desire of saying something gallant to the French
woman, tells her that he is susceptible, i.e., that
he is a poor, sensitive kind of man, instead of the
expansive, heart-in-hand sort of one he wishes
to pass for.  In sensibility we give the word its
proper meaning, - the faculty of readily receiving
impressions; but the adjective I" sensible" coInmonly means practical, and is applied to one who




196        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
has what is called good common sense.  The
French to express this quality often use sense and
prcatique, but never sensible; and when the foreigner describes himself as - what he deems - a
cool, practical, matter-of-fact man, he is really
saying that he is a person of a susceptible nature,
the reverse of what he means.
Again: insensible across the Channel means
unconscious; a woman faints, and she is unconscious. On the other side, insensible is unfeeling, hard-hearted; there, when the woman faints,
she loses connaissance, the faculty of knowing,
and to describe the act the English have the
advantage in brevity.
Any one demented, with us, is crazy or insane;
but when a man is raving mad he is a maniac.
A much milder signification is given to the word
in France. To be a maniac is generally nothing
more than to be eccentric. A singular person is
often described as one who has des manies, or
who is a mnaniaque. It is even sometimes said
of a person who is confirmed in his habits, il est
ncaniauzce.
To offer excuses, with us, is to furnish extenu



WORDS AND PHRASES.           197
atinag reasons for non-performance: to do so in
France is to make an apology; but when the
desire is to explain away at least part of the
difficulty, and reinstate one's self in the estimation of the person offended, the meaning of our
" excuse " is employed, but in another word, -
pardon. I recollect once hearing an American
suggest to a French woman to offer excuses to
some one of his compatriots of her sex whom
she had offended, when she quickly and rather
tartly declined. Had he changed the word to
" pardon," she would probably have acted on the
suggestion.  It may be said, however, that
excuse as a substantive has also the same signification in French as in English; which is true,
but it is so rarely used in social intercourse
that practically such a sense can hardly be said
to exist. As a rule, in ordinary conversation,
each word has but one meaning; and whether
lexicographers put this meaning as second or
third, makes little difference to society, which
knows no rule but its own. When the name
" excuse " is turned into a verb, then it falls into
the ranks with our English;" excuse," and per



198        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
forms like service; returns, as it were, to its own,
after dwelling in other households.  Thus there
is a considerable difference between the phrases,
Excusez-mzoi, and Je fais des excuses, which requires no explanation to the Frenchman, so fully
alive to any shade of meaning where his honor is
concerned. When he makes excuses, he offers
one of the humblest of apologies.
Accuser, to accuse, has a meaning used in correspondence unknown to us, namely, acknowledge; for instance, to accuse the reception of a
letter. HI-ow it was pressed into such service is
difficult to imagine. Incessantly with us is unintermitted continuance; incessamzent - the same
word -with them is used for what is about to
occur, and is nearly equivalent to our ~ presently." Here, actual signifies the real; there, the
present: as, MacMahon is actuellerzent, at present, the French president. Actuality, however,
as a substantive, is beginning to make its appearance among us in the same sense as used by the
French, - every-day, contemporary incident or
circumstance, for which we have no exact word.
The word is done to death in Gallic journalism,




WORDS AND PHRASES.           199
especially in that of an inferior kind, performing
much the same work as the " situation," the
I" premises," " high-toned," and other words so
much in vogue with partially-educated people
among us.
There are differences between gentleman and
gentilhomme, although one is often given as the
translation of the other. " Gentleman" suggests
a man of noble life - in England of noble birth
-brave, generous, charitable, dignified, and in
affluent circumstances. Some Britons are disposed to the belief that their island only rears
this description of man; one of these, writing
about France, said that even Guizot - one of the
most intelligent - would never be able to understand and appreciate an English gentleman; a
chauvinistic opinion that is naturally met with a
smile on this side of the Atlantic, and a shrug
across the Channel.  Gentilhomme brings to the
mind the courtier of Louis XV. and of the Regency, of touchy honor, possessed of tact, elegance, and finesse, rich, prodigal, and full of
gallantry; a maker of madrigals and mots. The
word does not seem to fit the modern man who




200       THE FRENCH AT HOiME.
has taken the place of the ancient. Gentilhomnme
belongs to the powdered hair, the sword, and the
knee-breeches of the past, and adapts itself with
a poor grace to the contemporary surrounded by
steam, telegraph, and modern politics. Some
French writers, recognizing this change, now
employ the English word in preference.
The word fine usually has another meaning
than that given to it in English. A fine woman,
for instance, with us, is a well-looking or an amiable person: a fine woman of France is full of
tact and cleverness, with a shade of irony and
want of confidence.  The determination to succeed is also a part of "  fine,"and thus fortified it
is a strong word and often employed. As an illustration of tongue finesse: Napoleon tries to get
a book from a shelf above his head, but cannot
reach it, when an aide-de-camp, stepping forward, says, " Sire, permit me to reach it: I am
higher than you."
"You are longer," is the* correction from
Bonaparte the fin.
Again: " Si la Republique abolit la guillotine,
on pourra dire d'elle, la Republique est le gouvernement qui divise le moins."




WORDS AND PHRASES.          201
In English transpire means to become known;
in French, to perspire, which seems to be its correct derivative signification. In the substantive
figure, both languages started from the same
point, form, and then diverged. In the ordinary
language of social commerce, when the English
figure is pronounced, the general form  of the
body is always understood, and especially that of
the woman, she being more naturally given to
outlines and ornaments than man; in French the
face is meant. Mtore work is had out of the verb
there than here; one of the Gaul's favorite fashions of beginning a narrative or an anecdote
being, " Figurez-vous, mon cher." The substantive has yielded a derivative or two more on the
other side than here; one of them, figurante,
however, is being incorporated into our tongue
since the advent of opera bouffe.
The word desolation brings before the AngloSaxon a picture of sore affliction, - a tempest
passing over the soul, and leaving it a wreck
abandoned of God and man, a grand isolated
grief; and, having contemplated such a tableau,
he finds, on turning to his Gallic neighbors, that




202       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
they are in the habit of conjuring up such a scene
every quarter of an hour to convey an idea of
their regrets at not meeting an acquaintance, or
at not reaching quick enough to pick up a
woman's glove before she performs that office
herself.
Confound pictures to the imagination a stroke
of misfortune,-   Babel smitten with a hundred
tongues, the waters of the Red Sea closing
around King Pharaoh, the dagger of Brutus before the eyes of Caesar, or any other great and
sudden catastrophe. In French, the word generally performs a more gentle and pleasing office:
the man says to the woman who hands him a
flower, a book, or a cup of tea, " Madame, votre
bonte me confond."  Their word, in short, to
ours, is as a flute to a bugle.
When at theatres or soirees, with their necessity
of expansion, they identify themselves more than
we do with those furnishing the entertainment.
By applause and compliments they show apparently that they have as much at heart the success
of the evening as the hostess or the actors; in a
word, they take a part in it; hence they assist at




WORDS AND PHRASES.           203
a representation or a ball where we are only
present.
In English, when character is spoken of, it
means reputation; in French, disposition or
temper, as such a one has a bon or mauvais caractctre. In another sense, where we call an eccentric man a character, they say he is an original.
We have no affectionate term for our country,
and the nearest English approach to it is comprised in the words Old England. The Germans
have Vaterland, but the French have something
better, -patrie.  There is a meaning and an attraction in this word to the French people which
those who have not lived among them can hardly
understand. The exile, the soldier, and the colonist pronounce it with a passionate ardor unknown to the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and legions
have died with it on their lips. It breathes the
spirit of tenderness and affection, and is one of
the most sacred words of the language. On
the other hand, if we have not their endearing
word for country, we possess one for our dwelling-place of which their language is destitute, -
home. A few of their writers use it, but spar



204        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
ingly, and as a foreign word. Had they been
less circumscribed in their ideas in this respect,
it would long since have been a part of their
speech, especially as its pronunciation offers no
difficulty to the French tongue.  What they have
taken from us are not the words most required,
and are generally corrupted, like rosbif for roast
beef, dogue-car for clog-cart, bifteckl for beefsteak,
pouding for pudding, &c.
In English vernacularism, when the woman has
tender inclinations toward the man, she calls him
her beau; but why thus called, especially when he
is ugly, would doubtless be difficult for her to explain. An effort to mend this matter is occasionally made by substituting " sweetheart;;" but
it does not exactly answer, owing to the feminine
character usually implied in the word. As the
French have more men given to paying court to
women than we, there is a fuller nomenclature,
although the admirer as " beautiful" does not
figure therein. The glove-girl calls the one persistent buyer who frequents her establishment
with gallant intentions, her monsieur.  If it be
subsequently discovered that it is for the bon




WORDS AND PHRASES.            205
mnotif, he becomes her pretendcant.  In the lower
strata of blouse folk, the admirer is simply clescribed as mon homme.  The grisette permits
herself a greater range in speaking of him who
avows himself her slave, as well as of the feelings he inspires.  She has a toquade for him; ii
lui tape dans l'ceil; elle est folle de lui, and other
phrases more expressive than elegant. All classes
recognize at least four conditions of the heart in
the intercourse of man and woman, described in
la grande passion, l'camour, I'amourette, and la
galanterie, to which has recently been added our
flirtation, - one of the very few English words,
according to French opinion, worthy of being
taken into the language.
Coup de lapin, " stroke of the rabbit," is one
of those eccentricities of speech not apt to be
heard in the drawing-room, although its fair occupants understand but too well what it means.
The woman in France generally conserves her
freshness up to forty or forty-five; and when she
reaches the critical point where she begins to lose
it, -in a word, when she begins to decline, - she
receives a stroke of the rabbit.  The subject has




206       TIIE FRENCH AT HOME.
been treated with pencil: a somewhat mature
woman is portrayed in evening costume with
something melancholy in her face, while a rabbit
sits on his haunches behind on the back of her
chair; his ears are pricked, and his eyes are intently fixed on the woman; one of his paws is
raised, with which he is about to administer the
direful tap on the back of her nude neck. To
the French woman, who as a rule is coquettish,
this is the most dreadful stroke which can befall
her.
Epanchement de famille is a phrase which slips
smoothly from the French tongue; but its translation comes somewhat awkwardly from that of the
Anglo-Saxon, probably because he has so little
of the trait thus described. In the home of the
phrase, effusion and familiarity extend to all
members of the family. A son of eighteen or
twenty playfully pulls the paternal whiskers, and
the act involves no loss of fatherly dignity; he
makes a confidante of his mother, and tells her
the details of his love affairs, such as an Englishman would never speak of to his most intimate
male companion.' Madame de Sevigne, still a




WORDS AND PHRASES.           207
reigning model of good taste, invited her son to
these confidences, which she afterwards communicated to her daughter, clothed in the delicate
periphrase that she knew so well how to weave
around the questionable incidents of life. The
majority of her countrywomen of to-day follow
her example in trying to initiate themselves into
the peccadilloes of their beloved Jules and Oscars.
Their relations with their daughters are of the
most intimate character; they have scarcely a
thought that is not shared in common, and this
conmmunion is marked by half a dozen tender
embraces during the day. These familiar acts
are naturally accompanied with language of a
like complexion; and for this purpose they have
a remarkable help of which we are destitute, -
the tutoierent. We  are  obliged to confuse
friends with acquaintances and strangers in the
you, and are unable to define the limits of an
intimate circle. French children grow up under
the sunshine of tu and toi, and it undoubtedly
has a happy influence on their lives. So many
affectionate caresses would have been incomplete
without the word to express them, and tutoiement
is that faithful interpreter.




208       TIlE FRENCH AT HOME.
Je suis Frcangis is a phrase often heard in
France. If an imputation be made on a man's
courage, his figure is drawn up to its greatest
altitude, and the words are uttered as if from
Olympian heights. If he takes what he deems a
noble stand worthy of himself and his country,
he taps himself on the breast, and the three words
follow. If a reflection be made on that honor
about which there is so much talk, the phrase of
three words is pronounced with an intimation
that excuses must be offered with the alternative
of blood-letting. Rudely crowd a man at the
theatre or the railway station, and two to one he
will say, " Don't push me, sir: I am a Frenchman; " implying that you may possibly do so to
others with impunity, but not to a man of his
nationality.
One sees in the Anglo-Saxon a disposition to
jest at death, as in the gibes of the grave-diggers
before Hamlet, and the Western journal which
said its State was so healthy that in order to
start a graveyard the citizens had to borrow a
corpse from a neighboring State. This effort to
encircle a death's-head with a garland of humor




WORDS AND PrHRASES.          209
shocks the Gaul. La mort is not used in a jocular vein. With us young people not unfrequently
go to the cemeteries to amuse themselves: this
would strike him as singular. He respectfully
removes his hat as he meets a funeral procession,
and as he passes before the house of death.
Tombstone wit is rare, and Boileau showed a
disregard of public opinion when he penned such
an epigram as this: -
"Ci-glt ma felmme. Ah, qu'elle est bien
Pour son repos et le mien!"
When one of his fellows is keen-sighted, the
Gaul says he has the American eye, which
probably has its origin in his acquaintance with
the works of Cooper; for, if he be ignorant of
every other American author, he always knows
this one. When he says he is sick at the heart,
this is one of his graceful evasions, and he means
that he is sick at the stomach. When he speaks
of a man as sober, he refers to his temperament,
and it has no connection in his mind with the
absence of drunkenness.  Our windows look,
and his give, on the street. The American im



210       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
becile will never set the river on fire; the French
one has not invented powder. Romeo waiting
at the rendezvous for his Juliet, he calls the hour
of the shepherd. We call a spade a spade, and
he calls a cat a cat. When the time for paying
comes, with nothing in the purse, he describes it
as the ugly quarter of an hour of Rabelais. In
America a stupid man is a goose: in France he
is a turkey. The French duck we have acclimated, and it bears on its back the burden of
our shams and false reports.
Anglo-Saxons are apt to take for granted that
they enjoy a monopoly of humor, that they
only have the thing as well as the name; but it
is an ancient French word, and was employed in
the English sense by Corneille, in whose plays it
is found. Then it fell into desuetude, and was
revived by Diderot. Of the late writers, SainteBeuve gives one of the best English applications
of the word, where he says, in speaking of
Chateaubriand, that he had a kind of humor, or
fantasy, qui se joue sur un fond triste, - a
description, by the way, that would apply equally
well to the character of President Lincoln.




WORDS AND PHRASES.           211
Humor in the English sense is specific; in the
French it is almost a synonyme of caprice, leaving aside its primary signification. The French
possess this quality in common with us, but with
the condition that mirth shall not master art;
there must be no coarseness in the exhibition.
The Gaul cannot see the amusement of a man
with a hat knocked over his eyes; he does not
laugh when another falls, however awkwardly he
may sprawl. The distortion of language in the
seaich after droll effects does not move him to
mirth. Though he understood our language as
well as ourselves, he would never learn to be
amused with the deformed orthography of some
of our humorists; these broken-backed words
and twists of language would only offend his
taste.
He who has read Moliere, and frequented the
Palais Royal theatre, readily concedes humor to
the nation, but it is difficult to seize its conception
of it. When a copy of "I Punch" is submitted
to the Gaul, he smiles out of politeness; his eye
does not brighten with pleasure over the follies
of Rotten Row or the mishaps of hunters going




212       THE FRENCH' AT HOME.
over fences and ditches; but there is a change of
expression when he catches sight of " Charivari,"
with the comicalities of Cham and his confreres.
Then he is at home, and his gayety expands.
Here are specimens at random, in accordance
with his idea of the humorous:
Phryne loses her child.  " The little cherub is
in heaven," observes a sympathizing friend by
way of consolation.  " That is what distresses
me: I am sure of never seeing him again,"
returns the weeping mother.
A man in blouse, in the Belleville Quarter,
presents a bottle of perfume to his beloved, saying, " When you smell that you will regret that
your Creator did not make you all nose."
This is headed " La Propagande': " the heart
of an opulent woman of forty is ardently besieged by a man of fifty, in spectacles, and
on his knees, whom she resists, saying, " Non,
Oscar, pas tant qu'il y3 aura ldes Prussiens sur
notre sol."  Another shows a grandmother with
an infant in her arms, to which she gives the
bottle, the former bearing the well-known traits
of Thiers, the latter being the republic in its
swaddling-clothes.




WORDS AND PHRASES.           213
With us the man of culture is more easily discovered from his speech. With them there are
many current phrases common to several classes,
and there are shopmen who pronounce them
nearly as well as the people of culture. When
to the employment of these phrases is added a
smartness of dress and manner, - say in the coiffeur and the valet de chambre, - a certain sameness seems to envelop all. This is the case in
the matter of speech; but wealth and education
are more generally manifested in other ways with
them than with us, such as general bearing  and
surroundings, Legion of Honor, and speech
when the line of platitudes is passed. With us a
man with a three-days' beard, a mouth full of
tobacco, and a felt hat, may possess wealth and
official position. This would be a striking incongruity in France. The imitative faculty is much
developed in the Gaul; and the valet seizes his
master's manner and speech as no Englishman in
the same station of life could ever do. This,
naturally, as long as he keeps near shore in current vocabulary; but, when he goes beyond, the
resemblance deepens into caricature.




214        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
Word decoration is hung about every thing, and
ordinary and sometimes mean things have fine
names. An eight-by-ten room is a salon; a lobster is the cardinal of the sea - presumably after
being boiled; stewed mutton is mouton a la paysanne; a hairdresser is an artiste; an editor is
redacteur-en-chef; the letter-writer closes his epistle with a string of magnificent words. The Gaul
is always putting his best foot foremost. To
have a- decoration of the Legion of Honor, and
not wear it, would imbitter his life. If he has
ever held any position related to the government,
however remotely, he ever afterward inscribes it
below his name on cards and letters; and one not
unfrequently sees printed on the cards of provincials, " Ancien capitaine des pompiers," "Ancien
membre du conseil municipal," &c., which are
grotesquely pompous.
In the drawing-room  of France there is a
marked disposition for general conversation,
where each one places his word a propos, and
passes the subject back to his neighbors; thus
all contribute their quota.  The  wit of the
salon is exacting as to tone and delicacy, and




WORDS AND PHRASES.          215
yet it may be every thing in this respect without
being rigorous or thorough. Certain modes of
banal expression are discordant, the same as certain acts: for instance, no one would dream of
passing first through a doorway; of helping one's
self at the table, and passing the dish; of speaking only with one of two persons who are present,
because that one happens to be the most agreeable. There are those finical enough to consider
" Comment vous portez-vous? " addressed to a
woman as coarse; for which they substitute,
" Oserais-je m'informer de la sante de madame? "
Such a one is careful to ask for "'du vin de
Champagne," but never  "du  champagne."
Words and actions of the lightest shade of disagreeability are avoided with much tact.  "On
badine au salon, on blague dans l'atelier."  This,
for instance, is the wit of the workshop:"Oh, madame!- le joli bebe.  I1 est a
vous?"'Oui, monsieur, c'est mon dernier."
" Oh, ce serait dommage."
And this of the drawing-room: —
"' The pure legitimists write roy. for roi. The




216       THE FRENCH AT-HOME.
Y, say they, is an I which majestically raises its
two hands to heaven. Oh, heaven pardon them!
they know not what they say."
There is something of the stoic, real or affected, with us, whieh keeps back speech. To
talk seems to be an acquired talent to the AngloSaxon, and a natural gift to the Frenchman.
The men of few words in England and America
form a large class; and in the former, especially,
the silent man is esteemed. Yet these men of
niggard speech can express themselves when
roused to it, as they occasionally prove by speaking before public meetings.  This talent, so
common in America, is rare in France. It is a
pleasure to the Gaul to stand beside a mantlepiece, and communicate his thoughts in colloquial
form to six or eight men and women, or, seated
at table, to send them over the crystal and flowers
to other convives not exceeding a dozen; but to
stand up before a public audience is a possible
disaster that he will not front. When one thinks,
as a rule, how easily he is abashed before an audience, his ease and aplomb before a drawingroom group appear remarkable. He has rapidity




WORDS AND PHRASES.          217
of thought and an Irishman's fluency, but to
make a sustained effort before a body of people
C /
is beyond the ordinary type. The redundancy
of words in the English admits of a certain




218       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
vagueness which possibly renders public speaking easier. Cromwell is cited as one who could
talk half an hour without saying any thing, and
yet no Englishman could be more direct than he
when he desired.
The epigram naturally finds development in
the dialect of the boulevards, otherwise known
as the langue verte. It is here where new words
first appear; that is, generally, old words with a
new signification. It is seldom, for instance,
that a word is created like pignouf; and the etymologists, in their desire to provide all words
with a regular derivation, hardly admit that even
this is a creation. Pignouf, like our skedaddle,
has no legitimate father and mother; it is a child
of the people. The eccentricities of the langue
verte are often heard on the boulevards, and some
of them are easily recalled. A tall, thin woman
is an asperge montee. A man whose reason is
somewhat impaired has a spider in his ceiling
(head). A brave fellow, quel lapin! Whatever is very handsome is trtffe de galbe. The
milk in the cocoanut is the truc. A woman who
has abandoned the straight path has cascade'. To




WORDS AND PHRASES.              219
attack with energy is to ilcher tout. To feel the
influence of wine is to be allume'. To lose money
is to be lave.  The exclamation which blasts frail
legs with ridicule is quelles
flutes!  To restore circulation to  one's legs by
dancing is to asticoter ses
fliktes.  The discovery of
a snare is hailed with balanfoire or carotte.  Scepticism  is denoted by the F
question, Et ta  soeur?
Swells are designated as
Et ta sceur?
des gens pourris de chic.
Splendid is e'patant.  To be taken in, or done,
mis dedans, or frit.  ZUit! cuts off all further
parley.  He who has taken too much wine belongs to the paroisse de Saint-Jean-le-Rond.
He who asks, As-tu fini? means that dust cannot be thrown in his eyes. To be a wall-flower
is to figure as tapestry.
A little of this slang is heard in the drawing room  from  the mouths of very fashionable




220       TJIE FRENCH AT HOME.
women. It is a gift of the Gallic horsemen who
have appeared these latter days like an irruption
in Paris and its neighborhood, and shows that
man makes woman now, as he did in the Garden
of Eden. But French women generally do not
have recourse to slang to show their wit. They
usually follow in the traditions of their elders,
and attach more importance to style than eccentricity; and, if their sallies are not as brilliant
now as inll the old salon days, it is because men
do not have as much time to listen to them. Nor
do men now say things under the chandelier with
the smartness of the eighteenth century. There
is still power in the uttered epigram of to-day,
but it does not remove ministers nor unsettle
governments. What was then sped from the lips
of courtiers is now launched through the columns
of a journal. The ammunition of the gentleman
of the palace has passed into the hands of the
editor; and one of Voltaire's phrases pointed
with satire was then what a broadside from a
leading journal is now.




THE RAG-PICKERS.
THERE is a branch of the French Government
The Rag-Picker.
for relieving the necessities of the suffering poor,
221




222        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
which is under the control of the minister of the
interior, and is called the Assistance Publique.
Under the law creating this bureau, assistance
was obligatory, that is, the poor man had a right
to demand charity of the State; but, as this was
followed by abuses and frauds, the law has been
so modified as to allow the Government discretionary power in dispensing charity, except in
the cases of foundlings (enfants trouves) and the
insane poor.  Under the present system, prudence is combined with humanity. With the
administrative  centralization  which exists in
France, the minister of the interior directs public
charities over all points of the country. HIe
also exercises immediate control over certain
establishments, such as the asylum for the insane
of Charenton, the institutions of the deaf and
dumb and blind children, and the hospice of the
Quinze-Vingts. He also aids a great number of
private establishments of charity with subsidies
from the state, and in certain cases is allowed to
grant personal relief.
To reach the sensitive poor who have not the
temerity to demand public assistance, the Gov



THE RAG-PICKERS.             223
ernment has an organization for the distribution
of alms in the domiciles of the needy. It is
considered in the interests of society and the
poor themselves to encourage this feeling; for it
is, found, that, when there is no hesitation in claiming public aid, it is accompanied with a certain
demoralization which is difficult to cure.  Hence,
when the authorities give alms, they do so as
privately as they can. There is a small bureau
in each arrondissement of Paris, controlled by
each mayor, who acts under the instruction of
the prefect of the Seine, who in turn is under the
orders of the minister of the interior. The prefect of the Seine is the president of a council of
public assistance, which is occupied with the
practical working and carrying out of all public
plans of charity.  The ramifications of this
branch of administration are extensive, and reach
all cases of misfortune and destitution from
the cradle to the grave: the servants of this
bureau always perform  their duties with a due
regard to the dignity of the poor. One of the
small organizations within the grand one is that
for the resuscitation of the drowned; and a case




224       TILE FRENCH AT HOME.
came under my own observation which attested
its efficiency.
It occurred one morning as I was crossing over
to the Latin Quarter by the Pont Neuf, and had
reached that part of the bridge where the equestrian statue of Henri IV. stands. I observed a
group of men pulling a man out of the water,
apparently drowned. I knew that the authorities had a special service of soldiers for the
rescue of the drowned; and I was curious to see
the means employed for resuscitation, and drew
near to the scene. It was easy to see that the
group of men in uniform were trained to the
work, for they proceeded with order and activity,
but without precipitation. As soon as the man
was drawn out of the water, he was laid on his
right side, the face turned toward the ground,
and the jaws gently opened to facilitate the
escape of water, of which there is much less than
is popularly believed in such cases. Several
times the head was placed a little lower than the
body, for the same purpose, but only allowed to
remain in this position a few seconds. This
process was alternated with another, - the man



THE RA G-PICKERS.           225
ipulation to induce breathing, which consisted in
pressing the abdomen, stomach, and sides of the
chest, but softly. These efforts were without
effect: the manll looked as if he had seen the
last of earth. Only a few moments were taken
up with these preliminary trials; then the prostrate figure was carried quickly to the nearest
station on the banks of the Seine for the rescue
of the drowned, called the bureau of the " Secours
aux Noyes," whither I followed. The carrying
and handling were clone without jolting or roughness, the head being held higher than the body.
On arriving at the station, the man was stripped
and wiped dry, a flannel cap was placed on his
head, and he was laid between two blankets on a
straw mattress. The process of laying on the
side was here resumed, and the mouth was
cleansed with the fingers of one of the operators.
The manipulation to induce respiration was'also
resumed, with intervals of about a quarter of a
minute between each pressure, which was repeated fifteen or twenty times: this was followed
by a suspension of ten minutes.
While the operation was going on, remarks
115




226       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
were made in the group such as, " Pauvre
diable! i a casse sa pipe;" "' I1 naura plus
rmal au  dents!" showing that they were not
hopeful of the result. Perhaps twenty minutes
had elapsed after the arrival at the station when
the physician employed on this service made his
appearance, and took direction of the case. A
piece of soft wood was introduced between the
teeth to keep the mouth open. A warming-pan
filled with hot water was passed over the body
on the outside of the blanket, down the spinal
column as well as along the front of the body.
The pit of the stomach and the sides of the chest
just under the arms were especially subjected to
this treatment.  This was alternated with a
gentle friction of hot woollen mittens and the
naked hands, when. the soles of the feet and
palms of the hands were much rubbed in addition to other portions of the body. An operator breathed into. the mouth of the man by
means of a tube. Once or twice, while this was
going on, the physician consulted a thermometer,
to see that the temperature of the chamber was
at the requisite degree. The efforts so far proving




THE RA G-PICKERS.          227
in vain, the doctor had recourse to the fumigating process, which consists in the introduction
of tobacco - smoke into the intestines.  When
this had proceeded about ten minutes the man
gave a feeble sign of life, at which there were
ejaculations of satisfaction. When the occupant
of the mattress made an effort to breathe, all
manipulation was discontinued, lest it should
interfere with the natural movement.  Almost
imperceptibly the chest rose and fell, and in the
effort there were indications of a desire to volnit,
which was encouraged by introducing a feather
into the throat. After the vomiting, the breathing came slowly, the bed and blankets were
warmed with the warming-pan, and the patient
was left in repose, when he went to sleep.
The physician, on learning the name of him
who had discovered the drowning man and
hauled him ashore, said to him, " Well, Jacques,
you have earned your twenty-five francs," this
being the sum given by the authorities when
the person is resuscitated.
From a scrap of paper in the pocket, the identity of the person was discovered, as well as




228        THEI FRENCH AT HOME.
the motive of the attempt at self-destruction.
He was a chiffonnier of the name of Pierre, and
he wanted to drown himself because Justine had
jilted him for Jean.
In the Latin Quarter.
A few days after, I went into the street which
was the scene of Pierre's unfortunate love ex



THE RA G-PICKERS.          229
perience. It was a narrow, twisting, sombre
lane behind the Pantheon, beyond the Latin
Quarter, - the heart of the quarter of the chiffonniers. This thoroughfare is about nine feet
wide, with narrow pavements on each side not
exceeding two feet in width. There is a general
odor of the kitchen, in which the onion predominates. All along people are lounging and gossiping in the middle of the lane, or leaning
against the houses. Through the windows of
the drinking shops are seen groups playing cards
or dominoes on dark little wooden tables, and
stout women serving behind zinc-covered counters, and joking with the consumers.  The
houses are tall and gloomy, the lights being confined to the ground floors. An unusual number
of policemen are observed, which is a pretty
sure indication of the turbulence of the population.  Near the lower end of the lane, the
groups are more numerous under a great lamp on
which is painted in red letters the word Bcd.
At the end of a long passage, a man is seated
behind a rack, who receives the entrance money
for the ball, - five sous. Sticks and umbrellas




230       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
must be deposited with him -a precautionary
measure —at an extra charge of two sous, for
which he gives a dirty pasteboard check. A few
steps farther on is a large, low, long room, on
one side of which, on an elevated place, their
heads close to the ceiling, are six or eight very
ordinary musicians, who play with much vigor.
A low railing surrounds the space allotted for
dancing, and on the outside of the railing are
small tables and wooden benches, most of which
are occupied by men in blouse and cap, women,
and children. Most of the men are smoking clay
pipes, and here and there a woman is smoking a
cigarette. The tables are garnished with winebottles and glasses, and great zinc bowls in
which is made wine-punch, the favorite beverage
of the establishment.
A half-dozen policemen are stationed in different parts of the room, and their uniform in this
place is a pleasant thing for the eye of the visitor to dwell upon. Within the railing the dancing proceeds with energy, the charge being two
sons for each dance for each couple, the man
naturally defraying the expense. There are in



TIHE RAG-PICKERS.           231
stances, however, where the woman, tired of her
role as a wall-flower, furnishes the money to
some needy cavalier. The person who receives
the two sous is a man of authority, who stands
near the centre of the ball-room floor, inviting
all in a loud voice to come forward and participate in the Terpsichorean entertainment.  At
this, an irreverent thought enters my mind of
the revivalist preacher
calling upon the brethren and sisters to come
forward to the mourner's bench. "Avancez, avancez,  messieurs et mesdames, m
on va commencer,"   L
cries this man.  "(a   vva etre rigolo - une
musique Mbouriffante;        The Peddler.
avancez l "   When the dancing is under way,
whether waltz or quadrille, the music stops, and
the dance-stimulator collects the two sous from
each couple; which rather indicates a want of
confidence in the solvency of the dancers.




232       THE FRENCH  AT HOME.
There is no exhibition of grotesque gesture,
eccentric step, nor lofty leg-lifting. There are
no " artists" here, but people whose limbs have
lost their litheness through labor.  There is
rather more activity among' the women than the
men, the former jumping about with considerable
energy, but little grace. It canll hardly be expected that he who bends for several hours under
a basket of rags, in his nightly rounds, should
display much grace. He shuffles and jumps to
the measure, and this suffices. In the waltz, he
clasps his partner closely with both arms, and
whirls away to the very last strain.
Naturally there is much slang in the vocabulary of these poor votaries of pleasure, and some
of it is grotesque. I overheard a man inviting a
woman to dance with the words, " Madame, voulez-vous gigotter avec moi?" another, "' Madame, voulez-vous vous asticoter les jambes un
peu? " - and this with indescribable gesture.
In the intervals of music, there is a buzz of
gossip and laugh along the tables, where the
people look at the dancers, and make comments
on them. Then follows the squeaking and saw



THE RAG-PICKERS.           233
ing music, and then the " Avancez, messieurs et
mesdames," &c.; and so on to the end.
The face of one of the gayest and most
vigorous dancers seems familiar to me.  -JHe
clasps a young woman in his arms, and is whirling around to one of Herve's waltzes as I examine him, and try to fix him in my memory.
It is Pierre, the man who, a few days previously,
wanted to die. I learn from the policeman near
me that it is Justine with whom he is waltzing;
that the proof of his affection in throwing himself into the Seine for her brought her back to
him, with which the dramatic feature of the act,
and the consoquent notoriety, had something to
do.
A little old man in blouse and felt hat, at one
of the tables, is pointed out to me by the policeman as one, who, in addition to rag-picking,
deals in questionable rabbits. I-e is known as
the Pere Jacques, and is regarded as a person
of some importance in the rag fraternity.  I
approach PBre Jacques, and engage him in conversation. He has become expansive over his
wine, and makes indiscreet revelations touching
20*




234       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
the rabbit business. Twenty years ago he skinned
and dressed his rabbits, and people bought them
without asking any questions. That was the
bon temps; and, if it had continued, he would be
to-day a man of independent fortune. But the
journals and inquisitive people got to talking so
much about cats in connection with rabbits, that a
long season of dulness followed as a consequence.
The newspapers went so far as to figure up how
many rabbits were brought into Paris each year,
and how many were consumed; and they made
it out that twice as many were consumed as were
brought in. He felt for a time as if the business
was ruined; for, thereafter, the rabbit purchasers
demanded the head of the rabbit as a guaranty
of the genuineness of the animal. But he was
equal to the emergency. He gave an extension
to his commerce by making an arrangement with
all the cooks on his rag-beat to buy their rabbitskins, on condition that the heads should be delivered with them. Thereafter he was enabled
to furnish to sceptical buyers the rabbit head
with the dressed cat, and everybody was satisfied.
He sold the animals to the small out-of-the way




THE RAG-PICKERS.             235
restaurants, as a rule, where they were made into
gibelottes. The cat entire yielded him one franc;
and they to whom he sold the flesh usually got
about two and a half francs out of the animal
when turned into gibelottes. The business was
fair; but there was more competition, especially
since the Commune, under which some people
had learned to eat the cat with pleasure, knowing
him to be cat.
It is hardly necessary to add that the Pere
Jacques was obliged to conduct his business with
mystery, in view of provisions contained in the
municipal regulations against the sale of certain
kinds of meat, especially those employed in the
manufacture of sausages, Italian cheese, and potpies, all of which are comprised in the general
word charcuterie.  Considering  the vigilance
exercised by the authorities over the preparation
of such aliments, one can infer that the Pere
Jacques was obliged to observe much discretion
in the disposal of his feline flesh. It was to the
interest of buyer and seller to keep the commerce
secret; and, so far, the pere had escaped detection. M. Jacques thought it was an injustice,




236        TIIE FRENCH AT HOME.
that, under the republic, a man could not eat catmeat if he wanted to, and he solemnly protested
against such tyranny.
He is in a loquacious mood; and, among other
things, he informs me that he has a friend who
has a specialty in the way of cocks' combs.
There are a number of amateurs of a dish composed of this head-gear; and his friend met the
increasing demand by making an artificial article
out of beeves' tongues, which was so skilfully
done, that experienced cooks could not tell the
difference. His friend even insisted that he improved upon nature; that there were irregularities and faults in most of the combs of cocks,
which he ameliorated through art.  His friend is
also of the fraternity of ragpicliers, as, indeed,
are almost all who are present. As I quit the
place, Pere Jacques calls for another punch.
Pierre is at one of the tables, with his arm
around the waist of Justine; the music saws
away, and the man in the centre of the floor continues to cry out, "Avancez, messieurs et mesdames," &c.
The ragpicker is attached to his calling from




THE RAG-PI CKERS.            23 7
the liberty which he fancies it gives him. Under
his rags, this Diogenes has his pride, and considers himself superior to a domestic. I-He sleeps,
eats, and drinks in freedom: if he gets sick, the
hospital is ready to receive him. Thus he lives
in ignorance, dirt, and laziness until gathered to
his fathers.  The chiffonniers are divided into
two classes, - the diurnal and nocturnal. The
latter begin their peregrinations as soon as the
public sweepers have left the streets. The most
desirable quarters are those of the rich, such as
the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Saint-Honore, and
the streets in the neighborhood of the Triumphal
Arch. They usually become known to the cooks
of their respective rounds, and often receive from
them sufficient remains of food for their sustenance. When this is the case, there is an understanding, tacit or expressed, that the chiffonnier
shall restore any object of value which he may
find in the debris. Besides the pleasures of the
ball and the wine-shop, tilhe chiffonnier sometimes
allows himself the amusement furnished in one
of the small theatres of the Barrier, where the
play is usually a melodrama of sanguinary char



238       1PTHE FRENCH AT HOME.
acter, in which the villain is invariably punished
in the last act. In regard to this last feature,
the ragpicker is an exacting critic.
As a rule, the ragpicker does not possess any
furniture of his own, but lives in hired lodgings,
and for the time being. He pays four sous in
advance for a bed of loose straw, on which he
throws himself without doffing his sorry garments.
There are long, gloomy chambers where the
lodgers sleep in common, for two sous, and
where the Amphytrion, in case of nocturnal disturbance, appears with a club, and restores peace.
The ragpicker speaks the argot known to thieves
and social outcasts, but this is not the same
argot which is employed on the Boulevards, as
some people are inclined to believe; One is not
without certain pretensions to elegance and wit;
the other is vulgar and often brutal. In the argot
of the chiffonnier, the tongue is called menteuse;
love, dardant; and a book, babillacrd.  Every
thing which he considers beautiful, or which excites his admiration, is rupin or chenu.  His
phrase for punishment,'c abbaye de Mont-a-Regret, is not without humor.




THE RAG-PICKEI.RS.           239
To work as little as possible, and drink much,
is the chiffonnier's idea of happiness. To lie at
length on the ground, and bask in the sun, is also
one of the most desirable features in his programme. In his disputes, epithets are bandied
about with alacrity, accompanied with energetic
gesture.  If they warm  to the fighting point,
according to an old tradition still observed, they
pull off their shirts, point to their naked shoulders, and cry out to each other as they do so,
"Look at that: it has never been marked.  Can
you say as much? " This insult is usually followed by an act; they clinch, and have it out.
They like disorder, and possess a lively inclination for a rixe; hence are always ready for a
revolution.  This principally arises from  their
having nothing to lose in the fall of governments,
or the reign of anarchy, and perhaps something
to gain. During the Commune, some of them
were prominent persons.
The chiffonnier conveys the contents of his
basket to a merchant who buys and assorts what
is brought to him. The assorting of this dclbris
is another trade, which is called trillage, in which




240       TIIE FRENCII AT HOME.
men and women are employed, who are named
trilleurs.  They pass twelve hours a day at this
kind of work in the midst of the most unhealthy
exhalations.
It may not be an uninteresting fact to those
who eat crouite ctu pot soup in Paris, to know that
in some of the restaurants the little roasted
pieces of bread which they like in their soup
often come from the basket of the chiffonnier.
This is more especially the case with the small
roasted crumbs which are put into soups known
as pure.es aux crouitons.  The only thing that can
be said in extenuation is, that these scraps of
bread have been roasted, and it is an axiom of
the kitchen that fire purifies every thing.
There is a certain kind of organization among
the chiffonniers -by which each one has his separate quarter in the pursuit of his calling. Those
who have good quarters derive a reasonable compensation for their labor; but those who are condemned to poor ones obtain but a miserable
pittance, and with them the material life is
reduced to its minimum proportions. The following is a list of the expenses of one of the
poorest per diem: —




THE RA G-PICKERS.            241
Sous.
An arlequin (mixture of meat, vegetables, and
other ingredients, - " crumbs from the rich
man's table ").. 2
A glass of violet-colored liquid called wine  2
A pound of bread, odd pieces..          2
Comprising the breakfast                    6
Dinner the same....  6
A bed of straw in company with others       2
Total..14
The word " ragpicker "does not cover the range
of operations; for the ragpickers take up bones,
pieces of glass, skins of animals, rags of linen,
wool, and cotton, bits of food, shreds and scraps
of luxury, and, in short, all the debris of civilization.  In their argot the woman calls the great
willow basket which she bears on her back her
willow cashmere, and the man calls it his cabriolet.
With the pendent lamp on the end of a piece of
straight wire reaching almost to the ground in
one hand, and the iron rod hooked at the end in
the other, and the basket on his back, the chiffonnier is equipped.  In this harness he silently follows the gutters of the streets, near which are
thrown the little piles of refuse, turns themn up
21




242        THEI FRENCII AT HOMIE.
quickly with the hook, and conveys whatever
there is of any value, with a dexterous movement,
into his basket.  In these nocturnal peregrinations he is wholly intent on his business, looking
neither to the right nor the left.
According to the last census returns there are
one hundred and fourteen cafe-concerts in Paris,
in which the " artists " receive from three to five
francs an evening.- A number of these establishments are situated in the poor quarters, and
furnish almost the only amusement within the
reach of the blouse people. One of the strangest
and least known of these is the Concert des Oiseaux in the Menilmontant Quarter, near the cemetery of Pere Lachaise.  It is not thus named, as
one might suppose, because birds sing there, but
because it is situated in the street of the Concert
des Oiseaux, which is a narrow, tortuous way,
entangled in a network of like ways or alleys,
rather difficult to find.  Sad, sombre, old-fashioned houses, or dilapidated walls, are its principal characteristics. The concert takes place in
an old brick house, over the entrance of which is
the sign, " Concert varie trois fois par semaine."




THE RA G-PICKERS.           243
The concert-room  is attached to a wine-shop,
which has the sign over its door of " Souvenir
de Beranger."  Close to the sign is a portrait of
the national songster, or, rather, a caricature.
There is another sign in large letters, namely,'" Ici on fait sa cuisine soi-mneme." In the inside
there is a large furnace which is fired twice a
day, where the poor, men, women, and children,
come and cook their provisions. Much of what
they bring is the refuse of the rich man's table,
or of an inferior quality, whether of meat or
vegetables. The master of the place furnishes
the gridiron, the stewpan, and the fire, and
charges only one sou on each dish. His profit is
rather on the wine, which they buy from him from
eight to ten sous the litre, and which they drink
with their repasts.  It is against the rules for a
client to bring his own wine. In the evening,
after the repast, the diners may pass from the
eating-room - which is also the kitchen - into
the concert-room.
There are other concerts of this kind in the
Grenelle and Charonne Quarters, and in MZouffetard Street, the latter being much frequented by




244       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
the chiffonniers. In one of these the beer costs
only five sous and the coffee three, the purchase
of either entitling the consumer to all the privileges of the establishment.
In this quarter I saw one of the perambulating cooks that of late years have become so rare
in Paris. The cook was a woman in white apron,
pushing a two-wheeled wagon before her, which
bore a stove and a pile of uncooked sausages,
and something known as boucdin, flanked with a
supply of bread. As she went along, she looked
as vigilantly for customers as the driver of a
Broadway stage, and cried " Sausages, fresh and
cooked to order, all hot," with a peculiar intonation, for every perambulating merchant has each
his or her peculiar cry. To a hungry man there
was a savory smell from her viands, which produced its natural effect on several men in blouse
near by, and induced an immediate outlay.
The peranmbulating cook of this kind of late
years has become stationary, taken a shop, and
extended the business, the poorer class of workmen being the chief clients. The hours of the
working people - especially the women - have




TFHE RAG-PICKERS.           245
become longer, and there is less time to prepare
more wholesome food. After a long day's work
the woman often makes her repast of this seasoned meat, both from want of time and money.
Fortunately, in this case, the Government has a
hand in these pork preparations, in compelling,
as far as it can, the purchase of sound meat:
Marchande des Quatre Saisons.
this mitigates the evils which might otherwise
arise from the large consumption.
Among the poorest and most untidy of the
poor women of Paris, is the mctrchande des
quatre saisons, thus called because she sells the
products of the four seasons, in the way of fruit
and vegetables. Their traffic is not carried on in
21*




246        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
the poor quarters, but they lodge in them.  One
of them  was wending her way home along the
narrow  street, endeavoring  to dispose of the
remnant of her wilted vegetables, as I passed.
In a shrill tone and a familiar manner she
addressed people at doors and windows, with her.
cri de commerce, and a running accompaniment
as to the quality and cheapness of her products,
which  reminded  me of Desaugiers's description:
J'entends Javotte,
Portant sa hotte,
Crier: Carotte,
Panais et chou-fleur.
Percant et grele,
Son cri se mle
A la frele
Du noir ramoneur.
She auctioneered diligently, but with different
results, for she was in a quarter where money
was scarce. She appealed to possible customers
in such familiar terms as "mon vieux," "ma
biche," and " la petite mere," which was not
taken amiss, for she was in a quarter, too, where
people do not stand on ceremony.




TIlE RA G-PICKERS.           247
In the neighborhood was the establishment of
Mlother AMaillard, who sells the kind of nourishment called arlequins, already referred to.  The
Mother Maillard, it appears, has business relations with the scullions of several restaurants,
from whom she buys the remains gathered from
plates —not fromn the central  but those from
which people eat.  These bits of food are called
rocgatons, and are sold by the quantity, at so
much a seau.  With these the mother composes
and cooks her arlequins.  The usual price of
this olla podridca is four frans a seau.  A portion
of the arlequins is sold as food for domestic animals and the remainder to the poor, she arranging each according to the required taste of
man or animal.  Many a Lazarus is fed in this
way.
When her attention is called to the food hanging in her window, with the remark that that at
least looks eatable, she replies that those things
are only there for show.  On being further questioned she explains that the quarters of beef and
mutton, usually seen in the windows of cheap
soup-houses, are hired for the occasion to attract




248       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
customers, and are returned to the butcher on
demand.
Nothing is lost in the way of food in Paris,
Mother Maillard.
and the bones pass through several hands.
First, the butcher sells them  to the superior
restaurant-keepers, who use them to make bouil



TIE RA.G-PICKERS.           249
ion, and in the primitive state the butcher calls
them collectively rejouissance. From the superior restaurants they pass to those of low grade
at a considerable reduction, where they are again
used to make souLp. After this, the bones are
handed over to the gargotiers, the lowest kind of
eating-house keepers, where they again serve to
make soup, with a miscellaneous mixture of carrots, onions, and odds and ends of different
kinds. A spoonful of fish-oil thrown into the
pot produces those little bubbles affectioned by
the client, and gives the name to this liquid,
aux yeux de bouillon. The mother admits that
this has not an agreeable taste to the palate not
accustomed to it, but thinks the taste must be
acquired, like that for oysters, tomatoes, and
tobacco.
In an old civilization every cranny and corner
of public wants is filled. A crowd of poor men
are always ready to take advantage of any opening of this kind to make a livelihood. One of
the curious professions is that of a canary bird
teacher, where the bird is taught to sing. Most
of his time is occupied in training birds to sing,




250        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
in his lodgings; but he also gives lessons in the
town if required.  The ordinary bird costs three
francs, but when it has received its education
its value is quadrupled.  Should it turn out to be
a raca avis, - say the Patti of canary birds, -
the price becomes difficult to fix. Owners of
birds often send them for a time to school to this
professor to finish their education. For developing the musical faculties of the feathery pupil,
a charge of five francs is made.  There are probably more amateurs of these songsters here than
elsewhere; hence the existence of such a singular calling.  Aost of us have been made familiar
with the canary bird, as the natural complement
of the grisette in the works of Sue and Beranger.
The little warbler furnishes one of the consolations of life to many a solitary inhabitant of the
mansard.  In MIouftetard Street an ancient ragpicker had turned bird-teacher, finding it more
profitable than carrying the basket.
The pastimes of the poor run in little grooves.
The cat is looked after, the canary bird is fed
with care, and, if there is a child in this abode
in miniature, it is cozened and kissed a dozen




THE RAG-PTCKERS.            251
times a day.  A pot or two of flowers at the
one window are attended with daily solicitude;
and these flowers often stimulate the little bourgeois to aspirations for the country, and he
passes a good portion of his time in dreaming
of green fields, running brooks, and village innocence. Then, if after twenty years of work
and economy he gets money enough together,
he buys one of those little white cottages with
green Venetian shutters, so common in the village around Paris. Here he devotes himself to
his garden, in straw hat and blouse. The dreams
of twenty years are realized, and two to one he
is not happy; he finds himself regretting his
narrow street and his dingy little shop, his dominoes, his cafe, and the habits of his quarter, and
the chances are that he returns to them. He
only finds repose in the noise of his old haunts.
Here, in short, is a case where habit conquers
nature.
In an open space of the Menilmontant Quarter
an animated scene presents itself every Sunday,
which would make the hair of many of our
sombre Puritans curl were they to see it. Re



252       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
volving swings carry men and their sweethearts
briskly up and down. Wooden horses on great
wheels bear women and children whose faces are
bright with pleasure. On platforms in front of
rude little theatres, the whole company of each
disports itself to attract
visitors; the woman in
short skirts of faded silk,
with nude shoulders, at
intervals beats the bass
drum; the heavy man or
Imatamore  shows   his
brawny limbs in his most' a             n 8,NaS\attractive poses; the TurI ilupin of the hour —the
buffoon in old finery and
rusty spangles - struts,
twists, and turns, to the
A la fraiche, qui veut boire? delight of the blousefolk, as he cries out,' Walk in, ladies and
gentlemen, there was never any thing like it
for the money: the drama of'The Bloody
Fiend;' real sword fighting and killing on the
stage; the Fat Woman weighing four hundred




THE RAG-PICKERS.              253
and fifty pounds, - a mountain of flesh, quoi!in extraordinary contrast with the Living Skeleton, who will stand alongside of her; the Dancing Dog, who has danced before all the crowned
heads of Europe, to say nothing of the President
of the libre Amerique, —walk in," &c.; each
harangue being followed by a few notes from a
wheezy clarionet, and the boom, boom, of the
bass drum.
A lemonade peddler with machine of shining
brass strapped on his back, goblets attached to
his shoulders, and bell in hand, circulates here
and there, making his presence known with the
cry of his craft, which is something like this: —
A   la   fraiche,. qui veut boire?
Here too is the woman called the mcarchande de
plaisir, peddling the hollow, fragile, cylindrical
cakes known as plaisirs, dear to the mouth of women and children, with a cry after this fashion:Voi  - __ 1_pa  _ __ _ _ _  _ -    _____ai —   [
toi -1a l'plai - sir, mes-ldames, voi - 1& l'plai - sir?




254       THE FRENCH AT HOME.
There is also the gingerbread woman, jocularly
termed by blouse people'" mrncman Padin-d'epice,"
her name indicating the staple of her trade.
Her line of operations, however, is not confined
to this, for on her round turning lottery table
are displayed  macarons and  croquets.  The
Maman Pain-d'epice
game of chance is an additional bait to ner
business, and she cries out at intervals, " D'excellents cr-r-r-r-oquets —   tout cbup l'on gagne
- approchez, approchez."
The majority of the crowd is composed of




THE RAG-PICKERS.           255
ragpickers, but here and there are people something higher in the social scale. Of these, a
mother and her boy approach the table near
which I am standing. It is covered with cakes,
and I overhear the conversation as they draw
near.  "Well, my little man, what will you
have, the macaroni cat or a gingerbread horse?"
The boy devours the table with his eyes, but is
mute. " Come, Paul," sayjs the mother, " what
will you have?" Paul's eyes take in the contents of the table, and he answers that he will
take them all. Being, however, of an accommodating nature, he runs his chances, turns, and is
obliged to choose between a mint-stick and a
gingerbread sword.  At length his warrior instincts, joined to a natural inclination toward
gingerbread, prevail, and he draws the sword.
The vender pronounces those amiable words,
which are never wanting in the mouths of those
who sell in France: "Madame, your son has
the taste of a soldier; it is a good omen; he
will one clay be decorated."  This flattery bears
fruit, and the mother allows Paul to turn again,
when he becomes the owner of a gingerbread




256        THE FRENCH AT HOME.
heart, at which his eyes shine with a radiance
that belongs only to childhood.  It is another
omen, and the mother is pleased.  The heart
and the sword! This is an epitome of a complete life in France, - love and glory.
The ragpickers may be regarded as the poorest
poor of Paris. There is no other class of men
whose lives are so narrow and so destitute as
theirs.  Several efforts were made in former
times to break up their organization and do
away with their occupation, but without success.
They held to their rags as if they were purple
and fine linen, and to their sorry food as if it
were the nourishment of the Cafe Anglais.
They will probably continue to cling to their
misery with the tenacity of the past, until they
receive, if they ever do, some sort of instruction
from the State.
Franklin Press: Rand, A very, &' Co., Boston.