Life in 19th Century Paris

by Iva Polansky

  Without a Dowry: The Business of Marriage

  James Tissot (1836 – 1902) was the story-teller of elegant Victorian life. Without a Dowry is one of Tissot’s paintings in a series called La Femme à Paris. The picture is also known as Sunday in the Luxembourg Garden. The Jardin de Luxembourg was a popular recreational area on the Left Bank protected from the undesirables by a tall forged-iron fence. Here one could rent a chair to enjoy fresh air in comfort. The chair rental is probably the only Sunday pleasure the two women in the painting can afford. Both the mother and the daughter are in mourning – one can guess that the father, probably a poorly-paid government clerk, is gone and they are living on a small pension. Without a sufficient dowry, the young woman has no hope for a happy future. Maybe, just maybe, she will marry a widower with six children or an old man in need of a nurse. Until then, genteel poverty is her fate. The newspapers in this picture story play a significant role: mothers assiduously read marriage offers published by individuals or by agencies.

  The marriage was a serious business in France and, as with all business, money was its essence. The following text, written by Charles C. Fulton, was published in 1873:

  The matrimonial agencies of Paris do a thriving business. They are located in all sections of the city, and are of different classes, according to the wealth and standing of the families of the parties they deal with — young men who are looking for a wife with a good dowry, the money consideration being the main incentive, and parents who have marriageable daughters, being the principal customers. The agents, when they effect a marriage, stipulate that they shall receive five percent of the dowry, and generally manage also to get a good retaining-fee from both parties. The larger establishments are in correspondence with similar agencies on all parts of the continent and have become a necessity to parents who are looking out for eligible wives for their sons and responsible husbands for their daughters. The successful tradesman who has accumulated a fortune desires his daughters to marry in a higher circle than that in which he associates: hence the necessity of an agent to make the necessary advances. Then elaborate papers must be prepared and signed before the marriage is consummated, and unless the dowry is paid down at the stipulated time the engagement is off. To manage all these preliminaries requires practical knowledge and experience which few parties in private life could be expected to possess.

  The agency of Madame St. Just only does openly what hundreds of others have for ages been doing secretly, and she has at once risen to the head of the profession. She is one of those business geniuses who believe in advertising, and she is, of course, pushing aside all the old fogies who have transacted their business as if secrecy was necessary to all their movements. Madame St. Just says the French law of marriage, and the national custom, render matrimonial agencies a necessity, and in a recent trial the courts have sustained the position she has taken. No one under twenty-five years of age, either son or daughter, can marry without the consent of his or her parents, or, if the parents are dead, without the consent of the grandparents, if any are living. If none of them are living, applicants must substantiate the fact by bringing certificates of their death and burial.

  Thus it will be seen that parents make all the arrangements for marriage, and, as they do not know who are the eligible parties in the matrimonial market, they must apply to those who make it a business to keep a record, with the pedigree and pecuniary standing or prospects, of all the young men and girls who are similarly eligible. If John Smith should have settled on his daughter a dowry of twenty thousand francs, he has a money interest in securing for her a husband similarly endowed, and he awaits the guarantee of a responsible agent that there is no false pretense being practiced upon him. How would he be able to ascertain that Tom Brown, who applied for the hand of Miss Smith, was all that he represented himself to be, and whether his father was responsible for the twenty thousand francs which he had promised to give his son on the morning of his marriage, or how would he know that there were twenty or thirty young men of good family and good money-standing who are anxious to secure a wife with the twenty-thousand-franc charm possessed by Miss Smith, if there were not an agent to apply to who kept a record of all such young-aspirants for matrimony? Or how would the parents of these young men know that there was such an eligible party as Miss Smith in existence if they had not applied to Madame St. Just for the information?

  The Dead of Paris

  From Europe Viewed Through American Spectacles by Charles C. Fulton. Text written in 1873.

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  The whole arrangement for burying the dead, and furnishing coffins, carriages, and all the requisites for funerals, are in the hands of an incorporated company, no one else having the right to interfere with the business. In fact, it is, like the tobacco business, a source of large revenue to the government. The monopoly is granted to this incorporated company under the title Entreprise des Pompes Funèbres , whose principal office is at 10 Rue Alibert, whilst it has branch offices in each in the arrondissements into which the city is divided. The officers of this company take charge of the body, and prepare for the funeral upon just such a scale and at such expense as the family may desire. Their schedule of prices is such as to suit the purses of all parties, and they are required to bury the very poor gratuitously.

  A “first class funeral” is set down on a schedule as costing seven thousand one hundred and eighty-one francs (about one thousand five hundred dollars), the cost of each item of expense being enumerated. There are other nine classes, the lowest costing eighteen francs and seventy-five centimes, including the religious ceremonies.

  There are however no limits to the cost of first class funerals, as it depends altogether upon the means of the family and its desire for funeral pomp. The horses, hearses, carriages and drivers are all of a different character for each of these ten classes, the difference being in the age and spirit of horses, the good looks of the drivers, the quality of their clothing, the harness of the horses, the ancient or the modern built of the carriages, etc. The hearse is graded from a splendid structure down to a hand-cart, and the extremely poor are merely furnished with a hand-barrow to enable the friends to carry the body on their shoulders to the grave. The quality of the grave-clothes, of the coffin and everything else, is graded to the price, as they may be ordered form class No. 1 to class No. 2.

  Besides getting the dead poor buried without cost, the government receives from the company thirty-three and a third per cent of the produce of funeral ornaments, and fifteen per cent on that of all other articles furnished. The revenue from these sources is quite large, and, as the cemeteries are also the property of the city government, the dead, as well the living, contribute their quota to beautifying Paris. The dead are allowed to occupy the ground for only five years, when their bones are carted off, probably for agricultural purposes, and the space they occupied is given to some new claimant for the privilege of the soil. There are three kinds of graves in the cemeteries, even for those who pay for the right of sepulchre. Some people purchase the perpetual right for their friends to occupy the soil, but it is generally conceded for five years or more, subject to renewal. If not renewed, the bones are taken up, and the ground is prepared to lease to some new-comer. In the common graves, or, as they are called, fosses communes, the poor are gratuitously buried four and a half feet deep in coffins placed close to, but not on top of, each other. This economizes space, as well as saves labor in their removal when the five years have expired.

  Among the items of city receipts last year in Paris are the following: Dues on burials, 696,000 francs ($120,000); Sale of lands in cemeteries, 1,546,000 francs ($225,000). We do not, however, find any return for the sale of human bones, which is probably a perquisite of the grave-digger.

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  Housing and Living Conditions

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  Parisians at Home and the Secrets d'Alcôve

  With the streets dotted with busy cafés, with the boulevards and city park
s alive with unhurried flâneurs, Paris in the 19th century was an immense outdoor living-room where all classes mixed freely. But what homes did they return to when the day was over? To be sure, the wealthiest headed for their mansions called hôtels privés – not to be confused with a real hotel – while the rest, from the well-to-do to the poorest citizens, lived atop each other in mostly six-storied houses.

  The illustration you saw above represents a sitting room of the privileged inhabitants found on the second floor just above the street level and the entresol, both occupied by shops and offices. The rooms on this floor were spacious, the ornate ceilings higher than those on the floors above, the walls and doors treated with elaborate decoration. The large French windows usually lead to a balcony. They provided plentiful light and fresh air in the summer and unpleasant cold drafts in the winter. The only source of heat was the fireplace, where the fire consumed expensive wood logs (coal was not frequently used in Paris) and even the most affluent Parisians occasionally suffered from cold.

  In the following picture, we are in a cozy, but reduced dwelling, probably situated on one of the upper floors. A card reader conducts her profitable business in her bedsitter. Notice the old-fashioned built-in bed. If the bed is somewhat shorter than normal, it is for a reason. In the past, Frenchmen used to sleep in a reclining position to ease breathing. The niche in which the bed was inserted was called alcôve and to this day the expression les secrets d’alcôve refers to seduction, adultery, and other spicy activities in the bedroom.

  A lower-class room, like the one below, would be home to a skilled worker or a small shopkeeper. A young family, in their Sunday best, are visiting aged parents. The son has done well, he is probably a white-collar, or the daughter has married wisely. The old couple is decidedly working-class. There are signs of mild comfort: a small carpet on the floor, some pictures hanging on the wall, and cheap knick-knacks on the dresser.

  The last floor, directly under the roof, was reserved for the poor. It was home to the servants of the house, or—worse—to the near destitute as long as they could afford rent. The illustration below is a picture of utter misery, but life under the roof was not comfortable in the best of cases. In the old houses, water had to be carried up from the courtyard and in the newer buildings the taps ended on the fourth floor because there was no sufficient pressure in the pipes. There was no heating; a portable stove on which a stew would be cooked, was rarely used as fuel was too expensive. Cooked food came cheaper when purchased from the street vendors.

  Living Vertically: Parisian Housing in 1850

  The following text was written by James Jackson Jarves (1818–1888). This American newspaper editor and art critic visited Paris in the early 1850’s and published his impressions in Parisian Sights and French Principles seen through American spectacles (1852). His wit and the clarity of his writing vividly portray the living conditions in mid-century Paris.

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  The different manner, in which the Anglo-American and the Gaul build their family nests, is pointedly brought home to the former the night of his arrival at Paris. We live in perpendicular strata; they in horizontal. Our houses stand side by side, each like a tub on its own bottom. Theirs, so far as they relate to families, are spread one upon the other, like a pile of gingerbread. With the exception of the principal hotels, and a few recently constructed in the English mode, Parisian houses are arranged after the following fashion. In general, they form a hollow square, allowing a court-yard of sufficient size for a carriage to turn. This shape admits of two ranges of apartments, equivalent in accommodations to houses with us; the one facing the street, the other the court-yard, the kitchen and other conveniences being the two connecting arms. Houses thus constructed accommodate two families on each floor, and are from five to nine stories high.

  The ground floor is devoted to shops, stables, and he porter's quarters. It is entered by a huge "porte cochère," which is always guarded by the family of the concierge, who acts as agent for the proprietors in letting their apartments, and watches all the outgoings and incomings of the mansion. Each range has its wide circular staircase for the gentry, leading as high up as what was once considered the only abode of genius, and another — small, dark, and narrow, like the worm of a ram rod — for the use of domestics. The porter must be on the " qui vive" at all hours of the twenty-four, to slip back the bolt of the outer door, by means of a string connecting with his office, upon the warning ring or cry, " Le cordon, s'il vous plait." Those who enter after midnight, bestow a trifling gratuity upon this Argus, to compensate him for his disturbed slumbers. He replies to all questions relating to his charge, pays postages, receives and distributes all letters and parcels that have owners within his domain, uses your fuel as if it were his own, and is always ready to do the amiable — for a consideration.

  The floor above the entrance is called the "entresol," being, as its name indicates, between sun and earth, and it is generally inaccessible to the former, at any season of the year, except in the widest streets or avenues. Being low, it rents low, compared with the floor above, which forms the apartment Number 1, in height, finish, and decoration, and is, consequently, much the dearest. They then progressively decline in price each story, and also in quality, until they terminate under the roof in a series of little chambers, for the servants of the mansion, two or more of these rooms belonging to each apartment. The apartments themselves are of every variety and size, to meet the wants of the diversified positions of the inhabitants of this metropolis. Some are of sufficient grandeur and sumptuousness to rival the interior of the more pretending hotels, while others dwindle to the means of the most economical bachelor or money-saving grisette.

  This mode of building has some prominent advantages over ours. Externally the houses are more uniform, of greater size, and being built of a soft gray sandstone, admit of more architectural ornament. They economize also in ground-room and material, consequently in rent. All the rooms of a family being only one floor, much of that stair work of which our ladies complain, is saved. In enumerating these advantages, I have enumerated all, unless it may be considered one to be able to bring together the different branches of a family under one roof.

  Their disadvantages are more palpable. Each floor having its separate kitchen and drains, contributes its quota to an assemblage of odors, based upon the fragrance of shops or stables beneath, which, in spite of locks and bolts, penetrate with an impartial distribution into every room. This nuisance is not always perceptible, but it is a daily liability; and the plain truth is, that there are few of these gregarious habitations that do not give offense to sensitive nostrils more than once during every twenty-four hours. This fact has doubtless some relation to the enormous consumption of perfumery, which, not infrequently in the street, overpowers all other smells, as the scented individual goes by. Again, no amount of cleanliness in one story can always be proof against a want of neatness in the next. If one family cooks onions, the neighbors above and below are brought into unmistakable cognizance of the fact. If there be a frolic overhead, the family beneath participate in the noise, without the fun.

  In a city where revolutions have become as periodical and necessary as measles, chicken-pox, and the whooping-cough to childhood, this species of architectural communism is very far from being a social one. No one knows his neighbor. There is no door-plate on the several landings, to satisfy curiosity as to who is to be found within. Somehow or other, the occupants never seem to meet on the common stairway. Of the seven families beside my own that occupied No. — of Rue de Foix six months, I knew nothing except that one was English, and another Russian. I could not have distinguished a single member of them all from a casual visitor. It is said that two friends lived for a year in the same house without being aware of the fact, until they accidentally met in the street, and inquired each other's address.

  The apartments usually taken by strangers, for limited periods, are let furnished with every necessary for housekeeping, except l
inen and silver, which are hired separately. Inventories are taken on entering and leaving; the lodger being responsible for all damage, other than ordinary wear and tear. These inventories embrace a list of existing damages, including grease and other spots on carpets, table-cloths, cracks or fractures in the glass or porcelain, all minutely detailed, as well as injuries to the furniture, &c. If any are added, they are to be paid for according to the tariff of the landlord, which is not of the most liberal character.

  French kitchens are more like a ship's caboose in size, than the domains of an American cook. What room there is, is mainly occupied by numerous little grates, raised upon a brick platform, and adapted in size to the various copper, "casseroles," or saucepans, so necessary for the preparation of the indispensable "entremets," of French cookery. A Yankee cook would be as much at a loss in one of these kitchens, as she would over a locomotive. One half of the ingenuities of our American furnishing warehouses would be equally as inexplicable to a French housekeeper. A good broom is not to be found in Paris. Carpets have been introduced into the apartments rented to English and Americans, but the French make but comparatively little use of them, preferring the waxed oak floors, which are cooler and cleaner, but require no little care, at first, for a stranger to preserve his equilibrium. The French use much less fuel than we, warming themselves more by extra clothing and foot-muffs, than by fires.

  The search for apartments, which to a novice is a matter of amusement, soon becomes a fatiguing and embarrassing employment. He is ushered without ceremony into any which are taken for a short time, without regard to the convenience of the occupiers; led through disordered bedrooms, unarranged cabinets, and ushered into all the privacy of family matters, lucky for his and their modesty, if among the scattered articles of toilet, he does not pounce upon some fair one in matitutinal dishabille. At first, I hesitated upon these domestic thresholds, but the unceremonious "Enter, Sir," soon convinced me that the right of the landlord to exhibit his apartments was superior to any considerations of delicacy. It was amusing to contrast the coolness and indifference with which French tenants underwent this scrutiny, often saying a word in favor of the lodgings or landlord, and always frankly courteous; whereas, with English or Americans, one was evidently looked upon as an intruder into their temporary castles, from room to room of which the ladies — like quails seeking cover — dodged about, to avoid meeting a man more frightened than they were themselves. Investigations in the unoccupied apartments are of course pursued under more favorable auspices. But, to believe the assiduous porters, there was not one that had a single fault, or wanted a single comfort, or even luxury. All of any pretensions had just been vacated by Russian princesses, or English "milords." One proprietor, after a pompous eulogium on the merits of a spacious apartment, whose faded gilt furniture and tawdry splendor, seemed to have descended untouched and almost undusted, from the days of Louis XV., said, as a climax, "The Princess has just been to look at them, and was perfectly charmed; she wished to take them at once." "Pray why did you not secure so noble a tenant?" " Because she could not deposit the-required security for rent," was the reply. Having just seen in the paper the arrest by the police of a Greek prince, for forgery, I came to the conclusion that the title "prince" was no better security for contracts or morals in Europe, than "colonel," in the United States.