Every Frenchman Has One

by Olivia de Havilland

  Right now, let’s take up the bright, capable, well-groomed image you have so vividly fixed in your mind and heart. Yes, let’s just do that. As you look yearningly out across the Atlantic, you see her on that far, Gallic shore as clear and fresh as crème de menthe despite the distance: the French Maid, a symbol of beaming efficiency whose sole purpose in life is to be of service to Madame. She smiles back at you across the waters, a-quiver to serve you a Cordon Bleu dinner which she has not only cooked herself but for which she has even invented the recipes, to keep whatever setting of whatever play in which you see yourself in exquisite order, to maintain not only your own wardrobe but that of Monsieur in impeccable condition, and even to draw your bath. There she is, a hybrid lady’s maid, housemaid, and chef extraordinaire. Okay, she’s a maid of all work. But elegant. An artiste.

  Fade out, fade in. You’re in France. You’re having the devil’s own time finding a maid of all work—or what is it they call her over here? Oh yes, “Bonne à tout faire”—“good at doing everything.” Of course—fits in exactly with your conception of the French Maid: a perfectionist in crisp black-and-white. You are leery of agencies in a foreign land because you’ve been told that if you engage one of their clients you have to pay the agency a month’s salary, so you decide to use other means in locating your French Maid. Finally, highly recommended by her friend, the saleslady in that refined little shop which sells embroidery yarn in the Avenue Victor Hugo, you find your gem, your jewel, your pearl. Her name is Françoise. How fitting. Your French Maid at last, and her name so like that of the country of which she is so flawless and so famed a representative.

  Françoise arrives chez vous, ready to take over, ready to transform your life and household with her precious arts. But you are a little puzzled by the fact that in the dead of winter she is not wearing stockings. Also, although she is wearing black, the garment is one which seems to have been in the family for several generations. Furthermore—can it really be? yes, it can—a chestnut-purée-colored turtle-necked sweater emerges from beneath the garment’s top button. And Françoise has clearly forgotten her white collar and cuffs.

  You begin to face a fact or two, and decide that although no French Maid in any American play you have ever seen ever wore anything of the sort, Françoise really ought to have a work uniform for her ordinary duties about the house, so you buy her three very attractive blue-and-white pin-striped garments with three-quarter-length sleeves and a high neck and, you are pleased to note, fresh white collar and cuffs firmly sewn in place. And you buy her three or more well-designed white aprons to go over them.

  Françoise receives these articles unemotionally and retires to her room. A little later she reappears wearing the blue-and-white striped dress you thought such an admirable choice, and though the round white collar of the neat little neck smartly encircles her throat, descending from beneath those trim three-quarter-length sleeves are the arms of her chestnut-purée sweater.

  Of course, Françoise has forgotten to make use of the apron. She is still without stockings. But she has chosen to wear with her new attire a pair of fleece-lined bedroom slippers—the kind that hug the ankles.

  Françoise, you soon learn, talks to herself. She will even talk to herself while you are in the room. She also daily empties a full tin of what must surely be called Old French Cleanser into the bathtub (which, because of your strict upbringing is always a-gleam because you always scrub it after yourself) and then she fails to rinse the cleanser out. She leaves it there so you’ll know she’s given the bathroom her attention, but in the meantime you are wondering what all that wet cement is doing at the bottom of your tub. Françoise also leaves the duster on the balustrade of the staircase, on a chair, or in the middle of the floor. Françoise also tells you when you are hunting for your small boy’s absent pajamas—the three pairs you bought him four weeks ago and which you need to pack because he is leaving for a month in the country—she tells you that they are missing, that they are not in the house, that something must have happened to them. Françoise has put them in her bureau drawer because she has forgotten to iron them, but you will not discover this until you have:

  1) bought three new pairs of pajamas,

  2) sacked Françoise.

  Françoise, although she has not invented the recipe, will attempt a perfectly plain pound cake from Elle Magazine, and will bring it to the table in the form of yellow French plastic. Françoise also breaks things. Anything. Everything! You now mention timidly the term, “Bonne à tout faire” to a French friend. He lets out a whoop of Gallic mirth and says, “Bonne à tout casser, you mean!” With painful comprehension you translate: “Good at breaking everything.” In due time, in a welter of broken porcelain, glass, vacuum cleaner parts and empty tins of Old French, you give Françoise “congé.” In other words, the sack. Well, at least you have three more pairs of pajamas in the house than you’d thought. That’s something.

  After parting from Françoise you sit down in the winter sun at a small table at a sidewalk café and give the works of Philip Barry and Noël Coward a little careful, ruminative thought. Perhaps, in drawing that keen, able, spruce little personage which has meant so much to you so long, the authors have brought a little dramatic license into play. That is to say, for theatrical economy, to keep the stage clear of a full army of domestic help, have they not, perhaps, compounded the gifts, functions, and capacities of the French Maid? As they have let you come to know her? In order, then, to arrive at the true, original model, it follows, does it not, that one must eliminate, or rather, subtract one or more of these gifts, functions and capacities? That Cordon Bleu diploma, to be realistic, ought to go. Why not, in fact, drop the whole activity of cooking? Very well, then, the real, true French Maid does not and cannot cook at all. Logical, really—cooks cook, maids maid.

  Now, what about the drawing of the bath, the keeping impeccable of the wardrobe of Madame and even of Monsieur? Come to think of it, if she’s so darn competent it might be best to keep her out of and away from the wardrobe of Monsieur. All right, let’s limit her to the wardrobe of Madame and let’s keep her concentrated only on the bath of Madame, too, while we’re about it. These duties would make her—a lady’s maid? But what about that trim black uniform with the white collar, cuffs and apron? She can’t be a lady’s maid in a costume like that, and how well you know, for you will never forget your first encounter with a French lady’s maid at that opulent chateau where you were invited to spend a country weekend last month. Your mind paralyzes even now at the recollection of standing there in your bedroom and in your girdle before changing for dinner, and seeing that dour figure framed in the doorway asking you if she could be of any assistance. You couldn’t imagine who she was, attired in that aquamarine sports dress as she was. On general principles, you said, “No.” Naturally.

  It was a lovely idea while it lasted, but you clearly can no longer count on the French Maid to draw your bath and keep your clothes, etc. She simply is not a lady’s maid. That leaves you and her with only one remaining possibility: she’s a housemaid, who changes into that black uniform, that white collar, those white cuffs and that white apron, to serve at table. That’s it. You’re on the right track at last.

  However, you feel you want a little verification before you make the final identification, the definitive categorization. You will, therefore, be particularly observant the next time you dine in a French home and are served at table by a maid.

  Consequently, when Countess X asks you to dinner you accept with unusual alacrity. The evening of the Big Test arrives and you arrive just a little ahead of time chez the Countess. You admire her collection of porcelain—a marvel of treasures from Saxe. You take an apéritif from the hands of the maître d’hôtel—well, he’s pretty neat in his black and white. Now, why hasn’t he inspired our native littérateurs? Have you ever heard of a French butler in a play by an American playwright? No. He has to be an English butler to get into a play by an American playwright.


  Dinner is announced, again by the maître d’hôtel. As you enter the dining room and seat yourself you are beginning to wonder if there will, after all, be a maid waiting at table. Then following the maître d’hôtel with the soup plates, she makes her appearance at last.

  You give her a fast but comprehensive glance. Wearing black, all right. A black garment. No, it’s an ensemble. A sweater and skirt!

  Wearing a white collar around the sweater neckline, though. And white cuffs over the ends of the sleeves. Wearing a white apron, too. Maybe this is she?

  Don’t conclude too fast. Check her feet. Shod in black, all right. Black. Yes. Tennis shoes.

  In no way is the difference between the two cultures, French and American, more evident and more clear than in the attitude of each toward the Bosom. Our American philosophy in this regard can be summed up, it appears to me, as that of the Bosom Rampant. The French, on the other hand, subscribe to the principle of the Bust Trussed.

  The two divergent, indeed, opposed ideologies are most vividly and dramatically expressed in the World of Couture and the World of Girls and/or the World of the Girl Show.

  I. The World of Couture

  As we may have remarked elsewhere, in America we have our clothes and our cars all confused. Lordy, Lordy, why do they both have to have forward thrust and that deep, rich, sponge-rubber upholstery? Now in France…let me tell you.

  To begin with, ever since coming to live here I’ve been faithful to the House of Dior, which means that I’ve known the establishment under the reign of King Christian the First, under Yves Saint Laurent, who became Prince Regent on the royal demise, and under Marc Bohan, the incumbent. And it is a question as to which of the three has tried the hardest and done the most to flatten my bosom. Not permanently, you understand—just while I’m wearing a dress.

  The whole thing started at my first fitting on my first Dior dress, designed by His Highness himself. There I was, standing in the fitting room, half-undressed, in merely my stockings, my slip and my bust, and the next minute I was fully clothed and bustless. At first I couldn’t think where I’d gone to. Then I was struck rigid by the idea that some sort of instantaneous and lasting transformation had occurred and that I’d suddenly lost forever what is every girl’s pride. Springing out of my paralysis and into action, I looked frantically down my décolleté to see what had happened to me. Fortunately, I was still there, both of me. But bound. And gagged. Like the Japanese female foot. Or feet, rather. By a framework of net and bone. The dress’s basic foundation.

  You mustn’t think, here, that I have one of those overexuberant superstructures that really needs lashing to the decks to keep it from going overboard. No, no, not at all. It is, rather, the sort that you might call appropriate, quite becoming, so it’s been said. Neat but not gaudy. However, it’s a wonder what the tender encouragement of a well-placed dart can do to put it “en valeur.” Therefore, all in favor of tender encouragement, I did not take the matter of my binding meekly, but immediately crossed pins with my fitter in the first skirmish of the Great War of Compression. But each time I advanced my cause by withdrawing a peg from my armature, the fitter would swoop in with a fresh squad of cleats and batten down the hatches tighter than ever. I tell you, there have been times during these forays when it has been my mind that cleaved and my bust that boggled.

  Now that we are in the full swing of the third régime of the House of Dior, you would think, wouldn’t you, that, pin-scarred and needle-tried, I’d be able to say to you that I’d succeeded in imposing the American silhouette upon at least one dress of French haute couture? But I have not succeeded. As I charge into combat, arrayed as I am in the constraining armor of my basic bodice, oxygen starvation defeats me every time. In the end, I always lose my War of Liberation, and the French always win their War of Containment.

  But I must say, I do look darn well dressed. And I’m beginning to accept the French notion that a girl’s bust really is more important when she’s got her clothes off than when she’s got them on.

  Now, about when she’s got them off…

  II. The World of Girls and/or Girl Shows

  Of course, I know just as well as you do that back home in the States if a girl’s got a delicate, elfin 32 she has no choice but to commit suicide. If she has a tender, swelling 34, she can, however, enter a nunnery. If hers is a warm and promising 36, she may resign herself to spinsterhood. But with a generous 38, there’s hope—she can take exercises. On the other hand, with a cumbersome 40, Hollywood is bound to find her. And with anything over 42, national adulation is assured. We not only have our clothes and cars confused, we have our girls and Guernseys, too. They need the same gallon content to win the Blue Ribbon.

  Over here in France, though, they’re not all that keen on animal husbandry. At any rate, they do feel that girls are girls and cows are cows. They do not expect them to look identical. They would consider it udderly ridiculous if they did.

  You might say that on this side of the Atlantic the emphasis is on, the interest is in, the individuality and design of the ornament, plurally speaking, rather than the size. In the personality, you could go so far as to say. The expression, even. You know—piquant, delightful, adorable, appealing, pretty, impertinent, charming, nymphlike, graceful, elegant, winning…I suppose you could go on counting to at least twenty-five without once mentioning that solid, old American adjective big.

  Just go to the Lido if you don’t believe what I’m saying. Yes, it’s true, a whole band of beauties does come right out on that stage in that night club and parade around in front of everybody with nothing on from the hips up but their polka dots. No, I did not find it shocking. I expected to, but I didn’t. The first time I went there and those belles appeared practically in the buff, I did not slide right under the table from embarrassment as I thought I would. I just sat there calmly and stared. Like everybody else. The whole performance had a surprising sort of charm. And talk about variety. A veritable garden of girls. And not a watermelon in the patch.

  In other words, at the Lido, if you’ve got a delicate, elfin 32, you’ve got a job. A tender, swelling 34, and you’ve got a contract. With a warm and promising 36, you’re still in bounds. But with a generous 38, take shrinking lessons.

  All I can say is that, as the last brace went bobbing out of the room, I turned to Pierre with awed astonishment and said, “My word, there was only one set in the lot that you could possibly call big.”

  “Yes,” replied he. “And didn’t it look terrible?”

  When Pierre and I finally acquired a dwelling entirely of our own in Paris, the abode we chose was a small “hôtel particulier.” Now, a hôtel particulier is what the French call, in a town, a house. I want to make this clear, because there’s no sense your thinking that I’ve gone into the hotel business when I haven’t.

  The house is situated in an attractive, tranquil street, but in such a manner that the sun rises over the Portuguese Embassy, hits high noon over the Pakistan Embassy, and sets, rather ominously, over the Soviet Embassy. Furthermore, it is just under twenty feet wide. And it rears up for four floors exactly like a chimney. But just the same we think it has a lot of charm.

  When I say four floors, by the way, I mean what we would call four floors but what the French would say were only three. Not out of sheer capriciousness, you understand, but because they don’t call the ground floor the first floor, they call it the rez-de-chaussée. It says here, in my French dictionary, that rez means “level with,” and that chaussée means “embankment, dike, causeway, submarine shoal, reef, raised part of street or highway.” Our rez-de-chaussée is not level with any dike, submarine shoal, or reef; it is level with the sidewalk.

  By French standards it’s a rather young house, having been built just after the reign of Napoleon III; by ours, it’s getting on a bit, the date of its construction coinciding as it does with Custer’s Last Stand. Consequently, we understood that before moving into it a little overhauling would be necessary—a li
ttle reorganizing, too, so as to make life therein with two small children and a father who had been a bachelor for forty-four years a pleasant, and, I might even go so far as to say, a possible thing.

  To this cause I looked forward with keen anticipation. It would permit me to exercise American know-how. I would contribute to the ancient, aesthetic French culture the unique gift of American organization, the invaluable Yankee sense of the practical. To sum up, I would reveal to the various French corps de métier the great American secret of “How We Do Things Back Home.”

  Now, of course, I already knew that the French individualistic, or rather, anarchistic, spirit tended to create a certain confusion, or even chaos, in any enterprise, but I felt that a calm, orderly, experienced person of American background would be more than able to cope, and that under my direction electricians, plumbers and painters would immediately recognize the superiority of the American Way and fall quickly into line.

  In going over the house’s needs, Pierre and I decided to tackle the kitchen first. It was a small, thoroughly French kitchen and clearly needed to be redone. Redone, of course, à l’Américaine. I held a conference with an architect who’d agreed to make a drawing of the proposed installation according to my specifications, with the mason who was to put in the tile work, and with the plumber who was to install the sink and water faucets. The sink was especially important, because there simply could not be a dishwasher. I’d learned, fortunately well in advance of this critical moment, that the average French domestic will, when confronted with such an apparatus, give the mistress of the house a long, level look and turn decisively toward the sink. She has her pure Louis XIV tradition, too. What was good enough in Louis’ kitchen is good enough in hers.