Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “With us, indeed, it is exactly the reverse,” replied she,— “at least as respects the young ladies. By addressing the idle, unmeaning gallantry inspired by the dance to a young girl, we should deem the cautious delicacy of restraint in which she is enshrined transgressed and broken in upon. A young girl should be given to her husband before her passions have been awakened or her imagination excited by the voice of gallantry.”

  “But when she is given to him, do you think this process more desirable than before?”

  “Certainly it is not desirable; but it is infinitely less dangerous. When a girl is first married, her feelings, her thoughts, her imagination are wholly occupied by her husband. Her mode of education has ensured this; and afterwards, it is at the choice of her husband whether he will secure and retain her young heart for himself. If he does this, it is not a waltz or quadrille that will rob him of it. In no country have husbands so little reason to complain of their wives as in France; for in no country does the manner in which they live with them depend so wholly on themselves. With you, if your novels, and even the strange trials made public to all the world by your newspapers, may be trusted, the very reverse is the case. Previous attachments — early affection broken off before the marriage, to be renewed after it — these are the histories we hear and read; and most assuredly they do not tempt us to adopt your system as an amendment upon our own.”

  “The very notoriety of the cases to which you allude proves their rare occurrence,” replied I. “Such sad histories would have but little interest for the public, either as tales or trials, if they did not relate circumstances marked and apart from ordinary life.”

  “Assuredly. But you will allow also that, however rare they may be in England, such records of scandal and of shame are rarer still in France?”

  “Occurrences of the kind do not perhaps produce so much sensation here,” said I.

  “Because they are more common, you would say. Is not that your meaning?” and she smiled reproachfully.

  “It certainly was not my meaning to say so,” I replied; “and, in truth, it is neither a useful nor a gracious occupation to examine on which side the Channel the greater proportion of virtue may be found; though it is possible some good might be done on both, were the education in each country to be modified by the introduction of what is best in the other.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” said she; “and as we go on exchanging fashions so amicably, who knows but we may live to see your young ladies shut up a little more, while their mothers and fathers look out for a suitable marriage for them, instead of inflicting the awkward task upon themselves? And in return, perhaps, our young wives may lay aside their little coquetries and become mères respectables somewhat earlier than they do now. But, in truth, they all come to it at last.”

  As she finished speaking these words, a new waltz sounded, and again a dozen couples, some ill, some well matched, swam past us. One of the pairs was composed of a very fine-looking young man, with blue-black favoris and moustaches, tall as a tower, and seeming, if air and expression may be trusted, very tolerably well pleased with himself. His danseuse might unquestionably have addressed her husband, who sat at no great distance from us, drawing up his gouty feet under his chair to let her pass, in these touching words: —

  “Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round

  Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,

  And thirty dozen moons, with borrow’d sheen,

  About the world have times twelve thirties been,

  Since Love our hearts and Hymen did our hands

  Unite commutual in most sacred bands.”

  My neighbour and I looked up and exchanged glances as they went by. We both laughed.

  “At least you will allow,” said she, “that this is one of the cases in which a married lady may indulge her passion for the dance without danger of consequences?”

  “I am not quite sure of that,” replied I. “If she be not found guilty of sin, she will scarcely obtain a verdict that shall acquit her of folly. But what can induce that magnificent personage, who looks down upon her as if engaged in measuring the distance between them — what could induce him to request the honour of enclosing her venerable waist in his arm?”

  “Nothing more easily explained. That little fair girl sitting in yonder corner, with her hair so tightly drawn off her forehead, is her daughter — her only daughter, and will have a noble dot. Now you understand it?... And tell me, in case his speculation should not succeed, is it not better that this excellent lady, who waltzes so very like a duck, should receive all the eloquence with which he will seek to render himself amiable, upon her time-steeled heart, than that the delicate little girl herself should have to listen to it?”

  “And you really would recommend us to adopt this mode of love-making by deputy, letting the mamma be the substitute, till the young lady has obtained a brevet to listen to the language of love in her own person? However excellent the scheme may be, dear lady, it is vain to hope that we shall ever be able to introduce it among us. The young ladies, I suspect, would exclaim, as you do here, when explaining why you cannot permit any English innovations among you, “Ce n’est pas dans nos moeurs.”

  * * * * *

  I assure you, my friend, that I have not composed this conversation à loisir for your amusement, for I have set down as nearly as possible what was said to me, though I have not quite given it all to you; but my letter is already long enough.

  LETTER XXXVI.

  Improvements of Paris. — Introduction of Carpets and Trottoirs. — Maisonnettes. — Not likely to answer in Paris. — The necessity of a Porter and Porter’s Lodge. — Comparative Expenses of France and England. — Increasing Wealth of the Bourgeoisie.

  Among the many recent improvements in Paris which evidently owe their origin to England, those which strike the eye first, are the almost universal introduction of carpets within doors, and the frequent blessing of a trottoir without. In a few years, unless all paving-stones should be torn up in search of more immortality, there can be no doubt that it will be almost as easy to walk in Paris as in London. It is true that the old streets are not quite wide enough to admit such enormous esplanades on each side as Regent and Oxford Streets; but all that is necessary to safety and comfort may be obtained with less expense of space; and to those who knew Paris a dozen years ago, when one had to hop from stone to stone in the fond hope of escaping wet shoes in the Dog-days — tormented too during the whole of this anxious process with the terror of being run over by carts, fiacres, concous, cabs, and wheelbarrows; — whoever remembers what it was to walk in Paris then, will bless with an humble and grateful spirit the dear little pavement which, with the exception of necessary intervals to admit of an approach to the portes-cochère of the various hôtels, and a few short intervals beside, which appear to have been passed over and forgotten, borders most of the principal streets of Paris now.

  Another English innovation, infinitely more important in all ways, has been attempted, and has failed. This was the endeavour to introduce maisonnettes, or small houses calculated for the occupation of one family. A few such have been built in that new part of the town which stretches away in all directions behind the Madeleine; but they are not found to answer — and that for many reasons which I should have thought it very easy to foresee, and which I suspect it would be very difficult to obviate.

  In order to come at all within reach of the generality of French incomes, they must be built on too small a scale to have any good rooms; and this is a luxury, and permits a species of display, to which many are accustomed who live in unfurnished apartments, for which they give perhaps fifteen hundred or two thousand francs a year. Another accommodation which habit has made it extremely difficult for French families to dispense with, and which can be enjoyed at an easy price only by sharing it with many, is a porter and a porter’s lodge. Active as is the race of domestic servants in Paris, their number must, I think, be doubled in many families,
were the arrangement of the porter’s lodge to be changed for our system of having a servant summoned every time a parcel, a message, a letter, or a visit arrives at the house.

  Nor does the taking charge of these by any means comprise the whole duty of this servant of many masters; neither am I at all competent to say exactly what does: but it seems to me that the answer I generally receive upon desiring that anything may be done is, “Oui, madame, le portier ou la portière fera cela;” and were we suddenly deprived of these factotums, I suspect that we should be immediately obliged to leave our apartments and take refuge in an hôtel, for I should be quite at a loss to know what or how many additional “helps” would be necessary to enable us to exist without them.

  That the whole style and manner of domestic existence throughout all the middling classes of such a city as Paris should hang upon their porters’ lodges, seems tracing great effects to little causes; but I have been so repeatedly told that the failure of the maisonnettes has in a great degree arisen from this, that I cannot doubt it.

  I know not whether anything which prevents their so completely changing their mode of life as they must do if living in separate houses, is to be considered as an evil or not. The Parisians are a very agreeable, and apparently a very happy population; and who can say what effect the quiet, steady, orderly mode of each man having a small house of his own might produce? What is admirable as a component part of one character, is often incongruous and disagreeable when met in another; and I am by no means certain if the snug little mansion which might be procured for the same rent as a handsome apartment, would not tend to circumscribe and tame down the light spirits that now send locataires of threescore springing to their elegant premier by two stairs at a time. And the prettiest and best chaussés little feet in the world too, which now trip sans souci over the common stair, would they not lag painfully perhaps in passing through a low-browed hall, whose neatness or unneatness had become a private and individual concern? And might not many a bright fancy be damped while calculating how much it would cost to have a few statues and oleanders in it? — and the head set aching by meditating how to get “ce vilain escalier frotté” from top to bottom? Yet all these, and many other cares which they now escape, must fall upon them if they give up their apartments for maisonnettes.

  The fact, I believe, is, that French fortunes, taken at the average at which they at present stand, could not suffice to procure the pretty elegance to which the middle classes are accustomed, unless it were done by the sacrifice of some portion of that costly fastidiousness which English people of the same rank seem to cling to as part of their prerogative.

  Though I am by no means prepared to say that I should like to exchange my long-confirmed habit of living in a house of my own for the Parisian mode of inhabiting apartments, I cannot but allow that by this and sundry other arrangements a French income is made to contribute infinitely more to the enjoyment of its possessor than an English one.

  Let any English person take the trouble of calculating, let their revenue be great or small, how much of it is expended in what immediately contributes to their personal comfort and luxury, and how much of it is devoted to the support of expenses which in point of fact add to neither, and the truth of this statement will become evident.

  Rousseau says, that “cela se fait,” and “cela ne se fait pas,” are the words which regulate everything that goes on within the walls of Paris. That the same words have at least equal power in London, can hardly be denied; and, unfortunately for our individual independence, obedience to them costs infinitely more on our side of the water than it does on this. Hundreds are annually spent, out of very confined incomes, to support expenses which have nothing whatever to do with the personal enjoyment of those who so tax themselves; but it must be submitted to, because “cela se fait,” or “cela ne se fait pas.” In Paris, on the contrary, this imperative phrase has comparatively no influence on the expenditure of any revenue, because every one’s object is not to make it appear that he is as rich as his neighbour, but to make his means, be they great or small, contribute as much as possible to the enjoyment and embellishment of his existence.

  It is for this reason that a residence in Paris is found so favourable an expedient in cases of diminished or insufficient fortune. A family coming hither in the hope of obtaining the mere necessaries of life at a much cheaper rate than in England would be greatly disappointed: some articles are cheaper, but many are considerably dearer; and, in truth, I doubt if at the present moment anything that can be strictly denominated a necessary of life is to be found cheaper in Paris than in London.

  It is not the necessaries, but the luxuries of life that are cheaper here. Wine, ornamental furniture, the keep of horses, the price of carriages, the entrance to theatres, wax-lights, fruit, books, the rent of handsome apartments, the wages of men-servants, are all greatly cheaper, and direct taxes greatly less. But even this is not the chief reason why a residence in Paris may be found economical to persons of any pretension to rank or style at home. The necessity for parade, so much the most costly of all the appendages to rank, may here be greatly dispensed with, and that without any degradation whatever. In short, the advantage of living in Paris as a matter of economy depends entirely upon the degree of luxury to be obtained. There are certainly many points of delicacy and refinement in the English manner of living which I should be very sorry to see given up as national peculiarities; but I think we should gain much in many ways could we learn to hang our consequence less upon the comparison of what others do. We shudder at the cruel madness of the tyrant who would force every form to reach one standard; but those are hardly less mad who insist that every one, to live comme il faut, must live, or appear to live, exactly as others do, though the means of doing so may vary among the silly set so prescribed to, from an income that may justify any extravagance to one that can honestly supply none.

  This is a folly of incalculably rarer occurrence here than in England; and it certainly is no proof of the good sense of our “most thinking people,” that for one private family brought to ruin by extravagance in France, there are fifty who suffer from this cause in England.

  It is easy to perceive that our great wealth has been the cause of this. The general scale of expense has been set so high, that thousands who have lived in reference to that, rather than to their individual fortunes, have been ruined by the blunder; and I really know no remedy so likely to cure the evil as a residence in Paris; not, however, so much as a means of saving money, as of making a series of experiments which may teach them how to make the best and most enjoyable use of it.

  I am persuaded, that if it were to become as much the fashion to imitate the French independence of mind in our style of living, as it now is to copy them in ragoûts, bonnets, moustaches, and or-molu, we should greatly increase our stock of real genuine enjoyment. If no English lady should ever again feel a pang at her heart because she saw more tall footmen in her neighbour’s hall than in her own — if no sighs were breathed in secret in any club-house or at any sale, because Jack Somebody’s stud was a cut above us — if no bills were run up at Gunter’s, or at Howell and James’s, because it was worse than death to be outdone, — we should unquestionably be a happier and a more respectable people than we are at present.

  It is, I believe, pretty generally acknowledged by all parties, that the citizens of France have become a more money-getting generation since the last revolution than they ever were before it. The security and repose which the new dynasty seems to have brought with it, have already given them time and opportunity to multiply their capital; and the consequence is, that the shop-keeping propensities with which Napoleon used to reproach us have crossed the Channel, and are beginning to produce very considerable alterations here.

  It is evident that the wealth of the bourgeoisie is rapidly increasing, and their consequence with it; so rapidly, indeed, that the republicans are taking fright at it, — they see before them a new enemy, and begin to talk of the abom
inations of an aristocratic bourgeoisie.

  There is, in fact, no circumstance in the whole aspect of the country more striking or more favourable than this new and powerful impulse given to trade. It is the best ballast that the vessel of the state can have; and if they can but contrive that nothing shall happen to occasion its being thrown overboard, it may suffice to keep her steady, whatever winds may blow.

  The wide-spreading effect of this increasing wealth among the bourgeoisie is visible in many ways, but in none more than in the rapid increase of handsome dwellings, which are springing up, as white and bright as new-born mushrooms, in the north-western division of Paris. This is quite a new world, and reminds me of the early days of Russell Square, and all the region about it. The Church of the Madeleine, instead of being, as I formerly remember it, nearly at the extremity of Paris, has now a new city behind it; and if things go on at the same rate at which they seem to be advancing at present, we shall see it, or at least our children will, occupying as central a position as St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. An excellent market, called Marché de la Madeleine, has already found its way to this new town; and I doubt not that churches, theatres, and restaurans innumerable will speedily follow.

  The capital which is now going so merrily on, increasing with almost American rapidity, will soon ask to be invested; and when this happens, Paris will be seen running out of town with the same active pace that London has done before her; and twenty years hence the Bois de Boulogne may very likely be as thickly peopled as the Regent’s Park is now.

  This sudden accession of wealth has already become the cause of a great increase in the price of almost every article sold in Paris; and if this activity of commerce continue, it is more than probable, that the hitherto moderate fortunes of the Parisian boursier and merchant will grow into something resembling the colossal capitals of England, and we shall find that the same causes which have hitherto made England dear will in future prevent France from being cheap. It will then happen, that many deficiencies which are now perceptible, and which furnish the most remarkable points of difference between the two countries, will disappear; great wealth being in many instances all that is required to make a French family live very much like an English one. Whether they will not, when this time arrives, lose on the side of unostentatious enjoyment more than they will gain by increased splendour, may, I think, be very doubtful. For my own part, I am decidedly of opinion, that as soon as heavy ceremonious dinners shall systematically take place of the present easy, unexpensive style of visiting, Paris will be more than half spoiled, and the English may make up their minds to remain proudly and pompously at home, lest, instead of a light and lively contrast to their own ways, they may chance to find a heavy but successful rivalry.