Considering that it is a woman who writes to you, I think you will confess that you have no reason to complain of having been overwhelmed with the fashions of Paris: perhaps, on the contrary, you may feel rather disposed to grumble because all I have hitherto said on the fertile subject of dress has been almost wholly devoted to the historic and fanciful costume of the republicans. Personal appearance, and all that concerns it, is, however, a very important feature in the daily history of this showy city; and although in this respect it has been made the model of the whole world, it nevertheless contrives to retain for itself a general look, air, and effect, which it is quite in vain for any other people to attempt imitating. Go where you will, you see French fashions; but you must go to Paris to see how French people wear them.
The dome of the Invalides, the towers of Notre Dame, the column in the Place Vendôme, the windmills of Montmartre, do not come home to the mind as more essentially belonging to Paris, and Paris only, than does the aspect which caps, bonnets, frills, shawls, aprons, belts, buckles, gloves, — and above, though below, all things else — which shoes and stockings assume, when worn by Parisian women in the city of Paris.
It is in vain that all the women of the earth come crowding to this mart of elegance, each one with money in her sack sufficient to cover her from head to foot with all that is richest and best; — it is in vain that she calls to her aid all the tailleuses, coiffeuses, modistes, couturières, cordonniers, lingères, and friseurs in the town: all she gets for her pains is, when she has bought, and done, and put on all and everything they have prescribed, that, in the next shop she enters, she hears one grisette behind the counter mutter to another, “Voyez ce que désire cette dame anglaise;” — and that, poor dear lady! before she has spoken a single word to betray herself.
Neither is it only the natives who find us out so easily — that might perhaps be owing to some little inexplicable freemasonry among themselves; but the worst of all is, that we know one another in a moment. “There is an Englishman,”— “That is an Englishwoman,” is felt at a glance, more rapidly than the tongue can speak it.
That manner, gait, and carriage, — that expression of movement, and, if I may so say, of limb, should be at once so remarkable and so impossible to imitate, is very singular. It has nothing to do with the national differences in eyes and complexion, for the effect is felt perhaps more strongly in following than in meeting a person; but it pervades every plait and every pin, every attitude and every gesture.
Could I explain to you what it is which produces this effect, I should go far towards removing the impossibility of imitating it: but as this is now, after twenty years of trial, pretty generally allowed to be impossible, you will not expect it of me. All I can do, is to tell you of such matters appertaining to dress as are open and intelligible to all, without attempting to dive into that very occult part of the subject, the effect of it.
In milliners’ phrase, the ladies dress much less in Paris than in London. I have no idea that any Frenchwoman, after her morning dishabille is thrown aside, would make it a practice, during “the season,” to change her dress completely four times in the course of the day, as I have known some ladies do in London. Nor do I believe that the most précieuses in such matters among them would deem it an insufferable breach of good manners to her family, did she sit down to dinner in the same apparel in which they had seen her three hours before it.
The only article of female luxury more generally indulged in here than with us, is that of cashmere shawls. One, at the very least, of these dainty wrappers makes a part of every young lady’s trousseau, and is, I believe, exactly that part of the présent which, as Miss Edgeworth says, often makes a bride forget the futur.
In other respects, what is necessary for the wardrobe of a French woman of fashion, is necessary also for that of an English one; only jewels and trinkets of all kinds are more frequently worn with us than with them. The dress that a young Englishwoman would wear at a dinner party, is very nearly the same as a Frenchwoman would wear at any ball but a fancy one; whereas the most elegant dinner costume in Paris is exactly the same as would be worn at the French Opera.
There are many extremely handsome “magasins de nouveautés” in every part of the town, wherein may be found all that the heart of woman can desire in the way of dress; and there are smart coiffeuses and modistes too, who know well how to fabricate and recommend every production of their fascinating art: but there is no Howell and James’s wherein to assemble at a given point all the fine ladies of Paris; no reunions of tall footmen are to be seen lounging on benches outside the shops, and performing to the uninitiated the office of signs, by giving notice how many purchasers are at that moment engaged in cheapening the precious wares within. The shops in general are very much smaller than ours, — or when they stretch into great length, they have uniformly the appearance of warehouses. A much less quantity of goods of all kinds is displayed for purposes of show and decoration, — unless it be in china shops, or where or-molu ornaments, protected by glass covers, form the principal objects: here, or indeed wherever the articles sold can be exhibited without any danger of loss from injury, there is very considerable display; but, on the whole, there is much less appearance of large capital exhibited in the shops here than in London.
One great source of the gay and pretty appearance of the streets, is the number and elegant arrangement of the flowers exposed for sale. Along all the Boulevards, and in every brilliant Passage (with which latter ornamental invention Paris is now threaded in all directions), you need only shut your eyes in order to fancy yourself in a delicious flower-garden; and even on opening them again, if the delusion vanishes, you have something almost as pretty in its place.
Notwithstanding the multitudinous abominations of their streets — the prison-like locks on the doors of their salons, and the odious common stair which must be climbed ere one can get to them — there is an elegance of taste and love of the graceful about these people which is certainly to be found nowhere else. It is not confined to the spacious hotels of the rich and great, but may be traced through every order and class of society, down to the very lowest.
The manner in which an old barrow-woman will tie up her sous’ worth of cherries for her urchin customers might give a lesson to the most skilful decorator of the supper-table. A bunch of wild violets, sold at a price that may come within reach of the worst-paid soubrette in Paris, is arranged with a grace that might make a duchess covet them; and I have seen the paltry stock-in-trade of a florist, whose only pavilion was a tree and the blue heavens, set off with such felicity in the mixture of colours, and the gradations of shape and form, as made me stand to gaze longer and more delightedly than I ever did before Flora’s own palace in the King’s Road.
After all, indeed, I believe that the mystical peculiarity of dress of which I have been speaking wholly arises from this innate and universal instinct of good taste. There is a fitness, a propriety, a sort of harmony in the various articles which constitute female attire, which may be traced as clearly amongst the cotton toques, with all their variety of brilliant tints, and the ‘kerchief and apron to match, or rather to accord, as amongst the most elegant bonnets at the Tuileries. Their expressive phrase of approbation for a well-dressed woman, “faite à peindre,” may often be applied with quite as much justice to the peasant as to the princess; for the same unconscious sensibility of taste will regulate them both.
It is this national feeling which renders their stage groups, their corps de ballet, and all the tableaux business of their theatres, so greatly superior to all others. On these occasions, a single blunder in colour, contrast, or position, destroys the whole harmony, and the whole charm with it: but you see the poor little girls hired to do angels and graces for a few sous a night, fall into the composition of the scene with an instinct as unerring, as that which leads a flight of wild geese to cleave the air in a well-adjusted triangular phalanx, instead of scattering themselves to every point of the compass;
as, par exemple, our figurantes may be often seen to do, if not kept in order by the ballet-master as carefully as a huntsman whistles in his pack.
It is quite a relief to my eyes to find how completely rouge appears to be gone out of fashion here. I will not undertake to say that no bright eyes still look brighter from having a touch of red skilfully applied beneath them: but if this be done, it is so well done as to be invisible, excepting by its favourable effect; which is a prodigious improvement upon the fashion which I well remember here, of larding cheeks both young and old to a degree that was quite frightful.
Another improvement which I very greatly admire is, that the majority of old ladies have left off wearing artificial hair, and arrange their own grey locks with all the neatness and care possible. The effect of this upon their general appearance is extremely favourable: Nature always arranges things for us much better than we can do it for ourselves; and the effect of an old face surrounded by a maze of wanton curls, black, brown, or flaxen, is infinitely less agreeable than when it is seen with its own “sable silvered” about it.
I have heard it observed, and with great justice, that rouge was only advantageous to those who did not require it: and the same may be said with equal truth of false hair. Some of the towering pinnacles of shining jet that I have seen here, certainly have exceeded in quantity of hair the possible growth of any one head: but when this fabric surmounts a youthful face which seems to have a right to all the flowing honours that the friseur’s art can contrive to arrange above it, there is nothing incongruous or disagreeable in the effect; though it is almost a pity, too, to mix anything approaching to deceptive art with the native glories of a young head. For which sentiment messieurs les fabricans of false hair will not thank me; — for having first interdicted the use of borrowed tresses to the old ladies, I now pronounce my disapproval of them for the young.
Au reste, all I can tell you farther respecting dress is, that our ladies must no longer expect to find bargains here in any article required for the wardrobe; on the contrary, everything of the kind is become greatly dearer than in London: and what is at least equally against making such purchases here is, that the fabrics of various kinds which we used to consider as superior to our own, particularly those of silks and gloves, are now, I think, decidedly inferior; and such as can be purchased at the same price as in England, if they can be found at all, are really too bad to use.
The only foreign bargains which I long to bring home with me are in porcelain: but this our custom-house tariff forbids, and very properly; as, without such protection, our Wedgewoods and Mortlakes would sell but few ornamental articles; for not only are their prices higher, but both their material and the fashioning of it are in my opinion extremely inferior. It is really very satisfactory to one’s patriotic feelings to be able to say honestly, that excepting in these, and a few other ornamental superfluities, such as or-molu and alabaster clocks, etcætera, there is nothing that we need wish to smuggle into our own abounding land.
LETTER XLIV.
Exclusive Soirées. — Soirée Doctrinaire. — Duc de Broglie. — Soirée Républicaine. — Soirée Royaliste. — Partie Impériale. — Military Greatness. — Dame de l’Empire.
Though the salons of Paris probably show at the present moment the most mixed society that can be found mingled together in the world, one occasionally finds oneself in the midst of a set evidently of one stamp, and indeed proclaiming itself to be so; for wherever this happens, the assembly is considered as peculiarly chosen and select, and as having all the dignity of exclusiveness.
The picture of Paris as it is, may perhaps be better caught at a glance at a party collected together without any reference to politics or principles of any kind; but I have been well pleased to find myself on three different occasions admitted to soirées of the exclusive kind.
At the first of these, I was told the names of most of the company by a kind friend who sat near me, and thus became aware that I had the honour of being in company with most of King Philippe’s present ministry. Three or four of these gentlemen were introduced to me, and I had the advantage of seeing de près, during their hours of relaxation, the men who have perhaps at this moment as heavy a weight of responsibility upon their shoulders as any set of ministers ever sustained.
Nevertheless, nothing like gloom, preoccupation, or uneasiness, appeared to pervade them; and yet that chiefest subject of anxiety, the Procès Monstre, was by no means banished from their discourse. Their manner of treating it, however, was certainly not such as to make one believe that they were at all likely to sink under their load, or that they felt in any degree embarrassed or distressed by it.
Some of the extravagances of les accusés were discussed gaily enough, and the general tone was that of men who knew perfectly well what they were about, and who found more to laugh at than to fear in the opposition and abuse they encountered. This light spirit however, which to me seemed fair enough in the hours of recreation, had better not be displayed on graver occasions, as it naturally produces exasperation on the part of the prisoners, which, however little dangerous it may be to the state, is nevertheless a feeling which should not be unnecessarily excited. In that amusing paper or magazine — I know not which may be its title — called the “Chronique de Paris,” I read some days ago a letter describing one of the séances of the Chamber of Peers on this procès, in which the gaiety manifested by M. de Broglie is thus censured: —
“J’ai fait moi-même partie de ce public privilégié que les accusés ne reconnaissent pas comme un vrai public, et j’ai pu assister jeudi à cette dramatique audience où la voix tonnante d’un accusé lisant une protestation, a couvert la voix du ministère public. J’étais du nombre de ceux qui ont eu la fièvre de cette scène, et je n’ai pu comprendre, au milieu de l’agitation générale, qu’un homme aussi bien élevé que M. de Broglie (je ne dis pas qu’un ministre) trouvât seul qu’il y avait là sujet de rire en lorgnant ce vrai Romain, comparable à ces tribuns qui, dans les derniers temps de la république, faisaient trembler les patriciens sur leurs chaises curules.”
“Ce vrai Romain,” however, rather deserved to be scourged than laughed at; for never did any criminal when brought to the bar of his country insult its laws and its rulers more grossly than the prisoner Beaune on this occasion. If indeed the accounts which reach us by the daily papers are not exaggerated, the outrageous conduct of the accused furnishes at every sitting sufficient cause for anger and indignation, however unworthy it may be of inspiring anything approaching to a feeling of alarm: and the calm, dignified, and temperate manner in which the Chamber of Peers has hitherto conducted itself may serve, I think, as an example to many other legislative assemblies.
The ministers of Louis-Philippe are very fortunate that the mode of trial decided on by them in this troublesome business is likely to be carried through by the upper house in a manner so little open to reasonable animadversion. The duty, and a most harassing one it is, has been laid upon them, as many think, illegally; but the task has been imposed by an authority which it is their duty to respect, and they have entered upon it in a spirit that does them honour.
The second exclusive party to which I was fortunate enough to be admitted, was in all respects quite the reverse of the first. The fair mistress of the mansion herself assured me that there was not a single doctrinaire present.
Here, too, the eternal subject of the Procès Monstre was discussed, but in a very different tone, and with feelings as completely as possible in opposition to those which dictated the lively and triumphant sort of persiflage to which I had before listened. Nevertheless, the conversation was anything but triste, as the party was in truth particularly agreeable; but, amidst flashes of wit, sinister sounds that foreboded future revolutions grumbled every now and then like distant thunder. Then there was shrugging of shoulders, and shaking of heads, and angry taps upon the snuff-box; and from time to time, amid the prattle of pretty women, and the well-turned gentillesses of those they prattled to, m
ight be heard such phrases as, “Tout n’est pas encore fini”.... “Nous verrons ... nous verrons”.... “S’ils sont arbitraires!” ... and the like.
The third set was as distinct as may be from the two former. This reunion was in the quartier St. Germain; and, if the feeling which I know many would call prejudice does not deceive me, the tone of first-rate good society was greatly more conspicuous here than at either of the others. By all the most brilliant personages who adorned the other two soirées which I have described, I strongly suspect that the most distinguished of this third would be classed as rococo; but they were composed of the real stuff that constitutes the true patrician, for all that. Many indeed were quite of the old régime, and many others their noble high-minded descendants: but whether they were old or young, — whether remarkable for having played a distinguished part in the scenes that have been, or for sustaining the chivalric principles of their race, by quietly withdrawing from the scenes that are, — in either case they had that air of inveterate superiority which I believe nothing on earth but gentle blood can give.
There is a fourth class still, consisting of the dignitaries of the Empire, which, if they ever assemble in distinct committee, I have yet to become acquainted with. But I suspect that this is not the case: one may perhaps meet them more certainly in some houses than in others; but, unless it be around the dome of the Invalides, I do not believe that they are to be found anywhere as a class apart.
Nothing, however, can be less difficult than to trace them: they are as easily discerned as a boiled lobster among a panier full of such as are newly caught.
That amusing little vaudeville called, I think, “La Dame de l’Empire,” or some such title, contains the best portrait of a whole clique, under the features of an individual character, of any comedy I know.
None of the stormy billows which have rolled over France during the last forty years have thrown up a race so strongly marked as those produced by the military era of the Empire. The influence of the enormous power which was then in action has assuredly in some directions left most noble vestiges. Wherever science was at work, this power propelled it forward; and ages yet unborn may bless for this the fostering patronage of Napoleon: some midnight of devastation and barbarism must fall upon the world before what he has done of this kind can be obliterated.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 538