escorting Napoleon III, and the Sultan from the Palais de
l'Industrie back through the Champs-Élysées through the then spick
and span, and glitteringly white Rue de Rivoli, to the luxurious
Palais des Tuileries; and I remember how amongst the hurrahs and
waving of hats, there burst out one loud "_A bas l'Empereur_," which
caused the conqueror of Solferino to look furtively sideways under
his heavy eyebrows, whilst his ubiquitous _mouchards_ pounced upon
the bold republican with their loaded sticks and dragged him off to
jail.
* * * * *
But now when I visit Paris I see no more the pomp and glitter of
unsurpassed opulence, nor splendour of architecture, nor infectious
gaiety.
Scowling St. Antoine I see all the time--in the bullet marks left on
the buildings from the Commune massacre, and in the faces and gait
of the tired and melancholy Parisians.
The glitter of Haussman's buildings is faded, their whiteness
tarnished, the whole place is like the scene of an orgie as seen by
the revellers on the dismal morrow.
The books and pictures in the shop windows are infamous; the plays
in theatres and music-halls are unspeakable; and the smells--ah,
_mon Dieu?_ the smells!
Looked Paris so in '70? and smelt so? Pah!
My acquaintance with atmospheres is extensive and peculiar. I have
essayed Widnes on a summer's afternoon; I have sniffed the fiery
soot, smithy cleek, and wheel swarf of Sheffield in August; I have
dwelt upon the fragrant banks of Irwell and within scent of Barking
Creek; but--a sultry day in Paris, ugh!
The narrow streets near the Halles may not smell as strong as St.
Helen's, nor as loud as Widnes, but their perfume is more subtle,
and like the famous patent pill of England it goes further.
When the hot season begins, people who regularly live thereabouts
need no nutriment.
They live on the atmosphere--or die on it. And the state of the
latter is the more happy.
* * * * *
Then the drapers' shops.
How is it that in the years that were earlier, I saw only fêtes
and picnics? whilst now, when I accompany my Bosom's Lord on her
periodical invasions of France--
Ah! yes, perhaps that accounts for it.
I accompany Madame to the Printemps, the Belle Jardinière, the
Louvre, and the Bon Marché, to interpret her commands, and I climb
everlasting staircases like a little white mouse in a wheel.
How I perspire--_dame!_ how I perspire!
One day in a great magazine of Paris a small grease spot will be
found upon the carpet, and someone will approach and say, "_Tiens
donc_, this grease spot; what is it?"
And they will call Mr. Stirlock Roames, the detective, and he will
say, "Ah, it is the remains of a great dramatic critic. By my
process of induction I perceive that he was a remarkable genius, and
owned a yellow dog with a gift for solo leapfrog. He had one fault:
he was too good. If you bring me a small piece of blotting-paper and
a flat iron I will pick him up."
And the grease spot will be removed to Westminster Abbey, and the
readers of the _Clarion_ will wear sackcloth and ashes ever after.
* * * * *
Ah! _mon Dieu!_ These shops!
"Ask the man," says She who must be obeyed, "to show me an
accordeon-pleated plain bell-skirt with a deep hem and shallow
basque of glycine velvet, shirred with a shallow round yoke of fine
guise guipure, and broadly turned back lapels of material to match,
and ample Marie Stuart sleeves of white satin mounted on lace,
braceleted with a band of silver and pearl-embroidered satin slashed
to the elbow."
A college of professors of languages, armed with a library of
technical dictionaries would be compelled to give it up.
But I dare not.
If I confessed myself unable to translate this wholesale order
offhand into current Parisian, Madame would denounce me as an
impostor on the spot.
Therefore I translate it for her, but I work it on a system. Thus--
I turn nonchalantly to the shopman, and observe briskly in French,
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might
have been."
Madame, who doesn't understand a word, nods her head in
corroboration like a Chinese figure in a tea-shop window, and
repeats "Wee-wee," which, as regards French, represents the whole of
her little lot.
Whatever the topic, whatever the emergency, she always says
"Wee-wee." One would think that sometimes when she had laid it out
in one speculation unsuccessfully, she would feel discouraged and
deterred.
But lor! nothing discourages that diminutive but remarkable woman.
I have tried, and I know.
So whenever, in Paris, opportunity occurs to put in a word, Madame
sails in hopefully and spreads out her "Wee-wee" as confidently as
if it were the ace of trumps.
Whereupon the shopman looks perplexed. "_Mais, M'sieur_," says he,
shrugging his shoulders in pretty apology, "_je ne comprends pas_."
It is a shame to abuse his gentle, smiling good-nature and
affability, but, what the good year! self-preservation is the
first law of Nature. My business at this crisis is not to bandy
compliments with a polite shopman, but to snatch my acquisitive
Bosom's Lord as swiftly as it may be from bankruptcy.
When the shopman says he does not understand me, I pepper him at
once with another staggerer. "_Milles bombes!_" I cry, "what have
you done with M. Zola?"
"M. Zola!" he exclaims, looking pathetically bewildered; "_Vraiment,
M'sieur_, I do not know."
"You're quite right," I answer meditatively. Then, turning to
Madame, I explain: "Sold out. Empress of China sent for the last
this morning. Fresh cargo expected from Patagonia in the spring";
and hastily grabbing her umbrella I snatch her out of the shop
before she can say "Wee-wee."
* * * * *
It worked very well at first. Then she got in the way of grabbing
her umbrella in her own hand at the critical moment, and when I
turned to go she would say, "Yes, I know what you are going to say,
my dear; they're sold out again. It must be, as you suggest, the
curious custom of the country. But do not be discouraged; ask him
whether they have any alpaca skirts with dotted foulards in two-inch
wristbands of shot moiré gussets and squashed strawberry ruchings
to the sleeve, rosettes of guipure and bronze-powdered swordgrass
flounces with Imogen ruffles round the waist."
Then the situation complicates itself; it becomes needful to prepare
the _grand coup_.
I approach the shopman with a determined air, and with faltering
speech, and eyes that wildly glare; I give it him in French, as
thus--"Look at here, young fellow, unaccustomed as I am to public
speaking, I say that drink is a curse."
He looks surprised, and shrugs his shoulders again as if once more
to apologise.
"Then bandy words no more with me," I cry; "for slaves cannot
breathe in England; if their lungs receive our air, that moment they
are free; they touch our country and their shackles fall."
"_Mais, M'sieur_," he begins, but ere he can think of his little
piece, I pour into him another broadside--"O native isle," I cry,
adopting now a friendly, engaging, and rhapsodical air, "fair
freedom's happiest seat! at thought of thee, my bounding pulses
beat! For what country has such work-houses, such gin-palaces, such
company promoters, such Sunday clothes, and such respectability?"
He shakes his head, a little impatiently perhaps, and again begins,
"_Mais, M'sieur_"--
"Yes, I know what you would plead," I interrupt, "but _milles
tonnerres!_ is not your proprietor a lanthern-jawed, spider-legged,
hump-backed, knock-kneed, flat-footed, swivel-eyed, chowder-headed
old Paty du Clam?"
Then his politeness gives way and the poison begins to work on him.
He foams at the mouth and jerks out little broken bits of hissing
and gurgling words.
"Come, come," I continue in a placid and wheedling tone, "you must
admit his eyebrows are like birds' nests, his teeth like tombstones,
and his hair like whiskers on broomstick. Now, even at his time of
life, why should he not try to wash himself?"
That lets my poor friend out. He rolls his eyes, claws the air, and
spits fire, till at last my Bosom's Lord, who has been unconsciously
smiling and dropping bland "Wee-wee's" at ill-sorted intervals
throughout the conversation, imperiously demands to know what is the
matter.
"Oh, nothing!" I explain; "only the gentleman wants to know whether
you are a Kaffir collector of curiosities or a Hottentot marine
store-dealer, that you should ask for a thing so many years behind
the fashion. He says you've no more notion of style, my Queen, than
a superannuated Dutch scarecrow with cheap false teeth and a father
who worked for his living. He says"--
But that lets _her_ out. She turns upon the gasping foreigner as
if with a view to fell him, but realising at last the pathetic
inadequacy of "Wee-wee" as a conversational medium, she speechlessly
grabs her umbrella, and with eyes flashing lightning, rustles out.
As she is too excited to notice me, I seize the opportunity to
apologise to the shopman.
I explain to him that we are English.
"Ah!" he says, shrugging his shoulders. No further explanation is
required.
I have said.
* * * * *
It seems mean, but no other means may serve. Once let a woman get a
footing in a Paris draper's shop, and all is lost.
_Par example_--to show you the system. A woman enters one of these
vast magazines where the insidious, perfidious, meretricious
merchandise of Paris is displayed on countless counters, in storey
after storey.
Suppose, after sampling all the stock, she asks for a ha'pennyworth
of pins:--
"Ha'porth o' pins? Oui, madame," says the shopman. "Would madame
deign to give the address to which I must send them? No, madame, it
is not worth the trouble to pay now. If you desire to pay, why not
pay when the goods are delivered, madame?"
And, bowing madame out of the shop, he politely sweeps the floor
with his hair.
* * * * *
On the next day the pins are delivered at Madame's address in the
suburbs, by two handsome men in uniform who drive out in a handsome
van. Madame uses the pins for a few days, and decides that she can
do without them.
Next time she passes that way she calls in the shop, visits the
refreshment department, where refreshments are dispensed free of
charge, lolls awhile on a sofa in the reading-room, where the
newspapers are kept for the use of customers, retires to the
writing-room, conducts her day's correspondence on stationery
provided by the establishment, and finally, as she is passing out,
informs the cashier that she has bought something which she desires
to return.
"Oui, madame," says he, "what address?"
She gives her address, and the shop-walker, as he bows her out,
sweeps the floor with his nose.
Next day come the two handsome men in uniform with the handsome
carriage, to fetch the pins; on the day following they come once
more to return the money, and when the lady has pocketed her
halfpenny again, they politely raise their caps and say, "_Merci
bien, Madame._"
* * * * *
What is the natural result of these things? When a Parisian wife
is not foraging in the shops, she is in her bedroom trying on the
plunder. She has all the new fashions sent home to her, tries them
on, and sends half of them back. The other half, which she never
would have seen but for this tempting convenience, are kept and
have to be paid for.
It is thus that Parisian husbands are reminded of their wives'
existence. If it were not for the bills, I think some of them might
sometimes forget that they were married.
* * * * *
It occurred the other day, that my interpretation of the French
failed of its accustomed success.
At Madame's request, I had asked a shopwoman at the Samaritaine, the
price of a pennyworth of ribbon; but, after I had spoken, Madame
demanded to know what I had said.
"I asked her, my Queen, what was the price?"
"Price of what? Price of a kiss?"
"No, my Sultana; price of the ribbon."
"What was it you said about a kiss?"
"I didn't mention a kiss, my Empress."
"Yes, you did; I heard you."
"No, my Juno, I said, _Qu'est ce que c'est?_"
"Ah? 'Kiss Kissay.' That was what I heard. How do you spell it?"
She produces a pocket dictionary, with whose aid she designs during
the next few days to learn the French language, and I am obliged to
spell out my remark while she dubiously translates it word for word.
The literal translation comes out thus--
FRENCH--_Qu'est ce que c'est?_
ENGLISH--_What is this, what this is?_
"'What is this, what this is'?" Madame solemnly repeats; "is that
all you said to the girl?"
"Yes, my dear, it is a 'French idiom.'"
"I am glad," says she, "that it is no worse. It is a mercy I did not
let you come to this place by yourself.
"Let us get home to London."
And I am thankful to be able to add that we get.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match
the page number in the List of Illustrations.
Page 98: "Burrrns", in "Burrrns was Scottish", was printed that way.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Haunts of Old Cockaigne, by Alex Thompson