In another part of the hotel a handsome suite of rooms is occupied by an
old English gentleman, of great probity, some understanding, and very
considerable crustiness, who has come to France to live economically. He
has a very fair property, but his wife, being of that blessed kind compared
in Scripture to the fruitful vine, has overwhelmed him with a family of
buxom daughters, who hang clustering about him, ready to be gathered by any
hand. He is seldom to be seen in public without one hanging on each arm,
and smiling on all the world, while his own mouth is drawn down at each
corner like a mastiff's with internal growling at everything about him. He
adheres rigidly to English fashion in dress, and trudges about in long
gaiters and broad-brimmed hat; while his daughters almost overshadow him
with feathers, flowers, and French bonnets.
He contrives to keep up an atmosphere of English habits, opinions, and
prejudices, and to carry a semblance of London into the very heart of
Paris. His mornings are spent at Galignani's news-room, where he forms one
of a knot of inveterate quidnuncs, who read the same articles over a dozen
times in a dozen different papers. He generally dines in company with some
of his own countrymen, and they have what is called a "comfortable sitting"
after dinner, in the English fashion, drinking wine, discussing the news of
the London papers, and canvassing the French character, the French
metropolis, and the French revolution, ending with a unanimous admission of
English courage, English morality, English cookery, English wealth, the
magnitude of London, and the ingratitude of the French.
His evenings are chiefly spent at a club of his countrymen, where the
London papers are taken. Sometimes his daughters entice him to the
theaters, but not often. He abuses French tragedy, as all fustian and
bombast, Talma as a ranter, and Duchesnois as a mere termagant. It is true
his ear is not sufficiently familiar with the language to understand French
verse, and he generally goes to sleep during the performance. The wit of
the French comedy is flat and pointless to him. He would not give one of
Munden's wry faces or Liston's inexpressible looks for the whole of it.
He will not admit that Paris has any advantage over London. The Seine is a
muddy rivulet in comparison with the Thames; the West End of London
surpasses the finest parts of the French capital; and on some one's
observing that there was a very thick fog out of doors: "Pish!" said he,
crustily, "it's nothing to the fogs we have in London."
He has infinite trouble in bringing his table into anything like conformity
to English rule. With his liquors, it is true, he is tolerably successful.
He procures London porter, and a stock of port and sherry, at considerable
expense; for he observes that he cannot stand those cursed thin French
wines, they dilute his blood so much as to give him the rheumatism. As to
their white wines, he stigmatizes them as mere substitutes for cider; and
as to claret, why, "it would be port if it could." He has continual
quarrels with his French cook, whom he renders wretched by insisting on his
conforming to Mrs. Glass; for it is easier to convert a Frenchman from his
religion than his cookery. The poor fellow, by dint of repeated efforts,
once brought himself to serve up _ros bif_ sufficiently raw to suit
what he considered the cannibal taste of his master; but then he could not
refrain, at the last moment, adding some exquisite sauce, that put the old
gentleman in a fury.
He detests wood-fires, and has procured a quantity of coal; but not having
a grate, he is obliged to burn it on the hearth. Here he sits poking and
stirring the fire with one end of a tongs, while the room is as murky as a
smithy; railing at French chimneys, French masons, and French architects;
giving a poke at the end of every sentence, as though he were stirring up
the very bowels of the delinquents he is anathematizing. He lives in a
state militant with inanimate objects around him; gets into high dudgeon
with doors and casements, because they will not come under English law, and
has implacable feuds with sundry refractory pieces of furniture. Among
these is one in particular with which he is sure to have a high quarrel
every tune he goes to dress. It is a _commode_, one of those smooth,
polished, plausible pieces of French furniture that have the perversity of
five hundred devils. Each drawer has a will of its own, will open or not,
just as the whim takes it, and sets lock and key at defiance. Sometimes a
drawer will refuse to yield to either persuasion or force, and will part
with both handles rather than yield; another will come out in the most coy
and coquettish manner imaginable; elbowing along, zig-zag; one corner
retreating as the other advances; making a thousand difficulties and
objections at every move; until the old gentleman, out of all patience,
gives a sudden jerk, and brings drawer and contents into the middle of the
floor. His hostility to this unlucky piece of furniture increases every
day, as if incensed that it does not grow better. He is like the fretful
invalid who cursed his bed, that the longer he lay the harder it grew. The
only benefit he has derived from the quarrel is that it has furnished him
with a crusty joke, which he utters on all occasions. He swears that a
French _commode_ is the most _incommodious_ thing in existence,
and that although the nation cannot make a joint-stool that will stand
steady, yet they are always talking of everything's being
_perfectionée_.
His servants understand his humor, and avail themselves of it. He was one
day disturbed by a pertinacious rattling and shaking at one of the doors,
and bawled out in an angry tone to know the cause of the disturbance.
"Sir," said the footman, testily, "it's this confounded French lock!" "Ah!"
said the old gentleman, pacified by this hit at the nation, "I thought
there was something French at the bottom of it!"
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