PARISIAN LIVING.
The Parisian family, unless it be one of the bloated aristocrats and
pampered children of luxury, do not occupy separate houses, as families
do in American cities. Rents are somewhat too high to permit that
luxury, and besides they never were used to it, and it wouldn't suit
them at all. They have been accustomed to living up stairs for so many
generations that I doubt if a genuine Parisian of the middle classes
could be happy on or near the ground floor.
The first floor, and, for that matter, the second and third, in the
heart of the city, are devoted to business purposes. Above the third
floors the residences begin, and they continue to the very top. As a
rule, each floor constitutes a dwelling by itself, with halls, parlor or
drawing-room, dining and sleeping rooms and kitchen, all compactly and
very conveniently arranged. True, some of these apartments are small,
not large enough to swing a cat in; but, as Mr. Dick Swiveler wisely
observed, "You don't want to swing a cat, you know." The French
housekeeper finds a kitchen five feet wide and six feet long quite large
enough for the preparation of the food for the family, and the sleeping
rooms, being only used for sleeping, may be very comfortable, if they
are only large enough to hold a bed and the other necessary furniture.
[Sidenote: HOW YOU GET INTO YOUR HOUSE.]
The entrance to these buildings is on the ground floor, and is a wide
gateway with a diminutive suite of apartments on one side, which is
habited by the concierge, or, as the English call it, the porter. This
personage, usually a woman, receives all messages from the different
flats above her, answers all calls and gives all the information
concerning the various families inhabiting it. It is she who cleans the
main staircase which goes to the top of the house, and has charge of
the buildings.
At night, say at eleven, the great doors guarding this common entrance
are shut, and whoever desires to enter thereafter finds a bell-pull, the
other end of which is at the head of the concierge's bed. She doesn't
bother herself to get up and see who it is, but she merely pulls a wire,
the bolt of the great door is withdrawn, you enter, and shutting the
door after you--it fastens with a spring lock--go to your floor, and
enter your own house.
Tibbitts likes this idea very much. He says that when you come home late
at night, and not precisely in the condition to be accurate about
things, there isn't any nonsense about finding a key first, and then
going through the more delicate operations of finding a keyhole and
getting the key in right side up. "All you have to do is to catch on
that bell-pull, and the more unsteady you are, the better, for you lean
back upon it, and your whole weight takes it." And he further remarked
that there wasn't a concierge in Paris who wouldn't know his ring before
he had been in the house a week.
The principal business of the concierge and her entire family is to keep
the stairs clean. I once held that the Philadelphia servant girl would
die were the supply of water to run out so that she could not wash
sidewalks and marble steps, but she has a worthy rival in the Parisian.
The stairs leading to the top of the buildings are kept sloppy all the
time with the perpetual cleaning. Indeed so constantly is this going on
that no time is given to enjoy the luxury of clean stairs. Not only the
stairs are cleansed, but the very sides of the building are washed and
scrubbed once in so many years, by law. If Paris only took as much pains
with its inside as it does with its outside! But it doesn't.
Once inside the houses, the first thing that strikes an American is the
total absence of carpets; that is, carpets as we have them. The floors
are of wood in many patterns, and in the center there may or may not be
a rug, which covers, perhaps, two-thirds of the room. A room carpeted
the entire surface is very rare, and I must say that therein the French
housekeeper does better than the American. These rugs are taken up very
frequently, it being no trouble, and are kept clean and free of dust,
something impossible when they are fastened to the floor, as is the
custom across the water.
In the Summer they are taken out of the way entirely, and the bright
waxed floor is deliciously cool, and in the Winter the rug, always in
warm colors, forms a pleasing contrast to the wood on the edges. The
French idea is better than ours.
The French housekeeper is perfection in her way. She allows nothing to
go to waste. There is not a penny's worth more purchased than can be
used, and the ending of the day sees the ending of what was bought for
the day. If there are ten to sit down to the table there is soup made
for just ten--not enough for twenty and the remainder to the slop
bucket--and there is just meat enough to make ten portions, and no more.
There is butter for ten and vegetables for ten. By the way, very little
butter is used. Wine is provided _ad libitum_, and even that, cheap as
it is, is carefully poured from the half or two-thirds emptied bottles
into others and carefully husbanded till the next meal brings it out.
There is nothing of meanness in this--only the good sense not to waste.
The French housewife, very properly, sees no use in throwing away food
any more than she does money. Consequently, despite the much higher cost
of provisions, a French house gets on in better style than an American,
and at a much less expenditure.
[Sidenote: THE MARKET WOMAN.]
The skill of the French cook is proverbial, and his reputation is
deserved. One of the craft once said that with a pair of cavalry boots,
a handful of grass and plenty of salt and pepper, he could make soup for
a regiment, and I believe him. They use more vegetables than we do, and
use them infinitely better. Out of the despised carrot, which seldom
makes its appearance on American tables, they make a delicious dish, and
their treatment of potatoes, tomatoes, and the whole race of
salad-making vegetables, is something akin to miraculous. They use oil
in profusion, and no matter what the raw material is that comes under
the hands of a French cook, there is a taste and relish about the
product that is satisfying as well as gratifying. The Frenchman at his
table aims at all the senses. To begin with it is garnished with
flowers, and, second, the dishes gratify hunger, and, thirdly, they
gratify the taste. Then, as an appropriate finish, they will have the
most cheerful conversation, and for the time all care and trouble is
banished and the feeding time is the good time of the household. A
Frenchman may come to his house ever so much depressed, but he has a
thoroughly enjoyable time at his dinner. He may rise from the table and
blow his brains out, but at the table no one would ever know or dream
that he ever had a trouble.
Among the middle classes, and indeed the better, the lady of the house
does the marketing in person. It is too important a matter to be
entrusted to a servant, for they are exceedingly particular as to the
quality, and equally so as to the price of the supplies. French
market-people, especially the women, are the shrewdest and the most
unscrupulous in the world, and it requires much care and skill not to be
imposed upon. I went one morning with my landlady to see a French
market.
The first thing desired was a lobster. One was selected and then
commenced the bargaining.
"How much?" demanded the Madame.
"Five francs," was the answer, "and very cheap it is. Observe, Madame,
its size, and its condition. Oh, I have nothing but the best. Shall I
put it into your basket?"
"No, it is too much!"
"Too much! Madame, you would starve me. Well, then, you are an old
customer (she had never seen Madame before), I will give it to you--I
would no one else--for four and a half. It is ruin, but I can't keep
them over."
"I will give you two francs."
"Two francs! You jest, Madame. Two francs for this king of
lobsters--this emperor! Ah no! but I will say four--and little Jean
shall go without shoes."
"Two francs."
"Say three and a half--my landlord can do without his rent till times
are better."
Precisely as the two franc offer was being accepted, a young man drove
up in a stylish coupe.
"How much for that lobster?"
"Ten francs, Monsieur le Colonel," replied the dame without a blush.
"Wrap it up and put it in my carriage," was the reply, and it was done.
"Why did you ask him ten francs when you only asked me five to begin
with, and intended to take two?" demanded my landlady, purely that I
might hear the answer.
"Eh? Oh, the young man has plenty of money--it is for his little woman,
I suppose. We poor must live, and I must make my profit. But here is one
just like it--rather better. Shall I say three francs?"
"Two."
"Well, it must be so. But I lose money."
The old dame made a good hundred per cent. as it was.
As it was in lobsters so it was in everything. The price offered in
every instance was about two-fifths of the price asked and even then it
was not certain but that too much was not paid. But when a French market
woman and a French housekeeper come together there is not going to be
very much swindling. Both know their business and whoever gets the best
in the encounter may congratulate herself upon possessing a great deal
of acumen.
The servants in French families are now tolerably attentive and
obliging, but their bearing depends very much upon the political
condition of the country. Every Frenchman is a politician, and they have
all the shades of politics down to the humblest, and the lower orders,
as elsewhere, take their politics from their superiors. The retainers in
the families of the old nobility are Monarchists to a man, and hate the
Republic with a hatred that the dispossessed nobility themselves do not
feel. The waiters at the cafés and those who entered domestic service
latterly are all virulent Republicans, disagreeably so. Especially was
this true just after the downfall of the Third Napoleon, and after the
Commune. A lady of my acquaintance, who got out of Paris just before the
Commune, returned and rearranged her household after order was restored.
Her daughter had engaged servants, and the good old lady rang for one.
[Sidenote: PARISIAN WASHING.]
"Are you one of the new servants?" she asked, as a strange man answered
her summons.
"No, Madame. I am in your employment, but no servant. Since the
Republic, there are no servants. Address me, please, as 'citizen!'"
And she was compelled to do it, or go without service. The man
considered himself the equal of his mistress in all particulars, and
would be counted nothing less.
Fuel is very costly in France, and consequently very little used. In
Paris the climate is mild, and very little is needed. But the same
economy is observed in this as in everything. Twigs of trees and the
smallest bushes, cut in uniform lengths, are used for firing, and for
cooking the use of charcoal is almost universal.
As the shops furnish food as cheaply as it can be prepared at home, it
is only in families that cooking is done. The washing among this class
is done altogether at the public wash-houses in the Seine. These are
immense boats anchored close to the bank and partitioned off into spaces
just wide enough for a woman to work comfortably. For two sous, the
woman has the use of tubs and hot and cold water _ad libitum_. She takes
her bundle of soiled goods, and her own soap, and washes them, using a
heavy wooden paddle to drive the soap through the fabric, instead of the
pounder and washboard, and, wringing them out, carries them home wet. A
few sous' worth of charcoal suffices to iron them, and the same fire
cooks her little dinner, and so two very important birds are killed with
one stone. The shop girls, whose attics will not admit of a fire, have
no other way of washing their clothes, and so the public wash-houses are
always full.
The eating of the day commences with a very slight breakfast in your
room at any hour you choose. The said breakfast consists of exactly one
cup of coffee or chocolate--it is measured accurately, there is exactly
one cup in the little pot--two rolls and an infinitesimal portion of
fresh butter. You bid good-bye to salted butter when you leave the
steamer. On this you exist till twelve, or thereabouts, when you have a
breakfast as is a breakfast. There are eggs and one or two varieties of
meat, and wine _ad libitum_, ending with sweets. This over, at six you
have the meal of the day, the dinner, consisting of five or six courses,
commencing with the everlasting soup, and ending with black coffee. Wine
constitutes the drink of this meal, as at the breakfast.
[Illustration: IN ANY OF THE PARKS.]
[Sidenote: THE TIDY FRENCH WOMAN.]
It takes an American some little time to get used to this light
breakfast, but when accustomed to it he is entirely satisfied with it.
If he has nothing to do it is certainly better than the heavy breakfast
of his own country, and unless he has the most violent bodily labor to
perform, it is better than to go to business with an overloaded stomach.
Anyhow, whether you like it or not, it is all you can get, and a wise
man always manages to like what is inevitable. One very soon gets to
liking this very strange innovation upon one's established habits.
The French woman esteems tidiness and cleanliness above everything on
earth, that is, outward tidiness. If rumor be true, they are not so
particular as to internal economy, but the outside of the platter must
be as white as the driven snow. An English or American woman will walk
the sloppy streets and drag her skirts in the mud and filth till they
are not only uncomfortable but are absolutely indecent in appearance.
All this could be avoided by merely lifting the skirts, but the notion
of delicacy, the fear of exposing an ankle, prevents this. That is the
Anglo-Saxon notion of delicacy. The French woman has other views. Her
ankles are not sacred, but her skirts are. She will not have soiled
skirts, she will not have petticoats with the filth of the streets upon
them, and so when she comes to a vile spot, she lifts her skirts and
passes over without carrying any of the filth with her. It matters not
if her ankles are exposed. That she expects. But she does this
skirt-lifting with such a grace and such a manner that to an American
even it is the most natural thing in the world. The French woman hoists
her skirts in a way that makes it apparent to the most critical observer
that it is not done to show neatly turned ankles, but to save her person
from filth. It is a necessity with her, from her stand-point, and is
consequently accepted as such. She has no objection to exposing a
shapely ankle, but whether the ankle be shapely or not, no Parisian
woman will ever, under any circumstances, be untidy. She has a passion
for neatness, and a very pleasant passion it is. Would that she were as
correct in her other passions.
Every woman in Paris, or for that matter everywhere in France, works.
This is the secret of French prosperity. This explains the ease with
which the French people recovered from
[Illustration: THE NO-LEGGED BEGGAR WOMAN--BOULEVARD DES CAPUCINES.]
[Sidenote: FEMALE SHOP-KEEPERS.]
the extravagance of the Empire, the frightful cost of the war with
Prussia, and the enormous indemnity exacted by the merciless Bismarck.
It is the universality of labor, and the knowing how to live well upon
next to nothing. A French wife not only does the house keeping for her
family, but she takes care of the shop. She sells the goods which her
husband makes. Say he is a trunkmaker--he is in the shop on the floor
above, or the floor below, as the case may be, working for dear life,
but in the salesroom sits Madame, his wife, or Mademoiselle, his
daughter, who sells the goods, takes the money, keeps the books, buys
the materials, and runs the business end of the concern.
But this is not all. Customers do not come in every minute, and Madame
has time upon her hands. She does not waste it. There are her children,
too young to work, but they must be clothed, and if there are no
children there are a few sous to be earned by knitting, or fancy
needlework. And so all this spare time is put in by Madame, sewing or
knitting, either for her own family or for a market. Not a minute goes
to waste. Wherever you see a French woman you see her doing some thing.
The nurse-maid, who takes her charges out for an airing, has work in her
hands, and she works. In the gardens in the Palais-Royal you shall see
hundreds of nurse-maids whose charges are playing under the beautiful
trees, knitting industriously, one eye on the work and the other on the
children, and in every shop you enter you see the same thing.
Wages are very low, but with this absolute economy of time and the more
absolute economy in the matter of living, the French workingman manages
to get on better, on an average, than those in the same station in any
other country in the world. French industry and French thrift make
anything in the way of living possible. There is nothing like it.
Transportation is very cheap in Paris and exceedingly good. The
omnibusses are large and the street cars likewise, and have the delight
of holding as many people on the top as on the inside. And then they are
never overcrowded. You are entitled to and get a seat. When the seats
are all taken the sign "Complet," is displayed, and no more passengers
are admitted. A ride on the top of a French omnibus in good weather is a
delight.
The Frenchman tries to imitate the English and Americans in the matters
of sport, but it is a sorry failure. The young French sport gets himself
up in remarkable sporting costumes, and goes out gunning, and always
returns with game. Does he shoot it? Alas! It can be bought, and--he
buys it. But he brings in his hare or his birds, or whatever can be
bought that has been freshly killed, and proudly displays it to his
friends and talks loudly of the pleasures of field sports.
[Illustration: HOW THE FRENCH SPORT KILLS GAME.]
[Sidenote: THE FRENCH SPORT.]
Fishing in the Seine is another amusement, though I never met anybody
who had ever caught a fish. There are more lines in the Seine any hour
of the day than there are fish, but they all fish just the same. The
docks are lined with men and boys at all hours, and all standing as
gravely and patiently as though they made their living by it. The sight
of a fish would astonish them.
[Illustration: FISHING IN THE SEINE.]
Bloss, my old showman friend, arrived last night from Switzerland. There
are a number of bears kept at Berne, the property of the city, one of
which, some years ago, killed an English officer who fell into his den.
That bear--but Bloss may tell his own story.
"Wat I wantid wuz that bear. I wantid that identical bear, the very one
that squoze the Britisher. Ef I cood hev
[Illustration: INSIDE A PARISIAN OMNIBUS.]
[Sidenote: A SHOW ADVERTISEMENT.]
got that bear it wood hev bin the biggest thing in the annals of the
show biznis. So I went to Berne and saw the President of the Swiss
Republic. I offered him fust two hundred dollars for it, pervided he
would write a certifikit on parchment and put the seal of the Republic
onto it that it wuz the identical animile. Ye see, ef he hed done this
I should hev put it onto the bills this way:--
That there may be no doubt in the minds of a too-oft deceived
public, deceived by audacious pretenders who advertise what they
know they cannot perform, that this is the identical ferocious bear
that did actually kill an unfortunate British officer in the
presence of his newly-made bride (he wasn't married at all, but you
can't awaken no interest without the pathetic)--who was powerless
to extricate him from the tenacious grasp of the ferocious brute,
the most dangerous of the species, the certificate of the President
of the Swiss Republic, with the broad seal of the Republic
attached, will be exhibited at each and every entertainment, all
reports to the contrary notwithstanding, and positively without any
extra charge. This statement is made to counteract the envious and
malicious reports of would-be rivals, who seek to make up by
slander and misrepresentation, what they lack in enterprise and
resource.
[Illustration: THE SHOWMAN SHOWN THE DOOR.]
I should hev hed a copy--a fac-similer--uv the certifikit printed, in
two colors, and I shood hev hed the certifikit itself hung out afore
the big tent, and it would hev bin wuth a heap uv money to me.
"Did you succeed?"
"Succeed! Why the bloated aristocrat refoozed to hev anything to say to
me, and directed a servant to show me out. A pretty Republic that is,
where the President won't hear a common biznis proposishen! And then I
went to the Mayor uv the city, and when my proposishen wuz translated to
him, he remarked that he wuzn't in the bear biznis, and he hed me showed
out. I shood like to be a voter in Berne at one elecshun. But I shel hev
the bear that killed the offiser jes the same. That is, I shel advertise
that one uv the bears I yoose that eat the children in the Elijah act is
the identikle one. I don't like to deceeve the public--I hed ruther deal
strate with 'em, but I must git my expenses out uv that trip to Berne
somehow, and I shel hev the President's certifikit all the same. Yes,
and blast me ef I don't add the Mayor's to it to make ashoorence doubly
shoor. I ain't agoin' to Berne for nothin', nor am I goin' to lose an
ijee. Ijees are too skase to waste one."
"Did you enjoy this trip to the land of Tell?"
The sound of the word "Tell," was sufficient to tap the old gentleman
once more, and he went off into a narrative that flowed smoothly as
cider from a barrel.
[Sidenote: DE LACY'S IDEA.]
"The land uv Tell! I shel never forgit Tell--Willyum, the Swiss wat shot
a apple offen his boy's head. It wuz way back in 1844, when I was
runnin' my great aggregashun in the West. We had a minstrel sideshow in
the afternoon, and a regler theater for a sideshow in the evenin'. Our
leadin' man wuz Mortimer de Lacy, from the principal European and Noo
York theaters--his real name was Tubbs; he wuz the son uv a ginooine
Injun physician, which hed stands about the country suthin' like a
circus--who wuz very fond uv playin' Tell. De Lacy wuz one uv the most
yooseful men I ever hed. He rid the six hoss act, the "Rooshun Courier
uv Moscow," and did the stone-breakin' act, where he bends over on his
arms and hez stuns broken on his breast with sledges, and he did the
cannon ball act, and in the afternoon wuz the interlocootor in the
minstrel show, playin' the triangle--anybody kin play the triangle, and
he alluz sed he wood give anything ef he cood manage a banjo or even a
accordeon so ez to git up in the perfesh--and in the evenin' he did the
classical in high tragedy. The afternoon minstrel show wuz for the
country people, but the play in the evenin' wuz to ketch the more
refined towns folks. Well, one day De Lacy cum to me, and sez he:--
"'Guvnor, I hev a idear.'
"'Spit it out,' sez I. 'Idears is wuth money in our biznis.'
"'I kin make Tell more realistic. You know the way we do the shootin' uv
the apple off the boy's head is to shoot an arrer into the wings and the
boy comes runnin' out with a split apple in his hand.'
"'Yes, that's the way it alluz hez bin done. It's a tradishn uv the
stage.'
"'I perpose to hev the boy stand on the stage in full view uv the
awjence, and to shoot the apple off his head under their very eyes. It's
a big thing.'
"'Big thing! I should say so. But you can't shoot an apple with an
arrer. You couldn't hit the side of a barn.'
"'Very good, but this is my idear. We only play Tell at night. We
stretch a wire across the stage jes the height of the boy, and the wire
runs through the apple on the boy's head. Then I hev a loop fixed onto
the arrer, and when I shoot it runs along the wire--see?--and knocks the
apple into smithereens. It's a big notion.'
"It occurred to me that it wood be a good piece of biznis and I agreed
to it. My youngest boy, Sam, alluz played the boy, and De Lacy and I
fixed the riggin' and hed it all right. To make it more realistic De
Lacy hed a very broad-headed arrer made so that the awjence should see
it wuz reel, and everythin' wuz ready. When that scene come on, the boy
come out walkin' very keerful--we hed the apple fixed tight upon his
head so that ef he walked in a strate line it wooden't be moved, and he
wuz placed. After the speeches De Lacy sprung the bow, and let the arrer
drive with all the force it hed."
"It must have been a thrilling scene."
"Thrillin'! Yoo bet! But we didn't repeat it. Bekaze yoo see the wire
slackened, and the arrer struck Sam on the top uv the head and scalped
him as clean as a Camanche Injun cood hev done it, and he howled and
jumped onter De Lacy and the wire tore down the two wings it wuz hitched
onter, and De Lacy in gittin' rid uv him tore down the rest uv the
wings, and they clinched and rolled down onto the stage, and the awjence
got up and howled, and the peeple all rushed on, and there wuz about ez
lively a scene ez I ever witnessed in a long and varied experience. It
wuz picteresk and lurid. I rung the curtain down and separated 'em. It
wuz a good idear, but it didn't jes work, owin' to defective machinery."
[Illustration: THE TELL CATASTROPHE.]
[Sidenote: THE CAREER OF SAM.]
"But it turned out pretty well, after all. The smart man is he who turns
wat to others wood be a misfortoon to account. I hed the scalp tanned
with the hair outside, and ez soon ez Sam's bald head healed up I
exhibited him in a blue roundabout, with brass buttons--I bought the
soot cheap uv a bell boy at a hotel in Cincinnati--ez the son uv the
Rev. Melchizadek Smith, a missionary for thirty years among the Injuns,
who wuz scalped at the time his father wuz barbariously killed, and I
hed a life uv the Rev. Smith writ, and an account of the massacre, and
Sam sold it after he hed bin exhibited. It did very well till he got too
big for that biznis."
"But Sam is doin' very well. He is now an end man in a minstrel show,
and he does the Lancashire clog, and does mighty well in the wench
biznis, and he hez a partner in the brother biznis, the De
Montmorencies, I beleeve they wuz, the last time I heerd uv 'em. He will
git on--he hez a great deal uv talent and kin turn his hand to almost
anything."
[Illustration: ZOOLOGICAL ROOM--BRITISH MUSEUM.]