resentment took the form (along with many other curious results) of
opening the present Boulevard St. Germain, its line being intentionally
carried through the heart of that quarter, teeming with historic "Hotels"
of the old aristocracy, where beautiful constructions were mercilessly
torn down to make way for the new avenue. The cajoleries which Eugenie
first tried and the blows that followed were alike unavailing. Even her
worship of Marie Antoinette, between whom and herself she found imaginary
resemblances, failed to warm the stony hearts of the proud old ladies, to
whom it was as gall and wormwood to see a nobody crowned in the palace of
their kings. Like religious communities, persecution only drew this old
society more firmly together and made them stand by each other in their
distress. When the Bois was remodelled by Napoleon and the lake with its
winding drive laid out, the new Court drove of an afternoon along this
water front. That was enough for the old swells! They retired to the
remote "Allee of the Acacias," and solemnly took their airing away from
the bustle of the new world, incidentally setting a fashion that has held
good to this day; the lakeside being now deserted, and the "Acacias"
crowded of an afternoon, by all that Paris holds of elegant and
inelegant.
Where the brilliant Second Empire failed, the Republic had little chance
of success. With each succeeding year the "Old Faubourg" withdrew more
and more into its shell, going so far, after the fall of Mac Mahon, as to
change its "season" to the spring, so that the balls and _fetes_ it gave
should not coincide with the "official" entertainments during the winter.
The next people to have a "shy" at the "Old Faubourg's" Gothic
battlements were the Jews, who were victorious in a few light skirmishes
and succeeded in capturing one or two illustrious husbands for their
daughters. The wily Israelites, however, discovered that titled sons-in-
law were expensive articles and often turned out unsatisfactorily, so
they quickly desisted. The English, the most practical of societies,
have always left the Faubourg alone. It has been reserved for our
countrywomen to lay the most determined siege yet recorded to that
untaken stronghold.
It is a characteristic of the American temperament to be unable to see a
closed door without developing an intense curiosity to know what is
behind; or to read "No Admittance to the Public" over an entrance without
immediately determining to get inside at any price. So it is easy to
understand the attraction an hermetically sealed society would have for
our fair compatriots. Year after year they have flung themselves against
its closed gateways. Repulsed, they have retired only to form again for
the attack, but are as far away to-day from planting their flag in that
citadel as when they first began. It does not matter to them what is
inside; there may be (as in this case) only mouldy old halls and a group
of people with antiquated ideas and ways. It is enough for a certain
type of woman to know that she is not wanted in an exclusive circle, to
be ready to die in the attempt to get there. This point of view reminds
one of Mrs. Snob's saying about a new arrival at a hotel: "I am sure she
must be 'somebody' for she was so rude to me when I spoke to her;" and
her answer to her daughter when the girl said (on arriving at a watering-
place) that she had noticed a very nice family "who look as if they
wanted to know us, Mamma:"
"Then, my dear," replied Mamma Snob, "they certainly are not people we
want to meet!"
The men in French society are willing enough to make acquaintance with
foreigners. You may see the youth of the Faubourg dancing at American
balls in Paris, or running over for occasional visits to this country.
But when it comes to taking their women-kind with them, it is a different
matter. Americans who have known well-born Frenchmen at school or
college are surprised, on meeting them later, to be asked (cordially
enough) to dine _en garcon_ at a restaurant, although their Parisian
friend is married. An Englishman's or American's first word would be on
a like occasion:
"Come and dine with me to-night. I want to introduce you to my wife."
Such an idea would never cross a Frenchman's mind!
One American I know is a striking example of this. He was born in Paris,
went to school and college there, and has lived in that city all his
life. His sister married a French nobleman. Yet at this moment, in
spite of his wealth, his charming American wife, and many beautiful
entertainments, he has not one warm French friend, or the _entree_ on a
footing of intimacy to a single Gallic house.
There is no analogy between the English aristocracy and the French
nobility, except that they are both antiquated institutions; the English
is the more harmful on account of its legislative power, the French is
the more pretentious. The House of Lords is the most open club in
London, the payment of an entrance-fee in the shape of a check to a party
fund being an all-sufficient sesame. In France, one must be born in the
magic circle. The spirit of the Emigration of 1793 is not yet extinct.
The nobles live in their own world (how expressive the word is, seeming
to exclude all the rest of mankind), pining after an impossible
_restauration_, alien to the present day, holding aloof from politics for
fear of coming in touch with the masses, with whom they pride themselves
on having nothing in common.
What leads many people astray on this subject is that there has formed
around this ancient society a circle composed of rich "outsiders," who
have married into good families; and of eccentric members of the latter,
who from a love of excitement or for interested motives have broken away
from their traditions. Newly arrived Americans are apt to mistake this
"world" for the real thing. Into this circle it is not difficult for
foreigners who are rich and anxious to see something of life to gain
admission. To be received by the ladies of this outer circle, seems to
our compatriots to be an achievement, until they learn the real standing
of their new acquaintances.
No gayer houses, however, exist than those of the new set. At their city
or country houses, they entertain continually, and they are the people
one meets toward five o'clock, on the grounds of the Polo Club, in the
Bois, at _fetes_ given by the Island Club of Puteaux, attending the race
meetings, or dining at American houses. As far as amusement and fun go,
one might seek much further and fare worse.
It is very, very rare that foreigners get beyond this circle.
Occasionally there is a marriage between an American girl and some
Frenchman of high rank. In these cases the girl is, as it were,
swallowed up. Her family see little of her, she rarely appears in
general society, and, little by little, she is lost to her old friends
and relations. I know of several cases of this kind where it is to be
doubted if a dozen Americans outside of the girls' connections know that
such women exist. The fall in rents and land values has made the French
aristocracy poor; it is only by the greatest economy (and it never
entered into an American mind to conceive of such economy as is practised
among them) that they succeed in holding on to their historical chateaux
or beautiful city residences; so that pride plays a large part in the
isolation in which they live.
The fact that no titles are recognized officially by the French
government (the most they can obtain being a "courtesy" recognition) has
placed these people in a singularly false position. An American girl who
has married a Duke is a good deal astonished to find that she is legally
only plain "Madame So and So;" that when her husband does his military
service there is no trace of the high-sounding title to be found in his
official papers. Some years ago, a colonel was rebuked because he
allowed the Duc d'Alencon to be addressed as "Monseigneur" by the other
officers of his regiment. This ought to make ambitious papas reflect,
when they treat themselves to titled sons-in-law. They should at least
try and get an article recognized by the law.
Most of what is written here is perfectly well known to resident
Americans in Paris, and has been the cause of gradually splitting that
once harmonious settlement into two perfectly distinct camps, between
which no love is lost. The members of one, clinging to their
countrymen's creed of having the best or nothing, have been contented to
live in France and know but few French people, entertaining among
themselves and marrying their daughters to Americans. The members of the
other, who have "gone in" for French society, take what they can get,
and, on the whole, lead very jolly lives. It often happens (perhaps it
is only a coincidence) that ladies who have not been very successful at
home are partial to this circle, where they easily find guests for their
entertainments and the recognition their souls long for.
What the future of the "Great Faubourg" will be, it is hard to say. All
hope of a possible _restauration_ appears to be lost. Will the proud
necks that refused to bend to the Orleans dynasty or the two "empires"
bow themselves to the republican yoke? It would seem as if it must
terminate in this way, for everything in this world must finish. But the
end is not yet; one cannot help feeling sympathy for people who are
trying to live up to their traditions and be true to such immaterial
idols as "honor" and "family" in this discouragingly material age, when
everything goes down before the Golden Calf. Nor does one wonder that
men who can trace their ancestors back to the Crusades should hesitate to
ally themselves with the last rich _parvenu_ who has raised himself from
the gutter, or resent the ardor with which the latest importation of
American ambition tries to chum with them and push its way into their
life.
No. 31--Men's Manners
Nothing makes one feel so old as to wake up suddenly, as it were, and
realize that the conditions of life have changed, and that the standards
you knew and accepted in your youth have been raised or lowered. The
young men you meet have somehow become uncomfortably polite, offering you
armchairs in the club, and listening with a shade of deference to your
stories. They are of another generation; their ways are not your ways,
nor their ambitions those you had in younger days. One is tempted to
look a little closer, to analyze what the change is, in what this subtle
difference consists, which you feel between your past and their present.
You are surprised and a little angry to discover that, among other
things, young men have better manners than were general among the youths
of fifteen years ago.
Anyone over forty can remember three epochs in men's manners. When I was
a very young man, there were still going about in society a number of
gentlemen belonging to what was reverently called the "old school," who
had evidently taken Sir Charles Grandison as their model, read Lord
Chesterfield's letters to his son with attention, and been brought up to
commence letters to their fathers, "Honored Parent," signing themselves
"Your humble servant and respectful son." There are a few such old
gentlemen still to be found in the more conservative clubs, where certain
windows are tacitly abandoned to these elegant-mannered fossils. They
are quite harmless unless you happen to find them in a reminiscent mood,
when they are apt to be a little tiresome; it takes their rusty mental
machinery so long to get working! Washington possesses a particularly
fine collection among the retired army and navy officers and
ex-officials. It is a fact well known that no one drawing a pension ever
dies.
About 1875, a new generation with new manners began to make its
appearance. A number of its members had been educated at English
universities, and came home burning to upset old ways and teach their
elders how to live. They broke away from the old clubs and started
smaller and more exclusive circles among themselves, principally in the
country. This was a period of bad manners. True to their English model,
they considered it "good form" to be uncivil and to make no effort
towards the general entertainment when in society. Not to speak more
than a word or two during a dinner party to either of one's neighbors was
the supreme _chic_. As a revolt from the twice-told tales of their
elders they held it to be "bad form" to tell a story, no matter how fresh
and amusing it might be. An unfortunate outsider who ventured to tell
one in their club was crushed by having his tale received in dead
silence. When it was finished one of the party would "ring the bell,"
and the circle order drinks at the expense of the man who had dared to
amuse them. How the professional story-teller must have shuddered--he
whose story never was ripe until it had been told a couple of hundred
times, and who would produce a certain tale at a certain course as surely
as clock-work.
That the story-telling type was a bore, I grant. To be grabbed on
entering your club and obliged to listen to Smith's last, or to have the
conversation after dinner monopolized by Jones and his eternal "Speaking
of coffee, I remember once," etc. added an additional hardship to
existence. But the opposite pose, which became the fashion among the
reformers, was hardly less wearisome. To sit among a group of perfectly
mute men, with an occasional word dropping into the silence like a stone
in a well, was surely little better.
A girl told me she had once sat through an entire cotillion with a youth
whose only remark during the evening had been (after absorbed
contemplation of the articles in question), "How do you like my socks?"
On another occasion my neighbor at table said to me:
"I think the man on my right has gone to sleep. He is sitting with his
eyes closed!" She was mistaken. He was practising his newly acquired
"repose of manner," and living up to the standard of his set.
The model young man of that period had another offensive habit, his pose
of never seeing you, which got on the nerves of his elders to a
considerable extent. If he came into a drawing-room where you were
sitting with a lady, he would shake hands with her and begin a
conversation, ignoring your existence, although you may have been his
guest at dinner the night before, or he yours. This was also a tenet of
his creed borrowed from trans-Atlantic cousins, who, by the bye, during
the time I speak of, found America, and especially our Eastern states, a
happy hunting-ground,--all the clubs, country houses, and society
generally opening their doors to the "sesame" of English nationality. It
took our innocent youths a good ten years to discover that there was no
reciprocity in the arrangement; it was only in the next epoch (the list
of the three referred to) that our men recovered their self-respect, and
assumed towards foreigners in general the attitude of polite indifference
which is their manner to us when abroad. Nothing could have been more
provincial and narrow than the ideas of our "smart" men at that time.
They congregated in little cliques, huddling together in public, and
cracking personal old jokes; but were speechless with _mauvaise honte_ if
thrown among foreigners or into other circles of society. All this is
not to be wondered at considering the amount of their general education
and reading. One charming little custom then greatly in vogue among our
_jeunesse doree_ was to remain at a ball, after the other guests had
retired, tipsy, and then break anything that came to hand. It was so
amusing to throw china, glass, or valuable plants, out of the windows, to
strip to the waist and box or bait the tired waiters.
I look at the boys growing up around me with sincere admiration, they are
so superior to their predecessors in breeding, in civility, in deference
to older people, and in a thousand other little ways that mark high-bred
men. The stray Englishman, of no particular standing at home no longer
finds our men eager to entertain him, to put their best "hunter" at his
disposition, to board, lodge, and feed him indefinitely, or make him
honorary member of all their clubs. It is a constant source of pleasure
to me to watch this younger generation, so plainly do I see in them the
influence of their mothers--women I knew as girls, and who were so far
ahead of their brothers and husbands in refinement and culture. To have
seen these girls marry and bring up their sons so well has been a
satisfaction and a compensation for many disillusions. Woman's influence
will always remain the strongest lever that can be brought to bear in
raising the tone of a family; it is impossible not to see about these
young men a reflection of what we found so charming in their mothers. One
despairs at times of humanity, seeing vulgarity and snobbishness riding
triumphantly upward; but where the tone of the younger generation is as
high as I have lately found it, there is still much hope for the future.
No. 32--An Ideal Hostess
The saying that "One-half of the world ignores how the other half lives"
received for me an additional confirmation this last week, when I had the
good fortune to meet again an old friend, now for some years retired from
the stage, where she had by her charm and beauty, as well as by her
singing, held all the Parisian world at her pretty feet.
Our meeting was followed on her part by an invitation to take luncheon
with her the next day, "to meet a few friends, and talk over old times."
So half-past twelve (the invariable hour for the "second breakfast," in
France) the following day found me entering a shady drawing-room, where a
few people were sitting in the cool half-light that strayed across from a
canvas-covered balcony furnished with plants and low chairs. Beyond one
caught a glimpse of perhaps the gayest picture that the bright city of
Paris offers,--the sweep of the Boulevard as it turns to the Rue Royale,
the flower market, gay with a thousand colors in the summer sunshine,
while above all the color and movement, rose, cool and gray, the splendid
colonnade of the Madeleine. The rattle of carriages, the roll of the
heavy omnibuses and the shrill cries from the street below floated up,
softened into a harmonious murmur that in no way interfered with our
conversation, and is sweeter than the finest music to those who love
their Paris.
Five or six rooms _en suite_ opening on the street, and as many more on a
large court, formed the apartment, where everything betrayed the
_artiste_ and the singer. The walls, hung with silk or tapestry, held a
collection of original drawings and paintings, a fortune in themselves;
the dozen portraits of our hostess in favorite roles were by men great in
the art world; a couple of pianos covered with well-worn music and
numberless photographs signed with names that would have made an
autograph-fiend's mouth water.
After a gracious, cooing welcome, more whispered than spoken, I was
presented to the guests I did not know. Before this ceremony was well
over, two maids in black, with white caps, opened a door into the dining-
room and announced luncheon. As this is written on the theme that
"people know too little how their neighbors live," I give the _menu_. It
may amuse my readers and serve, perhaps, as a little object lesson to
those at home who imagine that quantity and not quality is of importance.
Our gracious hostess had earned a fortune in her profession (and I am
told that two _chefs_ preside over her simple meals); so it was not a
spirit of economy which dictated this simplicity. At first, _hors
d'oeuvres_ were served,--all sorts of tempting little things,--very thin
slices of ham, spiced sausages, olives and caviar, and eaten--not merely
passed and refused. Then came the one hot dish of the meal. "One!" I
think I hear my reader exclaim. Yes, my friend, but that one was a
marvel in its way. Chicken _a l'espagnole_, boiled, and buried in rice
and tomatoes cooked whole--a dish to be dreamed of and remembered in
one's prayers and thanksgivings! After at least two helpings each to
this _chef-d'oeuvre_, cold larded fillet and a meat _pate_ were served
with the salad. Then a bit of cheese, a beaten cream of chocolate,
fruit, and bon-bons. For a drink we had the white wine from which
champagne is made (by a chemical process and the addition of many
injurious ingredients); in other words, a pure _brut_ champagne with just
a suggestion of sparkle at the bottom of your glass. All the party then
migrated together into the smoking-room for cigarettes, coffee, and a
tiny glass of _liqueur_.
These details have been given at length, not only because the meal seemed
to me, while I was eating it, to be worthy of whole columns of print, but
because one of the besetting sins of our dear land is to serve a
profusion of food no one wants and which the hostess would never have
dreamed of ordering had she been alone.
Nothing is more wearisome than to sit at table and see course after
course, good, bad, and indifferent, served, after you have eaten what you
want. And nothing is more vulgar than to serve them; for either a guest
refuses a great deal of the food and appears uncivil, or he must eat, and
regret it afterwards. If we ask people to a meal, it should be to such
as we eat, as a general thing, ourselves, and such as they would have at
home. Otherwise it becomes ostentation and vulgarity. Why should one be
expelled to eat more than usual because a friend has been nice enough to
ask one to take one's dinner with him, instead of eating it alone? It is
the being among friends that tempts, not the food; the fact at skilful
waiters have been able to serve a dozen varieties of fish, flesh, and
fowl during the time you were at table has added little to any one's
pleasure. On the contrary! Half the time one eats from pure absence of
mind, a number of most injurious mixtures and so prepares an awful to-
morrow and the foundation of many complicated diseases.
I see Smith and Jones daily at the club, where we dine cheerfully
together on soup, a cut of the joint, a dessert, and drink a pint of
claret. But if either Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones asks me to dinner, we
have eight courses and half as many wines, and Smith will say quite
gravely to me, "Try this '75 'Perrier Jouet'," as if he were in the habit
of drinking it daily. It makes me smile, for he would as soon think of
ordering a bottle of that wine at the club as he would think of ordering
a flask of nectar.
But to return to our "mutton." As we had none of us eaten too much (and
so become digesting machines), we were cheerful and sprightly. A little
music followed and an author repeated some of his poetry. I noticed that
during the hour before we broke up our hostess contrived to have a little
talk with each of her guests, which she made quite personal, appearing
for the moment as though the rest of the world did not exist for her,
than which there is no more subtle flattery, and which is the act of a
well-bred and appreciative woman. Guests cannot be treated _en masse_
any more than food; to ask a man to your house is not enough. He should
be made to feel, if you wish him to go away with a pleasant remembrance
of the entertainment, that his presence has in some way added to it and
been a personal pleasure to his host.
A good soul that all New York knew a few years ago, whose entertainments
were as though the street had been turned into a _salon_ for the moment,
used to go about among her guests saying, "There have been one hundred
and seventy-five people here this Thursday, ten more than last week,"
with such a satisfied smile, that you felt that she had little left to
wish for, and found yourself wondering just which number you represented
in her mind. When you entered she must have murmured a numeral to
herself as she shook your hand.
There is more than one house in New York where I have grave doubts if the
host and hostess are quite sure of my name when I dine there; after an
abstracted welcome, they rarely put themselves out to entertain their
guests. Black coats and evening dresses alternate in pleasing
perspective down the long line of their table. Their gold plate is out,
and the _chef_ has been allowed to work his own sweet will, so they give
themselves no further trouble.
Why does not some one suggest to these amphitrions to send fifteen
dollars in prettily monogrammed envelopes to each of their friends,
requesting them to expend it on a dinner. The compliment would be quite
as personal, and then the guests might make up little parties to suit
themselves, which would be much more satisfactory than going "in" with
some one chosen at hazard from their host's visiting list, and less
fatiguing to that gentleman and his family.
No. 33--The Introducer