THE FRENCH WIFE
Her keenness and common-sense--Her power of observation and her
native adaptability--Her graceful ways--Her tact--Her artistic
refinement--Monsieur et Madame--'Did I hear you knock at my door,
dear?'
The wealthy classes of society in every civilized nation in the world
are so much alike in their manners, habits, and customs, that they
offer very little food to the observer of national characteristics. The
men follow the London fashions, the women the Paris ones. They all
cultivate sport, art, and literature; they all enjoy the same luxuries
of life, they all have good cooks, they all have discovered the same
way of living. If you want to see how differently people live in
France, in England, in Germany, in Italy, in America, wherever you
like, live among the middle and lower classes. Once, in South Africa, I
spent a whole day in a Zulu kraal, living with the natives and like the
natives, and I found that day spent in a far more interesting manner
than if I had spent it among the hosts of the Faubourg Saint-Germain,
Mayfair, or Fifth Avenue.
France is the only country that I know where, outside of the
aristocracy and the wealthy classes, you can find people who live
daintily. The French labourer eats a more appetizing dinner than
English and German well-to-do shopkeepers eat and than is served in the
hotels of the small American towns. That French labourer would refuse
to swallow, and even to look at, that wretched meal which I have seen
English working-men eat at noon, when resting their backs against a
wall or fence on the road--bread and pickles, or a slice of something
looking very much like cat's-meat, and stale beer that had been stewing
for hours in the sun in a badly-corked can.
* * * * *
The French wife, immensely superior to her husband in intelligence,
in shrewdness, in _savoir vivre_ and _savoir faire_, thanks to her
common-sense, her knowledge of financial matters, her instinct for good
order and management, her artistic refinement, her keen power of
observation, her native adaptability, her talent for cookery, makes a
husband enjoying but a small income lead the life that a rich foreigner
might envy.
She may have two dresses and one hat only to her name, but, by constant
skilful changes, the little humbug will make you believe that she
possesses a well-furnished wardrobe. It is not the cowl that makes the
monk any more than it is the dress that makes the woman. A woman is
stylish or not, according to the manner she puts her clothes on, and
that is where the French woman is irresistible. To lift her dress
modestly, gracefully, and daintily as she crosses a muddy street, she
has not her equal in the world. She has a little bustling, fluttering
way about her that will always keep your interest in her alive. She is
always tidy and smart, her hair well dressed, her hands well gloved,
her stockings well drawn, and her dainty little feet well shod. When
she speaks to you, you can seldom guess, from the way she is dressed,
from the way she behaves, from the language she uses, whether she is
the wife of what society calls a gentleman or not.
She has the knack, the inborn genius, for getting twenty sou worth out
of every franc she spends. She is no snob, does not play at At Homes,
and saves her tea and sugar, which in France are expensive luxuries.
She does not play the piano, and saves her husband's ears. She makes
her own frocks, and saves dressmakers' bills; she eats light, healthy
meals of her own make, and saves cooks' wages; she goes to bed early,
and saves her candles. She is rich, as most of us might be, not in what
she actually possesses, but in what she knows how to do without. Thanks
to that woman, a Frenchman who has L100 to spend in the year lives like
an Englishman who has an income of L500.
In the most modest little flat she has her dressing-room, out of which
she issues in the morning neatly trimmed, a perfect transformation. She
will do without a drawing-room, but never without a dressing-room, for
she understands to a supreme degree that poetry of matrimony which has
not two years to live if the apartment does not possess a
dressing-room.
Better than that, the French wife of that class will play at being an
aristocrat, if you please. She will insist on having Monsieur's
apartment and Madame's apartment quite separate, so that they shall not
be compelled to impose their society on each other if they don't feel
in the mood.
And in that very humble class of French society I know men who are
trained to knock at the door of their wives' apartments in good
Faubourg Saint-Germain style, when they wish for the company of Madame.
And if Monsieur should fail to knock at Madame's door when the latter
would be pleased to receive his attentions and enjoy the pleasure of
his company, it is just possible that she would go to her husband's
_appartements_, knock at his door gently and discreetly, and whisper:
'Did I hear you knock at my door just now, dear?'
'Silly nonsense!' some people will say.
Well, my dear friends, let me tell you that happiness is made up of
thousands of little foolish trifles of that sort.