Midnight is the general hour for the commencement of such diversions;
but, owing to the long train of carriages setting down company at
this ball, it was near two o'clock before I could arrive at the scene
of action, in the _Rue Grange Batelière_, near the Boulevards.
After I alighted and presented my ticket, some time elapsed before I
could squeeze into the room where the dancing was going forward. The
spectators were here so intermixed with the dancers, that they formed
around them a border as complete as a frame to a picture. It is
astonishing that, under such circumstances, a Parisian Terpsichore,
far from being embarrassed, lays fresh claim to your applause. With
mathematical precision, she measures with her eye the space to which
she is restricted by the curiosity of the by-standers. Rapid as
lightning, she springs forward till the measure recalling her to the
place she left, she traces her orbit, like a planet, at the same time
revolving on her axis. Sometimes her "light, fantastic toe" will
approach within half an inch of your foot; nay, you shall almost feel
her breath on your cheek, and still she will not touch you, except,
perhaps, with the skirt of her floating tunic.
Among the female part of the company, I observed several lovely
women; some, who might have been taken for Asiatic sultanas,
irradiating the space around them by the dazzling brilliancy of their
ornaments; others, without jewels, but calling in every other aid of
dress for the embellishment of their person; and a few, rich in their
native charms alone, verifying the expression of the poet. Truth
compels me to acknowledge that six or eight English ladies here were
totally eclipsed. For the honour of my country, I could have wished
for a better specimen of our excellence in female beauty. No women in
the world, or at least none that ever I have met with in the
different quarters I have visited, are handsomer than the English, in
point of complexion and features. This is a fact which Frenchmen
themselves admit; but for grace, say they, our countrywomen stand
unrivalled, I am rather inclined to subscribe to this opinion. In a
well-educated French woman, there is an ease, an affability, a desire
to please and be pleased, which not only render her manners
peculiarly engaging, but also influence her gait, her gestures, her
whole deportment in short, and captivate admiration. Her natural
cheerfulness and vivacity spread over her features an animation
seldom to be found in our English fair, whose general characteristics
are reserve and coldness. Hence that striking expression which
exhibits the grace of the French belles to superior advantage.
Although my memory frequently disappoints me when I wish to retain
names, I have contrived to recollect those of three of the most
remarkable women in the ball-room. I shall therefore commit them to
paper before I forget them. Madame la Princesse de Santa-Croce
displayed more diamonds than any of her competitors; Mademoiselle
Lescot was the best dancer among several ladies renowned for dancing;
and Madame Tallien was, on the whole, the handsomest female that I
saw in the room. There might possibly be women more beautiful than
she at this ball, but they did not come under my observation.
I had previously seen Madame Tallien at the _Opera Buffa_, and was
struck by her appearance before, I knew who she was. On seeing her
again at the _Salon des Étrangers_, I inquired of a French lady of my
acquaintance, whose understanding and discernment are pre-eminent, if
Madame T------ had nothing to recommend her but her personal
attractions? The lady's answer is too remarkable for me not to repeat
it, which I will do _verbatim_. "In Madame T------," said she,
"beauty, wit, goodness of heart, grace, talents, all are united. In a
gay world, where malice subsists in all its force, her
inconsistencies alone have been talked of, without any mention being
made of the numerous acts of beneficence which have balanced, if they
have not effaced, her weakness. Would you believe," continued she,
"that, in Paris, the grand theatre of misconduct, where moral
obligations are so much disregarded, where we daily commit actions
which we condemn in others; would you believe, that Madame T------
experiences again and again the mortification of being deprived of
the society of this, or that woman who has nothing to boast of but
her depravity, and cannot plead one act of kindness, or even
indulgence? This picture is very dark," added she, "but the colouring
is true."--"What you tell me," observed I, "proves that,
notwithstanding the irruption of immorality, attributed to the
revolution, it is still necessary for a woman to preserve appearances
at least, in order to be received here in what is termed the best
company."--"Yes, indeed," replied she; "if a woman neglects that main
point in Paris, she will soon find herself lowered in the opinion of
the fashionable world, and be at last excluded from even the
secondary circles. In London, your people of fashion are not quite so
rigid."--"If a husband chooses to wink at his wife's incontinence,"
rejoined I, "the world on our side of the water is sufficiently
complaisant to follow his example. Now with you, character is made to
depend more on the observance of etiquette; and, certainly,
hypocrisy, when detected, is of more prejudice to society than
barefaced profligacy."--The lady then resumed thus concerning the
subject of my inquiry. "Were some people to hear me," said she, "they
might think that I had drawn you a flattering portrait of Madame
T------ and say, by way of contrast, when the devil became old, he
turned hermit; but I should answer that, for some years, no
twenty-four hours have elapsed without persons, whom I could name on
occasion, having begun their daily career by going to see her, who
saved their life, when, to accomplish that object, she hazarded her
own."
Here then is an additional instance of the noble energy manifested by
women during the most calamitous periods of the revolution.
Unappalled by the terrors of captivity or of death, their sensibility
impelled them to brave the ferocity of sanguinary tyrants, in order
to administer hope or comfort to a parent, a husband, a relation, or
a friend. Some of these heroines, though in the bloom of youth, not
content with sympathizing in the misfortunes of others, gave
themselves up as a voluntary sacrifice, rather than survive those
whose preservation they valued more than their own existence. Rome
may vaunt her Porcia, or her Cornelia; but the page of her history
can produce no such exaltation of the female character as has been
exhibited within the last ten years by French women. Examples, like
these, of generosity, fortitude, and greatness of soul, deserve to be
recorded to the end of time, as they do honour to the sex, and to
human nature.
If, according to the scale of Parisian enjoyment, a ball or rout is
dull and insipid, _à moins qu'on ne manque d'y être étouffé_, how
supreme must have been the satisfaction of the company at the _Salon
des Étrangers!_ The number present, estimated at seven or eight
hundred, occasioned so great a crowd that it was by no means an easy
enterprise to pass from one room to another. Of course, there was no
opportunity of viewing the apartments to advantage; however, I saw
enough of them to remark that they formed a suite elegantly
decorated. Some persons amused themselves with cards, though the
great majority neither played nor danced, but were occupied in
conversing with their acquaintance, There was no regular supper, but
substantial refreshments of every kind were to be procured on paying;
and other smaller ones, _gratis_.
From the tickets not being transferable, and the bearer's name being
inserted in each of them, the company was far more select than it
could have been without such a restriction. Most of the foreign
ambassadors, envoys, &c. were present, and many of the most
distinguished persons of both sexes in Paris. More regard was paid to
the etiquette of dress at this ball than, I have ever witnessed here
on similar occasions, The ladies, as I have before said, were all _en
grande toilette_; and the men with cocked hats, and in shoes and
stockings, which is a novelty here, I assure you, as they mostly
appear in boots. But what surprised me not a little, was to observe
several inconsiderate French youths wear black cockades. Should they
persist in such an absurdity, I shall be still more surprised, if
they escape admonition from the police. This fashion seemed to be the
_ignis fatuus_ of the moment; it was never before exhibited in
public, and probably will be but of ephemeral duration.
I cannot take leave of this ball without communicating to you a
circumstance which occurred there, and which, from the extravagant
credulity it exhibits in regard to the effects of sympathy, may
possibly amuse you for a moment.
A widow, about twenty years of age, more to be admired for the
symmetry of her person, than for the beauty of her features, had,
according to the prevailing custom, intrusted her pocket-handkerchief
to the care of a male friend, a gentlemanlike young Frenchman of my
acquaintance. After dancing, the lady finding herself rather warm,
applied for her handkerchief, with which she wiped her forehead, and
returned it to the gentleman, who again put it into his pocket. He
then danced, but not with her; and, being also heated, he, by
mistake, took out the lady's handkerchief, which, when applied to his
face, produced, as he fancied, such an effect on him, that, though he
had previously regarded her with a sort of indifference, from that
moment she engaged all his attention, and he was unable to direct his
eyes, or even his thoughts, to any other object.
Some philosophers, as is well known, have maintained that from all
bodies there is an emanation of corpuscles, which, coming into
contact with our organs, make on the brain an impression, either more
or less sympathetic, or of a directly-opposite nature. They tell you,
for instance, that of two women whom you behold for the first time,
the one the least handsome will sometimes please you most, because
there exists a greater _sympathy_ between you and her, than between
you and the more beautiful woman. Without attempting to refute this
absurd doctrine of corpuscles, I shall only observe that this young
Frenchman is completely smitten, and declares that no woman in the
world can be compared to the widow.
This circumstance reminds me of a still more remarkable effect,
ascribed to a similar cause, experienced by Henry III of France. The
marriage of the king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV, with Marguerite
de Valois, and that of the Prince de Condé with Marie de Cleves, was
celebrated at the Louvre on the 10th of August, 1572. Marie de
Cleves, then a most lovely creature only sixteen, after dancing much,
finding herself incommoded by the heat of the ball-room, retired to a
private apartment, where one of the waiting-women of the
queen-dowager, seeing her in a profuse perspiration, persuaded her
to make an entire change of dress. She had scarcely left the room
when the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III, who had also danced a
great deal, entered it to adjust his hair, and, being overheated,
wiped his face with the first thing that he found, which happened
to be the shift she had just taken off. Returning to the ball, he
fixed his eyes on her, and contemplated her with as much surprise
as if he had never before beheld her. His emotion, his transports,
and the attention which he began to pay her, were the more
extraordinary, as during the preceding week, which she had passed
at court, he appeared indifferent to those very charms which now
made on his heart an impression so warm and so lasting. In short,
he became insensible to every thing that did not relate to his
passion.
His election to the crown of Poland, say historians, far from
flattering him, appeared to him an exile, and when he was in that
kingdom, absence, far from diminishing his love, seemed to increase
it. Whenever he addressed the princess, he pricked his finger, and
never wrote to her but with his blood. No sooner was he informed of
the death of Charles IX, than he dispatched a courier to assure her
that she should soon be queen of France; and, on his return, his
thoughts were solely bent on dissolving her marriage with the Prince
de Condé, which, on account of the latter being a protestant, he
expected to accomplish. But this determination proved fatal to the
princess; for, shortly after, she was attacked by a violent illness,
attributed to poison, which carried her off in the flower of her age.
No words can paint Henry's despair at this event: he passed several
days in tears and groans; and when he was at length obliged to shew
himself in public, he appeared in deep mourning, and entirely covered
with emblems of death, even to his very shoe-strings.
The Princess de Condé had been dead upwards of four months, and
buried in the abbey-church of _St. Germain-des-Prés_, when Henry, on
entering the abbey, whither he was invited to a grand entertainment
given there by Cardinal de Bourbon, felt such violent tremblings at
his heart, that not being able to endure their continuance, he was
going away; but they ceased all at once, on the body of the princess
being removed from its tomb, and conveyed elsewhere for that evening.
His mother, Catherine de Medicis, by prevailing on him to marry
Louise de Vaudemont, one of the most beautiful women in Europe, hoped
that she would make him forget her whom death had snatched from him,
and he himself perhaps indulged a similar hope, but the memoirs of
those times concur in asserting that the image of the Princess de
Condé was never effaced from his heart, and that, to the day of his
assassination, which did not happen till seventeen years after,
whatever efforts he made to subdue his passion, were wholly
unavailing.
Sympathy is a sentiment to which few persons attach the same ideas.
It may be classed in three distinct species. The first seems to have
an immediate connexion with the senses; the second, with the heart;
and the third, with the mind. Although it cannot be denied that the
preference we bestow on this or that woman is the result of the one
or the other of these, or even of all three together; yet the
analysis of our attachments is, in some cases, so difficult as to
defy the investigation of reason. For, as the old song says, some
lovers
Will "whimper and whine
For lilies and roses,
For eyes, lips, and noses,
Or a _tip of an ear_."
To cut the matter short, I think it fully proved, by the example of
some of the wisest men, that the affections are often captivated by
something indefinable, or, in the words of Corneille,
_"Par un je ne sais quoi--qu'on ne peut exprimer."_