However extraordinary the fact may appear, it is no less true. When
the Prussians were at Châlons, the Austrians at Valenciennes, and
Robespierre in the Convention, they danced. When the young conscripts
were in momentary expectation of quitting their parents, their
friends, and their mistresses to join the armies, they danced. Can we
then wonder that, at the present hour, when the din of arms is no
longer heard, and the toils of war are on the point of being
succeeded by the mercantile speculations of peace, dancing should
still be the favourite pursuit of the Parisians?
This is so much the case, that the walls of the metropolis are
constantly covered by advertisements in various colours, blue, red,
green, and yellow, announcing balls of different descriptions. The
silence of streets the least frequented is interrupted by the shrill
scraping of the itinerant fiddler; while by-corners, which might vie
with Erebus itself in darkness, are lighted by transparencies,
exhibiting, in large characters, the words "_Bal de Société_."
--"Happy people!" says Sterne, "who can lay down all your cares
together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of grievance,
which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth!"
In summer, people dance here in rural gardens, or delightful bowers,
or under marquees, or in temporary buildings, representing
picturesque cottages, constructed within the limits of the capital:
these establishments, which are rather of recent date, are open only
in that gay season.
In winter, the upper classes assemble in magnificent apartments,
where subscription-balls are given; and taste and luxury conspire to
produce elegant entertainments.
However, it is not to the upper circles alone that this amusement is
confined; it is here pursued, and with truer ardour too, by citizens
of every class and description. An Englishman might probably be at a
loss to conceive this truth; I shall therefore enumerate the
different gradations of the scale from the report of an impartial
eye-witness, partly corroborated by my own observation.
Tradesmen dance with their neighbours, at the residence of those who
have the best apartments: and the expense of catgut, rosin, &c. is
paid by the profits of the card-table.
Young clerks in office and others, go to public balls, where the
_cavalier_ pays thirty _sous_ for admission; thither they escort
milliners and mantua-makers of the elegant class, and, in general,
the first-rate order of those engaging belles, known here by the
generic name of _grisettes_.
Jewellers' apprentices, ladies' hair-dressers, journeymen tailors and
upholsterers dance, at twenty _sous_ a head, with sempstresses and
ladies' maids.
Journeymen shoemakers, cabinet-makers, and workmen of other trades,
not very laborious, assemble in _guingettes_, where they dance French
country-dances at three _sous_ a ticket, with _grisettes_ of an
inferior order.
Locksmiths, carpenters, and joiners dance at two _sous_ a ticket,
with women who constantly frequent the _guinguettes_, a species of
dancing-girls, whom the tavern-keepers hire for the day, as they do
the fiddlers.
Water-carriers, porters, and, in general, the Swiss and Auvergnats
have their private balls, where they execute the dances peculiar to
their country, with fruit-girls, stocking-menders, &c.
The porters of the corn-market form assemblies in their own
neighbourhood; but the youngest only go thither, with a few _bons
vivans_, whose profession it would be no easy matter to determine.
Bucksome damsels, proof against every thing, keep them in
countenance, either in drinking brandy or in fighting, and not
unfrequently at the same _bal de société_, all this goes on at the
same time, and, as it were, in unison.
Those among the porters of the corn-market and charcoal carriers, who
have a little _manners_, assemble on holidays, in public-houses of a
more decent description, with good, plain-spoken market-women, and
nosegay-girls. They drink unmixed liquor, and the conversation is
somewhat more than _free_; but, in public, they get tipsy, and
nothing farther!
Masons, paviours in wooden shoes, tipped with iron, and other
hard-working men, in short, repair to _guingettes_, and make the
very earth tremble with their heavy, but picturesque capers, forming
groups worthy of the pencil of Teniers.
Lastly, one more link completes the chain of this nomenclature of
caperers. Beggars, sturdy, or decrepit, dance, as well as their
credulous betters: they not only dance, but drink to excess; and
their orgies are more noisy, more prolonged, and even more expensive.
The mendicant, who was apparently lame in the day, at night lays
aside his crutch, and resumes his natural activity; the idle
vagabond, who concealed one arm, now produces both; while the wretch
whose wound excited both horror and pity, covers for a tune the large
blister by which he makes a very comfortable living.