Ladies’ Boarding Schools.--Names of Professors in the
Prospectus.--System of Education.--American Schools.--Preference
for Science.--High Intellectual Acquirements not approved.--Learned
Women.--American Girls.--Comparison of French and American
Society.--The care to preserve Female Beauty.--Expression of the
Mouth.--Dress of American Women.--Notions of the Maternal
Character.--Studies in Ladies’ Schools.--Literary
Associations.--Société Geographique.--French Lady Authors.--Living
Writers.--Chateaubriand--Beranger--Lamartine--Victor Hugo--Casimir
de la Vigne--Alfred de Vigny--Guizot--Thiers--Thièrry
Ségur--Lacretelle--Sismondi.
Paris, December 25th, 1835.
I am going in my usual way to write you what has most engaged my
attention during the last week. I have been breaking into ladies’
boarding schools, and turning and twisting about the school-mistresses,
and making them explain their plans of education; which they have done
very obligingly, leading me through their dormitories, refectories, and
school-rooms. The French women are so kind in showing you any thing. In
the street, I often chose to lose myself a mile or two rather than
impose upon their good nature. The organization of their schools has
nothing different from the French boarding schools of Philadelphia.
Their elementary branches are the same. Their foreign languages are
German, English, and Italian; and these, with drawing, dancing, and
needlework, make up the programme of studies. Most of the schools are in
airy situations, with large gardens, having baths, and gymnastic
exercises attached. Rewards and punishments are as usual; bulletins of
conduct are sent to the parents, and public examinations are made to
astonish the grandmothers and bring the schools into notoriety.
All the professors are printed up ostentatiously in the prospectus. One
is “_Danseur de l’ Académie Royal de l’Opera_;” another is “_Professeur
du chant au Conservatoire_;” a “_Chevalier de la legion d’honneur_”
teaches you your “pot-hooks;” and an “_Instituteur du duc de
Bordeaux_,”--“_de la Reine de Portugal_,” _&c._ your parts of speech. In
the best schools the annual charge for boarding and education,
including the foreign languages, is about two hundred dollars. Dancing
and drawing are each three, and the piano six dollars per month.
A French woman is emphatically a social being, and prepares herself for
this destination. A philosophical apparatus is no part of the furniture
of her school-room; nor does she rashly study Latin, nor any of the
“inflammatory branches.” But she makes herself well acquainted with all
that is of daily use; her geography, history of France, mythology and
the fashionable literature, and tries to be very expert in the “use and
administration” of this learning; she talks of books and their authors,
especially the drama, of the fine arts, of social etiquette, of dress
and fashions, and all such common topics, better than other women. She
studies the graces of language, and all the rhetoric of society, as an
orator, that of public life. She learns to speak, not with the tongue
only, but with the action, gesture, voice, and expression, which may
give life and magic to her conversation.
You will hear her talk of the “_jeu du visage_,” and she thinks a woman,
who has no variety of face, had better have no face at all. I take the
liberty of thinking so too; extending only the rule to the whole woman,
body and soul. What is she, after all, without variety? any thing is
better; a fish without seasoning is better. I had almost said that a
woman much oftener palls the appetite of her husband by uniform
goodness, than by her caprices and levities. I have found it pleasant,
after having a chill, even to have a fever by way of variety. And why
should not the eloquence of common life be quite as important as that of
the bar, or senate, or pulpit? since it is of daily use, and the other
only occasional, and since much more important interests are affected by
it.
A French woman does not limit her views of education to her maiden
years, nor to her domestic and nursery duties, not being destined to be
imprisoned by her husband, or devoured by her own children; nor to her
marriage settlement; for this is the business of her mother; her aim is
to prepare the qualifications of womanhood; and her ambition is not to
win the unbearded admiration of boys, for her intercourse is to be with
men, competent, from taste and understanding to judge of her
acquirements, as well as to add something to the polish of her mind, by
their manners and conversation. But the taste of gentlemen here, even of
the learned, seeks not so much science in a lady as a certain knack in
conversation, which may give a good grace to all that she says.
In our American schools science has taken precedence every where of
letters; it has not only the principal seats at the universities, but in
our best female academies is thought to be the most exalted and
necessary kind of knowledge. It is so interesting to see a young miss
expert at her sines and tangents; and presiding over a cabinet of
minerals.
Why, a New England lady analyzes the atmosphere and gossips hydraulics
at her tea-table. I have been puzzled there upon theories of geology, or
meteorology, at a wedding. “Sir, this is a trap formation,--the angle
seventeen minutes and three seconds.”--I do not mean to depreciate this
kind of learning, but I would not make it the principal object of a
gentleman’s, much less, a lady’s education. Calculations of science have
little to do with the affections; they exercise only the mechanism of
the understanding; and leave the imaginative power--the power which
adorns and illustrates by images--unemployed; and the mind, under a
mathematical training, becomes too systematic for the irregularity of
human affairs.
The partiality for science prevails in gentlemen’s education, also in
Europe. The chief professorships of the colleges are scientific, and in
the Institute, the Academy of Sciences, like Aaron’s rod, has swallowed
up all the rest. But in the female schools such inquiries are postponed,
at least, to the ornamental and agreeable. A French lady is of the
romantic school, and thinks the classic too severe for feminine charms.
Therefore, all studies which do not supply the materials of daily
conversation, and have no immediate connection with some purpose of her
social existence are rejected from the general plan of female
instruction.
Acquirements highly intellectual in a lady, are not much approved by the
French tutors and others with whom I have conversed. They think them
dangerous to her domestic qualities. A Parisian lady living continually
in society, having such accomplishments, would become too much the
property of the other sex. Besides, such an education, they say, made
Madame de Stael a libertine, Madame Centlivre, and two or three more,
licentious, and Madame Montague a sloven and something else, and so
they run on. One might ask them in return what it made of Mesdames
Barbauld, Hamilton, Porter, Edgeworth, Hemans, and that good old
blue-stocking saint, Hannah More. It is true that learning is more
attractive, and will always be more courted and flattered than even
beauty; and in this sense it is dangerous. The Greeks gave Minerva a
shield, and turned Venus loose without one; it was apparently for this
reason. Learning in France always studies books and the world together;
the “Blue Stocking” is not known here, nor is there any equivalent term
in the language. The “_Precieuses Ridicules_” is of a different
character. So at least the learned woman has not to dread this
opprobrious designation, which so terrifies ladies in some other
countries. I know one, not of the Tuileries, but the Collieries, who,
under the awful apprehension of Blue Stockingism, almost repents of her
learning; hides her Virgil, and disowns her Horace altogether. There are
places where ladies think proper to apologise for their virtues, and ask
pardon for being in the right.
A French lady is not afraid to show her possessions. She shows her
learning, and knows how to show it without affectation. She displays it
as she does her pretty foot and ankle; she does not pull up her clothes
expressly for the purpose. As for me, I love a learned woman, even in
her blue stockings; and without them I love her to idolatry;--I mean a
reasonable idolatry, which leads to a higher reverence for the Creator
from an admiration of his best works. One of the grand purposes of a
Frenchwoman, is to seem natural; and, indeed, if a lady is natural, even
her singularities add to her perfections, whilst affectation makes even
her sense and beauty insipid and ridiculous.
I talked with one of these mistresses about you American girls. She says
you come too soon into the world, and take too many liberties when in
it. This, she thinks, interferes with education, and awakens
inclinations and passions which had better sleep until the girls have
grown up. She says that tender plants should be kept a long while in the
nursery; that to play well in the concert, one must play well at home,
and that the whole of youth is even too little for acquirement. “These
young ladies, you see, are not unhappy from the restraints they undergo;
and they are not less accomplished I assure you. By coming sooner into
society, they would acquire a bad tone, a bad manner, a bad air, which
a mature age and judgment might be unable to correct. In a word, sir, a
young lady below eighteen sees enough of the world over her mother’s
shoulders.” So talked this impertinent little woman.
A Frenchwoman has no attentions from society while a girl, and
consequently, no wit till she is married; exactly the period at which
American ladies generally lose theirs. A smile and a few timid glances
under the wing of her beautiful mamma, is all the little thing dares
venture. But the American girl has the reins of her conduct a good deal
in her own hands, and therefore grows prudent; she has her reason and
judgment sooner developed. She has all the serpentine wisdom and
columbine innocence so recommended in the Scriptures in her looks and
actions. I feel, my dear sisters, all the admiration and respect which
is due to you, but with my utmost efforts I cannot help falling a little
in love with this innocent indiscretion of the French.
It would have puzzled the evil spirit more to tempt Eve after the fall
than before it; yet I like her in the first state better. Their not
coming into the world before the full time, I like also well enough. My
tastes are not girlish. The eye indeed reposes with delight upon the
green corn, but the ripened ear is better. I know, indeed, all the
sweetness which a fine day pours out upon Chesnut-street; but ---- I like
better your mothers. They who give tone to society should have maturity
of mind; they should have refinement of taste, which is a quality of
experience and age. As long as college beaux and boarding school misses
take the lead, it must be an insipid society in whatever community it
may exist.
Middle age in this country never loses its sovereignty, nor does old age
lose its respect; and this respect, with the enjoyments which accompany
it, keeps the world young. It turns the clouds into drapery, and gilds
them with its sunshine; which presents as fine a prospect as the clear
and starry heavens. Even time seems to fall in with the general
observance. I know French women who retain to forty-five and often
beyond that age the most agreeable attractions of their sex.--Is it not
villanous in your Quakerships of Philadelphia to lay us, before we have
lived half our time out, upon the shelf? Some of our native tribes, more
merciful, eat the old folks out of the way.--Don’t be mad; you will one
day be as old as your mothers.
An important item here in a lady’s studies (and it should be a leading
branch of education every where) is her beauty. Sentiment and health
being the two chief ingredients and efficient causes of this quality,
have each its proper degree of cultivation. Every body knows that the
expression of the eye, the voice, and the whole physiognomy, is modified
by the thoughts or passions habitually entertained in the mind. Every
one sees their effects upon the face of the philosopher and the idiot;
upon that of the generous man and the niggard; but how few have
considered that not only is this outward and visible expression nothing
but the reflection of the mind; but that the very features are in a
material degree modelled by its sensations.
Give, for example, any woman a habit of self-complacency, and she will
have a little pursed up mouth; or give her a prying and busy
disposition, and you will give her a straight onward nose. What gives
the miser a mouth mean and contracted, or the open-hearted man his large
mouth, but the habitual series of thoughts with which we are
conversant? Determination stiffens the upper lip, and this is the lip
of a resolute man. Peevish women and churls have thin lips; and good
humour, or a generous feeling, or a habit of persuasion, rounds them
into beauty. I have read that it was common amongst the rakes about
Charles the Second to have “sleepy, half-shut, sly and meretricious
eyes,” and that this kind of eye became fashionable at court. So every
feature has its class of sensations by which it is modified; and this is
not forgotten in the education of the Parisian young ladies. They take
care that, while young and tender, they may cherish honest and amiable
feelings, if for no other reason than that they may have an amiable
expression of countenance--that they may have Greek noses, pouting lips,
and the other constituents of beauty.
Our climate is noted for three eminent qualities, extreme heat and cold,
and extreme suddenness of change. If a lady has bad teeth, or a bad
complexion, she blames it conveniently upon the climate; if her beauty,
like a tender flower, fades before noon, it is the climate; if she has a
bad temper or even a snub nose, still it is the climate. But our climate
is active and intellectual, especially in winter, and in all seasons
more pure and transparent than these inky skies of Europe. It sustains
the infancy of beauty, and why not its maturity? it spares the bud, and
why not the opened blossom or the ripened fruit? Our negroes are perfect
in teeth, and why not the whites?--The chief preservative of beauty in
any country is health, and there is no place in which this great
interest is so little attended to as in America.
To be sensible of this, you must visit Europe. You must see the
deep-bosomed maids of England upon the _Place Vendôme_, and the _Rue
Castiglione_. There you will see no pinched and mean-looking shoulders
overlooking the plumpness and round sufficiency of a luxuriant tournure.
As for the French women, a constant attention to the quantity and
quality of their food is an article of their faith; and bathing and
exercise are as regular as their meals. When children, they play abroad
in their gardens; they have their gymnastic exercises in their schools,
and their dancing and other social amusements keep up a healthful
temperament throughout life. Besides, a young lady here does not put her
waist in the inquisition. Fashion, usually insane, and an enemy to
health, has grown sensible in this; she regards a very small waist as a
defect, and points to the _Venus de Medicis_, who stands out boldly in
the Tuileries, in vindication and testimony of the human shapes; and now
among ladies of good breeding a waist which cannot dispense with tight
lacing is thought not worth the mantua-maker’s bill--not worth the
squeezing.
When I left America, the more a woman looked like an hour-glass, like
two funnels or two extinguishers converging, the more pretty she was
considered; and the waist in esteem by the cockney curiosity of the
town, was one you would pinch between thumb and finger; giving her a
withered complexion, bloated legs, consumptive lungs and ricketty
children.--If this is not reformed, alas the republic!--A Frenchwoman’s
beauty, such as it is, lasts her her lifetime, by the care she takes of
it. Her limbs are vigorous, her bosom well developed, her colour
healthy, and she has a greater moral courage, and is a hundred times
better fitted to dashing enterprises, than the women of our cities.
The motherly virtues of our women, so eulogised by foreigners, are not
entitled to unqualified praise. There is indeed no country in which
maternal care is so assiduous; but also there is none in which examples
of injudicious tenderness are so frequent. If a mother has eight or
nine children (the American number) and wears out her life with the
cares of nursing them, dies, and leaves them to a step-mother, she is
not entitled to any praise but at the expense of her judgment and common
sense; and this is one of our daily occurrences in America.--If a mother
should squander away upon the infancy of her child, all that health and
care which are so necessary to its youth and adolescence, or if by
anticipating its wants she destroys its sense of gratitude, and her own
authority, and impairs its constitution and temper by indiscreet
indulgences--instead of being the most tender, she is the most cruel of
all mothers--this happens commonly in all countries, and in none so much
as in America.--If a mother should toil thirty years, and kill herself
with cares, to procure for her son the glorious privilege of doing
nothing, perhaps the means of being a rake and prodigal; she is a stupid
mother, and such mothers----
But ---- I forget I have a reputation all the way from Mohontongo-street
to Adam-street, and I must take care how I lose it. Do you be a good
little mother, and economise your health and good looks; and remember
that a little judicious hard fare and exposure will not injure your
children’s happiness, and that not the quantity, so much as the quality
of your maternal cares is useful and commendable. I do not preach
rebellion, but if I were any body’s wife, and he should insist on
killing me off for the benefit of his children, or to get a new wife--I
should insist particularly on not being killed.
The system of ladies’ schools here, is more reasonable than that of
their worse halves. There is a better adaptation of studies to the
capacity and future destination of the scholars, and to the uses of
society; and being open to a fair competition, and to public patronage
only, there is a better management of the details.
The gentlemen’s colleges engross all the higher branches, and give them
a specific direction, embracing only three or four of the employments of
society, and these are, consequently, so overstocked, as to make success
in them no better than a lottery. The community is, therefore, filled
with a multitude of idlers, who falling often into desperate
circumstances, either plot some treason against the state, or prowl, for
a thievish subsistence about the gambling houses.--His Most Christian
Majesty must have as many lives as a cat to escape them.
There are also in Paris, a great many literary associations, to which
ladies have access; and this gives the opportunity of a decorous
intercourse of the sexes, which serves to elevate both in the eyes of
each other. Woman, associated with man in his intellectual, as in his
domestic pursuits, assumes the station, which, by nature, as by the
rules of every polished and literary society, she is entitled to. These
societies furnish agreeable entertainments for Sundays, or holidays; and
they have the good effect of introducing the Muses, naturally awkward,
into company, and making them acquainted a little with the Graces.
I attended, a Sunday ago, a meeting of one of these, the--“_Société
Polytechnique_,” in the great saloon of the _Hôtel de Ville_. At the one
end was an elevated platform, and mounted upon it a President and the
usual apparatus of a meeting. Along each side were arranged the readers
and orators, and distinguished guests. After a “_Rapport_,” read by the
secretary, of the doings of the society, the speakers recited pieces of
their own composition--some in rhyme, and many without rhyme or reason.
Some were designed to make us laugh, and others to cry, and we did both
with great acclamation.--Music closed the scene; a duo by “Italian
Artists,” and some one screamed a song on the piano. It is one of the
advantages of a large city, that its meetings never want the dignity of
a crowd, whatever be the occasion.--The bishop has his at Notre Dame,
and punch his at the Champs Elysées.
I have been, also, to the “_Société Geographique_.” There were Captain
Ross, from the North Pole, and--what remains of him from American bugs
and musquitoes--Captain Hall, and Baron Humboldt, and other Barons. An
honorary badge of the society was presented to Captain Ross, with warm
acclamation. I waited to the very end, for a lecture announced in the
bill about--what do you think?--the “_Beaux Arts en Amerique_.”--But it
was all about negroes and squaws, and such “copper fronts as
Pocahontas.” It gave a history, circumstantially, of a great crusade of
catguts, got up in Paris, a dozen of years ago, for Brazil, which
scraped an acquaintance with Don Pedro, and spread the gamut all over
Patagonia. Polyphemus threw away his pipe, and sang nothing but, “_Tanti
Palpiti_” to his sheep, and the sheep bleated nothing but _mamma mia_,
in reply.--“_Ainsi, Messieurs_, (this is the ending,) _cet immense
progrés est dù à la Grande Nation, dont nous nous honorons d’etre une
humble partie_.” From the “_rapport_” of this “société,” it seems to be
a most valuable institution. The topics are various and useful, and its
researches are carried by correspondence into every corner of the earth.
I must say a word of a school I visited this morning called the “_Ecole
Orthopedique_,” to correct physical deformities, and slovenly habits.
Here all that is gross in human nature is refined, all that is crooked
reformed. There are as many branches as at the university. One professor
ties strings a foot long about your ankles, to prevent too much stride,
and another “straightens legs for both sexes.” Angular knees, and stoop
shoulders, and such little freaks, are affairs of a fortnight. I have
seen, with my own eyes, a girl whose face, they say, was running one way
and her feet the other; people walking after her were continually
treading on her toes, and in less than six months she has been turned
round. The highest chair in this school is for teaching “sitting”--it is
occupied by the President. There is also a chair for “walking,” and one
for “standing still.” In some countries these are thought mere simple
operations to be performed by any one who has wherewith to stand or sit
upon.
Let me now introduce you to the French Lady Authors. The family is so
small I shall happily have room for them on the rest of this page. The
Dowager on the list is the _Duchesse d’ Abrantes_, with her Memoirs; and
next her the _Princesse de Salm_, who wrote an “Opera of Sappho” and
“Poetical Epistles,” very good for a Princess; also a work called
_Vingt-quatre heures d’une femme sensible_, in which there is a display
of rich and brilliant fancy. I never read it.
_Madame Tastu_ wrote a volume of little poetry very much loved for its
tenderness, and _Mademoiselle Delphine Gay_ (now Madame Girardin) also a
volume of miscellaneous poetry, very pretty and delicate, and she is
almost a Corinne for extemporising; last of all, the exquisite Baroness
_Du Devant_ (George Sand), the gayest little woman in all Paris, who has
written novels full of genius, and fit almost to stand along side of
Aphra Behn’s and Lady Mary Montague’s verses. When they publish an
edition, with little stars * * _in usum Delphini_, I will send you a
copy.--I shall perhaps have room also for the gentlemen.
The patriarch is _Chateaubriand_. It is idle to talk about him. He sold
the copyright of his works for twenty years only at five hundred and
fifty thousand francs. Who has not read his Génie du Christianisme,
Martyrs, Journey to Jerusalem, Amerique Sauvage, Atala, &c. He has
written also “Memoirs of his own Times,” not to be published till his
death. Every one is anxious to read them. The oldest of the poets is
_Beranger_. His songs are worthy of Pindar in boldness and sublimity,
and not unworthy of Anacreon in liveliness and grace. I have only room
for four lines:--Napoleon in his glory.
---- dans sa fortune altière,
Se fit un jeu des sceptres, et des lois;
Et de ses pieds on peut voir la poussière,
Empreinte encore sur le bandeau des rois.
At his death;
Il dort enfin, ce boulet invincible
Qui fracassa vingt trones â la fois!
Another special favourite, the poet of romance and melancholy, is
_Lamartine_. He has written “_Meditations_;” also _La Mort de Socrate_,
and the last canto of “Childe Harold.” Here are eight of his
lines.--The “Golfe de Baia.”
O, de la Liberté vieille et sainte patrie!
Terre autrefois féconde en sublime vertus!
Sous d’indignes Cæsars, maintenant asservie,
Ton empire est tombé! tes heroes ne sont plus!
Mais dans ton sein l’ame aggrandie,
Croit sur leurs monumens respirer leur génie,
Comme on respire, encore dans un temple aboli,
La majesté du Dieu dont il etait rempli.
He now makes eloquent speeches in the Chamber of Deputies.--Politics run
away with all the genius, and rob even the schools of their professors.
Only think of such a man as Arago prating radicalism in the Chamber of
Deputies. The Muses weep over his and Lamartine’s infidelity.
I have read _Victor Hugo_ lately, and love him and hate him. Like our
mocking-bird, he mingles the notes of the nightingale with the cacklings
of the hen. But I must not abuse him, the ladies all love him so. Only
think of “_Bug Jargal_,” the “_Dernier jour d’un Condamné_;” and above
all, “_Notre Dame de Paris_;” and think only of poor little Esmeralda,
put so tragically to death on the Place de Grêve in spite of her little
goat Djali, and her little shoe.--I have read his tragedies, _Hernan_,
_Le Roi s’amuse_, and _Marie Tudor_; parbleu! and “_Lucrece Borgia_.”
His poetic works are _Les Orientales_; a collection of odes; _Les
Feuilles d’Automne_, &c.
Victor Hugo is yet in the full tide of youth, and so is _Casimir de la
Vigne_. The latter represents to-night, at the Theatre Français, his
_Don Carlos_; he has already reaped much glory from his _Vêpres
Siciliennes_, _Paria_, _Comedienne_, and _Ecole des Vieillards_, and
still greater from his Poetic Lamentations, the Messeniennes, which are
full of patriotic sentiment, expressed in the richest graces of poetry.
_Alfred de Vigny_ has written a pretty poem, the _Frégate_, and two
biblical pieces, _Moïse_, and the _Femme Adultère_; but his great praise
is _Cinq Mars_, one of the best compositions of the French historical
romance.--Scribe, Picard, and Duval have written so many vaudevilles,
that one has a surfeit of their names. _Dumas_ is a dramatic writer of
first-rate merit for these days. His Antony, Therèse, Henry V., and
Catharine Howard, are all played with success. _Jules Janin_ has a great
fund of wit; his _Ane Mort_, _Femme Guillotinée_, _Chemin de Travers_,
you can read with the certainty of being pleased.
I have said nothing of Leclercq, Langon, Balsac, Meremy, and Lacroix,
who have all their share of admiration, especially from the fair sex.
When the vapours have smothered the sun, and when it rains, as it does
always, instead of inhaling charcoal, or leaping from the Pont Neuf, I
go into a “cabinet de lecture,” and read _Paul de Kock_. No author
living can carry one so laughingly through a wet day. If you are fond of
the genuine wit of low life, neither Fielding, nor Smollett, nor Pigault
Lebrun, will disgust you with Paul de Kock. But here comes the end of my
paper, what shall I do with the rest? I will just string them together
by the gills.--Give _Guizot_ credit for a History _de la Civilisation_,
a translation of Gibbon, and a score or two of volumes on the English
Revolution; _Mignet_ and _Thiers_ for a History of the French
Revolution, and _Barante_ for his Dukes of Burgundy; _Sismondi_ for a
History of the Italian Republics, of The French, and the Literature of
the South; and _Daru_, of Venice; _Thierry_, of the Conquest of England;
_Capefigue_, the Reform; _Lacretelle_, The 18th Century; _Ségur_, a
Universal History; _Michaud_, of the Crusades; _Delaure_, of Paris;
_Michelet_, of Rome; and _Précis de l’Histoire de France_. _Cousin_ has
written the “Philosophy of History;” _Keratry_, Metaphysics, and Novels;
and _Villemain_, _Melanges de Litterature_, and _M. de la Mennais_ is
praised for his “Indifference in matters of Religion.”--The French were
strangely deficient in history before the present century, not even
having furnished a good history of their own country; they have now
supplied their deficiency in this department of letters.--Now with all
due respect, and a full sense of the distinction, I place myself at the
bottom of this illustrious group. Your obedient, humble servant.