The Dancing fever.--The Grand Masquerade.--Fooleries of the
Carnival.--Mardi Gras.--Splendid Equipages.--Masquerades.--An
Adventure.--Educated Women.--The Menus-Plaisirs.--A Fancy
Ball.--Porte St. Martin.--The Masked Balls.--Descente de la
Courtille.--End of the Carnival.--Birth-Day of Washington.
PARIS, February, 1836.
There has been raging, the whole of this month, a disease which prevails
here, usually about this season of the year--a kind of intermitting
fever. It affects the whole city with a violent agitation of limbs, and
often drives the features entirely out of the human countenance. You
can’t recognise your most intimate friends. The fit comes on exactly at
midnight, and then the whole of Paris rushes out of doors, like an
insurrection.
Men of the most sober habits, but ten minutes before--men and women,
who all day long were in the entire possession of their senses--the
moment it strikes twelve, pour out like a deluge upon the streets; some
scrambling into cabriolets, and others running through the mud up to, I
don’t know where, until they get together in the theatre, or some great
town-hall, and there they dance the whole night long, as if their legs
had taken leave of their senses. Towards morning, they get into a kind
of paroxysm--not a galloping consumption, but a _gallopade_--which being
over, they recover, and go quietly to bed, and the fit does not return
till the next midnight.
The doctor was seized with this disorder yesterday, at the usual hour,
and I never saw any more of him till this morning. After a little sleep,
he feels much calmer, and it is thought he will recover.---- But I am
getting alarmed about myself; the disease is catching.--In a word, I am
going to-night, exactly at twelve, to the Grand Masquerade, at the Grand
Opera; and I am, this minute, going to embellish myself for the
occasion. I have two days between me and the packets; and, consequently,
time enough for my correspondence. Good night.
What a silly old world this is! Nothing can be farther from my wishes,
than to say any thing rude of your dear French people; but, ’pon honour,
they are the greatest fools I have seen in my life, and I have seen a
good many. If you don’t believe me, you have but to say so; and then I
will take you to the mad-house, and prove to you that all the world is
reasonable. The Boulevards have been running over with the mob these
three days; and the galleries, and windows, and roofs of the adjacent
houses are bending under their multitudes; cavalcades, the most
fantastic, are passing up one side of the street, and returning by the
other for several miles, from the earliest to the latest sun; while the
margin, and middle, and all the interstices are filled with a nation of
buffoons, trying, each one, by some ridiculous figure, attitude, or
action, to outshine his neighbour in foolery: and all are as intent upon
this, as if pursuing some main purpose of their existence.
There goes the archbishop, with a pig by the tail; and there a nun on
the back of an ass, her heels kicking its sides most ridiculously,
without increasing its speed; and there a two-years’ baby, in breeches
and silk hose, is giving pap to its papa, a great Irish giant of a man,
seven feet or more, in a slobbered bib. I saw, yesterday, a dozen, male
and female, carried along upon a platform, leisurely eating their soup
out of--what do you think?--If any thing can beggar description
altogether ’tis a Carnival.
On the last day, the _Mardi gras_, there is an extraordinary exhibition
of sumptuous equipages. An American Colonel keeps immense stables,
inferior only to the great Condés, for these occasions. He has
thirty-six horses, all of the noblest blood, and on this last day, out
he comes, with my Lord S----, who lives also in great circumstances, in
elegant rivalry. His and my lord’s faces are well known upon the
Boulevards--“Delia is not better known to our dogs.” The Colonel popped
out yesterday, seventeen carriages-and-four, and knocked all the other
showmen upon the head. He is praised this morning in every one of the
newspapers.
Maskers and harlequins are horrid in day-light, especially in Paris with
their gay liveries all besmirched in mire; they are only tolerable in
moonlight and candlelight when half the mummery is concealed. That which
delights me most is the “Masquerades,” which I will now tell you of,
though I cannot pretend to describe them in all their pomp and
circumstance.
The most frequented are those at Musard’s, and the most fashionable
those at the Grand Opera. In the former, conversation is relieved by
dancing, and many of the gentlemen are in masks and fancy costume, and
every thing is intended here for vivid impressions. The orchestra has
the extraordinary addition of the tolling of a bell, and the dragging of
a chain, mixed with a full war-whoop of human voices. At this house
there is much liberty of action with entire liberty of speech.
I saw here one of the finest figures of a woman I have ever seen, in a
cook-maid’s dress, and looking as innocent as if she had lived before
Adam and Eve. I dialogued with her now and then as she came over to my
side in the dance.--“Have you a place?” “Yes.”--“Do you like your
master?” “Very much.”--“Would’nt change?” “No.”--“How much does he give
you?” “A hundred francs a month.”--“But if I give you five hundred?”
“_Ah! c’est une autre affaire._”
At the Grand Opera the ladies only are masked and all are in the same
dress, so as to be undistinguishable. If they choose to be known for
special purposes they have then their signals. Here they are the
aggressors, and gentlemen are not allowed the first word, and no dancing
or noise interrupts the interest of the conversation. The women too, are
of the best breeding, but on these occasions, they are permitted to
knock off their fetters, and they indemnify themselves not a little for
the restraints, which tyrannic fashion imposes upon them under their
natural faces.
The Bacchanal ladies of the Greeks used to let off the steam of their
too great vivacity once a year in the same manner. The Opera contains
many thousands, and yet on all these masquerades it is filled. The
Orchestra is at the nether end, so that the music comes from afar, and
its harmony reaches the great saloon so softened that the gentlest
lady-whisper falls distinctly upon the ear. The parterre, which is
floored, and the immense stage, form an area apart for the more noisy
and romping world; and the boxes overhead have their company. The upper
ones of all are close and _grillées_, with locks, and keys, and
attendants, for persons of retired habits.
Several exquisite nymphs exhibit themselves mounted on a platform at the
extremity of the pit, having their innocent alabaster arms, and marble
necks and shoulders, naked; and other charms are trying to hide
themselves modestly behind a light gauze, but do not always succeed.
These dispose of various kinds of merchandise by lottery.
The hot-houses too pour out their treasures through the lobbies, and
amidst the blushing roses and dahlias, gallant gentlemen and ladies
whisper their loves in each others’ ears, or repose about in groves that
are full of ravishment.
----“Jamais les jardins d’Armide,
Non, jamais les jardins d’Armide,
N’ont vu de tels enchantements!”
A lady, of what beauty I know not, but from a sweet voice and pretty
eyes, was pleased to give me here a half hour of her company and chat;
who is she? She would not tell me her name, nor even her country, but,
said in taking leave, “Give my compliments to Miss C----, or if you like
better her conjugal name, Mrs. G----, the only person I know in
Philadelphia.”
I begged much her name or some feature by which I might hope, in the
accidents and recontres of life, to recognise her; I asked her a single
line of poetry, or even a word, and she gave,--the malicious thing! two
French words only, which added nothing to the information I already
possessed of her person--she gave me “_beaux yeux_,” which I, like a
gallant knight, promised to carve upon the highest rock of the
Alleghany. She had like to have carved them some where else herself.
A half hour’s conversation with this lady would certainly be in the mind
of any one, of even less taste than I may modestly pretend to, a very
sensible regret at an endless or hopeless separation. Where there are
sense and sentiment, fine eyes, harmony of voice, and elegance of form,
it is difficult not to imagine the association of every other
perfection.
I was no sooner forsaken by this amiable lady, than I had the luck to
find almost a consolation for her absence, in another, who was not less
remarkable for wit, than for sentiment, and good sense. This second had
all the easy unembarrassed air of a fashionable Frenchwoman; was
exceedingly graceful, and had a shape, that to any lady of my
acquaintance, except one, would be unpardonable.
She mystified me, and (not a difficult thing for a woman) made a fool
of me.--“How could you exchange,” said she, “the sober Luxembourg, for
the frivolous Tuileries, and how the demure philosophy of the Faubourg
St. Germain for the gaieties and levities of the Rue Neuve des
Maturins?”--“You sorceress, how can you know where I live, or have
lived?”--“In the Luxembourg you had a better look; and there the angels
hovered over you to protect you. I sent you a volume to divert you under
the shade from your melancholy, and my servant to pick you up from the
ice.--When do you go home to America? You should have gone long ago, and
not be running about Europe getting vagabond habits in this manner; you
have now been absent eight months.” I offered her at last the New World
for her name.
“You are not the first of your profession who has offered worlds that
did not belong to him. * * * I cannot, I am afraid of your
rattlesnakes.”
“One encounters greater dangers daily in the midst of Paris.”
“The ladies?”
“They resemble snakes only in the power of charming.”
“I have seen gentlemen, sometimes, bit by them.”
“Yes, both young and rich.--What an impertinent question!--For the
beauty you shall judge for yourself; and I will not place you in the
unpleasant predicament of Paris; you will incur no displeasure of
Minerva or Juno in giving me the prize.” She then removed her mask,
under the light of a brillant lamp, and discovered, not only the
prettiest face I have seen in Europe, but the one I was most anxious to
see--the face of my quondam “wife of two minutes,” whom I had once met
at the Louvre, and of whom I have spoken in a former letter.
I would give you more of her conversation; but who, but a simpleton
relates dialogues with himself? Besides, what fop is there who writes a
play, or a novel, or a letter of travels, who does not promulgate some
foolish adventure of his, at a masquerade? * * * “You cannot either in
propriety or humanity leave me without your name or address.”
“_D’accord_,--the name _or_ the address?” I foolishly chose the latter;
and she gave me her residence, with an invitation to visit her at her
No.---- in the _Via di Sancto Spirito_, Florence.
“One might as well have an eel by the tail.”
“Better have an eel by the tail than a wolf by the ears;” with this
proverb she dropped into the great ocean, and all was smooth again. This
woman, notwithstanding my immense prudence, was near pinching me by the
heart. Love was just chirping, but Duty breathed her cold breath upon
him--and he remained unhatched.
I know of nothing that communicates half so much enjoyment to human
life, as an educated woman. I mean one who joins social accomplishment,
to literary instruction. Her conversation,
“More glad to me than to a miser money is.”
And a woman, I believe, is nowhere so admirable in wit, as under cover
of a mask. She then expresses her own thoughts; the rein and curb are
removed from her imagination, which expatiates more wildly from its
previous restraints.
Nor are her triumphs merely intellectual, though not shared with feature
or complexion, for in such cases the fancy outruns even the most vivid
reality. Pliny thought Apelles had improved his Venus by leaving her
unfinished; for the spectator would bring out beauties from the unformed
marble, beyond the skill even of the divine artist.
There is besides, the emotion, the excitement of curiosity, of mystery,
of adventure, and the interest of a first meeting and conversation, not
cooled by a gradual acquaintance, which lend many new attractions to a
woman, and which give a charm to the amusement of the masquerade, to
which few minds can be insensible.
But why have not our Solons allowed you ladies masks in
Pennsylvania?--Because they thought you better disguised in your own
faces. No such thing; they thought them dangerous to your morals. Ladies
think, like partridges, if their heads are hid, all is safe; but our
legislators, who were wise and provident, looked out for a better
security.
I have myself found one or two of the Christian virtues at a masquerade,
very inconvenient, to say the least of them. Such amusements add but
little to the immoralities of these old and refined communities;
but the later the day the better to introduce them into a new
country,--especially into the cloisters of your too innocent Hills. The
folly, the nonsense, the wickedness of the world is far beyond the
conception of you shepherdesses.
I placed myself last night under the escort of persons well versed in
all the menus-plaisirs of the town, and passed the night out to see
human nature in a part of her great book, which I had not yet perused. I
followed the two biggest rogues of Paris for information, as one follows
the pigs to get truffles.
The Palais Royal had our first visit. Here were both sexes in their
fancy dresses and masks, and here was the dance in all its wantonness;
“Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos
Matura Virgo;”
not gross absolutely, but indecency could not easily conceal herself
under a thinner covering. Ladies do not venture here for the world,
unless sometimes for mere curiosity, and well masked, as the Pagan
deities used to travel about in mortal disguises to see the iniquities
of men.
Near this place we descended into an immense room under ground. Here
were trulls in visors, and scavengers in lily-tinctured cravats. It was
the rabble in its court dresses. At the farthest end of the room rushed
out a savage upon a stage and puffed upon twenty instruments; beat
furiously a range of drums with his toes, hands, head, heels, &c. to the
infinite delight of the merry spectators. Don’t think, gentlemen, you
have all the fun at the Tuileries.--My companions did not think it safe
to abide long in this place. “We are not concerned for ourselves,” said
they, “but we are afraid you might be mistaken for a gentleman;” and we
set out for Porte St. Martin.
Here we introduced ourselves to the Masked Balls. It was near morning
and the common world had danced itself into languors. The dance here is
_unique_; every motion of the limbs is an eloquent and pathetic
language, especially the _gallopade_. You would go a long way to see a
French woman of the Porte St. Martin _gallop_. The gray hairs, too, of
both sexes, dance here.
Every here and there we saw an old thing of a woman, whose follies long
ago have gone to seed, tricked out in all the magnificence of ribbons,
and kindling her last efforts in the dance. In the private rooms, many,
fagged out by the labours of the week, were strewed about upon chairs
and sofas, or upon the floor, either faint and languishing, or wrapped
in sleep. One, a beautiful woman, lay outstretched, her petticoats
dishevelled, her head upon the crossed-legs of her beau, a half sloven,
half fop in silk breeches and a dirty shirt, who slept upright upon a
chair; another supine, her mouth open, snored towards Heaven; and every
where were plenty of legs, arms and bosoms, disdaining any other
covering than the sky.--They are gloriously jolly at the _Porte St.
Martin_, of a _Mardigras_, that’s certain.
About daylight we arrived at the “_Descente de la Courtille_.” This is
the blackguard rendezvous outside the gate so celebrated. All the élite
of the Parisian ragamuffins was here.--“Stand out of the way, you fellow
without a shirt.”--“Stand out of the way yourself, you sloven. When you
die they’ll not think it necessary to bury you. You can’t smell worse.”
We got through this crowd with long struggles in a close carriage; for
the custom is to bespatter with filth any one appearing in a decent
garb. Paris furnishes for her general parades the most genteel rabble in
the world, and I was not aware she could rake together such an ungodly
multitude for this occasion.
I went from the street into some of their retired places of revelry.
Here many a one had lost his “upright shape,” and was sprawling, male
and female, about the rooms and entries; brawny men and weather beaten
_poissardes_, half covered with rags. In the streets were various
entertaining sights. One (a sober man by some miracle) was running after
his tipsy wife, and as unhappy about her as a hen that has hatched a
duck.
Another had come to an equilibrium, and was struggling forward, yet
standing still, as one in a night-mare, or as a weather-cock taking
resolutions against the wind; and another was rendering up to Bacchus an
account of the night’s debauch. Finally, there was one administering a
kicking to a retreating enemy, which seemed quite a novelty in Paris,
and excited great interest. I was glad to see that the French, when they
do resort to violence, prefer that which alone is founded on principles
of humanity.
This is the “_Descente de la Courtille_.” It is one of the places where
one sees the nearest approach of our race to the lower animals; it is
the connecting link.
We returned home at eight, the fashionable hour. To go to bed at night,
or rise in the morning, is all out of fashion. The sun was made for the
rabble.... _Carnival_ means, farewell to flesh, and indeed there will be
not much flesh on my bones when it is over. _Lent_ means quiet and rest,
and comes very properly immediately after it.
It is to-day the birth-day of Washington, and you are no doubt honouring
it with wine and mirth and festivity. I have paid also my tribute to its
sacred memory; and who knows but this humble respect, in the “Rue Neuve
des Maturins,” is as welcome to his great spirit, which is now above the
reach of human vanities, as the pomp of your national festivals.
It is purity of heart that makes devotion acceptable in Heaven, and not
the magnificence of the worship. I told my two French convives at table
(their glasses being filled) it was Washington’s _fête_, and they stood
up instinctively and drank to his memory, pronouncing his name only, in
looking towards Heaven.--To Heaven he has gone by the general consent of
mankind. “Not as Mahomet, for he needed not the fiction of a miracle to
make him immortal; nor as Elijah, since recorded time has not pointed
out the being upon whom his mantle may descend; but (in humble
imitation) as the Great Architect from created universe, to contemplate
the stupendous monument his wisdom had erected.” After this I may leave
the rest of this page blank. I bid you affectionately good night.