Improvements of Paris.--Introduction of Carpets and
Trottoirs.--Maisonnettes.--Not likely to answer in
Paris.--The necessity of a Porter and Porter's
Lodge.--Comparative Expenses of France and
England.--Increasing Wealth of the Bourgeoisie.
Among the many recent improvements in Paris which evidently owe their
origin to England, those which strike the eye first, are the almost
universal introduction of carpets within doors, and the frequent
blessing of a _trottoir_ without. In a few years, unless all
paving-stones should be torn up in search of more immortality, there
can be no doubt that it will be almost as easy to walk in Paris as in
London. It is true that the old streets are not quite wide enough to
admit such enormous esplanades on each side as Regent and Oxford
Streets; but all that is necessary to safety and comfort may be
obtained with less expense of space; and to those who knew Paris a
dozen years ago, when one had to hop from stone to stone in the fond
hope of escaping wet shoes in the Dog-days--tormented too during the
whole of this anxious process with the terror of being run over by
carts, fiacres, concous, cabs, and wheelbarrows;--whoever remembers
what it was to walk in Paris then, will bless with an humble and
grateful spirit the dear little pavement which, with the exception of
necessary intervals to admit of an approach to the portes-cochère of
the various _hôtels_, and a few short intervals beside, which appear
to have been passed over and forgotten, borders most of the principal
streets of Paris now.
Another English innovation, infinitely more important in all ways, has
been attempted, and has failed. This was the endeavour to introduce
_maisonnettes_, or small houses calculated for the occupation of one
family. A few such have been built in that new part of the town which
stretches away in all directions behind the Madeleine; but they are
not found to answer--and that for many reasons which I should have
thought it very easy to foresee, and which I suspect it would be very
difficult to obviate.
In order to come at all within reach of the generality of French
incomes, they must be built on too small a scale to have any good
rooms; and this is a luxury, and permits a species of display, to
which many are accustomed who live in unfurnished apartments, for
which they give perhaps fifteen hundred or two thousand francs a year.
Another accommodation which habit has made it extremely difficult for
French families to dispense with, and which can be enjoyed at an easy
price only by sharing it with many, is a porter and a porter's lodge.
Active as is the race of domestic servants in Paris, their number
must, I think, be doubled in many families, were the arrangement of
the porter's lodge to be changed for our system of having a servant
summoned every time a parcel, a message, a letter, or a visit arrives
at the house.
Nor does the taking charge of these by any means comprise the whole
duty of this servant of many masters; neither am I at all competent to
say exactly what does: but it seems to me that the answer I generally
receive upon desiring that anything may be done is, "Oui, madame, le
portier ou la portière fera cela;" and were we suddenly deprived of
these factotums, I suspect that we should be immediately obliged to
leave our apartments and take refuge in an hôtel, for I should be
quite at a loss to know what or how many additional "helps" would be
necessary to enable us to exist without them.
That the whole style and manner of domestic existence throughout all
the middling classes of such a city as Paris should hang upon their
porters' lodges, seems tracing great effects to little causes; but I
have been so repeatedly told that the failure of the _maisonnettes_
has in a great degree arisen from this, that I cannot doubt it.
I know not whether anything which prevents their so completely
changing their mode of life as they must do if living in separate
houses, is to be considered as an evil or not. The Parisians are a
very agreeable, and apparently a very happy population; and who can
say what effect the quiet, steady, orderly mode of each man having a
small house of his own might produce? What is admirable as a component
part of one character, is often incongruous and disagreeable when met
in another; and I am by no means certain if the snug little mansion
which might be procured for the same rent as a handsome apartment,
would not tend to circumscribe and tame down the light spirits that
now send _locataires_ of threescore springing to their elegant
_premier_ by two stairs at a time. And the prettiest and best
_chaussés_ little feet in the world too, which now trip _sans souci_
over the common stair, would they not lag painfully perhaps in passing
through a low-browed hall, whose neatness or unneatness had become a
private and individual concern? And might not many a bright fancy be
damped while calculating how much it would cost to have a few statues
and oleanders in it?--and the head set aching by meditating how to get
"ce vilain escalier frotté" from top to bottom? Yet all these, and
many other cares which they now escape, must fall upon them if they
give up their apartments for _maisonnettes_.
The fact, I believe, is, that French fortunes, taken at the average at
which they at present stand, could not suffice to procure the pretty
elegance to which the middle classes are accustomed, unless it were
done by the sacrifice of some portion of that costly fastidiousness
which English people of the same rank seem to cling to as part of
their prerogative.
Though I am by no means prepared to say that I should like to exchange
my long-confirmed habit of living in a house of my own for the
Parisian mode of inhabiting apartments, I cannot but allow that by
this and sundry other arrangements a French income is made to
contribute infinitely more to the enjoyment of its possessor than an
English one.
Let any English person take the trouble of calculating, let their
revenue be great or small, how much of it is expended in what
immediately contributes to their personal comfort and luxury, and how
much of it is devoted to the support of expenses which in point of
fact add to neither, and the truth of this statement will become
evident.
Rousseau says, that "cela se fait," and "cela ne se fait pas," are the
words which regulate everything that goes on within the walls of
Paris. That the same words have at least equal power in London, can
hardly be denied; and, unfortunately for our individual independence,
obedience to them costs infinitely more on our side of the water than
it does on this. Hundreds are annually spent, out of very confined
incomes, to support expenses which have nothing whatever to do with
the personal enjoyment of those who so tax themselves; but it must be
submitted to, because "cela se fait," or "cela ne se fait pas." In
Paris, on the contrary, this imperative phrase has comparatively no
influence on the expenditure of any revenue, because every one's
object is not to make it appear that he is as rich as his neighbour,
but to make his means, be they great or small, contribute as much as
possible to the enjoyment and embellishment of his existence.
It is for this reason that a residence in Paris is found so favourable
an expedient in cases of diminished or insufficient fortune. A family
coming hither in the hope of obtaining the mere necessaries of life at
a much cheaper rate than in England would be greatly disappointed:
some articles are cheaper, but many are considerably dearer; and, in
truth, I doubt if at the present moment anything that can be strictly
denominated a necessary of life is to be found cheaper in Paris than
in London.
It is not the necessaries, but the luxuries of life that are cheaper
here. Wine, ornamental furniture, the keep of horses, the price of
carriages, the entrance to theatres, wax-lights, fruit, books, the
rent of handsome apartments, the wages of men-servants, are all
greatly cheaper, and direct taxes greatly less. But even this is not
the chief reason why a residence in Paris may be found economical to
persons of any pretension to rank or style at home. The necessity for
parade, so much the most costly of all the appendages to rank, may
here be greatly dispensed with, and that without any degradation
whatever. In short, the advantage of living in Paris as a matter of
economy depends entirely upon the degree of luxury to be obtained.
There are certainly many points of delicacy and refinement in the
English manner of living which I should be very sorry to see given up
as national peculiarities; but I think we should gain much in many
ways could we learn to hang our consequence less upon the comparison
of what others do. We shudder at the cruel madness of the tyrant who
would force every form to reach one standard; but those are hardly
less mad who insist that every one, to live _comme il faut_, must
live, or appear to live, exactly as others do, though the means of
doing so may vary among the silly set so prescribed to, from an income
that may justify any extravagance to one that can honestly supply
none.
This is a folly of incalculably rarer occurrence here than in England;
and it certainly is no proof of the good sense of our "most thinking
people," that for one private family brought to ruin by extravagance
in France, there are fifty who suffer from this cause in England.
It is easy to perceive that our great wealth has been the cause of
this. The general scale of expense has been set so high, that
thousands who have lived in reference to that, rather than to their
individual fortunes, have been ruined by the blunder; and I really
know no remedy so likely to cure the evil as a residence in Paris;
not, however, so much as a means of saving money, as of making a
series of experiments which may teach them how to make the best and
most enjoyable use of it.
I am persuaded, that if it were to become as much the fashion to
imitate the French independence of mind in our style of living, as it
now is to copy them in ragoûts, bonnets, moustaches, and or-molu, we
should greatly increase our stock of real genuine enjoyment. If no
English lady should ever again feel a pang at her heart because she
saw more tall footmen in her neighbour's hall than in her own--if no
sighs were breathed in secret in any club-house or at any sale,
because Jack Somebody's stud was a cut above us--if no bills were run
up at Gunter's, or at Howell and James's, because it was worse than
death to be outdone,--we should unquestionably be a happier and a
more respectable people than we are at present.
It is, I believe, pretty generally acknowledged by all parties, that
the citizens of France have become a more money-getting generation
since the last revolution than they ever were before it. The security
and repose which the new dynasty seems to have brought with it, have
already given them time and opportunity to multiply their capital; and
the consequence is, that the shop-keeping propensities with which
Napoleon used to reproach us have crossed the Channel, and are
beginning to produce very considerable alterations here.
It is evident that the wealth of the _bourgeoisie_ is rapidly
increasing, and their consequence with it; so rapidly, indeed, that
the republicans are taking fright at it,--they see before them a new
enemy, and begin to talk of the abominations of an aristocratic
_bourgeoisie_.
There is, in fact, no circumstance in the whole aspect of the country
more striking or more favourable than this new and powerful impulse
given to trade. It is the best ballast that the vessel of the state
can have; and if they can but contrive that nothing shall happen to
occasion its being thrown overboard, it may suffice to keep her
steady, whatever winds may blow.
The wide-spreading effect of this increasing wealth among the
_bourgeoisie_ is visible in many ways, but in none more than in the
rapid increase of handsome dwellings, which are springing up, as white
and bright as new-born mushrooms, in the north-western division of
Paris. This is quite a new world, and reminds me of the early days of
Russell Square, and all the region about it. The Church of the
Madeleine, instead of being, as I formerly remember it, nearly at the
extremity of Paris, has now a new city behind it; and if things go on
at the same rate at which they seem to be advancing at present, we
shall see it, or at least our children will, occupying as central a
position as St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. An excellent market, called
Marché de la Madeleine, has already found its way to this new town;
and I doubt not that churches, theatres, and restaurans innumerable
will speedily follow.
The capital which is now going so merrily on, increasing with almost
American rapidity, will soon ask to be invested; and when this
happens, Paris will be seen running out of town with the same active
pace that London has done before her; and twenty years hence the Bois
de Boulogne may very likely be as thickly peopled as the Regent's Park
is now.
This sudden accession of wealth has already become the cause of a
great increase in the price of almost every article sold in Paris;
and if this activity of commerce continue, it is more than probable,
that the hitherto moderate fortunes of the Parisian _boursier_ and
merchant will grow into something resembling the colossal capitals of
England, and we shall find that the same causes which have hitherto
made England dear will in future prevent France from being cheap. It
will then happen, that many deficiencies which are now perceptible,
and which furnish the most remarkable points of difference between the
two countries, will disappear; great wealth being in many instances
all that is required to make a French family live very much like an
English one. Whether they will not, when this time arrives, lose on
the side of unostentatious enjoyment more than they will gain by
increased splendour, may, I think, be very doubtful. For my own part,
I am decidedly of opinion, that as soon as heavy ceremonious dinners
shall systematically take place of the present easy, unexpensive style
of visiting, Paris will be more than half spoiled, and the English may
make up their minds to remain proudly and pompously at home, lest,
instead of a light and lively contrast to their own ways, they may
chance to find a heavy but successful rivalry.