Seest thou how gayly my young maister goes?--Bishop Hall’s Satires.
Qui vit sans folie, n’est pas si sage qu’il croit.--La Rochefoucault.
I lost no time in presenting my letters of introduction, and they were
as quickly acknowledged by invitations to balls and dinners. Paris was
full to excess, and of a better description of English than those who
usually overflow that reservoir of the world. My first engagement was to
dine with Lord and Lady Bennington, who were among the very few English
intimate in the best French houses.
On entering Paris I had resolved to set up “a character;” for I was
always of an ambitious nature, and desirous of being distinguished from
the ordinary herd. After various cogitations as to the particular one I
should assume, I thought nothing appeared more likely to be remarkable
among men, and therefore pleasing to women, than an egregious coxcomb:
accordingly I arranged my hair into ringlets, dressed myself with
singular plainness and simplicity (a low person, by the by, would have
done just the contrary), and putting on an air of exceeding languor,
made my maiden appearance at Lord Bennington’s. The party was small,
and equally divided between French and English: the former had been all
emigrants, and the conversation was chiefly in our own tongue.
I was placed, at dinner, next to Miss Paulding, an elderly young lady,
of some notoriety at Paris, very clever, very talkative, and very
conceited. A young, pale, ill-natured looking man, sat on her left hand;
this was Mr. Aberton, one of the attaches.
“Dear me!” said Miss Paulding, “what a pretty chain that is of your’s,
Mr. Aberton.”
“Yes,” said the attache, “I know it must be pretty, for I got it at
Brequet’s, with the watch.” (How common people always buy their opinions
with their goods, and regulate the height of the former by the mere
price or fashion of the latter.)
“Pray, Mr. Pelham,” said Miss Paulding, turning to me, “have you got one
of Brequet’s watches yet?”
“Watch!” said I: “do you think I could ever wear a watch? I know nothing
so plebeian. What can any one, but a man of business, who has nine hours
for his counting-house and one for his dinner, ever possibly want to
know the time for? An assignation, you will say: true, but (here I
played with my best ringlet) if a man is worth having, he is surely
worth waiting for!”
Miss Paulding opened her eyes, and Mr. Aberton his mouth. A pretty
lively French woman opposite (Madame D’Anville) laughed, and immediately
joined in our conversation, which, on my part, was, during the whole
dinner, kept up exactly in the same strain.
“What do you think of our streets?” said the old, yet still animated
Madame de G--s. “You will not find them, I fear, so agreeable for
walking as the trottoirs in London.”
“Really,” I answered, “I have only been once out in your streets, at
least a pied, since my arrival, and then I was nearly perishing for want
of help.”
“What do you mean?” said Madame D’Anville.
“Why, I fell into that intersecting stream which you call a kennel, and
I a river. Pray, Mr. Aberton, what do you think I did in that dangerous
dilemma?”
“Why, got out again as fast as you could,” said the literal attache.
“No such thing, I was too frightened: I stood still and screamed for
assistance.”
Madame D’Anville was delighted, and Miss Paulding astonished. Mr.
Aberton muttered to a fat, foolish Lord Luscombe, “What a damnation
puppy,”--and every one, even to the old Madame de G--s, looked at me six
times as attentively as they had done before.
As for me, I was perfectly satisfied with the effect I had produced,
and I went away the first, in order to give the men an opportunity of
abusing me; for whenever the men abuse, the women, to support alike
their coquetry and the conversation, think themselves called upon to
defend.
The next day I rode into the Champs Elysees. I always valued myself
particularly upon my riding, and my horse was both the most fiery
and the most beautiful in Paris. The first person I saw was Madame
D’Anville. At that moment I was reining in my horse, and conscious,
as the wind waved my long curls, that I was looking to the very best
advantage, I made my horse bound towards her carriage, which she
immediately stopped, and speaking in my natural tone of voice, and
without the smallest affectation, I made at once my salutations and my
court.
“I am going,” said she, “to the Duchesse D--g’s this evening--it is her
night--do come.”
“I don’t know her,” said I.
“Tell me your hotel, and I’ll send you an invitation before dinner,”
rejoined Madame D’Anville.
“I lodge,” said I, “at the Hotel de--, Rue de Rivoli, au second at
present; next year, I suppose, according to the usual gradations in the
life of a garcon, I shall be au troisieme: for here the purse and the
person seem to be playing at see-saw--the latter rises as the former
descends.”
We went on conversing for about a quarter of an hour, in which I
endeavoured to make the pretty Frenchwoman believe that all the good
opinion I possessed of myself the day before, I had that morning
entirely transferred to her account.
As I rode home I met Mr. Aberton, with three or four other men; with
that glaring good-breeding, so peculiar to the English, he instantly
directed their eyes towards me in one mingled and concentrated stare.
“N’importe,” thought I, “they must be devilish clever fellows if they
can find a single fault either in my horse or myself.”