fortune which happen in certain families, and which a hundred years
ago were never heard of because they did not exist. Providence, on a
sudden, bestows its favours on them; and more than once showers on
them wealth, honours, and dignities, so that they bask in prosperity.
Eumolpus,[318] one of those men who never had any ancestors, was
raised so high that he obtained everything he desired during the
course of a long life. Was this owing to the superior intelligence and
to the profound capacity of either father or son, or to favourable
circumstances? Fortune, at last, smiles on them no longer; it leaves
them to sport elsewhere, and treats their descendants as it did their
ancestors.
(81.) The immediate cause of the ruin and overthrow of gentlemen of the
long robe and the sword is that they have to spend their money, not
according to their income, but according to their rank in society.
(82.) If you have omitted nothing towards making your fortune, how
great has been your labour! If you have neglected the most trifling
thing, how lasting will be your repentance!
(83.) Giton has a fresh complexion, a full face, pendulous cheeks,
a steady and resolute look, broad shoulders, a huge chest, a firm
and deliberate gait; he speaks with assurance, must have every word
repeated that is said to him, and is not greatly pleased with what is
told him. He takes a large handkerchief out of his pocket, and blows
his nose with a tremendous noise: he expectorates about the room, and
sneezes very loud; he sleeps by day, by night, and that soundly, for
he snores in company. He takes up more room than any one else at table
or whilst walking, and walks in the middle of the road when with his
equals; he stops and they stop; he goes forward and they go forward;
all are governed by what he does. He interrupts and corrects those who
are talking, but is never interrupted, and people listen to him as long
as he likes to speak, for their ideas are like his, and they take it
for granted that the news he tells them is perfectly true. If he sits
down he throws himself into an easy-chair, crosses his legs, frowns,
pulls his hat over his eyes so as to see no one, or suddenly draws it
back to show a supercilious and bold countenance; he is merry, ever
laughing, impatient, impudent, a freethinker,[319] and a politician
full of secrets about the affairs of the day; he thinks he has talents
and intelligence; he is wealthy.
Phædo has sunken eyes, a reddish complexion, a lean body and an
emaciated countenance; he sleeps very little, and his slumbers are
light; he is absent-minded, pensive, and, with some intelligence, looks
like a dolt; he forgets to say what he knows or to speak about those
incidents with which he is acquainted; if he says something now and
then, he does it badly; he thinks he bores those persons to whom he
addresses himself, and therefore tells his story briefly but coldly, so
that he is never listened to nor taken notice of, for he makes nobody
laugh. He praises and laughs at other personsʼ jests, is of their
opinions, and runs and flies to render them some small services; he
is over polite, and flatters and waits on them; he is close about his
own affairs, and does not always tell the truth about them; he is very
peculiar,[320] scrupulous, and timorous. He steps lightly and softly,
and seems afraid to tread the ground; he walks with his eyes downward,
and dares not raise them to face the passers-by; he never joins in any
conversation, but places himself behind the person who speaks; picks up
by stealth all that has been said, and withdraws if any one looks at
him. He does not take up any room nor fill a place anywhere; he walks
about with his arms close to his body, his hat over his eyes that he
may not be seen, and wraps and folds himself up in his cloak. There is
no street nor gallery so crowded and filled with people, but he finds
a way to get through without jostling, and to steal along unperceived.
If they beg him to sit down, he seats himself on the edge of a chair,
and talks in a low voice and not very distinctly; he freely expresses,
however, his opinion on public affairs, is angry with the age, and but
indifferently pleased with the cabinet and the ministers; he seldom
opens his mouth but to reply; he coughs and blows his nose with his
hat before his face, he almost expectorates on himself, and does not
sneeze till he is alone, or if it does happen, no one hears it, so that
no one has to say “God bless you.” He is poor.[321]
[Illustration]
VII.
OF THE TOWN.[322]
(1.) People in Paris, without giving any notice beforehand, and as if
it were some public assignation, meet every evening on the Cours[323]
or in the Tuileries, to stare around and criticise one another.
They cannot dispense with those very persons whom they do not like and
whom they deride.
They wait for one another in these public walks,[324] and they examine
one another; carriages, horses, liveries, coats of arms, nothing
escapes their gaze; everything is looked at keenly or maliciously, and
they respect or contemn the persons they meet according to the greater
or lesser splendour of their equipages.
(2.) Everybody knows that long bank[325] which borders and confines the
Seine where it joins the Marne on entering Paris; close by men come to
bathe during the heat of the dog-days, and people at a little distance
see them amuse themselves by jumping in and out of the water. Now, as
long as there is no bathing, the city ladies never walk that way, and
when the season is over they walk there no longer.[326]
(3.) In those places of general resort, where the ladies assemble only
to show their fine dresses, and to reap the reward for the trouble they
have taken with their apparel, people do not walk with a companion for
the pleasure of conversation, but they herd together to get a little
more confidence, to accustom themselves to the public, and to keep one
another in countenance against criticisms. They talk but say nothing,
or rather they talk to be taken notice of by those for whose sake they
raise their voices, gesticulate, joke, bow carelessly, and walk up and
down.
(4.) The town is split up into several sets, which, like so many little
republics, have their peculiar laws, customs, dialects, and jests. As
long as such a set remains in force, and as long as the conceit lasts,
nothing is allowed to be well said or well done which it had no hand
in, and it cannot enjoy anything from strangers; it even contemns those
who have not been initiated in its mysteries. An intelligent man, whom
chance has thrown amongst the members of such a set, is a stranger to
them: he is, as it were, in a distant country, where he is ignorant of
the roads, the language, the manners and the laws; he sees a sort of
people who talk, rattle, whisper, burst out laughing, and presently
relapse into a gloomy silence; he does not know what to do, and can
hardly tell where to put in a word, or even when to listen. Some sorry
buffoon is ever at hand who is the head and, as it were, the hero of
such a set, and has always to keep them merry and to make them laugh
before he has uttered a single word. If at any time a woman comes
amongst them, who is not one of them, these jolly fellows are amazed
she does not laugh at things she cannot understand, and appears not to
be amused with some nonsense they would not understand themselves, if
it were not their own; they will not overlook her tone of voice, her
silence, her figure, her dress, her coming or going out of the room.
This same set, however, does not last two years; in the first year are
already sown those seeds of division which break it up the following
year; quarrels about some woman, disputes at play, extravagant
entertainments, which, though moderate at first, soon degenerate into
pyramids of viands and sumptuous banquets, overthrow the commonwealth,
and finally give it a mortal blow, and in a little while there is no
more talk about them than about last yearʼs flies.
(5.) There are in town lawyers belonging to the _grande robe_, and
others to the _petite robe_;[327] and the first take on the second
their revenge for the contempt and the supercilious way in which they
are treated by a court of justice. It is not easy to know where the
_grande robe_[328] begins and the _petite_ ends; there is even a large
number of lawyers who refuse to belong to the second class and who are
yet not considered to be of the first; they will, however, not abandon
their pretensions, but, on the contrary, endeavour, by their sedate
carriage and by the money they spend, to show themselves the equals of
the magistrates; they have often been heard to say that their sublime
duties, the independence of their profession, their eloquence, and
their personal merits, balance at least the bags of money which the
sons of financiers and bankers have paid for their offices.
(6.) You are very inconsiderate to sit musing, or perhaps dozing, in
your carriage. Rouse yourself, and take a book or your papers, and
begin to read; and hardly return the bows of those people who pass you
in their carriages, for they will believe you to be very busy, and say
everywhere that you are hard-working and indefatigable, and that you
read and work even in the streets or on the highroad.[329] You may
learn from a pettifogger that you should ever seem to be immersed in
business, knit your brows and muse most profoundly about nothing at
all; that you should not always have the time for eating or drinking,
and that as soon as you are in the house you should vanish like a
ghost, and betake yourself to your dark private room, hide yourself
from the public, avoid the theatre, and leave that to those who run no
risk in appearing there, though they have hardly the leisure for it, to
the Gomons and the Duhamels.[330]
(7.) There are a certain number of young magistrates with large estates
and fond of pleasure, who have become acquainted with some of those
men who are called at court “dandies;” they imitate them, behave
in a manner unbecoming the gravity of a judge, and believe that on
account of their youth and fortune they have no need to be discreet
or passionless. They borrow from the court the very worst qualities,
appropriate to themselves vanity, effeminacy, intemperance, and
indecency, as if all those vices were their privilege, thus affecting
a character quite the opposite to what they ought to maintain, and, in
the end, according to their wishes, become exact copies of very wicked
originals.[331]
(8.) A gentleman of the legal profession is not like the same man
in the city and at court; when he has returned home he resumes his
natural manners, look, and gestures, which he left behind, and is no
longer so embarrassed nor so polite.
(9.) The Crispins join and club together to drive out with six horses
to their carriage, and with a swarm of men in livery, to which each
has furnished his share; they figure at the Cours or at Vincennes[332]
as brilliantly as a newly-married couple, or as Jason who is ruining
himself, or as Thraso who wishes to get married, and who has deposited
the money to buy an important place.[333]
(10.) I hear a good deal of talk about the Sannions; about “the same
name, the same arms, the elder branch, the younger branch, the younger
sons of the second branch; about the first bearing their arms plain,
the second with a label, and the third with a _bordure_ indented.”
Their colour and metal are the same as those of the Bourbons, and, like
them, they bear two and one;[334] it is true these are not “fleurs
de lis,” but they are satisfied; perhaps, in their inmost hearts,
they believe their bearings as noble; at least, they are the same as
those of lords of the highest rank who are quite content with them.
We see them on their mourning hangings,[335] and on the windows of
their chapels, on the gates of their castle, on their justiciary
pillar, where many a man is condemned to be hanged who only deserved
banishment; they are visible anywhere, on their furniture and their
locks, while their carriages are covered with them, and the liveries
of their servants do not disgrace their escutcheon. I should like to
tell the Sannions that their ostentation is too precipitate; that they
should have waited at least until their race had existed a century;
that those persons who knew and conversed with their grandfather are
old and cannot live long, and that, after their death, no one will be
able to say where he kept his shop, and what a very dear one it was.
The Sannions and the Crispins[336] had rather be thought extravagant
than covetous; they tell you a long story of a feast or a collation
they gave, of their losses at play, and express aloud their regrets
they have not lost more. They mention in their peculiar language
certain ladies of their acquaintance; they have ever many pleasant
things to tell each other, are always making new discoveries, and
confide to one another their successes with the fair. One of them,
coming lately to his country-house, hastens to bed, and rises with the
dawn, then puts on his gaiters and a linen suit, and fastens on his
belt and his powder-horn, ties back his hair, takes his gun, and is
a sportsman, if he did but shoot well. He returns at night, wet and
weary, without any game, but goes shooting again on the morrow, and
spends the whole day in missing thrushes and partridges.
Another man[337] speaks of some wretched dogs he has as “his pack
of hounds;” he knows where the meet is held, and goes there; he is
at the starting,[338] and enters the thicket with the huntsmen,
with his horn by his side; he does not ask, like Menalippus, “Do I
enjoy myself?”[339] but he thinks he does; he forgets the law and
all lawsuits, and would be thought an Hippolytus.[340] Menander, who
yesterday was engaged in a lawsuit, paid him a visit, but to-day would
not know again his judge. To-morrow you may see him at court, where
a weighty and capital case is going to be tried; he gets his learned
brethren about him, and informs them that he did not lose the stag, but
that he is quite hoarse with hallooing after the hounds which lost the
scent, or after those sportsmen who were at fault, and that, with half
a dozen hounds, he was in at the death; but the clock strikes, and he
has no more time to talk of the stag being at bay, or of the quarry: he
must take his seat with the other magistrates and administer justice.
(11.) How great is the infatuation of certain men, who, being possessed
of the wealth their fathers acquired by trade, which they have just
inherited, imitate princes in their dress and retinue, and by excessive
expenditure and ridiculous pomp provoke the remarks and sneers of the
whole town they think to dazzle, and thus ruin themselves to be laughed
at!
Some have not even the sorry advantage of having their follies talked
about beyond their immediate neighbourhood, and the only spot where
their vanity is displayed. They do not know in the Ile that André
makes a figure and squanders his patrimony in the Marais.[341] If he
were only better known in town and in the suburbs, perhaps, amongst so
large a number of citizens, who are not all able to judge sensibly of
everything, possibly one of them might declare André has a magnificent
spirit, and give him credit for his banquets to Xanthe and Ariston, and
for his entertainments to Elamire; but he ruins himself obscurely, and
hastens to become poor only for the sake of two or three persons, who
do not esteem him in the least, and though at present he rides in his
coach, in six months he will hardly be able to go on foot.[342]
(12.) Narcissus[343] rises in the morning to lie down at night; he
spends as many hours in dressing as a woman; he goes every day to mass
at the Feuillants or the Minims;[344] is very agreeable in company,
and in his parish they reckon on him to make a third man at ombre or
reversis.[345] He sits for hours together at
Ariciaʼs, where every night he ventures his five or six golden
pistoles;[346] he never misses reading the _Gazette de Hollande_ or
the _Mercure Galant_;[347] he has read Bergerac,[348] Desmarets,[349]
Lesclache,[350] Barbinʼs[351] stories, and some collections of poetry;
he walks with the ladies on the Plaine or the Cours,[352] and is
scrupulously punctual in his visits; he will do to-morrow precisely
what he has done to-day and did yesterday; thus he lives, and thus he
will die.
(13.) “I have seen this man somewhere,” youʼll say,[353] “and, though
his face is familiar to me, I have forgotten where it was.” It is
familiar to many other people, and, if possible, I will assist your
memory. Was it on the Boulevard,[354] in a carriage, or in the large
alley of the Tuileries, or else in the dress-circle at the theatre?
Was it at church, at a ball, or at Rambouillet;[355] or, rather, can
you tell me where you have not seen him, and where he is not to be
met with? If some well-known criminal is going to be executed, or if
there are any fireworks, he makes his appearance at a window at the
town-hall; if some one enters the town in state, you see him in the
reserved seats; if a _carousel_[356] is ridden, he enters and takes his
place on some bench; if the king gives an audience to an ambassador,
he sees the whole procession, is present at the reception, and thrusts
himself in the ranks when it returns. His presence is as essential at
the solemn renewal of the alliance between the Swiss Cantons as that of
the Lord Chancellor or the Helvetian plenipotentiaries.[357] You see
his face on the almanacks amongst the people or the bystanders;[358]
if there is a public hunt going on or a _Saint Hubert_,[359] he will
be present on horseback; they say to him that a camp is going to be
pitched or that a review is going to be held, and off he will start for
Houilles or Achères;[360] he is very fond of the army, the militia,
and war, of which he has seen a good deal, even the taking of Fort
Bernardi.[361] Chamlay knows something of marches, Jacquier of the
commissariate, du Metz of the artillery,[362] but our gentleman is a
looker-on, has grown old in the service of looking-on, and is a
spectator by profession; he does not do anything that a man ought to
do, and he does not know anything that a man ought to know; but he
boasts that he has seen everything that was to be seen, and now does
not regret to die. But what a loss will his death be for the whole
town! Who will inform us, as he did, that the Cours is closed, and
nobody is walking there, that the pond of Vincennes has been filled up
and is now a raised moat, and that no carriage will any more be upset
on that spot? Who will acquaint us when there is a concert, a choral
service in church, or something wonderful to be seen at the fair?
Who will let us know that Beaumavielle[363] died yesterday, and that
Rochois[364] has got a cold and will not be able to sing for a week?
Who will inform us that Scapin bears the “fleur de lis” on his arms,
and who is very glad he does so? Who will pronounce, with the most
boastful emphasis, the name of a mere citizenʼs wife, or who will be
better provided with topical songs? Who will lend to the ladies the
_Annales Galantes_ and the _Journal Amoureux_?[365] Who will sing at
table a whole dialogue of an opera, or the madness of “Roland”[366] in
a _ruelle_, as well as he does?[367] To conclude, since there are in
the city and elsewhere some very foolish people as well as some dull
and idle people, who have nothing to do, who will so exactly suit every
one of them as he did?
(14.) Theramenes[368] was rich and had some merit; some property was
left him, and therefore he is now much wealthier and has a great deal
more merit; all the women set to work to make him their gallant, and
all the young girls to get him for a husband; he goes from house to
house, to make the mothers believe that he is inclined to marry. As
soon as he has taken his seat they withdraw, to leave full liberty
to their daughters to be amiable and to Theramenes to declare his
intentions. Here he is the rival of a magistrate;[369] there he throws
into the shade a military man or a nobleman. The ladies could not
covet more passionately any rosy-cheeked, gay, brisk, witty young
fellow, nor could he be better received; they snatch him out of one
anotherʼs hands, and can hardly find leisure to vouchsafe a smile to
any other person who visits them at the same time. How many gallants
is he going to defeat! how many good matches will be broken off on his
account! Will he bestow his hand on the large number of heiresses who
court him? He is not only the terror of husbands, but the dread of all
these who wish to be so, and to whom marriage is the only resource for
obtaining a sufficient sum to replace the money they paid for their
official situations.[370] A man so happy and so wealthy[371] ought
to be banished from a well-governed city, and the fair sex should be
forbidden, under pain of being considered insane or degraded, to treat
him better than if he were merely a person of merit.
(15.) The people in Paris commonly ape the court, but they do not
always know how to imitate it; they by no means resemble it in those
agreeable and flattering outward civilities with which some courtiers,
and particularly the ladies, affably treat a man of merit, who
possesses nothing but merit. Such ladies never inquire after that manʼs
means or his ancestors; they find him at court, and that is sufficient
for them; they give themselves no airs, they esteem him, and do not
ask whether he came in a carriage or on foot, or whether he has a post,
an estate, or followers; as they are satiated with pomp, splendour, and
honour, they like to recreate themselves with philosophy or virtue.
If a city lady hears the rattling of a carriage stopping at her door,
she is anxious to be acquainted with any person who is in it, and to
be polite to him, without at all knowing him; but from her window she
has caught a glance of a set of fine horses, a good many liveries,
is dazzled by the numerous rows of finely gilt nails,[372] and is
very impatient to behold such a military man or a magistrate in her
apartments. How well will he be received! Sheʼll never take her eyes
off him. Nothing is lost upon her, and she has already given him credit
for the double braces and springs of his carriage, which make it go
easier, and she esteems him the more and loves him the better for them.
(16.) The infatuation of some city women in their wretched imitation of
those at court is more offensive than the coarseness of the women of
the people and the rusticity of country-women, since it is a mixture
of both, and of affectation as well.
(17.) What a cunning contrivance to give during courtship valuable
presents which cost nothing, and which after marriage have to be
returned in kind![373]
(18.) It is sensible and praiseworthy in a man to spend on his
nuptials one-third of his wifeʼs dowry; to begin with deliberately
impoverishing himself by buying and collecting superfluous things; and
already to take from his capital in order to pay Gaultier,[374] the
cabinet-maker, and the milliner!
(19.) Truly it is a charming and judicious custom which, in defiance of
modesty and decency, and through some kind of shamelessness, compels a
newly-married bride to lie on her bed for show, and to render herself
ridiculous for some days, by exposing her to the curiosity of a few men
and women whom she may know, or who may be strangers to her, and who
hasten from all quarters of the town to look on such a sight as long as
it lasts.[375] There is nothing wanting to make this custom seem very
absurd and incomprehensible, except to see it mentioned in print in
some book of travels in Mingrelia.
(20.) What a painful habit and what a troublesome kind of obligation it
must be for certain persons to be continually anxious of meeting one
another, yet when they meet to have nothing but trifles to say to one
another, and to communicate reciprocally things which were previously
known to both and of no matter of importance to either; to enter a room
merely to leave it again; to go out after dinner,[376] only to come
home in the evening, highly satisfied with seeing in five hours three
Swiss,[377] a woman they hardly knew, and another they scarcely liked.
Whoever will rightly consider the value of time, and how irreparable
its loss is, must lament bitterly such wretched trifling.[378]