False Notions.--Continental Manners.--People of Paris.--Parisian Women.
--French Beauty.--Men of France.--French Soldiers.
To JAMES STEVENSON, ESQUIRE, ALBANY.
I cannot tell you whence the vulgar notions that we entertain of the
French, which, with many other pernicious prejudices, have made a part
of our great inheritance from England, have been originally obtained.
Certainly I have seen no thing, nor any person, after a long residence
in the country, to serve as models to the flippant _marquis_, the
overdressed courtiers, or the _petites maîtresses_ of the English
dramatists. Even a French _perruquier_ is quite as homely and plain a
personage as an English or an American barber. But these Athenians
grossly caricature themselves as well as their neighbours. Although
Paris is pretty well garnished with English of all degrees, from the
Duke down, it has never yet been my luck to encounter an English dandy.
Now and then one meets with a "_dresser_," a man who thinks more of his
appearance than becomes his manhood, or than comports with good
breeding; and occasionally a woman is seen who is a mere appendage to
her attire; but I am persuaded, that, as a rule, neither of these vulgar
classes exists among people of any condition, in either country. It is
impossible for me to say what changes the revolution, and the wars and
the new notions, may have produced in France, but there is no sufficient
reason for believing that the present cropped and fringeless,
bewhiskered, and _laceless_ generation of France, differs more from
their bewigged, belaced, and powdered predecessors, than the men and
women of any other country differ from their particular ancestors. Boys
wore cocked hats, and breaches, and swords, in America, previously to
the revolution; and our immediate fathers flourished in scarlet coats,
powder, ruffled fingers, and embroidered waistcoats.
The manners of the continent of Europe are more finished than those of
England, and while quiet and simplicity are the governing rules of good
breeding everywhere, even in unsophisticated America, this quiet and
simplicity is more gracious and more graceful in France than in the
neighbouring island. As yet, I see no other difference in mere
deportment, though there is abundance when one goes into the examination
of character.
I have met with a good many people of the old court at Paris, and though
now and then there is a certain _roué_ atmosphere about them, both men
and women, as if too much time had been passed at Coblentz, they have
generally, in other respects, been models of elegant demeanour. Usually
they are simple, dignified, and yet extremely gracious--gracious without
the appearance of affability, a quality that is almost always indicative
of a consciousness of superiority. The predominant fault of manner here
is too strong a hand in applying flattery; but this is as much the fault
of the head as of breeding. The French are fond of hearing pleasant
things. They say themselves that "a Frenchman goes into society to make
himself agreeable, and an Englishman to make himself disagreeable;" and
the _dire_ is not altogether without foundation in truth. I never met a
Frenchman in society here, who appeared to wish to enhance his
importance by what are called "airs," though a coxcomb in feeling is an
animal not altogether unknown to the natural history of Paris, nor is
the zoological science of M. Cuvier indispensable to his discovery.
I shall probably surprise you with one of my opinions. I think the
population of Paris, physically speaking, finer than that of London.
Fine men and fine women are, by no means, as frequent, after allowing
for the difference in whole numbers, in the French, as in the English
capital; but neither are there as many miserable, pallid, and squalid
objects. The French are a smaller race than the English, much smaller
than the race of English gentlemen, so many of whom congregate at
London; but the population of Paris has a sturdy, healthful look, that I
do not think is by any means as general in London. In making this
comparison, allowance must be made for the better dress of the English,
and for their fogs, whose effect is to bleach the skin and to give a
colour that has no necessary connexion with the springs of life,
although the female portion of the population of Paris has probably as
much colour as that of London. It might possibly be safer to say that
the female population of Paris is finer than that of London, though I
think on the whole the males may be included also. I do not mean by
this, that there is relatively as much female beauty in Paris as in
London, for in this respect the latter has immeasurably the advantage;
but, looks apart, that the _physique_ of the French of Paris is superior
to that of the English of London. The population of Paris is a
favourable specimen of that of the kingdom; while that of London,
Westminster excepted, is not at all above the level of the entire
country, if indeed it be as good.[18]
[Footnote 18: This opinion remains the same in the writer, who between
the years 1806 and 1833 has been six times in London, and between the
years 1826 and 1833, five times in Paris. In 1833 he left Paris for
London, sailing for home from the latter place. A few days after his
arrival he went to Washington, where _during the session of Congress_,
dress and air not considered, he thought he had never met so large a
proportion of fine men in any part of the world. He was particularly
struck with their size, as was an American friend who was with him, and
who had also passed many years abroad, having left Liverpool the same
day the writer sailed from Portsmouth.]
The very general notion which exists in America, that the French are a
slightly-built, airy people, and that their women in particular are thin
and without _embonpoint_, is a most extraordinary one, for there is not
a particle of foundation for it. The women of Paris are about as tall as
the women of America, and, could a fair sample of the two nations be
placed in the scales, I have no doubt it would be found that the French
women would outweigh the Americans in the proportion of six to five.
Instead of being meagre, they are compactly built, with good busts,
inclining to be full, and well-limbed, as any one may see who will take
the trouble to walk the streets after a hard shower; for, as Falstaff
told Prince Henry, "You are straight enough in the shoulders; you care
not who sees your back." Indeed, I know no females to whom the opinion
which we entertain of the French women may better apply than to our own,
and yet I know none who are so generally well-looking.
The French are not a handsome nation. Personal beauty in either sex is
rare: there is a want of simplicity, of repose, of dignity, and even of
harmonious expression, what they themselves call _finesse_, in their
countenances, and yet the liveliness of the eyes and the joyous
character of their looks render them agreeable. You are not to
understand from this that great personal beauty does not exist in
France, however, for there are so many exceptions to the rule, that they
have occasionally made me hesitate about believing it a rule at all. The
French often possess a feature in great perfection that is very rare in
England, where personal beauty is so common in both sexes. It is in the
mouth, and particularly in the smile. Want of _finesse_ about the mouth
is a general European deficiency (the Italians have more of it than any
other people I know), and it is as prevalent an advantage in America.
But the races of Saxon root fail in the chin, which wants nobleness and
volume. Here it is quite common to see profiles that would seem in their
proper places on a Roman coin.
Although female beauty is not common in France, when it is found, it is
usually of a very high order. The sweet, cherub-like, guileless
expression that belongs to the English female face, and through it to
the American, is hardly ever, perhaps never, met with here. The French
countenance seldom conveys the idea of extreme infantile innocence. Even
in the children there is a _manner_ which, while it does not absolutely
convey an impression of an absence of the virtues, I think leaves less
conviction of its belonging to the soul of the being, than the peculiar
look I mean. One always sees _woman_--modest, amiable, _spirituelle_,
feminine and attractive, if you will, in a French girl; while one
sometimes sees an _angel_ in a young English or American face. I have no
allusion now to religious education, or to religious feelings, which are
quite as general in the sex, particularly the young of good families,
under their characteristic distinctions, here as anywhere else. In this
particular the great difference is, that in America it is religion, and
in France it is infidelity, that is metaphysical.
There is a coquettish prettiness that is quite common in France, in
which air and manner are mingled with a certain sauciness of expression
that is not easily described, but which, while it blends well enough
with the style of the face, is rather pleasing than captivating. It
marks the peculiar beauty of the _grisette_, who, with her little cap,
hands stuck in the pockets of her apron, mincing walk, coquettish eye,
and well-balanced head, is a creature perfectly _sui generis_. Such a
girl is more like an actress imitating the character, than one is apt to
imagine the character itself. I have met with imitators of these roguish
beauties in a higher station, such as the wives and daughters of the
industrious classes, as it is the fashion to call them here, and even
among the banking community, but never among women of condition, whose
deportment in France, whatever may be their morals, is usually marked by
gentility of air, and a perfectly good tone of manner, always excepting
that small taint of _rouéism_ to which I have already alluded, and which
certainly must have come from the camp and emigration.
The highest style of the French beauty is the classical. I cannot recall
a more lovely picture, a finer union of the grand and the feminine, than
the Duchesse de ----, in full dress, at a carnival ball, where she shone
peerless among hundreds of the _élite_ of Europe. I see her now, with
her small, well-seated head; her large, dark, brilliant eye, rivetted on
the mazes of a _Polonaise_, danced in character; her hair, black as the
raven's wing, clustering over a brow of ivory; her graceful form
slightly inclining forward in delighted and graceful attention; her
features just Grecian enough to be a model of delicate beauty, just
Roman enough to be noble; her colour heightened to that of youth by the
heat of the room, and her costume, in which all the art of Paris was
blended with a critical knowledge of the just and the becoming. And yet
this woman was a grandmother!
The men of France have the same physical and the same conventional
peculiarities as the women. They are short, but sturdy. Including all
France, for there is a material difference in this respect between the
north and the south, I should think the average stature of the French
men (not women) to be quite an inch and a half below the average stature
of America, and possibly two inches. At home, I did not find myself
greatly above the medium height, and in a crowd I was always compelled
to stand on tiptoe to look over the heads of those around me; whereas,
here, I am evidently _un grand_, and can see across the Champs Elysées
without any difficulty. You may remember that I stand as near as may be
to five feet ten; it follows that five feet ten is rather a tall man in
France. You are not to suppose, however, that there are not occasionally
men of great stature in this country. One of the largest men I have ever
seen appears daily in the garden of the Tuileries, and I am told he is a
Frenchman of one of the north-eastern provinces. That part of the
kingdom is German rather than French, however, and the population still
retain most of the peculiarities of their origin.
The army has a look of service and activity rather than of force. I
should think it more formidable by its manoeuvres than its charges.
Indeed, the tactics of Napoleon, who used the legs of his troops more
than their muskets, aiming at concentrating masses on important points,
goes to show that he depended on alertness instead of _bottom_. This is
just the quality that would be most likely to prevail against your
methodical, slow-thinking, and slow-moving German; and I make no
question the short, sturdy, nimble legs of the little warriors of this
country have gained many a field.
A general officer, himself a six-footer, told me, lately, that they had
found the tall men of very little use in the field, from their inability
to endure the fatigues of a campaign. When armies shall march on
railroads, and manoeuvre by steam, the grenadiers will come in play
again; but as it is, the French are admirably adapted by their
_physique_ to return the career that history has given them. The Romans
resembled them in this respect, Cicero admitting that many people
excelled them in size, strength, beauty, and even learning, though he
claimed a superiority for his countrymen, on the score of love of
country and reverence for the gods. The French are certainly patriotic
enough, though their reverence for the gods may possibly be questioned.
The regiments of the guards, the heavy cavalry, and the artillery are
all filled with men chosen with some care. These troops would, I think,
form about an average American army, on the score of size. The
battalions of the line receive the rest. As much attention is bestowed
in adapting the duty to the _physique_, and entire corps are composed of
men of as nearly as possible the same physical force, some of the
regiments certainly make but an indifferent figure, as to dimensions,
while others appear particularly well. Still, if not overworked, I
should think these short men would do good service. I think I have seen
one or two regiments, in which the average height has not exceeded five
feet three inches. The chances of not being hit in such a corps are
worth something, for the proportion, compared to the chances in a corps
of six-footers, is as sixty-three to seventy-two, or is one-eighth in
favour of the Lilliputians. I believe the rule for retreating is when
one-third of the men are _hors de combat_.
Now, supposing a regiment of three thousand grenadiers were obliged to
retire with a loss of one thousand men, the little fellows, under the
same fire, should have, at the same time, two thousand one hundred and
thirty-seven sound men left, and of course, unless bullied out of it,
they ought to gain the day.