THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
The Parisienne adores Paris, but she is subject to acute attacks
of that modern malady to which the leisure class is peculiarly
susceptible, and which one of Madame's countrymen has aptly called the
"nostalgie d'ailleurs"--homesickness for elsewhere.
Moved by that spirit of restlessness she forsakes Paris--in order that
she may better love that city of her heart. She does not yearn for
rest, but she wants change, and so she goes flitting here and there
within easy reach of Paris--always within easy reach of Paris. Her
fashion circuit is circumscribed by that national sentiment which makes
the average Frenchman an unhappy and protesting alien anywhere outside
of la belle France.
Madame goes to Monte Carlo; for the Côte d'Azur Rapid has made the
Riviera resorts mere suburbs of Paris. She goes to Tangiers; for, after
all, Tangiers is France, and in the French quarter of that picturesque
place one finds a limited edition of Parisian society. But as for
Cairo--no. The fashion show in Cairo, during the height of the season,
is a great one, but it is furnished chiefly by English and Americans,
and one finds few smart French folk in the throng. The Pyramids are
too far from the Avenue des Acacias and the Rue de la Paix.
The Monte Carlo season is not, like the seashore season, an obligatory
decampment. One may stay away from the Riviera without imperilling
one's social position, while a summer spent in Paris would stamp one as
quite outside the social pale; and, though there is, during January and
February, a mighty going and coming to and from the south, Paris is gay
and crowded all through the winter.
Great private fêtes are usually reserved for the spring season, unless
some special event calls them forth, but there is a merry-go-round of
more or less formal entertaining, and the society woman needs an expert
accountant to keep her engagement book, and the semainier which records
the at-home days of her friends, in intelligible order. There is time
in the winter for the intimate reunions that are likely to be crowded
out in the whirl of spring social functions, and when Bagatelle and
Puteaux and la Boulié and the other open-air rendezvous are eliminated
from the Parisienne's calculations, she can more often meet her friends
in her own home or in theirs.
Balls are not a remarkably important feature of the Parisian season.
There is dancing, of course, but the Frenchmen, as a rule, do not care
for it.
"The ball? Je m'en passe," said a society man of Paris, when questioned
about the matter.
"In America it is, perhaps, different. There one dances and one sits
out dances, and one converses, and one flirts. Here, it is usually for
the demoiselles that dances are given. You know our French girls?
The writers tell us that they are emancipated, that they know many
things. Perhaps,--but they do not show all this at the dance. One
is introduced, one takes the girl from her mamma, one dances with
her, one returns her to her mamma. C'est finis. Gai ça, n'est-ce
pas? For the man who wishes to marry, to settle himself, the private
ball may have much interest; but for one who seeks merely amusement,
entertainment,--Grace à Dieu, il y a d'autres choses."
Truly, there are other things, a multitude of them. The Parisian
hostess makes a feature of the musicale and certain salons are famous
for music of extraordinarily good quality. Private theatricals, amateur
or professional, are a social specialty in Paris. Bridge is a passion
there as elsewhere. Parisian vivacity and buoyancy make even the formal
reception an occasion lively rather than depressing.
But, when all is said, the dinner is the private social function
dearest to the Parisian heart, and the successful Parisian hostess
understands the art of dinner-giving as do few other women in the
world. An elaborate menu and a gorgeous and extravagant decorative
scheme seldom enter into her calculations. There is a rational number
of courses, perfectly cooked, perfectly served, there is a dainty and
attractive table; but the extravagant display, the eager striving
after unique and picturesque effects in table decoration, the costly
souvenirs which mark the formal dinner in New York, are not often a
part of the French scheme.
On the other hand, the French hostess displays a tact and finesse
amounting to genius in the selection and grouping of her guests, and,
as a result, her dinner goes off with a verve which no amount of
extraneous gorgeousness could achieve. The Parisienne of the better
type,--"she of the subtle charm, to whom every man is a possible
admirer"--has a famous opportunity for exhibiting her charm at the
dinner table--particularly at the "little dinner." From the time she
could lisp she has been trained to please and be pleased. She lacks the
cultivated imperiousness of the American woman, and though she too,
rules, her method differs from that of our social tyrant. Instead of
demanding man's allegiance and devotion, she sets about winning them.
She is gay, agreeable, witty, sympathetic, thoughtful of man's little
needs, indulgent of man's little foibles; and her influence, though
less assertive, is subtler than that of the American woman who claims
her throne by divine right. Someone has said that "cherchez la femme"
is written over every phase of Parisian life, and the thing is true.
The Parisienne's influence is felt in politics, art, business, society,
and yet the Parisienne is so essentially feminine, and the Parisian is
so sure of his supremacy, so unconscious of any bondage save that of
love or gallantry.
The Parisienne was born to dining. She has adopted tea-drinking.
Fifteen years ago it was almost impossible to obtain a good cup of
tea in Paris. To-day Paris is flooded with tea. The change has come
about through the Anglomania which, within recent years, has attacked
Parisian society. Tea came in with polo and golf, and English tweeds,
and long walks, and all the other Anglo-Saxon strenuousness which has
disturbed French traditions. It has become the fashion to adopt English
sports, English clothes, English customs, English slang.
The Frenchwoman has a form of the mania less virulent than that
which has attacked the Frenchman. She may go in for le sport, may do
violence to her inclinations and her Louis XV heels by walking,--or
as she calls it, "footing,"--may employ an English maid and interlard
her conversation with English phrases; but she draws the line at
English clothes, while the French dandy's ultimate ambition is to be
mistaken for an Englishman, and to that end he employs London tailors,
cultivates English habits, and succeeds in being as much like a
Londoner as the Place de la Concorde is like Trafalgar Square.
Five o'clock tea is a matter-of-course necessity in London. In Paris it
is a fad, and to "five-o'-clocker" is one of the unfailing diversions
of the smart Parisienne, whether mondaine or demi-mondaine.
Naturally, being a social fad instead of a personal comfort, afternoon
tea is seldom served to Madame when she is alone in boudoir or salon.
If one is at home to one's friends, and there is an appreciative
audience for a tea-gown of rare merit, then there is good reason to
five-o'-clocker under one's own roof; but, on the whole, the Parisienne
loves better to make a toilette worthy of applause and sally forth to
drink her tea under the eyes of her world.
Columbin's was the first of the fashionable tea-rooms. Just why the
little pâtisserie on the Rue Cambon leaped into fame, it is hard to
say. Anglomania was rife, the Parisienne needed new amusement. A shrewd
pâtissier combined the psychical moment with superior-toasted currant
muffins and cakes and tea and a convenient rendezvous. All the smart
Parisian set flocked to Columbin's, the narrow Rue Cambon was crowded
with imposing equipages, the curb was lined with dapper grooms, and in
the little tea-rooms, between five and six, there was one of the most
impressive fashion shows of the fashion-making city.
There is no need of putting the story in the past tense. The crowd
and the fashion show are still to be seen in the Rue Cambon, though
Columbin's has spread over more space and rival tea-rooms have sprung
up like mushrooms all over Paris. On almost any corner one may now get
a good cup of tea, but among the multitude of tea-rooms only a few have
caught the fancy of the fashionable Parisiennes.
Rumpelmayer's on the Rue de Rivoli is one of the few, and is perhaps
the most successful rival of Columbin's among the Parisian mondaines;
but tea hour at the Ritz is vastly entertaining, if less exclusive, and
more cosmopolitan, while at the Elysées there is music and things are
excessively gay. "Too gay," says Madame of the chic Parisian set, with
an expressive shrug of her shoulders, but one goes to the Elysées all
the same.
Possibly a pretty woman is prettier in ball or dinner toilette than
in any other dress,--though one might take issue even with that
theory; but surely individuality and distinctive elegance count for
more in street costumes of the handsome type than in any other item
of a woman's wardrobe. The tea-hour crowd at--say Columbin's, on a
winter afternoon, diffuses an atmosphere of luxury, elegance, richness,
that even Paris would find it hard to surpass. She is so coquette in
her velvets and broadcloth and furs, this dear Parisienne. She steps
from her carriage and passes through the door which her groom hurries
to open. Inside is a murmur of many voices, a ripple of laughter, a
rustle of silken stuffs, a scent of violets. Madame looks about her
and smiles--an inclusive smile, for she recognizes so many of the
women who are grouped about the little tables. Then she trails her
chiffons forward in the manner habitual with Ouida's heroines, and she
stops to choose just the little cakes she will have with her tea. The
little cakes of Paris merit consideration. She turns her back upon the
tea drinkers as she deliberates, my lady chez Columbin. It requires
supreme confidence in one's figure and one's dressmaker to turn one's
back gracefully, carelessly, upon one's most merciless critics, but
Madame does it with nonchalance, and when she has settled the weighty
question of cakes she finds her way to a table, stopping here and there
to exchange greetings and jests with friends. She is perfectly gowned,
wrapped in superb and becoming furs, smiling under the shadowing brim
and nodding plumes of her great hat or under the tip-tilted absurdity
of her tiny toque. And all around her are women of the same type,
exotic products of a society highly artificial, sensuously material.
Some of them are beautiful, some are homely, all are extravagantly
dressed, and all have made that effort to appear beautiful which is
with the Parisienne--more than with any other woman of the world--an
absorbing passion.
It is this determined spirit of coquetry which leads the mondaine
of Paris to make up in a fashion which in other cities is relegated
chiefly to the class without the social gates. The Parisienne makes
up frankly, conscientiously, with thought only of the effect obtained
and with no effort to attribute to nature the results of her maid's
skill or her own. Her cosmetics are as much a part of her toilette as
her frock or her hat, and her French audience applauds her make-up
instead of criticising. It is coquette, this artificiality, it shows
that desire to please which is the fundamental principle of French
femininity. If one is beautiful--that is excellent. If one is not
beautiful, but makes a heroic effort to appear so,--that too is
excellent. The French public forgives all save indifference to the true
feminine metier.
Over in the spacious rooms of the Ritz, at the tea hour, one will find
more English and Americans than French, though the French go there too,
and there is a sprinkling of many nations. The crowd is more mixed than
that of the Rue Cambon, in features other than that of nationality. Few
demi-mondaines go to Columbin's. Why?--It is hard to tell,--but they do
not go. Occasionally, demi-mondaines of the highest class drift in,
but they are out of their element. There are hardly enough of them to
give each other confidence.
At the Ritz things are different. There one is likely to see the most
famous half-world beauties of Paris drinking tea, and at the Elysées
the percentage of notoriety is still greater than at the Ritz.
They love dearly to range themselves alongside of the haut monde, these
cocottes of Paris, but they like a large and varied scene, a certain
amount of moral--or immoral--support. The restricted intimacy of a
rendezvous like Columbin's is not to their taste.
At the Palais de Glace the demi-mondaine shines. Here is a setting to
which she lends herself readily, a setting, moreover, in which she may
pose beside Madame of the beau monde and measure charms with her.
Only the social elect may skate at the Cercle des Patineurs in the
Bois, and there one finds the society women of Paris gliding over the
ice or chatting around the braziers on the banks of the horseshoe lake.
It is the most chic of social rendezvous, this skating club in the
Bois, but the weather clerk is no respecter of high society, and there
are comparatively few weeks during the winter when open-air skating is
practicable in Paris.
Down at the Palais de Glace on the Champs Elysées, the management
deals out artificial ice to the just and the unjust every day during
the season. Even in October there is skating at the Palais, and it is
chic to skate then, just as it is chic to eat fresh strawberries in
January, while, during midwinter, this skating-rink is one of the most
popular afternoon resorts in Paris. The Parisian skating costume is a
triumph, and the Parisiennes skate well, conscious of their own grace
and revelling in that consciousness. Some of the great ladies of the
French world are famous skaters; especially certain members of the
Russian colony; and there are demi-mondaines too who skate marvellously
well,--particularly two or three Danish beauties, who have taken on a
Parisian lacquer. After all, it is hardly fair that the demi-mondaine
of Paris should be credited entirely to the essential immorality of
French society, and constitute a reproach against French womanhood,
for the class is cosmopolitan to an extraordinary degree, recruited
from Spain, from Italy, from Austria, from Russia, from Germany, from
Sweden, from Denmark, from all countries of Europe, and centred in
Paris because there are concentrated the wealth and prodigality of a
material and luxurious civilization, because there the cocotte can live
her short day so brilliantly, so dizzily, that during it she can quite
forget the inevitable hideousness of the long days to come.
The little grisettes of the Latin Quarter and Montmartre are largely
French, and bear the homely French names,--Suzanne, Rose, Marie,--but
they are, on the whole, the most honest, the least degraded and
corrupt, as they are the humblest of the class to which, broadly
speaking, they belong. A grade higher--or lower--according to the
view-point of the one who classifies, is the little cocotte of the
cafés and dance halls, the Cri-Cri of the Casino, the Fol-Fol of the
Elysées Montmartre. When the boulevards and the better theatres and
cafés are reached, the name is prone to take on dignity. Antoinette,
Diane, Heloise appear. And further still up the cocotte's ladder
comes an insistent "Mademoiselle" or "Madame." When the cocotte has
become truly demi-mondaine, when she buys her clothes on the Place
Vendôme, and acquires a villa at Trouville, an hôtel in Paris, she adds
Madame to a high sounding, mouth-filling name, such as Montmorency or
Beauregard. Perhaps she even preempts a title. There, for instance,
was the Princesse d'Araignée. She was very quiet, this Princess, very
retiring, but Paris knew her as it knew the king who was for many
years her lover, and to whom she was loyal, though he came but seldom
to Paris. He is dead now, that royal lover--a tragic death--and the
Princess--but this was to be a story of her title.
The title was, on its face, self-explanatory. "The Spider Princess" had
a fine appropriateness in the half-world of Paris. One day some one
spoke jestingly of the name. The Princess shook her head.
"It is really mine," she said gravely, "mine since I was a baby."
The jester looked incredulous.
"But yes. I will tell you," said the Princess. "I am of Normandy. You
did not know? Yes, I am of Normandy. I was born there in a little
village by the sea. Such a very little town. I can see it now. My
father was a fisherman. Big and brown and strong, my father--and kind.
But yes, of a kindness. He loved me, and I--I adored him. My mother was
good--an honest woman, but it was my father whom I adored. When he was
at home I trotted always at his heels--une toute petite bébé, brown and
plump and laughing always."
There was a big rock in the harbour--an immense jagged rock in the
water. The waves washed over it always, save on one day during the
month. Then it was quite out of the water and it lay there like a great
spider in the sunshine, with long legs running out into the foam. Along
the coast they called it l'Araignée.
"It fascinated me, that big rock spider. All the month I watched for
it, and when it came up out of the sea I cried to be taken out to it.
My father took me. He was like that always--très indulgent, mon père,
and I--what I wanted I must have.
"He would carry me down to his boat and row out to the rock and then
we would eat our luncheon there, and he would tell me stories and I
would play--une bébé, vous savez. I had then but four years, and I
was happy--Dieu, que j'étais heureuse. The fisher-folk came to know
me there on my rock, to look for us, mon père et moi, and they called
me la Princesse d'Araignée. Yes, that was my name. Everyone called me
that, smiling, and I was proud.
"One does not stay always a baby. I grew up, and the father died. It
was dull there in the little Norman village. I wanted excitement,
and--what I wanted I must have, I was always like that.
"The story tells itself after that, n'est-ce pas? I came to Paris, and
I found the excitement. But one does not use the name of an honest
father here in Paris. Il était tellement bon, mon père.
"I remembered that I had been a princess and I took my title once more.
La Princesse d'Araignée! You see it is really mine, the title. The rock
is still there in the sea,--but, mon père et moi--"
A far cry from the Palais du Glace, yet not so far after all, as
memories go; for the Princesse d'Araignée was at the Palais du Glace
one December afternoon long ago, and her king was by her side.
If one does not skate, still one goes to the skating-rink. The
promenade is crowded on popular afternoons with all the types familiar
in leisure Paris. Women in airy gowns and picture hats furnish
effective contrast to the feminine skaters in their short skirts and
jaunty toques. A fragrance of flowers and perfumes floats in the air,
the ring of the skates sounds through the swinging melody of the music.
Once more the Parisian artificiality--once more the Parisian charm.
On one afternoon in the week the crowd at the Palais takes on a most
chic and exclusive tone. The prices are higher on that day, but high
prices would never shut out the cocotte and her following. Quite the
reverse. An unwritten law accomplishes what the increased prices would
not accomplish, and Friday afternoon smart society claims the rink for
its own. That is le jour chic at the Palais de Glace. If one goes on
other days--as one does--there is a fair field and no favour.
The theatres of Paris are in full swing during the winter, and new
plays are magnets for the society set as for all Paris; but even the
smartest of Parisians are democratic when it comes to theatre-going,
and no one or two houses claim their allegiance. The Théâtre Français,
the Odeon, les Nouveautés, les Variétés, le Vaudeville, le Théâtre
Antoine, le Théâtre Sara Bernhardt, le Maturin,--to all of these Madame
goes, and to the cafés chantants in addition. Wherever there is clever
entertainment, there one finds the swell Parisienne. She is catholic of
taste.
Americans visiting Paris in summer are likely to have a curious idea
of the Parisian theatre, as of many things Parisian. Then the better
theatres are closed, the actors are probably away with the summer
holiday folk, or, if the exigencies of their profession keep them in
Paris, they are occupying little villas at Ville d'Avray, at Bougival,
or in some other convenient suburb, whence they can run in for
rehearsals or professional business when necessary.
Only the cafés chantants and the variety theatres are open and
beckoning to the summer visitors, and the crowd at these places has
little of the true Parisian character, is made up chiefly of strangers
from the colonies, from America, from a host of regions whose summer
climates are more trying than that of Paris. The shows are amusing
in their way, the crowd is amusing too, but neither is calculated to
give one an accurate idea of Paris theatre or of Paris theatre-goers.
Indeed, one thing about the summer attendance at Les Ambassadeurs, le
Jardin de Paris, and the other resorts that draw the crowd during
July and August, always impresses Parisians themselves as phenomenal
and distinctly shocking. The "jeune fille" of France does not frequent
"ces coins là," but respectable American fathers and mothers tranquilly
take their daughters with them to cafés chantants, variety theatres,
even to the dance halls of the Rive Gauche and of Montmartre. A goodly
number of these rendezvous exist solely for the delectation of visiting
strangers and, like the Moulin Rouge, are supported chiefly by the
American tourists' money. That the Moulin Rouge is dead speaks well for
the educational development of the American traveller, but from the
ashes of the place, which had nothing save sheer vulgarity to commend
it, has risen a variety theatre with café balconies, and some of the
dance-hall features of the old resort are retained in modified form.
The Café de la Mort, and the other melodramatic and banal cafés, where
efforts are made to provide the visitor with a shock that will sustain
the reputation of Paris for devilish wickedness, are, like the Moulin
Rouge of unblessed memory, provided for the edification of travellers,
and supported chiefly by American dollars. Even Maxim's, which means
to the average American the last word on Parisian impropriety, is, by
Parisians themselves, considered one of the concessions to American and
English expectations and tastes.
"Maxim's? Oh c'est bête ça--toujours les Americains chez Maxim," says
the Frenchman, disdainfully.
There is wickedness enough of a purely Parisian flavour in Paris,
heaven knows; but the lurid spectacles provided for the tourist are
perhaps the least immoral if the most vulgar of its manifestations.
[Illustration: At a Rothschild Garden Party]
The Opera is a tradition of the Paris season. All of the swell clubs
have boxes and the society folk who can afford it subscribe, yet the
opera is not so important an item of the social year in Paris as in
New York, and one will usually see more elaborate toilettes and more
fashionable women in any one of the popular theatres than at the Opera.
When spring comes to Paris and the horse-chestnuts burst into bloom,
new elements enter into the merry-go-round. The clubs in the Bois and
outside of Paris become centres of social activity, the races begin, al
fresco dining and tea-drinking are in order. Hostesses blest with such
grounds as those of Baronne Henri Rothschild give picturesque garden
parties, there are chic evening fêtes at Puteaux, elaborate open-air
charity entertainments are organized. Riding and driving in the Bois,
which has continued languishingly during the winter, takes on new
spirit.
The Avenue des Acacias is thronged with carriages and motors at the
driving hours, and now and then women descend from their carriage to
promenade, to chat with friends, to display their toilettes.
The Avenue des Acacias is the drive of drives for the mixed crowd of
smart folk, but the old nobility of France prefers to drive in stately
hauteur along the Avenue de la Reine Marguerite. One must make some
protest against the levelling of class barriers.
The two most fashionable bridle-paths run along beside these two
favourite driving avenues, but the whole Bois is a paradise of
bridle-paths, and near its centre is a spot which has been chosen
as the favourite meeting-place of chic riders at certain hours. The
Parisians are riding more since things English became the fashion, and
many of them ride very well, though the men affect English horsemanship
to the point of caricature; but, on the whole, the French are better
at haute école riding than at park riding. They make the best circus
riders in the world, but the horsemanship of the average rider on the
bridle-paths of the Bois leaves much to be desired.
As for driving, there are many good whips, but the accomplishment is
not general, and few Parisiennes of social prominence drive. It is
not "convenable," and though several of the greatest ladies of France
hold the reins over their own fine horses in the Bois, driving alone
with a groom is generally ranked in the same category as walking alone
with a dog. The woman who does either must expect uncomplimentary
classification, unless she stands high enough to be a law unto herself.
And apropos of dogs, the pet dog show is always one of the events
of the spring season, an occasion that calls for artistic effect in
mistress as well as dog, produces scores of effective tableaux, offers
testimony concerning feminine folly. There are good dogs shown, dog
aristocrats of unimpeachable birth and breeding, but their exhibition
is enveloped in such a flurry of chiffons, such a hysteria of pride,
ambition, emotion. Nowhere in the world has the dog endured such
insults to his sturdy, canine simplicity as in Paris. Nowhere else
has he been so dandified, so coddled, so spoiled. The pet dog of the
Parisienne of high degree is likely to be a sybarite, and the pet dog
of the famous cocotte leads a luxurious existence that demands prodigal
expenditure.
One Parisian dog tailor has a most flourishing and successful business.
He is the Paquin of dogdom, and let no one think that he is not an
artist. When Madame brings her little angel to him for a spring outfit,
there is an impressive paraphrase of Madame's own sessions with her
couturier,--a serious conference concerning materials, colours,
trimmings, models. In New York a dog blanket is a dog blanket. It
may be cheap or expensive, but it is probably bought ready made and
approximately fitted. The Parisian dog tailor considers his client's
figure, complexion, air.
"But no, Madame. I find that he has not the breadth of chest to wear
that model--and the colour! He is not of a type for the blue and
silver. A warm violet, now, with the embroidery in more tender shades,
and a touch of gold? Bon! And the curving line on the shoulder? It
gives an air of slenderness, that shoulder seam. Madame has samples of
the other costumes she wishes to match?"
Absurd? Of course it is all ineffably absurd, but the mania for dress
extends even to the lapdog in Paris.
The little angel has also his boots--of fur for the cold, of oilskin
for the dampness. He has his tiny kerchiefs of cobweb fineness,
embroidered with his name or monogram, and tucked into the pockets of
his handsome coats. He wears jewelry, more or less costly, collars,
bangles, even bracelets. One notorious Parisienne has a collection
of jewelry for her dog that is worth a fortune, collars of cabuchon
emeralds and diamonds, of pink pearls, of cunningly wrought gold and
lucky jade. It is a hobby of the mistress, this dog jewelry, and when
one's specialty is the speedy bankrupting of Grand Dukes and wealthy
American fledglings and rich Portuguese Jews, one has the money for
one's hobbies.
The pet dog show is not a dog clothes exhibit. The entries are judged
upon their canine merits, but it is amusing all the same, this event,
and the mistresses pose most charmingly with their pets. Nothing that
happens in Paris lacks its theatrical note.
The Fête des Fleurs belongs to the spring season, but it does not
belong to the smart Parisian set, though every one turns out to see
the show. The fête is given in the name of charity, and doubtless
charity covers its sin, but there is more than a little vulgarity and
horse-play mixed with the picturesque beauty of the scene. A part
of the Bois is roped off, and an entrance fee is charged for all
sight-seers and equipages passing the barriers. So much for charity.
The rest is merry-making of a somewhat promiscuous sort. Every seat
along the avenues is taken, masses of flowers are banked high along the
curb, to be sold as ammunition for the battle of flowers. Bands are
playing, flags are fluttering, garlands are swinging from decorated
poles, and past the judges' stand by the pigeon-shooting club files an
endless line of carriages, carts, automobiles, fiacres, conveyances of
all types, from the butcher's cart, bearing the honest butcher and his
wife and children, to the electric victoria of the most famous dancer
of Paris. Only the chic society woman is conspicuous by her absence.
One seldom sees, in the Fête des Fleurs procession, faces familiar in
the exclusive salons.
But the sight is an interesting one, for all that. A Parisian fête
does not need the indorsement of the Faubourg St. Germain in order to
be gay, and the public celebrities and demi-mondaines turn out in all
their glory for the Fête des Fleurs.
Pretty women look out from the riot of flowers that covers hansom,
victoria, dog-cart, phaeton, automobile, and money has been spent
like water to furnish some of the beauties with their setting. One
phaeton is literally hidden under purple orchids, and holds two blondes
elaborately arrayed in white and violet. Behind comes a victoria
trimmed in thousands of yellow and red roses and bearing a noted
Spanish dancer. A popular opera singer has made her motor car a moving
bank of pink roses and violets.
Bunches of forget-me-nots and daisies and pinks are hurtling through
the air. A popular lionne of the day is so pelted with fragrant
ammunition that she springs up in her carriage bower and stands, a
slender mousseline-draped beauty, laughing under the rain of nosegays,
and with gay abandon returning her assailants' fire.
In the carriage just behind hers are two gorgeously gowned women, old
and haggard and hideous under their cosmetics, derelicts, favourites
who have outlived their day, and are fighting the hopeless fight
against defeat and misery and oblivion; but the beauty of the flower
battle does not look behind her and read the memento mori. She is
having her day now. What has yesterday or to-morrow to do with a Fête
des Fleurs?
There are other public fêtes on the floodtide of the Paris
spring,--plebeian, many of them, and the Fête de Neuilly is one of the
most plebeian; yet it is chic to go to Neuilly at least once while the
van dwellers from all the highways and byways of France are in camp
along the Avenue de Neuilly. From every direction the vagabonds have
gathered,--a motley crew of gipsy wanderers, strolling entertainers
who, after a winter in the provinces, have found their way back to the
borders of the Paris they love.
Ramshackle booths, tents, shooting-galleries, carousels, acrobats,
fortune-tellers, snake-charmers, lion tamers, ventriloquists, fat
ladies, magicians, vendors of every imaginable cheap and tawdry
thing--the old Coney Island multiplied by ten and invested with a
Gallic lightness and sparkle in place of its own dull vulgarity. That
is the Neuilly Fair.
Smart folk give jolly little dinners and, after, take their guests out
to Neuilly for a lark. They visit the side shows, and shoot at the
balls, and buy ridiculous souvenirs, and ride on the carousel, and
throw confetti, and give themselves up to vulgar amusements with the
infantile joyousness that is a characteristic Parisian mood.
Madame is very charming in all her elegant perfection against the
tawdry background of Neuilly, and she knows that she is charming--all
of which helps to make the "Neuilly evening" a popular item on the June
programme.
There was once a crown prince who went to the Neuilly Fête, and who saw
a gipsy girl there. He was bon garçon, this crown prince, and he was
doing the fête incognito and with a thoroughness that included making
friends with many of the van folk. The gipsy girl was beautiful. She
killed herself afterward, far from Paris, in the country of the Prince,
but one expects comedy, not tragedy, of the fête de Neuilly.
Princes and kings are frequent visitors in Paris, and when they come
officially, everyone, from the President of the Republic to the
street-sweeper of the boulevards, conspires to do them honour. But his
Royal Highness loves better to visit Paris incog. and amuse himself
according to his own will. He has even been known to make an official
visit, to endure with cheerful resignation the formal entertaining
lavished upon him, to be escorted to the station by a guard of honour
and high officials, to wave a courteous adieu from his car window, and,
within forty-eight hours, to be back in Paris, incognito, with only one
or two members of his suite for attendants and only his own tastes to
be consulted in the matter of entertainment. Even royalty is human.
Paris dances and sings and fiddles her way through the spring days--as
she has danced and sung and fiddled her way through history; and when
July comes and the blinds are drawn down in the fashionable residence
quarters, still Paris is not dull.
Swarms of visitors from the Colonies, from Southern Europe, from
America, fill the gaps left by departing Parisians. Restaurant tables
are crowded. Les Ambassadeurs, l'Horloge and their rivals do a
flourishing business. Only the onlooker who knows the real Paris misses
the gayest element of the Parisian world from its accustomed haunts,
and finds the Parisian summer a dreary interregnum twixt season and
season.