THE COCKAYNES IN PARIS.
The morning after a bevy of "the blonde daughters of Albion" have arrived in Paris, Pater—over the coffee (why is it impossible to get such coffee in England?), the delicious bread, and the exquisite butter—proceeds to expound his views of the manner in which the time of the party should be spent. So was it with the Cockaynes, an intensely British party.
"My dears," said Mr. Cockayne, "we must husband our time. To-day I propose we go, at eleven o'clock, to see the parade of the Guard in the Rue de Rivoli; from there (we shall be close at hand) we can see the Louvre; by two o'clock we will lunch in the Palais Royal. I think it's at five the band plays in the Tuileries gardens; after the band——"
"But, dear papa, we want to look at the shops!" interposes the gentle Sophonisba.
"The what, my dear? Here you are in the capital of the most polished nation on the face of the earth, surrounded by beautiful monuments that recall—that are, in fact——"
"Well!" firmly observes Sophonisba's determined mamma; "you, Mr. Cockayne, go, with your Murray's handbook, see all the antiquities, your Raphaels and Rubens, and amuse yourself among the cobwebs of the Hôtel Cluny; we are not so clever—we poor women; and while you're rubbing your nose against the marbles in the Louvre, we'll go and see the shops."
"We don't mind the parade and the band, but we might have a peep at just a few of the shops near the hotel, before eleven," observes Sophonisba.
Cockayne throws up his eyes, and laments the frivolity of women. He is left with one daughter (who is a blue) to admire the proportions of the Madeleine, to pass a rapturous hour in the square room of the Louvre, and to examine St. Germain l'Auxerrois, while the frivolous part of his household goes stoutly away, light-hearted and gay as humming-birds, to have their first look at the shops.
A GROUP OF MARBLE "INSULAIRES."
So cold and natural they might be mistaken for life.
I happen to have seen the shops of many cities. I have peered into the quaint, small-windowed shops of Copenhagen; I have passed under the pendant tobacco leaves into the primitive cigar-shops of St. Sebastian; I have hobbled, in furs, into the shops of Stockholm; I have been compelled to take a look at the shops of London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and a host of other places; but perfect shopping is to be enjoyed in Paris only; and in the days gone by, the Palais Royal was the centre of this paradise. Alas! the days of its glory are gone. The lines of splendid boulevards, flanked with gorgeous shops and cafés; the long arcades of the Rue de Rivoli; and, in fine, the leaning of all that is fashionable, and lofty, and rich to the west, are the causes which have brought the destruction of the Palais Royal. Time was when that quaint old square—the Place-Royale in the Marais—was mighty fashionable. It now lies in the neglected, industrious, factory-crowded east—a kind of Parisian Bloomsbury Square, only infinitely more picturesque, with its quaint, low colonnades. You see the fine Parisians have travelled steadily westward, sloping slowly, like "the Great Orion." They are making their way along the Champs-Elysées to the Avenue de l'Impératrice; and are constructing white stone aristocratic suburbs.
So the foreigners no longer make their way direct to the Palais Royal now, on the morrow of their arrival in Paris. If they be at the Louvre, they bend westward along the Rue de Rivoli, and by the Rue de la Paix, to the brilliant boulevards. If they be in the Grand Hôtel, they issue at once upon these famous boulevards, and the ladies are in a feminine paradise at once. Why, exactly opposite to the Grand Hôtel is Rudolphi's remarkable shop, packed artistically with his works of art—ay, and of the most finished and cunning art—in oxidized silver. His shop is most admirably adapted to the articles the effect of which he desires to heighten. It is painted black and pointed with delicate gold threads. The rich array of jewellery and the rare ecclesiastical ornaments stand brightly out from the sombre case, and light the window. The precious stones, the lapis lazuli, the malachite, obtain a new brilliance from the rich neutral tints and shades of the chased dulled silver in which they are held.
Sophonisba, her mamma and sisters, are not at much trouble to decide the period to which the bracelet, or the brooch, or the earring belongs. "Cinque cento, my dear! I know nothing about that. I think it would suit my complexion."
"I confess to a more modern taste, Sophonisba. That is just the sort of thing your father would like. Now, do look at those—sphinxes, don't you call them—for a brooch. I think they're hideous. Did you ever see such ears? I own, that diamond dew-drop lying in an enamel rose leaf, which I saw, I think, in the Rue de la Paix, is more to my taste."
And so the ladies stroll westward to the famous Giroux (where you can buy, an it please you, toys at forty guineas each—babies that cry, and call "mamma," and automata to whom the advancement of science and art has given all the obnoxious faculties of an unruly child), or east to the boulevards, which are known the wide world over, at least by name, the Boulevards de la Madeleine, des Capucines, des Italiens, Montmartre. These make up the heart and soul of Paris. Within the limits of these gorgeous lines of shops and cafés luxury has concentrated all her blandishments and wiles. This is the earthly heaven of the Parisians. Here all the celebrities air themselves. Here are the Opera stars, the lights of literature, the chiefs of art, the dandies of the Jockey Club, the prominent spendthrifts and eccentrics of the day. About four o'clock in the afternoon all the known Paris figures are lounging upon the asphaltum within this charmed space. Within this limit—where the Frenchman deploys all his seductive, and vain, and frivolous airs; where he wears his best clothes and his best manners; where he loves to be seen, and observed, and saluted—the tradesmen of the capital have installed establishments the costliness and elaborateness of which it is hardly possible to exaggerate. The gilding and the mirrors, the marbles and the bronze, the myriad lamps of every fantastic form, the quaint and daring designs for shop fronts, the infinite arts employed to "set off" goods, and the surprising, never-ceasing varieties of art-manufacture—whether in chocolate or the popular Algerian onyx—bewilder strangers. Does successful Mr. Brown, who, having doffed the apron of trade, considers it due to himself to become—so far as money can operate the strange transformation—a fine fleur; does he desire also to make of plain, homely Mrs. Brown a leader of fashion and a model of expensive elegance?—here are all the appliances and means in abundance. Within these enchanted lines Madame B. may be made "beautiful for ever!" Every appetite, every variety of whim, the cravings of the gourmet and the dreams of the sybarite, may be gratified to the utmost. A spendthrift might spend a handsome patrimony within these limits, nor, at the end of his time, would he call to mind a taste he had not been able to gratify.
Sophonisba enters this charmed region of perfect shopping from the west. Tahan's bronze shop, at the corner of the Rue de la Paix, marks (or did mark) its western boundary. There are costly trifles in that window—as, book cutters worth a library of books, and cigar-stands, ash-trays, pen-trays, toothpick-holders (our neighbours are great in these), and match, and glove, and lace, and jewel-boxes—of wicked price. Ladies are not, however, very fond of bronze, as a rule. The great Maison de Blanc—or White House—opposite, is more attractive, with its gigantic architectural front, and its acres of the most expensive linens, cambrics, &c. Ay, but close by Tahan is Boissier. Not to know Boissier is to argue yourself unknown in Paris. He is the shining light of the confectioner's art. Siraudin, of the Rue de la Paix, has set up a dangerous opposition to him, under the patronage of a great duke, whose duchess was one day treated like an ordinary mortal in Boissier's establishment, but Boissier's clients (nobody has customers in Paris) are, in the main, true to him; and his sweets pass the lips still of nearly all the élégantes of the "centre of civilization." Peep into his shop. Miss Sophonisba is within—la belle insulaire!—buying a bag of marrons glacés, for which Boissier is renowned throughout civilization. The shop is a miracle of taste. The white and gold are worthy of Marie Antoinette's bedroom at St. Cloud—occupied, by the way, by our English queen, when she was the guest of the French Emperor in 1855. The front of the shop is ornamented with rich and rare caskets. A white kitten lies upon a rosy satin cushion; lift the kitten, and you shall find that her bed is a bon-bon box!
"How very absurd!" exclaims Sophonisba's mamma, bon-bon boxes not being the particular direction which the extravagance of English ladies takes.
Close by the succulent establishment of M. Boissier, to whom every dentist should lift his hat, is the doorway of Madame Laure. Sophonisba sees a man in livery opening the door of what appears to be the entrance to some quiet learned institution. She touches her mamma upon the arm, and bids her pause. They had reached the threshold of a temple. Madame Laure makes for the Empress.
"Ah! to be sure, my child, so she does," Sophonisba's mamma replies. "I remember. Very quiet-looking kind of place, isn't it?" It is impossible to say what description of "loud" place had dwelt in the mind of Sophonisba's mamma as the locale where the Empress Eugénie's milliner "made" for her Majesty. Perhaps she hoped to see two cent gardes doing duty at the door of an or-molu paradise.
At every step the ladies find new excitement. By the quiet door of Madame Laure is the renowned Neapolitan Ice Establishment, well known to most ladies who have been in Paris. Why should there not be a Neapolitan ice café like this in London? Ices we have, and we have Granger's; but here is ice in every variety, from the solid "bombe"—which we strongly recommend ladies to bear in mind next time—to the appetizing Ponch à la Romaine! Again, sitting here on summer evenings, the lounger will perceive dapper bonnes, or men-servants, going in and out with little shapely white paper parcels which they hold daintily by the end. Madame has rung for an ice, and this little parcel, which you might blow away, contains it. Now, why should not a lady be able to ring for an ice—and an exquisitely-flavoured Neapolitan ice—on the shores of "perfidious Albion?"
"I wish Papa were here," cries Sophonisba; "we should have ices."
Sophonisba's mamma merely remarks that they are very unwholesome things.
Hard by is Christofle's dazzling window, Christofle being the Elkington of France.
"Tut! it quite blinds one!" says the mamma of Sophonisba. Christofle's window is startling. It is heaped to the top with a mound of plated spoons and forks. They glitter in the light so fiercely that the eye cannot bear to rest upon them. Impossible to pass M. Christofle without paying a moment's attention to him. And now we pass the asphaltum of the boulevard of boulevards—that known as "the Italiens." This is the apple of the eye of Paris.
"Now, my dears," says Sophonisba's mamma, "now we can really say that we are in Paris." The shops claimed the ladies' attention one by one. They passed with disdain the cafés radiant with mirror and gold, where the selfish men were drinking absinthe and playing at dominoes. It had always been the creed of Sophonisba's mamma that men were selfish creatures, and she had come to Paris only to see that she was right. They passed on to Potel's.
Potel's window is a sight that is of Paris Parisian. It is more imposing than that of Chevet in the Palais Royal. In the first place Potel is on "the Italiens." It is a daily store of all the rarest and richest articles of food money can command for the discontented palate of man. The truffled turkeys are the commonest of the articles. Everybody eats truffled turkeys, must be the belief of Potel. If salmon could peer into the future, and if they had any ambition, they would desire, after death, to be artistically arrayed in fennel in the shop-window of Potel. Would not the accommodating bird who builds an edible nest work with redoubled ardour, if he could be assured that his house would be some day removed to the great window on "the Italiens?"
Happy the ortolans whom destiny puts into Potel's plate of honour! Most fortunate of geese, whose liver is fattened by a slow fire to figure presently here with the daintiest and noblest of viands! The pig who hunts the truffle would have his reward could he know that presently the fragrant vegetable would give flavour to his trotter! And is it not a good quarter of an hour's amusement every afternoon to watch the gourmets feasting their eyes on the day's fare? And the gamins from the poor quarters stare in also, and wonder what those black lumps are.
Opposite Potel's is a shop, the like of which we have not, nor, we verily believe, has any other city. It is the show-store of the far-famed Algerian Onyx Company. The onyx is here in great superb blocks, wedded with bronze of exquisite finish, or serving as background to enamels of the most elaborate design. Within, the shop is crammed with lamps, jardinières, and monumental marbles, all relieved by bronzes, gold, and exotics. The smallest object would frighten a man of moderate means, if he inquired its price. There is a flower shop not far off, but it isn't a shop, it's a bower. It is close by a dram-shop, where the cab-men of the stand opposite refresh the inner man. It represents the British public-house. But what a quiet orderly place it is! The kettle of punch—a silver one—is suspended over the counter. The bottles are trim in rows; there are no vats of liquid; there is no brawling; there are no beggars by the door—no drunkards within. It is so quiet, albeit on the Boulevard, not one in a hundred of the passers-by notice it. The lordly Café du Cardinal opposite is not more orderly.
Past chocolate shops, where splendidly-attired ladies preside; wood-carving shops, printsellers, pastrycooks—where the savarins are tricked out, and where petit fours lie in a hundred varieties—music-shops, bazaars, immense booksellers' windows; they who are bent on a look at the shops reach a corner of the Grand Opera Street, where the Emperor's tailor dwells. The attractions here are, as a rule, a few gorgeous official costumes, or the laurel-embellished tail coat of the academician. Still proceeding eastward, the shops are various, and are all remarkable for their decoration and contents. There is a shop where cots and flower-stands are the main articles for sale; but such cots and such flower-stands! The cots are for Princes and the flower-stands for Empresses. I saw the Empress Eugénie quietly issuing from this very shop, one winter afternoon.
Sophonisba's mother lingered a long time over the cots, and delighted her mother-eye with the models of babies that were lying in them. One, she remarked, was the very image of young Harry at home.
And so on to "Barbédienne's," close by the well-known Vachette.
Sophonisba, however, will not wait for our description of the renowned Felix's establishment, where are the lightest hands for pastry, it is said, in all France. When last we caught sight of the young lady, she was chez Felix, demolishing her second baba! May it lie lightly on her—!
I humbly beg the pardon of Mademoiselle Sophonisba!