CHAPTER XI.
In no part of Paris are so many children to be seen us in the gardens of the Luxembourg. At every step may be encountered groups of playful creatures of every age, from the infant slumbering in its nurse's arms, to the healthful girl holding her little brother or sister by the hand as her little charge toddles along; or the manly boy, who gives his arm to his younger sister with all the air of protection of manhood.
What joyous sounds of mirth come from each group—the clear voices ringing pleasantly on the ear, from creatures fair and blooming as the flowers of the rich parterres among which they wander! How each group examines the other—half-disposed to join in each other's sports, but withheld by a vague fear of making the first advances—a fear which indicates that even already civilisation and the artificial habits it engenders, have taught them the restraint it imposes!
The nurses, too, scrutinise each other, and their little masters and misses, as they meet. They take in at a glance the toilettes of each, and judge with an extraordinary accuracy the station of life to which they appertain.
The child of noble birth is known by the simplicity of its dress and the good manners of its bonne; while that of the parvenu is at once recognised by the showiness and expensiveness of its clothes, and the superciliousness of its nurse, who, accustomed to the purse-proud pretensions of her employers, values nothing so much as all the attributes that indicate the possession of wealth.
The little children look wistfully at each other every time they meet; then begin to smile, and at length approach, and join, half-timidly, half-laughingly, in each other's sports. The nurses, too, draw near, enter into a conversation, in which each endeavours to insinuate the importance of her young charge, and consequently her own; while the children have already contracted an intimacy, which is exemplified by running hand-in-hand together, their clear jocund voices being mingled.
It is a beautiful sight to behold these gay creatures, who have little more than passed the first two or three years of life, with the roses of health glowing on their dimpled cheeks, and the joyousness of infancy sparkling in their eyes.
They know nought of existence but its smiles; and, caressed by doating parents, have not a want unsatisfied. Entering life all hope and gaiety, what a contrast do they offer to the groups of old men who must so soon leave it, who are basking in the sunshine so near them! Yet they, too, have had their hours of joyous infancy; and, old and faded as they are, they have been doated on, as they gambolled like the happy little beings they now pause to contemplate.
There was something touching in the contrast of youth and age brought thus together, and I thought that more than one of the old men seemed to feel it as they looked on the happy children.
I met my new acquaintance, Dr. P——, who was walking with two or three savans; and, having spoken to him, he joined us in our promenade, and greatly added to its pleasure by his sensible remarks and by his cheerful tone of mind. He told me that the sight of the fine children daily to be met in the Luxembourg Gardens, was as exhilarating to his spirits as the gay flowers in the parterre and that he had frequently prescribed a walk here to those whose minds stood in need of such a stimulant.
The General and Countess d'Orsay arrived yesterday from their château, in Franche-Comté. A long correspondence had taught me to appreciate the gifted mind of Madame, who, to solid attainments, joins a sparkling wit and vivacity that render her conversation delightful.
The Countess d'Orsay has been a celebrated beauty; and, though a grandmother, still retains considerable traces of it. Her countenance is so spirituelle and piquant, that it gives additional point to the clever things she perpetually utters; and what greatly enhances her attractions is the perfect freedom from any of the airs of a bel esprit, and the total exemption from affectation that distinguishes her.
General d'Orsay, known from his youth as Le Beau d'Orsay, still justifies the appellation, for he is the handsomest man of his age that I have ever beheld. It is said that when the Emperor Napoleon first saw him, he observed that he would make an admirable model for a Jupiter, so noble and commanding was the character of his beauty.
Like most people remarkable for good looks, General d'Orsay is reported to have been wholly free from vanity; to which, perhaps, may be attributed the general assent accorded to his personal attractions which, while universally admitted, excited none of the envy and ill-will which such advantages but too often draw on their possessor. There is a calm and dignified simplicity in the manners of General d'Orsay, that harmonises well with his lofty bearing.
It is very gratifying to witness the affection and good intelligence that reign in the domestic circles in France. Grandfathers and grandmothers here meet with an attention from their children and grandchildren, the demonstrations of which are very touching; and I often see gay and brilliant parties abandoned by some of those with whom I am in the habit of daily intercourse, in order that they may pass the evenings with their aged relatives.
Frequently do I see the beautiful Duchesse de Guiche enter the salon of her grandmother, sparkling in diamonds, after having hurried away from some splendid fête, of which she was the brightest ornament, to spend an hour with her before she retired to rest; and the Countess d'Orsay is so devoted to her mother, that nearly her whole time is passed with her.
It is pleasant to see the mother and grandmother inspecting and commenting on the toilette of the lovely daughter, of whom they are so justly proud, while she is wholly occupied in inquiring about the health of each, or answering their questions relative to that of her children.
The good and venerable Duc de Gramont examines his daughter-in-law through his eyeglass, and, with an air of paternal affection, observes to General d'Orsay, "How well our daughter looks to-night!"
Madame Craufurd, referring to her great age last evening, said to me, and a tear stole down her cheek while she spoke:
"Ah, my dear friend! how can I think that I must soon leave all those who love me so much, and whom I so dote on, without bitter regret? Yes, I am too happy here to be as resigned as I ought to be to meet death."
Saw Potier in the Ci-devant Jeune Homme last night. It is an excellent piece of acting, from the first scene where he appears in all the infirmity of age, in his night-cap and flannel dressing-gown, to the last, in which he portrays tho would-be young man. His face, his figure, his cough, are inimitable; and when he recounts to his servant the gaieties of the previous night, the hollow cheek, sunken eye, and hurried breathing of the "Ci-devant Jeune Homme" render the scene most impressive.
Nothing could be more comic than the metamorphose effected in his appearance by dress, except it were his endeavours to assume an air and countenance suitable to the juvenility of his toilette; while, at intervals, some irrepressible symptom of infirmity reminded the audience of the pangs the effort to appear young inflicted on him. Potier is a finished actor, and leaves nothing to be wished, except that he may long continue to perform and delight his audience as last night.
Dined yesterday at the Countess d'Orsay's, with a large family party. The only stranger was Sir Francis Burdett. A most agreeable dinner, followed by a very pleasant evening. I have seldom seen any Englishman enjoy French society as much as the worthy baronet does. He speaks the language with great facility, is well acquainted with its literature, and has none of the prejudices which militate so much against acquiring a perfect knowledge of the manners and customs of a foreign country.
French society has decidedly one great superiority over English, and that is its freedom from those topics which too often engross so considerable a portion of male conversation, even in the presence of ladies, in England. I have often passed the evening previously and subsequently to a race, in which many of the men present took a lively interest, without ever hearing it made the subject of conversation. Could this be said of a party in England, on a similar occasion?
Nor do the men here talk of their shooting or hunting before women, as with us. This is a great relief, for in England many a woman is doomed to listen to interminable tales of slaughtered grouse, partridges, and pheasants; of hair breadth "'scapes by flood and field," and venturous leaps, the descriptions of which leave one in doubt whether the narrator or his horse be the greater animal of the two, and render the poor listener more fatigued by the recital than either was by the longest chase.
A dissertation on the comparative merits of Manton's, Lancaster's, and Moore's guns, and the advantage of percussion locks, it is true, generally diversifies the conversation.
Then how edifying it is to hear the pedigrees of horses—the odds for and against the favourite winning such or such a race—the good or bad books of the talkers—the hedging or backing of the betters! Yet all this are women condemned to hear on the eve of a race, or during the shooting or hunting season, should their evil stars bring them into the society of any of the Nimrods or sportsmen of the day, who think it not only allowable to devote nearly all their time to such pursuits, but to talk of little else.
The woman who aims at being popular in her county, must not only listen patiently, but evince a lively interest in these intellectual occupations; while, if the truth was confessed, she is thoroughly ennuyée by these details of them: or if not, it must be inferred that she has lost much of the refinement of mind and taste peculiar to the well-educated portion of her sex.
I do not object to men liking racing, hunting, and shooting. The first preserves the breed of horses, for which England is so justly celebrated, and hunting keeps up the skill in horsemanship in which our men excel. What I do object to is their making these pursuits the constant topics of conversation before women, instead of selecting those more suitable to the tastes and habits of the latter.
There is none of the affectation of avoiding subjects supposed to be uninteresting to women visible in the men here. They do not utter with a smile—half pity, half condescension,—"we must not talk politics before the ladies;" they merely avoid entering into discussions, or exhibiting party spirit, and shew their deference for female society by speaking on literature, on which they politely seem to take for granted that women are well informed.
Perhaps this deferential treatment of the gentler sex may not be wholly caused by the good breeding of the men in France; for I strongly suspect that the women here would be very little disposed to submit to the nonchalance that prompts the conduct I have referred to in England, and that any man who would make his horses or his field-sports the topic of discourse in their presence, would soon find himself expelled from their society.
Frenchwomen still think, and with reason, that they govern the tone of the circles in which they move, and look with jealousy on any infringement of the respectful attention they consider to be their due.
A few nights ago I saw the Duchesse de Guiche, on her return from a reception at court, sparkling in diamonds, and looking so beautiful that she reminded me of Burke's description of the lovely and unfortunate Marie-Antoinette. To-day I thought her still more attractive, when, wearing only a simple white peignoir, and her matchless hair bound tightly round her classically shaped head, I saw her enacting the part of garde-malade to her children, who have caught the measles.
With a large, and well-chosen nursery-establishment, she would confide her precious charge to no care but her own, and moved from each little white bed to the other with noiseless step and anxious glance, bringing comfort to the dear little invalid in each. No wonder that her children adore her, for never was there so devoted a mother.
In the meridian of youth and beauty, and filling so brilliant a position in France, it is touching to witness how wholly engrossed this amiable young woman's thoughts are by her domestic duties. She incites, by sharing, the studies of her boys; and already is her little girl, owing to her mother's judicious system, cited as a model.
It was pleasant to see the Duc, when released from his attendance at court, hurrying into the sick chamber of his children, and their languid eyes, lighting up with a momentary animation, and their feverish lips relaxing into a smile, at the sound of his well-known voice. And this is the couple considered to be "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," the observed of all observers, of the courtly circle at Paris!
Who could behold them as I have done, in that sick room, without acknowledging that, despite of all that has been said of the deleterious influence of courts on the feelings of those who live much in them, the truly good pass unharmed through the dangerous ordeal?
Went to the Théâtre des Nouveautés last night, where I saw La Maison du Rempart. The Parisians seem to have decided taste for bringing scenes of riot and disorder on the stage; and the tendency of such exhibitions is any thing but salutary with so inflammable a people, and in times like the present.
One of the scenes of La Maison du Rempart represents an armed mob demolishing the house of a citizen—an act of violence that seemed to afford great satisfaction to the majority of the audience; and, though the period represented is that of the Fronde, the acts of the rabble strongly assimilated with those of the same class in later times, when the revolution let loose on hapless France the worst of all tyrants—a reckless and sanguinary mob. I cannot help feeling alarmed at the consequences likely to result from such performances. Sparks of fire flung among gunpowder are not more dangerous. Shewing a populace what they can effect by brutal force is a dangerous experiment; it is like letting a tame lion see how easily he could overpower his keepers.
Mr. Cuthbert and M. Charles Laffitte dined here yesterday. Both are excellent specimens of their countries; the former being well-informed and agreeable, and the latter possessing all the good sense we believe to be peculiar to an Englishman, with the high breeding that appertains to a thoroughly well-educated Frenchman.
The advance of civilization was evident in both these gentlemen—the Englishman speaking French with purity and fluency, and the Frenchman speaking English like a born Briton. Twenty years ago, this would have been considered a very rare occurrence, while now it excites little remark. But it is not alone the languages of the different countries that Mr. Cuthbert and M. Charles Laffitte have acquired, for both are well acquainted with the literature of each, which renders their society very agreeable.
Spent last evening in the Rue d'Anjou, where I met Lady Combermere, the Dowager Lady Hawarden, and Mrs. Masters. Lady Combermere is lively and agreeable, un peu romanesque, which gives great originality to her conversation, and sings Mrs. Arkwright's beautiful ballads with great feeling.
Mr. Charles Grant[4] dined here yesterday. He is a very sensible man, possessing a vast fund of general information, with gentle and highly-polished manners. What a charm there is in agreeable manners, and how soon one feels at ease with those who possess them!
Spent, or mis-spent, a great portion of the day in visiting the curiosity shops on the Quai Voltaire, and came away from them with a lighter purse than I entered. There is no resisting, at least I find it so, the exquisite porcelaine de Sèvres, off which the dainty dames of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth feasted, or which held their bouquets, or pot pourri. An étui of gold set with oriental agates and brilliants, and a flacon of rock crystal, both of which once appertained to Madame de Sévigné, vanquished my prudence.
Would that with the possession of these articles, often used by her, I could also inherit the matchless grace with which her pen could invest every subject it touched! But, alas! it is easier to acquire the beautiful bijouterie, rendered still more valuable by having belonged to celebrated people, than the talent that gained their celebrity; and so I must be content with inhaling esprit de rose from the flacon of Madame de Sévigné, without aspiring to any portion of the esprit for which she was so distinguished.
I am now rich in the possession of objects once belonging to remarkable women, and I am not a little content with my acquisitions. I can boast the gold and enamelled pincushion of Madame de Maintenon, heart-shaped, and stuck as full of pins as the hearts of the French Protestants were with thorns by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; to which she is said to have so greatly contributed by her counsel to her infatuated lover, Louis the Fourteenth. I can indulge in a pinch of snuff from the tabatière of the Marquise de Rambouillet, hold my court-plaster in the boîte à mouches of Ninon de l'Enclos, and cut ribands with the scissors of Madame de Deffand.
This desire of obtaining objects that have belonged to celebrated people may be, and often is, considered puerile; but confess to the weakness, and the contemplation of the little memorials I have named awakens recollections in my mind fraught with interest.
I can fancy Madame de Sévigné, who was as amiable as she was clever, and whose tenderness towards her daughter is demonstrated so naturally and touchingly in the letters she addressed to her, holding the flacon now mine to the nostrils of Madame de Grignan, in whose health she was always so much more interested than in her own.
I can see in my mind's eye the precise and demure Madame de Maintenon taking a pin from the very pincushion now before me, to prevent the opening of her kerchief, and so conceal even her throat from the prying eyes of the aged voluptuary, whose passions the wily prude is said to have excited by a concealment of a portion of her person that had, in all probability, ceased to possess charms enough to produce this effect, if revealed.
This extreme reserve on the part of the mature coquette evinced a profound knowledge of mankind, and, above all, of him on whom she practised her arts. The profuse display of the bust and shoulders in those days, when the ladies of the court left so little to the imagination of the amorous monarch on whose heart so many of them had designs, must have impaired the effect meant to have been achieved by the indelicate exposure; for—hear it ye fair dames, with whose snowy busts and dimpled shoulders the eyes of your male acquaintance are as familiar as with your faces!—the charms of nature, however beautiful, fall short of the ideal perfection accorded to them by the imagination, when unseen. The clever Maintenon, aware of this fact, of which the less wise of her sex are ignorant or forgetful, afforded a striking contrast in her dress to the women around her, and piquing first the curiosity, and then the passions, of the old libertine, acquired an influence over him when she had long passed the meridian of her personal attractions, which youthful beauties, who left him no room to doubt their charms, or to exaggerate them as imagination is prone to do, could never accomplish.
This very pincushion, with its red velvet heart stuck with pins, was probably a gift from the enamoured Louis, and meant to be symbolical of the state of his own; which, in hardness, it might be truly said to resemble. It may have often been placed on her table when Maintenon was paying the penalty of her hard-earned greatness by the painful task of endeavouring—as she acknowledged—to amuse a man who was no longer amusable.
Could it speak, it might relate the wearisome hours passed in a palace (for the demon Ennui cannot be expelled even from the most brilliant; nay, prefers, it is said, to select them for his abode), and we should learn, that while an object of envy to thousands, the mistress, or unacknowledged wife of le Grand Monarque, was but little more happy than the widow of Scarron when steeped in poverty.
Madame de Maintenon discovered what hundreds before and since have done—that splendour and greatness cannot confer happiness; and, while trying to amuse a man who, though possessed of sovereign power, has lost all sense of enjoyment, must have reverted, perhaps with a sigh, to the little chamber in which she so long soothed the sick bed of the witty octogenarian, Scarron; who, gay and cheerful to the last, could make her smile by his sprightly and spirituelles sallies, which neither the evils of poverty nor pain could subdue.
Perhaps this pincushion has lain on her table when Madame de Maintenon listened to the animating conversation of Racine, or heard him read aloud, with that spirit and deep pathos for which his reading was so remarkable, his Esther and Alhalie, previously to their performance at St.-Cyr.
That she did not make his peace with the king, when he offended him by writing an essay to prove that long wars, however likely to reflect glory on a sovereign, were sure to entail misery on his subjects, shews that either her influence over the mind of Louis was much less powerful than has been believed, or that she was deficient in the feelings that must have prompted her to exert it by pleading for him.
The ungenerous conduct of the king in banishing from his court a man whose genius shed a purer lustre over it than all the battles Boileau has sung, and for a cause that merited praise instead of displeasure, has always appeared to me to be indicative of great meanness as well as hardness of heart; and while lamenting the weakness of Racine, originating in a morbid sensibility that rendered his disgrace at court so painful and humiliating to the poet as to cause his death, I am still less disposed to pardon the sovereign that could thus excite into undue action a sensibility, the effects of which led its victim to the grave.
The diamond-mounted tabatière now on my table once occupied a place on that of the Marquise de Rambouillet, in that hôtel so celebrated, not only for the efforts made by its coterie towards refining the manners and morals of her day, but the language also, until the affectation to which its members carried their notions of purity, exposed them to a ridicule that tended to subvert the influence they had previously exercised over society.
Molière—the inimitable Molière—may have been permitted the high distinction of taking a pinch of snuff from it, while planning his Précieuses Ridicules, which, malgré his disingenuous disavowal of the satire being aimed at the Hôtel Rambouillet, evidently found its subject there. I cannot look at the snuff-box without being reminded of the brilliant circle which its former mistress assembled around her, and among which Molière had such excellent opportunities of studying the peculiarities of the class he subsequently painted.
Little did its members imagine, when he was admitted to it, the use he would make of the privilege; and great must have been their surprise and mortification, though not avowed, at the first representation of the Précieuses Ridicules, in which many of them must have discovered the resemblance to themselves, though the clever author professed only to ridicule their imitators. Les Femmes Savantes, though produced many years subsequently, also found the originals of its characters in the same source whence Molière painted Les Précieuses Ridicules.
I can fancy him slily listening to the theme proposed to the assembly by Mademoiselle Scudéry—the Sarraïdes, as she was styled—"Whether a lover jealous, a lover despised, a lover separated from the object of his tenderness, or him who has lost her by death, was to be esteemed the most unhappy."
At a later period of his life, Molière might have solved the question from bitter personal experience, for few ever suffered more from the pangs of jealousy, and assuredly no one has painted with such vigour—though the comic often prevails over the serious in his delineations—the effects of a passion any thing but comic to him. Strange power of genius, to make others laugh at incidents which had often tormented himself, and to be able to give humour to characters in various comedies, actuated by the feelings to which he had so frequently been a victim!
I can picture to myself the fair Julie d'Angennes, who bestowed not her hand on the Duc de Montausier until he had served as many years in seeking it as Jacob had served to gain that of Rachel, and until she had passed her thirtieth year (in order that his passion should become as purified from all grossness, as was the language spoken among the circle in which she lived), receiving with dignified reserve the finely painted flowers and poems to illustrate them, which formed the celebrated Guirlande de Julie, presented to her by her courtly admirer.
I see pass before me the fair and elegant dames of that galaxy of wit and beauty, Mesdames de Longueville, Lafayette, and de Sévigné, fluttering their fans as they listened and replied to the gallant compliments of Voiture, Ménage, Chapelain, Desmarets, or De Réaux, or to the spirituelle causerie of Chamfort.
What a pity that a society, no less useful than brilliant at its commencement, should have degenerated into a coterie, remarkable at last but for its fantastic and false notions of refinement, exhibited in a manner that deserved the ridicule it called down!