DISTINCTIONS.
Liberiùs si Dixero quid, si fortè jocosiùs, hoc mihi juris
Cum veniâ dabis.--Horace.
They may be true or they may be false, but I beg it to be understood that they are given with perfect good humour towards a people for many of whom I have a high personal regard.
An Englishman is proud, a Frenchman is vain. A Frenchman says more than he thinks, an Englishman thinks more than he says. A Frenchman is an excellent acquaintance, an Englishman is a good friend. A Frenchman is enterprising, an Englishman is indefatigable. An Englishman has more judgment, a Frenchman more wit. Both are brave, but an Englishman fights coolly, a Frenchman hotly. The latter will attack anything, the former will be repulsed by nothing. An Englishman in conversation seems going a journey, a Frenchman is taking a walk. The one plods hard on to the object in view, the other skips away from his path for the slightest thing that catches his attention. There is more advantage in conversing with the one, more pleasure with the other. An Englishman generalizes, a Frenchman particularizes. An Englishman when he tastes anything says that it is good, that it has an agreeable flavour; a Frenchman describes every sensation it produces in his mouth and throat, from the tip of the tongue down to the stomach, and winds it up with a simile. An Englishman remarking an opera-dancer sees that she dances well, with grace, with agility; a Frenchman notes every entrechat, and can tell to a line where her foot ought to fall. An Englishman must have a large stock of knives and forks to change with every plate: a Frenchman uses but one for all, and it sometimes serves him for a salt-spoon, too. An Englishman in his own country must have two rooms; a Frenchman can do very well with one; he dines there when he cannot go out, receives his company there, and can do everything there. A married Englishman requires but one bed, a married Frenchman must have two. In general an Englishman is willing to submit to the power of the law, but inclined to resist military force; the contrary proposition is the case with the French.
A Frenchman is constitutionally a happier animal than an Englishman. He is born a philosopher. He enjoys to-day, he forgets the past, and lets to-morrow take care of itself. No misfortunes can affect him, he floats like a bit of cork on the top of the waves which seem destined to overwhelm him. He makes his servant his confidant, the coffee-house his library, the man next him his friend, the theatre his fireside;--and his home--but he has nothing to do with that.
He is gay, witty, brave, and not unfeeling, but his character is like the sand on the sea-shore, where you may write deeply, but a few waves sweep it away for ever. That perverted word 'sentiment' in its true sense he knows little of. But are there many men in all the world who know much more.
A Frenchman is not so insincere as he has been called. It is true he makes vehement professions which mean nothing, but he makes them in a language the expressions of which are all overcharged, and in a country where they are justly appreciated. As money, the representative of labour, has in every country its relative value, so words, the current coin of conversation, vary in import amongst various nations, and have a rate of exchange with foreigners. Thus, if an Englishman takes a Frenchman's professions at the value the same would hear in England, it is his own fault, for the rate of exchange is against them. Besides, they are obliged to use large words, there is no small change in France. In conversation, as well as in commerce, there is nothing circulating but heavy five-franc pieces. A boot is said to fit "divinement," and a tailor tells you that there is "de quoi se mettre à genoux devant" the coat he has just made for you. I have heard a boot-jack called superb, a pair of stockings magnifique, and a wig angelique. A man offered me "poudre à la rose," to make my boots slip on; and an old woman who had strayed a kitten, called it "expatriating her cat." An Englishman says, "I am glad to see you;" a Frenchman "Je suis ravi de vous voir." It comes to the same thing in the end. Everything in France is au dessus du vraisemblable, and the language not more than the rest. An Englishman's passions are like his own coal fire, difficult to kindle; but long before they go out, have more heat than flame, more intensity than brilliancy. A Frenchman is like a fire of wood that crackles and flames and blazes, that is lighted in a minute, and in a minute extinguished.
The French, though they are daily improving, are still certainly a dirty people,[[11]] not in their persons but in their houses and habits. In this, as in everything else, they are the most inconsistent nation in the world. In their habitations there is the strangest mixture of splendour and want of cleanliness, and in their manners an equal mingling of elegance and coarseness. One must often walk up a staircase where every kind of dirt is to be found in order to arrive at a palace, and a thousand things that shock all notions of delicacy are here openly done and talked of by the most polite.
A Frenchman's politeness consists much more in small talk and petty ceremonies than in any real elegance of person or of mind. They have told the world so often that they are the most civilized nation in Europe, that the world believes it. It is true, they have an immensity of the jargon of society, a quickness in catching and appreciating the tastes and ideas of others, and a great fund of good-nature, which makes them love to see all around them at their ease; but their vanity stands much in the way of their politeness. An Englishman may perhaps over-rate both himself and his country, but he is contented with his own opinion, and cares little what others think on the subject; but a Frenchman wishes every one to acknowledge, and takes the greatest pains to prove, that France is the first country and himself the first man in the world. A Frenchman, however, has much more of the two great principles on which real politeness is founded than an Englishman. He is by nature an infinitely more good-humoured being, and he has more of that inestimable quality which he himself calls tact.
If the French called themselves simply the most polite nation in the world, we might be inclined to admit the claim. When they say they are the most civilized, we instantly deny it. I have seen an actress and a famous actress too, stop in the midst of one of Racine's finest speeches to spit in her pocket handkerchief, before the whole audience. I asked the gentleman next me if such were a common occurrence. He seemed surprised at the question, and said, what could she do? She must spit! Did we not spit in England? he asked. I told him not in general, and never in genteel society. He said, "Oh!" and without doubt did not believe a word I said; for, let it be remarked, that the French generally have no more idea of our manners and customs than if we were placed at one pole and they at the other. A great proportion of the French people look upon us as a kind of Sandwich Islanders--imagine that we never see the sun--that our atmosphere is one constant fog--that we eat nothing but beef and potatoes--that we drink nothing but tea and porter--and that our only ripe fruit is. baked apples.[[12]] Let me do them justice, however; rarely or ever would an Englishman have been insulted by the populace of France with those brutal appellations which the lower classes in England did not fail to bestow upon the French, when they discovered them in the streets of London during the war. If the higher class of society in France, is not so refined as the same class in England, and I do not scruple to say that it is not, there is much more urbanity, and real or acquired politeness, amongst the peasantry of the former country. One or the greatest differences, however, between the two countries is the one which is least favourable to England and the most honourable to France. France is always anxious to improve, and the whole nation drags on the unwilling few. England is always suspicious of improvement, and the talented few drag on the unwilling nation.
I have hitherto in general spoken of French men; what shall I say of French women? If I say but little, it is not that I think them in any degree less charming, less graceful, less fascinating than others have thought. To criticise them would be a task invidious and not for me. If they have anything about them that might as well be altered, I say, heaven forbid that it should be otherwise; for as perfection is certainly not to be found amongst men, it would place too terrible a difference between the sexes if it were to be met with in women.