America!—land of savages!—land of Pawnees and Choctaws!—land where cooking must be in its crude infancy! Her uncle would not listen to such a barbarous proposition; and, finding that he could obtain no other answer from his wilful and incomprehensible ward, he carried her back to Bordeaux, consoling himself with the reflection that although the visit to Paris had not been permanently advantageous to his niece, the culinary knowledge acquired by Lucien was a full compensation.
[A] Hillard's "Italy."
CHAPTER XVII.
"CHIFFONS."
"Chiffons!" "talking chiffons!" "writing chiffons!"—will any one have the goodness to furnish us with a literal yet lucid interpretation of this enigmatical form of speech so incessantly employed in the Parisian beau monde? Among the translatable words of the French language,—among the expressive terms which cannot be rendered by equally significant expressions in our own more copious tongue,—among the phraseology invented to convey ideas which the phrases themselves certainly do not suggest,—the common application of this curt little word "chiffons" holds a distinguished place. Look for "chiffons" in the dictionary, and you will see it simply defined as "rags;" yet "chiffons" represent the very opposite of rags feminine, and conjure up a multitudinous army of feminine fashions, fripperies, fancies, follies, indispensable aids and adjuncts of the feminine toilet.
We have headed this chapter "chiffons," and given an imperfect definition of the term, as a sign-post of warning to masculine readers,—a hint that this is a chapter to be lightly skimmed, or altogether skipped, for it unavoidably treats of "chiffons," which the necessities of the narrative will not allow us to suppress.
The Marquis de Fleury had been appointed ambassador from the court of Napoleon the Third to the United States of America.
Madame de Fleury's state of mind, in spite of the consolation afforded by a number of strikingly original costumes, which she innocently flattered herself would prove very effective during a sea-voyage, was deplorable. Terror inspired by the perils of the deep was only surpassed by intense grief excited by her compulsory banishment to a land where, she imagined, the invading feet of modiste and mantua-maker had not trodden out all resemblance to the original Eden; a land where the women probably attired themselves with a leaning to antediluvian simplicity, or in accordance with strong-minded proclivities, and the men were, doubtless, too much engrossed by politics and business to be capable of appreciating the most elaborate toilet that could be fashioned to captivate their eyes; a land, in short, where taste was yet unborn, and where it was ignorantly believed that the chief object of apparel was to perform, on a more extensive scale, the use of primitive fig-leaves and furs.
To prevent her from falling into the clutches of American barbarians, Madame de Fleury secured two French maids as a bodyguard. Into the hands of one, skilled in the intricate mysteries of hair-dressing, her head was unreservedly consigned; the other, versed in more varied arts, had entire charge of the rest of her person. But these aides-de-camp of the toilet were deemed insufficient for the guardianship of her charms. The moment her sentence of exile was pronounced, she had summoned the incomparable Vignon to her presence, and piteously painted the difficulties which must beset her path when she was remorselessly torn from within reach of the creative fingers of the artist couturière. Vignon had unanticipated comfort in store: the most accomplished of her assistants,—one who had exhibited a skill in design and execution positively marvellous,—had several times expressed a strong inclination to establish herself in America, and would gladly make her debut in the New World under the patronage of the marchioness. This information threw Madame de Fleury into such ecstasies that all the waves of the Atlantic, which had been ruthlessly tossing their wrecks about her brain, were suddenly stilled, and she declared that Mademoiselle Melanie must make her preparations to sail in the same steamer; for the knowledge that she was on board would render the voyage endurable. The marchioness complacently added that she felt so much strengthened by these tidings, that she could now look forward to meeting, with becoming fortitude, the trials incident upon her residence among a semi-civilized nation.