If an Englishwoman enters a glover's, or shoemaker's shop, these worthies will only shew her the largest gloves or shoes they have in their magasins, so persuaded are they that she cannot have a small hand or foot; and when they find their wares too large, and are compelled to search for the smallest size, they seem discomposed as well as surprised, and inform the lady that they had no notion "une dame anglaise could want small gloves or shoes."
That an Englishwoman can be witty, or brilliant in conversation, the French either doubt or profess to doubt; but if convinced against their will they exclaim, "C'est drôle, mais madame a l'esprit éminemment français." Now this no Englishwoman has, or, in my opinion, can have; for it is peculiar, half-natural and half-acquired.
Conversation, in France, is an art successfully studied; to excel in which, not only much natural talent is required, but great fluency and a happy choice of words are indispensable. No one in Parisian society speaks ill, and many possess a readiness of wit, and a facility of turning it to account, that I have never seen exemplified in women of other countries.
A Frenchwoman talks well on every subject, from those of the most grave political importance, to the dernière mode. Her talent in this art is daily exercised, and consequently becomes perfected; while an Englishwoman, with more various and solid attainments, rarely if ever, arrives at the ease and self-confidence which would enable her to bring the treasures with which her mind is stored into play. So generally is the art of conversation cultivated in France, that even those with abilities that rise not beyond mediocrity can take their parts in it, not only without exposing the poverty of their intellects, but with even a show of talent that often imposes on strangers.
An Englishwoman, more concentrated in her feelings as well as in her pursuits, seldom devotes the time given by Frenchwomen to the superficial acquisition of a versatility of knowledge, which, though it enables them to converse fluently on various subjects, she would dread entering on, unless well versed in. My fair compatriots have consequently fewer topics, even if they had equal talent, to converse on; so that the esprit styled, par excellence, l'esprit éminemment français, is precisely that to which we can urge the fewest pretensions.
This does not, however, dispose me to depreciate a talent, or art, for art it may be called, that renders society in France not only so brilliant but so agreeable, and which is attended with the salutary effect of banishing the ill-natured observations and personal remarks which too often supply the place of more harmless topics with us.
CHAPTER XV.
Much as I deplore some of the consequences of the Revolution in France, and the atrocities by which it was stained, it is impossible not to admit the great and salutary change effected in the habits and feelings of the people since that event. Who can live on terms of intimacy with the French, without being struck by the difference between those of our time, and those of whom we read previously to that epoch? The system of education is totally different. The habits of domestic life are wholly changed. The relations between husband and wife, and parents and children, have assumed another character, by which the bonds of affection and mutual dependances are drawn more closely together; and home, sweet home, the focus of domestic love, said to have been once an unknown blessing, at least among the haute noblesse, is now endeared by the discharge of reciprocal duties and warm sympathies.
It is impossible to doubt but that the Revolution of 1789, and the terrible scenes in the reign of terror which followed it, operated in producing the change to which I have referred. It found the greater portion of the noblesse luxuriating in pleasure, and thinking only of selfish, if not of criminal indulgence, in pursuits equally marked by puerility and vice.
The corruption of the regency planted the seeds of vice in French morals, and they yielded a plentiful harvest. How well has St.-Évremond described that epoch in his playful, but sarcastic verses!—