Politeness with the French is a matter of education as well as nature. The French child is taught that lesson from the beginning of its existence, and it is made a part of its life. It is the one thing that is never forgotten and lack of it is never forgiven. A shipwrecked Frenchman who could not get into a boat, as he was disappearing under the waves, raised his hat, and with such a bow as he could make under the circumstances, said, “Adieu, Mesdames; Adieu, Messieurs,” and went to the fishes. I doubt not that it really occurred, for I have seen ladies splashed by a cab on a rainy day, smile politely at the driver. A race that has women of that degree of politeness can never be anything but polite. When such exasperation as splashed skirts and stockings will not ruffle them, nothing will.
A VERY POLITE FRENCHMAN.
The children are delightful in this particular. French children do not go about clamoring for the best places and sulking if they do not get them, and talking in a rude, boisterous way. They do not take favors and attentions as a matter of course and unacknowledged. The slightest attention shown them is acknowledged by the sweetest kind of a bow—not the dancing-master’s bow, but a genuine one—and the invariable “Merci, Monsieur!” or Madame, or Mademoiselle, as the case may be.
I was in a compartment with a little French boy of twelve, the precise age at which American children, as a rule, deserve killing for their rudeness and general disagreeableness. He was dressed faultlessly, but his clothes were not the chief charm. I sat between him and the open window, and he was eating pears. Now an American boy of that age would either have dropped the cores upon the floor, or tossed them out of the window without a word to anybody. But this small gentleman every time, with a “permit me, Monsieur,” said in the most pleasant way, rose and came to the window and dropped them out, and then, “Merci, Monsieur,” as he quietly took his seat. It was a delight. I am sorry to say that such small boys do not travel on American railroad trains to any alarming extent. Would they were more frequent.
And when in his seat, if an elderly person or any one else came in, he was the very first to rise and offer his place if it were in the slightest degree more comfortable than the one vacant, and the good nature in which he insisted upon the new comer taking it was something “altogether too sweet for anything,” as the faro bankeress would say.