CHAPTER IV
FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF
For fashionable Paris, the season begins with Auteuil. The first of the races calls all of the wanderers back to the heart of Vanity Fair. It is the famous rally, the great spring opening, the first important toilette display of the season. The meeting is held as soon as winter shows the smallest sign of relenting, and is never later than March, sometimes as early as February; but whenever it comes it marks the début of spring upon the Parisian calendar.
The weather may be bitterly cold, but that makes no difference to the Parisienne. She has prepared a costume for Auteuil and she wears it.
"Elise, what is the weather?"
"But of a coldness, Madame. It is to freeze!"
"Eh bien, bring me my fur coat."
Change the frock? The idea doesn't even occur to her. That is her Auteuil frock.
And so Auteuil usually offers a spectacle as picturesque as it is incongruous. The day is bright and cold, or—more probable supposition—the sky is lowering, and there is a flurry of snow in the air. The grand stand and pesage are not yet gay with blossoming plants. Tall braziers are set at intervals along the front of the stand, and near them hover swarms of women drawing sable coats together over frocks of chiffon and lace, showing faces a trifle blue with cold beneath flower-laden hats. They hold their chilled hands out to the flames, these forced blossoms of spring, and they shiver daintily and jest at their own discomfort and are altogether gay and inconsequent and absurd. Here and there the furs are thrown back to afford a deserving public glimpses of a toilette well worth seeing; and it is around the braziers that all Paris first gains an idea of the fashions that are to dominate spring and summer.