In Vanity Fair: A Tale of Frocks and Femininity

by Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd

"Gossip Street" at Trouville

Yes, they are charming, these little places, and they are, too, more exclusively French than most of the larger resorts,—but not more French than Trouville. Nothing could be more French than Trouville. Dieppe has a tremendous American, English, Austrian, German, Russian contingent that elbows the French element; Boulogne is given over largely to bank-holiday crowds from England; Ostend is more cosmopolitan than French; but Trouville is of the French Frenchy, and to know Trouville is to know the Parisienne in her gayest summer rôle.

A popular French seashore resort must be seen to be appreciated, and no American whose theories of seaside customs is limited to an acquaintance with the shore resorts of Jersey, Long Island, Massachusetts, etc., can have the slightest conception of seaside life in a French translation. There is, in the latter, a spice, a colour, an audacity, lacking in the Anglo-Saxon version. An English or American imitation of Trouville would be hopelessly vulgar, but Trouville—well, it is Trouville. It is all bubble, sparkle, brilliancy, extravagance, folly. It is Paris with an added laissez aller, Paris set to a new tune. There is much to shock the sober-minded as there is in Paris, but the sober-minded should not go to Trouville. It is the refuge of the light-hearted, the buoyant, the volatile; and soberness has no place in its scheme. What would electrify Newport, Bar Harbor, even Narragansett Pier, will not create even a ripple of excitement at Trouville. Someone has said that the difference between smart society in New York and in Paris is the difference between the immoral and the unmoral. French seashore life in its most exaggerated phase is distinctly unmoral, but like Paris life, it is also distinctly picturesque. The most shocking thing about Gallic impropriety is the fact that it fails to shock.

But when one talks of morals, one is taking Trouville seriously, and to take Trouville seriously is altogether out of the question. It is all froth and effervescence, all laughter and irresponsibility. Beau monde, bourgeoisie, actresses, dressmakers, milliners, cocottes, titled folk and millionaires from all over the world, gamblers, racing touts, English polo players, American yacht owners—all jostle each other on the promenade, in the Casino, at the Hôtel de Paris; for the exclusive set of Deauville does not cling to its own select haunts but crosses the ferry often in search of diversion less monotonously comme il faut.

The Rue de Paris is the great meeting-place for this class during the morning hours, and on a bright August morning one may find the most noted social celebrities of Europe grouped before the doors of the little shops that line the crooked street.

The jewellers and dressmakers of Paris have branch establishments here, and around their thresholds flutter the women who are the best patrons of those Paris tradesfolk, met to flirt and gossip and show in their frocks and jewels what may be achieved with the assistance of the firms whose names are written large above the open doors. It is called La Potinière, the gossip rendezvous, this little Rue de Paris, and there is gossip enough abroad there on any morning to justify the name. There is so much excuse for gossip at Trouville.

Eleven o'clock is the magic hour that really opens the ball at Trouville. Before that, there may possibly have been a private pigeon shoot, but that calls out only a small clique and takes in one of the most exclusive sets of Europe. No entrance here for the rank and file even of the fashionable world, and no open sesame for women whom the haughty dames of the French aristocracy do not put upon their visiting list. If Monsieur and Madame appear together anywhere at Trouville it is likely to be at the pigeon shoot.

But it is at eleven that the doors of the villas and hotels fly open. Out flock all of the somebodies and a choice assortment of nobodies, and every path to the beach is filled with the gay throng. Not that all of the Trouville world takes a dip in the surf. No indeed,—the truly smart folk scorn sea bathing, but they go to the beach to meet each other, to watch the throng, to promenade, to show their pretty morning frocks, to put in the time until déjeuner, and their decorative value in the bathing hour scene is tremendous.