Remarkable People.—Distinguished People.—Metaphysical Lady.
Last night we passed our soirée at the house of a lady who had been introduced to me with this recommendation:—"You will be certain of meeting at Madame de V——'s many remarkable people."
This is, I think, exactly the sort of introduction which would in any city give the most piquant interest to a new acquaintance; but it does so particularly at Paris; for this attractive capital draws its collection of remarkable people from a greater variety of nations, classes, and creeds, than any other.
Nevertheless, this term "remarkable people" must not be taken too confidently to mean individuals so distinguished that all men would desire to gaze upon them; the phrase varying in its value and its meaning according to the feelings, faculties, and station of the speaker.
Everybody has got his or her own "remarkable people" to introduce to you; and I have begun to find out, among the houses that are open to me, what species of "remarkable people" I am likely to meet at each.
When Madame A—— whispers to me as I enter her drawing-room—"Ah! vous voilà! c'est bon; j'aurais été bien fâchée si vous m'aviez manquée; il y a ici, ce soir, une personne bien remarquable, qu'il faut absolument vous présenter,"—I am quite sure that I shall see some one who has been a marshal, or a duke, or a general, or a physician, or an actor, or an artist, to Napoleon.
But if it were Madame B—— who said the same thing, I should be equally certain that it must be a comfortable-looking doctrinaire, who was, had been, or was about to be in place, and who had made his voice heard on the winning side.
Madame C——, on the contrary, would not deign to bestow such an epithet on any one whose views and occupations were so earthward. It could only be some philosopher, pale with the labour of reconciling paradoxes or discovering a new element.
My charming, quiet, graceful, gentle Madame D—— could use it only when speaking of an ex-chancellor, or chamberlain, or friend, or faithful servant of the exiled dynasty.
As for the tall dark-browed Madame E——, with her thin lips and sinister smile, though she professes to hold a salon where talent of every party is welcome, she never cares much, I am very sure, for any remarkableness that is not connected with the great and immortal mischief of some revolution. She is not quite old enough to have had anything to do with the first; but I have no doubt that she was very busy during the last, and I am positive that she will never know peace by night or day till another can be got up. If her hopes fail on this point, she will die of atrophy; for nothing affords her nourishment but what is mixed up with rebellion against constituted authority.