It matters not how low may be the calling of a Parisian, he will still flatter himself that the manner in which he acquits himself in the department in which he is placed, evinces a degree of superiority over his fellow labourer, and gratifies his amour propre with the thought. Even a scavenger would endeavour to persuade you that he has a peculiar manner of sweeping the streets exclusively his own, and that his method of shovelling up the mud and pitching it into the cart is quite unique, and in fact that his innate talent is such that, it has eventually placed him at the summit of his profession. This may appear, perhaps, to some of my readers rather overdrawn, but the following instance which came under my own observation is not much less extravagant.
A man who was in the habit of cleaning my boots, had a most incorrigible propensity for garrulity, and as I like in a foreign country to obtain some insight into the ideas and feelings of all classes, I did not care to check the poor fellow in the indulgence of his favourite penchant, particularly as his remarks were always proffered with a tone of the most profound respect for my august person. Finding one morning that my boots had not been polished quite so well as usual, the next time I saw the shoeblack I mentioned the circumstance to him. "Ah! Sir," he exclaimed with a deep sigh, "that is one of the many instances of the ingratitude of human nature; I confided those boots to the boy whom you must have seen come with me to fetch yours and the other gentlemen's shoes or clothes for brushing, etc. Well, sir, that young urchin is a protégé of mine; I took him, sir, from the lowest obscurity and made him what he is; I taught him my profession, I endowed him with all the benefit of my experience, and with respect to blacking shoes, I have initiated him into all the little mysteries of the art, and can declare that there is not one in the business throughout all Paris that can surpass him, when he chooses to exert his talents; and therefore it renders it the more unpardonable that he should slight one of my best customers." Judging, I suppose, from the expression of my countenance that I did not appear to be deeply infused with a very exalted idea of what he termed the mysteries of his art, he continued, "You may think as you please, sir, but there is much more ability required in blacking shoes than you may imagine, and that boy is well aware of it; he knows how I began by first instructing him in all the fundamental principles of the art; and gradually led him on until I accomplished him in giving the last polish, and can now proudly say he is a true artist in the profession."
On entering a diligence once at Lyons, I found two persons in it, of very decent aspect; the one a middle aged man, the other a youth of about eighteen or nineteen; the former soon found an opportunity of informing me that he was a Parisian, but lest that should not adequately impress me with a sufficiently high idea of his importance, he added that he was chef de cuisine to the Duke of ——, and that Monsieur, pointing to the youth opposite, was an aspirant, who had been placed under his auspices. The young man bowed assent, and appeared most sensibly to feel the vast magnitude of the honours to which he was aspiring; but the whole was announced with such an air of solemnity and consequence, that a minister of state with his secretary would never have attempted to assume. An Englishman under the same circumstances would have merely said, "I am head cook to the Duke of —— and that young man is my 'prentice." However, my travelling companions were overpoweringly civil, and I of course was deeply awed by finding myself in company with such elevated personages, of which they no doubt were sensible, and where we stopped for dinner they gave us the benefit of their professional talent, by entering the kitchen, giving the inmates to understand who they were, and the advantage of advice gratis, as to the arrangement of such dishes for which they were still in time to superintend; and when we sat down at the table d'hôte, the chef de cuisine did not fail to inform me that he had done as much as laid in his power to ensure our having a good dinner, as my being a foreigner he was particularly anxious that France should sustain her high reputation for the culinary art in my estimation; but regretted that in the first place he arrived too late to effect much good, and indeed, had he come before it would have been but of little avail; for the provincials were such complete barbarians, that it was difficult for an enlightened person to commune with them: that absolutely he and they appeared to be quite of another species.
It is a happy circumstance for the French, that their pride does not consist in a desire to get out of their station, but an extreme anxiety to exaggerate the importance of the station in which they are placed; a cook, for example, has the most exalted idea of the art of cookery, and wishes to impress everyone with the same idea of its high importance, and all his ambition is to be considered a cook of the first-rate talent. In England it is different, one of the great objects with a tradesman is the hope, that by making his fortune he shall be enabled to get out of his class and take a higher walk in society. For this purpose they bring their sons up to the liberal professions, and often retire into the country at a distance from London, where they flatter themselves that the circumstance of their having been in business may not travel; their plan seldom succeeds, but has in several instances when they have come over to France, as being rich, appearing respectable, and their children highly educated, they have obtained the entrée to French society, which has ultimately led to that of the English. I remember one instance of a hatter marrying his five daughters to persons of the higher classes, three to English and two to French, who now with their father have that position in society, into which at one period he never could have dreamed of entering; had they remained in England, they would have had but little chance of emerging from their original station, even with the aid of all their wealth.
Street scenes often afford amusing exhibitions of natural characteristics; I remember one which I witnessed, which developed a feeling truly French; two common-looking men had been disputing for some time, when one upbraided the other with want of delicacy and not having a nice sense of honour, but finding his reproaches made but little impression upon the accused, at last said, "As I see you are destitute of any mental susceptibility, I must try if you have any bodily feeling, and thrash you as I would a dog or any other brute." So saying, he advanced to put his threat into execution, but the assailed proving far the strongest, soon overcame the assailant and laid him prostrate; rising from the ground, he regarded the conqueror with a dignified air, and said, "Yes! you have the physical force, but I have the force of reason," and with a flourish of the head he strutted off with as triumphant a demeanour as if he had vanquished a host of enemies.
The French are exceedingly fond of moralizing; a few days before the Revolution occurred, whilst a man was driving me through the Place de la Concorde, I observed a scaffolding in the middle, and asked what it was for, and having informed me that it was for the purpose of erecting a statue of Louis the Sixteenth, being the spot in which he was beheaded, he exclaimed, "What an absurdity! but those Bourbons are incorrigible; would it not be much better to let such events as those sink as much as possible into oblivion, instead of endeavouring to perpetuate them. One would have thought," continued he, "that the adversity and exile which that besotted family had endured would have operated upon them as a lesson, but they will never benefit from any lessons; one, however, will be tried upon them very soon, if they do not mind what they are about, and we shall see what impression that will make." The man's words came to pass, they did indeed receive a severe lesson, which involved them in ruin and disgrace.
Having observed a number of persons assembled on the Boulevards, I asked the cause, and was told that some cavalry was expected to pass in a few minutes, for which the people were waiting. I took my station amongst them, which happened to be next to two bakers' boys, who were in earnest conversation, when I was edified by the following observations. "Do you know why Alphonse left his place?" "Yes," replied the other, "because his master gave him a cuff on the head." "That certainly was a very great indignity;" observed the younger; "to receive a blow is very humiliating." "That is true," replied the other, "but figure to yourself the folly of a lad, for the sake of a paltry thump, to sacrifice all his future prospects; in a few years, had he put up with the insult, he might have been head man in a bakehouse in the Rue St. Denis, which is one of the most populous quarters in Paris." "True," said the younger, "it would have been wiser to have sayed; but when excited, reason does not always come to one's aid."
I have translated the discourse as literally as I could, that I might preserve as nearly as possible the expressions which the boys used, as it has often struck me how much more refined they are, than those to which lads of the same age and class would have had recourse in England.
Some of the scenes at the tribunals are very amusing; I remember a very rough ferocious-looking man having been brought up for returning to Paris, from which he had been sent away on account of some offences which he had committed, and was ordered to some small obscure town in the provinces, under surveillance. Finding his banishment very irksome, an irresistible impulse brought him back to Paris, and repairing to his old haunts, he sought the Rue de la Mortellerie, which had in part been pulled down, on account of some improvements which were going forward; whilst he was gaping about, looking in vain for his dear Rue de la Mortellerie, he was recognised by a Serjeant of police and very unwillingly lodged in the Corps de Garde (guard-house), and brought before the Tribunal of Correction; he was interrogated as to his having dared, in defiance of the law, to return to Paris. He replied, "indeed, Monsieur le President, I was so overcome with ennui, that I found it impossible to exist there any longer; now, only imagine for an instant, M. le President, the idea of a Parisian, as I am, to be sent to a little bit of a place where there was no theatre, no promenade, not even a public monument."
He was interrupted by the President telling him, that whatever the place might have been, there he should have staid to the end of his time, and must be punished for returning to Paris. "But," continued the delinquent, "the vile little hole to which I was exiled contained no society whatever, the inhabitants were merely a set of illiterate beings, and how could any enlightened person vegetate amongst such a mic-mac of semi-barbarians; but tell me, M. le President, what has become of the Rue de la Mortellerie?"