“Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking.”
But so it is, and so it will be so long as the world lasts, and mankind is no better than it is at present.
If then, as I have asserted, there is so little to be gained by leaving a comfortable home, what is the inducement which takes so many people abroad to settle there? I am afraid that the true reason has been given by the author whom I now quote. Speaking of the French metropolis, she says—
“I have been lately trying to investigate the nature of the charm which renders Paris so favourite a sojourn of the English.
“In point of gaiety (for gaiety read dissipation) it affords nothing comparable with that of London. A few ministerial fêtes every winter may perhaps exceed in brilliancy the balls given in our common routine of things; but for one entertainment in Paris at least thirty take place chez nous. Society is established with us on a wider and more splendid scale. The weekly soirées, on the other hand, which properly represent the society of this place, are dull, meagre, and formal to the last degree of formality. There is no brilliant point of reunion as at Almack’s,—no theatre uniting, like our Italian Opera, the charm of the best company, the best music, and the best dancing. Of the thousand and one theatres boasted of by the Parisians, only three are of a nature to be frequented by people of consideration, the remainder being as much out of the question as the Pavilion or the Garrick. Dinner parties there are none; water parties none; déjeûners, unless given by a foreign ambassadress, none. A thousand accessories to London amusements are here wanting. In the month of May, I am told, the public gardens and the Bois de Boulogne become enchanting. But what is not charming in the month of May? Paris, perhaps, least of all places; for at the commencement of the month every French family of note quits the metropolis for its country seat, or for sea or mineral bathing. Foreigners and the mercantile and ministerial classes alone remain. What, then, I would fain discover, constitutes the peculiar merit of inducing persons uninstigated by motives of economy to fix themselves in the comfortless and filthy city, and call it Paradise? Alas! my solution of the problem is far from honourable to the taste of our absentees. In Paris people are far less amenable than in London to the tribunal of public opinion; or, as a lady once very candidly said to me, ‘One gets rid of one’s friends and relations.’”
Indeed, there are so many petty annoyances and vexatious of life attendant upon residents abroad, that it must require some strong motives to induce them to remain. Wherever the English settle they raise the price of everything, much to the annoyance of the rentiers and respectable people of the place, although of advantage to the country generally. The really highbred and aristocratic people will not associate with the English, and look upon them with any feeling but good will. With regard to servants, they are invariably badly served, although they pay two or three times the wages that are paid by the inhabitants, who, in most places, have made it a rule never to take a domestic that has once lived in an English family; the consequence is that those engaged by the English are of the worst description, a sort of pariahs among the community, who extort and cheat their employers without mercy. If not permitted so to do, they leave them at a minutes warning; and you cannot go to any foreign colony of English people without listening to very justified tirades of the villany of the servants. Upon the same principle, there are few places abroad where the tradespeople have not two prices; one for the English, and the other for the inhabitants.
I was in company with an English lady of title, who gave me a very amusing instance of the insolence of the Belgian servants. She had a large family to bring up on a limited income, and had taken up her abode at Brussels. It should be observed that the Belgians treat their servants like dogs, and yet it is only with the Belgians that they will behave well. This lady, finding her expenses very much exceeding her means, so soon as she had been some time in the country, attempted a reformation. Inquiring of some Belgian families with whom she was acquainted what were the just proportions allowed by them to their servants, she attempted by degrees to introduce the same system. The first article of wasteful expenditure was bread, and she put them upon an allowance. The morning after she was awoke with a loud hammering in the saloon below, the reason of which she could not comprehend; but on going down to breakfast she found one of the long loaves made in the country nailed up with tenpenny nails over the mantelpiece. She sent to inquire who had done it, and one of the servants immediately replied that she had nailed it there that my lady might see that the bread did not go too fast.
There is another point on which the English abroad have long complained, and with great justice,—which is, that in every litigation or petty dispute which may appear before a smaller or more important tribunal, from the Juge de Paix to the Cour de Cassation, the verdict invariably is given against them. I never heard an instance to the contrary, although there may have been some. In no case can an Englishman obtain justice; the detention of his property without just cause, all that he considers as law and justice in his own country, is overruled: he is obliged to submit to the greatest insults, or consent to the greatest imposition. This is peculiarly, observable at Paris and Brussels, and it is almost a jour de fête to a large portion of the inhabitants when they hear that an Englishman has been thrown into prison. It must, however, be acknowledged that most of this arises not only from the wish of the rentiers, or those who live upon their means (who have these means crippled by the concourse of English raising the price of every article), that the English should leave and return to their own country; but also from the number of bad characters who, finding their position in society no longer tenable in England, hasten abroad, and, by their conduct, leave a most unfavourable impression of the English character, which, when Englishmen only travelled, stood high, but, now they reside to economise, is at its lowest ebb; for the only charm which the English had in the eyes of needy foreigners was their lavishing their money as they passed through the country, enriching a portion of the community without increasing the prices of consumption to the whole.
As a proof of the insolence to which the English are subjected, I will give the reader a verbatim copy of a letter sent to me by a friend not more than a year ago. I have heard of such a circumstance taking place in France, but then the innkeeper was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour; but this case is even more remarkable. Depend upon it, those who travel will find many a Monsieur Disch before they are at the end of their journey. I will vouch for the veracity of every word in the letter:—
“Wisbaden, July 3, 1836.