Another writes:—
“Le part qu’ont les femmes au sérieux et à la mélancolie nationale en les rendant sédentaire, les attache à leurs maris, à leurs enfans, et à leur ménage.”
Le Blanc remarks, with a touch of wounded vanity—
“Most of those who among us pass for men of good fortune in amours, would with difficulty succeed in addressing an English fair. She would not sooner be subdued by the insinuating softness of their jargon than by the amber with which they are perfumed.”
Naturally a Frenchman thought his own countrywomen more attractive—
“The women in France are not so reserved as in England; but we find charms in their company which those of this country have not. The one, by their awkwardness, have the defect of making virtue itself disagreeable; the others, more engaging, have often the pernicious art of making vice seem amiable.”
There were those who complained that in France—
“women have too much boldness, and are scarcely women. The continual commerce between the sexes causes, as it were, an exchange of characters which makes each sex derogate something from its proper character. They (the women) drink hard at table, and do it agreeably. They understand gaming as well as men. They go a-hunting with men, and come so near to men in everything that they are scarcely women.”
What would have been thought of the modern Englishwoman who rides to hounds, wears masculine, tailor-made clothes, and shares the serious occupations as well as the amusements of the male sex, it is needless to discuss. In the last century pursuits that are now quite common, and pass without notice, were thought extravagantly fast, while our ancestors tolerated a licence of manners and speech that we, in our turn, should repudiate.
There was considerable difference between the manners and habits of town dwellers and those living in the country. An article in The Female Spectator, in 1745, recounts a country lady’s experiences on her first visit to London, and her amazement at the habits of London folk. She went to call on an old acquaintance with whom she had at one time been extremely intimate:—