CHAPTER II
PARIS AND PARISIANISM
The exaggerated Parisianism of the foreigners who settle in Paris is one of the things the French of to-day profess to resent; it is one of the reasons of the great Nationalist cry, “France for the French!” as the Chinese yell more murderously, “China for the Chinese!” Such a feeling of resentment ignores the tribute paid by these foreigners to the indescribable charm and fascination of Paris. For it is not the affairs of France that the foreigners meddle with, but exclusively those of Paris. The provinces are much like other provinces, and you might live therein a half-century and fail to find out that there was anything particularly catching in French politics,—anything absorbing in the questions of the hour. I have known foreigners established for years in Florence, in Venice, in Rome, who have never once opened an Italian newspaper; who take not the slightest interest in anything that concerns Italy beyond that which picturesque Italian peasants and noble stones may inspire. Not so with this bewitching and exacting Paris. Everything here combines to force your powers of resistance; and while you are musing in the Louvre or the Musée de Cluny, behold, the roar of revolution is heard without, and down the solemn halls must you hurry into the blithe air,—forgetful of past, of dreams, of historic associations, of sentimental reveries in front of Leonardo’s “Gioconda,” to learn the latest whim of a petulant city, to learn the latest black deed of whichever party you have come to detest as a personal enemy.
Elsewhere will you meet architectural effects more beautiful,—quaint old streets a thousand times more captivating, reaches of river more lovely and more strange,—but nowhere else will you find modern life unrolling in an atmosphere of such beguilement, set in a frame of such large and harmonious beauty. Nowhere else will you find the very poorest in a measure to be envied, since even they, with a little good will and an eye to look about and enjoy, may make something cheerful of their lives by reason of their environment. The perspective of starvation is not an agreeable one anywhere on earth, but surely a dry crust may be not altogether ungratefully munched walking along the quays of Paris, with those broad sweeps of lines and hues of enchantment upon either horizon; and something not unlike a step of delight may be danced along the joyous, noisy “Boul’ Mich’” with an empty pocket, even if one be the victim of the remorseless term-day, or have no prospect but the shelter of the doss-house at night. For there is no squalor in Paris, no griminess, and penury itself is decent, discreet, admirably self-respecting; and even drunkenness, though of a far more perilous character, if we are to believe the newspaper reports, than in London, abstains from the revolting outrages against sight and hearing we are accustomed to in the cities of the British Isles. To be poor in London is to be the poorest of poor devils upon the globe, for there life offers you no compensation. You live in such a slum as the Parisian eye has never gazed upon; the faces around you are sour or bloated, according to temperament and habits. There is no lightness of air, no brilliance of perspective, to distract the eye from the inward contemplation of daily misery, unless you put on your hat and trudge endless miles to get a glimpse of the long, bright boulevard of Piccadilly, or the sophisticated wonders of the Strand. The attractions of these I willingly admit, and own the Strand, on a wet, lamp-lit winter’s evening, to be a beautiful, strange vision of grandeur and diversity. But then how far these all are from the slums, and the way in London is long, and if your pocket is empty, how are you to get on the top of an omnibus to enjoy a change of view?
But in Paris, should your pocket be empty and your room sordid, you need only saunter into the clear, vivacious air to find yourself within walking distance of every charming point of the radiant city. Between her broad and winding river, Paris lies, a two-volumed tale of romance; on every leaf, as you turn it, matters for musing and rapture, life around you full to overflowing,—the life that has been lived still vivid to remembrance, not clothed in sadness, but in the gracious gaiety of tradition. The scenes of dead hours are animated with floating suggestions. In the Marais, with all these neat, alert workwomen, well hosed, hair alluringly dressed, contented with their lot, which is laborious and frugal, so long as they can brighten it with laughter and the customary joys of beautiful objects which abound here on all sides,—who is to weep for the days of old, and the great historic dames who made its ancient glory? You remember the great ladies of yore, and you are thankful for the sight of the sympathetic workwomen of to-day, and greet them with a tributary smile. For it is the women of Paris who create the better part of its living charm, whether in the populous quarters, where they toss their morning greetings to each other, or to their swains, along the freshly awakened faubourgs and clean streets, with their shining runlets of water which you must dexterously jump, by broad boulevard and acacia avenues; or, later in the day, in the regions of luxury and millions, where the sirens of fashion, arrayed with a taste Solomon never dreamed of at the time sacred tradition supposes him to have envied the lily of the field, corollas emerging from exquisite sheaths, with the plumage of paradise upon their frivolous heads, pass and repass on their mission of smiling destruction, of ruthless rivalry, of scented glory. As well dream of a city of London without its trousered armies, rushing on the wings of time in pursuit of gold, as try to imagine a Paris with woman dethroned. She holds all the strong places; she vivifies the town from the old Place of the Bastille to the heights of Montmartre, where the texture and trimming of her garments is the topic of the hour; and men gather on the boulevards at the hour of absinthe, in devout expectation of seeing her pass by. Whether they discuss politics or art, be certain she is at the bottom of all their talk. The talk is assuredly not of the most respectful kind, nor is the attitude of Parisians to her such as we could with accuracy describe as clean or chivalrous, but they give to her what she, light-minded as she is, demands,—their full attention, a consideration of her charms, her dress, her vagaries, her virtues, her vices,—an attention that never wanders, the most generous measure of contempt, admiration, eternal gratitude, and eternal faithlessness that the perversest witch ever clamoured for. Such is her power that I am tempted to believe that if her ideal were a high, instead of a low, one, she might invent a type of Parisian very different from the well-known boulevardier and hero of French romance. But alas! this is her failing. She has no other ideal than that of ruling by the senses, and mastering the worst in man by the worst in herself. The ideal in her is wrecked on the alluring rock of her own making,—dress, for which she lives, and without which Paris would not be the Paris we know; and, being frail and human and sadly silly, as the best of us are,—Heaven be praised!—we admire even when we would fain deplore.
The finest impression the life of London leaves on memory is that of the wealthy quarters. The pageant of Rotten Row is unforgetable. The splendid roll of life and movement along Piccadilly, the bright impressiveness of Park Lane, of those squares of lofty town palaces, give such a notion of privilege and purse as may be had on no other spot of the globe. But the happiest and most lasting impression of Paris lies in the poor and populous quarters. Who in memory dwells most on the magnificence of the Champs Elysées? Who in after years, remembering Paris, cares about all the luxury of the Park Monceau, with its fashionable and expensive avenues? But what we do remember, with pleasure and surprise, are the agreeable aspects of labour, of every-day life, of outdoor breathing, the variety, labour, vivacity, and insistent beauty, at every turn, of public existence. It is the delights of street study which hold our imagination enthralled. In Paris we realise that the Revolution has indeed brought about something very near to human equality, since here the poorest know and love the feeling of independence, and we understand the world to be made for them and not exclusively, as in London, for the privileged few. Here aristocracy is an incident in social existence, and any attempts at insolence or haughty airs, which thrill to admiration the soul of the British burgess and small shopkeeper, would in this democratic Paris speedily bring insult on the head of the offender. The Parisian workman will “Monsieur-le-Comte” the aristocrat to his liking, but Monsieur le Comte must mind his manners and be careful not to trespass. He took his head off once, and he hopes that will prove enough, not being more bloodthirsty than his own interests and privileges demand. Who can consistently pity a populace, however hard it may work, and however ill it may feed, that has the right of way along such well-kept thoroughfares; that has such fine statuary and elegant architecture to keep it in good humour! Who is really poor that may refresh his eye upon the terrace of the Tuileries, across the Concorde Place, and take his airing along the boulevards, or in the lovely, old-fashioned Luxembourg Gardens? What point of Paris is dull to look at? Where are the shop-fronts that do not fascinate? Take even one of those old aristocratic streets of the noble Faubourg Varenne, or of Saint Dominique. At first glimpse it looks a long, dull harmony of stone,—a uniform grey, with high emblazoned gates and closed lodges. But note the peeps into flowery old courtyards, the charming tufts of garden foliage lifting their green branches above the high walls. Glance down the sudden break in the street, where a kind of tall walled terrace runs, trellised, rich in leafage, as silent as the street of a dead city, where wealth shelters itself from envy by its tone of subdued and sober elegance. And yet it is not more trim than are the haunts of commerce, the abodes of labour. Who would not envy the flower-women of the Quai des Fleurs, with their glorious vista of stone and waterway? The curving Seine, ribboned round its beautiful old island, grey-walled, upon the river’s brink; the spire of the Sainte Chapelle, painted gold, upon a soft or brilliant sky, and the magnificent gates of the Palace of justice, as much theirs as are the rich man’s priceless possessions in his own house. The pleasure of possession alone is lacking in their enjoyments; but they miss its anxieties, and they have not to pay for the keeping in order of all those splendours upon which their eyes daily repose.
To talk of taste in connection with Paris seems as unnecessary to-day as to speak of coals in Newcastle. And yet it is the prevalence of taste everywhere that perpetually surprises inhabitants of less privileged places. Whatever these people do, whatever they make, whatever they wear, the result is pleasing to the eye. If the picturesque is not always achieved, be sure neatness is. Give a poor woman an old skirt or bodice, and instantly will she go home, take it to pieces, and make a new skirt or bodice out of it that will gladden the eye, once upon her. So in her modest way will she improve the general view, and freshen up a porter’s lodge or little doorway. It is by the united action of all those various devices of a race of unerring taste and an indestructible sense of neatness, that Paris, in all its open corners, and byways, and thoroughfares, is, by outward manifestations, the home of permanent and unchequered grace and suavity.
It is a particularly pleasant feature of Parisian life that people of small means can live both decently and economically there. Of course, economy is the chief virtue of the race; and though it would be difficult to name a less attractive one, because of its close alliance to avarice and meanness, it deserves our respect because of its national significance. To it do we owe the exterior neatness of person and home, the tidiness of the poorest interior of Paris. Where else but in Paris will you find a concierge living with her family in one small room and a kitchen just large enough to turn in, and able to preserve that space scrupulously clean, inoffensive to sight and smell, with not so much as an article of clothing hanging about, nor a speck of dust visible, nor an ornament or chair disturbed? I have not penetrated into the ragpicker’s City of the Sun, about which Maxime du Camp wrote so eloquently in the Revue des deux Mondes some years ago; but I have no doubt that even in that elemental nest of humanity I should find orderliness, as far as it is compatible with the ragpicker’s trade, to be the general law. Does not M. de Haussonville, in his Enfance à Paris, assure us, after repeated visits to the doss-houses of London and Paris, that the striking difference between these fugitive shelters for the refuse of mankind in both capitals is a certain dim striving towards cleanliness and taste noticeable in the Parisian outcast, and utterly lacking in the London pariah? The impartial traveller, who knows little of France and French characteristics, will have no difficulty in believing this when he crosses the Channel, and the first thing his eye encounters in London is the frowsy female, with horrid bonnet or atrocious hat and feathers askew, hateful alcoholic visage, and sordid frippery all in tatters. Need one follow the squalid and ghastly vision to its lair to guess the conditions of its dwelling, the habits of its home? There are many blessings France might fittingly borrow of England and be the better for them, but we cannot deny that England, the mightiest empire of the world, would be improved by imitation of French exterior decency. It would brush from English public life many a brazen horror. The love-making of the masses would then be relegated to the privacy of four walls, and we would not see at every turn of our path Harry and his girl with their arms round each other’s waist, or giggling girls in omnibuses sitting on soldiers’ knees, or sights far worse than these, that scare the virtuous and make foreigners stare.
It is a settled thing that Paris is the home of vice. French novels of the day attest this fact; so do the lyrics of the halls of pleasure, where that decadent songstress, Yvette Guilbert (admired of decadent London), offers the strangest entertainment that ever delighted mankind in search of distraction; so, above all, do the songs of the unpublished poets of Montmartre, who fondly and seriously take themselves for misprized genius in the lump, and pose as so many Verlaines. Yet nothing in Paris offends the eye of the casual lounger through its streets as the eye is offended constantly in London. In Paris you have to look for manifestations of wickedness, and then it is known that you will find them in abundance, but they are not thrust under your nose at every street corner. You may walk the streets and boulevards at the small hours of the morning, or in the full glare of evening gas, or in the gathering gloom of midnight, when the lights are being put out, and if nobody assassinates you, you risk no evil sight or sound. There are quarters, we know from the daily papers, where vile creatures of both sexes group themselves for the peril of the passer-by, where blood is shed, and hideous language befouls the air, but these lie off the travelled highways of the city; and if you never read a newspaper, you might live for fifty years in Paris and never suspect that such a thing as crime took place within its fortifications.
Rents in Paris are comparatively high, and space is precious; hence the exiguity of the average home of the middle and lower classes. Spare rooms are unknown, and closets and presses must be packed with the nicest precision. But it is surprising how soon one becomes reconciled to want of room in a French flat, and in how short a time one learns to pity the London householder—above all his wife and servants—for his superfluity of chambers. Once you have climbed up the stairs of your flat, there is no more climbing, no futile running up and down stairs. Everything is at hand. You walk from your dining-room into your salon and across a level floor into your bedroom; and it needs no excessive labour to keep all things straight, and polished, and spotless. If you are fond of experimental cooking and light housework, you can dispense with the trouble and cost of a servant; avail yourself of the services of a femme de ménage, in a land where women of the people are admirably competent and honest, and potter about your doll’s-kitchen to your liking. Fuel you will find much cheaper than in London, thanks to the little charcoal furnaces in enamel fireplaces, which can be lit and extinguished at will, at a nominal expense. And so a poor lady, a teacher, or a student, can live respectably and agreeably in Paris on an income that would mean squalor and misery in London. A flat consisting of three bright rooms, a kitchen, several presses, a closet large enough to stow away endless boxes in, and serve as well as a hanging-clothes closet, plenty of water, and excellent sanitary arrangements may be had in an enviable spot, with pleasant outlook and good entrance, for six hundred francs a year (£24); a femme de ménage who will cook, market, mend, and clean up as a French woman knows how, for six sous (threepence) an hour; and if you treat her fairly well and secure her loyalty, she will give you devotion and friendship, as well as excellent service and amazingly intelligent speech. For here you need never be at the expense or trouble of cooking complicated dishes. These are sold at the pastry-cook’s or the baker’s for considerably less than they will cost you at home; so that you can live well and keep your household bills within your means, even if meat in Paris be dear. And then, when you want amusement, should your income not permit of frequent theatre-going what need to open your purse? You have but to open your house door, and emerge upon the public Place. On a summer afternoon or evening a ride on the top of an omnibus or tram is better entertainment than that offered by many a theatre in London. A walk through old Paris, or along the ever lovely quays, is refreshment enough for eye and fancy. Three sous will take you from the Madeleine to the Bastille; and where is it you may not go from the Bastille for another three sous? If the chestnuts are in bloom, on foot, or on the impériale of a public vehicle, in imagination you are wandering through your own avenues; and you really have little envy for the rich in their cushioned victorias. This is why I contend that the philosopher of either sex, whose purse is light and whose tastes are frugal, can make shift with less in Paris than elsewhere; can live and be infinitely happier there on small means than in London. So much beauty is provided for him gratis, that he must be a churl who can spend his time in moaning and whining because his private walls are undecorated, or costly carpets do not cover his floors. Let him go to the Louvre or Cluny Museum when the fit takes him, and count himself a king without the cost and care of sovereignty. Let him sit in the Tuileries, and call them his private gardens while he feeds the sparrows; let him loaf among the book-stalls of the Seine, and leisurely turn the pages of books he means not to buy. Where will he better such luxuries, even at his own price, if fortune stepped his way? In London, poverty is galling because there is no escape from its meannesses and its miseries. That is why the poor in London may be pardoned for taking to drink. That seems the only door, for it would need that a poor man living in a London slum should be very drunk indeed to find beauty of any kind in his environment. But poverty in Paris may be found both amusing and instructive. I am not sure that it is not the poor, the needy, the small clerk, the overworked teacher, the shop-girl, the underfed student, who do not get the best of Paris; feel to the fullest measure its common joys, which lie not in wait for the rich and worldly. These are in too great a hurry between their amusements and frivolities, their dress, their precarious triumphs, their fugitive passions and idle loves, the consuming cares of social ostentation and rivalry, to understand Paris, to seize the thousand-and-one delights of its streets and squares and river-bends, to realise how much enjoyment may be got out of an hour in the Luxembourg or Tuileries Gardens, of a penny run down the river to Auteuil, and from Auteuil to Suresnes. When I read a fashionable Parisian novel, where the titled heroine, doubly veiled, is invariably driving in a fiacre to a perfumed and luxurious bachelor’s entresol, in a house with two exits; and the hero, when he is not in an elegant “smoking” costume, is making most fatiguing love to his neighbour’s wife in evening dress, I am always very sorry for these misguided creatures, and think how much better employed they would be, how much happier and high-spirited they might be, if they only went down the river in a penny boat, or watched the children play, and fed the sparrows in some dear nook of the enchanting public grounds of Paris.