The typical Parisian fair, the chic fair, is held at Neuilly.
In April, when the Avenue de Vincennes, the Boulevard [p052] Voltaire, and the Faubourg Saint Antoine are decorated with rows of white stalls, the cold winter wind still sweeps over the earth, rushes through the wide streets, carrying with it clouds of dust, blusters through the fair, filling the canvas of the booths like sails on the sea, powdering the gingerbread stalls as it passes; then in rough leaps, as though driven by a whip, forms dusty columns in the air, and rising several feet above the ground triumphantly waves the flags above the booths and roundabouts.
It makes the evenings too chilly for sauntering about, hands in pocket, under the illuminations produced by the waving [p053] lanterns and the flickering gaslights! one feels too cold to care for amusement or refreshments. And therefore when after dinner the frequenters of the cafés on the boulevards hail the club coupés, they never dream, as the door is closed on the still wintry toilettes of their companions, of saying to the coachman, “To the Fair du Trône.”
They turn to the concerts and the circus. There is too much chilly darkness, too long a drive through the deserted boulevards, between the dinner and the suburban fête. The exhilaration produced by champagne and laughter would die on the way.
Neuilly is the evening fair. It opens in the heart of summer, [p054] in the full tide of that excessive heat which renders the drawing-room and theatre equally unbearable to those Parisians who wait for the month of August before they go to the sea, and who live in tea-gowns, fan in hand, sipping ices and lemons, behind their closed Venetian shutters. Like passengers in the tropics, who watch for the setting sun before they go on deck, these pretty women reclining in their bamboo chairs, impatiently follow the course of the clock-hands, so slowly travelling towards five o’clock. At that hour they get up, and in the semi-light of the dressing-room, with lowered blinds and wide-open windows, they leisurely array themselves in fresh and scented toilettes. They are going to dine in the open air, on the terrace of some restaurant in the Bois. Capes and mantles are too heavy during this month, and a young woman can go out without any wrap hiding her charming dress; she only carries a small shawl and one of those parasols, which, itself brilliant as a flower, enhances the effect of the whole toilette and, whilst intercepting the sun’s rays, throws most becoming shadows on the face.
Then about six o’clock, at the doors of the Ministries and all along the Quai d’Orsay, a line of light, open carriages may be seen, in which young women have come to fetch husband or lover, soothing their impatience for the hour of freedom by noting the admiring glances of the passers-by. And when at last the lingerers appear in grey hat, white waistcoat, short coat and smart buttonhole, the couples lounging back in their carriages, drive through the Avenue des Champs Elysées, towards the summer restaurants and the shade of the Bois. The Pavillon d’Armenonville reaps the greatest [p055] advantages from the vicinity of the fair. The orchestra of the Tzigane Rigo, hidden in the gardens of the pavillon, first attracts the notice of the passers-by; they draw near, lean over the hedge, and look in to see if any one is seated at the little tables.
“See, there is so-and-so, and so-and-so, C——— and B———.” Political and literary men, artists, financiers, women of both worlds, the recognized and the unrecognized, the Luxembourg, the Palais Bourbon, the theatre, the newspapers, the drawing-room, and boudoirs. The guests seat themselves under the verandah, to watch the carriages drive up. The table-napkins are dazzling in their snowy whiteness against the green leafy trees, the ice melts in the silver bowls, and the freshly cut cucumbers resemble aquatic leaves, torn from the pond of [p056] water lilies, which we only glimpse at through the hanging branches of the willows.