The American in Paris; vol. 1 of 2

by John Sanderson

Peaches, and apples, and melons, are not to be spoken of, in comparison with ours; but cherries, plums, and especially pears, are in great variety and abundance; and the fine grapes of Fontainebleau are eight cents per pound. In England, they have all the fruits of the Indies in the noblemen’s hot-houses; but who can buy them? There are men there who have the conscience to pay £150 for the fruits of a breakfast. “The strawberries at my Lady Stormont’s, last Saturday, cost £150,” says Hannah More. But I must bridle in my muse: she is getting a fit of statistics.

If a gentleman comes to Paris in the dog days, when his countrymen are spread over Europe, at watering places, and elsewhere, and when every soul of a Frenchman is out of town—if he is used to love his friends at home, and be loved by them, and to see them gather around him in the evenings—let him not set a foot in that unnatural thing, a bachelor’s apartment in a furnished hotel, to live alone, to eat alone, and to sleep alone! If he does, let him take leave of his wife and children, and settle his affairs.

Nor let him seek company at the Tavern Ordinary; here the guest arrives just at the hour, hangs up his hat, sits down in his usual place, crosses his legs, runs his fingers through his hair, dines, and then disappears, all the year round, without farther acquaintance. But let him look out a “Pension,” having an amiable landlady, or, which is the same, amiable lodgers. He will become domiciliated here after some time, and find some relief from one of the trying situations of life. You know nothing yet, happily, of the solitude, the desolation, of a populous city to a stranger. How often did I wish, during the first three months, for a cot by the side of some hoar hill of the Mahonoy. Go to a “Pension,” especially if you are a sucking child, like me, in the ways of the world; and the lady of the house, usually a pretty woman, will feel it enjoined upon her humanity to counsel and protect you, and comfort you, or she will manage an acquaintance between you and some countess or baroness, who lodges with her, or at some neighbour’s.

I live now with a most spiritual little creature; she tells me so many obliging lies, and no offensive truths, which I take to be the perfection of politeness in a landlady; and she admits me to her private parties—little family “réunions”—where I play at loto with Madame Thomas, and her three amiable daughters, just for a little cider, or cakes, or chestnuts, to keep up the spirit of the play; and then we have a song, a solo on the violin, or harp, and then a dance; and, finally, we play at little games, which inflict kisses, embraces, and other such penalties.

French people are always so merry; whatever be the amusement, they never let conversation flag, and I don’t see any reason why it should. One, for example, begins to talk of Paris, then the Passage Panorama, then of Mrs. Alexander’s fine cakes, and then the pretty girl that sits behind the counter, and then of pretty girls that sit anywhere; and so one just lets oneself run with the association of ideas, or one makes a digression from the main story, and returns or not, just as one pleases. A Frenchman is always a mimic, an actor, and all that nonsense which we suffer to go to waste in our country, he economises for the enjoyment of society.

I am settled down in the family; I am adopted; the lady gives me, to be sure, now and then “a chance,” as she calls it, of a ticket in a lottery (“the only one left”) of some distinguished lady now reduced, or some lady who has had three children, where one never draws anything; or “a chance” of conducting her and a pretty cousin of hers, who has taken a fancy to me, to the play, who adores the innocency of American manners, and hates the dissipation of the French.

Have you never felt the pleasure of letting yourself be duped? Have you never felt the pleasure of letting your little bark float down the stream when you knew the port lay the other way. I look upon all this as a cheap return for the kindnesses I have so much need of; I am anxious to be cheated, and the truth is, if you do not let a French landlady cheat you now and then, she will drop your acquaintance. Never dispute any small items overcharged in her monthly bill, or she that was smooth as the ermine, will be suddenly bristled as the porcupine; and why, for the sake of limiting some petty encroachment upon your purse, should you turn the bright heaven of her pretty face into a hurricane?

Your actions should always leave a suspicion that you are rich, and then you are sure she will anticipate every want and wish you may have with the liveliest affection; she will be all ravishment at your successes; she will be in an abyss of chagrin at your disappointments. Helas! oh, mon Dieu! and if you cry, she will cry with you! We love money well enough in America, but we do not feel such touches of human kindness, and cannot work ourselves up into such fits of amiability for those who have it. I do not say it is hypocrisy; a French woman really does love you if you have a long purse; and if you have not (I do not say it is hypocrisy neither) she really does hate you.

A great advantage to a French landlady is the sweetness and variety of her smile—a quality in which French women excel universally. Our Madam Gibou keeps her little artillery at play during the whole of the dinner time, and has brought her smile under such a discipline as to suit it exactly to the passion to be represented, or the dignity of the person with whom she exchanges looks.

You can tell any one who is in arrears as if you were her private secretary, or the wealth and liberality of a guest better than his banker, by her smile. If it be a surly knave who counts the pennies with her, the little thing is strangled in its birth; and if one who owes his meals, it miscarries altogether; and for a mere visiter she lets off one worth only three francs and a half; but if a favourite, who never looks into the particulars of her bill, and takes her lottery tickets, then you will see the whole heaven of her face in a blaze, and it does not expire suddenly, but like the fine twilight of a summer evening, dies away gently on her lips.