The American in Paris; vol. 2 of 2

by John Sanderson

The French women are nearer ugliness than beauty; but what women in the world can so dispense with beauty? Their cavaliers are handsomer, yet the exquisite creatures are loved just the same. I wonder if the peacock loves less his hen for the inferiority of her plumage, or she him the more for the elegance of his? The principal charm of a woman is not in the features; a lesson useful to be learnt. A turn-up nose once overturned the Harem, so says Marmontelle; Madame Cottin was an ugly thing, and yet killed two of her lovers; there are on record the examples of two women with only an eye each, who made the conquest of a king; La Vallière supplanted all her rivals, with a crooked foot. Ninon was not handsome, but who knows not the number of her victims? Self-flattery and the flatteries of admirers spoil pretty women, till at last, like sovereigns, they receive your homage as a tribute that is due, and enjoins no acknowledgment, and thereby they counteract the influence of their charms.—“But as I was saying—Pray, my dear, what was I saying?”—I will think of it to-morrow.

January 27th.

I cannot afford to give you all these sweetmeats at a single meal; I must serve you up a small portion for the dessert of each day. Ball the second. This was one of the most splendid and fashionable of the season; also a bal de charité—given at the theatre Ventadour a few nights ago. A great number of Carlist nobles having lost their pensions and places, by the disaster of Charles X., have become poor, and this was to comfort them with a little cash. The parterre and stage formed an area for the dancing, and an array of mirrors at the furthest end doubled to the eye its dimensions, and the number of the dancers.

It was a vast surface waving like the sea gently troubled; and the boxes, filled with ladies, exhibited the usual display of snowy necks, and glittering ornaments overhead. The saloon and lobbies too, adorned with little groves of shrubbery, had their full share of the multitude. Here was the late Speaker of the Commons, Sutton, now better named for a ball-room, my Lord Canterbury, and my Lady Canterbury; and here was Bulwer, brother of Bulwer; and Sir Sydney Smith and other knights from afar; and all the bel air of the Paris fashionables; not the old swarm of St. Germain, the Condés and Turennes, the Rochefoucaulds, Montausiers, Beauvilliers and Montespans; but all that Paris has now the most elegant and aristocratic.

Here was Madame la Duchesse de Guiche, and who can be more beautiful? And the Duchesse de Plaisance, airy and light as Taglioni; and the prettiest of all Belgian ambassadresses, Madame le Hon—coiffé à ravir. And the night went round in the dance, or in circulating through the room, or in sitting retired upon couches among the oranges and laurels, where sage philosophy looked on, and beauty bound the willing listeners in its spell. The music was loud and most exhilarating. In some parts of the house were all the comforts of elbowings, shufflings, crammings and squeezings, and on the outside all the racket that was possible of screaming women, and wrangling coachmen, from miles of carriages through every avenue. Some were arriving towards morning, and others have not arrived yet. This is the ball of the Ventadour.

We reached home just as Aurora was opening her curtains with her rosy fingers, and we crept into bed. The tickets were at twenty francs; ices, eau d’orgéat, and eau sucrée, were the amount of refreshments.

I have just room for a word of the Court Balls; and they are so much prettier than any thing else in the world, I am glad they come in last to your notice. They are held at the king’s palace, the Tuileries; where a long suite of rooms are opened into one, and filled with a stream of light so thick and transparent, that the men and women seem to swim in it as fish in their liquid element. Between three and four thousand persons are exposed to a single coup-d’œil; the men gorgeously attired in their court-dresses; the women in all the sweetness of the toilet.

It is impossible to look in here without recognising at once the justice of Parisian claims upon the empire of fashion. Here is the throne and sceptre of the many-coloured goddess; and here from every corner of the earth her courtiers come to do her homage.

The king, on entering, repeats nearly the same ceremony as at his “Reception” of the new year; others of the royal family follow his example. A pair of cavaliers at length lead out the two princesses, and the ball begins through the whole area of the rooms.

To see so many persons, elegantly and richly attired at once entangled in the dance; crossing, pursuing and overtaking each other; now at rest, now in movement; and seeming to have no other movement than that communicated by the music; and to see a hundred couples whirling around in the waltz, with airy feet that seem scarce to kiss the slippery boards; first flushed and palpitating; then wearying by degrees and retiring, to the last pair, to the last one—and she the most healthful, graceful and beautiful of the choir, her partner’s arm sustaining her taper waist, foot against foot, knee against knee, in simultaneous movement, turns and turns, till nature at length overcome, she languishes, she faints, she dies!—A scene of such excitement and brilliancy, you will easily excuse my modesty for not attempting to describe.