The American in Paris; vol. 2 of 2

by John Sanderson

I will go back to my original text, and try to be sensible. I did wish to decline to-day all that required reflection; I am also no great professor in this kind of lore, but I find no other subject.—Evening visits and gossipings have now taken place of the tipsy rompings of the carnival. The midnight orgies are hushed, and the blazing tapers and glittering gems are quenched until the return of a new year. Society has put on a light, easy, and decorous garb, which it will wear for the rest of the season; fashion rigorously forbidding any departure from its chaste simplicity.

Conversation is now the main object of social intercourse, and every thing is made to contribute to its enjoyment. It is admitted by those who are best able to judge, that the Paris “Réunions” of this season, form the very best school that is known of colloquial accomplishment; and that they have a charm which other nations have not found the secret of communicating to such pastimes. The largest share of this praise is, of course, due to the women. Whether it be the language, better suited than ours to conversation, or a constitutional gaiety, or vanity, which is so much more amiable than pride, I know not; but a well bred Frenchwoman is certainly the most agreeable creature of which the world has any example.

I have often seen between me and the heaven of a fine woman’s face in America, an impracticable distance—a bright star in the firmament, which one must be content to worship, without the hope of ever reaching its elevation. I have often been confounded so, in my tenderer years, by the awfulness of American dignity, as to be afraid of my own voice; and I have often felt in the presence of a lady—as if made by a carpenter.

Such a feeling, in the humanity and gentleness of French affability, is unknown. You breathe freely, and retain the natural use of your faculties, physical and intellectual. A Frenchwoman’s politeness levels every distinction; the modest man is relieved of his diffidence, and the humble raised to self-esteem, by her gracious civilities; and a lady of elevated rank always strips herself, before an ordinary mortal, of her rays, that he may approach her without being consumed. Nor does the Frenchwoman lose anything of her dignity in this familiarity; she speaks with kindness, and even affection to her servants, and yet is secure of their respect and obedience.

I have come into the opinion that a lady has no occasion to bristle up her crest in defence of her quality, or bring around it the protection of reserve or haughtiness; and that her honour, unless the garrison is corrupt, is safe in its natural defences.—It is not necessary to say that under such good instruction the French gentlemen are also highly polished and amiable. There is not one of them who does not set apart some portion of the twenty-four hours for social amusement, and it is the evening, when the mind is weary of business or study, that most requires such relaxations.

In the evening, then, all the world is abroad; and it is reasonable to suppose that wit must have attained its highest degree of pungency, and style every ingredient of perfection, with such advantages. A Frenchman’s ambition is to shine, and he comes armed at all points, exactly cap-a-pie for the occasion; above all, he takes care that the stimulus of ardent liquors, and a heavy indigestible meal at the dinner table, may not for the rest of the day blunt the edge of his vivacity and enjoyment.

I have seen a few of these parties, enough to judge of the rest. Each house is “at home,” at least once a-week, and the invitations are general for the season, or occasional, and the regular guests have the privilege of bringing a friend. I went last night to Civiale’s, the eminent surgeon’s. One room was filled with miscellaneous company, another with gentlemen only, at billiards, &c.

All was in a buzz of merriment, and without any show of ceremonious restraint—all was “fortuitous elegance, and unstudied grace,” and this is one of Johnson’s definitions of happiness. “Come to-morrow night,” said C——, “and you will hear one of your countrywomen play; her talent is not second to any lady’s of Paris.”—Who is she? from Boston.—I have said nothing of the American “soirées” here, which are nearly as at home, but more lively; I suppose from the contagious example, and from the natural warmth of a friendly meeting in a foreign country. To a stranger who arrives, they are at once a consolation and an enjoyment; and it is to be hoped that a vicious emulation of sumptuousness, every day increasing, may not disturb their frequency and cordiality.

The furniture of fashionable rooms here is more tasteful, and usually more elegant than in our richest houses. The propriety of colours, and the harmony of arrangement, and such things are with many persons the study of a whole life. Richness is the praise of the English dames, and chasteness and concinnity of the French.

In England where primogeniture preserves property indivisible, a house is furnished from a remote antiquity, and there is encouragement to taste and expense; but what motive is there to furnish in our country, where Joseph has as much as Reuben, and where the next day after the owner’s decease, the furniture encounters the auctioneer’s hammer; and where fashion, too, turns a house wrong side out every six years. Besides, what serves it to put costly years. Besides, what serves it to put costly sums upon what is destined to be scraped and cut up by one’s dozen of spoilt children, or to be carved into notches by one’s cousins of Kentucky?