Is Polite Society Polite? and Other Essays

by Julia Ward Howe

Paris.

AN old woman's tale will always begin with a reminiscence of some period more or less remote.

In accordance with this law of nature, I find that I cannot begin to speak of Paris without going back to the projection which the fashions and manners of that ancient capital were able to cast upon my own native city of New York. My recollections of the latter reach back, let me say, to the year 1826. I was then seven years old; and, beginning to take notice of things around me, I saw the social eminences of the day lit up with the far-off splendors of Parisian taste.

To speak French with ease was, in those days, considered the most desirable of accomplishments. The elegance of French manners was commended in all polite circles. The services of General Lafayette were held up to children as deserving their lifelong remembrance and gratitude.

But the culmination of the Gallomania was seen in the millinery of the period; and I must confess that my earliest views of this were enjoyed within the precincts of a certain Episcopal sanctuary which then stood first upon the dress-list, and, like Jove among the gods, without a second. This establishment retained its pre-eminence of toilet for more than thirty years after the time of which I speak, and perhaps does so still. I have now lived so long in Boston that I should be obliged to consult New York authorities if I wished to be able to say decidedly whether the well-known Grace Church of that city still deserves to be called "The Church of the Holy Milliner." A little child's fancy naturally ran riot in a field of bonnets so splendid and showy, and, however admonished to listen to the minister, I am afraid that a raid upon the flowers and plumes so lavishly displayed before me would have offered more attractions to my tender mind than any itinerary of the celestial journey of which I should have been likely to hear in that place.

The French dancing-master of that period taught us gambols and flourishes long since banished from the domain of social decorum. Being light and alert, I followed his prescriptions with joy, and learned with patience the lessons set me by the French mistress, who, while leading us through Florian's tales and La Fontaine's fables, did not forget to impress upon us her conviction that to be French was to be virtuous, but to be Parisian was to be perfect.

Let me now pass on to the years of my youngladyhood, when New York reflected Paris on a larger scale. The distinguished people of the society to which my youth was related either had been to Paris or expected to go there very shortly. Our circles were sometimes electrified by the appearance of a well-dressed and perfumed stranger, wearing the moustache which was then strictly contraband in the New York business world, and talking of manners and customs widely different from our own.

These elegant gentlemen were sometimes adventurers in pursuit of a rich wife, sometimes intelligent and well-informed travellers, and sometimes the agents of some foreign banking-house, for the drummer was not yet invented. If they were furnished with satisfactory credentials, the fathers of Gotham introduced them into their domestic circle, usually warning their daughters never to think of them as husbands,—a warning which, naturally, would sometimes defeat its own object.

I must here be allowed to say one word concerning the French novel, which, since that time, has here and there affected the tone of our society. In the days of which I speak, brothers who returned from Europe brought with them the romances of Balzac and Victor Hugo, which their sisters surreptitiously read. We heard also with a sort of terror of George Sand, the evil woman, who wrote such somnambulic books. We pictured to ourselves the wicked delight of reading them; and presently some friend confidentially lent us the forbidden volumes, which our Puritan nurture and habit of life did much to render harmless and not quite clear in meaning.

I should say that the works of Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Sue had each exerted an appreciable influence upon the social atmosphere of this country. Of these four, Balzac was the least popular, having long been known only to readers acquainted with the French language. George Sand first became widely recognized through her "Consuelo." Victor Hugo's popular fame dates from "Les Miserables," and "The Mysteries of Paris" opened the doors to Eugène Sue, and Rigolette and Fleur de Marie, new types of character to most of us, appeared upon the stage.