From the National Library we drove to the Athenée, a library and lecture institution, supported by voluntary subscription. It is much of the same nature as an institution of a similar kind in London, termed the British Institute; but the French Athenæum has infinitely the advantage. The subscription is cheaper, being about four Louis annually, and the lectures are more elegant, if not more scientific. There are usually three lectures daily; the first on sciences, and the other two on belles lettres. The lecture on science is considered as very able, but those on the belles lettres were merely suited, as I understood, to French frivolity. The rooms were so full as to render our stay unpleasant, and we thereby lost an anatomy lecture, which was about to commence. I should not forget to mention, that all the Parisian journals and magazines, and many of the German periodical works, were lying on the tables, and the library seemed altogether as complete as it was comfortable. The subscribers are numerous, and the institution itself in fashion. How long it will so last, no one will venture to predict.
The library of the Pantheon and that of the Institute finished our morning's occupation. They are both on the same scale and nearly on the same general plan as the National Library. The library of the Institute, however, is only open to foreigners and the members of the Institute. The Institute holds its sitting every month, and, according to all report, is then frivolous enough. I had not an opportunity of being present at one of these sittings, but from what I heard, I did not much regret my disappointment.
We returned home to dress for dinner. Mr. Younge informed, me, that he expected a very large party in the evening, chiefly French, and as his lady herself was a French woman, and had arranged her domestic establishment accordingly, I felt some curiosity.
About eight, or nearer nine, Mr. Younge and myself, with two or three other of the dinner company, were summoned up to the drawing-room. The summons itself had something peculiar. The doors of the parlour, which were folding, were thrown open, and two female attendants, dressed like vestals, and holding torches of white wax, summoned us by a low curtsey, and preceded us up the great staircase to the doors of the anti-chamber, where they made another salutation, and took their station on each side. The anti-chamber was filled with servants, who were seated on benches fixed to the wall, but who did not rise on our entry. Some of them were even playing at cards, others at dominos, and all of them seemed perfectly at their ease. The anti-chamber opened by an arched door-way into an handsome room, lighted by a chandelier of the most brilliant cut glass; the pannels of the room were very tastily painted, and the glasses on each side very large, and in magnificent frames. The further extremity of this room opened by folding doors into the principal drawing-room, where the company were collected. It was brilliantly lighted, as well by patent lamps, as by a chandelier in the middle. The furniture had a resemblance to what I had seen in fashionable houses in England. The carpet was of red baize with a Turkish border, and figured in the middle like an harlequin's jacket. The principal novelty was a blue ribbon which divided the room lengthways, the one side of it being for the dancers, the other for the card-players. The ribbon was supported at proper distances by white staves, similar to those of the court ushers.
The ball had little to distinguish it from the balls of England and America, except that the ladies danced with infinitely more skill, and therefore with more grace. The fashionable French dancing is exactly that of our operas. They are all figurantes, and care not what they exhibit, so as they exhibit their skill. I could not but figure to myself the confusion of an English girl, were she even present at a French assembly. Yet so powerful is habit, that not only did the ladies seem insensible, but even the gentlemen, such as did not dance, regarded them with indifference.
Cotillons and waltzes were the only dances of the evening. The waltzes were danced in couples, twenty or thirty at a time. The measure was quick, and all the parties seemed animated. I cannot say that I saw any thing indecorous in the embraces of the ladies and their partners, except in the mere act itself; but the waltz will never become a current fashion in England or America.
There is no precedency in a French assembly except amongst the Military. This is managed with much delicacy. Every group is thrown as much as possible into a circle. The tables are all circular, and cotillons are chiefly preferred from having this quality.
I did not join the card-players; there were about half a dozen tables, and the several parties appeared to play very high. When the game, or a certain number of games were over, the parties rose from their seats, and bowing to any whom they saw near them, invited them to succeed them in their seats. These invitations were sometimes accepted, but more frequently declined. The division of the drawing-room set apart for the card-players served rather as a promenade for the company who did not dance; they here ranged themselves in a line along the ribbon, and criticised the several dancers. Some of these spectators seemed most egregious fops. One of them, with the exception of his linen, was dressed completely in purple silk or satin, and another in a rose-coloured silk coat, with white satin waistcoat and small clothes, and white silk stockings. The greater part of the ladies were dressed in fancy habits from the antique. Some were sphinxes, some vestals, some Dians, half a dozen Minervas, and a score of Junos and Cleopatras. One girl was pointed out to me as being perfectly á l'Anglaise. Her hair, perfectly undressed, was combed off her forehead, and hung down her back in its full length behind. She reminded me only of a school-boy playing without his hat.
We were summoned to the supper table about three in the morning. This repast was a perfect English dinner. Soup, fish, poultry and ragouts, succeeded each other in almost endless variety. A fruit-basket was served round by the servants together with the bread-basket, and a small case of liqueurs was placed at every third plate. Some of these were contained in glass figures of Cupids, in which case, in order to get at the liqueur, it was necessary to break off a small globule affixed to the breast of the figure. The French confectioners are more ingenious than delicate in these contrivances; but the French ladies seem better pleased with such conceit in proportion to their intelligible references. Some of these naked Cupids, which were perfect in all their parts, were handed from the gentlemen to the ladies, and from the ladies to each other, and as freely examined and criticised, as if they had been paintings of birds. The gentlemen, upon their parts, were equally as facetious upon the naked Venuses; and a Swan affixed to a Leda, was the lucky source of innumerable pleasant questions and answers. Every thing, in a word, is tolerated which can in any way be passed into an equivoque. Their conversation in this respect resembles their dress—no matter how thin that covering may be, so that there be one.
So much for a French assembly or fashionable rout, which certainly excells an English one in elegance and fancy, as much as it falls short of it in substantial mirth. The French, it must be confessed, infinitely excell every other nation in all things connected with spectacle, and more or less this spectacle pervades all their parties. They dance, they converse, they sing, for exhibition, and as if they were on the stage. Their conversation, therefore, has frequently more wit than interest, and their dancing more vanity than mirth. They seem in both respects to want that happy carelessness which pleases by being pleased. A Frenchwoman is a figurante even in her chit-chat.