[370] Gil Blas, Figaro, and Lafleur have long stood as types of the eighteenth century valet. Walter Scott says of the former, “as to respect, it is the last thing which he asks at his reader’s hand.” [Biographical Memoir of Le Sage.] Both Dean Swift and Daniel DeFoe sharpened their pens with infinite pains in describing the servants of their times. At a later date the pencil of Cruikshank found employment in illustrating Mayhew’s Greatest Plague in Life, while Punch for years revelled in the opportunities afforded by “servant-gallism.” Babeau, Bouniceau-Gesmon, and Salomon show similar conditions in France. “Stealing is an infamous thing—it is the sin of a lackey,” remarks a priest to a pupil who confessed a theft. Cited by Babeau, p. 290. “To lie like a lackey” is almost proverbial.
[371] There are indeed many illustrations of servants of an altogether different character—Caleb in The Bride of Lammermoor and Marcel in The Huguenots are types of the faithful servitor who alike in prosperity and in adversity remains constant to the family in whose service he was born. The fact remains, however, that the servant exists as a type in European literature as he does not in that of America.
[372] La Nouvelle Revue, February 1, 1886.
[373] “It is, in fact, almost necessary to have an inherited aptitude for the relationship involved—a relationship very similar in some respects to that subsisting between sovereign and subject. From both servant and subject there is demanded an all-pervading attitude of watchful respect, accompanied by a readiness to respond at once to any gracious advance that may be made without ever presuming or for a moment ‘forgetting themselves.’”—Booth, VIII., 225.
[374] “The habits of servants in large houses and the strict observance of etiquette give rise to some very curious customs. There are three grades of servants, named ‘kitchen,’ ‘hall,’ and ‘room,’ after the places in which they take their meals.”—Booth, VIII., 229.
“There is no class less open to democratic ideas than a contented servant class. Compared with them their titled and wealthy employers are revolutionists. They cannot bear change, their minds are saturated with the idea of social grades and distinctions, they will not even live with one another on terms of social equality.”—William Clarke, Contemporary Review, December, 1900.
[375] Mercier speaks of establishments where valets and maids had themselves valets and lackeys (XI., 277), and says that generally a lackey in the upper classes takes the name of his master when he goes with other lackeys, as he also adopts his customs, his gestures, his manners, carries a gold watch, and wears lace; a lackey du dernier ton even wears two watches like his master (II., 124).
“The maid of a visitor ranks, of course, with the upper servants. She is addressed not by her own name, but by the surname or title of her mistress.”—Booth, VIII., 230.
[376] “I have four servants in London who do the work two used to do in New York.”—American housekeeper in London. Booth, VIII., 225-230 passim.
[377] Booth, VIII., 224.