A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and Things

by Max O'Rell

More than once, when announced to deliver a lecture on France and the French, I have been introduced by a chairman who, having spent his holidays in that country once or twice, opened the evening’s proceedings by himself delivering a lecture on France. I have felt very tempted to imitate a confrère, and say to the audience: “Ladies and Gentlemen, as one lecture on France is enough for an evening, perhaps you would rather I spoke about something else now.” The confrère I have just mentioned was to deliver a lecture on Charles Dickens one evening. The chairman knew something of Charles Dickens and, for quite a quarter of an hour, spoke on the great English novelist, giving anecdotes, extracts of his writings, etc. When the lecturer rose, he said: “Ladies and Gentlemen, two lectures on Charles Dickens are perhaps more than you expected to hear to-night. You have just heard a lecture on Charles Dickens. I am now going to give you one on Charles Kingsley.”

Sometimes I get a little amusement, however (as in the country town of X.), out of the usual proceedings of the society before whose members I am engaged to appear. At X., the audience being assembled and the time up, I was told to go on the platform alone and, being there, to immediately sit down. So I went on, and sat down. Some one in the room then rose and proposed that Mr. N. should take the chair. Mr. N., it appeared, had been to Boulogne (to B’long), and was particularly fitted to introduce a Frenchman. In a speech of about five minutes duration, all Mr. N.’s qualifications for the post of chairman that evening were duly set forth. Then some one else rose and seconded the proposition, re-enumerating most of these qualifications. Mr. N. then marched up the hall, ascended the platform, and proceeded to return thanks for the kind manner in which he had been proposed for the chair and for the enthusiasm (a few friends had applauded) with which the audience had sanctioned the choice. He said it was true that he had been in France, and that he greatly admired the country and the people, and he was glad to have this opportunity to say so before a Frenchman. Then he related some of his traveling impressions in France. A few people coughed, two or three more bold stamped their feet, but he took no heed and, for ten minutes, he gave the audience the benefit of the information he had gathered in Boulogne. These preliminaries over, I gave my lecture, after which Mr. N. called upon a member of the audience to propose a vote of thanks to the lecturer “for the most amusing and interesting discourse, etc.”

Now a paid lecturer wants his check when his work is over, and although a vote of thanks, when it is spontaneous, is a compliment which he greatly appreciates, he is more likely to feel awkwardness than pleasure when it is a mere red-tape formality. The vote of thanks, on this particular occasion, was proposed in due form. Then it was seconded by some one who repeated two or three of my points and spoiled them. By this time I began to enter into the fun of the thing, and, after having returned thanks for the vote of thanks and sat down, I stepped forward again, filled with a mild resolve to have the last word:

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” I said, “I have now much pleasure in proposing that a hearty vote of thanks be given Mr. N. for the able manner in which he has filled the chair. I am proud to have been introduced to you by an Englishman who knows my country so well.” I went again through the list of Mr. N.’s qualifications, not forgetting the trip to Boulogne and the impressions it had left on him. Somebody rose and seconded this. Mr. N. delivered a speech to thank the audience once more, and then those who had survived went home.

Some Nonconformist societies will engage a light or humorous lecturer, put him in their chapel, and open his mouth with prayer. Prayer is good, but I would as soon think of saying grace before dancing as of beginning my lecture with a prayer. This kind of experience has been mine several times. A truly trying experience it was, on the first occasion, to be accompanied to the platform by the minister, who, motioning me to sit down, advanced to the front, lowered his head, and said in solemn accents: “Let us pray.” After I got started, it took me fully ten minutes to make the people realize that they were not at church. This experience I have had in America as well as in England. Another experience in this line was still worse, for the prayer was supplemented by the singing of a hymn of ten or twelve verses. You may easily imagine that my first remark fell dead flat.

I have been introduced to audiences as Mossoo, Meshoe, and Mounzeer O’Reel, and other British adaptations of our word Monsieur, and found it very difficult to bear with equanimity a chairman who maltreated a name which I had taken some care to keep correctly spelt before the public. Yet this man is charming when compared with the one who, in the midst of his introductory remarks, turns to you, and in a stage whisper perfectly audible all over the hall, asks: “How do you pronounce your name?”

Passing over chairman chatty and chairman terse, chairman eloquent and chairman the reverse, I feel decidedly most kindly toward the silent chairman. He is very rare, but he does exist and, when met with, is exceedingly precious. Why he exists, in some English Institutes, I have always been at a loss to imagine. Whether he comes on to see that the lecturer does not run off before his time is up, or with the water bottle, which is the only portable thing on the platform generally; whether he is a successor to some venerable deaf and dumb founder of his Society; or whether he goes on with the lecturer to give a lesson in modesty to the public, as who should say: “I could speak an if I would, but I forbear.” Be his raison d’être what it may, we all love him. To the nervous novice he is a kind of quiet support, to the old stager he is as a picture unto the eye and as music unto the ear.

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Here I pause. I want to collect my thoughts. Does my memory serve me? Am I dreaming, or worse still, am I on the point of inventing? No, I could not invent such a story, it is beyond my power.

I was once lecturing to the students of a religious college in America. Before I began, a professor stepped forward, and offered a prayer, in which he asked the Lord to allow the audience to see my points.