At a private party last night, I saw a Spanish girl dance the bolero and the fandango with castanets to a Spanish guitar, played by a Spaniard. He sung to the bolero. The music, his voice, the instrument, were all very touching. By the bye, the Spanish guitar, with Spanish tunes, sung by a man’s tenor, is the most affecting music to me in the world. It was all I could do last night to avoid exposing myself, and it would have been very strange in appearance, while looking on at a gay dance; and I am sure no soul in the room but me listened to the music. The girl was pretty, with eyes so admired by the French, à fleur de tête, not ‘odious sunk eyes;’ and she held herself so much up and back as to have what Mons. Récamier very accurately called ‘un air martial.’ She sat by me, and told me all she was to do, in the beginning of the evening, and said she had danced the bolero and fandango at the Duchess of Somebody’s at Madrid, and was supposed to dance it perfectly, ‘parceque pour cela il ne faut pas beaucoup de mouvements des pieds, mais infiniment de grâce.’ She also told me she was thirteen, and the lady before her was her sister—two mistakes, I believe, as she looked about eighteen, and Mons. Récamier told me the other lady was her mother, who chooses to pass for her sister. Her costume was very pretty, and the applause was extreme; but none so loud in their applauses, admires, and broad flattery to her, and almost everybody else, as was the F——. Some women, conscious of envy, take this vulgar mode of hiding it. Frenchwomen, to do them justice, never do; you scarcely ever hear them admire another woman. The F. told the Baroness, who had a silver trimming, that ‘it was all beauty, modesty, and elegance, like herself,’ and many other things to different people de cette force là.
The company was totally a different class from what I had seen last year. If I was settled here I would not dress and go out, to mix with the society to which only the English can now be admitted. One always gains some advantages in the first circle, and one finds some members of the corps diplomatique in other places, as one moves about; but once away from Paris, one would never hear of or see again those in the set our compatriotes live with at present.
TO THE SAME.
Paris, Nov., 1804.
I often wonder the comparison between women and magpies has not been enlarged upon, taking their common love of hoarding into account. It is astonishing to what an extreme we carry this passion. My last female acquaintance, however, exceeds all I have ever met. I thought my aunt ——, Lady Yarmouth, and Mrs. F., were pretty strong instances; but this lady excels them all. She has the most extraordinary hoards of every kind of wearable, every sort of bijou, and is avidly inquisitive in search of more, more. Really, if women hoarded money, a younger child would sometimes be unexpectedly provided for; but it must be a provoking thing to a very generous husband to see them buying up necessaries and trifles, which every hour can present, as if they feared the day would come on which they would not have a guinea to dispose of. It always gives me the idea of a femme entretenue, who is ‘making hay while the sun shines.’ This lady is collecting antiques, collecting precious stones, collecting lace—literally collecting; for on asking my opinion about giving 260 louis for a trimming, she said, ‘I have more in England, to be sure, than I can ever wear, but I can always dispose of that.’ What noblesse Paris gives to the way of thinking!
Paris, Nov., 1804.
I was last night at a thé of Mrs. P——’s, with one set of French country dances. It was one of those little parties she gives continually to practise and improve her very indifferent talent for dancing, in which she never can excel. I should not make such a little remark, if she would allow one to think she danced to amuse herself; but she cannot refrain from telling how much she studies, and how many lessons she has had, and how she hopes to do better; and how she can dance ‘pretty well for an Englishwoman;’ but that something or other interferes at the present moment, &c. &c. There were no fine dancers amongst the ladies, and only Mons. Lafitte (who looks like a flying hair-dresser) among the men. There were, however, more pretty women than I have seen in so small a society, and four or five of the noted Parisian beauties. Mad. Récamier was there, and looked much handsomer than ever I saw her before; indeed, I thought her very handsome, for the first time. She danced very heavily and genteelly, in the French country dances; somewhat like an English married woman—no steps, but a very good air.