Touching and eternal legend of virtue, not without a recompense!
The pair departed, slowly arrived at the Place de la Révolution, then at the Boulevard de la Madeleine, when they were surprised by a violent shower; cabs were not to be had, the rain increased, they were forced to seek refuge underneath a carriage entrance. The peaceable citizen had already taken his companion to this shelter, when a “portier,” with an otter-skin cap, came out, beseeching the lady and gentleman to accept the hospitality of his little room, where a leathern arm-chair and a stool were immediately, and with very good grace, offered to the invited pair. The rain still pouring down, the “portier,” more and more affable, took from a corner of his small lodge a superb Umbrella of green serge, and offered it to his guests, declaring that all he had was at their service.
The gentleman, in much confusion, accepted with many thanks the Umbrella, and sheltering with it the interesting young woman, who had tucked up her dress in the prettiest style, they both ventured out into the midst of the deluge.
. . . . An hour afterwards, a footman in very stylish livery returned to the honest “portier” cobbler his precious Umbrella, with four notes for a thousand francs, from the Duke de Berry; next directing his course to the Champs Elysées, that same footman sought out the chair-proprietress, and said to her:
“You recognise this Glove, Madam? Here are four pence, which my lord, the Duke of Berry, has ordered me to remit to you, to redeem the Sunshade of the Princess Caroline.”
Touching and eternal legend of virtue, not without a recompense!
Under Louis Philippe, the Umbrella or Riflard became patriarchal and constitutional; it represented manners austere and citizenlike, and symbolised the domestic virtues of order and economy. It might be set in the royal trophy in saltier with the sceptre, and it became a part in some sort of the national militia, with the attributes of angling, culinary laurels, and other symbols of Philistine life.
All the independents of Paris, Bohemians, literary men with flowing manes, and artists chanted in the Rapinéide, all the hirsute folk of the years 1830 to 1850 rose in insurrection against the “Pépin” of the burgess. This word Pépin was then an epigram against Louis Philippe, whose pear-shaped head was caricatured, and who never left his home without his Umbrella.
