There was a story about everybody—not always a good one; but their worst stories were told in their best way. With us, there is so much ingenuity of subterfuge in the other direction. We might do as well, if we dared. They dare, because the women insist on it, and the sovereign obligation is to keep the women amused—the best women, and best is brightest here. It is a great assault of arms for the gallery, and, if you have a good place, it is pleasanter to be in the gallery than in the ring. The exertion is terrible; some of the most noted performers, I believe, lie abed all next day. You have to justify by gifts, as well as by graces; and the gifts are not always there. Beautiful statues are left on their pedestals: the word tells.
Still, I don’t think they make the best of their women. There is, perhaps, a finer use. They try to make the most of them, certainly. The women shape the whole civilisation, and they are just now labouring with much energy at the decline and fall. I have always wondered why they do not include a representation of this commanding interest in the government—Le Ministère de la Femme. It would soon rule the whole cabinet, for the incumbent would be sure to know the business of most of the other departments—War, Commerce, Interior, Foreign Affairs.
It is too good for every day—life on the top of a twelfth cake, and some of the figures no more to be visited by sun and rain and the winds of Heaven than if they were cast in sugar. I heard one of them taking the law from another, on the authority of a gazette of fashion, as to the right way of getting up on a winter’s morning. There are two ways, it seems. ‘An hour before you turn out, ma chère, the maid is to light your fire, and put up the screen. Silver lined with pink silk is pretty; it throws a sort of rosy morning light into the room. Mind you have your chocolate on a warmer! And do you know how to warm your toast-rack? A little live charcoal sprinkled with vanilla; it makes the air so sweet. Raoul gave me such a love of a toast-rack (un amour) the other day. They are making them in gold now. Don’t jump up at once, mind—snooze. What do you wear for a déshabillé? I like satin lined with swansdown, and velvet fastenings; buttons are so horribly cold. Line your slippers with swansdown, too; I hate a cold slipper. B-r-r-r! Madame d’Argenson warms her bath-room with little gusts of rose vapour, pumped through a hole in the wall; it is an idea. Do you know how to get warm? Never get cold. Floss silk for your stockings, if you please. I won’t even see cold. I have my blinds embroidered with a rising sun, and the maid brings in fresh flowers with the chocolate. It makes summer in the room. Excusez du peu. Then, if you want to know how happy you are, just lift the blind, and peep out, and see the people dancing on the pavement to keep themselves warm. But you’ll see enough of that when you drive, if you like to look at such things. I don’t. They are making little things in enamel, for muff warmers, now; tiny apples filled with hot water—not big ones, or you’ll spoil the shape of your hands. Besides, big ones would make your fingers red; you only want to make them rosy, pas trop n’en faut.
‘What kind of gloves do you sleep in? I prefer a plush lining to the kid. Some say swansdown. I think it’s too warm. Remember there is the coverlet. Stick to plush, you can’t do better, from head to foot. I have seen the nightcap fastened with a little cosy turtle-dove, just under the left ear—if you lie on that side. And make her bring you a light crême de Sabaillon when you turn in. You know, two fresh eggs, and a small glass of Madeira. B-r-r-r! how I hate the cold.’
A padded person of the sterner sex, who was one of the council, propounded a still more original scheme. ‘Chère Comtesse, why all these precautions, when you might so easily get out of the way? I travel in search of perpetual summer, and find it. My man begins to move south, as soon as the cold threatens here, and the moment he finds settled sunshine, he telegraphs me to come on. I never go till Nature is ready, and, when I reach one place, he starts for another, so I always have sunshine in reserve. We keep steadily flying south till the turn of the weather, and then we make north again for the Paris May. I was only caught twice by rain last year, and once by sleet, and then I threatened to discharge him if it happened again. Chère Comtesse, life is too precious: do not waste it in these trials. Will you have a cup of tea?’
‘He is very wretched, for all his make-believe,’ said Mentor, ‘he is going to marry; and he is in a torment of prospective jealousy. It is the funniest case in the world. The young person is faultless; all our young persons are, you know. He pays the proper visits, always in evening-dress—it is our way—and talks to her about the picture-gallery of the Louvre, and the Advent sermons, for just three-quarters of an hour by the clock, with her mother on guard all the time. This is courtship. When she marries, she will acquire the privilege of watching others in the same way, and of being herself unwatched; and there the retribution comes in. He is not in the least jealous now; he only knows he is going to be. There are complications, you see. He is not only about to marry the young person, he is very fond of her, which is perhaps inexcusable at his time of life. In the days of his age he remembers his youth, and—il n’a pas confiance. He is meditating some domestic ukase about visitors, and positively wants to include his mother-in-law in the family circle. “The duenna, or the cheap defence of households,” is, I believe, the idea. All this, of course, implies no suspicion of the lady, but only a most horrible retrospective suspicion of himself. “Do to others as you would not be done by,” has been the rule of his joyous life; and—il n’a pas confiance. We used to call him “Proverbs.” His choicest conversational effect was a detestable little saying about the folly of acquiring the material of happiness for yourself, when you might always command the stores of your friends. He never quotes his proverb now. I would rewrite the story of Don Juan from his case, with this torment for the Nemesis. Let Juan marry and settle on this prospect of eternal anguish, and leave old raw-head the Commandant, and his horse, for the nursery tales.’
To a lazy man like myself there is but one drawback in this city; you are rather expected to make love to your neighbour’s wife. The nuisance is even greater than in London. They are not exactly rude to you, if you don’t, but they mark their sense of your behaviour in a thousand delicate ways. It is considered disrespectful to the lady of the house.
We went to the Opera, and, of course, he led me behind the scenes. It is certainly magnificent. The most self-indulgent monarchs have never enjoyed half so much luxury as these essentially combining people get on the joint-stock principle. They are true democrats, and, as their institutions develop, the poorest will have his parc aux cerfs. There is no selfishness in the foyer de la danse; all the subscribers are brothers, all equal, all free, as in a temple of faith. Ces dames make no distinctions of persons. It was touching to see Army, Navy, Commerce, Senate, and Bar—Bench, I believe, as well—paying homage at these gauze-curtained shrines. Radical and Conservative leaders, wealthy Jews, the epigrammatic General I had just met, sparks from the club, and some hideous heads of age that ought to have been under nightcaps, were all at their devotions, visiting one shrine after another, sometimes with offerings. Mesdames were occasionally wayward and severe, but I am loath to believe that they are cruel divinities, and I am confirmed in this by those who know them best. It was a brilliant scene, the green room itself a blaze of decoration, in ceiling, chandeliers and walls; portraits of great dancers and composers on the panels; grand pictorial compositions above, the War dance, the Country dance, the Love dance, the Bacchic dance; below, a curious patchwork of black coat and white skirt, with here and there a sylph pirouetting for practice, on a floor that slopes like the stage—a fleece cloud driven by the wind—or holding on for support to an iron bar cased with velvet, and pointing, with satin-shod toe, to another and a brighter world. Here, as I have said, Valour reposes after the toils of war, and Legislation after the fatigues of debate. Art sketching in the corner is represented by that solitary, who has a passion for problems, and who is haunted by the desire to transfer this poetry of motion to canvas, and to make the work tremble with life as you gaze. Great soul and genius, the only single-minded one in all this throng—hail!
We looked in at another club on the way home, a mere tripot this, but gorgeous like all the rest, and throwing blazing beams across the boulevard from its many chandeliers. Here their industry is baccarat, and the net profits of many a mine and factory, transmitted by inheritance to youths of spirit who want to see the world, pass from hand to hand across the baize. Sailors reef the topsail in storms, coal miners lie on backs or bellies in the dark, girls ripen to premature womanhood in the tropic heat of factories, to feed this sport. I lost a few coins, supped, and came away. One of the players was pointed out to me as the inventor of a new diversion, the Snail Race. The race-course is a smooth board, with a lighted candle at the end, laid on the table in a darkened room. The snails naturally creep towards the light. There are miniature hurdles, and a water-jump, and the handicapping is done with pellets of clay. You may lose quite enough at this to make it exciting, by maintaining a due disproportion between the amount of the wager and the value of the snail. It is played between five and six, just before dressing for dinner, and it fills in an hour that many find heavy on their hands.
Next day it was a drive in the Bois to salute one’s friends. I had already quite a list of them. Surely this people have the secret, I thought, as we span along through alleys of tender green, with sunlight dancing in the leaves, blue and white in the bordering villas, and the purple slopes of Valérien to close in the scene. We skipped the Lake, according to directions, and looked out for faces under the acacia trees. They were all there. I was so delighted with it that I could not go indoors; so we pushed on, by the Cours la Reine, and the river, to see more.