A Parisian dinner-party is far less conducive to indigestion than is one of our own. Not only are the courses fewer, as I before remarked, but the viands are less rich in quality and are served in smaller portions. Delicacy of flavor, and not solidity, is the result aimed at by a true French cordon bleu. There is also considerable taste and ingenuity displayed in serving the ices, which are brought to the table in all manner of pretty and fanciful forms. Thus, at one dinner-party a basket formed of brown nougat was handed round. It was filled with apricots moulded in peach-tinted ice and of delicious apricot flavor. At another the basket was of white nougat, and the ice-cream was colored and moulded to represent pink and crimson roses. On another occasion a large silver dish was borne in, on which was placed a bundle of asparagus, the stalks held together by a broad blue satin ribbon. The ribbon was untied, the stalks fell apart, and one was served to each guest, together with a rich sauce from a silver sauce-boat. The asparagus-stalk was composed of vanilla ice-cream, and the green part of pistacchio ice, while the sauce was a delicately flavored cream. The imitation of the vegetable was perfect in every particular, and was thoroughly deceptive. The floral decorations at dinner-parties are usually on a far less extensive scale than with us. A single basket tastefully arranged for the centre of the table is considered quite sufficient, except on occasions of extra magnificence and importance.
The official balls at the Élysée, of which two or three are usually given every winter, are very informal in character. The American traveler who wishes to attend must send in his or her name through the medium of the American minister. The invitation-lists are divided into as many sections as there are balls to be given, so as to avoid over-crowding in the comparatively small salons of the Élysée. Madame MacMahon and the marshal receive their guests in a small reception-room, which is the first of the suite of apartments on the first floor, all of which are thrown open to the public on such occasions. They receive in a perfectly simple and informal manner. Each guest on entering bows to the host and hostess without any form of presentation, and is then at liberty to wander about at will. The apartments thrown open comprise the state suites on the first and second floors, numbering some twenty or thirty rooms in all. A temporary gallery is erected to serve as a supper-room, and there refreshments are served all through the evening, there being no set hour for supper, as with us. The profusion of flowers and lights, the crowd of powdered footmen in the white and scarlet liveries of the marshal, the delightful music and splendid toilettes, combine to make these balls very elegant and attractive, though far less so than were the official fêtes given under the Empire, when the superb apartments of the Hôtel de Ville and of the Tuileries formed the grand ball-rooms for the hospitalities of the government. The Élysée is much too small to accommodate the crowds that usually rush to these festivals. The heat and crush are excessive, and it is recorded that after the great ball last year wisps of costly laces, shreds of Chantilly, rags of old point, scraps of point de Bruxelles strewed the grand staircase from top to bottom. The crowd, owing to the division of the invitation-lists of which I have spoken, is less dense this year, but still great enough to render a ball at the Élysée anything but a comfortable form of enjoyment.
There is one feature about Parisian entertainments, whether public or private, which is apt to strike a stranger very unpleasantly; and that is the card-playing—nay, to put it accurately, the actual gambling—which forms one of the amusements of the evening. It is not pleasant to behold in the salons of the President of the French Republic an accurate reproduction in miniature of the departed glories of Baden-Baden and of Homburg—the shaded lamps, throwing a lurid light on the "board of green cloth," the piles of gold, the shifting cards, the intent faces of the players, and the groups of gazers looking on in silence. Vast sums are, I am told, often lost and won in this manner during a single evening. This, at least, is a reproach from which American entertainments of the highest class are certainly free. John Morrisey may take his seat in Congress, but he does not direct the amusements in the back parlor of the White House.
But if French society is unexacting in the matter of refreshments, it runs to waste in regard to dress. The toilettes worn at all entertainments of any extent and formality far surpass in costliness and beauty any festal garbs which feminine humanity can contrive to don in America. In this birthplace of dress, dress is a pre-eminent and all-important feature. Two great points are de rigueur in a Frenchwoman's toilette: it must always be appropriate, and always be fresh. It may not be costly, it may not be elaborate, but those two qualities must not be lacking. And they shade things off so much more minutely than they do with us. A ball-dress cannot be a dinner-dress, and vice versâ; while in America the same toilette is considered appropriate for both occasions. If a dinner-party is to number over twelve guests, a low-necked dress is admissible; otherwise, the dinner-dress must be made with open corsage and half-long sleeves. The same shade of glove is not suitable at a wedding-reception that is proper for a formal call. The handsomest of walking-dresses is inadmissible to receive calls in or to wear out in the evening to the opera or to a small party. The very length of skirt that is appropriate for each festive occasion is regulated by the laws of fashion. A lady at the Grand Opéra or Les Italiens must not wear her opera-cloak after she takes her seat in the theatre: it is considered only a wrap, no matter how magnificent or costly it may be. Fancy jewelry of all kinds is entirely out of fashion, and is seen no more: pearls and precious stones alone are worn on full-dress occasions. This rule has, it is whispered, caused a great increase in the trade of dealers in imitation jewelry, those who cannot afford the real article taking refuge in the highly vraisemblable splendors of wax-lined pearls and paste diamonds. It is rumored that after one of the great official balls of last season a superb diamond necklace was found behind one of the cushions of a sofa at the Élysée. It was placed in the hands of the prefect of the police, where it remained for some time without any claimant presenting herself. Finally, it was decided that the ornament should be sold and the proceeds applied to the relief of the poor of Paris. A jeweler was accordingly summoned, who, by the application of acids and a file, soon proved conclusively to the authorities that the precious trouvaille was a worthless piece of imitation. Sardou's heroine in his Maison Neuve, who sells her small real diamonds in order to appear at a ball ablaze with paste, is a true character of the epoch, and was evidently sketched from real life. But the disappearance of the masses of clinquante which used to be worn some years ago is a positive boon to the lovers of correct taste in dress.
Another striking feature of European society to an American is the predominance of old women therein—ladies of sixty or seventy years of age, very much coiffées, tremendously dressed and glittering with gems. This element is far from being an attractive one. A venerable dowager with white roses and lilies of the valley in her frizzed gray hair, with many diamonds and pearls displayed upon a neck which should long ago have retired into the deep obscurity of kerchief and high corsage, is not a charming object. It has been made a subject of reproach against American society that it is given up so entirely to the youth of both sexes. Well, after all, it is better so—that is, so far as balls and dancing-parties are concerned. Seventeen in white tarletan is a far more beauteous and appropriate ornament for a ball-room than is seventy in white brocade or rose-pink satin.
L. H. H.
NATIONAL FORMS OF GREETING.
The general structure of a language is admitted on all hands to be a good index of the character of the people using it. To cite but two instances: the firm, compact, stern mould in which a Latin sentence is cast seems only the natural mode of expression for those who so firmly, compactly and sternly carried their eagles in triumph over the world and assembled the deities of conquered nations in their own Pantheon; while the marvelous grace and flexibility spread like a transparent veil of ravishing beauty over the well-posed members of a Greek sentence could emanate, from no source so naturally as the gay, beauty-loving sons of the Hellenes, whose conceptions of beauty are the ideals for all time; whose flexible wit needed, as it created, the vehicle of its communication; and whose philosophical acumen could flash out in no speech less capable of manifesting delicate shades of thought.
What is thus true of language in general has a concentrated truth in the forms of speech used in greetings. Let us compare these in a few languages, ancient and modern, and see if the fact be not so. We will begin with the most familiar, as it is the best and most enduring, type of the Semitic race—the Hebrew. The history of the Jews—at any rate as it is set forth in their own sacred Books—is pre-eminently the history of a race singled out by an overruling Power for the education of conscience. To this bear witness the laws of the Two Tables, and most of those other laws, purely ceremonial, whose apparent triviality in some particulars is at any rate a mode of symbolizing what was the main object of the Lawgiver—keeping the heart and conscience pure. To this bear witness the indignant denunciations of their prophets, as well as the impassioned pleadings to return to a better mind and keep the conscience unaccused—to "do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." To this bear witness the plaints—the like of which no other ancient literature furnishes—of their royal Psalmist, the type of what was best and noblest in his race—plaints which mourned not so much outward adversity or physical suffering as the pain of a hurt conscience, a realization of guilt which threw a pall over all that else was bright—plaints which, as that secluded education in Palestine became handed down to posterity and diffused wherever the Old Testament found its way, have been adopted by humanity as the de profundis of all hearts conscious of guilt. And what was the Hebrew's salutation as he met his brother or his friend? "Peace!" The inner life of the race could not be more clearly shown by volumes.
With the Greek it was different. His heaven and his earth were counterparts of each other. Even his Zeus Terpikeraunos seemed fonder of other occupations than hurling his flashing bolts. The Father of gods and men disdained not (when nectar and ambrosia perhaps began to surfeit him) to lead the dwellers of Olympus on festive journeys to the "blameless Ethiops," and there pass a week or two in revels. No chance of a quiet flirtation would he miss if only he could escape the keen watchfulness of Hera; and not unfrequently, if such escape were hopeless, would he run the risk of a curtain-lecture rather than forego his tête-à-tête. And for the other "greater gods," if we except the cold Pallas Athene and the stately spouse of Zeus, their principal aim seemed to be to have a jolly time of it.