Gentility at the Gold Fields.—Refinement in Australia appears to be a gross anomaly: and the only use of polish relates to boots.
OUR TOURIST IN PARIS. No. 2.
The traveller whose philosophy has passed through these severe trials, hungry, dirty, unshaved, weary, almost querulous, hurls his baggage and himself into a venerable and heavy hackney coach (such a one as Dr. Johnson might have hired to take Mrs. Thrale to the play), drawn by a pair of ragged grey ponies painfully over the rocky ways, which people here have the face to call a pavement. Half-an-hour's jolting brings him to the Hotel in the Rue de Richelieu, where he demands a lodging. "But yes, Monsieur can have a chamber, but certainly," is the cheerful announcement of the concierge, a very pearl among women, who advances from the lodge with a smile to welcome the travel-stained, ill-favoured guest. "Behold the steward who will make Monsieur know." "Give yourself the pain to mount, Monsieur," says a solemn official in a fur-cap, with a reverence. The traveller wearily ascends hundreds of shiny, slippery steps, till he arrives at the third floor, where he pauses out of breath. "Mount, mount always!" says the respectable conductor. "But Monsieur, behold us who are arrived at the fourth. This is in fine enough, is it not?" "But no, Monsieur, pardon; it is necessary to mount always." The traveller's hind legs are awfully done up; nevertheless, allons! we arrive at another floor. "Behold, Monsieur," gaily says the steward, as he opens the door of 299.
The first thing that strikes one is, that the last gentleman must have been addicted to chewing garlic, and smoking very bad tobacco. The windows, which appear not to have been opened for weeks, enable the fastidious English nostrils to analyse these flavours with unerring certainty. A little hall of entrance, furnished with a stove, a table, and a bench which seems intended for the repose of exhausted creditors before they make their unsuccessful appeal to milord, leads to an apartment furnished both as bed-room and sitting-room, with great taste and cheerfulness. The chairs are pretty in form, and covered with maroon velvet. There is a walnut table, escritoire, and chest of drawers. Over the chimney-piece of black marble is a mirror and a clock. (There is not a room in Paris which does not boast a looking-glass and a clock or clocks, though the latter may not go.) In a recess is a bed, which turns out to be perfect. The last detail, however, strikes the traveller with horror. He will be forced to wash with a slop basin and a milk jug. What to do? The official in the fur cap listens with smiling courtesy to the expostulations of Monsieur, but cannot comprehend his meaning.
There are excellent baths in the Rue Vivienne. But in the chamber? Ah, good, they shall bring a hot bath to Monsieur at three francs. It is still something else? The English waiter shall mount to Monsieur. A shower-bath, a hip-bath, or a sponging-bath he hath not seen, neither can he conceive. The philosopher straightway orders a hot bath, and makes a note never to leave his country for the future without a collapsible caoutchouc arrangement, which may so far make him independent of the short-comings of continental civilisation. The respectable steward retires, the hot bath arrives, painfully supplied with water by a groaning gentleman in a blouse who evidently hates his business, especially in its higher walks. Perhaps he will be a member of a Provisional Government some day, and pay society off for his present griefs.
Under the potent influence of hot water the traveller gradually returns to his usual serenity. The bravos of Dover, the exhibitions of weakness on board the steamer, the bureaucratic tediousness of the douaniers, the insolence of the police, the jolting over the pavé, the interminable flights of stairs, all fade from his memory as he simmers into a happier and more tranquil world of thought. Mysterious analogy to the miracles of culinary science! His heart, so to speak, stews into tenderness in like manner as the lobster, hideous and savage, gradually is divested of his gross nature till he becomes the delicate inmate of a Mayonnaise. Full of this pathetic thought the sage reaps his chin, anoints his hair, makes an elaborate toilette, and descends like Jupiter from Olympus to mingle with men of lower earth. He returns with confidence the smiling salute of the concierge. Ah, Madame! you may now regard us; we carry fair linen, and smell of sweet odours: we are no longer a disgrace to Albion. An astounding breakfast, and so to the Boulevards.
How much alike men are! Here are a few more Leicester Squarers than one sees in Regent Street. The gentlemen wear plaited trowsers and broad-brimmed hats, and turn-down collars; women of the lower class walk about in caps; here and there is a blouse, and that is pretty nearly all the difference to be seen. To what end should we describe an ordinary Frenchman? Have we not seen him?—have we not noted him? What child is ignorant of his unobtrusive costume, his pantaloons full round his hips and covering all his boots, his pockets half way down his leg, his tight-waisted coat, his dubious linen, his not dubious hands and face, his modest gait and diffident manner? Know we not his hair grotesquely short or filthily long, his stubbly moustache and beard, or imperial, or republican; his high cheekbones, his eyebrows running up on each side; his vehement discourse, his grimaces, his shrugs, his lively gestures? Mark those three flâneurs! They are talking each as loud as he can on a different topic, not listening or listened to, yet perfectly happy and content. Would any one but a Frenchman call such monkey-jabber conversation—and like it?