And the faith in Ephraim was shaken.
OUR TOURIST IN PARIS.—NO. 8.
Frenchmen are accustomed to boast, and with reason, that Paris is the best stranger's city in the world. If you were dropped from the skies into the Place de la Bourse with nothing, as people say, but what you stand upright in, in five minutes you might have the advantages of a complete establishment. Under that archway you find a Brougham, which is at your service for two francs an hour, and a trifle to the man. The turn-out is not of course dazzling, and the coachman drives with a rein in each hand and his whip over his shoulder; but equipages in general are not very stylish here, and the whole thing is decent, clean, and comfortable. Your Tourist would not undervalue the London Hansom; it is an incomparable carriage of its kind, and has become a necessity for young men of fashion like himself. Bowling down Piccadilly to St. James's Street at fifteen miles an hour under the whip of one of the tremendously swell cabmen who ply in those parts, is a perfectly unique pleasure. But you can't take your wife or your sister with you in such a rampant vehicle; and if you have no carriage of your own, you will feel the advantage of having a decent coupé within call at cab fare.
Then, without the trouble of carrying a wonderful lamp about with you—which would be excessively inconvenient, not to say ungentlemanlike, to our notions—you can instantaneously command the services of a slave at the moderate price of a franc per errand. In London, unless a man has an establishment of servants, or is staying at an hotel, he must go his errands himself, or trust the questionable fidelity of a crossing sweeper.
Having hired your carriage and servants, you can at once find a lodging of any degree of pretension (ornamented with five-and-forty clocks, if you like, and as many looking glasses), where you take up your abode without being bored for references. Here you can live as in chambers in the Temple, only very much more comfortably, with domestics always at hand yet never intruding, and free from that intolerable surveillance that a London lodging-house keeper thinks it her duty to keep on her patrons. As long as you pay your rent you may keep your own hours and select your own company. (Mrs. P—rk—ns I fear never reads your paper, Sir, or she could not fail to be of a sweeter temper than she is; but, on the chance of her seeing this number, allow me to tell her that she is like a toad, both ugly and also venomous, likewise a dragon, and in other respects objectionable, while the curtains of her first-floor are a standing miracle, containing as they do, in successive strata, vermin that flourished in the beginning of the present century. Moreover, I did not purchase that case of curious old Champagne brandy with any view to encourage her in intemperance, which is disgusting in all, and especially in females.)
As you walk in the streets far from home you can satisfy any want, however minute or unexpected, down to having your clothes brushed, your boots cleaned (by the way, Parisian boot-cleaning is an utter and total failure), or even having your nails cut. This last does not strike an Englishman as much of a luxury; but we must remember that here a paternal government has, in its tender care for home cutlery, decreed that no Frenchman shall be able to purchase a decent knife, razor, or pair of scissors, under about twice its value.
Your Correspondent, whose meditative mind leads him to trace causes in their effects, attributes to this policy the length of beard and fingernails which distinguishes, if it does not adorn, all ranks here (he flatters himself that the connexion between cutlery and cleanliness has not been remarked upon before). You can also have your corns chopped about, if you have any fancy for permanent lameness, at a very moderate figure. In short, every operation of the toilet may be gone through by means of a short series of visits without opening your dressing-case.
You have the gayest promenades in the world, and if it rains, abundance of cover with rather more opportunity of amusing yourself than there is in the Burlington Arcade, for there is always a bustle, and everything you see is pretty, except the women. A few sous for a cup of coffee or a glass of liqueur entitle you to spend your whole afternoon in a café, ventilated and lighted to perfection, where you may read all the journals, and amuse your leisure with the manly game of dominoes. Compare this with the dingy, dirty, beer and tobacco-scented coffee-rooms of London, where they think you a "sweep" (that is the expression I believe) if you don't make yourself nearly drunk on their poisonous fluids, and where the inside sheet of the Times is always "in hand." It is a constant wonder to me what unfortunate foreigners do to fill up their afternoons in our smoky Babylon.
You dine as you like, economically or splendidly, without the terrors of indigestion before you; and after a cup of coffee (almost an unattainable luxury in London), you have your choice of Grand or Comic Opera, Classical Drama, or Vaudeville, the only objection to which is, that after once seeing careful and refined acting, you will rather lose your taste for the "genuine effects" of the British stage, and may possibly, on your return home, set down the favourite performers as awkward sticks or impudent buffoons. As you go to bed, without the fever that arises from a heavy dinner with beer, Port, and Sherry, you may reflect that you have not been bored for a single instant of the day, and contrast with your own case the unutterable misery of the stranger without friends or a club, who is condemned to pass his time in London.