OUR TOURIST IN PARIS.—No. 11.
"Oh, I say!" says old Martingale, bursting in upon the Tourist's morning meal, "I saw such a stunning play last night. Don't mind my weed, eh? I am not much of a playgoer myself, you know. You haven't got any Curaçoa I suppose? Oh, yes, Kirsch will do, thank you. Especially here, they speak so quick I can't follow 'em. Franconi's more my line. But I tell you what, the piece last night was a fizzer, and no mistake; and a fellow sung no end of a good song in it," continued the dramatic enthusiast, jingling half-a-dozen sovereigns in his two hands in time to the tune he hummed, "Chink chink, chink chink, toodle um tum ti, chink chink, chink chink, toodle um tum ti. Clipping, by Jove; all about women not caring for love, or hops, and that kind of thing, but only for tin. How it must have riled them. I believe it's quite true, and yet—I don't know either. Some of one sort, and some of another, I suppose."
"Oh, I can't tell you the plot. It's a young fellow who goes away from home, the reprobate, and falls into what is called "bad company", and one of the bad company pretends to be spooney on him, and it's all very jolly at first. He swells about and spends a tremendous lot of tin, in the same way that Tom Hilton and fellows of that sort are doing now. Horses, and dinners, and champagne, and jewellery; nothing is too good for him. And then, to mend matters, he takes to play, and of course is extensively legged by others of the bad company, and is ruined, in short. He tries to hold on by borrowing of old Shixty-per-Shent, just like fellows we know in town; and he comes to grief, and the mercenary female cuts him when she finds it out; and it's very affecting. Everybody cried all round the house; and, upon my word, I couldn't help doing a little in that way myself. Now, mind you go and see it. I intend to go every night till I know that song by heart." And he went away, warbling "Chink chink, chink chink," and smacking the sovereigns in his pocket.
More difficult critics than Martingale had spoken well of the last of that chain of dramas in which Lais is made the heroine, and the bad or good side of her character is the point of interest. The Tourist, therefore, willingly installed himself with his double-barrel in a fauteuil d'orchestre, and was forced to acknowledge the admirable constructive skill with which French dramatists ply their craft. No wonder our practical fellow-countrymen are tempted to carry off such capital ready-made articles, instead of being at the pains of hatching their own clumsy originals. Equally admirable was the acting for case, gaiety, and power. At the pathetic parts the audience wept freely, as my friend had said. There was no shame or reserve. One old fellow, with a cropped head and great grizzled beard, was quite inconsolable. He mopped his face with a red cotton handkerchief, and sobbed as if his heart would break. The severe moral of the piece seemed to displease certain ladies in beautiful bonnets, who murmured disapprobation. The satire conveyed by the piquant "chink chink" was overcharged; but the honest bourgeoisie drowned all discontent with obstreperous applause. They had no doubt whatever that Lais was quite as bad as she was represented.
Before the audience had well dried their tears by a promenade in the foyer, they were all laughing themselves into fits over a comic piece—which certainly was very funny—about the children of Albion. A party of French pleasure-seekers find themselves in the full-flavoured and highly-coloured atmosphere of London, and enter an hotel kept by a lady in a straw hat and Highland kilt. (The fashions of dear old England have, apparently, varied somewhat since the wanderer left her shores.) To every demand for victual or drink made by the famished travellers, the short-petticoated lady replies that it is impossible, parceque c'est Sonday. And the whole party come forward to sing in the pleasant manner of French vaudevilles, "C'est Sonday, Sonday, Sonday" &c. and make everybody laugh very much. Certainly it was a perfectly good natured joke, and after they had lashed themselves in the drama we could not complain of being tickled in the farce.
A nice old gentleman who occupied the next stall to the Tourist, and availed himself of Monsieur's lorgnette, asked whether we love to ridicule Frenchmen in a like manner on our stage; and, being answered in the negative, seemed disposed to congratulate himself that his countrymen were free from ridiculous customs, follies and vices.
"Pardon, my dear Sir: behold all the difference. Your writers are spiritual and ingenious, but they want one thing—conscientiousness. They care little for truth and justice if they can only say a good thing. The piece which has diverted us both so much supposes an audience as ignorant of us and of our manners as if we were Tartars or Japanese. A sketch so coarse and unfaithful could not be presented to even the least instructed play-goers of London. Forty years ago, I confess, when we had no intercourse with your charming Paris, they would have received it with delight at the first theatre of the King. But now they know too much; and any of our writers who should set himself to laugh at the grand nation without careful and candid observation of them in their own country, would be only making himself ridiculous. Now the more a traveller becomes familiar with the people amongst whom he lives, the less occasion he finds to smile at their peculiarities. He discovers good sense where at first he only saw eccentricity, and the material for mockery crumbles away when he attempts to grasp it. And hence it arises, my dear Sir, that almost the only sure way to raise a laugh in England against your witty compatriots is to carry out and improve their ignorant caricatures of us."
"Monsieur, it is impossible to say anything more true or more profound. Permit me to hope that, as the two sisters recognise each other's noble traits, they will never smile to deride, but only in admiration."