"It is sufficient to have merit, agreeability, or the claims of old acquaintance to belong to it, but, truth to tell, it is still so far exclusive, that what Madame Roland calls l'universelle mediocrité, gains no admission there."
Again:—
"I happened one night at Gen. La Fayette's to say that I should remain at home on the following morning, and the information brought us a numerous circle of morning visitors; others dropped in by chance, and some by appointment. From twelve till four, my little salon was a congress composed of the representatives of every vocation of arts, letters, science, bon ton," (the Congress of Vienna was nothing to this,) "and philosophy, in which, as in the Italian opera-boxes of Milan and Naples, the comers and goers succeeded each other, as the narrow limits of the space required that the earliest visitor should make room for the last arrival."
We might fill pages with similar specimens of her modesty, but we must proceed.
The notes and cards being all despatched, authentic intelligence is at length diffused throughout Paris of her arrival, and such a commotion is forthwith excited as had never been seen even in that city of commotions, since the time the Giraffe made her entrée into it, and said to the gaping multitude, "Mes amis, il n'y a qu'une bête de plus." Perhaps the sensation might be excepted which was created by "Messieurs les Osages," the American deputation whose "France" has not yet, we believe, appeared in either hemisphere. The Rue de Rivoli was instantly crowded with "old friends" and "intimate acquaintances," ne plus ultras included, besides various others anxious for the honour of an introduction, all striving who should get first into the "Hôtel de la Terrasse;" and such was the press of visits, dinner-parties, suppers, balls, &c. &c. that for a period her Ladyship could not, as she says, "find leisure to register a single impression for her own amusement, or haply for that of a world, which, it must be allowed, is not very difficult to amuse." In this sentiment we request leave, before going further, to record our unqualified concurrence, and also to state, that we know of no one from whom it could proceed with more propriety and weight than from Miladi. It has been, doubtless, expressed before, by various other book-makers, but never, we feel confident, by one whose career affords fuller evidence of its correctness, or who could adduce more forcible proofs in support of it, should they be required. In such case, the simple fact need only be cited, that "France in 1830" is the work of the same hand which indited "Ida of Athens," some twenty years previous, and which, during that interval, has furnished the world almost annually, with quartos, octavos, or duodecimos.
The accounts that her Ladyship gives of the various festive entertainments of which she partook, constitute the matter of a large number of her pages. If it be true, however, that in order to observe well, one ought to screen one's self from observation, she could have had little opportunity of obtaining acquaintance with the constitution of French society; for, if we believe her own story, there was no social assemblage of any kind to which she went, where she was not the observed of every one, the centre of attraction, the nucleus of excellence. And what information is to be derived from her relation of a ball here, or a soirée there, beyond the very interesting, highly important, and most credible intelligence, that as soon as the announcement of Lady Morgan's name falls upon the ears of the company, everything else is forgotten; a dead silence instantaneously takes place of the conversational hum that before prevailed; all eyes are directed towards the door; Lady Morgan enters; a buzz of admiration succeeds; she advances with a dignified air towards the hostess, or rather the hostess runs eagerly forward to meet her; she drops a romantic curtesy; she sits down; and thenceforward nothing is thought of by any of the guests but Miladi, and the pearls that fall from her lips. As the French are fond of forming queues, or files, for the purpose of avoiding confusion, when there is any great earnestness among a large collection of persons with regard to any object of curiosity, we can imagine the whole assemblage falling into one as soon as she takes her seat, and thus enjoying, each in turn, the coveted delight.—But we mistake; other information respecting French society is communicated, unwittingly however, by her Ladyship. It is this: that they are as fond of ridicule in 1830, as they were in 1816, and as they have ever been. We have little difficulty in believing, that her Ladyship received a vast deal of attention in Paris; still, we must confess, that it appears to us impossible not to be convinced, from her own story, that it was owing to a very different reason from the one to which it is attributed by her self-love. If there is any feature in the French character peculiarly salient or prominent, it is the love of ridicule. "Take care," said a lady to her son, who was on the eve of departure for his travels, "of the Inquisition at Madrid, of the mob at London, and of ridicule at Paris." Nothing that is at all calculated to excite an ironical smile or a sarcastic remark, escapes a "fasting Monsieur's" observation, and even the greatest virtues and genius, if combined with any quality which can afford matter for a joke, will scarcely prevent their possessor from being made a laughing-stock. Napoleon was so well aware of this propensity of his subjects, that he was prevented by it from placing his own figure in the car which surmounts the triumphal arch erected between the Court of the Tuileries and the Place du Carousal, being apprehensive that the wags would avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded of punning at his expense—le char le tient—le charlatan. What a delectable tit-bit, consequently, for this appetite of the Parisians, must be a darling little philosopher in petticoats, (not quite sexagenary,) who dabbles in all sciences and arts, and is at the same time a pretender to the pretty affectations and hoydenish manners of a youthful belle! Such a person, especially if she possess that happy opinion of herself, which prevents her from having the slightest suspicion that she can be the object of anything but admiration with all, is regarded by them as a legitimate subject for a mystification, which, in our vernacular, means hoax,—elle se prête au ridicule, as they say, she lends herself, as it were, to ridicule; and to be convinced that they know how to take consummate advantage of the loan, it is only necessary to glance over "France in 1830." Every one who does so will, we feel confident, understand in the same manner as ourselves, the meaning of that "brilliant welcome," which Miladi, with so much complacency, informs us she received "in the capital of European intellect." From beginning to end, these volumes afford almost continued specimens of perfection in the art of "quizzing," and may therefore be particularly indicated to such as are anxious to acquire proficiency in that way. We are glad that we have at length discovered a description of persons to whom we can conscientiously recommend the work we are reviewing, as calculated to afford desirable information.
There is another cause, besides this fondness for ridicule, to which the mystification of her Ladyship may be attributed. Whoever is at all acquainted with her writings, must be aware that she pretends to be a great republican, and to entertain a most orthodox horror of royalism and the appendages thereof, and that she has called the royalist party in France all the hard names she could find in the most approved collection of opprobrious epithets. This circumstance, it is easy to imagine, may have excited a slight desire of revenge in the breasts of some of the younger members of that party.
In her very preface, we have an evidence of her having been the victim of as well concerted and admirably conducted a hoax, as was ever played off upon any one—it surpasses that which was put upon poor Malvolio in "Twelfth Night." After making the remark upon which we have already commented, that a second work on France from her pen could "alone be justified by the novelty of its matter, or by the merit of its execution," she says—
"It may serve, however, as an excuse, and an authentication of the attempt, that I was called to the task by some of the most influential organs of public opinion, in that great country. They relied upon my impartiality (for I had proved it, at the expense of proscription abroad, and persecution at home); and, desiring only to be represented as they are, they deemed even my humble talents not wholly inadequate to an enterprise whose first requisite was the honesty that tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
Oh you wicked wags! If the abolition of capital punishment be effected in France, we hope you will be specially excepted as unworthy of mercy for this cruel plot to make Miladi Morgan expose herself thus to the sneers of an ill-natured world. We think we see you in conclave, laughing and joking over an epistle you have just concocted and signed with the names of half a dozen of the leaders of the liberals, in which her Ladyship is earnestly conjured to cross the Irish and the English channels and hasten to Paris, in order to dispel by the effulgence of her intellectual rays, the mists and darkness that the fiend of ultraism had spread over the political horizon. Seriously speaking, we cannot divine any other than this or a similar manner of accounting for her Ladyship's assertion, that "she was called to the task by some of the most influential organs of public opinion in France;"—she would not certainly affirm what she knew to be false, and the idea that she did receive a bonâ fide request of the above purport from such individuals, is too absurd to command belief for a moment. Would any one in his senses, who is "desirous of being represented as he is," put in requisition the pencil of an artist by which he would be sure to be caricatured?