Mr. Platt has commenced a series of publications, at a moderate price, which should secure a liberal share of the public favor. These ‘Letters,’ which form the initial number, are replete with interest. Many of them appeared in the original foreign correspondence of the ‘Tribune’ daily journal, where they excited the admiration of the press, and ‘the people’ whom the press represents; but a large portion now see the light for the first time. Mr. Headley has not given us, in tiresome detail, minute descriptions of galleries of art and public edifices; although his description of St. Peter’s at Rome, (a ‘nice building, with a dome handsomely scooped out,’) is the most vivid picture of that world-renowned structure that we ever perused. He has wisely chosen rather to illustrate the people and country by things perhaps trifling in themselves, but which give to the reader a constant succession of ‘sketches from Nature,’ which are not only very pleasant to read, but which it is quite evident are exceedingly faithful. ‘The condition of the people,’ in short, ‘occupies more space than the condition of art, simply because the latter is well known, while the former is almost wholly neglected.’ Briefly, for ‘brief must we be,’ the book affords what Mrs. Ramsbottom would call ‘a supreme cow-dyle’ (coup d’œil) of ‘Italy and the Italians,’ and is presented in a dress worthy of its internal merits.
EDITOR’S TABLE.
Our old friend and correspondent ‘Harry Franco’ cometh late, but he can never arrive too late to be welcome. Let us hope only that he will not object to being placed as it were ‘below the salt,’ instead of being seated with his peers at the more conspicuous board of the ‘regulars.’ He has deftly touched a fruitful theme, at which we have more than once hinted in this department of the Knickerbocker.
THE IMPUDENCE OF THE FRENCH.
Keep your tempers, Messieurs; we shall not quarrel. There is a difference between Impudence and Impertinence. The two words are often used synonymously by the vulgar, but they are no more alike than any other two words that begin with an I. ‘When we behold an angel, not to fear is to be IMPUDENT,’ says Dryden: ‘We should avoid the IMPERTINENCE of pedants,’ says Swift. These two great masters of the English tongue have well defined the difference between the two words. There is always an air of confident greatness about impudence that wins respect, and not infrequently success. Alexander was assuredly the most impudent man of his time; so was Cæsar; so was Luther. Even now, when half the human race has grown impudent, we cannot but wonder at the impudence of that obscure monk. Galileo, too, was a very impudent fellow until the well-bred ‘Rev. and dear Sirs’ of his time taught him modesty. And Cromwell! what an Arch-Impudence was he! And Napoleon! he put Impudence itself to the blush. And have there been no Impudences among us? It cannot be denied that our Fourth-of-July-men made a very impudent declaration, to say the least of it. But these were all individual instances. The French are impudent as a nation. They have no sense of modesty. They insist that all the world shall eat French, drink French, talk French, dance French, and dress French. Did ever any traveller visit a city or town in any quarter of the globe in which a Frenchman had not set up a restaurant? Fanny Ellsler was astonished when she landed at the American Hotel, to find that her dinner had been prepared by a Parisian cook; and yet she had come over here to show us her French steps. Simple Fanny! How did she think we could live without French cookery, if we could not live without French dancing? What traveller has ever visited a remote village that a French modiste had not visited before him? Is it possible to dine any where, without having a French bill of fare thrust into your hand, and some dish with an à la under your nose? Is there a living being in any part of the world willing to make oath to having visited a ball-room or a church without encountering a French dress or a French bonnet? The Quakers cannot; they would as soon wear scarlet ribbons as any other than French gloves and French muslins.
Untravelled New-Yorkers as they walk through Broadway, and see the names of Madame Grand-this and Mons. Grand-that ‘from Paris,’ over every other shop-door, and see the French shoes, the French gloves, the French chocolate, the French clocks, the liqueurs, the bon-bons, the bijouterie, the meringues, the pâtes-de-foi-gras, in the windows, may think that the Gauls have marked us for their ‘own peculiar;’ but it is so in St. Petersburgh, ’tis so in Constantinople, ’tis so in Lima, in the Banda Orientale, in Rio, in Mexico, in Montreal, in London, in Vienna, in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Grand Cairo—’tis so all over the earth. The Sorbonne and the Louvre rule the world. Can any body be tired, or weary, or dumpish? No. We must be ennuyeèd, or blazè, or fatiguè, or something else ending in è. Does any lady ever give an evening party? No. Nothing but a soirée. Are there any more gatherings of friends? No; only reünions. Is it possible to dance a cotillion in English? Is there any body in New-York with sufficient moral courage to sleep upon any thing short of a French bed-stead? Is there a chamber-maid who will lie upon any thing less than a paliastre? Are there any more fat, or plump, or round, or full people? No. Even Falstaff would be inclined to embonpoint if he were alive, in these days of Gallic supremacy. Well might Victor Cousin and the rest of them declare that the French were not defeated at Waterloo. The allied armies entered Paris it is true, but they made their Exodus in slavery. The English, Germans and Russians went home from France manacled with French fashions, and not a soul of them has dared to assert his independence since.
We are by no means sure that French cookery has not done more to preserve the peace of Europe, during the last twenty years, than all other causes put together. It is impossible to think of a war with France. The mind staggers under the supposititious case of the nations of the earth deprived of French bon-bons. Imagine the commerce with France suspended! Who would perfume us? who feast us? who dress us? Where would our gloves come from? what should we do for slippers? how should we be off for soap? Would there be any more ribbons? any more brandy fruits? any more meringues? any more chocolate? Where should we look for another Blancard, another Fauvel-Gouraud? Would there be any more dancing? any more fashions? any more any thing? The true Mystéres de Paris nobody knows any thing about but the Parisians themselves, and they are too cunning to pronounce their open sesame loud enough to be heard by the rest of the world. How like gudgeons we all snapped at the bait of Eugene Sue! But the Mysteries of Paris are written in a kind of Parisian Coptic, which none but the Parisian can read.
The English eat, or at least a portion of them do, and they cook, but who ever heard of an English eating-house, or of an English cook? We have heard of Dolly’s chop-house, but its reputation was gained by the quality of its guests rather than the merit of its cooks. For aught the world knows to the contrary, there is not an eating-house in any of the European capitals beside Paris. But every body knows the names, the situation, and even the carte du jour of at least a dozen restaurants in the French capital without ever having been there. The ‘Rocher’ is as well known as the Rock of Gibraltar, and Very and Châtelain have reputations as extended as those of Guizot and Theirs. Vatel is more famous than Vattel, and the cook will doubtless be remembered when the philosopher is forgotten: he will never die, at least, while the memory of Sevignè lives.
Not long since we saw on a sign-board, stuck up at the entrance of a cellar on the corner of Reade-street and Broadway, ‘Au Rocher de Cancale,’ painted in very soup-maigreish looking letters, with an attempt at the representation of an oyster-shell. Now look at the impudence of the thing; at the Frenchiness of it! Here we are with our Prince’s Bays, our York-rivers, our Mill-ponders, our Shrewsburys, and Blue pointers, a shilling’s worth of either worth all the shell-fish that ever grew on the French coast; and this Parisian sets up his sign in the midst of these marine riches, with a ‘Rocher de Cancale!’ No other nation could have been guilty of such arrogance. No Englishman has ever had the temerity to insult us with an allusion to his dirty ‘natives.’
What would be thought of an American who should have the presumption to open a House of Refreshment in the Rue St. Jacques or the Palais Royale, and announce to the Parisians that he would serve up for them Prince’s Bay oysters, fried, stewed, roasted or in the shell; clam soup, pumpkin-pies, waffles, hoe-cakes and slap-jacks, or mush-and-milk and buck-wheats? Would the most inquisitive or most vulgar man in France venture within the doors of a house where such barbarisms were perpetrated? But why not, Monsieur? Why not, as well as for us to crowd the salons of the Messieurs who tempt us with their equally outlandish carte à manger, or who exclaim to us when we enter: