That the Hugo school has brought more nonsense with its mischief, is, I think, clear: but it is not impossible that this may act as an antidote to its own poison. It is a sort of humbug assumption of talent which will pass out of fashion as quickly as Morrison’s pills. We have nothing quite so silly as this; but much I fear that, as it concerns our welfare as a nation, we have what is more deeply dangerous.
As to what is moral and what is not so, plain as at first sight the question seems to be, there is much that is puzzling in it. In looking over a volume of “Adèle et Théodore” the other day, — a work written expressly “sur l’éducation,” and by an author that we must presume meant honestly and spoke sincerely, — I found this passage: —
“Je ne connais que trois romans véritablement moraux; — Clarisse, le plus beau de tous; Grandison, et Pamela. Ma fille les lira en Anglais lorsqu’elle aura dix-huit ans.”
The venerable Grandison, though by no means sans tache, I will let pass: but that any mother should talk of letting her daughter of “dix-huit ans” read the others, is a mystery difficult to comprehend, especially in a country where the young girls are reared, fostered, and sheltered from every species of harm, with the most incessant and sedulous watchfulness. I presume that Madame de Genlis conceived that, as the object and moral purpose of these works were good, the revolting coarseness with which some of their most powerful passages are written could not lead to evil. But this is a bold and dangerous judgment to pass when the question relates to the studies of a young girl.
I think we may see symptoms of the feeling which would produce such a judgment, in the tone of biting satire with which Molière attacks those who wished to banish what might “faire insulte à la pudeur des femmes.” Spoken as he makes Philaminte speak it, we cannot fail to laugh at the notion: yet ridicule on the same subject would hardly be accepted, even from Sheridan, as jesting matter with us.
“Mais le plus beau projet de notre académie,
Une entreprise noble, et dont je suis ravie,
Un dessein plein de gloire, et qui sera vanté
Chez tous les beaux-esprits de la postérité,
C’est le retranchement de ces syllabes sales
Qui dans les plus beaux mots produisent des scandales;
Ces jouets éternels des sots de tous les temps,
Ces fades lieux communs de nos méchans plaisans;
Ces sources d’un amas d’équivoques infâmes
Dont on vient faire insulte à la pudeur des femmes.”
Such an academy might be a very comical institution, certainly; but the duties it would have to perform would not suffer a professor’s place to become a sinecure in France.
LETTER XXVII.
Objections to quoting the names of private individuals. — Impossibility of avoiding Politics. — Parceque and Quoique. — Soirée Antithestique.
It would be a pleasure to me to give you the names of many persons with whom I have become acquainted in Paris, and I should like to describe exactly the salons in which I met them; but a whole host of proprieties forbid this. Where individuals are so well known to fame as to render the echoing of their names a matter of ordinary recurrence, I can of course feel no scruple in repeating the echo — one reverberation more can do no harm: but I will never be the first to name any one, either for praise or for blame, beyond the sanctuary of their own circle.
I must therefore restrict myself to the giving you the best general idea I can of the tone and style of what I have seen and heard; and if I avail myself of the conversations I have listened to, it shall be in such a manner as to avoid the slightest approach to personal allusion.
This necessary restraint, however, is not submitted to without regret: it must rob much of what I would wish to repeat of the value of authority; and when I consider how greatly at variance my impressions are on many points to some which have been publicly proclaimed by others, I feel that I deserve some praise for suppressing names which would stamp my statements with a value that neither my unsupported assertions, nor those of any other traveller, can be supposed to bear. Those who best know what I lose by this will give me credit for it; and I shall be sufficiently rewarded for my forbearance if it afford them a proof that I am not unworthy the flattering kindness I have received.
We all declare ourselves sick of politics, and a woman’s letters, at least, ought if possible to be free from this wearily pervading subject: but the describing a human being, and omitting to mention the heart and the brain, would not leave the analysis more defective, than painting the Parisians at this moment without permitting their politics to appear in the picture.
The very air they breathe is impregnated with politics. Were all words expressive of party distinctions to be banished from their language — were the curse of Babel to fall upon them, and no man be able to discourse with his neighbour, — still political feeling would find itself an organ whereby to express its workings. One man would wear a pointed hat, another a flat one; one woman would be girt with a tri-coloured sash, and another with a white one. Some exquisites would be closely buttoned to the chin, while the lapels of others would open wide in all the expansive freedom of republican unrestraint. One set would be seen adorning Napoleon’s pillar with trophies; another, prostrate before the altar of the elder Bourbon’s monumental chapel; a third, marshalling themselves under the bloody banner of Robespierre to the tune of “Dansons la Carmagnole;” whilst a fourth, by far the most numerous, would be brushing their national uniforms, attending to their prosperous shops, and giving a nod of good-fellowship every time his majesty the king passes by.
Some friends of mine entered a shop the other day to order some article of furniture. While they remained there, a royal carriage passed, and one of the party said —
“It is the queen, I believe?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the ébéniste, “it is the lady that it pleases us to call the queen. We may certainly call her so if we like it, for we made her ourselves; and if we find it does not answer, we shall make another. — May I send you home this table, sir?...”
When politics are thus lightly mixed up with all things, how can the subject be wholly avoided without destroying the power of describing anything as we find it?
Such being the case, I cannot promise that all allusion to the subject shall be banished from my letters; but it shall be made as little predominant as possible. Could I indeed succeed in transferring the light tone in which these weighty matters are generally discussed to the account I wish to give you of them, I need not much fear that I should weary you.
Whether it be essentially in the nature of the people, or only a transitory feature of the times, I know not; but nothing strikes me so forcibly as the airy, gay indifference with which subjects are discussed on which hang the destinies of the world. The most acute — nay, often the most profound remarks are uttered in a tone of badinage; and the probabilities of future events, vital to the interests of France, and indeed of Europe, are calculated with as idle an air, and with infinitely more sang froid, than the chances at a game of rouge et noir.
Yet, behind this I suspect that there is a good deal of sturdy determination in all parties, and it will be long ere France can be considered as one whole and united people. Were the country divided into two, instead of into three factions, it is probable that the question of which was to prevail would be soon brought to an issue; but as it is, they stand much like the uncles and nieces in the Critic, each keeping the other two in check.
Meanwhile this temporary division of strength is unquestionably very favourable to the present government; in addition to which, they derive much security from the averseness which all feel, excepting the naughty boys and hungry desperadoes, to the disturbance of their present tranquillity. It is evident that those who do not belong to the triumphant majority are disposed for the most part to wait a more favourable opportunity of hostilely and openly declaring themselves; and it is probable that they will wait long. They know well, and are daily r
eminded of it, that all the power and all the strength that possession can give are vested in the existing dynasty; and though much deeply-rooted feeling exists that is inimical to it, yet so many of all parties are firmly united to prevent farther anarchy and revolution, that the throne of Louis-Philippe perhaps rests on as solid a foundation as that of any monarch in Europe: the fear of renewed tumult acts like the key-stone of an arch, keeping firm, sound, and in good condition, what would certainly fall to pieces without it.
In addition to this wholesome fear of pulling their own dwellings about their ears, there is also another fear that aids greatly in producing the same result. Many of the riotous youths who so essentially assisted in creating the confusion which ended in uncrowning one king and crowning another, are, as far as I can understand, quite as well disposed to make a row now as they were then: but they know that if they do, they will most incontestably be whipped for it; and therefore, though they pout a little in private, they are, generally speaking, very orderly in public. Every one, not personally interested in the possible result of another uproar, must rejoice at this improvement in discipline. The boys of France must now submit to give way before her men; and as long as this lasts, something like peace and prosperity may be hoped for.
Yet it cannot be denied, I think, that among these prudent men — these doctrinaires who now hold the high places, there are many who, “with high thoughts, such as Lycurgus loved,” still dream of a commonwealth; or that there are others who have not yet weaned their waking thoughts from meditations on faith, right, and loyalty. But nevertheless, all unite in thinking that they had better “let things be,” than risk making them worse.
Nothing is more common than to hear a conversation end by a cordial and unanimous avowal of this prudent and sagacious sentiment, which began by an examination of general principles, and the frank acknowledgment of opinions which would certainly lead to a very different conclusion.
It is amusing enough to remark how these advocates for expediency contrive each of them to find reasons why things had better remain as they are, while all these reasons are strongly tinted by their various opinions.
“Charles Dix,” says a legitimate in principle, but a juste-milieu man in practice,— “Charles Dix has abdicated the throne, which otherwise must unquestionably be his by indefeasible right. His heir-apparent has followed the example. The country was in no state to be governed by a child; and what then was left for us, but to take a king from the same race which so for many ages has possessed the throne of France. Louis-Philippe est roi, PARCEQU’il est Bourbon.”
“Pardonnez-moi,” replies another, who, if he could manage it without disturbing the tranquillity about him, would take care to have it understood that nothing more legitimate than an elective monarchy could be ever permitted in France,— “Pardonnez-moi, mon ami; Louis-Philippe est roi, QUOIQU’il est Bourbon.”
These two parties of the Parceques and the Quoiques, in fact, form the great bulwarks of King Philippe’s throne; for they both consist of experienced, practical, substantial citizens, who having felt the horrors of anarchy, willingly keep their particular opinions in abeyance rather than hazard a recurrence of it. They, in truth, form between them the genuine juste-milieu on which the present government is balanced.
That there is more of the practical wisdom of expediency than of the dignity of unbending principle in this party, can hardly be denied. They are “wiser in their generation than the children of light;” but it is difficult, “seeing what we have seen, seeing what we see,” to express any heavy sentence of reprobation upon a line of conduct which ensures, for the time at least, the lives and prosperity of millions. They tell me that my friend the Vicomte has sapped my legitimate principles; but I deny the charge, though I cannot deliberately wish that confusion should take the place of order, or that the desolation of a civil war should come to deface the aspect of prosperity that it is so delightful to contemplate.
This discrepancy between what is right and what is convenient — this wavering of principle and of action, is the inevitable consequence of repeated political convulsions. When the times become out of joint, the human mind can with difficulty remain firm and steadfast. The inconceivable variety of wild and ever-changing speculations which have long overborne the voice of established belief and received authority in this country, has brought the principles of the people into a state greatly resembling that of a wheel radiated with every colour of the rainbow, but which by rapid movement is left apparently without any colour at all.
Our last soirée was at the house of a lady who takes much interest in showing me “le Paris d’aujourd’hui,” as she calls it. “Chère dame!” she exclaimed as I entered, “I have collected une société délicieuse for you this evening.”
She had met me in the ante-room, and, taking my arm within hers, led me into the salon. It was already filled with company, the majority of which were gentlemen. Having found room for us on a sofa, and seated herself next to me, she said —
“I will present whomsoever you choose to know; but before I bring anybody up, I must explain who they all are.”
I expressed my gratitude, and she began:— “That tall gentleman is a great republican, and one of the most respectable that we have left of the clique. The party is very nearly worn out among the gens comme il faut. His father, however, is of the same party, and still more violent, I believe, than himself. Heaven knows what they would be at!... But they are both deputies, and if they died to-morrow, would have, either father or son, a very considerable mob to follow them to Père Lachaise; not to mention the absolute necessity which I am sure there would be to have troops out: c’est toujours quelque chose, n’est-ce pas? I know that you hate them all — and, to say truth, so do I too; — mais, chère amie! qu’est-ce que cela fait? I thought you would like to see them: they really begin to get very scarce in salons.”
I assured her that she was quite right, and that nothing in the whole Jardin des Plantes could amuse me better.
“Ah ça!” she rejoined, laughing; “voilà ce que c’est d’être raisonnable. Mais regardez ce beau garçon leaning against the chimneypiece. He is one of les fidèles sans tache. Is he not handsome? I have him at all my parties; and even the ministers’ ladies declare that he is perfectly charming.”
“And that little odd-looking man in black,” said I, “who is he?... What a contrast!”
“N’est-ce pas? Do they not group well together? That is just the sort of thing I like — it amuses everybody: besides, I assure you, he is a very remarkable person, — in short, it is M —— , the celebrated atheist. He writes for the —— . But the Institute won’t have him: however, he is excessively talked of — and that is everything.... Then I have two peers, both of them highly distinguished. There is M. de —— , who, you know, is King Philippe’s right hand; and the gentleman sitting down just behind him is the dear old Duc de —— , who lived ages in exile with Louis Dix-huit.... That person almost at your elbow, talking to the lady in blue, is the Comte de P —— , a most exemplary Catholic, who always followed Charles Dix in all religious processions. He was half distracted, poor man! at the last revolution; but they say he is going to dine with King Philippe next week: I long to ask him if it is true, but I am afraid, for fear he should be obliged to answer ‘Yes;’ — that would be so embarrassing!... Oh, by the way, that is a peer that you are looking at now; — he has refused to sit on the trial.... Now, have I not done l’impossible for you?”
I thanked her gratefully, and as I knew I could not please her better than by showing the interest I took in her menagerie, I inquired the name of a lady who was talking with a good deal of vehemence at the opposite side of the room.
“Oh! that’s a person that I always call my ‘dame de l’Empire.’ Her husband was one of Napoleon’s creations; and Josephine used to amuse herself without ceasing by making her talk — her language and accent are impayables!”
“And that pretty woman in the corner?”
&nbs
p; “Ah! ... she is charming!... It is Madame V —— , daughter of the celebrated Vicomte de —— , so devoted, you know, to the royal cause. But she is lately married to one of the present ministers — quite a love-match; which is an innovation, by the way, more hard to pardon in France than the introduction of a new dynasty. Mais c’est égal — they are all very good friends again.... Now, tell me whom I shall introduce to you?”
I selected the heroine of the love-match; who was not only one of the prettiest creatures I ever saw, but so lively, intelligent, and agreeable, that I have seldom passed a pleasanter hour than that which followed the introduction. The whole of this heterogeneous party seemed to mix together with the greatest harmony; the only cold glance I saw given being from the gentleman designated as “King Philippe’s right hand,” towards the tall republican deputy of whose funeral my friend had predicted such honours. The dame de l’Empire was indulging in a lively flirtation with one of the peers sans tache; and I saw the fingers of the exemplary Catholic, who was going to dine with King Philippe, in the tabatière of the celebrated atheist. I then remembered that this was one of the soirées antithestiques so much in fashion.
LETTER XXVIII.
New Publications. — M. de Lamartine’s “Souvenirs, Impressions, Pensées, et Paysages.” — Tocqueville and Beaumont. — New American regulation. — M. Scribe. — Madame Tastu. — Reception of different Writers in society.
Though among the new publications sent to me for perusal I have found much to fatigue and disgust me, as must indeed be inevitable for any one accustomed for some scores of years to nourish the heart and head with the literature of the “bon vieux temps” — which means, in modern phrase, everything musty, rusty, rococo, and forgotten, — I have yet found some volumes which have delighted me greatly.
M. de Lamartine’s “Souvenirs, Impressions, Pensées, et Paysages” in the East, is a work which appears to me to stand solitary and alone in the world of letters. There is certainly nothing like it, and very little that can equal it, in my estimation, either as a collection of written landscapes or as a memorial of poetical feeling, just sentiment, and refined taste.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 526
