BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK
DEDICATORY LETTER
TO
M. ARETZ, TAILOR, ETC.
27 RUE RICHELIEU, PARIS
Sir,—It becomes every man in his station to acknowledge and praise virtue wheresoever he may find it, and to point it out for the admiration and example of his fellow-men.
Some months since, when you presented to the writer of these pages a small account for coats and pantaloons manufactured by you, and when you were met by a statement from your creditor, that an immediate settlement of your bill would be extremely inconvenient to him, your reply was, ‘Mon Dieu, sir, let not that annoy you; if you want money, as a gentleman often does in a strange country, I have a thousand-franc note at my house which is quite at your service.’
History or experience, sir, makes us acquainted with so few actions that can be compared to yours,—an offer like this from a stranger and a tailor seems to me so astonishing,—that you must pardon me for thus making your virtue public, and acquainting the English nation with your merit and your name. Let me add, sir, that you live on the first floor; that your cloths and fit are excellent, and your charges moderate and just; and, as a humble tribute of my admiration, permit me to lay these volumes at your feet.—Your obliged, faithful servant,
M. A. TITMARSH.
ABOUT half of the sketches in these volumes have already appeared in print, in various periodical works. A part of the text of one tale, and the plots of two others, have been borrowed from French originals; the other stories, which are, in the main, true, have been written upon facts and characters, that came within the Author’s observation during a residence in Paris.
As the remaining papers relate to public events, which occurred during the same period, or to Parisian Art and Literature, he has ventured to give his publication the title which it bears.
London,
July 1, 1840.
EXPLANATION OF THE ALLEGORY
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Number 1’s an ancient Carlist, Number 8 a Paris Artist, |
THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK
AN INVASION OF FRANCE
‘Cæsar venit in Galliam summâ diligentiâ.’
ABOUT twelve o’clock, just as the bell of the packet is tolling a farewell to London Bridge, and warning off the blackguard-boys with the newspapers, who have been shoving Times, Herald, Penny Paul-Pry, Penny Satirist, Flare-up, and other abominations into your face—just as the bell has tolled, and the Jews, strangers, people-taking-leave-of-their-families, and blackguard-boys aforesaid are making a rush for the narrow plank which conducts from the paddle-box of the Emerald steamboat unto the quay—you perceive, staggering down Thames Street, those two hackney-coaches, for the arrival of which you have been praying, trembling, hoping, despairing, swearing—sw——, I beg your pardon, I believe the word is not used in polite company—and transpiring, for the last half-hour. Yes, at last, the two coaches draw near, and from thence an awful number of trunks, children, carpet-bags, nurserymaids, hat-boxes, band-boxes, bonnet-boxes, desks, cloaks, and an affectionate wife, are discharged on the quay.
‘Elizabeth, take care of Miss Jane,’ screams that worthy woman, who has been for a fortnight employed in getting this tremendous body of troops and baggage into marching order. ‘Hicks! Hicks! for Heaven’s sake mind the babies!’—‘George—Edward, sir, if you go near that porter with the trunk, he will tumble down and kill you, you naughty boy!—My love, do take the cloaks and umbrellas, and give a hand to Fanny and Lucy; and I wish you would speak to the hackney-coachmen, dear; they want fifteen shillings, and count the packages, love—twenty-seven packages,—and bring little Flo; where’s little Flo?—Flo! Flo!’—(Flo comes sneaking in; she has been speaking a few parting words to a one-eyed terrier, that sneaks off similarly, landward).
As when the hawk menaces the hen-roost, in like manner, when such a danger as a voyage menaces a mother, she becomes suddenly endowed with a ferocious presence of mind, and bristling up and screaming in the front of her brood, and in the face of circumstances, succeeds, by her courage, in putting her enemy to flight; in like manner you will always, I think, find your wife (if that lady be good for twopence) shrill, eager, and ill-humoured, before and during a great family move of this nature. Well, the swindling hackney-coachmen are paid, the mother leading on her regiment of little ones, and supported by her auxiliary nursemaids, are safe in the cabin; you have counted twenty-six of the twenty-seven parcels, and have them on board; and that horrid man on the paddle-box, who, for twenty minutes past, has been roaring out, Now, Sir!—says, Now, sir, no more.
I never yet knew how a steamer began to move, being always too busy among the trunks and children, for the first half-hour, to mark any of the movements of the vessel. When these private arrangements are made, you find yourself opposite Greenwich (farewell, sweet, sweet whitebait!), and quiet begins to enter your soul. Your wife smiles for the first time these ten days; you pass by plantations of ship-masts, and forests of steam-chimneys; the sailors are singing on board the ships, the barges salute you with oaths, grins, and phrases facetious and familiar; the man on the paddle-box roars, ‘Ease her, stop her!’ which mysterious words a shrill voice from below repeats, and pipes out, ‘Ease her, stop her!’ in echo: the deck is crowded with groups of figures, and the sun shines over all.
The sun shines over all, and the steward comes up to say, ‘Lunch, ladies and gentlemen! Will any lady or gentleman please to take anythink?’ About a dozen do: boiled beef and pickles, and great, red, raw Cheshire cheese, tempt the epicure: little dumpy bottles of stout are produced, and fizz and bang about with a spirit one would never have looked for in individuals of their size and stature.
The decks have a strange look; the people on them, that is. Wives, elderly stout husbands, nursemaids, and children predominate, of course, in English steamboats. Such may be considered as the distinctive marks of the English gentleman at three or four and forty: two or three of such groups have pitched their camps on the deck. Then there are a number of young men, of whom three or four have allowed their moustaches to begin to grow since last Friday; for they are going ‘on the Continent,’ and they look, therefore, as if their upper lips were smeared with snuff.
A danseuse from the opera is on her way to Paris. Followed by her bonne and her little dog, she paces the deck, stepping out, in the real dancer fashion, and ogling all around. How happy the two young Englishmen are, who can speak French, and make up to her: and how all criticise her points and paces! Yonder is a group of young ladies, who are going to Paris to learn how to be governesses: those two splendidly dressed ladies are milliners from the Rue Richelieu, who have just brought over, and disposed of, their cargo of summer fashions. Here sits the Rev. Mr. Snodgrass with his pupils, whom he is conducting to his establishment, near Boulogne, where, in addition to a classical and mathematical education (washing included), the young gentlemen have the benefit of learning French among the French themselves. Accordingly, the young gentlemen are locked up in a great rickety house, two miles from Boulogne, and never see a soul, except the French usher and the cook.
Some few French people are there already, preparing to be ill—(I never shall forget a dreadful sight I once had in the little, dark, dirty, six-foot cabin of a Dover steamer. Four gaunt Frenchmen, but for their pantaloons, in the costume of Adam in Paradise, solemnly anointing themselves with some charm against sea-sickness!)—a few Frenchmen are there, but these, for the most part, and with a proper philosophy, go to the fore-cabin of the ship, and you see them on the fore-deck (is that the name for that part of the vessel which is in the region of the bowsprit?) lowering in huge cloaks and caps; snuffy, wretched, pale, and wet; and not jabbering now, as their wont is on shore. I never could fancy the Mounseers formidable at sea.
There are, of course, many Jews on board. Who ever travelled by steamboat, coach, diligence, eilwagen, vetturino, mule-back, or sledge without meeting some of the wandering race?
By the time these remarks have been made the steward is on the deck again, and dinner is ready: and about two hours after dinner comes tea; and then there is brandy-and-water, which he eagerly presses as a preventive against what may happen; and about this time you pass the Foreland, the wind blowing pretty fresh; and the groups on deck disappear, and your wife, giving you an alarmed look, descends, with her little ones, to the ladies’ cabin, and you see the steward and his boys issuing from their den under the paddle-box, with each a heap of round tin vases, like those which are called, I believe, in America, expectoratoons, only these are larger.
The wind blows, the water looks greener and more beautiful than ever—ridge by ridge of long white rock passes away. ‘That’s Ramsgit,’ says the man at the helm; and, presently, ‘That there’s Deal—it’s dreadful fallen off since the war;’ and ‘That’s Dover, round that there pint, only you can’t see it;’ and, in the meantime, the sun has plumped his hot face into the water, and the moon has shown hers as soon as ever his back is turned, and Mrs. —— (the wife in general) has brought up her children and self from the horrid cabin, in which, she says, it is impossible to breathe; and the poor little wretches are, by the officious stewardess and smart steward (expectoratoonifer), accommodated with a heap of blankets, pillows, and mattresses, in the midst of which they crawl, as best they may, and from the heaving heap of which are, during the rest of the voyage, heard occasional faint cries, and sounds of puking woe!
Dear, dear Maria! Is this the woman who, anon, braved the jeers and brutal wrath of swindling hackney-coachmen; who repelled the insolence of haggling porters, with a scorn that brought down their demands at least eighteenpence? Is this the woman at whose voice servants tremble; at the sound of whose steps the nursery, ay, and mayhap the parlour, is in order? Look at her now, prostrate, prostrate—no strength has she to speak, scarce power to push to her youngest one—her suffering, struggling Rosa,—to push to her the—the instrumentoon!
In the midst of all these throes and agonies, at which all the passengers, who have their own woes (you yourself—for how can you help them?—you are on your back on a bench, and if you move all is up with you), are looking on indifferent—one man there is who has been watching you with the utmost care, and bestowing on your helpless family the tenderness that a father denies them. He is a foreigner, and you have been conversing with him, in the course of the morning, in French—which, he says, you speak remarkably well, like a native, in fact, and then in English (which, after all, you find, is more convenient). What can express your gratitude to this gentleman for all his goodness towards your family and yourself?—you talk to him, he has served under the Emperor, and is, for all that, sensible, modest, and well informed. He speaks, indeed, of his countrymen almost with contempt, and readily admits the superiority of a Briton, on the seas and elsewhere. One loves to meet with such genuine liberality in a foreigner, and respects the man who can sacrifice vanity to truth. This distinguished foreigner has travelled much; he asks whither you are going?—where you stop?—if you have a great quantity of luggage on board?—and laughs when he hears of the twenty-seven packages, and hopes you have some friend at the custom-house, who can spare you the monstrous trouble of unpacking that which has taken you weeks to put up. Nine, ten, eleven, the distinguished foreigner is ever at your side; you find him now, perhaps (with characteristic ingratitude), something of a bore, but, at least, he has been most tender to the children and their mamma. At last a Boulogne light comes in sight (you see it over the bows of the vessel, when, having bobbed violently upwards, it sinks swiftly down), Boulogne harbour is in sight, and the foreigner says:
The distinguished foreigner says, says he—‘Sare, eef you af no ‘otel, I sall recommend you, milor, to ze ‘Otel Betfort, in ze Quay, sare, close to the bathing-machines and custom-ha-oose. Good bets and fine garten, sare; table-d’hôte, sare, à cinq-heures; breakfast, sare, in French or English style;—I am the commissionaire, sare, and vill see to your loggish.’
...Curse the fellow, for an impudent, swindling, sneaking, French humbug!—Your tone instantly changes, and you tell him to go about his business; but at twelve o’clock at night, when the voyage is over, and the custom-house business done, knowing not whither to go, with a wife and fourteen exhausted children, scarce able to stand, and longing for bed, you find yourself, somehow, in the Hôtel Bedford (and you can’t be better), and smiling chambermaids carry off your children to snug beds; while smart waiters produce for your honour—a cold fowl, say, and a salad, and a bottle of Bordeaux and seltzer-water.
. . . . .
The morning comes—I don’t know a pleasanter feeling than that of waking with the sun shining on objects quite new, and (although you may have made the voyage a dozen times) quite strange. Mrs. X. and you occupy a very light bed, which has a tall canopy of red percale; the windows are smartly draped with cheap gaudy calicoes and muslins; there are little mean strips of carpet about the tiled floor of the room, and yet all seems as gay and as comfortable as may be—the sun shines brighter than you have seen it for a year, the sky is a thousand times bluer, and what a cheery clatter of shrill quick French voices comes up from the courtyard under the windows! Bells are jangling; a family, mayhap, is going to Paris en poste, and wondrous is the jabber of the courier, the postillion, the inn-waiters, and the lookers-on. The landlord calls out for ‘Quatre biftecks aux pommes, pour le trente-trois’—(O my countrymen! I love your tastes and your ways!)—the chambermaid is laughing, and says, ‘Finissez donc, Monsieur Pierre!’ (what can they be about?)—a fat Englishman has opened his window violently, and says, ‘Dee dong, garsong, vooly voo me donny lo sho, ou vooly voo pah?’ He has been ringing for half an hour—the last energetic appeal succeeds, and shortly he is enabled to descend to the coffee-room, where, with three hot rolls, grilled ham, cold fowl, and four boiled eggs, he makes what he calls his first French breakfast.
It is a strange, mongrel, merry place, this town of Boulogne; the little French fishermen’s children are beautiful, and the little French soldiers, four feet high, red-breeched, with huge pompons on their caps, and brown faces, and clear sharp eyes, look, for all their littleness, far more military and more intelligent than the heavy louts one has seen swaggering about the garrison towns in England. Yonder go a crowd of bare-legged fishermen; there is the town idiot, mocking a woman who is screaming ‘Fleuve du Tage,’ at an inn-window, to a harp, and there are the little gamins mocking him. Lo! these seven young ladies, with red hair and green veils, they are from neighbouring Albion, and going to bathe. Here come three Englishmen, habitués evidently of the place,—dandy specimens of our countrymen: one wears a marine dress, another has a shooting dress, a third has a blouse and a pair of guiltless spurs—all have as much hair on the face as nature or art can supply, and all wear their hats very much on one side. Believe me, there is on the face of this world no scamp like an English one, no blackguard like one of these half-gentlemen, so mean, so low, so vulgar,—so ludicrously ignorant and conceited, so desperately heartless and depraved.
But why, my dear sir, get into a passion?—Take things coolly. As the poet has observed, ‘Those only is gentlemen who behave as sich;’ with such, then, consort, be they cobblers or dukes. Don’t give us, cries the patriotic reader, any abuse of our fellow-countrymen (anybody else can do that), but rather continue in that good-humoured, facetious, descriptive style, with which your letter has commenced. Your remark, sir, is perfectly just, and does honour to your head and excellent heart.
There is little need to give a description of the good town of Boulogne; which, haute and basse, with the new lighthouse and the new harbour, and the gas-lamps, and the manufactures, and the convents, and the number of English and French residents, and the pillar erected in honour of the grand Armée d’Angleterre, so called because it didn’t go to England, have all been excellently described by the facetious Coglan, the learned Dr. Millingen, and by innumerable guide-books besides. A fine thing it is to hear the stout old Frenchmen of Napoleon’s time argue how that audacious Corsican would have marched to London, after swallowing Nelson and all his gunboats, but for cette malheureuse guerre d’Espagne and cette glorieuse campagne d’Autriche, which the gold of Pitt caused to be raised at the Emperors tail, in order to call him off from the helpless country in his front. Some Frenchmen go farther still, and vow that in Spain they were never beaten at all; indeed, if you read in the Biographie des Hommes du Jour, article ‘Soult,’ you will fancy that, with the exception of the disaster at Vittoria, the campaigns in Spain and Portugal were a series of triumphs. Only, by looking at a map, it is observable that Vimieiro is a mortal long way from Toulouse, where, at the end of certain years of victories, we somehow find the honest Marshal. And what then?—he went to Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English there, to be sure;—a known fact, on which comment would be superfluous. However, we shall never get to Paris at this rate; let us break off further palaver, and away at once....
(During this pause, the ingenious reader is kindly requested to pay his bill at the hôtel at Boulogne, to mount the diligence of Laffitte, Caillard, and Company, and to travel for twenty-five hours, amidst much jingling of harness-bells and screaming of postillions.)
. . . . .
The French milliner, who occupies one of the corners, begins to remove the greasy pieces of paper which have enveloped her locks during the journey. She withdraws the ‘Madras’ of dubious hue which has bound her head for the last five-and-twenty hours, and replaces it by the black velvet bonnet, which, bobbing against your nose, has hung from the diligence roof since your departure from Boulogne. The old lady in the opposite corner, who has been sucking bonbons, and smells dreadfully of anisette, arranges her little parcels in that immense basket of abominations which all old women carry in their laps. She rubs her mouth and eyes with her dusty cambric handkerchief, she ties up her nightcap into a little bundle, and replaces it by a more becoming headpiece, covered with withered artificial flowers and crumpled tags of ribbon; she looks wistfully at the company for an instant, and then places her handkerchief before her mouth:—her eyes roll strangely about for an instant, and you hear a faint clattering noise: the old lady has been getting her teeth ready, which had lain in her basket among the bonbons, pins, oranges, pomatum, bits of cake, lozenges, prayer-books, peppermint-water, copper-money, and false hair—stowed away there during the voyage. The Jewish gentleman, who has been so attentive to the milliner during the journey, and is traveller and bagman by profession, gathers together his various goods. The sallow-faced English lad, who has been drunk ever since we left Boulogne yesterday, and is coming to Paris to pursue the study of medicine, swears that he rejoices to leave the cursed diligence, is sick of the infernal journey, and d—d glad that the d—d voyage is so nearly over. ‘Enfin!’ says your neighbour, yawning, and inserting an elbow in the mouth of his right-and left-hand companion, ‘nous voilà.’
Nous voilà!—We are at Paris! This must account for the removal of the milliner’s curl-papers, and the fixing of the old lady’s teeth.—Since the last relais, the diligence has been travelling with extraordinary speed. The postillion cracks his terrible whip, and screams shrilly. The conductor blows incessantly on his horn, the bells of the harness, the bumping and ringing of the wheels and chains, and the clatter of the great hoofs of the heavy snorting Norman stallions, have wondrously increased within this the last ten minutes; and the diligence, which has been proceeding hitherto at the rate of a league an hour, now dashes gallantly forward, as if it would traverse at least six miles in the same space of time. Thus it is, when Sir Robert maketh a speech at St. Stephen’s—he useth his strength at the beginning, only, and the end. He gallopeth at the commencement; in the middle he lingers; at the close, again, he rouses the House, which has fallen asleep; he cracketh the whip of his satire; he shouts the shout of his patriotism; and, urging his eloquence to its roughest canter, awakens the sleepers, and inspires the weary, until men say, What a wondrous orator! What a capital coach! We will ride henceforth in it, and in no other!
But, behold us at Paris! The diligence has reached a rude-looking gate, or grille, flanked by two lodges; the French kings of old made their entry by this gate; some of the hottest battles of the late revolution were fought before it. At present, it is blocked by carts and peasants, and a busy crowd of men, in green, examining the packages before they enter, probing the straw with long needles. It is the Barrier of St. Denis, and the green men are the customs’ men of the city of Paris. If you are a countryman, who would introduce a cow into the metropolis, the city demands twenty-four francs for such a privilege: if you have a hundredweight of tallow-candles, you must, previously, disburse three francs: if a drove of hogs, nine francs per whole hog: but upon these subjects Mr. Bulwer, Mrs. Trollope, and other writers have already enlightened the public. In the present instance, after a momentary pause, one of the men in green mounts by the side of the conductor, and the ponderous vehicle pursues its journey.
The street which we enter, that of the Faubourg St. Denis, presents a strange contrast to the dark uniformity of a London street, where everything, in the dingy and smoky atmosphere, looks as though it were painted in India-ink—black houses, black passengers, and black sky. Here, on the contrary, is a thousand times more life and colour. Before you, shining in the sun, is a long glistening line of gutter—not a very pleasing object in a city, but in a picture invaluable. On each side are houses of all dimensions and hues; some but of one story; some as high as the Tower of Babel. From these the haberdashers (and this is their favourite street) flaunt long strips of gaudy calicoes, which give a strange air of rude gaiety to the looks. Milkwomen, with a little crowd of gossips round each, are, at this early hour of morning, selling the chief material of the Parisian café-au-lait. Gay wineshops, painted red, and smartly decorated with vines and gilded railings, are filled with workmen taking their morning’s draught. That gloomy-looking prison on your right is a prison for women; once it was a convent for Lazarists: a thousand unfortunate individuals of the softer sex now occupy that mansion; they bake, as we find in the guide-books, the bread of all the other prisons; they mend and wash the shirts and stockings of all the other prisoners; they make hooks and eyes and phosphorus-boxes, and they attend chapel every Sunday:—if occupation can help them, sure they have enough of it. Was it not a great stroke of the Legislature to superintend the morals and linen at once, and thus keep these poor creatures continually mending?—But we have passed the prison long ago, and are at the Porte St. Denis itself.
There is only time to take a hasty glance as we pass; it commemorates some of the wonderful feats of arms of Ludovicus Magnus, and abounds in ponderous allegories—nymphs and river-gods, and pyramids crowned with fleurs-de-lis; Louis passing over the Rhine in triumph, and the Dutch Lion giving up the ghost, in the year of our Lord 1672. The Dutch Lion revived, and overcame the man some years afterwards; but of this fact, singularly enough, the inscriptions make no mention. Passing, then, round the gate, and not under it (after the general custom, in respect of triumphal arches), you cross the Boulevard, which gives a glimpse of trees and sunshine, and gleaming white buildings; then, dashing down the Rue de Bourbon Villeneuve, a dirty street, which seems interminable, and the Rue St. Eustache, the conductor gives a last blast on his horn, and the great vehicle clatters into the courtyard, where its journey is destined to conclude.
If there was a noise before of screaming postillions and cracked horns, it was nothing to the Babel-like clatter which greets us now. We are in a great court, which Hajji Baba would call the father of diligences. Half a dozen other coaches arrive at the same minute—no light affairs, like your English vehicles, but ponderous machines, containing fifteen passengers inside, more in the cabriolet, and vast towers of luggage on the roof: others are loading: the yard is filled with passengers coming or departing;—bustling porters and screaming commissionaires. These latter seize you as you descend from your place,—twenty cards are thrust into your hand, and as many voices, jabbering with inconceivable swiftness, shriek into your ear, ‘Dis way, sare; are you for ze Otel of Rhin? Hôtel de l’Amirauté!—Hôtel Bristol, sare?—Monsieur, l’Hôtel de Lille? Sacr-rrré nom de Dieu, laissez passer ce petit Monsieur! Ow mosh loggish ave you, sare?’
And now, if you are a stranger in Paris, listen to the words of Titmarsh. If you cannot speak a syllable of French, and love English comfort, clean rooms, breakfasts, and waiters; if you would have plentiful dinners, and are not particular (as how should you be?) concerning wine; if, in this foreign country, you will have your English companions, your porter, your friend, and your brandy-and-water—do not listen to any of these commissioner fellows, but with your best English accent shout out boldly, Meurice! and straightway a man will step forward to conduct you to the Rue de Rivoli.
Here you find apartments at any price: a very neat room, for instance, for three francs daily; an English breakfast of eternal boiled eggs, or grilled ham; a nondescript dinner, profuse but cold; and a society which will rejoice your heart. Here are young gentlemen from the Universities; young merchants on a lark; large families of nine daughters, with fat father and mother; officers of dragoons, and lawyers’ clerks. The last time we dined at Meurice’s we hobbed and nobbed with no less a person than Mr. Moses, the celebrated bailiff of Chancery Lane; Lord Brougham was on his right, and a clergyman’s lady, with a train of white-haired girls, sat on his left, wonderfully taken with the diamond rings of the fascinating stranger!
It is, as you will perceive, an admirable way to see Paris, especially if you spend your days reading the English papers at Galignani’s, as many of our foreign tourists do.
But all this is promiscuous, and not to the purpose. If,—to continue on the subject of hotel-choosing,—if you love quiet, heavy bills, and the best table-d’hôte in the city, go, O stranger! to the Hôtel des Princes; it is close to the Boulevard, and convenient for Frascati’s. The Hôtel Mirabeau possesses scarcely less attraction; but of this you will find, in Mr. Bulwer’s Autobiography of Pelham, a faithful and complete account. Lawson’s Hotel has likewise its merits, as also the Hôtel de Lille, which may be described as a ‘second chop’ Meurice.
If you are a poor student come to study the humanities, or the pleasant art of amputation, cross the water forthwith, and proceed to the Hôtel Corneille, near the Odéon, or others of its species; there are many where you can live royally (until you economise by going into lodgings) on four francs a day; and where, if by any strange chance you are desirous for a while to get rid of your countrymen, you will find that they scarcely ever penetrate.
But, above all O, my countrymen! shun boarding-houses, especially if you have ladies in your train; or ponder well, and examine the characters of the keepers thereof, before you lead your innocent daughters, and their mamma, into places so dangerous. In the first place, you have bad dinners; and, secondly, bad company. If you play cards, you are very likely playing with a swindler; if you dance, you dance with a—— person with whom you had better have nothing to do.
Note (which ladies are requested not to read).—In one of these establishments, daily advertised as most eligible for English, a friend of the writer lived. A lady, who had passed for some time as the wife of one of the inmates, suddenly changed her husband and name, her original husband remaining in the house, and saluting her by her new title.
A CAUTION TO TRAVELLERS
A MILLION dangers and snares await the traveller, as soon as he issues out of that vast messagerie which we have just quitted; and as each man cannot do better than relate such events as have happened in the course of his own experience, and may keep the unwary from the path of danger, let us take this, the very earliest opportunity, of imparting to the public a little of the wisdom which we painfully have acquired.
And first, then, with regard to the city of Paris, it is to be remarked, that in that metropolis flourish a greater number of native and exotic swindlers than are to be found in any other European nursery. What young Englishman that visits it, but has not determined, in his heart, to have a little share of the gaieties that go on—just for once, just to see what they are like? How many, when the horrible gambling-dens were open, did resist a sight of them?—nay, was not a young fellow rather flattered by a dinner invitation from the Salon, whither he went, fondly pretending that he should see ‘French society,’ in the persons of certain Dukes and Counts who used to frequent the place?
My friend Pogson is a young fellow, not much worse, although, perhaps, a little weaker and simpler than his neighbours; and coming to Paris with exactly the same notions that bring many others of the British youth to that capital, events befell him there, last winter, which are strictly true, and shall here be narrated, by way of warning to all.
Pog, it must be premised, is a City man, who travels in drugs for a couple of the best London houses, blows the flute, has an album, drives his own gig, and is considered, both on the road and in the metropolis, a remarkably nice, intelligent, thriving young man. Pogson’s only fault is too great an attachment to the fair:—‘The sex,’ as he says often, ‘will be his ruin;’ the fact is, that Pog never travels without a Don Juan under his driving-cushion, and is a pretty-looking young fellow enough.
Sam Pogson had occasion to visit Paris, last October; and it was in that city that his love of the sex had like to have cost him dear. He worked his way down to Dover; placing, right and left, at the towns on his route, rhubarb, sodas, and other such delectable wares as his master dealt in (‘the sweetest sample of castor-oil, smelt like a nosegay—went off like wildfire—hogshead and a-half at Rochester, eight-and-twenty gallons at Canterbury,’ and so on), and crossed to Calais, and thence voyaged to Paris in the coupé of the diligence. He paid for two places, too, although a single man, and the reason shall now be made known.
Dining at the table-d’hôte at Quillacq’s—it is the best inn on the continent of Europe—our little traveller had the happiness to be placed next to a lady, who was, he saw at a glance, one of the extreme pink of the nobility. A large lady, in black satin, with eyes and hair as black as sloes, with gold chains, scent-bottles, sable tippet, worked pocket-handkerchief, and four twinkling rings on each of her plump white fingers. Her cheeks were as pink as the finest Chinese rouge could make them: Pog knew the article; he travelled in it. Her lips were as red as the ruby lip-salve: she used the very best, that was clear.
She was a fine-looking woman, certainly (holding down her eyes, and talking perpetually of mes trente-deux ans); and Pogson, the wicked young dog! who professed not to care for young misses, saying they smelt so of bread-and-butter, declared, at once, that the lady was one of his beauties; in fact, when he spoke to us about her, he said, ‘She’s a slap-up thing, I tell you; a reg’lar good one; one of my sort!’ And such was Pogson’s credit in all commercial rooms, that one of his sort was considered to pass all other sorts.
During dinner-time, Mr. Pogson was profoundly polite and attentive to the lady at his side, and kindly communicated to her, as is the way with the best-bred English on their first arrival ‘on the Continent,’ all his impressions regarding the sights and persons he had seen. Such remarks having been made during half an hour’s ramble about the ramparts and town, and in the course of a walk down to the custom-house, and a confidential communication with the commissionaire, must be, doubtless, very valuable to Frenchmen in their own country: and the lady listened to Pogson’s opinions, not only with benevolent attention, but actually, she said, with pleasure and delight. Mr. Pogson said that there was no such thing as good meat in France, and that’s why they cooked their victuals in this queer way: he had seen many soldiers parading about the place, and expressed a true Englishman’s abhorrence of an armed force; not that he feared such fellows as these—little whipper-snappers—our men would eat them. Hereupon the lady admitted that our Guards were angels, but that Monsieur must not be too hard upon the French; ‘her father was a General of the Emperor.’
Pogson felt a tremendous respect for himself, at the notion that he was dining with a General’s daughter, and instantly ordered a bottle of champagne to keep up his consequence.
‘Mrs. Bironn, ma’am,’ said he, for he had heard the waiter call her by some such name, ‘if you will accept a glass of champagne, ma’am, you’ll do me, I’m sure, great honour: they say it’s very good, and a precious sight cheaper than it is on our side of the way, too—not that I care for money. Mrs. Bironn, ma’am, your health, ma’am.’
The lady smiled very graciously, and drank the wine.
‘Har you any relation, ma’am, if I may make so bold; har you anyways connected with the family of our immortal bard?’
‘Sir, I beg your pardon.’
‘Don’t mention it, ma’am: but Bironn and Byron are hevidently the same names, only you pronounce in the French way; and I thought you might be related to his lordship: his horigin, ma’am, was of French extraction:’ and here Pogson began to repeat:
‘Hare thy heyes like thy mother’s, my fair child,
Hada! sole daughter of my ouse and art.’
‘Oh!’ said the lady, laughing, ‘you speak of Lor Byron.’
‘Hauthor of Don Juan, Child Arold, and Cain, a Mystery,’ said Pogson: ‘I do; and hearing the waiter calling you Madam la Bironn, took the liberty of hasking whether you were connected with his lordship;—that’s hall;’ and my friend here grew dreadfully red, and began twiddling his long ringlets in his fingers, and examining very eagerly the contents of his plate.
‘Oh no: Madame la Baronne means Mistress Baroness; my husband was Baron, and I am Baroness.’
‘What! ‘ave I the honour—I beg your pardon, ma’am—is your ladyship a Baroness, and I not know it; pray excuse me for calling you ma’am.’
The Baroness smiled most graciously—with such a look as Juno cast upon unfortunate Jupiter when she wished to gain her wicked ends upon him—the Baroness smiled; and, stealing her hand into a black velvet bag, drew from it an ivory card-case, and from the ivory card-case extracted a glazed card, printed in gold; on it was engraved a coronet, and under the coronet the words—
BARONNE DE FLORVAL-DELVAL,
NÉE DE MELVAL-NORVAL.
Rue Taitbout.
MR. POGSON’S TEMPTATION
The grand Pitt diamond—the Queen’s own star of the garter—a sample of otto-of-roses at a guinea a drop, would not be handled more curiously, or more respectfully, than this porcelain card of the Baroness. Trembling he put it into his little Russia-leather pocket-book: and when he ventured to look up, and saw the eyes of the Baroness de Florval-Delval, née de Melval-Norval, gazing upon him with friendly and serene glances, a thrill of pride tingled through Pogson’s blood: he felt himself to be the very happiest fellow ‘on the Continent.’
But Pogson did not, for some time, venture to resume that sprightly and elegant familiarity which generally forms the great charm of his conversation: he was too much frightened at the presence he was in, and contented himself by graceful and solemn bows, deep attention, and ejaculations of ‘Yes, my lady,’ and ‘No, your ladyship,’ for some minutes after the discovery had been made. Pogson piqued himself on his breeding: ‘I hate the aristocracy,’ he said, ‘but that’s no reason why I shouldn’t behave like a gentleman.’
A surly, silent little gentleman, who had been the third at the ordinary, and would take no part either in the conversation or in Pogson’s champagne, now took up his hat, and, grunting, left the room, when the happy bagman had the delight of a tête-à-tête. The Baroness did not appear inclined to move: it was cold; a fire was comfortable, and she had ordered none in her apartment. Might Pogson give her one more glass of champagne, or would her ladyship prefer ‘something hot.’ Her ladyship gravely said, she never took anything hot! ‘Some champagne, then, a leetle drop?’ She would! she would! Oh, gods! how Pogson’s hand shook as he filled and offered her the glass!
What took place during the rest of the evening had better be described by Mr. Pogson himself, who has given us permission to publish his letter:—
‘Quillacq’s Hotel (pronounced Killyax), Calais.
‘Dear Tit,—I arrived at Cally, as they call it, this day, or, rather, yesterday; for it is past midnight, as I sit thinking of a wonderful adventure that has just befallen me. A woman, in course; that’s always the case with me, you know: but oh, Tit! if you could but see her! Of the first family in France, the Florval-Melvals, beautiful as an angel, and no more caring for money than I do for split peas.
‘I’ll tell you how it all occurred. Everybody in France, you know, dines at the ordinary—it’s quite distangy to do so. There was only three of us to-day, however,—the Baroness, me, and a gent, who never spoke a word; and we didn’t want him to, neither: do you mark that?
‘You know my way with the women; champagne’s the thing; make ‘em drink, make ‘em talk;—make ‘em talk, make ‘em do anything. So I orders a bottle, as if for myself; and, “Ma’am,” says I, “will you take a glass of Sham—just one?” Take it she did—for you know it’s quite distangy here: everybody dines at the table-d’hôte, and everybody accepts everybody’s wine. Bob Irons, who travels in linen, on our circuit, told me that he had made some slap-up acquaintances among the genteelest people at Paris, nothing but by offering them Sham.
‘Well, my Baroness takes one glass, two glasses, three glasses—the old fellow goes—we have a deal of chat (she took me for a military man, she said: is it not singular that so many people should?), and by ten o’clock we had grown so intimate, that I had from her her whole history, knew where she came from, and where she was going. Leave me alone with ‘em; I can find out any woman’s history in half an hour.
‘And where do you think she is going? to Paris, to be sure: she has her seat in what they call the coopy (though you’re not near so cooped in it as in our coaches. I’ve been to the office and seen one of ‘em). She has her place in the coopy, and the coopy holds three; so what does Sam Pogson do?—he goes and takes the other two. Ain’t I up to a thing or two? Oh no, not the least; but I shall have her to myself the whole of the way.
‘We shall be in the French metropolis the day after this reaches you: please look out for a handsome lodging for me, and never mind the expense. And I say, if you could, in her hearing, when you come down to the coach, call me Captain Pogson, I wish you would—it sounds well travelling, you know; and when she asked me if I was an officer, I couldn’t say no. Adieu, then, my dear fellow, till Monday, and vive le joy, as they say. The Baroness says I speak French charmingly, she talks English as well as you or I.—Your affectionate friend, S. Pogson.’
This letter reached us duly, in our garrets, and we engaged such an apartment for Mr. Pogson as beseemed a gentleman of his rank in the world and the army. At the appointed hour, too, we repaired to the diligence office, and there beheld the arrival of the machine which contained him and his lovely Baroness.
Those who have much frequented the society of gentlemen of his profession (and what more delightful?) must be aware that, when all the rest of mankind look hideous, dirty, peevish, wretched, after a forty hours’ coach-journey, a bagman appears as gay and as spruce as when he started; having within himself a thousand little conveniences for the voyage, which common travellers neglect. Pogson had a little portable toilet, of which he had not failed to take advantage, and with his long, curling, flaxen hair, flowing under a sealskin cap, with a gold tassel, with a blue-and-gold satin handkerchief, a crimson velvet waistcoat, a light green cut-away coat, a pair of barred brick-dust-coloured pantaloons, and a neat mackintosh, presented, altogether, as elegant and distingué an appearance as any one could desire. He had put on a clean collar at breakfast, and a pair of white kids as he entered the barrier, and looked, as he rushed into my arms, more like a man stepping out of a bandbox than one descending from a vehicle that has just performed one of the laziest, dullest, flattest, stalest, dirtiest journeys in Europe.
To my surprise, there were two ladies in the coach with my friend, and not one, as I had expected. One of these, a stout female, carrying sundry baskets, bags, umbrellas, and woman’s wraps, was evidently a maid-servant; the other, in black, was Pogson’s fair one, evidently. I could see a gleam of curl-papers over a sallow face,—of a dusky nightcap flapping over the curl-papers,—but these were hidden by a lace veil and a huge velvet bonnet, of which the crowning birds-of-paradise were evidently in a moulting state. She was encased in many shawls and wrappers; she put, hesitatingly, a pretty little foot out of the carriage—Pogson was by her side in an instant, and, gallantly putting one of his white kids round her waist, aided this interesting creature to descend. I saw, by her walk, that she was five-and-forty, and that my little Pogson was a lost man.
After some brief parley between them—in which it was charming to hear how my friend Samuel would speak what he called French to a lady who could not understand one syllable of his jargon—the mutual hackney-coaches drew up; Madame la Baronne waved to the Captain a graceful French curtsey. ‘Adyou!’ said Samuel, and waved his lily hand. ‘Adyou-addimang.’
A brisk little gentleman, who had made the journey in the same coach with Pogson, but had more modestly taken a seat in the imperial, here passed us, and greeted me with a ‘How d’ye do?’ He had shouldered his own little valise, and was trudging off, scattering a cloud of commissionaires, who would have fain spared him the trouble.
‘Do you know that chap?’ says Pogson; ‘surly fellow, ain’t he?’
‘The kindest man in existence,’ answered I; ‘all the world knows Major British.’
‘He’s a Major, is he?—why, that’s the fellow that dined with us at Killyax’s; it’s lucky I did not call myself Captain before him, he mightn’t have liked it, you know:’ and then Sam fell into a reverie;—what was the subject of his thoughts soon appeared.
‘Did you ever see such a foot and ankle?’ said Sam, after sitting for some time, regardless of the novelty of the scene; his hands in his pockets, plunged in the deepest thought.
‘Isn’t she a slap-up woman, eh, now?’ pursued he; and began enumerating her attractions, as a horse-jockey would the points of a favourite animal.
‘You seem to have gone a pretty length already,’ said I, ‘by promising to visit her to morrow.’
‘A good length?—I believe you. Leave me alone for that.’
‘But I thought you were only to be two in the coupé, you wicked rogue.’
‘Two in the coupy? Oh! ah! yes, you know—why, that is, I didn’t know she had her maid with her (what an ass I was to think of a noblewoman travelling without one!), and couldn’t, in course, refuse, when she asked me to let the maid in.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Couldn’t, you know, as a man of honour; but I made up for all that,’ said Pogson, winking slily, and putting his hand to his little bunch of a nose, in a very knowing way.
‘You did, and how?’
‘Why, you dog, I sat next to her; sat in the middle the whole way, and my back’s half broke, I can tell you:’ and thus having depicted his happiness, we soon reached the inn where this back-broken young man was to lodge during his stay in Paris.
The next day, at five, we met; Mr. Pogson had seen his Baroness, and described her lodgings, in his own expressive way, as ‘slap-up.’ She had received him quite like an old friend; treated him to eau sucrée, of which beverage he expressed himself a great admirer: and actually asked him to dine the next day. But there was a cloud over the ingenuous youth’s brow, and I inquired still further.
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